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#Anti kataang
nono-bunny · 19 hours
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Losing my mind because it somehow took me literally until right now to realize that a Zuko and Katara encounter is a part of every season finale of ATLA, like, literally, what the fuck? And all of those are strong jumping off points for fics to boot, like???
"You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun" is like. Such a big deal in the fandom, and while it tends to feature in all kinds of fics, it perfectly encapsulates the enemies phase in the enemies (to friends) to lovers of these two. An unreasonably sexually charged line too, wtf were they on about with that scene if not ship bait?
Fics diverging from the crystal catacombs are like. Such an obvious and natural evolution of that scene- it's the "something awful happens there, but what if it didn't?", I think. It was, in fact, the first fic I went out looking for- was rewatching the show and once again felt the accute disappointment of what could've been, and I wanted to read what could happen if it had. Ultimately I think the show made the right choice there, because Zuko getting what he always wanted and realizing it's all wrong is important, but it did rob us of him being a part of the gaang for longer, and that makes me sad.
Then there's the final agni kai.... Literally how can you watch that one without expecting them to kiss after? Genuinely don't get it, impossible. Peak Zutara. Possibly the single best fight of the show, and undoubtedly the best finale scene. A perfect resolution to the bond between those two- that gets completely thrown away to give Aang his woman shaped prize. Of course it's also a popular jumping off point for plot divergent fics!
Genuinely wild that they have THREE romantic coded finals, and yet they don't even end up together. Kataang and Maiko are barely even a factor in the first two season finals, too! Mai literally doesn't exist in the first, and in the second is very obviously representative of Zuko making a mistake. Literally cannot think of a Kataang scene in the first season finale (but I might just be forgetting? I obviously do not care for that one, lmk if there is one and I'll add it, but me being unable to think of one feels a bit telling given how much I hate those scenes), and the big thing for them in the second one is literally recreating a pose evoking a mother and son relationship, which is a big fat F on the shipping factor if I ever saw one.
"Kataang is baked into the show's DNA"- shut the fuck up, Bryke, and maybe have a look at what you ACTUALLY did with it. This isn't the kind of thing that you can just brush off... Especially because those are all scenes people associate with big emotional plot points of your show, and guess who's doing the heavy lifting there? It's definitely not Aang, that's for sure.
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lovesickloverr · 3 days
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i hate when people say “zutara is just girls who self insert as katara & want zuko”
first of all, arguably not always true as someone who never saw herself as katara & is still obsessed w zutara, secondly let’s not act like ur angsty ass wasn’t trying to relate to mai bsfr or the kat@@ng shippers who r self inserting as aang.
theres literally no issue with self inserting or relating to a character so i don’t see the issue? that doesn’t mean the ship is entirely invalid even if we relate to someone in the ship. but even then there’s xreaders for a reason babes, if we really wanted zuko for ourselves those type of fics exist.
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rifari2037 · 24 hours
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Zuko helped her to get closure, Zuko helped Sokka to free his father and Suki from boiling rock, Zuko helped Aang to learn firebending and redirecting lightning that literally helped him in final battle with Ozai.
Zuko saved Katara from the rocks, Zuko saved Katara from fire nation soldier (TSR), Zuko saved Katara from Azula's lightning.
Zuko found her mother's necklace and it would've been lost forever if he hadn't taken it, because Aang got it back from Zuko, right? Zuko didn't steal it.
Yon Ra killed her mom, not the entire fire nations nor him (he was still a child back then). Zuko helped her find the killer and let her do whatever she needs. He didn't suggest her to do anything nor judged her.
These two characters always met in the final episode, in every season, with development (enemies - betrayal - allies).
If their development have no chemistry, I don't know what chemistry is anymore.
So, yes, sorry not sorry but they can be a good couple lmao
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awryen · 1 day
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Prev Reblog: I don't talk much myself about the comics, but to be clear:
I. HATE. THE ATLA COMICS.
That being *said*:
I do like the idea that Ursa had another kid after she escaped from the Fire Nation. She's only human and knew she'd never be able to come back after she assassinated their grandfather. And she had no way of knowing her kids (well, son) would be the catalyst to ending the war and deposing Ozai.
So the idea of Kiyi is fine to me! After the general angst of it all coming to light and the reunion, I can see Zuko being pretty keen on having another little sister that he can actually dote on. And Katara would probably love her.
