simplylalaa

[simplylalaa]

What are the Zutara freeze frames you'll never get over?

For me this one has to be near the top. Not the hug™ itself, but the moment just after. The way his head is still tipped slightly in her direction like a plant toward sunlight, the subtle loosening of his posture, the way he looks at her, gaze at once intense and at peace, and what it tells us about the way she's looking at him.

#zutara

[simplylalaa]

I swear 90% of anti Zutara posts are just Kat-aang fans projecting their own dislike about their canon ship onto Zutara.

Zuko brings out the worst in her? Aang refused to acknowledge her pain and grief, and constantly encouraged her to suppress any negative emotions.

Katara would be a powerless if she marred Zuko? She spent her entire adult life confined to Air Temple island, away from her tribe, rarely venturing like 20 minutes into Republic City to help people (unless you count banning blood bending, a technique with a lot of practical value, and doing nothing to enforce that ban, but that's another story).

Katara would be Zuko's trophy wife? The series ends with Aang and Katara kissing, because Katara's affection toward Aang are him being rewarded for being the Avatar.

They'd fight too much? Zuko and Katara reconcile after they fight and work together as an amazing team. Meanwhile, Katara and Aang have serious problems at the end of the series that end in explosive fights and they never get resolved.

Zutara is too physical? They hug once. Kat-aang kisses four times (two of which were non consensual, one of which was under duress), Aang checks her out multiple times in the series and fantasizes about kissing her, but they almost never have intimate conversations where Katara gets to open up, unless she is sharing her grief for his benefit.

Zutara fans only like it because Zuko is hot? Aang looks like a small child, especially when compared to Katara.

Zutara fans just like the bad boy/good girl trope? Katara is "darker" then Aang (and Kat-aang fans, apparently) want to admit. Her strong sense of justice, i.e. the thing that makes her "good," is just as rooted in anger as it is empathy.

They'd bring out the worst in each other? Aang is entitled, angry and irresponsible when it comes to Katara, and Katara is a pushover and shortsighted when it comes to Aang.

Zutara would be abusive? Aang lashes out at Katara when he gets angry or jealous, even when that jealousy comes from actors in a shitty play she had no control over.

It's a colonizer/colonized relationship? Aang has no respect for Katara's culture: he mocks her food, her beliefs, he tries to impose his cultural values on her, and post-A:tLA he rejects their waterbending child and denies their airbending access to his watertribe heritage, and Katara stays away from her people for nearly their entire relationship.

Zutara fans are delusional and deny canon? You can acknowledge something and not like it, criticize it and create fanon content that differs from it. That's not denial, that's critical thinking and creativity. But if Kat-aang fans are so in love with all aspects of canon, they are welcome to embrace at "The Ember Island Players" and "Love is a Battlefield."

Zutara would be toxic? Look at Kat-aang.

#zutara #anti kataang

[simplylalaa]

  I was thinking about the parallel of Zuko and Katara saving each other at the beginning of “The Southern Raiders,” before they’ve even made peace with each other.

And the difference between these two scenes.

 And the way that they show, in particular, Zuko’s character growth, but also how they show Katara struggling to accept that Zuko has changed.

In the first scene, Katara stands under falling rocks, seemingly paralyzed, and is saved by Zuko, but resents being saved by someone she doesn’t trust.

In comparison, Zuko, later in the episode, is freefalling but looks much more calm and confident (especially compared to Azula, who you can see in the screenshot above is falling in a much less controlled manner until she catches herself. Zuko lets himself fall, leans into the fall, and then reaches out his hand for Katara to pull him onto Appa.

This shows how much Zuko has grown since the catacombs, when Katara offered to help him and he remained reluctant and uncertain, and ended up making the wrong choice. This Zuko is confident and trusting, willing to put his trust in relying on others even when it’s uncertain, even relying on someone who he knows doesn’t have the best opinion of him.

Katara, meanwhile, has also changed from the person who was willing to aid others at the expense of herself and got her heart broken again and again. She doesn’t trust Zuko and that’s because she knows what he’s capable of and he let her down before. She still offers a hand to him when he falls, though, because she’s a good person, but also, I think, this is part of Katara’s character growth. Katara learns to accept the flaws in others and is able to accept Zuko when he finally shows genuine desire to make amends. She’s not there yet, but I think seeing him put his trust in her and the others like this was step towards realizing tha the really has matured from the person who broke her trust before. Which irritated her at first, because she didn’t want to accept that he had changed, but by the end of the episode, she’s finally ready to accept and trust him again.

#the southern raiders #zutara

[simplylalaa]

i’m never getting over them, your honor

#zutara #zutara edit

[simplylalaa]

Rewatching The Crossroads of Destiny always makes me emotional for several reasons, but this is definitely my favorite scene of the episode- and one of my favorite scenes in the entire show.

Katara had been going off on Zuko and he stayed silent and annoyed, until she said something that he understood. And he reached out to her. Now understanding his pain, Katara reaches back.

