#these posts are made by ZUKO’S STANS

[emrys-merlin]

Aang being called racist because he doesn't like sea prunes and dead animals skins is the funniest thing I've ever read here like i'm dying

[sapphic-agent]

(Sorry for the small text at the bottom)

[misty-memories09]

I was bored so I edited random twitter (+two wattpad ones) posts as the gaang (+Jin) because I can

[el-hijo-de-hernandez-27]

I just saw a Zukka post that made realize one thing.

The Zukka stans actually understand what shipping is supposed to be!

Zuko and Sokka had 2 episodes for themselves in the whole show! They barely interacted in a positive way for the other 59 episodes and yet they took the scraps and are actually having fun with it!

Shipping is supposed to be taking two of our dolls and having them kiss and smooche and do other stuff, never mind canon.

[rightwheretheyleftme]

I’ve decided to make a second post about Aang’s parental neglect because the first one was hijacked by people accusing me of being delusional.

The more I think about Aang’s attitude, the less I understand it. In my post, I said that it would be understandable (but still questionable) for Aang to leave Bumi and Kya behind if he’s going to places made for airbenders- I take it back. Not only because it’s parenting 101 that even if you believe that your child won’t enjoy a vacation, you still take them, but because I’ve come to realize that there is no such thing as airbender-only places. They don’t exist.

Think about it, what is airbender culture? Is it being vegetarian? Kya and Bumi could do that. Is it believing in absolute pacifism? Kya and Bumi could do that. Is it meditating and being spiritual? Kya and Bumi could do that. Is it being bonded with an air bison? Kya and Bumi could do that.

The only thing that is exclusive to Aang and Tenzin is bending air and even that isn’t unreachable for Kya and Bumi. Remember in ATLA when we learned that you can learn techniques from one form of bending and use them for another form of bending? Iroh famously learned a waterbending technique and used it to create lightning redirection and we saw Zuko using techniques from all 4 forms of bending in his agni kai- So why couldn’t Aang teach Kya airbending techniques and have her use them for waterbending? It would’ve been perfectly possible. Even Bumi could’ve used the same technology that Teo and Katara used to fly- Aang acknowledges that Teo is essentially an airbender, so why couldn’t Bumi do the same?

What TLOK is presenting is an immense regression for the character of Aang. Are we supposed to believe that the same Aang who saw Teo flying and exclaimed “Even though Teo is not an airbender, he really does have the spirit of one!” would look at his own children and say “Nope, you’re not an airbender and could never be one”?

If I didn’t know anything about Bryke, I would assume that they hate Aang and that this writing choice is their personal vendetta against the character- But I do know about them and I know that they love Aang more than anything, so what the fuck is this? Is it a power fantasy about being so famous and powerful that you can get away with neglecting your children?

I can’t believe that Aang stans flooded my mentions. If I were a devoted Aang stan, I would track down the showrunners and key their cars.

[missaccuracy]

Why do you think so many people are uncomfortable with having to admit that Ursa wasn't perfect?

For a number of reasons:

1. Ursa was a victim af abuse and according to the fandom, a true victim of abuse must be perfect and can do no wrong. Many people think that if a victim isn't perfect, than she's not a victim anymore(just like how they think about Azula).

2. They don't want to aknowledge Azula's trauma. Azula says she feels like Ursa liked Zuko more than her? It is Azula who is lying or is getting it wrong somehow, or it's her fault and so on... Or even, in some posts I've seen, they prefer to just conveniently overlook it and not mention this Azula's line at all.

3. I see a pattern that this claims usually come from Zuko stans, and I think that's because they just have a hard time seeing flaws in a character that was kind to Zuko.

4. They're musinterpreting the mirror scene. I already made a few posts about this. To put it briefly, many people didn't get that the hallucination is an unreliable narrator and take the line " I love you, Azula, I do" too literally, coming to the conclusion that this is what Azula knows about, when it doesn't necessarily have to be true.

5. And perhaps the last reason, but surely not the least: black-and-white thinking and difficulty with grasping a nuance in the story.

