we’ll build a fortress for both of our needs

jasmine, she/her, 17. fic writer, zutara and tyzula enthusiast. currently MIA on this blog but will be back! — main / ao3 / carrd / twitter

[sxpphicazula]

go check out this zutara one-shot where katara wakes up with a hangover in zuko's bed after a new year's eve party :D

[rhinedottirau]

☆ 5K FOLLOWER CELEBRATION ☆

Zuko or Azula  → requested by @incepstla 

[jacqstoned]

Just another Zutara artwork 💙❤️💜

I was having trouble with this sketch since last year because of the bike and the flowers, but I've been feeling pretty good about my skills recently so I decided to resurrect it. I think it turned out well!

[favlie]

modern au, tattooed katara 🌙🌊

[stellarlilies]

[DO NOT REPOST]

Zuko: “So what’s next after this?” Katara: “Babaguhin natin ang mundo.” (“We will change the world.”)

Lovely commission of Lasallian!Zuko and Iska!Tara on their graduation day by @ecaworks . It’s exactly how @aclashofqueens​ and I envisioned it would be 🌻

Katara is wearing the traditional attire for a UP graduate: white dress (she got a modern Filipiniana “terno” with a crop top because she’s a FASHION ICON) with the UP Sablay. Meanwhile, Zuko is wearing the standard DLSU toga for graduates from the College of Liberal Arts.

Fresh from his own DLSU graduation rites and still wearing his toga, went straight to UP to see his valedictorian girlfriend! He only marched, posed with University heads on stage, and took a few photos with Ursa, Iroh, and Azula. (Later on, he and Katara would meet up with them again for a celebratory dinner in Shang).

When it was time for Katara to go up on stage and deliver her valedictory speech, Sokka was about to shout “That’s my sister!” but Zuko, being the proud boyfriend that he was, beat him to it.

Zutara PH University / Big 4 AU Student Profiles:

Katara 2011-XXXXX Cum Laude BS Public Health College of Public Health University of the Philippines - Manila

Zuko 110XXXXX Cum Laude AB Psychology College of Liberal Arts (transferred from the College of Business) De La Salle University - Manila

Individual grad shoot photos by the lovely @avenuecab here. Yes, they kept each other’s grad photos in their phone cases for good luck! 💚🤍 x ❤️💚

[DO NOT REPOST]

[clearbluewaters]

taking a moment here to be that angry bi fan:

I am sick of people calling f/m couples “boring,” “hetero,” “hets,” “flavorless,” etc., especially interracial couples, or couples where one is disabled, or, my personal favorite, couples where one or both characters is canonically bisexual. 

I am sick of constantly being assumed to be “boring and hetero” myself when I ship one of those couples. 

I am sick of the idea of “proving” that a character is queer by exclusively having them in relationships with someone of the same gender, and erasing their canon love interests of another gender (this goes double if the canon love interest is female and/or a poc).

I am sick of canonically bisexual female characters being referred to as lesbians, and of canonically bisexual male characters being referred to as gay.

I am sick of when a creator reveals a character to be bisexual and it’s treated by the fandom as a cop-out, a lesser form of being queer, as “not queer enough.”

I am sick of people not even being able to entertain the idea of a character, even a character with canon love interests of another gender, as bisexual. Of their constant mocking of bisexual fans who create and support those headcanons, who ship those couples, whose identities are minimized and erased with their blanket statements, who either can’t just fathom us existing, or who just don’t care. 

I am utterly sick and tired of the biphobia in fandom, and I’m not going to be quiet about it anymore. 

[sxpphicazula]

What were you and that anon trying to say? Writing fic doesn't mean that you're better or more important than people on Twitter. Everyone is in this fandom and canbe appreciated equally

Yeah, I agree with you! Content creators in fandom are not more valuable than anyone else—everyone is equally important. The anon and I were addressing a separate issue where a specific zk shipper was diminishing other zk shippers for “sucking up” to zvkkas by humouring their arguments—when in reality zk shippers are the ones receiving anon hate and being harassed. She was basically telling people to quit arguing with zvkkas and go create content instead. The anon was simply pointing out that some of the zk shippers she was salting about are literally content creators, which kinda invalidates her argument.

[southslates]

if Tyzula was a het ship it would get crushed. U don't deal with that because it's uwu gay

okay what the actual fuck? 

wlw ships are held to insanely high standards in comparison to most other kinds of ships anyway and trust me nobody is going tyzula is wlw and therefore the ship isn’t toxic. i’ve seen that in zvkka fandom where people are “well zutara is a colonizer ship but zvkka isn’t” as though zvkka being gay absolves it of those same criticisms and i hate this website because that is not how it works

tyzula isn’t a het ship. like that’s literally it. and the rep wlw get is limited as fuck as it is in source material (one fucking thing atla did right) and it’s super fucking limited in fandom as well

tyzula being wlw doesn’t change the validity of the ship, its level of toxicity, or how ‘valid’ it is to ship. wlw ships are dynamic as well you know? mlm and mlw ships aren’t the only kind that get to have nuance

and i hate this because women are held to incredibly fucking high standards because of fandom’s internalized misogyny. if tyzula was two men all of the people screaming abuse apologism in my inbox would get crushed. if it was het it would probably be similar because 

fandom fucking hates women and wlw

and i’m sick of it!

[byallmeans1]

[perfectlypanda]

Katara: Of all the stupid, noble- you could have died!

Zuko: Or you could have died. I couldn’t let that happen.

Katara: The world needs you, you have to be the next Fire Lord -

Zuko: The world needs you too.

Katara: But-

Zuko: No, no buts.

