#hence why i wrote 20k all about katara's grief and rage leading up to and through tsr 💛 love her sm

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

Oh my! A Kataang shipper (I’m assuming based on the few posts of yours I’ve read) who doesn’t hate on Zuko or Zuko/Katara to raise up their own ship!? Not possible! Seriously though, I’m very glad to find your blog, it’s a very refreshing change of pace. People can ship what they want to but some in this fandom (most, and it’s very concerning) love to go feral for their own ships and destroy anyone who doesn’t agree. And why does most of that have to involve crapping on the twelve-year-old pacifist who survived a genocide!?

I never really watched ATLA much when I was younger but I’m watching it properly from start to finish now and I’m trying to enjoy it, but I keep finding horrendous takes on tumblr that bring me down. I finished the Southern Raiders episode earlier and wanted to come talk about it with fellow fans here, but I think I’ll just stick to enjoying the show by myself because the way so many people are using this episode to prove how bad Aang is makes me uncomfortable. Everyone using TSR to boost Zuko and Katara are missing the point. This isn’t a Zuko and Katara episode, this episode is a Katara episode. Aang isn’t the villain here getting in the way of what’s right. He was raised by monks.

The best way I can think to illustrate this point is (and please bear with me because I’m not sure I’m going to articulate this right) someone afraid of snow. Imagine your whole life you’ve been raised to avoid snow. There’s nothing wrong with snow by itself, but you’re repeatedly told to avoid it and that it’s bad and harmful so you grow up fearing snow. Now one day one of your closest friends wants to go play in the snow and your first instinct is to firmly warn them away from it because that’s what you’ve been told growing up. They’re really insistent on playing in the snow and you realise you can’t stop them and it’s not really your place to so you just try to advise them against anything too crazy. As if that wasn’t bad enough, one of your other friends is actively encouraging playing in the snow and mocking you for your fear of it. That’s how I see the Katara-Zuko-Aang interactions of this episode. Aang is the person raised to fear snow (in this case, violence and killing), Katara is the one who wants to play in the snow (in this case, getting justice for her mother) and Zuko is encouraging it. When Aang confronts her, he’s not upset at what she’s doing, he’s upset because she was going to steal Appa from him and not tell anyone where she was going, which I think is pretty fair given that they’ve already lost Appa once and Aang wasn’t there to stop it.

Sorry, I didn’t mean for this to get so long or out-of-hand. I just got excited to talk to someone with common sense in this fandom and started rambling!

hello friend!! im honored you find my blog to be an island of tranquility amidst the turbulent ocean of the atla fandom 💛

i completely understand your desire to restrict your enjoyment of atla to yourself and your close circle, as there are indeed far too many people on tumblr who take "fandom" to the farthest extremes of harassment and abuse, issues the atla fandom are (unfortunately) particularly rife with. so many anti-aang people love to be loud, proud, and violent about their lack of media literacy... 💀

im also glad you enjoy my posts about tsr!! i fully agree, tsr is a katara episode, and to in any way decenter her perspectives and experiences is to fundamentally misunderstand the ep. (people who interpret tsr as a ship episode, or worse, as an episode in which aang is a villain, are either willingly ignorant or have been deeply failed by the educational system. critical thinking is a tool!! we must exercise it to keep it sharp!!)

i also think your analogy of snow is apt to describe the triangulation of tsr! i might revise it slightly to suggest that aang is not necessarily "afraid" of snow (violence/murder) but more so that he has been raised to be wary of the detrimental consequences that violence, and especially murder, can have on both those who impart and those who witness this bloodshed. i fully agree, tho, that aang is by no means upset at katara for wanting to pursue her vengeance -- he's simply reminding her that she has a choice (after all, allowing her to take appa on this journey represents the ultimate trust aang has in katara's decisions, whether she chose violence or no, bc you're so right that aang is sending appa off with her not so long after appa's devastating disappearance!! that's how much he faith he has in katara to make the decision that is right for her!!)

no need to apologize for rambling in my inbox 💛 tsr is one of my favorite eps in the series, i love getting to talk about it!