new era i guess

| chelsea | she/her | minor | asian | don't repost my metas | stop asian hate |

[whattheheehaw]

i hate zutara

[whattheheehaw]

i feel liberated

[whattheheehaw]

is this making progress?

[whattheheehaw]

no progress was made.

[whattheheehaw]

the day i decide to be active on tumblr is the day mitski is trending i love it here

[bagofbonesmp3]

[loridart]

this is how that scene went right?

watched world heroes mission the friday it came out it might honestly be my favorite of the three movies so far please go watch it it’s great

also i just reached my first thousand followers?? thank y’all so much!!

(EDIT: i forgot his scar in the last panel but its fucking 1am so ill fix tomorrow adsflksdnfoanldjfoajsjfalaks)

(EDIT: fixed!)

[whattheheehaw]

let's say, hypothetically, i started writing meta again.

[whattheheehaw]

Post ATLA Katara was a character created by the creators with the intention of glorifying women whose lives revolve around their partners. So if you have a problem with people treating brown women as props to the men in their lives I would start with the white men who created her and created those scenes with that purpose and not people who are reacting as intended.

(What I'm hearing is do not consume media critically and just interact with it the way the creators wanted you to no matter how problematic their views are.)

Honestly that's what's so disappointing about this whole ordeal. For a fandom that prides itself on consuming media critically and writing countless metas analyzing the relationship between two fictional characters, all of a sudden it becomes "don't blame us for thirsting over a fictional character because that's what the creators intended for us to do". Like, I don't think it was Bryke's intention for y'all to ship Zutara to the lengths that some of y'all do, but you did it anyways and decided to make up your own interpretations of the characters and their relationship. So what's so different about looking at the show critically when it comes to the characters' racial coding and the contexts that they're put in by the creators? I'd like a genuine answer to that question and I'll wait for people to come up with one.

It just grosses me out that people are resorting to "blame the creators and not us" because honestly? ATLA is a children's cartoon produced by Nickelodeon that was targeted for kids aged 7 and up. I highly doubt that the writing and animation teams put in shirtless Zuko scenes as a thirst trap for parents, nevermind kids that haven't even reached double digits yet. And I also doubt that the intent behind including those scenes was so that 15+ years later people would start a weekly event in which people repost screenshots of shirtless Zuko for people to ogle over. Even if Bryke put in those scenes so that people would thirst over Zuko, there's literally no good reason for people to not stop and think about why that might be harmful to certain groups of people.

People need to learn how to hold themselves accountable for stuff like this instead of immediately pointing fingers and placing the blame on someone else. Nobody forced you guys to create Shirtless Zuk0 Sunday. Nobody forced you guys to thirst over him. Nobody forced you guys to write underage and/or nonconsensual porn and then not properly tag it. You did that all on your own.

[zutarawasrobbed]

My whole point in that post about the SZS drama, which was literally the last line, was that if people reacted to something as intended, they shouldn’t be canceled for it if they didn’t know better. Not that no one should look at media critically. People are taking this way too far.

I’m all for calling out something harmful. But, in this SPECIFIC situation, I am referring to people who are talking about their distaste for NSFW content and how it’s a double standard to compare the users sexualizing minors (which apparently includes cartoons and that are aged up in content which apparently is the same but it’s not but go off.) and NOT also remember who made the original source material which did just that in the first place.

Seriously this whole thing reminds me of the colonization argument with people who don’t understand the definition of colonization; only, in this case, it’s fetishization.

[whattheheehaw]

Sweetie, I don't want to get into another argument with you that's just going to end up with you saying "well I didn't explain my post very clearly because I was sleep drunk" because clearly that's the only decent response you can come up with. This reblog did nothing to clarify your previous post. In fact, it made it even less clear with you trying to get on your high horse about semantics. Believe me, I know what fetishization is; I've experienced it. Maybe you should go take a nap and come back when you're well-rested so you can give me a better explanation into your perspective.

[whattheheehaw]

Post ATLA Katara was a character created by the creators with the intention of glorifying women whose lives revolve around their partners. So if you have a problem with people treating brown women as props to the men in their lives I would start with the white men who created her and created those scenes with that purpose and not people who are reacting as intended.

(What I'm hearing is do not consume media critically and just interact with it the way the creators wanted you to no matter how problematic their views are.)

