You can definitely tell that Katara is indigenous,that Aang is of a lesser known type of asian descent(tibetan)and that Zuko is east asian.Because the fandom constantly adultifies and sexualizes Katara despite her being 14 and makes fun of her for taking her trauma seriously,calls Aang ugly,erases his positive traits to make him look like a regressive bigot and minimizes the fact that he's a direct victim of race based violence and infantalize Zuko to pretend he dosen't have flaws due to wanting to date him,make him 'the braincell' to an objectively smarter darker skinned character(Sokka)and calls his country feminist even though they're literally colonizers.Sounds about white

It’s just interesting to observe the differences in how people treat Zukka vs how they treat Zutara. Because I searched Zutara on TikTok to look for some edits and the comments were filled to the brim with people saying “But Katara belonged with Aang 🥺” or “How can you ship Zuko with her after Mai said such a romantic line?” Or perhaps the most insufferable of all “Maturing is realizing that Zuko would’ve thrown himself in from of lightning for ANYONE” as if that’s some revolutionary reading of the text. It’s so irritating how this kind of behaviour is…accepted by the fandom.

But you don’t get that with Zukka, instead you see people gushing over how sweet they are together, hailing it as a wholesome and unproblematic ship, praising artworks of it with positivity and appreciation. It’s difficult to find much negativity under Zukka posts, you won’t see people saying “But Sokka belongs with Suki 🥺” or boldly going on a tangent about how another ship is SO much better. I saw one person praise Zukka as the most unproblematic ATLA ship because of how little conflict there was about it, that you wouldn’t see the same hostility among that fandom as you might with Zutara.

But there’s a reason for that which has less to do with Zutara shippers themselves, and more to do with the harassment and hostility they face on all sides of the fandom. Fans will go out of their way to antagonize Zutara shippers, they’ll feel brazen enough to leave backhanded or outright hostile comments under Zutara posts and art, they’ll interject their shipping opinions in spaces where nobody asked and condescend Zutara shippers by framing them as shallow or delusional for shipping it.

I think Zukka is admittedly cute, and they definitely have their haters, but the difference between it and Zutara is astounding. It’s incredibly frustrating to watch this phenomenon play out, especially when these shippers carry themselves with a kind of false moral superiority that can only be found in shipping discourse.

I can't remember where I saw this but there was this post I saw a while ago about how if zutarians "really wanted to engage in media analysis they would ship zvkaang" and I just... Ugh.

For one, the age difference is gross to me, especially considering a lot of anti-kat@ang zutara arguments center around the fact that Aang was not mature enough to be in a relationship based on the way he treated Katara, and pointing out that Katara is considerably more emotionally mature than Aang throughout the series. Shipping Aang and Zuko, who remember are canonically twelve and sixteen throughout the series, may be okay for a lot of chronic anime fans (from my understanding anime has huge age gaps like that all the time) but a large age gap is basically the first thing that puts me off of a ship. It's the same thing with ships like tokk@ and zvtoph and sokk@ang. A two year age difference is fine for high schoolers, but four years is really, really pushing it, especially when you consider that Aang would be fourteen when Zuko is eighteen.

And if that weren't disqualifying enough, whereas zutara has a truly incredible amount of romantic coding from the music used in certain scenes to small gestures such as them reaching for each other in the final agni kai and Katara's thumb on Zuko's lips in the crystal caves scene to the "she's not my girlfriend!", a common romantic trope being used several times between them, zvkaang has no romantic coding. They honestly remind me of that "platonic tension" textpost that was making the rounds a while ago. That being said, I do understand that "chemistry" and "romantic coding" are fairly relative concepts, but it definitely isn't heteronormativity that makes people see zutara instead of zvkaang as romantic (and although I also ship zvkka to a lesser extent the same can kind of be said there).

