🌊Lila Rain🌊 @lilarain - Tumblr Blog

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I’ve been working on this for a while now, and then the Netflix alta season dropped and I completely took the painted lady/blue spirit bait. The plan was to post this fully colored, but that could take forever…so I decided to share the sketch here for now❤️‍🔥🌊

#zutara #atla #painted lady #blue spirit #netflix avatar #katara #zuko

half-phantom-hiyori

I usually ignore ai and block it but

I rate it zero but that's not the point. Guys, be careful, you can lose money and/or your account. Their acc is empty, all posts and comments give this "hey, i need to tell you something important but i can't dm you i don't know whyyy" vibe.

Doesn't prove anything since people fake even speedpaints (using ai 🤡). And indeed, it's sad how good real (!) artists are accused of using ai because of people like you.

And honestly guys, what are those numbers... I get it's hard to recognize ai, i'm not an expert myself, but it's so obvious there. And even if you don't care that much about ai, at least don't give them a boost.

justzutara

For those who are still learning how to recognize AI slop, here are the issues I identified in this picture:

Zuko has an eyebrow over the scar. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real artist make that mistake as it’s obvious to a human that he *does not have one*

Extra hair in the background behind Katara’s braid that follows the shape of the style but is outside the hair tie

Extra wrap under Katara’s sleeve

Extra finger on Katara’s hand (the one that’s crossed under Zuko’s chin and the one curled into her hand should be the same finger)

Comparing this to Katara and Zuko’s adult designs, I’m actually pretty unnerved by how well it rendered Zuko’s. It took me several minutes to find these issues as they’re so small that they’re easy to miss at a glance. We have to slow down when we’re looking at fanart as genAI continues to improve.

lilarain

And as a Zutara fan-artist myself, I want to add this: the sketch makes absolutely no anatomical sense. It’s complete bs. No real artist who has actually studied anatomy, would create a sketch like this. It simply doesn’t make any sense, its not answering any questions an artist would ask themself when drawing. Someone who has studied anatomy or built up traditional drawing skills can’t make anything of it. Of course, every artist makes mistakes—I do too. Sometimes clothing folds are off, proportions aren’t perfect or anatomy (especially hands) needs work. That’s completely normal.

What’s not normal is misleading people, especially fellow artists who put years into learning these skills. Real artists don’t forget the fifth finger, and real artists don’t use fucking AI.

This isn’t the first time I’ve come across AI in the Zutara fandom. There are also a lot of these AI videos on tiktok and I honestly hate that our fandom is getting involved in this. I’m just really disappointed.

By the way, I could tell at first glance that it’s AI art. It has that typical „AI-style“. But what’s really pissing my off, is pretending it’s handmade.

#Label your shitty AI content #fuck ai #I don’t want ai slop in my feed

qirarey123

When im in a yearning for Katara competition but my competitor is Zuko

wingchunwaterbender

Avatar Studios needs Zutarians, Zutarians don't need Avatar Studios.

You wish is my command, as requested, Zutara make out session…@marxipann

#zutara #ambassador katara #fire lord zuko #zutarian

Quick Zutara sketch with the new designs because they’re living rent-free in my head ❤️‍🔥🌊😭

#zutara #zutarian #atla #we were robbed #katara #zuko

fableex

4/6 of the gaang chilling at the south pole

lilarain

Look at them, i can’t!! We were so robbed🥹😭😭

#beautiful art

winry-rockbell

#well, well, well… how the turntables

soopersara

what’re your thoughts on the anti-zutarian argument citing that a romantic relationship couldn’t work between them because of an inherent oppressor / colonizer and indigenous / oppressed dynamic. love zutara, but that admittedly gave me a lot to think about and i’m still unsure about how i feel :/

Hoo boy. That argument again.

Okay, first of all, nobody has to like Zutara. Enemies to lovers (or, more accurately for Zutara, enemies to friends to lovers) is a trope that doesn't appeal to everyone, and that's fine.

But that does not make it immoral to ship pairings like Zutara. There's nothing inherently wrong with enemies to lovers, and while there probably are enemies to lovers ships out there that would make me uncomfortable, that comes down to the execution more than the ship itself, and... it's still fiction. Last I checked, enjoying murder mysteries doesn't mean that you condone murder. Tastes in fiction =/= real life morality.

As far as Zutara in specific goes, the argument that it could never work "because he's her oppressor" is just... nonsense. I'm going to try to organize this based on arguments I've seen so I don't just ramble for several thousand words, so here goes:

Zuko was her colonizer: No. The Water Tribes were never colonized. The Fire Nation never established settlements in the Water Tribes' territories. They raided the Southern Tribe and captured and killed some of its members, which is obviously horrible, but the Fire Nation never had a lasting presence in any of the Water Tribes ('any' because there's technically 3 tribes and the Foggy Swamp was untouched). Words have meanings, and... that's not what colonization means. Colonization could be a stronger argument against a Zuko/Earth Kingdom character ship since colonization DID happen there, except for a l'il issue I'll get to in a minute.

