#zutara fandom salt

[blinday]

For the last time, Zutarians, DONT. BASH. AZULA. PUT IT DOWN! WOH! PUT. IT. DOWN.

yes... Good baby. Now, remeber what I've told ya: "Katara is the most compassionate person in the gang, therefore she would not hate or judge Azula".

'Kay?

And no, we do not need to hate Aang to like Zutara. Ok? Ok??? That's why our reputation is tainted! And Mai is NOT a hateful villain ok?????

Repeat with me:

"We shall not despise a character just because it's between my ship". Fair?

Okay. Bye.

#anti zutara #but not really #zutara #zuko #katara #azula #azula deserves better #katara deserves better #zutara fandom salt #Mai #Aang #anti Aang bashing #Most of his flaws are Bryke's incompetence in writing #and Mai is just underdeveloped #anti Mai bashing

[atla-fandom-confessions]

Some of these anti-Zutara takes reek of sexism and internalized misogyny. The claim that it's a self-insert is so incredibly sexist and Zutara is a ship that women resonate with primarily, which is why it's so heavily attacked outside the "deep cut" part of the fandom. White washing is a serious issue, but belittling women, including women of color, for their writing and creativity being nothing more than "traumatic relationships" and "kinks" is deeply misogynistic. It shows no deep understanding of what most ZK shippers enjoy about Zutara, which is the two characters' relationship and friendship in the series itself and a desire to see that fleshed out further and blossom into romance. I'm tired of this misrepresentation in such a bizarre and misogynistic way from pick me girls who don't realize their internalized misogyny seeping through these criticisms for their nOTP to incel-like Aang stans on Facebook groups and Reddit forms.

i think it's important to make a distinction between complaints about the ship itself being self insert and fan content being self insert. calling the entire ship self insert implies that katara is a bland character who is underdeveloped enough for fans to easily project on her, when that is absolutely not the case. but fan content often erases her complexity and distinct character traits in order to make self inserting possible. personally as a woc i identified a lot with katara and the zutara relationship resonated with me at first. still does, but fan content not at all for reasons i'll get into

when i personally talk about 'self insert' (and i'm guessing some of these anons feel similar) i'm referring to fan created content which completely strips katara of her character, often in a whitewashed way, and treat her as a bland, white-bread protagonist from a bad romance novel. that is absolutely self inserting if you're changing a character so drastically that they are unrecognizable, just so that you can imagine you're her. like besties, no shame in x reader shit. there is plenty of zuko x reader out there. just be honest with yourselves and go for that if that's what you want, bc when i look for zutara fic i want to read about zuko and *katara* not zuko and *you*

and given the nature of some of these self insert stories that are zuko and katara in name only, i don't think it's unreasonable at all to observe that these people are projecting their own terrible relationships onto the characters

and to reiterate: i do not think all zutara fans are like this, and i do not think the relationship is inherently toxic in any way. i'm just expressing that i see this bastardization of the characters enough (and people defending it) that it has made me want nothing more to do with the ship and especially not the fans

#katara deserves better #atla #atla fandom confessions #ship discourse #anti zutara #zutara fandom salt

[sad-endings-suck]

some of you are too angry at fictional children

#and it shows #like bffr #go touch grass #atla fandom critical #avatar: the last airbender #atla #atla meta #aang #katara #zuko #avatar the last airbender #zutara #avatar aang #atla aang #atla katara #atla zuko #prince zuko #fire lord zuko #master katara #atla meme #atla fandom problems #atla fandom salt #kataang critical #zutarian critical

[longing-for-rain]

Schrödinger’s Redemption Arc:

It was either perfect storytelling or an insensitive colonizer guilt narrative…depending on who you ship him with.

#zuko #fandom salt #atla #avatar the last airbender #zutara #anti kataang

[yourhighness6]

The thing about the whole TSR discourse is that a lot of it is centered around who was right: Zuko or Aang. Although I have seen posts focusing primarily on Katara's feelings, I do think it is necessary to remind anyone who cares to listen every once in a while that it doesn't really matter who was right. It matters who enabled Katara to make her own choices and gave her the space to do so, and I think we all know who that was.

