So a few days ago I saw someone (elsewhere) questioning Zutara fans’ excitement about the scarf scene. It wasn't a mean comment, more general curiosity. And well, I didn't have time to get my thoughts out then. But they haven't gone away, so I'm getting them out here:
Here’s what everyone need to understand about Zutara shippers. We were baited baaaad during the initial run of the show–from the magazines to the shorts to the trailers and how they were cut. And Zuko and Katara’s relationship on the show certainly underwent a lot of development and featured objectively emotional–if not overtly romantic–moments between the two. We were well fed, and we had reason to hope. Right up to the end, we had reason to hope.
The shipping wars were the shipping wars, of course, with all the usual tensions; there are always going to be overzealous fans of each (and any) pairing willing to get toxic. Generally, I think Kataang fans were always jealous of Zutara’s popularity and Zutara fans, post finale, were jealous of Kataang’s, well, canon status. But really it operated much the same as any other large fandom’s shipping wars.
And then came Bryke and the panel where they showed and mocked Zutara fan art, some of which had been created by teens if not straight up children. Then came their, “Come on, kids! It was never going to work. Zutara is just dark and intriguing.”* And the pièce de résistance, their telling Zutara shippers (specifically girls/women) that they were doomed to have failed romantic relationships. Like, what? The thing with the art was arguably cruel, and the rest of it was oh, so condescending. Just all around not well done.
The after effect was that Zutara went from being simply a fanon pairing to a wrong pairing. The ATLA fandom at large became a far more hostile place for Zutara fans, who were now more commonly deemed delusional and viewed as lesser fans. The vitriol only got worse when the show came to Netfilx and the next wave of antis rolled up with their co-opting of legitimate socio-political terms to paint Zutara not just as wrong but morally corrupt if not evil. It’s all very puritanical.**
So Zutara fans need to be reminded that we weren’t delusional, and we aren’t alone. It’s why it means so much to know that Dante Basco and Mae Whitman shipped their characters. And that so many other VAs came out as Zutara supporters too: Jack De Sena, Michaela Jill Murphy, Grey DeLisle, Janet Varney--even the cabbage man. For it to be revealed that it was discussed in the writers room; that the writers fought over it; that it WAS a canon possibility. (And that writers Joshua Hamilton and John O’Bryan are perfectly comfortable admitting their preference for Zutara.) To know that the Elizabeth Welch Ehasz described Zuko and Katara as an “Avatar-style Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” in the script for The Southern Raiders, and used the phrase “Zutara-feuling synchronicity and cooperation” to describe their action sequences. To see Giancarlo Volpe, a Kataanger, admit Zutara might been the better pairing in retrospect and choose a quiet scene between them (to see their “chemistry”) as what he’d most look forward to in the live action adaptation. It’s why we cling to the artwork done by Korean animation director. We aren’t delusional. We aren’t alone.
But try telling that to the general fandom, right? Most are ignorant of a lot of this, particularly Hamilton and O’Bryan’s revelations re: the writers room. A lot of Zutara fans don't even seem to know. But being baited by Netflix on their official accounts? Oh, people see that. And we are reminded in a big way that we aren't delusional and we aren't alone. And everyone else has to remember it too.
So, of course, we're having fun clowning over the scarf scene. And I think most Zutara fans know we are clowning. I don't think most expect to get canon Zutara in live action because of one little scene or the fact that their Netflix icons are facing each other. (I headcanon that that was totally the doing of Zutara shipper on staff, though, lol. Because there are a lot of us, and we are everywhere.)
And this is okay. Zutara has been doing just fine as a fanon ship. Meanwhile, NATLA might actually do Kataang justice. It always worked better as a future ship. (Really all the pairings do. But I especially don't ever need to see another 12 year old kissing let alone making out, in animation or live action, ever again.) There's a reason Padme and Anakin don't get together in Phantom Menace, after all. Also, there's always the chance they could give us Dante's or Mae's headcanon of them basically suppressing their feelings and choosing duty over love/right person-wrong time. And the odds of getting some more moments to clown over are high enough.
