#And sokka have a crush on zuko

[garfield-milk]

he’s such a fangirl. he definitely has a few scrolls of adventures (and fanfiction) of the Blue Spirit and reads them every night while giggling and kicking his feet in the air.

[billsbae]

okayyy look i'm a die zutara stan, but platonic zutara with sleepovers, painting nails and talking about boys makes me want scream (in a good way)

[fanfic-gremlin-ft-trauma]

Post sparring sketches bc of the inherent homoeroticism

[petricorah]

they stuck that boy in a hole!!

[comradekatara]

zukka fans boil your rocks

[chiptrillino]

I desperately need to know more about the Tooth AU

i think i have to come out and be honest here and admit that the tooth part is just an subplot in between and mainly its an whole au about sokka still following his father to war. (katara and gran gran none the wiser) and sokka is discovered hiding on the ship, when the Southern Water Tribe Fleet is restocking on kyoshi. and well... technically its not to late to turn back and drop sokka off back home and ground him for the next 10 years. but nope. now sokka with sweet fresh 12 years is on a warship. getting the oportunity to be with his tribe and grow to be a full warrior for the next three years. (don't worry sokka meets suki and she does more then just punch the sexism out of him.) (hakoda adopts his own son au? )

traveling the seas and staying in ports leads to cross path with the fire nation prince jerk that searches for the avatar. they obviously don't get along. even in neutral/mixed ports or grounds the boys can't help but constantly jab and antagonize each other till one day it comes to a brawl where sokka punches zuko in the face and a tooth gets lost. (zuko still wins though. sorry sokka you get later your chance)

and uh well... zukos tooth is found by bato and well they kind of keep it? as trophy? who can say they knocked the prince of the fire nation tooth out and has the proof!!! (that nobody believes, because it could be anyones tooth and the crew is not backing sokka up. TRAITORS ALL OF THEM!) (meanwhile zuko gets his golden one. and his crew wont stop with the pirate jokes. TRAITORS ALL OF THEM)

when i was talking with a friend about it i was always like "the only ship here involved are for transportation" but a few silly headcanons of drunk characters later leads to this sub plot of bato and jee kind of hitting it off behind the boys and their superiors back. sharing their love the wide blue sea and freeing feeling of sailing through her waves. sharing drinks ranting over their brats. jee losing it when he hears that sokka has the princes tooth now as necklace to not lose it. bato having fun pushing jee's buttons to get any reaction out of him (subtly wondering if this counts as bending). they both know they don't have much time to tiptoe around it, when they meet they have to go for it, who knows in what kind of circumstances they could meet the next time. they drink and make a toast to making the best of their time, share a bitter sweet good bye the next morning, hoping the memories last till their next encounter that could also be their last.

[writingtot]

this is probably controversial but if i didn’t ship zukka, i would ship zutara.

[praetorqueenreyna]

SIGH like at the end of the day, there is nothing a live action ATLA show could bring that we didn't get in the animation. Other than appealing to the most annoying parts of fandom who want to deprioritize Aang.

[reineyday]

finished watching netflix atla! i think the hate is unjustified lol like all that hate seems a little too intense for what i think the show missed. it didn't hit all the same notes as the original show, yeah, so i'm not sure it quite succeeds as an adaptation, but as a standalone show it's pretty good. and i might have some gripes with the characterization, but there was love in the casting and in the costumes and the world, and that goes a long way for me.

[southslates]

"you only ship zutara because you project on katara and have a crush on zuko!"

do you mean: katara was one of the first brown girls depicted in media who could kick ass and was in touch with her emotional side and made me feel like i didn't have to compromise my vulnerable side to be powerful, and i want her to have a partner who unwaveringly supports her, even when she isn't perfect, and doesn't make her his caregiver, and treats her like the main character she is?

yeah, even if i project on katara and have a crush on zuko, i am so valid for shipping zutara

sorry for wanting one of my favorite characters of all time, a character who helped me find myself as a brown girl, to not have to exist as emotional support for her partner, sorry for thinking she deserves an equal and to be treated right and to be able to fall in love without compromising on the respect she earned for herself </3

[transboysokka]

There’s obviously some kind of Avatarverse equivalent to Moon Festival and I just KNOW that every time it comes around Zuko takes Sokka up to the Northern Water Tribe’s spirit oasis and they hold a private vigil for Yue

[s-c-l-n]

sokka having a tiny blue spirit crush this and that. zuko seeing that one very masculine kyoshi warrior and thinking about him for MONTHS

[fighting-these-demons]

So the post that I wanted to reblog with commentary was locked (understandably) so I'm making my own dang post lmao!

Ok so! Since this isn't going to be on the original post anymore and since I'm generally not the type to put criticism directly in a tag I'll be sensoring Zvt4rla. I'm all for the ship, but I'm not fond of how fandom has behaved since 2005. With that out of the way,

Here's what I was going to comment on the above:

Just as a simple read of the initial posts: neither was explicitly trashing Zvt4rla.