#also it was necessary for the narrative for katara to realize what she needed for the moral message to work #zutara #anti kataang #katara deserved better #atla #avatar the last airbender #fandom salt

[theweeklydiscourse]

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.

#especially ESPECIALLY when Zutara is constantly being hit with the old *colonizer x colonized* accusations #But somehow Zukka manages to avoid that same criticism despite Sokka being from the same tribe as Katara #Frustrating as a poc zutara shipper to constantly be accused of being a white person romanticizing a supposedly *colonizer romance* dynamic #katara #Zuko #pro zutara #atla discourse #atla fandom #atla fandom salt #atla fandom critical #shipping discourse #enemies to lovers #anti Zukka #anti maiko #avatar the last airbender

[starlight-bread-blog]

It's always "No I don't hate A@ng or Ma! I just want to criticize how their characters were handled", and never "They're fictional and you're offended on the behalf of literal nothing".

Ps: Zks say what you gotta say to avoid harassment. I don't hate them either. It's just absurd that hating a fictional character that doesn't exist is something to be denounced in order to be taken seriously.

#zutara #anti anti zutara #anti kataang #anti maiko #pro zutara #atla fandom problems #atla fandom critical #atla fandom salt #anti atla fandom #zuko #katara #zuko x katara #katara x zuko

[i-d-e-g-a-f]

i already have so many gripes with the original show and how they handle aang’s character arc and his relationship with katara/how they disserviced her by putting her in that relationship and i don’t trust netflix to fix ANY of that in the slightest, in fact i think they’ll probably make things i actually like about the original even worse and the actors are so young too oh my god Kiawentiio get behind me and it’s gonna be another horde of new fans rehashing the same tired old discourse i cannot do this again helpppp

#i’m fucking tweaking rn man #here comes a new wave of perfomative activism #atla fandom critical #atla fandom salt #anti kataang #i noticed an uptick in zutara/kataang discourse recently but i didn’t realize it was bc the show is coming out tdy 😭 #i cannot do this again i cannot relive another renaissance where zutara shippers are demonized for existence #i cannot deal with people shitting on katara for no reason again and people selectively ignoring zuko’s character arc when it’s convenient #for their argument and ppl acting like i summoned satan himself when i critique the aang #atla discourse #i don’t even try to engage in discourse it’s just always recommended to me no matter what i do and i’m just so tired of it

[broadwaybalogna]

All this discourse over Kataang and Zutara is so fucking exhausting. Like, I’ll be looking through the Zutara tag tryna find a cute lil thing to read and all of a sudden 50 people are bashing and hating on the ship. Now, I can’t speak for kataangers and whether they see the same shit on their tag but I’m sure it’s true. Y’all, literaly just stick to your ship and… Enjoy it??? Is it really that hard to watch other people enjoy a ship??

Now for a personal message:

Kataangers- YOUR SHIP IS CANNON!!! You have nothing to prove! It’s cannon!

Zutarians- I respect the dedication to the ship. But you have GOT to stop provoking Kataangers😭 (Kataangers also need to stop provoking)

How long has this been going on for??? How many circles have y’all gone through??? Is this not FUCKING EXHAUSTING!?

(I’m going to tag both Kataang and Zutara so just so y’all know: I ship Zutara. If you come onto my blog looking for Kataang content, you won’t get it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t welcome you!)

#kataang #zutara #shipping #wtf #why are you guys doing this to yourselves #just reading all this exhausts me #friendship is magic #atla katara #atla zuko #atla aang #atla #avatar the last airbender #netflix avatar #atla fandom salt #atla fandom critical #atla fandom problems

[miss-sweetea-pie]

I read a blog about preferred atla ship by one poster (definitely an anti) that puts zutara at the bottom of list because of ‘zutarians’ 🙄 without even tryna understand the ship per se. What do you think of these people? Maybe they’ve been clocked by zutarian/s by attacking the zutarian page and they cant accept that they lost the discourse?

