live wesley reaction

mostly atla (zutara / antikataang / smidge of jetara) ats / btvs general stuff + random other fandom stuff

[sokkastyles]

Love how the response to zutara shippers making fun of Aang for being bald (and laughing when ka stans tried to act like that was racist) was to...make fun of Zuko being disfigured by his abusive parent, jfc

Just to recap, though, Katara canonically:

1. Likes Aang better with hair

2. Isn't put off by Zuko's scar

[cloakedlizard]

They're genuinely so funny

"All women who ship Zutara are shallow floozies thirsting for Zuko and only care about looks"

But also

"You really think any girl would ever be attracted to Zuko??? With his disgusting disfigured face?? Your claims are truly beyond the pale"

WAIT THIS REMINDS ME I got a comment from one of them (who I didn't realize was the head honcho themself at the time) with this exact contradiction in the same sentence (if it can even be called that).

-> Says people only ship it because of a shallow attraction to Zuko -> Says people ship it when Zuko is conventionally unattractive, getting mad that people aren't only caring about his looks

This was also on a post where I said people can ship for a multitude of reasons and people shouldn't make broad surface level assumptions about other people and they come in swinging with a broad surface level assumption about other people. Truly, we are the shallow ones 😔

[sokkastyles]

There's literally no way that their argument makes sense. Plenty of people have talked about how "it's racist to not think a Buddhist monk is attractive" is itself ignorant of why Buddhist monks shave their heads, but even then:

Aang shaving his head is a CHOICE. Zuko's scar was not. Nor, while we are at it, was it his choice to wear a hairstyle that represents dishonor. It was his father's abuse that imposed that on him. So trying to do a reverse uno here just makes you look like an asshole.

And I've actually seen plenty of people ship zutara with ponytail Zuko, because

Katara certainly sees nothing wrong with it.

[cloakedlizard]

I love that Katara is a bald ponytail Zuko defender (like... same LOL)

Also yeah, I was thinkin that, too. Getting a permanent burn scar (especially in the face, I can't even imagine) is a traumatic event regardless of the circumstance, and choosing to be bald is not lol

Making fun of it just feels that much more distasteful. It's not an aesthetic choice. Reminds me of people in Art Fight who think art of someone with burn scars needs to be censored. Like, that's someone's face you're talking about being too ugly and needing to be covered up just because something happened to them outside their control. Imagine saying that about someone irl (I mean the person in question was already comparing it to what it might look like irl so not too far off) x.x

[sokkastyles]

Love how the response to zutara shippers making fun of Aang for being bald (and laughing when ka stans tried to act like that was racist) was to...make fun of Zuko being disfigured by his abusive parent, jfc

Just to recap, though, Katara canonically:

1. Likes Aang better with hair

2. Isn't put off by Zuko's scar

[cloakedlizard]

They're genuinely so funny

"All women who ship Zutara are shallow floozies thirsting for Zuko and only care about looks"

But also

"You really think any girl would ever be attracted to Zuko??? With his disgusting disfigured face?? Your claims are truly beyond the pale"

WAIT THIS REMINDS ME I got a comment from one of them (who I didn't realize was the head honcho themself at the time) with this exact contradiction in the same sentence (if it can even be called that).

-> Says people only ship it because of a shallow attraction to Zuko -> Says people ship it when Zuko is conventionally unattractive, getting mad that people aren't only caring about his looks

This was also on a post where I said people can ship for a multitude of reasons and people shouldn't make broad surface level assumptions about other people and they come in swinging with a broad surface level assumption about other people. Truly, we are the shallow ones 😔

[what-a-bastard]

I love shipping characters as exes, like yeah no they're not endgame, they could never be endgame, but they've absolutely fucked nasty and changed who each other are as people and at least one of them got their heart broken

[sokkastyles]

Wasn't Jet's entire family murdered by the fire nation?????

It's time to admit that you just hate women.

Like when you're okay with shipping Zuko with every person who has been oppressed by the fire nation EXCEPT the person he actually worked to make amends to and was forgiven by, there is something amiss.

[cloakedlizard]

Literally when Jet is the bad ending version of Katara because he had no support system and had to be the support system for a bunch of orphans from the age of 8, while Katara still had some family and community left (I hate they're trying to even compare the two, because they're both awful, but one is complete destruction and a child raising himself and the other still has love and support). He had nowhere to put his anger but back into his hatred of the Fire Nation, while Katara had the room to forgive the Fire Nation.