Anyway, with a weird age difference and zero romantic coding, that, in my opinion, kind of derails the ship, but its also worth mentioning that the original post's only argument seemed to be that just because Zuko and Aang are narrative foils, it makes sense that they should be romantically involved, which frankly, isn't a very good argument, especially when you consider that Zuko and Azula are also narrative foils and siblings. Narrative foils come in many forms, and come to think of it, I don't think I ship narrative foils from any show I've ever watched. The parallels between zutara often specifically highlight how they might suit each other romantically, and fit with the show's themes of balance.

This is just my opinion, and certainly not meant as a callout for any zvkaang shippers, especially those who are zutara and zvkaang shippers, I just felt it necessary to debunk the idea that if zutarians actually cared about literary analysis, they would ship zvkaang. It's just another half-assed, poorly thought out way to delegitimize zutara shippers and pretend that the ship has no canon basis, while in reality, anyone with an objective eye for media analysis can see that zutara is by no means a ship to be ignored.

i think it’s funny that the same people who are lamenting the removal of sokka’s misogyny are the some ones who take away his complexity and completely mischaracterize him just to fit their one-sided shipping

I saw one of ur posts saying how firebender!katara was racist. I’m just kinda curious and I don’t really understand but how?

Basically it's racist because the firebenders were imperialist who terrorized, colonized, and committed genocide against the water tribe and the rest of the world. So making Katara a firebender, or, worse yet, Fire Lady(through marriage to Zuko ofc 🤮) is stripping of her beautiful water tribe culture and making her a part of the culture that tried to wipe out hers. This is the same reason I'm against shipping Katara or Sokka with Zuko or Azula.

The same also applies to making Sokka a firebender, like doesn't it just make sense for him to be a waterbender if he was a bender? Why strip him of his culture in favor of the one that literally oppressed his own and that considers him a "filthy peasant"?

Hope this helps!

Hey, sorry you've been getting hate from KAs--been there done that and honestly all I've learned about ATLA fandom in the past couple of years has been that people here really like to stop other people from having opinions. Anyone should be allowed to salt on ships and love ships unapologetically as long as they tag correctly which you've been doing!! And anyone who's truly still trying to deny that there's any merit to ZK in the year 2022 really needs to go outside lol, a ship not being made canon by a bunch of white men in 2008 doesn't mean that all other interpretations of it are incorrect --like who put Bryke in charge of determining what relationships are the best to be put on-screen? Ah I'm rambling but really haters gonna hate and if they're gonna complain about ZK fans constantly talking about how great ZK is? Then just block the zutara tag and let us have it, K@taangs have their supposedly incredible canon so idk why they feel so threatened by ZK anyway. Aha yeah this got away from me but go you, love what you want unapologetically, and block the antis because they will never stop RIP <3 love to you!

i 100% agree! like its really not that personal lol. it's strange how angry they get about what are valid criticisms that they can so easily avoid. i don't think i will ever be able to get past the horrific ember island kiss bc its just so hard to watch and it feel violating.

and absolutely. you recognize the hype for a ship and still not ship it yourself. i can totally understand ships like zukka, but zutara just hits right for me. it's literally ridiculous that they try to argue that there was nothing there at all despite the fact that some of the ship drama was literally created on purpose.

also thank you so much for your support! it means the world to me :)

don't worry the antis tho, they've been blocked, although more are sure to surface, but it's so much easier to deal with with knowing that there are so many kind and wonderful zutara shippers out there <3

I love being multifandom because this week I have read so much fic as follows:

-binged season ten fics from hermitcraft

-rediscovered sk8 the infinity fandom and went through all of my old favorite fics

-nostalgically binged every single plantform and drhair76 tommyinnit fics because sad

-A few zukka fics to remember love is real

-and currently binging a 200k word mha fic because they’re the best at salt and revenge plots and i need that rn

5 and 14 for the salt!

5/Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you? Zukka is the first one that comes to mind. On paper there is nothing wrong with it, and they are both characters i enjoy and like their interaction in the show.

But some of the fans are so obnoxious about it, acting like their ship is one of them that makes the most sense in the show, also have god awful takes (mostly around Katara) and most of the content is so OOC/boring, for me to get invested.

