personally, i ship maizutaraang. though, i'd say that it's more like maiko and kataang from the start, then it gets connected because of zukaang. so it's mai going "this is my boyfriend, this is my boyfriend's boyfriend, and this is my boyfriend's boyfriend's girlfriend". this is so much fun because you (non-specific you) can sprinkle post-canon ZK or add some fun rarepairs like mai + aang or mai + katara, doing it in the way it is the most fun for you, you see? i just wish people would have more fun with ships instead of fighting to the death about it.

Some people never heard of concepts like "Multi-shiping" or "not everything is for you" or "ship and let ship" and it fucking shows.

on twitter some kataang shippers said that zuko and katara have a sibling-like relationship (it was a dig towards zk shippers saying katara and aang have a mother/son dynamic) the zk shippers got annoyed about it, they can dish it but they can't take it huh 🤭

I don't even consider Zuko and Katara to be sibling-like with each other, aside from the fact that she clearly teases him the same way she does with Sokka, aka her actual brother, but that is HILARIOUS.

ZKs: We are so amazing at finding unique and beautiful symbolism, parallels, and metas for our ship. We are better at it than the ATLA writers! We understand the characters on a deeper level.

Also ZKs: Red and blue. Fire and water. Sun and moon. Dad and mom. Missing moms. Aang is an ugly r*pist. Katara needs to m*rder people and be yas queen girlboss firelady. Lather, rinse, repeat until the end of time.

Red and blue aren't even true color opposites. It's Red/Green and Blue/Orange.

Even ignoring the "true opposites" - Avatar is a show about the elements, and each one has a signature color, and red/blue imagery is EVERYWHERE, representing multiple things, and multiple dynamics between characters (See Aang and Zuko meeting the dragons, with the red one representing Aang while the blue one was for Zuko, even though red is usually representing the Fire Nation).

That kind of imagery has NEVER been exclusive to Zuko and Katara as characters, or even to their nations, and it has NEVER been exclusively about romance - hell, most of the time, it wasn't.

It's literally taking a cool aesthetic as "evidence/foreshadowing" and not realizing that with how vague it was, nearly every ship is supported by it. Zukaang (again, the dragons), Kataang (orange/yellow is the color the show picked for air, and obviously the water tribe is blue), Sokkla and Zukka both work for the sun/moon, fire/water thing, etc

For fuck's sake, I use the red/blue thing for my ZUCEST fics all the fucking time because the show itself went out of it's way to make it a thing to have these colors representing Zuko and AZULa - girl's name literally means blue.

Yet I get the feeling Zutarians wouldn't appreciate being told "See? The show is constantly hinting at Zucest, so you have to treat it as canon because there's red and blue everywhere in the series" - but for some reason, they expect me to take it seriously when they use it for their own ship, even though the 'argument' is just as weak. Funny how that works.

I don't think the kataang fandom is perfect/ has never harrased people all fandoms have bad apples but im getting annoyed with how much zutaras keep insisting that they were never the bad guys and were always jut the victims of the ship wars. that kataangs are nothing but big bullies who wont let em ship in peace. . when i myself was met with hostile aggression from their fandom as a aang and mai supporter zutarian they were ruthless ,angry, called anyone that didnt agree with em abuse supporters.. bryke D suckers. SExist ect. i just wish that they would be humble and admit that their fandom has lots of bad apples but no its always Kataangs bullied us.. we did nothing wrong and are the victims of the fandom. I'm tired.

Yup, them calling out when Kataang shippers are being dicks is one thing, and I'd even accept them doing it more often than they call out "one of their own" because duh, obviously the bad apples of the zutara fandom would not be hostile to them, so they could genuinely not know about some things.

But denying anyone "on their side" could EVER be bully? Pretending there isn't nearly two decades of evidence of Zutarians threatening and doxxing people and telling them to kill themselves? Acting like there's any truth to all the conspiracies and full on lies about Bryke, Ehasz and a "secretly planned Zutara endgame" just because said conspiracies and lies would put Zutara as the underdog and the writers that liked Kataang as cruel, unfair, downright abusive bosses? Acting like it isn't super hypocritical to imply Bryke are PEDOPHILES for "self-inserting as Aang to date Katara", but praising Dante Basco all the time for being a die-hard Zutara fan and understanding that him liking a ship doesn't mean he's attracted to actual children?

Not to mention the classic: screaming "But what about what THIS person did?" whenever someone calls out any bad apple in the Zutara fandom - like one cancels the other out.