It's clear in the way they're incredibly similar characters: they both are passionate about ending the war, they both take care of others in a parental role, they both are fighters and leaders, and they both are characters defined by justifiable anger at the atrocities they've witnessed and a need to do something about it (a big reason why they're so passionate).

The reason he hated Zuko the second he saw he was a firebender is because they took everything from him to the point of obsessive rage-fueled paranoia. It's why he's a tragic character, unable to get away from the horrors that happened to him until it's too late, still fighting ghosts. Because at this point, he doesn't have proof Zuko is even from the Fire Nation or a spy- just a firebender. And we know Zuko is only there trying to live his life, not anything nefarious like Jet thinks, but Jet just can't let it go. Can you imagine Katara, a character we spend much more time with who we all care about and who cares about so many others, being so torn down that she sees no other option than that kind of zealotry? That'd be incredibly sad.

I agree, though, that Jet's experience with colonization is not the same as Katara's. Katara never experienced colonization, her home being occupied by the people who killed her loved ones, or helplessly watching everyone she loves die and having to raise herself as a young child alone. She lost her mother, and her father's presence to the war, but she had Sokka and her grandmother and her village. Which is why she's not another Jet.

But I guess because Katara's a girl, she's nothing more than a helpless victim who needs to be protected, and because Jet's a boy, he doesn't have to be stuck in a box because of his past. It's just the same garbage of, "She has to be a good girl and be with the conventional 'nice guy' option, but he's a man so he can do what he wants. She's just a child who needs us to make these choices for her- ignoring the fact that she of her own agency decided to forgive and be close friends with Zuko- but Jet is free to determine his own destiny." Which is funny about Jet of all people, because he was, of the two, the more helpless one stuck in a box because of his past, and Katara was the one who, in the end (the final kiss scene notwithstanding), determined her own destiny free of what happened to her in her past and not holding onto a personal hatred of the Fire Nation.

[zutarawasrobbed]

Katara’s Love Interests

[cloakedlizard]

Why do antis act like people are crazy for saying Aang could be called abusive or that Kataang would be toxic?

What tf do you call forcefully kissing someone who just said no to you?? What do you call telling someone you'd go into an out-of-control murderous time bomb state over the idea that they might not like you back?? Would you feel safe telling someone who literally holds the fate of the world in their hands no right after they told you that??

If you feel obligated to protect someone's feelings and don't feel comfortable directly saying no to them because they threaten or assault you, or idk, might run away and cause the end of the world, that's a form of coercion.

And if you don't care about all that for some reason, neglect is also a form of abuse, so it's not like adult Aang is looking too much better either lol.

[sokkastyles]

I mean, the answer to the question why is misogyny. Defenses of the EIP kiss in particular sound a lot like the defenses that real-world rapists use. Why are you making such a big deal about this? They kissed before! She obviously wanted it! It's her fault for not responding to his advances! She's sending mixed messages!

Let's really, really not.

[cloakedlizard]

A lot of people also defend the first kiss also as one of those old movie tropes: "Sure, he kissed her without her consent, but it's fiiiine because they ended up together." Usually these violations include a "yeah, but" excuse, wherein they have the female character like or be okay with what happened to them.

But 1) They didn't even have the decency to include her liking it as a "yeah, but" and instead had her be visibly upset after- making the wrongness of it blatantly obvious and uncomfortable (but then doing nothing with that and retroactively acting like that was a symptom of her being "confused about her feelings" blech), and 2) Just because the writers force a character to be okay with something that happened to them, does not make what happened to them okay.

It's also just completely unromantic. Because the way it's set up isn't some grand buildup of feelings between them culminating in a gesture. It's Aang imposing his crush onto her without any conversation or warning or consideration of her feelings. It gets even worse when he uses his forced kiss as essentially his claim on her, his reason he's mad that she isn't just with him now in EIP when she never got a choice in the matter.

And when she says she's confused he tries to force it again when her guard is down and she's obviously unable to react. Which is a symptom of the idea that women just play games and secretly want it and to keep pressuring them, which is made worse by the fact that they reward this belief by having her end up with him anyway and never show his entitlement to her as wrong. It literally backs up the idea that all her negative reactions to his advances, her general disinterest, and her avoidant body language don't need to be considered because she, again, just secretly wanted him all along or wasn't important because she'd learn to love him.