Zuko participated in a genocide against her people: Okay, while genocide is a more accurate term for what happened to Katara's tribe, this argument (and the previous one too) really falls apart at the "Zuko participated" bit. The Fire Nation committed a gradual, partial genocide of the Southern Water Tribe via raids on its villages. And the last raid happened when Katara was eight years old. At that time, Zuko was ten. At the age of ten, Zuko wasn't involved in any of the Fire Nation's actions anywhere in the world. At the age of ten, Zuko was still so far out of the line of succession for the throne (behind Iroh, Lu Ten, and Ozai) that he didn't have any real prospect of ever being able to make decisions for the nation's actions. And the first time Zuko personally had any interaction with Katara's tribe? He ran his ship through a wall, knocked Sokka over, grabbed Kanna by the coat, yelled a little bit, made a few threats... and then left without doing any further damage. So not great, but also not playing into his nation's attempts at genocide. And Zuko got comeuppance for all those things from the Gaang when they were trying to get Aang out: Zuko broke the ice wall, then Aang wrecked Zuko's ship. Zuko knocked Sokka over, then Sokka returned the favor. A few times. And Zuko grabbed Kanna, then Katara froze a bunch of Zuko's crewmen solid. Despite being wildly underpowered, the Gaang gave as good as they got.

Zuko attempted to kill the Gaang: Again, just no. Seriously, in all the time he was chasing the Gaang, he never once tried to kill anyone. Not killing was his whole deal. That's how he got banished. The kid literally tried to save Zhao, the man who tried to blow Zuko up. Capturing and killing are two very different things. Hiring Sparky Sparky Boom Man is the only exception to Zuko's no-killing thing in the entire show, and that whole plot point is just bad and wildly OOC, so I'm not going to talk about that right now.

Zuko abused Katara: There's a difference between abuse and fighting as enemies on opposite sides of a war. Hurting Katara, gaining power over Katara was never Zuko's goal. He wanted to capture Aang, and he fought anyone who stood in his way. Katara's goal was to protect Aang, and she likewise fought anyone who stood in the way. And on top of that, Zuko never caused Katara any significant harm. He tied her to a tree and tried to negotiate with her. Guess what? The first time the Gaang had the opportunity, they tied Zuko up (after seriously considering leaving him for dead). He knocked Katara unconscious. Then, the very next time they faced each other, she knocked him unconscious. That's... pretty much it. Neither of them was a victim of the other, they were enemies who fought one equal terms.

And ALL of those arguments completely disregard Zuko's redemption and the subsequent friendship between him and Katara. Zuko openly rejected his father and all his nation's actions and teachings. He changed sides in the war with the intention of stopping the harm that his people were doing to the world. He taught Aang, helped rescue Hakoda and Suki from prison, saved Katara from being crushed to death, and helped her find and confront the man who killed her mother. And Katara forgave him for everything. They became friends. But Zuko didn't stop there. He fought Azula on his own to keep Katara safe, threw himself in front of lightning to save her life again, and then, at the age of sixteen, dedicated the rest of his life to dismantling and reversing all the harm his nation had done over the past hundred years.

Zuko was never an oppressor in the way antis like to claim, but even if he had been, the fact that he saw the error of his ways at the age of sixteen and then spent the rest of his life trying to fix not only his own personal wrongs, but those committed by his nation (and many of which happened before he was even born) says a lot. And acting as though his fight to change things for the better (and his close canon friendship with Katara) doesn't matter because he happened to be born to the royal family on the wrong side of the war is incredibly reductive.

Like I said before, no one is obligated to ship Zutara. No one is obligated to like Zutara. And there's nothing wrong with people being uncomfortable with the pairing for their own personal reasons. But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the ship or those of us who enjoy it. Suggesting otherwise undermines the validity of interracial relationships in general, and I would strongly suggest blocking anyone who argues that there is something inherently wrong with shipping Zutara.

PS: I'm not indigenous, but I do know several Zutara shippers who are. There may be some indigenous people who find Zutara uncomfortable, but it's in no way a universal opinion.

hamadeservedbetter

So I replied to this person's fallacious post but he blocked me.

All this long moralizing think piece full of false concern for Katara and fake outrage only to his your profile (from another account) and find out that he ships Zuko with Aang. Didn't the fire nation genocide almost all of the air nomads and try to kill Aang or I'm missing something?

Why is it allowed for Aang to be shipped with Zuko but Katara isn't? Are we still pushing for this misogynist rhetoric that women are too fragile and don't know what's good for them that's why our life choices should be more restricted ? It reminds me of men of colour prohibiting women of colour from dating white men because of white supremacy and colonization then turn around and date white women.

It's the same thing with Zukka. In the fandom it's allowed to ship Sokka with Zuko but Zutara is villainized despite it being the female version (and Zutara has more interesting parallels and intimate scenes mind you). It's frustrating how society especially men continues to infantilize women and restrict our rights under the false pretext of protecting us. It's mind blowing how much men like this guy get away with misogyny and lecturing women while using feminism and anti-colonization as an excuse.