14/ already answered

idc what you ship. idc what fandom you're in

the minute you start calling other ppl who ship differently than you animals and experiments and pieces of trash is the minute you lose all of your decency, respect, and credibility

no, the zutara fandom does not have 3k+ notes on a meme bashing other ppl's ships because, for the most part, we don't bash ships! for the most part, we're respectful! for the most part, we simply mind our own business!

if you're going to victimize yourself, at least make sure you're actually the victim (or else, you're making yourself look dumb as hell)

if you're straight up telling ppl to k*ll themselves and hoping that they'll get doxxed, you're just a horrible human being. idc what you ship, what you orientation/identity is, what race you are, what fandom you're in

wishing physical, bodily harm on another human being because they have a different ship than you is wrong. calling them animals is wrong. sending them death threats on anon is wrong. bullying minors and stealing their work to make fun of them is wrong. being a terrible person and a bully toward others is wrong. gaslighting the people you're hurting for the fun of it is wrong

i'd say to grow up, but there are minors who are acting more mature than certain bullies within the atla fandom right now, and that would be an insult to them and their maturity

it's not that difficult to stay in your own lane. mind your own business and leave people alone

Katara hated Zuko. It was a plot point. Sokka never did--and their "friendship" in the show was close to becoming something more--so they were on equal footing and had hinted romance. Zutara is misogynistic--why are you forcing Katara into a relationship with someone she hates? Choose Toph or Suki if you really believe Zuko isn't gay.

there’s so much to unpack here, and i know i should really throw out the whole suitcase, but i just can’t help myself

and please, i beg of you, picture someone laughing so hard that tears are streaming down their face because that’s me right now, reading this ask. i about choked on my eggnog, so thanks for that!

point the first: sokka hated zuko every bit as much as katara did in the first two books. it was a plot point. sokka wanted to leave zuko to die because saving him wouldn’t have been worth the trouble--he was pragmatic and deeply distrustful of anyone who wasn’t in his immediate circle, and that went especially hard for anyone from the fire nation. including the birds!

point the first part two: sokka’s easy acceptance of zuko into the gaang had less to do with any budding friendship or caring for him (since there was none to speak of until the boiling rock episodes), and more to do with a lack of any personal grudge. aka: there was no tension there. nothing to really dig into--no true development of feelings. because aang needed a firebending teacher, zuko was around and willing to take on that role, and also he was a prime roasting target, so sokka was happy enough to let bygones be after he helped them take down combustion man.

which, of course, isn’t to say shipping them isn’t valid. there are plenty of ships that have little to no canon basis but a lot of fandom support, and that’s usually fine....until the fans start getting uppity about it and insisting that there Is Canon Basis Really, and then insisting that the ‘rival’ ship is misogynistic when their alleged ‘canon basis’ requires stripping everything meaningful from the girl’s relationship to the boy and giving it to her brother instead. which is exactly what you’re doing here, but i digress.

point the second: how on earth was sokka and zuko’s ‘friendship’ in the show (and why the scare quotes? were they not actually friends? are you really sitting in my inbox right now devaluing their platonic relationship because you don’t think it exists outside of your belief that they really wanted to fuck the whole time, despite sokka being in a happy relationship with someone else?) ‘close to becoming something more’? when did they ever have a single, solitary conversation that hinted at any ‘deeper’ feelings? sokka spent most of their buddy cop adventure to boiling rock mooning over his girlfriend (heh, get it? mooning? because he- oh, you get the point), to the point where he had literal hearteyes the instant he saw her--and zuko’s purpose there wasn’t to deepen his relationship with sokka so much as it was to reunite sokka and katara with their father, and to see an example of what a healthy paternal relationship actually looks like.

(one of my favorite shots in the show is zuko’s soft smile when sokka and katara are hugging hakoda)

so already your claim that they ‘had hinted romance’ falls incredibly flat, because there was absolutely nothing in the show that was ‘hinting’ they had romantic feelings for one another--in universe or out of it. sokka was happily in love with suki, and even the one scene that i can imagine might make shippers scream--when zuko popped into sokka’s tent late at night--sokka was about to have sex with his girlfriend, and when he asked zuko ‘what’s on your mind’, the first words out of his mouth were your sister.