Zuko's abuse was depicted a lot more straightforwardly. Not to say that there wasn't any nuance in a way Ozai treated Zuko, but still, Zuko's abuse was made very clear because it wasn't only emotional, but also physical. It's much easier to overlook a purely emotional abuse.

And clearly Ursa, while wasn't perfect, wasn't a completely horrible parent either, like Ozai. And if Ursa isn't an evil monster, than it means she must be a saint, there's no other explanation.

Every member of the fire nation royal family is interesting in their own right and reducing Ursa to just a saintly mother, when it was implied in the show that she also had a hand in how Azula turned out, is a disservice to a show as complex as ATLA.

[longing-for-rain]

What's the context as to what's going on exactly?

I assume you mean the people sending me death threats over a fanfictions I wrote (which is like... the 3rd? 4th? time this has happened now), but to summarize:

Ironically, I initially made this blog with the intention to just be very lowkey and post headcanons/silly posts/art and not engage in discourse.

At some point, I got an anon angry at me for mentioning how I viewed some of Aang's behavior towards Katara as toxic masculinity and answered it.

A kataang shipper reblogged the (properly tagged) post to whine at me even more, so I replied back with sources and maybe a little too much humor than she could handle, so she cried that I was a meanie and blocked me.

Had a few more experiences with Zutara haters reblogging my posts, making me increasingly annoyed.

I started writing more Zutara metas and criticizing canon more openly.

My posts got popular, popular enough that angry kataang stans started sharing screenshots of them around on here and Twitter.

I made fun of one particularly insane kataang stan who went on a few of my posts, and even into my DMs to screech at me for being every type of -phobic under the sun because I don't like Aang/Kataang. She still periodically blocks and unblocks me so she can shoot more of her brain vomit my way, and accuses me of harassing her for reposting screenshots of her unhinged comments to laugh at. She also accidentally followed me while trying to send an anon one time (I assume, since those buttons are close together) which was hilarious for someone who claims I bully and stalk her.

Recently, a bunch of kataang shippers got butthurt over a post I made referencing how Katara is drawn differently (it was a response to an Anon mentioning a much older post measuring the size of Katara's eyes and jawline) to make her appear younger during "romantic" moments with Aang. I commented on how I found it a creepy contrast and like how much more natural and human she seems while not with Aang, or with Zuko.

Another whiny brat kataang reblogged the (again, properly tagged) post calling me a pedophile, colonizer, racist, and whatever else his little rotten brain could come up with, and posted (without any trigger/content warnings!) out-of-context screenshots of a fanfiction I wrote exploring themes of sexual violence. This was apparently supposed to be "evidence" that I have a "fetish" or something, which needless to say, is an absolutely disgusting thing to say to a survivor talking about her experiences of sexual abuse, especially when you're a man who has never experienced that.

That brings us to why everyone is discoursing over the fic: Claws of Ice. Keep in mind, the majority of these people haven't read it, don't understand any of the context, and felt it was appropriate to leverage my trauma against me in the name of a ship war. The man in question is still crying about how he's the real victim here because I was apparently too mean to him when I responded to his accusations that I'm a pedophile and that my story of assault is a fetish to him, which is exactly the kind of male entitlement you'd expect.

So yeah! That's why they're all so obsessed with me, and throwing around every possible Bad Person accusation they can think of about me, but I really don't take it too seriously with that in mind. I was very nervous about posting this story in the first place because it was so heavy and personal and I was unsure of putting these themes out there, but the backlash has been oddly reassuring. The two biggest haters are that manbaby I mentioned, and that obsessive stalker who keeps spamming the atla-confessions blog with anons that are very obviously her while pretending she's trying to "calm down" the fandom, neither of whom can seem to formulate a coherent sentence. Like if that is the opposition, pretty sure I'm in the right here.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I just saw a post deconstructing how Katara’s smile in that one photo of the gaang all grown up is very stepford wives esque and we really have fucking lost the plot.