And the idea that Aang is too good to be abusive to the point that the idea is preposterous mirrors so well the whole "I know my boy, he wouldn't do that" denial/excuse used to shut down women talking about abuse. You don't have to be evil to be abusive in a relationship. No one is mad because they think he's evil; he just should have had to learn from his poor behavior. Every abusive person I know means well and is thought of by everyone who knows them as a good person. The 'nicest' person I know around others, considered to be the perfect prince any girl would be grateful to be with, was an actual villain in his last relationship. Not out of ill intent, but just by not considering the shitty positions he was putting his gf in and only worrying about what he wanted (sound familiar?).

"But he's only 12! He's not allowed to make mistakes?" -> Then he's not ready for a relationship and shouldn't be in one. This is not a punishment because no one is owed a relationship with another person. -> Then he's definitely old enough to know better than to put hands on people, and definitely old enough to learn his lesson about respecting others' boundaries- unless you think it's harsher for boys to hear stern words than girls to be violated. -> It's not a 'mistake' if it is never acknowledged as one and continues to persist. It's just a character flaw. One people are allowed to criticize when it goes unresolved. -> We have no reason to believe he'd grow out of this behavior because it was never addressed and was in fact rewarded, and Katara has no obligation to put up with this behavior before it is fixed, or even after it has been fixed. She should not be expected to be with someone on the basis that in the future they might rise to the bare minimum standard of respect for his significant other.

"You're acting like he's worse than Zuko (when he was her enemy)" -> This is an incel talking point. 'He's not as bad as xyz so he deserves to get the girl/be in a relationship.' So, because he hasn't literally attacked her (the Avatar state putting her life in way more danger than Zuko incapacitating her in a duel notwithstanding), he's automatically a good partner? His violations are above criticism because he could be worse? -> Zuko was on the opposite side of the war, it's expected he'd fight her and since he owes her no loyalty, it isn't a betrayal (until the Catacombs, which has a whole arc to mend that personal betrayal). He also is shown by the show to be wrong, is punished, and makes up for everything he did. Aang is her friend and actively owes her respect for all she's done for him and he still violates and does not respect her or her feelings and never is shown to be wrong for it. He never has to overcome it. He is instead rewarded for being a bad actor (treats Katara horribly: gets rewarded with Katara as a love interest; abandons his friends and runs away at the end of the world: gets rewarded with a magical fix to his dilemma). So those negative behaviors still exist within his character to be criticized. Zuko's aren't there anymore so there's no point. -> Yes, her friend should be expected to treat her better than someone pitted against her in a war. And he still treats her like his prize he's entitled to and tired of waiting for.

[dancingmylifeaway]

Today I learned that a Zutara artist of the old days, who made a very iconic piece of fanart imo, is now a proud Kataanger. I guess they had a come to Jesus moment where they realized that the REAL pro-Katara ship is Kataang. I read a whole post they made about it, and it read like actual satire. Does anyone have an explanation for this absurdity? I seldom hear of Zutarians turning to Kataang; it's almost always the other way around.

[konggodzuko]

Whenever this happens (which is definitely rare) it always gives me "last scene of Nineteen Eighty-Four" vibes. Like, some former ZK shipper looking up at a giant mural of the Kataang finale kiss and crying as the narration reads "they had won the victory over themself. They loved Kataang."

[sokkastyles]

Whenever I see it happen it's always associated with the way KA shippers try to guilt trip people. It's often people who shipped zutara when they were young, then rewatched the series as an adult and interacted with the fandom and gave in to all the harassment and virtue signalling.

Me, I watched the series as an adult and was old enough to be immune to the guilt trip and know that most anti zutara arguments are complete bullshit dressed up in a pretense of progressivism, so it doesn't work on me.

It's a lot harder for someone to convince you that kataang is the only intersectional ship if you already know what intersectional feminism means (and it doesn't mean that).

[cloakedlizard]

So glad I only watched as an adult because the moral purity bs they pull might have killed my love for shipping anything in atla when I was younger. But today it's just like, dude your Catholic guilt is showing, why is your first reaction to me saying I thought a ship was cute to insinuate that I'm a whore. Seek help.

And it only takes three seconds of critical thinking to realize how surface level all their arguments are: they have to resort to making broad negative assumptions about real people because they don't have good arguments for why the ship is so bad because the actual text of the show doesn't support what they're saying. They have to focus on Aang being the hero and Zuko starting off as a bad guy and their respective aesthetics to explain why they think one is wholesome and the other is toxic. Neither of which hold up under any amount of scrutiny because if you judge them by their actual behavior there's literally nothing to argue about anymore.

If you have to ignore the shitty treatment of a woman to defend a man and center his perspective, you're not progressive. Stop playin games lol

[dancingmylifeaway]

Have some Zutara.

