#zeekay fandumb

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I’ve read through the first art book, and you can see that both Mike and Bryan had a lot of passion for wanting this idea for a show of theirs to become a real thing. They had to face a lot of obstacles with Nick executives just so they could put their vision out there.

All this only to be called “pedophiles” because the fandom’s overrated fanon ship didn’t actually happen.

You can be critical of their writing, that’s par for the course. There are some things in LoK I had issues with. But to compare them to the like of Dan Schneider and JK (the price of shit that created ren and stimpy), ACTUAL pedophiles that have worked for Nickelodeon? That’s fucking low.

ATLA didn’t need to exist you know. Nickelodeon could’ve just dropped it. But we did get it, and it’s a beautiful thing to exist- all thanks to these two and their creative team.

Y’all are pathetic.

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Zutarians: WE CARE MORE FOR KATARA THAN KATAANGERS DO!

Also Zutarians: Lol wouldn’t it be cool if Katara kept the scars she got from Aang as an aesthetic✨ He’s abusive towards her anyway- and this would be proof.

I’ve censored names because I don’t want anyone to be sent hate, but this post and the amount of likes it got enraged me so much that I had to say something about it. This truly might be the worst take I’ve ever seen about both Katara and Aang.

Let’s address how this is harmful to Katara first. The original poster seems to want Katara to keep her scars for the aesthetic™, which is already a really gross concept, but I cannot stress enough how disgusting it is to want a female character to bear permanent, painful markings in order to give a male character ‘more development.’

We are shown routinely throughout ATLA that scars are not just physical indications of trauma but emotional ones as well. 

The only person we see who has scars for “cool” character design reasons is Jeong Jeong, but even then we can assume he received them while he was fighting in the war or because he became a deserter. 

All of these characters have these scars to serve as a constant reminder of the Fire Nation’s brutality and ruthlessness. Katara doesn’t need a physical reminder of this. She already deals with the tremendous, traumatizing loss of her mother on a daily basis. How could you possibly think that it would be good to scar Katara just to ‘punish’ Aang while completely disregarding how it will affect her emotionally?

Katara should not have to bear the emotional and physical weight of Aang’s mistakes in order to teach him a lesson. 

It also completely undermines her moment when she learns she’s a healer. She gets this incredible gift that is so special to her because it means she is able to be both a fighter and a healer. These two sides of her are crucial in her fight for justice and compassion, and the healing aspect is a beautiful addition to a character who is so ‘down in the trenches’ in her approach to achieve these things.

This revelation is not only important to Katara as a character but also integral to so many pieces of the plot. If she hadn’t realized she could heal scars, she wouldn’t have offered to try healing Zuko’s in The Crossroads of Destiny. The chess pieces are constantly being set up in Book 1 in strategic and deliberate ways. I’m all for headcanons and fan concepts, but not when they dismantle the plot and characters for, frankly, sexist reasons.

Onto Aang. 

There is absolutely zero indication that Aang did not suffer the consequences from burning Katara. He is immediately remorseful. He is so incredibly guilty that he swears off firebending for good. He is attacked by Sokka, and is probably reeling over the idea that his best friends and the only people he has in this world might never forgive him for his mistake.

But Katara does forgive him, way faster than he forgives himself, as we see him struggle with memory of hurting her well into Book 3. 

Zuko burns Toph accidentally, but absolutely no one chastises him for this or holds him to the standards they hold Aang. And sure, you could argue Zuko makes his mistake as an act of self-defense while Aang is just goofing around, but Aang is literally twelve when this happened. Don’t tell me that you never unintentionally hurt yourself or others when you were messing around as a preteen. Sokka lists an array of injuries he’s sustained at the end of The Deserter, and while I’m sure most of them were self-inflicted, I can’t imagine that Katara wasn’t involved in any of those instances. They’re kids - all of them, and Aang is the youngest of the bunch, so of course he still has lessons to learn. That doesn’t mean he should have to suffer the ramifications of his adolescent mistakes forever.

His impatience to learn firebending also stems from the fact that he only has until summer’s end to do so. It’s not an excuse for him not taking Jeong Jeong’s warnings seriously, but it is an explanation. And he learns from it. The way we see him handle fire and the responsibility of bending fire in The Firebending Masters proves that he’s matured. 

Aang, Book 1: Jeong Jeong tried to tell me that I wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t listen.