Honestly that's what's so disappointing about this whole ordeal. For a fandom that prides itself on consuming media critically and writing countless metas analyzing the relationship between two fictional characters, all of a sudden it becomes "don't blame us for thirsting over a fictional character because that's what the creators intended for us to do". Like, I don't think it was Bryke's intention for y'all to ship Zutara to the lengths that some of y'all do, but you did it anyways and decided to make up your own interpretations of the characters and their relationship. So what's so different about looking at the show critically when it comes to the characters' racial coding and the contexts that they're put in by the creators? I'd like a genuine answer to that question and I'll wait for people to come up with one.

It just grosses me out that people are resorting to "blame the creators and not us" because honestly? ATLA is a children's cartoon produced by Nickelodeon that was targeted for kids aged 7 and up. I highly doubt that the writing and animation teams put in shirtless Zuko scenes as a thirst trap for parents, nevermind kids that haven't even reached double digits yet. And I also doubt that the intent behind including those scenes was so that 15+ years later people would start a weekly event in which people repost screenshots of shirtless Zuko for people to ogle over. Even if Bryke put in those scenes so that people would thirst over Zuko, there's literally no good reason for people to not stop and think about why that might be harmful to certain groups of people.

People need to learn how to hold themselves accountable for stuff like this instead of immediately pointing fingers and placing the blame on someone else. Nobody forced you guys to create Shirtless Zuk0 Sunday. Nobody forced you guys to thirst over him. Nobody forced you guys to write underage and/or nonconsensual porn and then not properly tag it. You did that all on your own.

[zutarawasrobbed]

Shirtless Zuko Discourse

Okay, I want to start by saying I am a woman of color, specifically Native American and Latina. I am also Demisexual and bisexual. I would also like to emphasize I’m an OG Zutara shipper on Tumblr, meaning before the resurgence, which is essential for what I’m about to say.

The discourse is not really between white women and WOC, but old tumblr and New Tumblr. I’ll explain.

Unfortunately the only ones who has made the majority of posts have been white. But these women are also part of the LGBT community who are also from Pre Renaissance ATLA.

I don’t want to get into the entire history of Tumblr, but, while it was a safe space for fandom it was also a safe space for people part of the LGBTQ community to express their sexuality in media and art without shame before the porn ban.

I find it sad this is happening in pride month of all times. The younger generation might be unaware of what Tumblr meant to the LGBTQ community, but it was never meant to be a site for minors. It was initially 17+.

While I do understand things have changed, it has led to many LGBTQ creators to hide or leave and create a new culture of shame they went to Tumblr to get away from in the first place.

Recently, people have started coming out more open with their preferences and trying to express themselves within the guidelines Tumblr has allowed. It’s not a coincidence. June is pride month and people from the pre renaissance are trying to feel safe in their original community.

We often forget those affected during the NSFW purge, primarily Sex workers and LGBTQ artists who were left without a platform to network. Within the guidelines, creators are still shadow-banned when they do use the correct tags. So even writing smut is impossible to promote even if it is appropriately tagged.

I understand I don’t speak for all POC and that there are people who are upset for valid reasons.

But I don’t think we should automatically assume anyone is trying to dismiss anyone’s feelings and voices. I’ve read multiple posts from both sides and there seems to be this conflation between people of color who are talking about racism and white women from the LGBTQ community talking about the harms of puritan culture coming from a site that used to be a safe haven for LGBTQ creators.

I dont know who is sending those awful asks but I can guarantee it isn’t OP or the event. And if anyone is trying to dismiss your voices as POC and/or as part of the LGBTQ community, fuck them.

Now as for my thoughts on shirtless Zuko:

Shirtless Zuko were pictures created by the creators with the intention of making people thirst over Zuko. So if you have a problem with people sexual using East Asian men I would start with the white men who drew him and created those scene with that purpose and not people who are reacting as intended.