Zutara Stan’s are so far in their own back pockets I don’t even think they remember what the show was actually like or what it was about

Just watch the new movie come out and if katara isn’t somehow a mindless doll catered just around pleasing Aang then they are going to bend over backward to analyze every second frame by frame for some non existent hint that katara is being held against her will.

Katara: *smiles*

Zutarians: THIS IS A CRY FOR HELP!

No wonder they ship zutara then, Zuko never made her smile the way Aang did. It all makes sense now.

[prying-pandora666]

I can see why you voice Azula. Your manipulative and a liar just like her.

You say you have nothing against Zutara but you defend Aang anytime we have valid criticisms of his sexism and racism.

You are highly critical of Maiko and yet you claim to love both Zuko and Mai. If you loved them so much you’d want them to be happy together.

You reblog any Zuko ship that isn’t Maiko. Casually scrolling your blog I have seen you support Zukka, Jinko, Toko, and Zutara but that last one is obviously fake because you also criticize the pirate scene.

Meanwhile you hypocritically support Azula ships like Sokkla, TyZula, and Mailee. You don’t call out Zucest either just like your TERF icon Grey.

Your obvi a Kataang shipper in disguise. Zutarians have been fighting this battle since the beginning. We won’t fall for your Trojan horse.

Azula always lies.

I can see your entire post history behind your eyes. You were born with nothing. And you’ve had to troll, and plagiarize, and drama-post your way to the top.

But true power? The divine right to multi-ship? Is something you’re born with.

Your followers (if indeed you have any) may not know how this is going to turn out.

But I know.

And you know.

Those allegations against Grey Delisle were false. Katy Perry stans made them up because Grey called Katy out on voting for anti-gay politicians.

Whoops. Guess you’re not as informed as you thought.

Don’t flatter yourself.

You were never even a shitposter.

[byfulcrums]

Yeah, I realized a while ago that what I said in that other post was wrong, my bad. Also, I'm bad at words and English isn't my first language (and I didn't sleep very well so my thoughts aren't very coherent rn) so if there's something you can't understand of what I'm saying please tell me so I can find a way to translate it better

What I personally believe is that, as I said before, Azula does love Zuko and Zuko does (or tries) to love her back, and as you said I said before, it doesn't justify how terrible she was to him

My point in general is that (and I know I mentioned it before but it's something I could talk about for literal HOURS and not get tired of it) Ozai used Azula to torment Zuko (and Ursa) by setting an example where he was violent and horrible to the people around them so she would mimick him and become into a little copy of him (bc he didn't want children, he wanted soldiers that would follow his every rule. [Word. Or something. Idk how to say it correctly]. Fuck him for that. Fuck him for everything actually)

Still, though. Azula, by mimicking Ozai's actions, became one of Zuko's main abusers, and he would be 100% right to be angry at her for it. Honestly if I were him I wouldn't have even tried to help her (he tried to do that in the comics) because, like. Having been hurt before doesn't excuse every single action of yours. Sure, it's an explanation, but not an excuse

I know people have said this before but Zuko owes nothing to Azula. He doesn't owe her forgiveness, doesn't owe her kindness, doesn't owe her love. He doesn't owe her anything. Azula was the one that was terrible to him and while it was pretty much Ozai's fault, Zuko is still allowed to be angry at her over it

Also (and I'm using a personal experience with a friend I used to have as reference), the only way that I believe Azula should get a redemption arc is for her to realize that what she did was wrong and then for her to apologize (and, well. Zuko's more willing to forgive her than everyone else, without counting Aang and Ty Lee, so he'd probably accept her apology) and make up for all of it. And even then, none of the people she hurt should be forced to forgive her! Honestly all I want is for Azula (and for that shitty friend [sorry for swearing] too) is for her to genuinely feel sorry. Nothing more

I think an important question to ask whenever the abuse apologists spring up every time someone dares to say that Zuko didn’t mistreat Azula in the same way she did him is this:

When did Ozai ever encourage or empower Zuko to treat Azula badly the same way he encouraged and empowered Azula to treat Zuko badly?