The tenderness of revealing your vulnerabilities to someone who, at this point, should be your enemy, offering to use your special water to heal your so-called enemy’s scar, gently touching said “enemy’s” scar, as well as brushing his lips with your thumb…

#zutara #zutara meta

[simplylalaa]

i was rewatching the crossroads of destiny and i realized the scene where zuko comforts katara about her mother takes place right before the scene where iroh and aang go down to find them. 

which means that the following zutara scene, where zuko is agonizing over his scar and his destiny, and katara offers to heal him, is most likely happening concurrently with iroh and aang’s conversation about the guru, during which iroh says this: “perfection and power are overrated. i think you are very wise to choose happiness and love.” 

there are a lot of metas which discuss how iroh’s words to aang in this moment aren’t actually what aang needs to hear (though iroh, of course, couldn’t know that since he didn’t know the full context and likely would have said something very different if he had known) because aang wouldn’t be choosing the avatar state for power; he would be choosing it to save katara and the world. but is there another character, perhaps one paralleled very closely to aang, one currently undergoing a crisis of conscience regarding this very dichotomy, for whom these words would strike a chord? 

given that this episode is written by aaron ehasz, i don’t think having the zuko-katara and iroh-aang conversation happen at the same time is a coincidence - and especially not when this is the moment that zuko lays his fears and vulnerabilities bare to katara, when katara offers him freedom from his past and zuko willingly submits to her touch, allowing himself the hope of healing, and the chance at a new, brighter destiny. 

this is the closest that zuko ever comes, at this point in his arc, to where his true happiness lies - only to have it ripped away by azula. azula, who promises him a chance to make amends from failure, a chance to regain his power and his pride, a chance at the perfect life he thought he left behind. 

iroh’s words to aang don’t fit aang’s circumstances, because they are not meant to illustrate aang’s struggles, but zuko’s. they are the embodiment of zuko’s crossroads of destiny, and the choice that lies before him. 

the choice between perfection and power, or happiness and love. 

the choice, in essence, between azula… or katara. 

#zutara #zutara meta

[simplylalaa]

Just sitting in a work meeting thinking about the beautiful harmony of giving Zuko, who wields the element of power, a change arc that culminates in saving Katara, wielder of the element of change, who crests an empowerment arc when she saves Zuko in turn.

#zutara #zutara meta

[simplylalaa]

Be my bad boy be my man Be my weekend lover But don’t be my friend You can be my bad boy

Being facetious to make a point, but whenever people call Zutara a good girl/ bad boy ship, I wonder if they actually watched the show. Even when he was functioning as an antagonist in book 1, Zuko was never suave enough to fit the James Dean “bad boy” archetype. Once you get to book 2/3 Zuko, it’s really clear that under the angst from severe physical and emotional abuse, Zuko is a kind of awkward teen who wants to do the right thing. He makes plenty of mistakes and bad choices, but Zuko isn’t a rebel without a cause/ a jerk just to be a jerk. And calling Katara a “good girl” reduces the complexity of her character. Katara is sweet and hopeful, but she’s also ready to literally fight you at any given moment, and is completely fine breaking the rules if she thinks the ends justify the means.

#atla meta #zutara meta #zutara

[simplylalaa]

As I write through the timeline of Sozin's Comet in my current fic, I'm having a fresh bout of finale feels. In particular, I've been ruminating on how Aang and Katara's romantic ending unfolds in a way that undermines Katara's character arc. (And this rumination has grown into a wall of text. Truly, who let me on this platform?)

I'm not even thinking about the kiss. I've been stuck on that scene at Zuko's coronation where the shot pans around Aang then Katara, gazing dreamily up at the Avatar. You know the one. The moment when we the viewers are suddenly made to understand that she's admiring Aang anew, romantically.

Prior to this, the last time we see Katara and Aang interact is before the Avatar disappears. More specifically, we see Aang huff off after getting frustrated at Katara for trying to help when she doesn't fully appreciate the moral quandary he's grappling with.

For Katara, who has carried the wounds of her father leaving her behind for war most of her life, it is hard to imagine Aang's departure could fail to stir up feelings of abandonment, even if she doesn't believe he intended to disappear. But, like Zuko says to her as Aang first walks away, the Avatar does need time to figure out his way forward alone.

To find a path to victory that does not compromise his ethical framework is a solo undertaking for the Avatar, one his friends have demonstrated they cannot be part of, not even Katara, who has always been there to lift him up before. That he didn't need to rely on his steadiest supporter for this marks important character growth for Aang; we already have been told that letting go of some level of his earthly attachment to Katara is built into his character journey. And the need to uphold his peoples' legacy is an essential character motivation for Aang. There is something powerful about the notion that, as the last airbender, he must seek out the right approach to this last task on his own.