Zutarians don't just deny their fandom has bad apples, they go out of their way to protect them from any criticism - and then wonder why the sane zutara shippers end up finding a safe place in blogs like mine, even though I constantly make my negative feelings on the ship very clear.

Decent people don't turn a blind eye to harassment just because they aren't the target of it, and the more the Zutara fandom tries to excuse the actions of bullies in their community, the more decent people will avoid said community like the plague, regardless of how they feel about the ship, which in turn keeps all the bullies and enablers off in their own little bubble because literally nobody else wants to interact with them.

no wait this is better

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

I lowkey stopped liking Mailee EXACTLY because of that.

I never understood why zutarians only reduce kataras character to being motherly. Especially in book 1 she is the most immature sometimes.

Again, it's a classic cope of shippers that don't like that their ship is not canon/the only option.

If they pretend Katara is everyone's mom, that puts a larger gap between her and Aang. If Katara is "the mom" then she does not need to go back to her tribe with her dad, even though that's clearly what she wants, because her role is "mother" not "literal child." If the Gaang only sees her as the mom/maid, then she is victimized/stiffled by them and empowered by Zuko who went "lets go murder a man."

Unfortunately for Zutarians, anyone who actually paid attention to the show knows that Katara might be motherly, but she's a goofy, stubborn child that has moments of immaturity. She's a kid that enjoys the company of all her friends, especially Aang (who was the first person to encourage her to learn waterbending and stood by her against Pakku) because they're PEERS, and she longs for the day the war will be over so she can go back home and be with everyone she loves and allowed to be a kid.

And that's why their metas and fanfics are wildly out of character - they're not truly interested in exploring how a romance between her and Zuko could fit into all that, and how it'd get into conflict with HIS own goals for his life, they just disregard everything about her characterization to put her in the role of a victim of everyone in her life EXCEPT Zuko and that her one chance of happiness would be by joining the nation that is single-handedly responsible for all the misery in her life, so she can live as Zuko's girlboss queen and help him rehabilitate an entire country through political intrigue, marriage alliances, war and what not.

They LOVE saying they ship zutara because "it's what's best for Katara" but their way of writing that pairing robs her of literally everything she wanted: her right to enjoy what's left of her childhood, her tribe and culture, her family, her friends - and the guy she absolutely ADORES. All for the sake of pairing her up with someone that ALSO found happiness in someone else already and would not benefit from Zutara either because Zuko's goals for his own life simply do not match Katara's at all.

Yesterday I saw a post that basically said that Avatar wasn’t a feminist show that has a bias towards Zuko and that no female villains get redeemed(?!?) 

And said that the show oversexualises Azula which like WHAT

This is not a Cuties situation the camera never accentuates cleavage or anything, if you just saw Azula showing more skin in the beach episode (because she’s at the fucking beach) and then immediately thought about sex that sounds like a you problem.

People really gotta learn what words mean - and that no show from nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO is gonna present social issues the same way modern series would. Avatar has two whole episodes in which the whole lesson is "Sexism is bad, don't mistreat women", and a ton of the female characters are absolutely badass and incredibly well-written. One or two questionable moments is not enough to make claim it is misogynistic.

A female villain not getting redeemed while a male character does is only sexist if her gender is presented as the reason why she can't be redeemed, or if they did all the same things but her actions are presented as worse - and while the ATLA fandom is often guilty of that last one (not always because of sexism, but also because of ableism), that doesn't mean the writting of the SHOW was sexist.

I say this as someone who loves Azula's character and wants a redemption arc for her: the show's ending is a tragic, but logical one. Not everyone changes. Not everyone wants to change, or even gets the chance to. It's sad, but it makes sense and there's nothing offensive about the finale (unlike the way Azula was treated in the comics, but once again the root of the problem there was "the mentally ill are inherently evil/beyond help so anything and everything done to them is justifiable").

"The show oversexualizes her" That one is bit more complex - but not THAT much.

Avatar is a show with lots of fanservice (see Zuko taking off his shirt causing birds to fly and fangirls to appear behind him squeeling), but all of it is stuff that was ALWAYS presented in a way that was 100% appropriate for children. More importantly, the show never tried to use the fanservice to compensate for poor writting or to make Azula an evil seductress (a trope that is not inherently sexist, but can become so if the writer isn't careful with it). Making Azula gorgeous in a scene, or letting Grey Delisle have some fun like the did during the confrontation Zuko and Azula had in The Awakening, is not the same as them reducing Azula from character to sex-object.