Yeah, I definitely think it’s just antis trying to put blame on the fans. it pretty much happens in all fandoms.  so why I think some people might not like zutarian’s or fine them off putting is because some of us can be snarky. I honestly don’t think that’s a bad thing. The few time I’ve ever seen really snarky post is when an antis says “zuko is a colonizer” “he’s evil” or they call the real person bad names or “zuko and katara are toxic” “you just want to sleep with zuko” and a lot of the shippers are tired of the same old arguments so you get snark.(I do knowledge tone is not always easy to read). My own blog is anti k.ataang and if I walked into their space and said same crazy stuff about how they having mommy fantasy (lol idk I don’t actually think that) I would get jumped on and I would kind of deserve it. sometimes it really feels like they are playing the victim. Like “the mean old zutarian bullied me.” if you ask questions in good faith and are curious I’m sure most of us will explain zutara. I literally can’t shut up about it.

My second opinion is if someone really likes something they should just like it. Why base it off of the fandom or what people will think of you. It’s so much more fun if you can separate your interests from the fandom. I love Atla but I don’t like the fb group but that didn’t cause me to dislike atla all of a sudden. I used to be insecure of my interest, so I can sympathize with people who are just trying to please others. I use to do that but It’s so freeing once you Just enjoy what you enjoy unapologetically. 

#zutara #atla fandom critical #atla fandom salt #anti kataang #just to be safe! #people can have their opinions #but hopefully it their own opinions #zutara fandom #is the zutara community too snarky?? 🤔

[shadelorde]

AtLA is a better show than LoK but the LoK fandom is infinitely more chill and way cooler than the AtLA fandom and I think it’s because being a fan of a show that’s screwed so much keeps us way more humble

#atla fans are so desperate for discourse they’ll be like ‘liking Iroh and Zuko is actually problematic now’ #LoK fans will be like ‘yeah it’s kind of a dumpster fire but it’s our dumpster fire <3’ #obligatory not all ATLA fans #but it’s a trend I notice #atla fandom salt #and like of course there’s discourse in the LoK fandom but very few of us seem particularly obsessed with defending how ‘perfect’ it is #which opens up a lot more good-faith discussion #and also big corporations like Netflix aren’t as obsessed with making money off LoK so there’s not really argument about shitty spin-offs #like yeah korra got put in Fortnite but we’re all just here for giving that gal a gun #like sure makorra vs korrasami yadda yaddayadda ur I think we’ve largely moved past that #while Zutara shippers and Kataang shippers are still constantly going for each others’ throats

[blinday]

I just wanted a fanfiction with an actual plot and that contains Zutara, instead I only find ZUTARA this, ZUTARA that, ZUTARA saved the day!

Fucking goodness, if I wanted the fic to be ABOUT Zutara and only that I'd read smut. I want actual content, please! With other characters being developed! Zutara fandom, please do better that's why people mock us.

#zutara #zutara fandom salt #anti zutara #but not really #zuko #katara #atla fanfiction #avatar the last airbender

[atla-fandom-confessions]

Starting to think a lot of Zutara stans are porn addicts because these fanfics are um quite telling...............................

um yeah some are uhhh something :/

the fic that made me ditch zutara for good was the student/teacher abuse porn where they made zuko like 40 for some reason, just so he could be a creepy possessive weirdo to student!katara and do a bunch of disgusting ooc nonsense with her

at that point you don't even *like* these characters smh you just know if you tried to post this as oc nobody would read it because it's so terrible so you had to name your shitty ocs 'zuko' and 'katara'

anyways yeah this fandom is :/

#atla #atla fandom confessions #anti zutara #minors dni #zutara fandom salt #tw rape

[badlucksav]

You’ll probably ignore this one too but can you at least do a chapter where Zuko and Katara have some good smut? You left it on such a cliffhanger :(

Hi, Anon.

I’ve chosen not to ignore this one because I have something very important to say.

This is not a nice thing to say to a writer.

I’ve been writing for fandom for coming up on three years, and I’ve gotten plenty of comments and asks in that time, many of them rude or demanding. What I’ve learned is that those types of comments actually do the opposite of what the speaker intends: it makes me not want to write, either that fic in particular or not at all.