(and then, as soon as zuko left, sokka was calling for suki again. the next morning, he was making a flower necklace--or a lei. because he got lei’d. it’s amazing the things you pick up when you rewatch the show as an adult lmfao.)

point the third (and this one is really where your argument blows up in your face): your insistence that zutara requires ‘forcing katara into a relationship with someone she hates’ reveals your own ignorance, because it’s demonstrably not true--unless you’re trying to argue that katara hated zuko all the way through to the end of the show, which??? i suppose makes it make more sense that you think zuko and sokka had a hinted romance in the text, because viewing comprehension clearly isn’t your strongsuit.

why are yall so quick to dismiss katara’s own feelings in the name of calling a fictional, noncanon ship ‘misogynistic’? because katara said, in the text, ‘but I am ready to forgive you’--and then she hugged zuko, called him into a group hug with the gaang later, joked (and even flirted) with him on ember island, helped talk him through his anxiety about facing his uncle, and happily agreed to go with him to face his sister, where she saved his life after watching him take a literal bolt of lightning to save hers.

if any of that had happened with sokka, yall would be calling it demonstrable evidence that zuko and sokka are in love. and yet when we use that canonical buildup and the deep bond of friendship and trust zuko and katara have by the end of the series to imagine them getting into a romantic relationship because of feelings developed during these events......you call us misogynistic? really? because we’re ‘forcing’ her into a relationship with someone she ‘hates’....except she didn’t hate him by the end of the series, they were very close friends and had gotten over and had closure from their personal baggage, and that’s the kind of stuff that provides excellent fuel for envisioning a romantic relationship developing!

so what was your argument again?

ETA: i was so busy deconstructing the bulk of your argument that i forgot to address that laughable last line--toph or suki? who had much, MUCH less relationship development with zuko than katara did?? ‘if you really believe zuko isn’t gay’???? im sorry that you can’t recognize a whole bisexual when you see one, but as a bi myself, i know that zuko’s dual-wielding ass couldn’t ‘pick a side’ if his life depended on it. and he had more romantic coding with both jet and katara than he ever had with sokka--that’s just a fact. sorry if the truth hurts, anon!

i have a twin. i’m left handed, he’s right handed. i’m a girl, he’s, obviously, a boy. we have some things in common (we like to dance, watch funny videos, movies, etc, we watch anime). but that does not mean we are the same.

i am not my brother and he is not me. we have vastly different interests and vastly different ways of thinking. we are not interchangeable. he’s not going to have my passionate personality because he’s my brother. i’m not going to be laidback because i’m his sister. we grew up the same way but we are two different people.

the fact that people would justify imposing katara’s traits on sokka by saying they grew up together is weird as hell. it’s like saying that me and my brother are the same because we’re twins.

when people impose katara’s traits on sokka, it raises two questions: why do you want sokka to have katara’s traits if you think she’s a horrible person? and why do you think that sokka’s canon personality isn’t compatible with zuko’s?

it seems like zutara shippers are the only ones who have a problem with this and when we call it out, we’re racist or homophobic which makes no sense seeing as a lot of the anti katara rhetoric is deeply rooted in racism but obviously y’all do not care about her because she gets in the way of your ship.

Yeah, again I am not sure why people say Lukanette is "just like Zvtara ZOMG!" Because I used to ship Zvtara (forgive me for my sins!) and there were fanfictions where everyone freaking advocates for Zuko and Katara together without the consideration of "hey! Cheating is wrong!"

Kind of reminds me of how all the characters of M*raculous have been done dirty and are just mindless Adrie///nette advocates. I miss when M*raculous was fun in the first 3 seasons.

And yeah...ZK shippers get defensive when there aren't enough stories of former ZK shippers. Yes, I left the fandom and it was the best decision of my life. The ZK fanbase is truly a bitter-ass salt mine.