Once again, the fandom is far more guilty of the "Attractive means sexual and sex is evil" mentality than the show ever was. I lost count of how many people "theorize" that Azula is a "slut" who slept her way to the top and has even raped people (usually Zuko and Suki) even though the show made it clear she can't flirt to save her life, is so respected/feared because she's a great fighter/manipulator, and has literally never forced herself onto her brother and was obviously lying when implying she had done something Suki because THE SHOW ITSELF told us everything she was telling the Gaang on that scene was just an attempt to buy her father more time until the eclipse was over.

Some of the fans treat her as the typical "evil femme fatale that you can tell is evil because she sleeps around", but the show itself never did that.

Also a lot of what I sometimes see fans claim is "sexualization" is just mundane stuff. I lost count of how many times people were losing their shit because "WHY IS A FOURTEEN YEAR GIRL ALWAYS WEARING MAKE UP?"

Maybe because said fourteen year old is a perfectionist that can't even stand to have one hair out of place, so obviously she'd want her face looking perfect too? Or maybe she wants to look older not to "seduce" anyone but because she'd rather not risk not being taken seriously for being so young? And, crazy thought but bear with me here, maybe, just maybe... Azula likes make-up. Revolutionary concept, I know.

And it's not like the show ever got weird about it like the comics (seriously, girl is hallucinating in a straight-jacket and her hair is all messed up, but SOMEHOW she put on lipstic/the doctors did it for her????). She had a clean face when she was sleeping and when she was at the royal spa getting her hair done, and even at Chan's party her make-up is exactly the same she wears during the day. The "weirdest" place she wore it at was at the beach, and again considering it's Azula, who always wants to look perfect, I can see it.

Seriously guys, there's a difference between "TikTok is constantly telling women, teen girls and children they need to buy 37 different products that they gotta put on before anyone can *gasp* see their face" and "This cartoon had one of the characters constantly wearing make-up because that's a thing teenagers do sometimes + it helps the character be more memorable"

Your username gives me life and all of your takes are awesome thank you so much /gen

You're welcome and I appreciate the support.

What you say to this

Let's debunk all the lies:

1 - "Kataang is one-sided" We literally hear Katara talk about how he gives her hope in the begining of EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, she canonically starts thinking of him as potential boyfriend instead of just a friend right in the middle of the first season (and after it we never see her having a crush on another boy like say Jet), the kiss on the cave at the start of season two is HER idea and she clearly enjoyed it, she is visibly upset when he's pulling away from her after Appa's kidnaping, her rage at his death is a clear parallel both to Tui and La as well as Oma and Shu, she is jealous when he's paying attention to other girls and flirting with him, she clearly liked the kiss during the Invasion even if she didn't see it coming, she threated to murder Zuko if he ever hurt Aang again, and even in the Ember Island fiasco she full on says to Aang that what her actress said about her only seeing him as a little brother is not true.

2 - "The age/maturity gap makes it weird" It's literally the same age gap as Zutara. It's TWO years, not twenty. Katara likes having fun and goofing around just as much as Aang does. Aang steps up and embraces his responsibilities just as much as she does when he discovers what the Fire Nation did to the world, and his people. Honestly, despite being older, Zuko is the least mature of all three - hell, 16-year-old Zuko is less mature than 13-year-old Zuko, which makes perfect sense because his abuse and banishment made him double down on all of his flaws, mainly his stubborness and tendency to lash out in rage.

3 - "They spent the second half of book 3 always fighting and disagreeing" They literally were only in conflict during The Southern Raiders, Ember Island Players, and then on the first episode of a four-part saga. Three episodes out TEN. Katara and Zuko meanwhile spent 5/6 of the entire series being enemies, AND she only forgave him when there was only ONE more episode left until the finale.

4 - "Zutara doesn't have any real red flags" Ya know, besides the fact that Zuko's nation and family commited genocide against Katara's people, and that he believed that was 100% okay, and that he chased her and her friends all over the world being openly hostile and violent, and he once hit her so hard it knocked her out cold, and he constantly calls her a peasant because he's very classist AND racist to the point of not recognizing her father's authority/status, and he attacked her when she offered to heal his uncle and then again in Ba Sing Se after she thought they had bonded, him helping Azula in battle was why she got to murder Katara's best friend and then he also sent an assasin after the Gaang to finish/repeat the job, and after all that he still felt entitled to her forgiveness after he was accepted into the group. Once again: this is why no one takes zutarians seriously. They love bragging about their ship being "complex and intriguing" then try to completely negate canon because for all their talk about "calling out abuse in Kataang/Maiko", they are, at their core, enablers.