[sunandmoongobrrr]

i think youre discussing the wrong things here.

this doesnt really have to do with lgbtq+ artists or anything like that. the porn ban is DEFINITELY involved but it doesnt really have much to do with the queer community considering this is a het ship we're talking about (not that a lot of zutara shippers arent queer, myself included, but this is far from the only place artists can post this ship's nsfw art).

youre talking about two different effects of the porn ban. One was the major effect everyone saw almost immediately, where lgbtq+ artists were run from the platform and it sucked. But this is a much smaller effect of it where we can't scroll through the zutara tag without seeing tentacle porn lmao. i think if we all as a community decided on a nsfw tag that would bypass the filters, it would basically solve this entire problem (and i highly doubt tumblr would care enough to filter a very specific tag for a very specific community, unless i'm wrong about that). i dont see why nsfw blogs would have a problem with cultivating a tag so minors (and other people that dont want to see it) dont have to see their posts, since its been pointed out that its a problem rn.

the porn itself is not that big of a deal. nobody is trying to get rid of it. notice how every person who wants this stuff gone from the tags is also very pro-ao3 and such. we're not asking for censorship, we're just asking for a way to cultivate our internet experience for us. tumblr was 17+, but the person who started this discourse in the first place is over that age limit. its not just about minors.

But I don’t think we should automatically assume anyone is trying to dismiss anyone’s feelings and voices. I’ve read multiple posts from both sides and there seems to be this conflation between people of color who are talking about racism and white women from the LGBTQ community talking about the harms of puritan culture coming from a site that used to be a safe haven for LGBTQ creators.

Yes, exactly. there are white women trying to use their own experiences to excuse what many east asian fans see as fetishization. its not about purity culture, it's about people of color trying to do whats best for their community and combat stereotypes. but i definitely do agree that there are some hostile people on here that are just posting without thinking about repercussions and you can definitely see how thats working out lmao.

So if you have a problem with people sexual using East Asian men I would start with the white men who drew him and created those scene with that purpose and not people who are reacting as intended.

If we blindly consume media without looking at it through a critical racial lense, we could be missing the exact things east asian zutarians are pointing out to us right now. id say this fandom has done a pretty good job at criticizing the men who drew him, but that doesnt mean we cant critique each other when we see the same thing happening in our own spaces.

anyway, personally i dont mind if anyone writes smut or draws whatever or posts whatever. i think anything anyone is asking for here is like proper tags and stuff that can identify these kind of things. or at least not tagging them in the gen zutara tag.

im not east asian so i clearly dont have a voice in the specific discussion about shirtless zuko sunday or whatever, but ive seen a similar thing happen with the misuse of Katara as a brown woman by white fans, and being brushed off as a woc, and so i'd think its understandable why im more willing to side with them here haha.

[zelzenik]

if your response to criticisms from real East Asians regarding the fetishization of East Asian coded characters is to blame the white men who created them, then you're deflecting from the real issue at hand, and i'd ask you to reevaluate

[whattheheehaw]

Good grief if you wanna shit on adults for being asses fine but don't act as if all white people are evil or have it out for you

Yeah I'll agree with you that not all white people are evil or have it out for me. But the fact that so many white people on this website speak over POC shippers, fill the ask boxes of POC shippers with hate, and fetishize the hell out of Zuko and/or Katara doesn't sit right with me and I will call people out on it.

[zelzenik]

an essay on the fetishization of east asians in fandom

ok y'all

i've got multiple asks about my opinion regarding the whole Sh*rtless Z/ko Sunday thing, and i do want to preface this all by saying that i do have friends and mutuals who participate(?) in this event(?) so i am in no way meaning to shame anyone or be the fandom's purity police as some anons have been claiming i'm attempting to be, lol

that all being said, i am half East Asian, and upon really thinking on the reasons why this "event" in particular irks me personally, i've come to the following conclusions which i hope you will read through with an open mind.

there's nothing necessarily "wrong" with this "event" to most people. yes, Z/ko is a bunch of pixels. yes, he's a cartoon character. yes, plenty of ppl draw diff characters shirtless. i'm in plenty of different fandoms that draw characters shirtless. whatever. Z/ko, however, is an East Asian coded character so i do believe that i have the right to speak on this

this "event" isn't necessarily "wrong" in terms of the fact that it technically does not actually hurt East Asians physically; however, i do believe that it is a SYMPTOM of a larger issue at hand

of course there are people who are participating in the "event" harmlessly and do not realize that they are worsening such a symptom. but there are others who are doing it intentionally which i think is very worrisome as someone who's an East Asian

the mass consumption of anime, kpop, jpop, kdramas, cdramas, media based on Asian culture such as ATLA, etc, etc, etc has led to a WIDESPREAD issue within fandom regarding the fetishization of East Asians

before you argue with me and say that is not true, i ask that you peruse the fandoms of popular animes or kpop groups (like BTS)

for years, East Asians have dealt with racism and hate and dehumanization regarding sex work and war brides and the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Japanese internment camps and all this other really terrible stuff that i will not get into at the moment because it's too upsetting for me to even discuss (i urge you to Google). that all being said, now, we (East Asians) not only have to deal with the trauma of those sorts of issues, but we also are forced to watch as our people are sexualized and fetishized to disturbing degrees