Azula, after massive amounts of therapy, would probably, very tsundere in her manner, like to have a younger sibling who she could mentor since Zuko would be a tad busy being Fire Lord.
Now.
What I HATE is some dumb fucking spirit world shenanigans that led Ursa to losing her memories AND physically changing what she looked like. Also, all of the bullshit in how they handled Azula in the comics, leaving Ozai alive, Mai just being so blasé about her dad's coup, everything about Aang, and of course...the shitty canon ships.
Anywho.
That's that on my end.
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longing-for-rain · 3 days
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you know what i noticed about kataang shippers is that, they have made multiple blogs (even titled in the url) fully dedicated to bashing zutara. like whole blogs full of nothing but hating zutara and everyone who ships it.
i don't see the reverse. yes, there are zutara blogs with lots of aang/kataang critical posts. but these blogs also have content that's focused on zutara (posting about the ship you actually do like! imagine that!) and most are content creators as well. i can't think of any blogs that are purely anti-kataang or even mostly anti-kataang.
idk to me it just seems like zutara shippers are better about staying in our lane and enjoying what we like instead of devoting *that* much energy to hating ✌️
Oh definitely, I think in the past few years I’ve seen two blogs called something along the lines of “Zutara isn’t canon” and post nothing but angry anons whining about people shipping Zutara. And of course, the “fandom police” guy who is very obviously a right winger poorly applying social justice concepts in an attempt to win ship discourse, and who thinks anything non-canon is stupid.
It’s funny because how do you miss the point of fandom this badly? It’s transformative. There are only so many ways to tell the exact same story. There is a reason why it’s very common for non-canon ships to be more popular among fans than canon. It taps into the creative aspect that so many of us enjoy.
And for Zutara specifically, I’m actually glad it isn’t canon. I like that it’s open-ended and that I’m free to write it however I want, because to be completely honest, I think the creators would have completely botched it if it was canon. I mean, I actually like Maiko quite a bit too but I don’t like how rushed their ending felt. I don’t like how it felt like Mai reappeared to be Zuko’s prize. And given the straight up creepy things I’ve heard the creators say about Zutara over the years, I have no doubt they would have made me hate it via poor writing.
Plus you’re right, at the end of the day, fandom is about enjoying what you want to enjoy. Making entire blogs dedicated to telling people they’re stupid because they don’t adhere to canon as if it’s a religious doctrine doesn’t seem like you’re enjoying yourself too much. Sure, I’ve made posts critical of tropes, characters, relationships, etc. that I don’t like, but ultimately I spend my energy on what I actually do like.
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My Interpetation of The Southern Raiders: Part 2 – Zuko
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Warning: The views expressed in this analysis will be somewhat uncritical of Zuko. If you aren't likely to agree, you aren't going to enjoy this post. This is your chance to leave. I probably won't have a debate for personal reasons.
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This is the second part out of a three part series trying to answer every question posed by the discourse on The Southern Raiders. If I take some things for granted, it's because I discussed them in part 1, in which I delve into A\ang's role in the episode. Today, I'll set my sights on Zuko.
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1. Was Zuko a negative influence on Katara?
No, he did not. When Zuko merely presents the possibility of tracking her mother’s killer, it cuts through her reply right to her already leaving. In literature, what isn’t in the text holds no relevance and is to be disregarded as mere speculation. We don’t see Zuko convincing her, therefore he had no influence on her, and that she made the choices she did because she wanted to.
All Zuko did later on was defend a decision Katara already made on her own. And in both the first and second disagreements with Aang she had the last word. Ergo she was making her own choice.
Additionally, before they enter the room of who they think was her mother’s killer, Zuko asks her if she’s ready. And when she finally spares Yon Rha, he supports her decision. If he were to influence her, he wouldn’t have done either of these things. He only wanted to help Katara heal and never brought up anything that wasn’t already there.
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2. Was Zuko being too harsh on Aang?
(1) That's cute, but this isn't air temple preschool. It's the real world.
(2) [Forgiveness]'s the same as doing nothing!
(3) Okay, we'll be sure to do that, guru goody-goody.
He was definitely disrespectful towards Aang's culture, although his disrespectful remarks are a response to Aang’s own disrespect, imposing his beliefs onto Katara. And he didn’t say that until after Aang compared Katara to Jet. It was still wrong to come after the Air Nomad teachings, but they’re not as insulting as people paint them to be.