Just one hug in the finale. That’s all I wanted.

♥ Please do not repost. If you like it and want to show people, share a link to this page instead. Thank you! | ♥ Image manip, bases from: AtLA.

[southslates]

grey & olivia <33

[riathermopolis]

Modern Katara with blue hair 🌊💙🌻

[sxpphicazula]

"maybe go open ao3 and you'll calm down".... you mean to write?? Bc you and atxrcticas do actually write zutara fics 💀 that person seems like they're very disconnected from what goes on on Tumblr

contrary to their belief, most zks actually do spend most of their time in fandom making content for their ship rather than railing against zvkkas lmao. they definitely seemed disconnected from zk tumblr’s climate—probably because they’re only really invested in zk twt.

[hastyhand-deactivated20230111]

can i offer u a smooch in these trying times

[midnightcookiz]

zutara commission 💧🔥

[kataraslove]

yall spend WAY too much time trying to prove yourselves to zukka shippers...maybe go open ao3 and you’ll calm down

[sxpphicazula]

I'm...kind of disgusted by this lmao. what exactly are we trying to "prove"? the blatant misogyny and stereotyping some zvkkas apply to katara? the fetishization some of them can't seem to let go of? some things NEED to be addressed rather than simply swept under the rug. I'm not asking you to stand up for the dozens of zk shippers who've received hate in their inboxes for nothing more than liking a ship that has basis in canon, but maybe you should consider standing in solidarity with us—or at the very least, consider blocking anti tags—rather than playing the holier than thou fandom mediator.

[sokkastyles]

Been seeing zutara antis say lately that Katara "doesn't have the patience" to be firelady or team mom (even though she textually is, and she often takes care of the gaang thanklessly) and y'all know that's racist, right? Right? Like that's literally a racist stereotype about brown women?

[ceruleanwhore]

Her whole character is just patience for other people’s bullshit lmao so how tf do you reach that conclusion?

[sokkastyles]

Right? And the irony is that she's had to be patient for Aang in particular every step of the way but people who ship them will still insult Katara this way because they're desperate to invalidate zutara.

I mean, this happens to female characters all the time who are forced into motherly roles. Katara's introduction as a character at the beginning of the story is waiting for the Avatar to return while filling the void her mother left in their family, and then when Aang is released from the iceberg she takes it upon herself to help him learn, because she spent all that time waiting for the Avatar only to find out he was a kid who only knew one element. So she has to be patient some more, only now she's not going to just wait around, she's going to help make Aang into the savior she needs him to be. She does so much for Aang and all of them and just because she is also a fourteen year old girl who gets frustrated and righteously angry at having to carry so much by herself fandom calls her impatient. And then apparently the life she's supposed to lead is the one where she goes back home, never leaves, and sits around in an igloo for the rest of her life. If she's so impatient, why would y'all think she would be happy with that? Of course Katara's home and heritage are important to her, but she also chose to leave because she wanted to be a part in global events. Fandom will see a female character, especially a woman of color, making things happen for herself and be like "wow, isn't she impatient, irrational, hostile" even when she also has the patience of a saint.

[tea-and-la]

A certain part of atla fandom’s obsession with painting katara as “impatient” (and also hot-headed) is absolutely racist and oftentimes bordering on sexist. Katara is probably the most patient person in the gaang, and anyone who disagrees is due for a rewatch of The Desert. Aang was understandably upset about losing Appa and lashing out at everyone. There’s even a scene where he brandishes his staff at Katara specifically and says “What’s everyone else doing? What are YOU doing?” And she responds, “trying to keep everyone together.” Because she was. She was juggling Aang’s emotional anger and him flying away, sokka’s cactus juice-induced high, and toph being unable to see.... all while everyone else was generally pessimistic (or unhelpful) about getting out of the desert. Her patience in this episode ALONE is why the logic that Katara is impatient is hella flawed. 

I cannot think of a single time when Katara is impatient for anything not pertaining to an injustice or something completely valid. Like for example, when she chooses to get imprisoned to save Haru, fights Pakku for his sexism, and when she refuses to turn her back on the FN village in The Painted Lady. But these are all good things. Other than that, the only other time I can remember her being impatient is with herself when she wasn’t learning waterbending as quickly as she wanted, but that is understandable because she wanted to learn her heritage.

This also reminds me of that post from a few days ago where a zs shipper insisted that katara wasn’t responsible or sensible (implying that’s she's irrational.) Takes like this almost always read as sexist to me. 

Oh, and another thing I see certain parts of fandom do is over exaggerate Katara’s hostility, and it rubs me the wrong way. As a Black woman, there is a pervasive stereotype of being perceived as the “angry Black woman,” even in situations where my anger is justified. I see a similar type of criticism being lobbed at Katara in fandom.

Oftentimes, the discussion of Katara’s “hostility” is wrt Zuko (and used as ‘proof’ that Zutara wouldn’t work because she hates his guts.) I mean, I literally just saw a post today that said Katara was walking around plotting his death when he joined and it’s just...not even remotely true. Yes, she did say if he hurt Aang she wouldn’t hesitate, but after that, their interactions were fairly innocuous until Southern raiders. She does throw some shade at him (maybe you’re not as good as you think you are) but it’s hardly as violent as antis make it seem? It’s moreso petty jabs. And when Zuko says “wanna hear a joke?” she said “Sure” and also accepts tea from him in the same scene. If she hated his guts and being around him as much as antis think, this wouldn’t have happened. She even teased him in a way that could be considered relatively friendly (right after Sokka’s tease) in The Firebending Masters, “Oh yeah? What’s your little form called?”