If Ozai actually encouraged them to fight each other, like I see suggested to silence any and all discussion of how Azula hurt her brother, then we would see Ozai encouraging Zuko to hurt Azula the same way he encourages Azula to hurt Zuko. We would see Ozai unhappy that Azula brought her brother back as an ally in book three, when his order was to bring him back as a prisoner. When Zuko was legally named an enemy of the fire nation. Azula has the power to bring Zuko back as an ally and is specifically praised for doing so in front of a cheering crowd because Ozai empowers her to treat Zuko whatever way she wants as long as it doesn’t threaten her status as the golden child or his status as the great fire lord he thinks he is.

And it is abuse apologism to pretend that Zuko and Azula are equally at fault for their bad relationship or that Zuko being angry at his sister for hurting him is what Ozai wants. Ozai most definitely DOES NOT want Zuko to be angry at Azula or fight back against her, because Zuko can’t be Ozai’s scapegoat if he recognizes that being treated that way is wrong and pushes back against it. Ozai gets angry at Zuko when he tells Ozai that Azula lied to him, and is in disbelief, because Azula is his golden child and how dare Zuko suggest she did anything off color.

Of course Azula was hurt, too, but not by Zuko, and y’all need to stop pretending that it was a mutual rivalry or that they are equally bad to each other or that Zuko not taking his sister’s crap is “what Ozai wants.” Zuko did the one thing that is the biggest threat to Ozai in walking away. Which doesn’t mean that Zuko can’t care for and help Azula down the line, but part of Zuko’s abuse was being made to think he was responsible for the way his father and sister treated him like the family scapegoat. Not accepting blame for the bad relationship he has with his sister is him directly defying what Ozai wanted and how Ozai conditioned him to think. Before that, Zuko blamed himself for not “getting along” with Azula even while he feared being attacked by her. Him realizing by the end of the story that he is not responsible for any of it is him directly defying Ozai. That’s why he calls Azula out in the finale when she says she’s “sorry” that it has to end this way, because he’s realized that it didn’t have to be that way and he is not responsible for making it that way, and she’s not sorry at all about it.

[atla-confessions]

On the victim blaming of Ursa debate.

If a woman is forced to have children and then raise those children she is a victim in that situation. She is a victim in the fact there is no proof she wanted to have Ozai's children.

No offense but Azula's stans consistently labeling criticism of Azula as misogynistic while having no empathy for difficulty and trauma Ursa was experiencing as a abused woman stolen from her family is frankly ridiculous. It is victim blaming when you hold a abuse victim to such a high standard of behavior. Most (if not all) of the things she did wrong would not have occurred without Ozai's abuse.

We see what kinda of parent she is without an abuser (and support instead) with Kiyi. And yes, she is (unsurprisingly) far better without Ozai.

Another issue is that a lot of her sins are extrapolations. For example, she 'viewed Azula as a monster' is not something she ever claims on screen. Azula says it. We don't see how she came to this conclusion. We only see Ursa discipline actual bad behavior. The one time we get to see where Azula is when Zuko is hanging out with Ursa is when we see her playing with Mai and Ty Lee. So bad faith: Ursa constantly favored Zuko and actively did things that made Azula think she saw her as a monster and actually did believe Azula was born a monster. Good faith: Ursa spent more time with Zuko because he didn't have friends, Ursa didn't like the same behavior Ozai cultivated and Ozai manipulated a wedge into their relationship when she responded negatively to these behaviors.

You see how the Ursa victim blaming occurs. They (anti Ursas (usually just Azula stans)) treat Azula's feeling of being unloved as only possibly the result of mistreatment from Ursa as opposed to giving any weight to the manipulative abuser. They look at the scene of Ozai saying he will abuse Zuko and it's her fault and think 'yeah, it is,' because she did something antagonistic to her abuser and he punished the child for it. This is arguably victim blaming.

This directs blame away from Ozai towards Ursa. VICTIM BLAMING! If Ozai hurts Zuko to punish Ursa. That is on Ozai. NOT URSA! Even if she did mess up. This is early on, how is she to know how bad Ozai will get?

