#zutara rant

[maybecordelia]

I’m just gonna rant rn

aang and katara are rlly cute together but i absolutely do not see them falling in love like that or just AT LEAST not that soon (aang being 12 and katara being 14) tbh I see them more like younger brother older sister vibes. BUTTTT zuko and katara are so flawless omg just by watching the show you can just tell how in love they are LIKE IT IS CRAZYYY and literally even in the show they were making jokes abt it then zuko LITERALLY SACRIFICES HIMSELF FOR KATARA???? like after that for sure they’d end up with eachother right… RIGHT??? but no. they dont. and im PISSEDDD. now zukos future wife WHO ISNT KATARA has to look at the scar on his chest every single day for the rest of her life knowing full well that her goddamn husband sacrificed himself for another girl LIKE ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

[ziezii]

was going through the zutara hashtag on tiktok only to stumble upon anti zutara posts under them 😑 and not to mention all the KA stans coming in the ZK edit comments and typing nasty shit 🤦🏻‍♀️ and this is why I never click on the comment sections anymore, ppl are just rude for no reason

[eponastory]

Uh... no. She's not.

If anything, it's the Kat*angers who said "Aang is a real man because he got Katara pregnant three times" proving that he is apparently an Alpha Male.

There is nothing more misogynistic than saying a man is a man for getting a woman pregnant.

[zutaraism]

honestly it's baffling that the creators are even surprised that there are fans who thought zuko and katara would make a great pair when canon zutara has:

narrative and visual parallels

a monumental scene where they connect over losing their mothers because of the fire nation, eventually leading to katara offering ti heal zuko's scar using a sacred water that she has been saving for something important

zuko letting katara touch his scar

zuko respecting katara's autonomy and accompanying her to confront the person who killed her mother and was never judgemental on how katara should deal with her trauma

katara listening to zuko when he expressed his worries about meeting his uncle again after ba sing se

zuko forsaking his life and his claim to the throne by taking a bolt of lighting to protect katara

zuko and katara are depicted to be supportive of each other. they represented harmony and balance which is essentially the essence of the series. but yeah sure it's only "dark and intriguing!!"

there's nothing surprising about these two being shipped when the potential had always been present in the canon narrative.

[thatbookgirl1118]

I cannot for the life of me find the original post (tumblr is a hellsite) but this was sent in an atla gc:

@the-badger-mole

and tbh i always kinda felt like kataang was weird exactly because of that one-sidedness??? like there's one episode of katara maybe sort-of seeing aang as a love interest (when the fortune teller tells her she'll marry a powerful bender), but then the rest of the show is her being passive in the relationship or actively pushing aang away (like their second kiss). and then at the end she just randomly decided "okay i like you i guess."

whereas aang got a bunch of pining moments and you actually believed he was in love with katara.

and most of their relationship was about how she helped aang - he did contribute to her character development over the course of the series especially as a bender of course but it didn't feel as emotionally/spiritually deep as katara's literal one episode sidequest with zuko.

but then someone else wrote "I would argue the opposite? Kataang is where Katara choose the peaceful nomad which subverts the trope presented where zutara is where she chooses the strong protector/combatant. Aang as a character is a subversion of the typical hero while zutara is like,,, coloniser romance idk"

and honestly... i kinda get that. aang was problematic in a lot of ways, but he was definitely a subversive protagonist, and i can see the power of allowing the woman to choose the pacifist vegetarian over the extremely obviously hot jock badboy. this is an incredible oversimplification of their characters of course, but the point stands.

Basically, Kataang is the ship we all logically want - the sweet, friendship-based, seemingly subversive one. But Zutara is the one that actually makes sense in the story, with these characters, not their tropes. Aang is subversive, but he and Katara are also kind of terrible for each other - he isn't mature or selfless enough for Katara, who needs someone to force her to take care of herself because she's always the one taking care of everyone else (wonder what that's like). That's why she and Zuko are so perfect, because he not only takes care of her, he makes HER prioritize herself. Aang... does not. He's pretty selfish, which yes is partially due to his immaturity (I personally don't count Korra as canon because it treated ALL the og characters terribly so I'm speaking purely from his 12 yo self), but it's also just a basic incompatibility thing. And Katara is actually equally bad for Aang - she enables him waaay too much, and he needs someone who doesn't. Who forces him to stand up on his own two feet and take responsibility. She's too much of a mother, and her relationship with Aang is too mother/older sister-ish.