5 - "Zutara was part of Ehasz's vision for book 4" No, it wasn't, and the man said so himself. He liked Mai and Maiko, and wrote lots of Kataang episodes. He has repeatedly let everyone know that the supposed interview in which he talks about how Bryke forced Kataang to happen at the last minute is FAKE.

6 - "We didn't get book 4 because Bryke wanted a movie" Bryke didn't really WANT the Shyamalan movie, but Nickelodeon, their bosses, wanted money. They literally walked out on the production because they were unhappy with it. They were OFFERED to make season four, but didn't feel it was necessary and stuck to three - and while I don't think that was the best choice, it still worked and it was a decision fully divorced from any movie deal or ship war.

7 - "People get angry at mention of zutara despite there being nothing wrong with the ship itself (besides not being canon)" Literally no one is obligated to like a ship just because YOU think it's perfect, and that kind of entitlement, the "I'm better/smarter than everyone else" complex, combined with all the lies, is exactly why people tend to hate the SHIPPERS and by extension the ship itself.

Admiting that zutara has always been pure fanon and that it isn't for everyone doesn't mean you have to stop liking it. Quit acting like a spoiled child, go enjoy your ship in peace, and respect other people's right to be indifferent to it or actively disliking it. Their personal preference is not a personal attack against you, stop treating it as such.

Went on a toxic Zvtara shipper blocking spree and I have never felt freer.

On a completely unrelated note, thanks for running the blog so we can all complain and laugh about just how delusional some people are.

Always glad to provide a safe-space for people who are sick Zutarians, and for sane zutara fans.

person i got the image from did a great takedown but i’d like to hear your thoughts. apologies for the long link.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/311f7b4b715f10b0348b193a4052d2d7/d15b73343c42378a-bb/s1280x1920/0275e731e2a174150f41ca47438558bf3dad1684.jpg

"Violent tantrums" what an odd way of saying "emotional breakdown due to intense grief, and that Katara is upset by not because she feelts threatened but because SEEING HER BEST FRIEND IN SUCH RAGE AND PAIN HURTS HER"

And yeah, Katara never reached out to comfort/soothe Zuko when he was in battle mode - because he was an enemy. One that was constantly attacking her, and not because of a fit of rage (even though he was prone to such behavior) but because he was supporting the systematic oppression and murder of anyone that wasn't on his side because that's how he was raised.

Of course Katara didn't try to calm him down, because Zuko was not acting out of anger but out of RACISM and INDOCTRINATION. She didn't try to reason with him because Zuko simply could not be reasoned with, at least not by a conversation with someone he saw as inherently inferior. There's a reason his arc had him being banished, then becoming a wanted fugitive, and finally a refugee in Ba Sing Se - if he had never been forced to truly experience the damage his nation was causing he would have never realized it was wrong.

It doesn't matter how much zutarians try to lie about it, only one of those two characters ever knowingly, deliberately put Katara in harms way, only of them was TRYING to be a threat, to intimidate her into obeying him, and it wasn't Aang.

If they want to ship Zutara, they need to either deal with the fact that it started out as two people being enemies because one of them literally couldn't understand that other races are not lesser people, or they make a modern AU in which there was no war so that element can be dropped. Trying to pretend Zutara was not rooted in violence and intimidation (at least at the start) but freaking Kataang was is ridiculous, pathetic, and proves that for all their talk about "liking a more complext dynamic" is nonsense because they're TERRIFIED of engaging with the one narrative element that would actually make their ship complex.

They want the "hate turns to love" aspect without going into WHY that hatred existed, because it wouldn't be the typical "both sides had something to learn", but rather "one side was actively racist and thus hostile, and the other was just reacting to it." They want to praise Zuko for learning from his mistakes, but they insist on sweeping said mistakes under the rug. They want to put him in the role of Katara's hero and hope for a better life, when he actually spent 5/6 of the show being the bad guy ruining her life, putting her and her loved ones in danger.

This is why the fanon dynamic of Zutara is racist and even misogynistic, while the canon one isn't, even though both involve Katara forgiving Zuko and growing to care for him: the show was interested in using Zuko's warped world-view to deconstruct it and make him change for the better, but the zutara fandom at large only seems interested in making up excuses for him, and thus robbing both Zuko and Katara of their complexities, as Zuko's growth is negated and Katara's righteous anger is not allowed to exist.