Anyway, TLDR: Zutara has been made to feel like an out-of-nowhere crack ship and the live action crumbs remind us that it is not. And this is at least partially why we are enjoying it. (Because, also, it's just fun!)
*Side tangent: I’ve never gotten this dark and intriguing comment. Even during Season 1, the height of the capture fic era, Zutara was always a ship fundamentally about hope, predicated on Zuko's redemption. (Back in the day, there were also plenty of antis arguing that there was no way Zuko would ever be one of the gaang.) And they say “intriguing” like it’s a bad thing? Are we not supposed to be interested in the relationships of their characters???
**There have been some very good think pieces written lately on late stage capitalism and consumption as morality. Worth googling.
i love non-sexual intimacy and astarion having no bloody idea how to handle it, so of course i couldn't resist writing 3000+ words about it. enjoy!
let the pulses run (astarion x gender neutral!reader, baldur's gate 3)
Astarion waits for it. Expects it.
A beseeching glance, a teasing smile, a flirtatious remark. Hells, even an outright proposition - he can’t quite imagine you pulling it off, but at least it would be something familiar.
And yet - nothing.
Well, he amends as you settle beside him before the campfire, perhaps not nothing.
“How is it?” you ask, a solemn slope to your brow as you take in the wound on his arm. A lucky shot from a rather unlucky goblin, who’d received your rapier to the gut for his troubles.
“Oh, this?” He raises his arm, nonchalant. The wound had stopped bleeding, but it wasn’t a pretty sight. “Barely a scratch, darling.”
Your brows furrow. Liar, they say.
“You’ll need blood.” You take a second glance at his arm and grimace. The scent of iron clings to the air. “A lot of it.”
Astarion tilts his head, allows a few silver curls to fall artfully across his brow. You track the movement, though your gaze is quick to dart back to his own. He fights a smirk and loses. “Astute, aren’t you? Yes, I’m afraid I’ll need to do more than my usual share of feeding tonight to fix this mess.”
You say nothing in response, not at first. He wonders if you’ll actually say it, or if you’ll hem and haw yourself to death trying to free the words from your tongue.
“If you truly have need of it,” you begin, reaching up to touch your fingertips to your throat. The mark from his first feeding had long since faded, but you remembered where his fangs had struck.
“How generous!” Astarion exclaims, a little touched despite himself. It took a certain amount of fortitude to offer yourself to a hungry vampire, after all. “If you’re certain - “
You don’t answer with words, merely tilting your head and baring your throat to him. Astarion longs to draw out the suspense, tease you with the anticipation of his bite, but that furrow hasn’t left your brow and he finds himself unwilling to add to your worries. Besides, his body cries out for the meal you’ve so graciously offered, practically rejoicing as he lowers his mouth to your throat.
There’s a certain… intimacy to be had during the act of feeding, he’s learned. Not so much in the bite itself, but in the aftermath: the pull of precious blood, the quickening of a pulse, the flush of warm, living flesh.
Astarion has never felt the like, not until he first drew blood from you. To know that this is what he had been missing for all the centuries he’d spent feeding on vermin makes his hatred for Cazador climb higher, though he pushes thoughts of his former master far from his mind before they can truly take root. He will not think of his tormentor here, not with you.
You draw in a breath; it sticks in your throat, your pulse beating like a drum in the back of Astarion’s brain. He can smell your skin, the sweat and blood from your latest battle mingling with the scent of sweetgrass and rainwater, the scent of you, light and sweet against the back of his tongue.
He can smell more than that. Unease and pain cling to you like a film while he feeds, but beneath that, clinging to your flesh like a limpet, he finds what he’s been searching for - the familiar musk of arousal.
Well, then, he thinks victoriously, feeling a shiver work down his spine as your blood coats the back of his tongue. There’s all the proof I need.