And it’s not like he didn’t take them back by the end of the episode. Zuko had good intentions, made a mistake and learned from it. That’s how characters grow, through mistakes. (More on that later).
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3. What motivated Zuko to find Yon Rah?
He wanted to earn Katara’s trust. The show makes it explicitly clear.
Zuko: What can I do to make it up to you?
And so later:
Zuko: Katara mentioned it before when we were imprisoned together in Ba Sing Se, and again just now when she was yelling at me. I think somehow she's connected her anger at that to her anger at me.
I’ve seen many describe this motive as selfish or manipulative, but I have to disagree. He has no reason to do anything to earn Katara’s trust. He saved her life on that very day, is fully accepted into the GAang, and in this episode he found out that some of her anger at him is rooted in projection. But he still goes out of his way to do the impossible, to give Katara the closure she needs in order to put faith in him.
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4. Why did Zuko think revenge\murder would help Katara?
Katara is a kind soul and murder wouldn’t have helped her heal, but Zuko had good reasons to think it would have. He didn’t know Katara’s soul, she didn’t even consider him a colleague, at that point she hated him. However, he did see Sokka killing Combustion Man in The Western Air Temple. So he has no way of knowing whether revenge would help, but he’s under the impression that murder isn’t a big taboo at least for some of the GAang.
Moreover, he knows that the person who took his mother away from him will receive justice, and that it helps him sleep at night. Katara doesn’t have that, Yon Rha retired in peace. So he offers her the justice he knows helps him.
But the main reason why he thinks revenge would help Katara, is that she told him it will. Zuko plays a largely passive role in the episode, simply assisting Katara in whatever way he can.He’s only fulfilling Katara’s wishes, and she told him that her wish is to seek justice on “the monster”.
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5. Did the trip have an effect on Zuko?
It did. By the end of the episode, Zuko delivers the following line:
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This is an important part of his arc of unlearning the Fire Nation’s black and white philosophy that values aggression above all else. He comes around to Air Nomad pacifism and non violent solutions from seeing them work first hand. And as the good (redeemed) person that he is, he admits he was wrong and changes his views. He grew as a character to become a better version of himself.
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In conclusion, despite the somewhat questionable nature of Zuko's actions in "The Southern Raiders", his underlying good intentions shine through. His role was not a devil on Katara’s shoulder, but a natural force backing up whatever decision she makes. And this allows him to emerge with a valuable lesson learned.
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illycanary · 2 months
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Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident
I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.
For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 
We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 
And we saw ourselves in Katara. 
Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 
Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 
Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.
Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?
Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 
After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 
And do better he does not.
The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.
Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.
Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.
The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 
Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.
I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.
I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.
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ecoterrorist-katara · 2 months
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the anti-Zutara criticism that “Zutara shippers are teenage girls who only like the ship because they self-insert as Katara” is actually so funny because how does that delegitimize the ship? So…girls who relate to Katara like Zuko, and they think Katara would like Zuko, and that’s bad because…girls are wrong? Girls are shallow? Girls don’t know what’s good for them? Anyway if I were a grown ass man who created a fictional teenage girl that lots of real teenage girls relate to, and these girls believe she would like character B instead of character A, I hope I’d have the humility to say to myself “hmm I wonder why people who relate to this character’s feelings and motivations think she would react this way” instead of jumping straight to “these girls are doomed to like toxic relationships”
(And I know Zutara shippers like the ship for many different reasons, and self-insert is not the most popular by a long shot, I’m just saying that the criticism of self-insert stems from dismissal of what teenage girls like, and that feels kinda misogynistic to me)
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burst-of-iridescent · 9 months
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i will always hate that katara never came to terms with her bloodbending. especially given that it’s a symbolic representation of her own “darker” side, the fact that she was never able to find the good in it and accept it as just another aspect of her element, instead outlawing and demonizing it forever, makes me so sad because it perfectly encapsulates the person she herself ended up as: the shallow, shining trophy wife on aang’s arm, locking away everything he didn’t want and was never able to understand to become his perfect, flawless forever girl for the rest of her days.
and it’s so much more frustrating knowing that zuko — who knows exactly what it feels like to wield an element that can be destructive and violent, whose own arc about the duality of fire would have made him the perfect person to help katara understand that there is no such thing as inherently good or evil bending, only the bender who makes it so — was right there! yet instead of letting them have even one conversation about it, we got bloodbending being villainized till the heat death of the fucking universe and katara left forever unable to accept the complexity of her bending (and metaphorically, the complexity within herself) even though she had the exact person she needed right at hand to help and support her through the process… god it just drives me mad
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yourhighness6 · 13 days
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"Zuko and Katara would argue all the time if they ever had a romantic relationship"
Are
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you
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absolutely
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sure
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about
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that?