[fancylala4]

See the issue:

[cloakedlizard]

LITERALLY it bothers me so much, they couldn't stop with her character and personality, her entire design had to be stripped of individuality, too. They hit her with the Round Spongebob stick.

[desertbcrnnobody]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Zuko paid more attention to Katara as a genocide survivor than Aang ever did.

This is just facts.

[jana-137]

100% agree with this OP. The biggest impact that Katara’s genocide survivor status had on her life was her mother’s murder as her mother wouldn’t have been murdered if Katara was not the last Southern waterbender and Zuko knows this but A.ang doesn’t, which is just hilarious to me 😂.

A.ang knows that the Fire Nation killed Katara’s mother but he has no idea it was specifically because she was the last southern waterbender, one because he never bothered to ask about the tragedy and two because Katara just never felt compelled or encouraged to tell him. Zuko on the other hand knows all the details about the situation from Sokka, from Katara herself and then from Yon Rha.

Then for some reason Zuko, not A.ang (you know, the guy who’s married to a Southern waterbender), was specially mentioned to have given special attention to rebuilding Katara’s nation and countinues to take special interest in the Southern Watertribe over all the other nations.

They always say “they’re both genocide victims so they understand each other better”

And that would be cute if not for the fact that that little similarity between them completely went over Mike and Bryan’s heads even in this new movie (A.ang telling Katara she doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a genocide survivor). You’d think they’d say her husband was the one who took special interest in her tribe’s welfare since you know, it was affected by genocide and A.ang is supposed to be able to relate to that? But nope, apparently it’s Zuko, you know the guy who supposedly doesn’t care about Katara.

I’m honestly convinced that Bryke might just be dense because about 95% of A.ang’s interactions with Katara’s culture are negative. Him not liking their animal skins and food and being disrespectful about it by telling Toph not to eat it, or him allowing Katara’s culture to become completely sidelined in their family with the only person taking after Katara’s culture being Kya.

The one similarity that could actually make Ka/taang somewhat engaging has Zuko being more positively involved in it than A.ang.

Just ridiculous

[cloakedlizard]

It drives me nuts whenever I hear 99% of these types of arguments to back up Kataang. None of this is substantiated by the text of the show. None of this is literally present in the show. It's all extrapolation from their own biased memory of what the relationship was when last they watched- which is divorced from what really happened because it's framed from Aang's perspective and Aang is an unreliable narrator. If you pay attention to what actually happens instead of seeing it through his relationship fantasy goggles, none of it holds up.

Of course they see her supporting Aang and think, well Aang is supported, look what a supportive relationship this is- Aren't we forgetting someone?

They had many, many, many chances to show the two of them relating over their shared trauma. Each and every time it's brought up (the show AND the movie now), he doesn't acknowledge it or throws it back in her face or is pitted against her (which the fans then also engage in) over who has the bigger trauma. And only his is treated as important. Hers is brought up as an afterthought to support a dynamic that never existed between them. Because no one spares a thought for Katara. If they did, they'd notice how the support never comes back around in her direction from Aang. They are trained to see her as Aang's reward at the end and so when she's just entirely his cheerleader with no consideration in return, they don't see anything wrong with that.

People are also so scared of acknowledging the flaws and sexism in the show's writing it makes it impossible to take any Kataang defense seriously. You're allowed to headcanon a more wholesome dynamic that retcons the weird incel behavior Aang was on in S3. You're allowed to headcanon in new scenes where they support each other equally. Defending the terrible treatment of Katara just to avoid the discomfort of feeling "wrong" or accepting the writing of your ship has flaws and that people are gonna talk about them feels so dishonest and like... regressive.

You don't need to hold so fast to the canon version of the ship, you can see the potential in it and ship that without it being less legitimate because that dynamic isn't 100% accurate to the canon portrayal. (This is where being so obsessive about canon adherence backfires, you feel you need to defend the writing problems like if you admit they're real, you'd be ceding ground and tarnishing the purity of your ship.) But these headcanons being treated as if they absolutely happened to shut down fair criticisms of how Katara was treated... We're talking about apples and you replaced the apple with an unrelated orange and are now saying calling it an apple isn't accurate. We're still talking about the apple whether or not you pretend it was never there. We're criticizing the way it was depicted!!!!! Not your own view of the ship in your head!!! We all deserved better than that mess.