Criticizing shipping conventions involving Katara, sure, but trashing? Nah.

Like it's completely valid for someone who ships Zvt4rla to view them through a lens where they either get and stay together in an on-again off-again way without marriage or in a temporary and highly passionate way without marriage.

And honestly if you go with the political marriage trope then Toph DOES make much more sense because the Fire Nation doesn't really have claim over the Southern Water Tribe and a marriage to Katara wouldn't realistically secure any political power with the Northern Water Tribe since they split 2 generations before. So a Zvt4rla marriage really wouldn't actually fix much of anything.

Literally if you're going for political intrigue or national healing through marriage then Tophko is the better couple to pick. It gives you WAY more to work with.

I know that chill Zvt4rla shippers that don't demonize Aang and ignore his and Katara's character arcs exist out there. I see them every once in a while, which is cool.

Honestly though, most Zvt4rla shippers spend a bunch of time demonizing Aang with made up bullshit to morally justify their shipping preferences.

Which is ridiculous considering they could just, idk, say they like the visuals and chemistry of Zvt4rla better instead of trying to make Aang into The Literal Devil to defend their ship.

Like hell at this point even though Kataang is my number 1 ship in AtLA I'm heavily into Zukaang as a close second because of all the parallels with Sozin/Roku and the fact that Aang seemed pretty attached to Kuzon pre-canon. Plus the Blue Spirit episodes and the Dancing Dragons and the Totally Normal Dual Monuments Zuko has built to represent his Friendship with Aang in TLOK. It's got a LOT of textual support and a lot of chemistry.

But Zukaang shippers aren't out here demonizing Katara to make Zuko into a better choice for Aang.

You can just let a couple split for unspecified reasons or not get together for minor differences.

You don't have to make the ex-partner into a monster to ship something outside of canon.

ALSO Zuko-Katara-Aang or Katara-Aang-Zuko are always a possibility y'all.

You don't have to break Katara and Aang up to get Zvt4rla to happen.

Aang's an air nomad. Air Nomads seem pretty chill about earthly attachment. And like I said, all 3 seem to like each other an awful lot... I don't think he'd be the type to hold it against Katara.

Now KATARA would probably need to work through 8 layers of possessive fury to get there despite her attraction to Zuko - since she's shown time and again that she takes other people flirting with Aang VERY badly (understandable) - but I believe they could get there eventually.

It might take a few years and lots of reassurance but still, they could work out some sort of relationship between the three of them no matter how you view it whether as permanent or temporary.

Whether that's Zuko and Aang as friends that both love Katara who loves both Zuko and Aang, or as all three in love with each other in different ways for different reasons but with love equally as strong in all directions.

Just because it's an ot3 doesn't mean that all 3 have to be present at all times. You can have moments between 2 partners of the ot3 that are just between them without the 3rd member of the relationship being present.

The Ot3 leaves room for all 3 ships: Kataang, Zvt4rla, and Zukaang

[the-badger-mole]

What was the point of the Fortuneteller if it wasn't meant to foreshadow Aang eventually accepting Katara wouldn't return his feelings?

I don't know. Probably to establish that the rules and life lessons everyone else has to learn in order to be healthy, functioning members of society don't apply to Aang because...Avatar, I guess

[petricorah]

i'm. so excited

[hella1975]

mm okay this is a thought i had on the bus like all great thoughts so this might be incomprehensible but im thinking about taob zuko and hakoda's relationship to duty, how there's such a vivid parallel from the very start of their duality. there is zuko and there is the fire prince. there is hakoda and there is the chief. thinking about how book 1 is a journey of duty and humanity. over 19 chapters, zuko is taught about humanity, how it doesnt have to be exchanged for duty, how both can exist within him simultaneously. he begins as prince zuko. he is abrasive and hateful and he fights the water tribe every step of the way, but by the end, he is just zuko. he chooses the water tribe over himself. he loses his firebending. he leaves the red ribbon behind. but hakoda? hakoda's journey is the complete opposite. where he teaches zuko the strength of humanity, hakoda sees in zuko someone facing the same burdens of duty that he faces, and zuko teaches him things about leadership without even realising. the importance of duty in the face of turmoil, the responsibility on their shoulders, the cost of their wrongdoings. the moment they were placed in control of the lives of others, they lost the right to total humanity, and while zuko's journey and age allows him a reprieve of that duty so that he can embrace humanity in its entirety, hakoda continues to carry that load. in chapter 1, he makes an objectively illogical, emotion-led decision to keep zuko alive and bring him aboard, a decision that is even stated in the story to have only worked because it was zuko instead of literally any other firebender. by chapter 19, hakoda makes the decision to leave zuko behind despite almost having it confirmed that fong took him, because he knows that his duty lies with his tribe, that he has dozens of lives in his hands regardless of what his heart wants.

book 1 is about zuko learning to choose humanity over duty, but it is also about hakoda having to choose duty over humanity.