And, criticism of Ursa isn't inherently victim blaming. She did make mistakes but so many 'ursa critical' or 'anti ursa' posts just end up victim blaming. From attacking her for things that we never have it confirmed she did to blaming her for things Ozai did. For 'failing' to protect them (like she had any power). Overall, yes. Ursa is heavily victim blamed by fandom.

(Also, I do not judge her for choosing to forget, she could not fight the fire nation, she would only suffer. It might not be the most noble decision but one selfish act (after years of trauma) doesn't make a woman worthy of so much derision.)

X

[the-badger-mole]

Azula stans really need to stop projecting the tough childhoods they had unto her. She is not some helpless little girl who never did anything bad on her own accord. Her fangirls are nothing but toxic terfs who think any criticism for them are sins from the patriarchy, please.

Idk enough Azula apologists to say they are all terfs or not, but I think the larger issue is people aren't comfortable rooting for the bad guy anymore. I, personally blame Wicked. I love the show, and I really liked the book, but it kickstarted this trend of What If stories that make villains more sympathetic. In a lot of cases, they just outright flip who was the villain and who was the hero, which is the least interesting thing you could do in terms of exploring a villain character's motives (glaring daggers at you, Maleficent).

No one is all black or all white. Everyone exists in shades of grey, and that includes villains. There's nothing wrong with exploring the grey areas of villains. Some of the best villains in literature are multi-dimensional. Some of them are even sympathetic, but at the end of the day, they are villains and nothing justifies their destruction. The best recent example I can think of is Killmonger from the Black Panther movie. He wasn't wrong to criticize the exploitation of Africa and the Black Diaspora by the West. He wasn't wrong for thinking that Wakanda should've stepped up and intervened. His anger was absolutely justified, but his methods absolutely were not. As an audience we can both love and empathize with Killmonger but also admit he was the villain.

That is, unfortunately, not how a lot of Azula's staunchest defenders approach her. Instead of allowing themselves to feel empathy for her, even though she is definitely in the wrong and has definitely made decisions on her own accord that show her own moral compass is broken, they have to turn her into a victim of circumstance. I think that is actually a very sexist way to look at Azula, though I don't really think for the most part her defenders are trying to be. Azula made choices she didn't have to. She was a child who was likely abused (albeit in a different way from Zuko). She was also an abuser herself, and very ruthless and cunning in her own right. All those things can be true at the same time, but Azula defenders can't seem to accept that.

Now I could speculate on why this is, and personally, I think it's because of this really annoying trend of needing your fandom opinions to align with your morals. I don't have much to base that on, though. I don't spend a ton of time engaging with a lot of people on the opposite end of the fandom from me, so I haven't heard directly from the more rational Azula defenders on why they think the way they do (the ones I've interacted with have been just...the worst and I didn't care to engage with them for long). Even if I did, who is self aware enough to say "my need to defend this villain is because I don't feel comfortable liking them if they are truly bad"? My opinion is based entirely on the posts that I see on my feed sometimes of mutuals getting asks that accuse them of terrible things because of the characters and tropes they like. Also, on the metas I sometimes see explaining how rather than being the villain, Azula was a broken little thing who had been failed by everyone around her, including her brother- who was a child himself, and her uncle- who couldn't have intervened even if he wanted because Azula wouldn't have ever accepted his help.

I could be right, or I could be way off base, but I think if we're ever going to see a decline in the rabid defenders of characters like Azula, we have to get to a point where we can admit we like bad guys without trying to make them heroes. It's okay to like a character and still want to see them defeated in the end. Or to want to see them win, even if it means that evil has triumphed. It doesn't mean anything about you as a person. It just means that you like a good story.

[blackbullet99]

Zutara-stans like these need to stop talking about issues they don’t care about.

I’m not gonna invalidate some of the legitimate issues with Bryke’s work, but this is ridiculously hypocritical coming for a scumbag like longing-for-rain.

Call this racist all you want, I ain’t gonna touch this because I’m not Indian. But like the points made about The Fire Nation being colonizers is still a legit point, and this played-for-laughs hallucination has nothing to do with that.

