#anyway i'm going to stay in the zukka tags because while i don't even ship THEM at least their stans act relatively normal

[zukoshotleafjuice]

Katara and Aang’s devotion and commitment to one another is the reason why we ship them romantically. Kataang shippers are the only ones writing content that highlights their bond while everyone else ignores it in favor of other ships. Just because YOU prefer it platonically and want to analyze their scenes as a friendship (which you can? No one is stopping you?) doesn’t mean you can control how others interpret their scenes. If shipping is about harmless fun why are you upset that people view all their scenes through a romantic light? That’s literally what shipping is? Everyone in the fandom does it with their ships and all of the major ships are overwhelmingly viewed through a romantic context, canon or not. It seems like you’re just upset that the show went a romantic direction with Kataang because you prefer them platonically. Naturally it makes sense that two people who are each other’s person would eventually explore this bond romantically (though they should’ve been older).

First of all, take a deep breath. My post was fundamentally an appreciation of Katara and Aang's relationship, so frankly I fail to understand the level of defensiveness I'm reading in this ask.

Yes, my post contained minor critique of shipping culture and the way that their relationship was written in the show. I can elaborate below if you require me to clarify.

When I said the romance detracts from the relationship, it was a criticism of fandom engagement with all the ATLA and specifically the way stans of every ship use ship-wars as an excuse to hate on and detract from their very real connection. I think Kataang's romantic scenes in the show were not compellingly written. They did not give them enough time in the second half of S3 to properly engage with and discuss their relationship. I agree they should've been older, and I think their relationship makes a lot of sense as they age up. However, the writers of this show were more interested in resolving the shipping clashes and creating 'canon' endings than anything else, so they rushed the story in the show itself.

Due to this, the ship-wars only intensified. This has led to incredibly bad-faith interpretations of key scenes in the show. For example, I have seen people engage the Southern Raiders (an episode fundamentally about Katara and Katara's trauma) solely to further one ship over another. This bothers me because it is simply poor media analysis.

My post was more of a critique of the Zvt*ra (censored only so that it doesn't clog the tags) side of the fanbase, and not yours, actually. But frankly, your defensive response is why it's so incredibly difficult to engage with this fandom. Assuming I'm 'hating' and just 'upset that people view their scenes in a romantic light' is, once again, detracting from the fact that my post was ultimately to highlight the incredibly beautiful and interesting relationship between these two characters.