He had wondered if your lack of amorous advances had been due to disinterest, but no. The body doesn’t lie, and yours was basically singing, crying out its need with increasing frequency the longer his fangs remained buried in your throat.
So then why? Why did you flit away from his advances like a rabbit evading a predator? He knew what you wanted and had no qualms about giving it to you. It would cement your trust in him, bolster your growing bond. Your union would be advantageous to you both.
He’s so consumed by his thoughts that he doesn’t notice your hand moving until it’s braced against the back of his neck, your palm warm against his skin. He waits for your signal to move away, hungrily swallowing another mouthful of your sweet blood in case it happens to be his last, but all you do is reach for the riot of curls at his nape and pass your fingers gently through them. Once, twice more, until you’ve built up a steady rhythm.
It feels… well, it feels rather nice, actually. It’s far from the first time someone has ever run their fingers through his hair, and yet your touch feels… lighter in comparison, unweighted by sensual delight or a precursor for greedy lust. You’re not touching him in anticipation for more - you’re just… touching him.
It confuses him so greatly that Astarion finds himself pulling away before he’d truly wished to, feeling more than a little bereft when your fingers slip from his hair and land, half-curled still, in your lap.
“That will do, darling,” he mumbles, pushing himself to his feet. It’s a good thing the blood loss has dazed you somewhat, or else your eagle eyes would have quickly taken notice of the bewildered expression upon his face. “A boar or two will more than suffice for the rest. You should sleep, while you’re able.” His nose wrinkles, and he can’t help himself from adding, “But perhaps bathe first.”
Your eyes narrow at the thinly-veiled insult, but you push yourself clumsily to your feet and head for the river flowing near camp. “Keep your eyes about you while you hunt,” you call to him over your shoulder. “There may still be goblins about.”
He doesn’t know how to tell you that goblins - and hunting, for that matter - are among the last things on his mind. He merely watches you walk away, his fingers creeping to the thatch of curls you had so gently carded through, and wonders what the hell he’s supposed to do with you now.
Your growing affection for him remains more than apparent as the days pass. You’re devoted to finding a cure for the parasites that writhe within your minds and playing savior for everyone you meet along the way, but in the moments between - slivers of time carved out for rest and respite - you gravitate toward Astarion, leaving the vampire torn between petty satisfaction and growing confusion, because you simply refuse to acknowledge his increasingly thinly-veiled offers to fuck you.
It’s ridiculous. Madness, really. The number of conquests under his belt had grown too numerous for Astarion to recall, his expertise in the art of seduction unmatched, and yet you remained unmoved by his every attempt. Oh, you would flush, your eyes would flit about as though you couldn’t bear to meet his gaze, your body itself would sway towards his like a tree bough rocked by the wind, but still you would play at ambivalency.
Astarion might be inclined to believe himself incorrect - a rarity, to be sure, but stranger things have happened; that your reaction to his bite was merely a result of the intimacy of the act rather than any true desire you might hold for him, and yet your behavior afterwards serves to lay that theory quite soundly to rest.
You’ve become quite… tactile, with him, as of late. A bracing hand on his shoulder whenever an enemy’s attack knocks him off his guard, elbows brushing whenever you’re gathered near the campfire, even a rather memorable moment where you’d brushed his curls free of his brow late in the night, your hand hovering in the air between you and a bewildered expression writ across your face, as though shocked that you’d actually done it.
It’s driving Astarion mad, wondering what could possibly be going on inside that skull of yours. The thought of tapping in to the tadpole’s power just to catch a glimpse passes swiftly through his mind, but to his eternal chagrin, knowing somehow feels more daunting.
Besides, he’s… curious. Curious as to what you’ll do next and how he may react to it, and so he doesn’t ask you to stop. You would, if only he were to indicate a dislike of your touch, and yet to do so would prove the vampire a liar, for he finds that he actually quite enjoys the fleeting brush of your fingertips across his brow, or the firm, comforting weight of your shoulder against his.