But what about Katara's essential character motivations? As we're told and shown, she will never turn her back on the people that need her. It's one of her great virtues, and we're given no reason to think otherwise. Helping people who need her is where we see Katara find her greatest fulfillment. For most of ATLA, helping Aang is at the heart of this.

But at the coronation? Aang has just come back after appearing to abandon Katara to be celebrated for a victory he didn't need her help to achieve.

And standing next to Aang is Zuko, who acknowledged that he needed Katara's help to embrace his destiny, and who in turn, granted her the opportunity to embrace hers.

I think it's worth pausing on the fact that the show gives Katara a tremendous arc. She transforms from a child whose life has been upended by war—gifted with a power that she can't harness, and burdened with grief and hurt she can't let go of—into a catalyst for global change, one of the greatest-ever masters of her element, and a person capable of offering world-changing forgiveness where it is earned. When Katara was a child, the Fire Nation came uninvited into the heart of her community and upended her life, and in the finale, she arrives in the heart of the Fire Nation to upend the same order that ravaged her home in the name of peace—an achievement that is made possible by both her hard work (bending mastery) and her compassion (extending empathy, forgiveness and life-saving assistance to Zuko).

In the finale, Katara affirms that by helping the people who need her, she can change the world.

In the finale, Aang affirms that singular conviction to his ideals can guide his way, even if it is a path he must walk alone.

Can these visions of self and purpose be reconciled in a healthy partnership? Certainly. In fact, I can see how Aang letting go of Katara's constant help—and Katara letting go of an Aang-centric identity—supports a healthy future romantic relationship for the two of them, where their dynamic finds a balance it never has during ATLA. But Katara and Aang haven't worked through any of that yet. If they have spoken at all before the coronation—if he has, for instance, apologized for disappearing—it was not deemed essential content for the viewer.

And what marks Katara's epiphany of love? The moment when Aang is celebrated as "the real hero" for what he has achieved in her absence. For this to ring emotionally true, for this to be the moment she knows she loves him, she must subsume her character arc and motivations (which are inherently collaborative) to Aang's individual journey. His story, his desires, they come first. It's his show, after all.

And none of this is news, of course. It's barely boot-scuffs on well-trodden ground. The abandonment of Katara's hero arc is canon; where the hell is her statue? etc.

But still, I'm stuck on Katara watching proudly from the crowd. If that moment doesn't feel quite right—it never has for me—maybe you want more for Katara. I'd put her on the dais, but I'll settle for something subtler.

Just for a moment, after she looks up proudly at Aang, let's nudge her admiring gaze a little to the right. Who does she see? Someone who has come to deserve his honorable destiny because he would cast it aside to save a life—her life, the life of a girl he once betrayed to lay claim to that purported honor. Jumping in front of that lightning, Zuko shows he will choose humans over concepts and that, at any cost, he will be there for the people that need him. That's what will make him a good leader. He and Katara, over long-woven arcs, affirmed this truth together.

She looks on admiringly. She made this possible.

She should be proud. Of both of her friends, but more importantly, of herself.

Is this an argument for Zutara over Kataang in the finale? I don't think so. That's probably a different accidental essay.

This is merely a longwinded observation that Avatar the Last Airbender built powerful, beautiful, arcs. But in the very end, it didn't tend them all the same. And after all this time, it still rankles.

#zutara #zutara meta #sozin's comet

[simplylalaa]

For everyone out there who claims there is no canon evidence a romantic relationship between Zuko and Katara would be healthy, that it would instead be toxic and that they would fight all the time, may I direct you to the Melon Lord training sequence, where Sokka, the undisputed strategist and tactician of the group whom everyone trusts to make plans and strategies to implement, very intentionally puts Zuko and Katara together because he knows how well they work together and can compensate for one another's weaknesses and compliment each other's strengths—much like himself and Suki.

Ship what you want, y'all, but please stop saying there's canon evidence zutara would be toxic. That grossly ignores the growth and explicit forgiveness that Zuko and Katara have shared and that the latter has shown the former.

#zutara #zutara meta

[simplylalaa]

Royal drama queens

#fire siblings #atla #zuko #azula

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there’s avatar and then there’s the blue people movie

#atla

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friendship bracelets for the gaang <3

[ID found by clicking alt on the piece]

#atla #the gaang

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i haven't doodled these two in so long:') glad to see he looks in love as ever

#zutara #zutara fanart

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some little katara sketches <3 + a koi fish ofc

#atla #katara #katara fanart

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default grumpy face

inspired by this by @outpastthemoat

[ID: A shoulders up drawing of Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. He has a grumpy face, looking upset. He has short hair, and his scar covers the left side of his face down to his neck. With arrows pointing to him, text reads "not really angry at all" and "actually pretty content rn." /End ID.]

#zuko #zuko fanart #grumpy zuko

[simplylalaa]

My first ever Zutara piece! ❤️‍🔥

((🚫do not repost🚫))

#zutara #zutara fanart