Two weeks. Only two weeks between an update! Omg! I know I can put out a lot of content, but my god, don’t we all have creative blocks? Or IRL responsibilities and deadlines?

“Are we not going to get any new chapters even this year?” This one might take the cake. I got this on January 11, a whole eleven days into the new year. And on my birthday, to boot.

I generally ignore those comments. I find it’s better for my mental health that way. I delete them, and think about how now I don’t want to work on that fic, or worse, how I feel contrition because I haven’t updated, and maybe that anon has a point, and maybe it’s rude of me to leave people hanging…

But here’s the fucking thing. I have poured almost 1.8 million words onto Ao3 since I started writing fic, and I’ve not been paid for a single goddamn one of them. I have written every single word, every single one of my fics for free (and there’s 188 of them, many of which are Zutara smut, so feel free to check them out if you’re so inclined). This is a hobby. I do it because it brings me joy; it’s a break from the stress and responsibility of my offline life — which has not been a cake walk, particularly in the last year, and I know that no one knows it because I keep these lives separate, but my god, do you people think I just sit at the computer all day writing stories? Do I not have a real life to you? Am I not a real person to you?

Anyway. Fanfic writing is a hobby. It brings me joy — or it usually does. Comments like these do not bring me joy. They make me sad, angry, upset. They kill motivation to work on these stories. Sometimes they make me want to delete all my unfinished WIPs. Sometimes they make me think that it would be better if I just left fandom altogether.

This is how you leave a comment. This is how you let a writer know that you’re interested in an update. This comment put a smile on my face for the first time on a Zutara fic this year. Because everything else has basically been like the ones above.

“You’ll probably ignore this one too.” Let’s break this one down a bit, shall we? This is manipulative language. You are attempting to guilt me into responding to you. This is not ok to do to anyone. If I haven’t answered an ask, it’s likely because I’m busy or I just haven’t had the mental spoons to do it. Or I don’t have an answer.

I am not an object for your content demands.

I am not an object for your content demands.

I am not an object for your content demands.

I’m also not Marvel Studios with an entire team of writers. I’m just one person. I write what I write for me above anything else. The moment I forgot that was the moment I nearly left this fandom. I’m not going to let that happen again. If I leave, it’s going to be my choice on my time. Not because another person made me feel so bad that they pushed me out.

I’m turning my anons off. If people have something to say to me, they can do it with their blog names attached instead of hiding behind anonymity.

#anon #fandom salt #fandom critical #ao3 comments #sorry not sorry #it needed to be said #sav answers #Zutara salt #zutara fandom

[longing-for-rain]

what exactly is Aang's toxic masculinity that you're talking about? there are no examples of such behavior on his part in the show. he is not an ideal person, he is a child who sometimes behaved incorrectly, just like all the other children in the show (Katara, Toph, Sokka), and this is normal.

in addition, we see how he regrets some of his wrong actions and gets better, while Zuko does not regret his toxic behavior, doesn't apologize and doesn't face the consequences of his behavior (racist jokes about Aang, demands that Katara forgive him as if he has the right to her forgiveness, an attack on Aang to "teach him a lesson" and many other things).

Hi anon, thanks for the ask! This is a very good illustration of what I was talking about in this post when I mentioned that I feel toxic men are overlooked more often for appearing “nice” than they are for being conventionally attractive.

No examples of toxic behavior in the show? What do you call this then?

I know what I (and the law) call it:

But you see, he’s “nice” right? This is just a misbehaved child, as you put it? Yah, no. He knew better and still did it because he was possessive; this whole interaction started because he was jealous that an actress playing Katara was interested in men other than him. And the show proceeded to frame the situation in a way that made Aang sympathetic, despite being the aggressor and the one behaving irrationally. How much more “toxically masculine” can you get than that? But he put on a flower crown once so we’re supposed to think he’s a soft uwu feminine boi (even though he was absolutely enraged that a female actress played him).

I also find it very interesting that you describe Katara and Sokka as “children” while Zuko is omitted from that list despite being the same age. Are you admitting you agree he’s more mature, or are you admitting that you hold him to different standards?