Also, unsurprisingly this person is huge Zuko d!ck-rider. Who says weird stuff like this.

And weirder stuff like this.

Y’all act like Bryke are Hitler, but y’all praise Zuko (someone they wrote no less) and act like he was always a perfect Gary-Stu who could do no wrong to the point where you can’t even take any criticism towards the nation he’s from despite Zuko himself calling his nations colonization of other tribes. And y’all villainize Aang to no end, with objectively wrong statements that make no sense. Let’s be real, the only reason you’re upset that Aang isn’t celibate is because he gets in the way of your precious fan-pairing, although really he doesn’t even get in the way of anything, seeing as it a FAN-pairing your pissy about.

Also this scumbag has no right to whine about issues like racism in this show, seeing that they think writing r@pe-fics about their favorite characters is revolutionary high art.

Not to mention arguing with and invalidating an ACTUAL indigenous person for calling out a post about “Zutara giving Zuko better in-laws, because it completely glosses over the fact that Katara would also have people like Ozai as an in-law and multiple other in-laws who colonized her tribe and ordered the death of her mom.

F*ck you longing-for-rain. You don’t care about racism, you don’t care about colonization, you don’t care about Katara, you don’t care about actual indigenous people or their feelings, you don’t even care about the show you claim to love. You only care about projecting yourself onto Katara so you can f*ck Zuko and then hurls childish insults anyone who so much as criticizes you for your weird-@$$ takes. You’re a loser and you need to seriously go outside a rethink your life, girl.

[kataraslove]

I just stumbled across your acc and I gotta say, I agree with alotta ur takes

Ur sooo well spoken and I really enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions

Katara is one of my favorite characters and it makes me really happy to see someone appreciate her and her writing

Ngl a lot of atla fans r lowkey braindead so ur acc is pretty refreshing

Thanks for posting!! 🩷

thank you! 🩷 your words are too kind. i appreciate it.

i did mention this before, but this blog stemmed kind of entirely out of spite. i was sick and tired of fandom on here telling me that there was only one way to interpret and enjoy my favourite character, dictating who i could or could not ship her with and how much of a stan that made me. it’s not an experience just unique to the atla fandom, of course. it’s becoming something more apparent nowadays especially, the ways in which multiple readings and interpretations of a character is heavily discouraged by fandom in favour of just one.

it’s baffling how, for so many years, there was a strict binaric interpretation of katara’s character, with 0 being non-canon and 1 being completely in favour of all things canon. either you had to vehemently agree with everything that bryke wrote for katara’s within atla and post-canon, to the point where i have seen people defend the lack of statues of her as “oh, she probably didn’t want one anyway,” (NO!!) or you had to have deep-rooted anger and rejection for all things that were done to her story, in the guise of katara deserving better.

katara does deserve better narratively, but NOT in the ways that the tumblr fandom thinks she should have. not in the ways that she should be ambassador to the fire nation, or become firelady (a racist depiction in fanon and nothing but a decorative title in canon) and live out the rest of her life by zuko’s side, serving and prioritizing zuko’s nation.

“but wouldn’t it be empowering if katara sat on the throne of her oppressors and got to dictate - “ no. it’s not. stop advocating for that type of ending for women from oppressed and marganized groups. stop acting like that is the ideal future that katara wanted this whole time, that ruling as part of a foreign monarchy that decimated your people and your culture is the ultimate threshold for liberation.

i’ve seen people who claim to take a doylist perspective for critique of atla (read: kataang)’s writing completely lose all comprehension when it comes to critically assessing post-canon zutara. by that i mean, if we continue with the writing direction that we saw for all of the female atla characters in the sequel series, a zutara endgame would position katara in a worse outcome than she got narratively. but you tell anyone that and it’s an instant “zuko would have given her 10 statues!!”

but most importantly, nothing has radicalized me more over this year than seeing the “katara deserves better (in the form of zuko)” crowd, the same crowd who is currently dreading any form of fixing or retcons from avatar studios in upcoming content, defend the hell out of natla katara’s writing. the very same people who were praising katara’s arc to the stars, stating that it was nearly complete until the two grown men decided to pair her up with aang and ruined all at the end.