Aang, Book 3:  All this time, I thought firebending was destruction. Since I hurt Katara, I’ve been too afraid and hesitant. But now I know what it really is … it’s energy, and life.

The audacity, the gall, the absolute nerve that it takes to say that Aang, a survivor of genocide who lost all of his family and friends and entire culture, “gets let off easy too much” is appalling to me. I’m not sure how many times I have to say that Aang honoring his culture and people and going against the tide - fighting back against the notion that he can’t preserve the traditions and beliefs of his people while being the Avatar at the same time - is not, by any stretch of the imagination, easy.

I don’t know how many times have to say that a child does not deserve to live with the trauma of killing someone, but I’m going to say it again. A CHILD DOES NOT DESERVE TO LIVE WITH THE TRAUMA OF KILLING SOMEONE.

If you truly still believe that the lion turtle/energybending is an easy fix, just read this meta because they explain perfectly why it is not.

And to the last point about Aang ‘getting to be with Katara’ as some kind of “reward” for winning the war, Aang never views Katara as a prize. Need I remind you that he completely drops any type of romantic expression towards her after she rejects his advances in The Ember Island Players? He lets her make the decision as to whether or not she wants to be with him. They get together because the timing is finally right for them - there is no more confusion or violence to prevent them from being together, and Katara no longer has to worry about losing someone she loves. 

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Fun fact: putting your rancid anti-Kataang takes in the main #kataang tag is a sure-fire-way to get your ass handed to you by the Kataang fandom.

Don’t be surprised when this happens, because contrary to your delusional beliefs, people actually ship, love, and support kataang.

Keep that shit under the #antikataang tag. It exists for a reason.

As the ancient tumblr proverb goes:

DONT. TAG. YOUR. HATE.

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Z/tar/a shippers: “Katara sees Aang as a son and is therefore his mother. That also makes Zuko his dad.”

Yep, just a father/son bonding moment here.

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The Z/tar/a fandom is full of rabid and unhinged crazies that once Kataang happens again in the Netflix series (and it likely will, because it will be stupid not to) they’re going to go full force with hate in the tags and being invasive of Kataang spaces.

I mean, they already do. They have no comprehension of respecting boundaries when it comes to shipping spaces, but there’s going to be another wave of butthurt shippers going after Kataangers who are just minding their business and enjoying their pairing.

At best, on this hellsite, all that can be done is just blocking these freaks.

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Basically, Aang’s biggest crime is existing in the first place and stealing Katara from poor Zuko. Hurrdurr.

Aang also had the audacity to be a vegetarian and marry a meat eater (Yes, this is actual discourse a zeek brought up)

list of aang’s crimes according to tumblr

vegetarian

pacifist

short (he’s 12)

he’s 12

being the avatar

having a crush

his crush liking him back

bald (his culture)

his culture

being a genocide survivor

expressing his grief

not expressing his grief

getting angry

not getting angry

allowing his friends to comfort him

not allowing his friends to comfort him

getting married

being 2 years younger than his gf/wife

growing facial hair when he’s older

having too many children

not having enough children

having children in general

breathing

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Stating the obvious here, but don’t tag what’s obviously Kataang centric content as anything other than #Kataang.

Including the #z/tar/a tag only invites unwanted discourse and whining from antis (ironic as that is as they tag their hate specifically and on purpose)

Granted though, this does help with knowing who to block- but still- it’s courtesy.

[toph-bi-fong]

The “Ahtlah” fandom will finally know peace when zeekay shippers stop being dumbasses.

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*pretends to be shocked* Oh wow… zutara shippers are being obnoxious twats again by invading spaces meant for Kataang shippers and adding their rancid takes and unrelated nonsense into the main tag.

TIME TO TAP THE SIGN AGAIN

1) If it’s unrelated to Kataang and is about a different ship- namely Katara and Zuko, DO NOT tag it with #Kataang

2) Keep your anti-ship opinions out of the main tag. The #antikataang tag exists for a reason. USE IT. Posting your take in the main tag makes it visible to the rest of the KA fandom and guarantees that your ass will be met with backlash. Don’t act surprised when that happens.

This is why we can’t stand the lot of y’all.

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Except, zutarians don’t give a shit about the actual show. They make shit up and have the confidence of being right.

“aang would be the type of boyfriend to ignore katara at a party to flirt with other girls. zuko would be the type of boyfriend to sit with her for hours having deep conversations.”