Sh*rtless Z/ko Sunday is an example of how this phenomenon has manifested itself even in the Z/tara fandom. in the past year or so, a few key members of the Z/tara fandom has always insisted that the Z/kka fandom fetishizes both Z/ko and S/kka. but, if that's the case, then what is Sh*rtless Z/ko Sunday?

it's yet another way that a bunch of pixels that are meant to represent an East Asian coded boy (don't you dare tell me he's "just from the Fire Nation" shut the hell up) wind up fetishized by primarily wh/te women!!

again, i don't give a damn about what you do or what you post as long as it's tagged properly, but i do want you to understand the ramifications of what you post. think of all the East Asians who are literally traumatized because of people constantly pulling their eyes at us or using our cultures/looks as an aesthetic (like the foxeye trend) or fetishizing us and our culture while k/lling us and being racist to us (like the mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, where several East Asian women who were working at spas were m/rdered)

even the argument "Z/ko's just a bunch of pixels!!" pisses me off because who do you think he's supposed to represent??!! what do you think he means to all the little East Asian kids who've never seen themselves represented onscreen before?!!!

don't even get me STARTED on the way that K/tara is dealt with within the Z/tara fandom. i'm not brown so i won't speak on such an issue personally, but i do know that many of my friends who are have been incredibly frustrated with the way K/tara is treated in fandom too

if you're wh/te or even just not East Asian, please consider what i've said. before you release content, consider what you're contributing toward the dehumanization and fetishization of East Asians. it's frustrating and painful to constantly see our people or characters who are supposed to be representative of our people fetishized in fandom, esp by wh/te people.

[zelzenik]

original tags because i do not have the energy to retype:

[zelzenik]

i'll be the first to admit that none of my posts from yesterday were legendary or superbly written. i've had a lot of stuff going on so, yeah, none of the posts were stellar or groundbreaking anything. a lot of the WOC content creators that i know and look up to and admire have been slowly pushed out of the fandom, and it seems that this space is desired by white people who do not respect us.

i just, again, think that it's terrible that i mentioned the ways that the fandom has been racist toward and has harassed WOC, and the only things people seemed to get from those posts is that those who participate Sh*rtless Zuk0 Sunday are pedoph*les (which i never said) and that people should be tagging NSFW content properly (which i don't see as being a huge, controversial issue??)

all of that being said, i got a bunch of very racist anons in my ask box, and i just wanna say that that is disgusting, and i don't want racists consuming my content. so y'all can take a hike for all i care.

additionally, since people in my ask box have been asking for it, i WILL be making a post as to why i personally find Sh*rtless Zuk0 Sunday to be problematic despite the fact that Zuk0 is a bunch of pixels, from the perspective of someone who is half East Asian. whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant, but i do think that it's important to discuss the ramifications of objectifying yet another East Asian character, even if they are "only pixels" as all the racist people who are slamming me continually remind me of.

[whattheheehaw]

how did this discourse go from asking for correct tags to racism against poc in the zutara fandom? genuine question, very confused how this progressed

In the original post that was made about this, the first thing that was mentioned was the racism in ZK fandom towards POC, especially WOC. The post itself covered many different issues and this discourse didn't simply evolve from one thing to another. It was a collection of frustrations that were voiced by a ZK shipper that I (and many others) agree with.

What's concerning is that people are twisting the narrative to make it seem like the only issue that came from that post was the NSFW tagging when fandom racism was talked about as well. The fact that the people who are actively ignoring the discussion of racism are white ZK shippers is also concerning. These white ZK shippers have talked about Katara as a POC character, her character's impact to brown girls everywhere, and the possible influence that her interracial marriage would have in the Avatar universe, yet when confronted with discussions of racism in the real world (i.e. not in the hypothetical realm of the Avatar universe) they either ignore it or they feel the need to be the loudest person in the room and actively shut down the voices of POC shippers.

And the fact that the people belittling a POC shipper's concerns about proper tagging etiquette and also fandom racism are white ZK shippers is extremely distasteful. I mean, it's somewhat expected considering past behavior, but it's still disgusting that they're trying to ignore that part of the post by bringing up a different argument of that post and exaggerating it to the point at which they're portraying themselves as victims of "purity police". Nobody called anyone a p*dophile, predator, etc. The only thing that was asked was for people to properly tag their posts. And the fact that OP is getting so much targeted hate over it? Gross.