I mean non-canon shipping is fun and I used to not mind Zvtara but now I just can't look at the fanart because it all looks OOC. Maiko fanart is much better and so beautiful and so far all Maiko fanart I have found is 100% in character Zuko. The actual character that is close to my heart...Not the fan character ZK shippers projected onto Zuko.

Oh, last thing...Non-canon shipping is cool. There are plenty of cool non-canon ships in ATLA. I have suddenly considered Katara/Yue (I know they would make the best sisters-in-law just like Marinette and Juleka but...Consider! Also reminds me how I am a Jule/Mari shipper.) I am just 100% done with Zvtara and happy Zukka dethroned Zvtara.

Yeah i also shipped Z/K so you're good😭And i 100% agree with everything else!!So true bestie <3333

It’s a bit of a self-own to express pride that the Zukka shipping base doesn’t produce many essays or meta analysis on the ship. That kind of content and engagement with the text is arguably one of the best things a fandom can do when it comes to shipping. Of course, not everything has to include in-depth analysis because sometimes you just want to ship something based on vibes and a dynamic you like. But…it is kinda odd to see this be touted as some amazing quality to the Zukka crowd (particularly when it’s a not-so-subtle dig at Zutara shippers).

To me, it reads as them trying to prove themselves as “humble” shippers by constantly trying to prove how unseriously they take it. But like…you can take it seriously? I don’t ship Zukka, but I see the appeal and can understand why that dynamic appeals to people, so it puzzles me that a bunch of Zukka shippers pride themselves on this front. Maybe they should consider channeling their energy into writing metas instead of constantly trying to prove that they’re above Zutara shippers lol

I apologize if I could find this elsewhere but what did c*mradekatara do? Why are they homophobic? I follow them but am unaware of problematic behaviour. I ask because I would like to follow you, thank u in adv

comradekatara is not homophobic as far as i know (their previous url was lesbians4sokka, so unless they have some internalized homophobia going on, I very much doubt it [then again they did tear down Katara in favor of Z.ukka so. no thanks]), they were the ones who spearheaded/made the ‘homophobic Katara’ headcanon very popular, especially in Zu.kka shipping circles (especially the new wave of shippers, just...sigh)

Now, i wouldn’t have a problem if they (I believe the account is run by two people) apologized, but rather than apologizing, they said ‘oh, we didn’t mean for it to get popular!’ and then continued to perpetuate the headcanon (and it’s not going to surprise me if you told me comradekatara were run by grown women. i don’t like making sweeping generalizations, but the z.ukka fandom has a big problem with their adults not taking responsibility for anything). visibilityofcolor has talked about how harmful the ‘homophobic katara’ meme is to WoC (and dark skinned WoC/indigenous girls and women in particular), while firelxdykatara has talked about how the ‘homophobic Katara’ meme is very much not in character in-universe or even makes sense. 

anyways, as a Katara stan who hates the injection of homophobia in an Asian-Inuit based world where people move elements, I hated this headcanon when it started getting popular (that’s how I saw it, I didn’t even know they existed until homophobic katara started popping up all over my dash) and I saw it particularly among the new wave of Z.ukka shippers.  

also the comics are trash but there is a standalone comic where Book 2 Gaang meets a girl who has two dads and Katara is nothing but supportive and is even happy for the couple. so, like some garbage headcanons, i’m very glad that it’s partially canon that Katara is a supportive person (like she always is, someone please get her a chiropractor because she carried this entire show and her team)

anyways, no need to apologize about it, some of these things might not be known because comradekatara got popular at the start of the pandemic/in the summer (idk the exact time, but it was about a year ago)

i think zutara stans are so salty about zukka because there’s a chance (however small it may be) that zukka could ever be canon. they’re really mad that katara lived a full happy life with the love of her life and got married and had kids with someone who isn’t zuko. 

z/ukkas stealing the much loved “ambassador katara” trope from the zk fandom, replacing her with sokka and then claiming that WE, in fact, copied THEM is my villain origin story…