I think it should be mandatory for certain shippers to rewatch the entirety of atla from start to finish before engaging in any type of fandom discourse

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Z/tar/a shippers: *Intentionally ignore Katara’s flirtatious interactions with Aang because they are in denial she has feelings for him and not Zuko.*

Also Z/tar/a shippers: Katara was never interested in Aang romantically and only saw him as a brother. Having them together was a last minute decision 🤓

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Some Aang-Anti: *Makes a bad faith argument about how Aang is a terrible person.*

Someone else: *Rightfully calls them out in their bullshit and why they’re wrong about demonizing Aang’s character*

Some rando in the replies: OMG let people ship Z/tar/a if they waaaahnt! It’s not hurting you!

Bitch, since when does defending Aang mean we don’t think people should ship Z/tar/a? Like yeah, MOST anti-Aang peeps are Z/tar/a shippers, but we’re not saying they shouldn’t be shipping it and shipping Kataang instead.

We would just like it if they could just ship their ship without dragging Aang’s character through the mud.

I ship IchiRuki, I’m not aboard the anti-Orihime train. In fact, I’m kinda disgusted by the things the IR fandom has called her.

You can enjoy a ship and not have to bash the rival character involved- Christ.

Hell, I like Zuko. I like him for his flaws. He’s not the perfect Prince Charming that everyone projects him to be. He’s an interesting character.

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“The Water Tribes weren’t colonized! Never mind that their citizens were capture and slaughtered.”

Are we going to say the Air Nomad genocide didn’t happen either?

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I have to laugh when people say Katara and Aang had no chemistry- as if they didn’t enjoy being around each other and doing things together. Their romance blossomed from an already solid friendship.

Katara flat out hated Zuko and only forgave a few episodes before the series ended. Even then she was disgusted/uncomfortable by the idea of being in a romantic relationship with Zuko.

And Zuko… he could give less of a shit of wanting to pursue a romantic relationship with Katara.

All this “chemistry” is just unhinged shippers projecting their crushes on Zuko onto Katara.

Me looking for all this "chemistry" that Katara and Zuko allegedly have:

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Okay, I’m going to need this person in particular to shut the fuck up.

“Even if she had colonized trauma…”

What’s this “Even if” bullshit? SHE HAS colonized trauma. She watched as Fire Nation soldiers LITERALLY INVADED HER HOME AND MURDERED HER MOTHER.

“How is a woman of an oppressed people becoming the fucking queen of the nation that oppressed her people and working to enact change and better the world for her people not be the most badass thing in the world.”

Better question, why the FUCK would Katara want to be Fire Lady in the first place? Why THE FUCK would she want to be involved with the royal family that murdered her people, along with Aang’s people.

Here’s your answer: SHE DOESN’T. Why? SHE DOESNT LOVE ZUKO. SHE DOESN’T WANT TO MARRY ZUKO. Maybe your own little made-up of ZK version of Katara does and would want to be, but not the Katara that was actually shown within the show.

“People act like her being fire lady would relegate her to being a trophy wife.”

I mean, canonically, The Fire Lady holds no political power to the nation at all. As far as we’re shown they’re only relevant to produce heirs to the Fire Nation Monarchy.

“That’s just not in character for her at all.”

You know what else is out of character for Katara? Being the Fire Lady and wanting to marry Zuko.

(Side eyes Lok)

Even if LoK the animated show didn’t show it, post-series source material showed that Katara was involved with politics. And that’s with being married to Aang. You’re the ones that are projecting the “Katara is Aang’s trophy wife.” trope.

“Katara as Fire Lady would be at the center of reform, bettering the world for the Southern Water Tribe and the common-folk of the Fire Nation and putting stuck up close minded Fire nation novels in their place.”

Riiight, Katara can only do this as long as she’s Fire Lady. It’s not like she has her own agency or anything and can do all that WITHOUT EVEN NEEDING TO BE.

FFS she can work on reform and better relations with the nations WITHOUT having to marry into the monarchy that killed her people.

Also, Katara is not Zuko’s girl. Zuko does not (romantically) love Katara. She’s happily married to Aang and helping him change the world, thank you.

Again, maybe your own little made up Zeekay version of Katara would want this. Your little version of Katara who doesn’t give a shit about the carnage that was imposed onto her people by the Fire Nation. But canon Katara? The one who lost her mother to the Fire Nation after they raided her home? She wants nothing to do with the Fire Nation Monarchy.

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Full offense to Z/tar/a stans, but what the fuck?