Gods, what has he gotten himself into?
He ponders his plight late into the night, until his eyes slip closed and he’s confronted by another new pressing issue - nightmares of his former life and dear old master, memories of previous torments and casual cruelties assaulting his mind from every front.
Astarion twists upon his bedroll, fingers spasming atop his chest as Cazador flits through his mind like a phantom. Sweat beads on his temples, leaving his curls damp. Fear bubbles through his blood like some molten creature.
“Astarion.”
He awakens with a shout, his dreams clinging to his mind for another awful moment before their claws finally release him. You’re the first thing he notices as soon as he’s set himself to rights, kneeling by his bedside with a discomfited expression upon your face. It had been your voice, then - yours, not Cazador’s - that had called out to him, broken him free of his agony.
His lips try to twist into their customary smirk, but fall short of the goal and tremble instead. He presses them into a firm line. “Apologies, my love,” he murmurs, grimacing at the drying sweat along his brow. “Did I wake you?”
You shake your head. “I had first watch,” you explain. Your hand twitches at your side. You want to touch him, he realizes. Reassure him. By the gods, with the way he’s feeling right now, Astarion might actually let you do it. “Are you alright?”
“Wonderful,” he bites out, reaching up to push sweaty curls free of his brow only to find that you've beaten him to it, your fingertips callused and blessedly cool against his skin. The urge to swoon like a damned maiden is nearly overwhelming, and yet Astarion resists, only allowing himself the luxury of closing his eyes and indulging in your touch for a few brief moments.
“Nightmare?” Your voice is low, dreadfully soothing. Keep talking, he thinks, pushing his brow into your palm. Don’t make me do it.
He hums in the affirmative. Your fingers drift to the crown of his head, smooth through the flattened curls at the base of his skull, and rest there, holding him.
“Cazador?” The name sounds like a curse on your lips, and might as well be for all the vitriol you spew it with.
Astarion’s lips twitch. It shouldn’t thrill him, the ire you hold for a man you’ve never met, but he knows it’s there simply because its bearer has caused him harm. You’re protective of those you hold dear.
“The one and the same,” he mutters into the curve of your shoulder, having allowed his chin to rest there while your fingers curled around the back of his neck. You smelled of embers from the fire and the sweetness of the cool night air, and Astarion breathed deep, soothed by the scent.
“What do you need?” It’s a gentle query against one pointed ear, and for a moment Astarion stares beyond your shoulder, beyond the camp, all the way to Baldur’s Gate and Cazador’s cold, cruel gaze, waiting for his return. You’re silent, patient for his response, and in that moment Astarion is certain that you would give him anything, if only he would ask.
He could ask for you - for the distraction that your body would provide this night, and you would give it to him. You would trust him with it.
He can see it so clearly, the rapture of it driving the echoes of Cazador’s voice from his head. But he can see the aftermath, too, and your disappointment when you realize that it’s all he can truly give you, and only because he knows of no other way to be.
“I don’t know,” he murmurs into your shoulder, and it’s the truth, for all the good that does him.
He feels you nodding, feels your cheek resting against his hair, feels more than hears you say, “Let me know, whenever you figure it out,” and listens to the faint beat of your pulse until his dreams seem like nothing more than misshapen fragments, unimportant, without teeth.
Something shifts between you then, or perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that something settles. His machinations cease, insomuch as he stops trying to manipulate you into bed, though teasing you with ill-concealed innuendo remains a habit he can’t quite shake.
You’ve promised to help break Cazador’s hold upon him, and judging by the sharpness in your eyes whenever the subject is pressed, you’re determined to uphold it.
You care about him; of that, Astarion is more than certain. He sees it in the way you look at him, feels it in the touches you bestow. He hears it, your pulse as clear to him as the warmth of the blood in your veins. He’s earned your trust, your affection, your protection. And you’ve earned his.