With Zuko, on the other hand? Katara started out HATING him, forcing him to prove himself to her instead of handing him everything she had like she tended to do with Aang and Sokka. He had to earn her care, and as a result he appreciates it way more and demands way less of it. He's a far less selfish character generally for the same reasons, and is much more mature/has a better understanding of life and gray areas. Southern Raiders is a great example of this - he's down for whatever Katara decides because he understands that there's no one right answer, unlike Aang who simply preaches forgiveness. I'm not necessarily attacking Aang about that either - I do believe that grudges eat away at a person, and taking a life does haunt you, so forgiveness isn't necessarily bad advice. But it's not what Katara needed. Aang is great as a friend, but I don't think he's what Katara needs from a romantic partner. Zuko just... is.

[turbent]

“This war between Zutara and kataang shippers has been going on for so long. Maybe all of you guys should calm down 🥺🥺🥺

Besides, zukka is the best ship and the solution to it all right?? 🥺🥺🥺”

Genuinely, please be quiet! And keep your BS out of the Zutara tag 😭

[thief-of-eggs]

Thinking about Zuko practicing hairstyles on Katara (for both his own benefit, and later to try on Sokka)

Thinking about them slowly but surely bonding through these little shared moments. Talking about their childhoods, their families, their memories.

Thinking about Zuko still asking to do her hair, even well after he’s mastered every style. Thinking about Katara coming to Zuko when she wants her hair done, thinking about her making excuses because she wants the peace that comes with sitting in front of him, closing her eyes as a touch so similar to her mother’s weaves through her hair.

Thinking about Zuko finding the sister he lost in those moments with her. Everything he wished he and Azula could be, he finds in Sokka’s younger sister.

[onceuponanavatar]

I'm not trying to be negative here, but I just want to get this off my chest. Obligatory "not all kat/aangers", because I know it's not all of them. So if this doesn't apply, then it's not about you.

When season 1 of netflix atla came out, it got a lot of criticism from all sides. Fair enough; I can see where people would have some issues. But as someone who did like it, scrolling online, it seemed like some of the harshest critics were kat/aangers. They were livid at the very idea that netflix could maybe—just maybe—entertain the thought of doing something different with zutara. Mind you, nothing was confirmed ever, but zutaras had (finally) gotten some positive interactions with people involved in the show, and yeah, we have a bad habit of getting our hopes up (silly us). And now, with the Toph casting announcement, I already see those same kat/aangers being loud online about how netflix better not *dare* to ruin her platonic friendship with Aang, but oh they already screwed up season 1 and are interacting positively with zutaras online (how dare they) so obviously they will ruin Toph too. And I'm just like??? No one at netflix has made any hint toward changing the Toph/Aang relationship as far as I know, but you're already getting heated over nothing. And even if they did? You guys have done nothing but bad mouth the show and try to ruin things for everyone who does like it. So why do you care what the show will do? You will either not watch it at all or watch it and complain anyway! Why would the showrunners want to cater to people who have been rude to them online, as opposed to fans that have been more positive and supportive? All that complaining, and they may not even change anything anyway! And even if they do and make taang or zutara canon, who cares? Let them do something different and explore new ideas! It doesn't change what happened in the original show! We will always have that.

Anyways, rant over. I hope that I was able to articulate clearly the point I wanted to make. I just get tired of the negativity and the closed-mindedness. We can never get anything new or different without a herd of people complaining, and it is exhausting.

[zukosbangtan]

"zutara shippers are just a bunch of girls who self insert as katara bc they have a crush on zuko" okay... and? while this is not the case for most zutara shippers i still don't see the drag in it even if it was.

literally who cares. it's a fictional ship between two fictional characters from a fictional world. they do not exist. it's a tv series. a tv series made for entertainment. and oh how DARE girls even try to derive joy from a tv series meant to entertain!?!!

it's really annoying how kat@@ng shippers use this argument as a drag but i honestly also don't like how some zutara shippers seem to get weirdly hostile and defensive abt it and feel the need to fight tooth and nail to deny it. cause again, there's nothing wrong with it! there are no rules to shipping !! (i mean. in my opinion there are a few rules but they don't apply here so we move lol)

it's literally just misogyny. shipping is supposed to be fun but i forgot that girls, especially young girls, aren't allowed to have fun.

i know that a lot of kat@@ng shippers won't see anything wrong with this "drag" but i do wish that at least zutara shippers would stop acting like it's something girls should be shamed for and embarrassed abt.