Zuko and Katara's canon friendship is about a bad person being forgiven when they realized they made a mistake and genuinely changing into someone worth admiring. Zutara's fanon romance is about a bunch of enablers pretending Zuko wasn't ever racist, hostile, and violent towards Katara.

Why is Azula fandom so uncomfortable with idea of Azula being bisexual or heterosexual?

(Disclaimer: I am literally a bisexual woman, so if anyone complains I'm being "homophobic", I'm gonna punch them)

For a few reasons:

1 - The Avatar fandom in general has the bad habit of thinking their personal preferences are not just the only valid fanon content, they are the only valid interpretations of canon even when actively contradicting it. To the ones that already decided, for whatever reason, that Azula is a lesbian and is dating Ty Lee, Katara or whoever, pointing out that other people are allowed to disagree with that headcanon, and that there's zero chance Nickelodeon was genuinely hinting at a non-straight character existing in a kids show in 2005, is the same as saying they're not allowed to like that headcanon/ship anymore.

2 - Some lesbians relate to Azula to the point of hardcore projecting onto her, so they take someone pointing that she only ever canonically shows interest in boys makes them feel like their sexuality is being questioned. Because some of these people are also VERY biphobic, they also tend to get mad when "Bisexual Azula" is presented as her actually being bisexual instead of just having her prefer women and have a lot disdain for men/only having bad experiences in relationships with guys and thus only dating girls.

3 - Some people think that insisting an obviously straight fictional character is actually gay is the same as fighting for gay rights in real life.

4 - Radfems/TERFs unfortunatelly exist and their whole thing is "Women are inherently good while men are inherently evil, all on the base of gender", so they latched onto the tragic female villain that is messed up in the head because of her abusive father and decided to project their bullshit onto her to make her their "lesbian radical feminist icon" even though Azula's life canonically revolves around Ozai and ocasionally Zuko because, even though she loves her two female friends, she loves her male relatives A LOT more.

5 - Not everyone is as chill with incest ships as I am, and, like I said, the only two characters that are not related to Azula and that she actually has a meaningful relationship with are her two female friends, so they're the only logical shipping options, so Azula HAS to be into women for that to work.

6 - Her attempts of flirting with Chan were so bad and he is cringe himself, so some people thought she HAD to be a lesbian trying and failing to hide her true sexuality to screw up that badly AND go for a guy no girl in her right mind would like, but I can assure you: sometimes girls just have awful taste in men AND are social disasters.

sokkastyles along with thebadgermole/friends is the worst of the zut fandom i wouldnt take anything they say seriously ever trying to argue with them is like talking to a wall and the wall would make more sense

"And the wall would make more sense" perfect XD

I've got a good aang take for you;

https://www.tumblr.com/juju-or-anya/744607288172625920/i-ship-zutara-and-i-dont-believe-aang-is-the?source=share

Eh, this is only good to some extent. There's still quite a significant portion of "Zutara Alternate Reality" nonsense.

For starters: Katara's suffering of having to grow up to fast and take on the role of "mom" before she was ready literally only happened BECAUSE of the Fire Nation. Saying she could ever find freedom from oppression by marrying into said nation - one that has way more evidence of sexism than the air-nomads AND Southern Water Tribe, on top of all the freaking racism and literal genocide - is absurd. Just because marrying the Fire Lord would mean living in a palace and having access to luxury, it does NOT mean Katara would feel empowered, respected, and like she's home.

I also completely reject this idea that Aang tried to force her into being anything other than what she actually was and "doesn't get" that she is a fighter and warrior. That boy literally offered to go to the North Pole so SHE could learn to fight. Aang didn't want her to murder Yon Rah because, unlike Zuko, he knew and understood Katara already. She is not a murderer, she does not believe in an eye for an eye - that's why the episode ends with Katara realizing that. Why she didn't go for the kill despite not choosing forgiveness either.

Just because he thought of the girl he repeatedly flirted with and kissed twice as being "his girl", in the sense of "romantically involved with him", it does NOT mean he thought of her as property. A poorly timed kiss that he clearly regreted the second he realized it upset her proves that. Hell, the fact that he ASKED her to tell him how she felt already proves that. A 12-year-old being confused at the notion of "No, I don't think of you as a little brother and I do have feelings for you, but I don't know if I want to date" is not the same as him feeling like he's OWED a relationship with her, or sees her just as a potential girlfriend instead of a person he cares about regardless of that.