Maybe if people weren't so ready to call others morally bankrupt for liking a ship with any degree of conflict AT ALL, people wouldn't be so scared to acknowledge the flaws of their own ship because you'd know it obviously doesn't reflect on your moral character irl. But people won't give up bullying people for their ship preferences, so they're always gonna be super careful to remain denying the problems in their ship so they don't in turn get bullied.

[charlottebaskerville]

"Its been 20 years get over it" actually its been less than a month since bryke's latest display of their blatant misogyny, but go off i guess! Telling a bunch of women to "get over" two white men who are prominent and influential in their industry popping out with a brand new woman hating narrative every few years is bold to say the least, and telling us that we're being hysterical when we are bothered by people eating up said misogynist storytelling and calling it "perfect" is taking that a step further. Take a women's studies class, for the love of God

[cloakedlizard]

LOL DUDE I had someone start going through my page and commenting this on posts so I blocked them (to set them free so they wouldn't keep ragebaiting themself because at a certain point it just gets sad). And then they came back THE NEXT DAY on a burner account to say it again AND DM ME LOL. Like, who needs to let it go?

These people just wanna thought police; they're allowed to engage in the fandom discussions they want but other people who disagree with them aren't. The age of the show only matters selectively to them. Didn't know there was a fandom expiration date!

Also, it says a lot if your best counterargument to points people bring up boils down to "shut up stop talking about this"

[mamadyke]

a:tla rewatch ↳ jet

[cloakedlizard]

Oh, Jet, they could never make me hate you. Your anger issues and zealotry were in a league of their own 😔

[lenaikart]

Jetko post

“I hope he gets food poisoning from this shitty tea.” “dawwg a fresh water without chunks of soil this drink is on fucking another level”

[urbanlegends]

[cloakedlizard]

Why do antis act like people are crazy for saying Aang could be called abusive or that Kataang would be toxic?

What tf do you call forcefully kissing someone who just said no to you?? What do you call telling someone you'd go into an out-of-control murderous time bomb state over the idea that they might not like you back?? Would you feel safe telling someone who literally holds the fate of the world in their hands no right after they told you that??

If you feel obligated to protect someone's feelings and don't feel comfortable directly saying no to them because they threaten or assault you, or idk, might run away and cause the end of the world, that's a form of coercion.

And if you don't care about all that for some reason, neglect is also a form of abuse, so it's not like adult Aang is looking too much better either lol.

[cloakedlizard]

One thing I always found funny about the discourse around Zuko/Katara ending up ruling the Fire Nation is that a lot of the hate towards it acts like it would suck for Katara. Katara, whose whole personality revolves around activism and fighting the hardest battles- emboldened by adversity instead of oppressed by it. Or that Zuko would for whatever reason not enable her to fight the battles she wants to fight and would stifle her into the position of a tradwife or something (which, funnily enough, is what happened to Katara in canon with Aang from what I hear lol).

Meanwhile, I think the person it would really suck for is Zuko. He'd be living back in the same halls he was abused and mutilated in, surrounded by people trying to use him who don't care about him as a person and duplicitous, scheming nobles (he could choose the people in his circle, but there'd be old money he'd likely have to appease). And there's a reason he had that like, trauma mantra about Azula always lying. He's incredibly sincere; he'd be an easy target for manipulation- and being in power everyone would be trying. It'd be constant work and political game playing, and honest, honorable Zuko would be miserable with it.

Like Katara loves to fight, and Zuko has only ever been fighting his whole life. Boy needs a break.

I honestly think all the endings are fun, where they end up moving to the Fire Nation or the Southern Water Tribe (or like, secret third option where they find another place to start anew or keep traveling around), and the idea of them showing each other around their respective homes is really cute to me.

But I really love the SWT as a cozy end to their stories, because it's nice that Katara gets to go home but more so Zuko gets to have a real home and community and like, a support system for once. I think he'd love it there.

Whereas going to rule the whole Fire Nation at the end of a story feels like the secret second phase of a boss battle lol. It could have enough conflict to be an entirely new story (multiple, even) on its own.

[mskittyfantasticox]

angel in btvs: buffy i love you so much but we cant ever be together because of my DARK PAST and the fact i can TURN EVIL and also i need at least 5 hours of daily brooding time so go away

angel in angel: power....walking? 🤨 why not just...run for a shorter amount of time?? 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️ anyways heres mandy by barry manilow

[cloakedlizard]

angel in btvs: standing in the corner in the dark (mysterious, cool, dangerous)

angel in ats: sitting in the corner in the dark (avoiding socializing, friendless, doesn't know how to talk to people, big loser energy)