also how could being a "self insert ship" be a drag when it comes to zutara but not to kata@ng when kata@ng is literally only canon bc it's brykes version of a self insert ship. and so the same thing they try to drag female zutara shippers for.

most of us first watched avatar when we were kids. zuko is a handsome and strong (and angsty) teenaged firebender prince; it's not surprising that a lot of young watchers had a crush on him. katara is a beautiful smart and powerful young waterbender that a lot of young girls growing up related and looked up to; it's also not surprising that a lot of girls imagined being her (at least i did lol). and if some of them decided to ship zutara based on that then so fucking what?? what's so wrong about that??

cause you're trying to tell me that it's weird and wrong when young girls insert themselves into a ship between two teenagers but it's totally fine and normal when bryke (two grown ass men) make a 12 year old boy their self insert character and make him date a 14 year old girl? like..that's not weird to yall?? i need you to be so fr.

again, it's just pure misogyny. it's like there's no space in which girls and women won't be ridiculed and shamed for even the most innocent things we do. they'll always try to deprive us from any type of joy and fun, even if it harms literally no one (well in this case, harms no one but the idea that katara could never possibly even think abt wanting anything else for herself than brykes idea of a self insert ship. cause remember, self inserting is only bad when girls do it. but when it's grown men? no problem!!).

the atla fandom is sadly no exception from that. i genuinely couldn't care less what or who ppl ship but it's just so sad to see how much misogyny is directed at specifically female zutara shippers. and what makes it even more fucked up is that it's not only from non-zutara shippers but from bryke themselves.

there's so many things that are wrong within this fandom but young girls imagining that they're katara and shipping themselves with zuko is definitely not one of those things and should be the least of our problems. like this is just such a dumb argument against zutara and such a silly thing to get mad abt in generel. like. why do u gaf. genuinely. why is this something that makes u mad. please be normal. and being misogynistic is definitely not normal.

well okay these are quite a lot of words for me just wanting to say that hi if you're a girl that ships zutara bc u like to insert yourself into the ship that's totally fine pls don't listen to those weirdos and i hope u have a lot of fun 👍👍

okay actually while we're at it it doesn't matter why you ship zutara; if it's bc you like their bond or their dynamic, bc you like the development of their relationship during the series, bc you're a fan of the enemies to lover trope, bc you're a fan of the betrayal trope, bc you like the red and blue symbolic of their ship, bc you just like how they physically look together, or bc you have a crush on zuko and/or katara and like to insert yourself into the ship or just bc it's a random monday evening and you just felt like shipping it or whaaaatsoever it doesn't matter okay none of these reasons are superior over other reasons and none of them are dumb reasons as long as you have FUN.

let's strive to make this a kinder and fun place for everyone but especially for girls and women please. thank you👍

[survivalove]

blah blah something something about how fandom gravitate towards more individualistic characters because they’re easier to understand compared to community-oriented characters whose character development is very much tied to their culture/nation because understanding a single character is easier to understand than a character AND an entire culture, especially when said culture is based off a marginalized community that exists in real life 🫠 and said fandom is majority WHITE.

[piggypie22]

Zukka makes no sense

Ok here we go…I hate zukka. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely have nothing against the people who ship them, you guys are alright. It’s just so…random. Like where in the world did this ship come from. They basically had that ONE episode, which mind you contains not even an ounce of romantic tension, in which Zuko helps Sokka rescue his dad and-wait-what’s that? Oh yeah his GIRLFRIEND! (Yes, I talking about the girlfriend Sokka is crazy in love with.) So basically zukka is built without a base foundation, it was pulled out of thin air. It is also common in this ship for Zuko to be portrayed as a uwu femboy and honestly completely out of character, if you watched one episode of Atla you would know he is the literal opposite. It is mainly shipped because people see two attractive men and go feral. I know that some people ship it because of the “red/blue” trope or the “enemies to lovers” trope, but you know what? Zutara does that. And it does it so much better.(they actually have chemistry and romantic subtext, what a concept). With this in mind I have seen SOOOOO much hate for the ship that makes sense: Zutara. Compared to its baseless counter part, which everyone seems to love and seen as the “pure ship” I just don’t get it.

If I get hate for this don’t care, I just telling the facts.

[valariecomet]

Honestly seeing (mostly kataang and maiko shippers but not just them) say ppl need to move on from what Bryke did with book 4 air makes me genuinely mad.