well, what about the group of zutara shippers in the natla writer’s room who handed her everything in the narrative, who removed her flaws, her anger, her compassion, who stripped her down to everything except hope, all in the name so that she wouldn’t appear unlikable to audiences. i mean, that tremendously backfired for them, because now the young actress who plays katara is getting hate spewed at her for failing to portray katara interestingly, when the problem has always been the shit writing.

anyway, i appreciate this message! glad i could be of service and it’s nice that you’re a zuko fan who ships kataang! lots of people who love zuko do.

“a lot of atla fans are braindead” LMAO you can say that again!!!

[linkspooky]

Hey. Long time follower here. Your metas, your discussions of "bad victims", your nuanced view of heroes and victims, your favoritism towards "losers"...not only did you heavily influence my own writing and my own favorites in different medias (I'm entirely blaming you for me being a Makima stan) but you helped through an extremely dark time in my life. I don't think that you just made me a better writer, you also sort of saved my life. I'll always be grateful for that.

There's something I want to ask. You answered to another ask that you don't regret reading MHA because focusing on what doesn't work about it made your writing stronger. Do you feel the same about Homestuck? Or about the more disappointing parts of Tokyo Ghoul (and, while we're being candid here, Avatar?).

Thank you for your compliments they're very encouraging to read.

At this point this blog is becoming the bad victim lovers support group where we all hug each other and cry over how MHA is treating all of its bad victims.

HOMESTUCK: Honestly, my main problem with Homestuck is that ACT 6 was so long and uneventful full of characters not doing anything that by the end of it the only character I was invested in was Vriska. ACT 6 also did go out of it's way to kill my enthusiasm for everything I liked in ACT 5, especially John Vriska. I've never seen a comic throw out all of its previous development that the audience was invested in and like everything that was foreshadowed - oh wait My Hero Academia. Unfortunately Vriska is an all-time-fave so I still write Homestuck Fanfic about her to this day. I used to like think the finale of Homestuck was one big "meh" but after years to reflect upon it, I do like Vriska's arc ending on a final note of Terezi searching for her in the void, possibly forever, and the ambiguity of whether they'll reunite.

TOKYO GHOUL: I remember being mad about Kaneki getting a happy ending that he didn't earn. Kaneki was a character that really frustrated me for a long time, but I came to realize that if you like remove Kaneki from his group of codependent enablers he's actually a really interesting character when he's alone. So he's a character I love to explore in fic, even if I disliked what they did with him in canon. Also, Tokyo Ghoul killed off its biggest victims Furuta and Rize in a really cruel way, but it didn't kill off every single victim so it just disappoints me instead of making me sick to my stomach like MHA does.

ATLA: I actually think the Avatar the Last Airbender ending is fine. Which like, isn't saying much because I think the Season 1 finale and Season 2 finales are some of the best things ever put to television. The worst sin that the ending does is number one lack of foreshadowing in earlier in the season and number two rushed plot points. Aang not wanting to kill the Fire Lord makes sense. I think the reason a lot of people criticize this and call it an ass pull is that it's not even BROUGHT UP until the finale. Vash the Stampede is pacifist and one of my favorite characters, but it's established from episode 1 that Vash is constantly up against people who want to kill him and he either has to run away or find a way to fight back nonlethally. Azula's insanity and mental instability could have been a thing, but it's not foreshadowed at all so all it ends up doing is conveniently nerf Azula for Zuko, and also being ableist. The worst problem is while there are epic fights it doesn't feel like an ending, because everyone's character arcs are 3/4ths of the way through. ESPECIALLY ZUKO's. Like people say Zuko is acting out of character in the comics, but I think Zuko is the only person in character in the comics because that's how Zuko without a proper end to his character arc would act. It really feels like they had plans for a fourth season that they didn't get, and their solution was to cram an entire season worth of development in everything post the eclipse on season 3. The fact that Azula is left as such a hanging thread is like proof of that, and the fact that Azula's last shot in the series is just her crying and screaming with like no follow up afterwards is something I've been bitter about for fourteen years.