The person who did the fanart never suggested that Katara should bear the burden of the fire nation. Zuko was already crowned as the fire lord to fix his nation's mistakes. The person simply posted a picture of Katara in the clothes of Zuko's culture.

It's canon that she liked the fire nation dress that she wore and enjoyed her time there. The fire culture and clothes belong to the people of the fire nation who did not elect their Imperialist fire lord. It's completely okay for Katara to wear them. This is like saying we as people of colour we shouldn't use western technology if we want to dismantle white supremacy. Do you see how this argument perpetuates fascism ?

Also this post blames Zuko for all of his family's crimes as if he didn't rebel against them and join the resistance to dismantle imperialism and supremacy. This poster has the audacity to erase his amazing redemption arc too. If Zuko can't be with Katara because he can't be redeemed then he can't be friend with the gaang either and can't be fire lord because he would be too powerful and dangerous.

lilarain

This!!! 🙏🏼

marxipann

We were robbed.

edit by marxipann

lilarain

In another universe ❤️‍🔥🌊

demaparbat-hp

Love is brightest in the dark (and we shall guide you to the light)

Family Portrait ❤️‍🔥🌊 Zuko with Kya and Katara with Izumi.

#zutara #atla #zuko #katara #steambabies #twins #zutarian

crabby-samantha

Ember Island locals know that time on the island doesn’t follow the rules of the rest of the world. It’s not slower, exactly, and it’s certainly not constant, a fickle thing that strikes the island’s inhabitants at odd moments. You’ll look up one day and realize time has stretched itself like some sort of impossible acrobat, or shrunk itself down, compressing years into seconds.

The first time Zuko realizes he’s succumbed to Ember Island time is the third time Katara falls asleep in his room.

It’s not intentional, obviously, or not those first three times anyway. But after that disaster that tried to pass itself off as a play, she’d knocked, timidly, at his door and asked to talk, which surprised him as much as it relieved him. At the time he assumed she’d done the same with everyone else - but the next morning she wasn’t speaking to the Avatar except in short clips, and like usual Zuko felt like he’d missed something.

The scent of her lingered in his rooms for days afterward.

The other two times, she’d found him in his room after dinner, and for reasons that evaded him, stayed until the moon was high in the sky as she faded into a slumber curled up on his bedroll.

The fourth time, Zuko stays, curled into her, content to let his arm fall asleep under the weight of her head.

What she wants from him he couldn’t begin to discern, but he’s observed Katara long enough to understand she does nothing by halves. When she was angry with him, her fury was an unrelenting storm, and now her forgiveness crashes over him like a wave. She’s not content to just forgive; she demands more, slots herself in next to him like they’ve always been friends, grabbing his hand, teasing him, running her fingers through his hair. This is how she is; it’s no different than the way she acts with Sokka or Suki or Toph or Aang, he tells himself.

He has to tell himself, to barricade his heart against the way it speeds up whenever she enters a room.

Of all the dumb things he’s done in his life, falling for Katara is the dumbest by far because it’s a fleeting dream that exists only in the confines of his room, where she takes her hair down and her faces relaxes into the girl she might be if there had never been a war at all. If his family wasn’t a scourge on the earth. And there it is, the thing that keeps him from pressing fully into her, much as she has started to stare wistfully at his mouth: how can this be where it all ends? After every bad thing he’s done, how can he think this is anything but a test?

What is the cost of redemption? The voice in his head - the one that sounds like Uncle - scoffs at the very idea. But Zuko made his peace with his role in things the moment he left the palace. He knew, coming here, that he would serve the Avatar at all cost to his own comfort, however it had to happen - as ally or prisoner. It can’t be now that he really has friends. Certainly, the other shoe will drop - they’ll uncover some other awful thing that he’s done, and Sokka will stop joking with him, and Toph will stop demanding a spar, and Katara…

Katara will look at him the way she did after he sided with Azula, and it will be what he deserves.

This is his role, and he will play it as best he can.

Next to him, Katara sighs softly, shifting deeper into him. He stills, lest he wake her, and she makes an embarrassed, rush exit, never to return.

But she does blink awake, eyes blurry, and she doesn’t rush out. Instead, she stares up at him as she traces her thumb along the very edge of his scar.

“It’s strange,” she murmurs. “Sometimes, in here, I forget…I forget we have to make sure the world doesn’t end.”

Zuko licks his lips - don’t say it - and asks, “Is that why you keep coming back?”

She hums at that, more fully cupping his cheek, her own tinting red. “No, I - I guess I…missed you.”

“You…missed me. When?”

“Always,” she confesses. It catches in her throat around her embarrassment. “I think I’ve…been missing you, for a while.”

He bumps his forehead against hers gently. “Why me? I don’t deserve that.”

She frowns, pulling away, a big crease between her eyebrows. He thinks she might chastise him or argue but instead she just leans in closer, burrowing herself, and mutters into his shoulder, “Well. I do.”

Maybe he’ll pay the cost later, Zuko thinks, wrapping his arms fully around her - but then maybe this is the cost, giving himself wholly over, thrusting the fate of his heart into someone else’s hands.

He closes his eyes and surrenders himself to Ember Island time.