When I first started watching the show I was basically bullied out the fandom for drawing Zutara fanart. I was either 11 or 12 at the time and it was during 2020. A bunch of people older than me were mocking me for my fanart, not even because it was bad (not that if they did it would have been justified) no, because it was of a ship they like. I was called a whole bunch of colourful names and slurs and got accused of some horrible things just for liking Zutara and it did affect me.

Now, imagine 12 year old me finding and watching Book 4, do you think that just because that was in 2008 it didn't affect me? No! Of course it did! If anything it made me feel worse, so much so I left the fandom for two years and I only got back into ATLA when I was 14, even then I have only recently started engaging with the fandom again. Just because it occurred in 2008 doesn't mean it doesn't affect people now and I'm sure I'm not the only kid who has been discouraged by that video. If you were a kid at the time or not, the video can and has had an affect on people.

Also, it's not like Bryke were kids when they did that, no, they were full grown adults using children's fanart to mock them. It was disgusting and the fact they have never apologized, as far as I know, is gross. It doesn't matter how long ago it happened because it happened and still affects people, I don't think people should be forced to move on just because you believe that it isn't a big deal or it was ages ago so they should be forgiven. If you don't care that's fine, but don't try to force people to feel different to how they feel.

If your a Zutara shipper who's fanart was in that video, I am genuinely so fucking sorry. That is horrible and I can't imagine how it could have affected you. I know if I was in your situation I would still be upset about it to this day because of how discouraging the video was. I know your probably not reading this but if you are I feel for you.

Also I'm writing this after trying for about two hours to complete the gosh darn pachinko machine level in super Mario sunshine so if I sound a bit emotionally charged it's because I have just spend the past two of so hours in agony ✌️

Edit: I forgot about the Azulaang and Tokka scenes in the video since I hadn't watched it in ages, you guys too I'm so sorry, that was so cruel for you guys too.

[blluespirit]

was going through my drafts and uhhhh she had some points 💅

[forevermore05]

Can I just talk about how excited I get when people send me asks? It feels so special and I cannot explain why. It's so exciting when people want to hear MY take. I have many Zutara prompts in my ask box and I am currently working on a fic. But when people send me an ask, it just makes my day. It makes me feel important, but it also helps me to think critically. I love getting asks.

As your potato lord, I demand more asks (please).

[zutaraism]

if you're a multishipper, then good for you. but it's not a necessity to ship both ZK/KA or other rivalling ships to realize that harassing fans in their safe space is wrong.

I'm so sorry, but I'm just tired because I keep seeing multis every now and then in the tags saying "just ship both!" as if that fixes everything.

some fans lacking decorum is the problem.

[iolaussharpe-24]

Am I just a delusional shipper or does this feel like it should have been a thing?

Spoilers for Gargoyles (1972) ahead.

"Go on, your voice pleases me."

"'The sin was not my own, but forced upon me by the incubus; who overnight did slip into my bedchamber and taunt and seduce me with demon's promises until I was as if on fire. He was of uncommon height and finely built. A devil's face of frightful beauty that did put me in a spell. I had no will of my own, but did let the incubus do his will until I was driven mad.'"

Those are actual lines out of the movie. I didn't paraphrase. At all. I played the scene where she was reading out of the book, and typed every word she said. This is a movie about demons who "sometimes take human women" who are trying to conquer the world. Also, in this movie, the gargoyles with wings are the breeders. This one says as much. He was basically the leader. His reaction to being told that he's lost is literally, "Not as long as there are two winged breeders."

Also, the way the gargoyle acts when he first sees Diana just SCREAMS "shipping fuel". If this were written in the modern day, they would have done it. You can't convince me otherwise. You know why I say that?

BECAUSE THE 90s DID IT!!!

I don't care that these two stories have nothing to do with one another. This is a really good comparison. And, even if it wasn't, I have plenty of fuel for this fire. (I don't even need my usual go-to of vampire movies to prove this point.)

Diana and The Gargoyle fit into two categories that I love and frequently ship. Hero/Villain (though I guess this is more damsel/villain) and Human/Monster. I'm going to give examples from both categories that I will die shipping. (They overlap quite a bit, actually.)

Jareth the Goblin King x Sarah Williams

Katara x Prince Zuko

Rey x Kylo Ren/Ben Solo

Vlad Dracula x Mina Murray/Mina Harker

Erik x Christine Daaé

Batman/Bruce Wayne x Catwoman/Selina Kyle

Elisa Esposito x The Amphibian Man

Catherine Chandler x Vincent

So, with all that context in mind,

DOES THIS REALLY LOOK LIKE THAT MUCH OF A STRETCH?!?!