The recent behavior of the fandom makes me uncomfortable, it makes my friends uncomfortable, and it most likely makes many other shippers (POC or not) in the ZK fandom uncomfortable.

[whattheheehaw]

I think that it's very valid if you no longer like what you used to love so much. I still love zk but I was so exhausted by the fandom that I left for good so I understand how you feel. I hope that you find something else that you can enjoy and find solace in!! <333

Aw thanks! This was honestly a very pleasant surprise when I opened up my ask box lolololol.

I've pretty much moved on from ATLA and I'm venturing into more anime fandoms? But anime fandoms are pretty much dead on Tumblr so </3

And I hope you're doing better after leaving ZK fandom too! :)

[royalbengalbitch]

There really needs to be a conversation held about white people in fandom and the way they speak over people of colour, especially women of colour, who speak out against fandom racism. I won’t say this is unique to the Zutara fandom, but there is a very particular brand of white racism that blends in with this fictional interracial ship that leaves WOC feeling used and traumatised by the fandom experience. After all that I have seen and read today I am putting every last white person in the fandom on blast.

For the longest time we have said that how people choose to consume fiction is not a reflection of their values or morals in real life. Just as that means you are not a fascism apologist for loving a villain, it means you are not dedicated to or performing social justice by shipping an interracial ship initially divided by an imperialist war. White shippers were always at the forefront of wielding the identities of WOC as a weapon against antis but the second those same WOC spoke up against the racism they’ve experienced within the fandom we were suddenly “playing into the hands of antis”.

Furthermore a number of white users running popular Zutara accounts have been deflecting on the issue of racism by weaponising other marginalised identities, using misogyny and ableism as an argument against complaints of racism as if oppression were some kind of competition. Playing identity politics over fiction is literally one of the most fucking godawful things the people of this fandom have done and by far the worst perpetrators of this have been the white shippers.

To the white people likening being asked to tag your nsfw content to being called a pedophile - where were you when the WOC in this fandom were actually being called pedophiles for being fed up with pointless age discourse about fictional characters? When we were being called pedophiles for not thinking teenage characters having sex amounted to child sex abuse? When we were called pedophiles for calling out white (American) teenagers with incredibly small minded views of the world were harassing WOC content creators?

It’s always Zutara is a popular ship with WOC this and white antis are being racist that, but when white shippers are asked to reflect on their own racist views suddenly it’s crickets. When white shippers have their understanding of Zuko and Katara warped through their racist worldview, because of your limited understanding of imperial and colonial violence, so you write your superficial meta about fictional violence and pat yourself on the back for being woke. Meanwhile as a WOC, you can’t go into the Zutara fic tag without seeing some of the most popular fanfics are slave/capture fics that brutalise a brown woman at the hands of her imperialist overlord. WOC who find issues with the way white people handle Katara’s trauma have their concerns overturned because suddenly our criticism is not in fact about racism but ableist against others.

White people, if you ever have to preface an argument with “I’m white so I don’t know if it’s my place to speak…”, then reread that sentence and realise it really isn’t your place to speak. Get out of here with that self-victimisation bullshit - getting called out for racism means it’s your job to fucking self-reflect and realise that you’re doing something wrong and STOP INVALIDATING AND SPEAKING OVER WOC WHO ARE RIGHTFULLY DISGUSTED WITH THIS FANDOM.

[whattheheehaw]

Not to be controversial or anything, but do you guys have any idea how annoying it is to have to endure the shitty state of the world right now, all of the shitty fucking things going on in my personal life, and then come online and have adults and white people talk over me, brush off my concerns as "childish", and act like I’m some sort of purity police over a cartoon?

If your content is NSFW, tag properly and move on. I really don’t have the time or energy to deal with your tentacle porn self insert fantasies. This is where I go for fun.

It is your job to tag your posts correctly, not mine.

[whattheheehaw]

The message: "Can you please tag your posts correctly from now on? I'm a little disturbed by the NSFW content that you put in the main tag so if you could please tag correctly so that I'm able to blacklist that type of content, that would be very helpful."

The reception: "So yeah people are calling me a child predator and they can just fuck off. Anti behavior honestly 🙄"