I could write an entire post about how Zuko's redemption arc is unfinished though. It's like the same problem as Catra. I like both characters and I'm glad they got redeemed but they crammed in the entire redemption arc into 1/2 of the last season and that simply wasn't enough time.

[darklinaforever]

We need to talk more about how people in TROP fandom love to spew raging misogyny while trying to pass it off as feminism. I just saw some Celeryporn stan post that somehow made it into the Haladriel tag, which was ranting the usual bullshit about how people ship Galadriel with Sauron because we’re all horny for Charlie and using Galadriel as a self-insert. If you claim to be “defending” a female character (who is not real, btw) while policing sexuality and spreading seething contempt for a huge group of women in fandom (not that all Haladriel shippers are women, but a significant amount are), then you may want to consider the idea that you don’t like women as much as you think you do.

Side note, I think it’s also funny how these kinds of takes involve being totally blind about Galadriel’s pov. “Galadriel’s feelings for Halbrand were never confirmed to be romantic” — Charlotte B (another real woman in a senior position on the show) said multiple times that Galadriel fell in love with Halbrand. The only reason for people to be so staunchly in denial about this is because they need Galadriel to be an eternally monogamous bride. (Shocking news, a female character can be attracted to more than one man throughout her life…) Some people on that side need to unpack A LOT of patriarchal puritanical bullshit from their system before they speak on Galadriel.

I completely agree. It's basically shaming specifically female fans at this point, trying to reduce them to unthinking hormones on legs. While ironically, it is this side of fandom that is most steeped in reflection and analysis (something which also requires a lot of work and which some dare to call a demonstration of obsession and madness. You have to know the antis after a while ! Either we don't think or we think too much !). This way of doing and thinking by some is always specific to romances with "bad boys" (because ironically, some are not really bad boys, yes, it's you I'm talking about Zuko). Literally, I've seen this stupid argument of "self insert" for so many ships beyond Haladriel / Saurondriel. Zutara. Reylo. Darklina. Oshamir. Dramione. And so so many others ! At this point, it gets worrying. We are clearly on a puritanical morality encroaching on fiction. The worst thing is that it is more and more common to bring up this argument. Particularly in many long YouTube videos that pathetically try to appear thoughtful and intellectual when talking about the excesses of loving bad guys with heroines and why it absolutely must stop. Or even just making bad handsome guys supposedly becomes immoral and should be stopped too ! And the worst ? Most of the time, it's women that I see making these kinds of video reviews. The worst ball against his camp ever. Girls, you're basically giving points to the patriarcha on this level... In any case, either it is the excuse of the self insert used to defend a fictional female character that ironically they demean by trying to this point to portray her as a virgin husband eternally faithful and in love with her husband with whom she is at hardly in the original text... While degrading women in real life, so basically, they spit on all sides in this feminist believer but by spreading mysogynistic remarks, all to try to make people believe that they, they really know what this story is about, that they really understand it and that we, poor women blinded by hormones that we are, no. And even if some ship ships for self insert... SO WHAT ? Don't women have the right to fantasize ? We're actually pissing you off. Or else, we are on the classic excuse of trying to protect poor women who will see this fictional relationship with a lord of darkness and a lady of light in a fantasy universe as a relational example to follow in real life. Mysogynism at its height, because no, we need to be protected from fiction that we would be too stupid not to differentiate from reality. You know... the excuse that most men started giving when women started reading more than them and that according to them it could have perverted them and made them think bad things ? Yes, I totally compare the puritan morality on the romance with bad guys to that which criticized women for reading a time ago. Because ultimately, it's not that far away. Anyway, it hasn't really changed. Just look at how books with predominantly female successes are treated / viewed by the general public. The criticism of women's love for villains and romance with villains is only one of countless aspects.

Oh, and side note, not only can a woman love several men in her life, and even more so when this woman happens to be an immortal elf with a very, very long life.