But, anyways. You asked about toxic behavior on Aang’s part, which I’ll get further into now that the most egregious example is out of the way.

Let’s break down what you consider unforgivably toxic behavior on Zuko’s part and compare it to Aang’s behavior in similar situations.

1. “Racist” jokes

I’m guessing this is made with reference to the “Air Temple preschool” comment. How exactly is this racist? In context, Aang is the one trying to force his beliefs on others, and Zuko makes this comment to a) tell him to back off and b) point out that Aang is, in fact, a child who doesn’t have any business telling Katara how to feel.

This point is particularly interesting to me, because it implies that the simple fact that Zuko doesn’t agree with the philosophy of Aang’s culture makes him racist. By this logic, Aang is also racist against Katara’s culture, because he clearly disagrees with her philosophy and is openly telling her that his culture is morally virtuous over hers. And well. That’s even more believable considering Aang’s previous reactions to Water Tribe culture.

Ah, yes. Playing with a cultural artifact like it’s a toy because you were upset about not being the center of attention for once, and telling everyone how disgusting you think cultural food is, what great ways to show the supposed love of your life how much you respect her culture!

I know your response to this point would be something like “uwu but he’s a kid he didn’t knowww” ok well. The same logic can be applied to any alleged “racism” on Zuko’s part.

2. “Demanding” forgiveness

Zuko: What can I do to make it up to you?

Ah, yes. How demanding of him. He’s clearly so self-centered and only thinking about his own values and agenda here.

It’s not like he…

…told his friend how she’s allowed to process her grief and try to impose his own morals…

…or demanded to know if his crush liked him back, wouldn’t accept “no” as an answer, and forced a kiss on her…

…or told an abuse victim he was wrong to want to kill his abusive father for trying to commit a genocide…

…oh, um. Yeah. Sorry, but after actually watching the show it’s very clear to me which character doesn’t seem to regret or see the flaws in any of his actions at the end of the show, which is when all of these examples took place.

3. Training in the finale

“Attacking Aang to teach him a lesson” … wow, that’s a very dishonest way of phrasing that situation. I’m impressed, I have to say. I’ve seen lots of dumb takes from Aang stans over the years but this is a new one.

Well, luckily I actually watched the scene in context, so my reaction was the same as all the other characters’ reactions in canon when they learned the context behind this “attack”:

They agree with him. Yeah. Obviously, when nobody is taking training seriously when the world is about to literally go up in flames, you might need to do something to get their attention.

“But it was dangerous!” you might argue. Well… yeah. When magic and bending is in the equation, training in the Avatar universe has been shown to be somewhat dangerous at times. As an example, from this very same episode, Toph very nearly smashed Sokka with a giant flaming rock. That was way closer to hurting someone than Zuko was in this incident. If you’re going to fault characters for making their training exercises too dangerous, I guess Toph is mega cancelled.

Now back to Aang. What was his reaction in this situation? How did he react to the end of the world being days away? He ran away with absolutely no plan. Just like he did at the very beginning of the show.

I mean, think about it. This is a critical flaw (and toxic trait) in Aang that is literally never addressed, because he starts and ends the show the exact same way: he’s faced with a problem, he runs away from it, then he’s saved by an in-universe equivalent of an Act of God. Wowie, such great character development. Not fixing your core flaw and having a mythical plot device materialize into existence to solve your problems for you. Aang’s whole arc is a big blah, because the writing fails to address any of his flaws or have him meaningfully question any of his values.

Meanwhile, Zuko has consistently been a fan favorite because he’s the opposite. His flaws are meaningfully addressed, he does admit he’s wrong and fix his flaws, and his character shows a critically acclaimed change throughout the show. His arc is written so well that despite being a cartoon character, Zuko is widely considered the poster child for a good redemption arc across all forms of media.

So anyways, miss me with the double standards… there is a reason why Zuko is the fan favorite, and it’s not just his abs 🔥

#fandom salt #meta #zuko #katara #aang critical #canon critical #atla #zutara #anti kataang #ask #anon

[yourhighness6]

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.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #zutara #fandom salt #anti zukaang #anti zukka #anti kataang #emmie babbles