i had heard about the Zutara Wars before i watched atla, and zutara ended up being nowhere as shippy to me as those wars led me to expect when i actually watched it. like, it was hard for me to believe that zutara was the ship the fandom got all wanky over. then again, harry potter fandom got all wanky over harmony and that never felt shippy to me either. ... maybe i'm just ridiculously bad at seeing het ship chemistry, lol
I never really gave a shit about zutara but I gave negative shits about kataang and back then it was def framed as an either or thing
Which was dumb as fuck because why not multuship. Granted ive never got that side of things shipwise.
yeah it's bizarre how ride or die ships used to be Back Then i think i was just not old enough to care. i had zero feelings on any ships from (cartoon network's) teen titans either, and i still don't, cause it's not the level i remember enjoying the show on (when i say not old enough, i mean like...11-12? obviously other folks get super into shipping at that age but i hit it late, probably because i never experienced romantic feelings or crushes at all until i was 14ish)
I was into Aang/Katara and Zuko/Katara but the fandom griping came to make me resent Zuko/Katara a bit because I felt a lot of the fans were very nasty about Aang (and Aang was my favourite boy). Realistically, there's no issue with either ship though and I wish the fandom was less cutthroat to one another... I only watched ATLA recently and I didn't expect the debates to still be fierce
yeah, i didn’t get into atla until like, 6 yrs ago, so i missed the heyday of the atla ship wars. but i never much got the zutara appeal — there were a few zutara fics i read that i found myself appreciating, but mostly i was just [shrug]. but my feelings abt kataang were only slightly less [shrug]; zuko/sokka was my big fave for a while, and i like zukaang also. but in general i’m a big multishipper and i never quite grokked the huge ride or die ship wars in fandoms like atla or hp because i’m just like “why do you think shipping is a zero sum game”
(Is because many of us are post-Homestuck, and Andrew Hussie was the first content creator to treat shipping wars as an engineering problem.)
I've seen a few fics with Jade <3< Nepeta in the background or for smut reasons, but none of them really make a point of what they'd have to dislike about each other beyond "dogs and cats lololol". And I'm sure there is something! I'd love to explore it, if I was good enough at character analysis to find it! But no one does.
I'm gonna make a shipping grid comparing how I like pairings as they were in canon versus how I think they could be in a hypothetical AU where they have the same personalities but not the baggage or bad memories or terrible writing which I think taints their canon relationships. Like, I'm uneasy with canon-verse red Equara but enjoy their dynamic in AUs where he didn't try to mind control her, and I've read one or two Davekat AUs where I like the premise and the retcon is not a thing.
I thought the amount of foreshadowing of Kataang was a bit weird. I was about eleven and I was like "Isn't Aang like, fourteen or so? Dating a sixteen year old is kinda weird. Let them grow up a little." I know it was all very slight flirtation, from what I remember, but idk. I'm happy to imagine they got romantically involved later in life. I totally understand the Oomph factor for Zutara though, and it's my favored ship. Any ship with Emo Prince is an interesting ship.
Tbh I am uncomfortable with the way a lot of shit gets two people together in their early teens and then tbey just stay in that same relationship for the rest of their life. And I’m sayin that as someone lit dating the same person I was when I was 14, its just. Wierd to say “this 12 year old and 14 year old are the perfect couple”
I don't know if it's AS or not, but I have trouble parsing a whole 150+-square shipping grid. I'm making my own little chunk ones, anyone want the blanks?
In general, I'm not sssuper fond of how often series go "here are the puppy love kids pairing up right at the end <3" and then timeskip 20 years into the future and.... "oh look they're still in love <3". Like, I recognize that there's a continuity thing here, and it's easier to just act like the intervening time didn't happen when picking up a series again, but also it's weird when you think about it for longer than a couple seconds.
My opinions on it vary based on the ship and the work, though I'm not sure how exactly. I didn't particularly care about Kataang in particular being canon either way or think it weird at all. Not entirely sure why. Just didn't ping me weirdly at all and still doesn't. I have been giddy and happy about it in the past before though? I've also been cranky and pissy about it. It's just a narrative convenience for me and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And I am not sure why. Will have to look at examples of it more to figure out why...
On Kataang though, it is funny how often people go 'Katara couldn't possibly love a 12 year old it's so gross' in defense of Zutara. Like. please. the hypocrisy is setting your argument aflame
Maybe I'm just too attached to the nakama trope to appreciate their canon selves but I've come to think most of the Homestuck trolls would actually be better off without each other and I find it frustrating.
The comment in the early pages about how Ron "ridicules everything Hermione loves" is grating on me, because what would you call it if not ridiculing what Ron loved when she refuses to acknowledge the evidence that her pet killed his pet and stops speaking to him over it?
Hrm. I don't know if I'd call that ridiculing - but Hermione definitely isn't behaving well there, you're right. Failure to demonstrate empathy/sympathy, maybe? (I vaguely recall that she tries to apologize a few times for Crookshanks but gives up when Ron refuses to accept anything less than Crookshanks suffering in return, because there's only so much she can do to try and make up for his pet's death that's actually reasonable. But it's been a long time since I read the book and my memory could be wrong. I'm pretty sure she does at least actually acknowledge that yes, it sure looks like Crookshanks killed Scabbers, and is appropriately horrified and upset about it but just...refuses to let Ron try and murder Crookshanks in retribution, because it's not like that'll bring Scabbers back anyways.)