How could he keep it from you, when you’ve not only unearthed his past but vowed to help him escape it? How could he guard himself against you when he’s seen that fire in your eyes, watched you wield it against that vile drow who’d called him a thing and urged you to allow him to bite her?
Astarion shudders at the reminder. If it had been Cazador in your place, he would have taken the offer without thought, without care for Astarion’s comfort. But not you.
It had angered you - not just the drow’s request, but her flippant disregard of Astarion’s autonomy.
“Astarion is his own person,” you had said, practically spitting the words through gritted teeth. “And he said no.”
You were still angry, by the looks of it, if your gritted teeth and flashing eyes were anything to go by.
“Are we going into battle?” he calls out, catching you as you’re about to stomp by.
You jerk to a halt and give him a look, completely confused. He bites back a laugh.
“It certainly seems so, judging by your face.”
“My face?” You reach up as though to check, and this time Astarion does laugh, a soft huff that seems to startle you, but also leave you looking incredibly, undeniably… fond. It’s… well. It’s a nice look on you.
“You’re angry,” he explains, reaching over to rub the furrow from your brows. You go cross-eyed trying to watch him, and another laugh bubbles from his throat before he can stop it.
And ah, there’s that fondness again upon your face. He feels warm beneath that look, full, as if he’s freshly fed.
“I am angry,” you murmur, drawing closer. “Her ignorance, her arrogance - it infuriated me.”
“Obviously,” Astarion quips, lips twitching as your mouth twists in annoyance. He allows the humor to drain from his tone before he continues, a touch more solemnly, “Thank you. I appreciated that.”
Your head tilts. “What did I do?”
Astarion huffs a breath, astounded by your obliviousness. “I spent two-hundred years using my body to lure pretty things back to my Master. What I wanted, how I felt about what I was doing, it never mattered.” The memories, though old, are fresh, and he does his best to shake them free of his mind. This isn’t about that. This is about you. “You could have asked me to do the same, but you didn’t. And I’m grateful.”
“I never would,” you return, and your words are firm. Resolute. You need him to believe them. “It wouldn’t have been right, forcing you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
“You’re the first to think so,” Astarion murmurs. “The first not to make me feel like something to be used and discarded.” He had still been living as though he was exactly that, he realizes. Still a puppet, a pawn to be ordered about at his master’s whim. But that wasn’t who he was, anymore, and he would never be that way again. You would aid him in making sure of it, and not simply because he’d seduced and manipulated you into doing so. You would do it because you wanted to. Because you cared.
Because you were his friend.
“Thank you,” he repeated, a lightness to his shoulders that he hasn’t felt in centuries.
You stare at him, throat working for a moment as if you don’t know what to say in return, and he smiles. Silly thing.
But then you’re stepping forward, a determined glint to your eye, and Astarion is left with no other recourse than to gawk over your shoulder as you wrap both arms around him. Your cheek comes to rest against his shoulder, your chest settling warmly against his, and Astarion -
Astarion crumbles. His arms come up to wrap around you, gingerly at first, until he hears your sigh - a soft thing, sweet, happy - and then he’s squeezing you against him, brow falling to your shoulder.
Gods, when was the last time someone had embraced him like this? He wracks his mind and still fails to recall a single moment where he was gathered so close without an ulterior motive to facilitate it.
He doesn’t want to let you go. It’s an intimidating thought. A terrifying thought. And yet the terror doesn’t make it any less true. For the first time in centuries, he wants - he actually wants something, just for him, just because.
He wants you.
It would be easy for the fear to consume him, then, fear that this will crumble to dust beneath his hands like so much else, and yet you won’t allow that terror to seep through. It can’t, not with your arms curled so sweetly around his waist, your smile tucked against his shoulder, your pulse a soothing beat in his ears, assuring him without words that he had been right all along.
You want him, too.
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