And for real, can we stop pretending sexism was ever that relevant in the story? The only two sexist characters in the show were Sokka and Pakku, and both were very short arcs. Katara lost her childhood because of the war Zuko's family imposed on the world, and that he was supporting for a long time. She regained her freedom and joy when she met Aang, because he helped empower her through their journey all over the world AND gave her the chance to be a kid again.

Katara's hope for, and key to, a better life has ALWAYS been Aang - that's why she reminds us of her unwavering faith in him AT THE START OF EVERY SINGLE EPISODE.

Bruh, I just recently found out that all the people I’ve been seeing say that “Zutara was originally supposed to be endgame” were lying, and like, how!?!?

How is that lie so widespread?!?

Literally I’ve believed that for SO LONG, and I never even shipped Zutara

Same thing with Izumi’s mom being a MysTÉ™rY 

WHY DOES THIS FANDOM KEEP GASLIGHTING ME?!?

Simple: because some people cannot understand that they're allowed to like a ship that has never been and never will be canon. They think that if they convince everyone that there was supposed to be a zutara endgame originally, eventually SOMEONE will decide to just make Zutara happen in some sequel or reboot/remake.

One episode of ATLA that ZKs only watched bits of is The Headband. They go on about the scene where Katara and Sokka pretend to be Aang's parents proving that Katara feels motherly towards Aang. However, continuing on those lines the argument should then go onto Sokka feeling fatherly towards Aang then ending up in Katara Sokka incest.

Also the scene they definitely didn't watch is Aang and Katara's dance at the end. Katara was jealous before the dance and if that dance was Katara feeling motherly that will be the second time ZKs end up implying incest with their argument because that dance was one of the more romantic scenes in the whole show.

Not to mention the ZKs did not watch any of the Maiko scenes in the episode.

At this point, I'd be surprised to find out zutara shipers watched literally ANY episode of the show.

I will never understand the notion that Zuko was the only one to support to Katara or that Zuko supported Katara more than Aang. Like that’s objectively false.

As someone who likes lots of hero X villain ships, and plenty of Good Girl X Bad Guy ships in particular, let me explain: it's just a popular cope/lie to justify hating on the good guy that is either part of a love triangle, and thus the bad guy's rival, or the only real love interest for the girl in cases of "fanon love triangles" like the Kataang VS Zutara one.

Lots of people who like that kind of dynamic, or simply rooting for the bad guy, are, for some reason, uncomfortable with the fact that these dynamics can get (and sometimes forever remain) messy, toxic, unhealthy or downright abusive, and that the bad guy is, in fact, bad and will do evil things to harm the hero, even if they are canonically in love (and again, the romance sometimes isn't even canon to begin with).

So they try to fix that "problem" by pretending the "evil love interest" was the only one that actually cared, and either never did anything to genuinely harm the romantic lead or did so much good stuff that it balances it out.

Meanwhile the "morally correct/default choice" is always demonized and talked about as a character that is not only boring, but also secretly selfish, controling, uncaring and/or abusive, yet the writers refuse to acknowledge is not the saint they claim he is. That is done solely to make the "bad guy" look better in comparison. Only twice in my life have I ever seen the "good guy" in the love triangle genuinely be as bad as the fandom says they are - Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother and Riley Finn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Pretty much every other time I've seen fans use that argument? It was total bullshit.

That's literally all there is to the nonsense 'argument' of "Zuko cared about Katara even when he was still a bad guy, but Aang acted worse than he ever did all while being the hero the show never calls out." It's disregarding canon almost completely and creating an alternative version of the story that goes out of it's way to glorify Zuko's every action, while demonizing Aang, solely for the sake of saying "Therefore Zutara should have been canon and endgame instead of Kataang."

That's why they talk about nonsense like "Zuko was the only one to ever help Katara with chores during camp, while Aang expected her to be do everything by herself just because she's a girl." It never happened, but if it had it'd make Zutara look better than Kataang, so they just convince themselves that's what happened and repeat it to everyone else.

You'll never understand the logic in these arguments because there is none to be found in the first place, and you can't reason with these people because they simply don't care what happened in the show. They only care about their version of Avatar. The "Zuko" and "Aang" they describe in their fics, metas and headcanons are completely separate from the actual Zuko and Aang.