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darklinaforever · 2 months
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Katara could have ended up with Haru, and Zuko could have ended up with Jin, which I would have been happier with than canon Kataang and Maiko. The added irony that Zuko and Katara both flirted with people from the Earth Kingdom.
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johnskleats · 2 months
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is anyone going to tell the kat@angers that it's not feminist activism to argue Katara's arc in LOK is fine on the grounds that "some women want to be homemakers and that's okay!!"
Like you're not helping real women that way. In fact, most antis for the cannon ship ARE women. Many are homemakers themselves.
Katara is not a real woman. She is a fictional woman written by men.
Can the sensibilities and wishes of a girl change by the time she is a adult? Yes!
But as this is a textual character who, as per the text, rejects the societal structure of her fictional world (which mirrors our own) that women are and can only ever be docile homemakers (i.e. I don't want to heal, I want to fight; I will never turn my back on people who need me; let's start a prison riot; let's engage in vigilante ecoterrorism; let's pitch an absolute fit because the boys are not pulling their fair weight in the homemaking; let's confront my mother's killer at the absolute rejection and condemnation of the male figures whom I am to respect; etc) it is perfectly reasonable to argue that this end was not a natural course for her character.
Fictional characters are not real people. This means that they do not change their mind off screen. That is not an acceptable argument. That is called a "plot hole", which is a nonsensical change made at the convenience and contrivance of the writer(s), who in this case are men exhibited to not care for women or girls all that much. It is within THEIR character to write this way.
Regardless of who, if anyone, Katara ended up with, Katara tolerating disrespect, neglect, abuse of her children, giving up all of her former aspirations to live in the shadow of men, and dying as a mere footnote in history (and being alright with it!!) is not surprising given the absolute vitriol Bryke has shown toward female fans of their "creation". It was supposed to be a "boy" show. It was always supposed to be a "boy" show. The creators of Supernatural and Game of Thrones did the same thing. ATLA just did it first.
Arguing "not all women" is not activism in the face of what is really happening in this discourse. Sending death threats to real, actual women with feelings in defense of a fake pretend woman's fake pretend autonomy is performative activism, and worse, hypocritical.
Not all women agree with you. Not all women feel represented and find the outcome of Katara's story satisfactory. If y'all care about feminism and respecting women's choices so much, lay off the real life women you're so fond of harassing. Our views and opinions, while opposing your own, don't affect you.
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rifari2037 · 2 days
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Can anyone explain to me why Dante Basco gets so much hate from canon shipper except the fact that he vocaly Zutara shipper?
Also, can anyone explain to me why Zutara shipper are the toxic one, while canon shipper proudly wishes them get beaten on the street and die slowly?
Shipping war on Twitter so wild and not healthy recently.
Instead posting content about their ship, they keep talking about Zutara and bashing the shipper, yet calling them 'obsessed' when they defend themselves.
I appreciate every opinion from other fandom about the show, even though sometimes I disagree. It could be a fun debate if both fandoms respect each other.
But, I can't stand toxic fandom behavior who bashing someone personally!
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countessravengrey · 10 days
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Shout out to ships whose canon relationships were sacrificed in order to give the hero a woman as a prize.
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Katara: "I knew you wouldn't understand."
She fucking knew that Aang wouldn't be on her side in The Southern Raiders. How telling is that one line? That not only does Aang not understand Katara, but she knows that he doesn't.
If we would have seen Katara's side of kataang we would have seen a very different story than, "durr water tribe girl purty."
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longing-for-rain · 22 days
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Look I know people love to act like Zuko is the most dangerous, toxic, and temperamental character… but there is exactly one (1) male character Katara was canonically responsible for calming down from violent, destructive tantrums at risk to herself and it wasn’t Zuko… 🐸☕️
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