Why Katara Chose Aang Over Zuko.

Why Katara chose Aang over Zuko.

Katara chose Aang because he was her best friend, because she knew him well, trusted him, cared for him more than anyone else. It wasn’t a choice she made lightly; as evidenced first in the episode “The Fortuneteller” and several episodes after that such as The Cave of Two Lovers, City of Walls and Secrets, The Earth King, The Headband, The Invasion, and The Ember Island Players, this was something that Katara thought about for a long time before she decided to start her relationship with Aang at the end of the series.

“But no 14-year old girl would ever want to date a 12-year old, especially when she could have Zuko who is taller and more attractive with a wicked scar!” The problem with that argument is that it is based on the assumption that Katara is a normal teenage girl… and she is not.

First of all, let me point of that by the time Katara was ready to forgive Zuko, she’d already learned the hard way to NOT judge a boy by looks alone through her experience with Jet… her only other canon love interest in the entire series. Moreover, Katara is much more mature than the average teenage girl IRL; with Aang, she is able to look past the surface and see that he is mature and wise beyond his years, and that he has genuine feelings of love and affection for her. Katara says it herself in “The Invasion”:

“We’ve been through a lot together, and I’ve seen you grow up so much. You’re not that goofy kid I found in the iceberg anymore”. In this, we see Katara affirming Aang as her peer; she does not see him as a little brother, she does not consider herself a mother figure to Aang, she sees him as an equal.

Katara also grew up in a radically different environment from our modern world, and also lives in a very different culture. Dating a 12-year old at the age of 14 may seem strange to girls IRL, but to Katara it may not seem so unusual. Look at the Northern Water Tribe; in their culture, a woman can be married at the age of 16, something we would consider unacceptable in the modern world.

As for Zuko… for 55 episodes, Zuko was Katara’s enemy. He kidnapped her, tried to blackmail her, attacked her and her friends on several occasions… but most importantly, the one time Katara chose to give him the benefit of the doubt, he betrayed her in the worst possible way. He nearly got her best friend KILLED. Zutarians fail to recognize how traumatic an experience this was for Katara. It permanently damaged Katara’s relationship with Zuko, and opened her eyes to Zuko’s greatest flaw: As Iroh once said, good and evil are always at war inside him, something that carries forward into the comics even after Zuko helps end the war.

Katara says it herself when she threatens Zuko: “You and I both know you’ve struggled with doing the right thing in the past”. Because of this, Katara never even considers Zuko as a potential partner. In the end, it was not a choice between Aang and Zuko… it was a choice of whether or not she wanted to be with Aang, contemplating her feelings for him, and deciding what Aang meant to her. Zuko was not even a factor.

lmao @ these IsHs saying shit like “we love orihime better” then proceed to make headcanons about her and ishida fucking in kazui’s room and “leaving c*m stains on his bed”

because it’s not enough you have to blatantly mischaracterise rather than simply write an AU (because ichigo and orihime MUST be punished by the narrative via humilation and adultery for getting together in the first place)

but you also have to bring some fictional child who has fuck all to do with anything into it, and have one of his parents (who, by the way, is a fucking victim of child abuse) violate his safe space ON TOP OF making orihime into a child abuser herself

and you claim to love these characters? youre not even trying to hide how much you hate them outside your shipping lenses you twisted fucks

some people don't get that mai touching zuko's scar in such a casual, intimate way is so important because she's also seen numerous times touching his face without his scar in the scene. why? the framing of zuko's scar is most often to associate him with ozai and the hurt the fire nation has caused him. by depicting his interactions with mai often without his scar as the focus of the image or even in the frame at all, it emphasizes how zuko doesn't connect mai with that anger and that pain. mai is the one good thing the fire nation has given zuko; mai is the one person zuko trusts and loves (besides iroh) from the fire nation. furthermore, mai casually touching zuko's scar at the beginning of book 3 as they exchange a tender kiss reinforces from the get-go that mai doesn't care about his scar. this is not to say that she doesn't recognize the source of his scar and what it means to zuko, but simply that she loved zuko before his banishment and she still loves him now, and likewise, zuko knows this and couldn't be more grateful for it. mai is the only one zuko allows to consistently embrace him, touch his face (framed with or without his scar), etc.

when song tries to touch zuko's scar, he stops her. it hurts too much. he isn't ready to bear that weakness. he isn't ready to admit that his father never cared for him, and that he's facing an impossible task. when katara touches his scar, it is juxtaposed with song in that katara offers a chance to heal him, to (superficially) remove his pain and his debt to his father. her touch comes at a moment of hurt, of shame, of confusion for zuko. he doesn't know who he is and or why he so desperately craves his father's approval, and that's made clear when he betrays katara's trust only moments later by joining azula. this juxtaposition is so so powerful, and it's one of my favorite parallels in the show.

but when mai touches his scar? the first time, on the ship, zuko is still lost, no doubt. and her attempt at humor falls a little flat, sure, but it's not as if she was unaware of zuko's situation, and she immediately reassures him afterwards - with her words, and with her touch. she's there. she reminds him there's no use worrying about what he can't change. and so, zuko leans in, both his scar into her hand and his lips into her kiss. amidst all of his hurt and confusion, mai is peace. mai is comfort. mai is happiness. as a result, in their following moments throughout all of book 3, zuko's scenes with mai often don't involve his scar. why? because zuko can express himself truthfully around her - the truth that he loves her, and the truth that he loves how she loves him despite his mistakes and despite the hurt he's caused. mai is the only part of the fire nation that never hurt him (and, painfully, she is one of two parts of the fire nation that he must hurt before he is redeemed); consequently, zuko is most open both physically and emotionally around her. thus, as the narrative concludes and zuko's redemption is complete, they embrace without his scar in the frame - because zuko is no longer bound by his pain, no longer trapped by his father.

(and maybe, around mai, he never had been.)

sunflower 0903

Finding someone who thinks you’re interesting enough to talk to you every day, whether they’re a friend or a lover, is one of the best feelings ever.

Why SasuSaku is Abusive

Okay okay so I’ve reblogged a lot of anti-sasusaku posts and I’ve made one arguing about the absolute uselessness of “their” kid but here’s another.

1. Literally 90% of any interactions between Sasuke and Sakura were abusive. From both perspectives. Sakura’s love is selfish, as she only focuses on her feelings and never gives any consideration toward his but rather only cares about the status that being with him could give her, and Sasuke’s was of the physical sort what with the multiple attempts on her life and all the insults toward her and the complete disregard for her well being.

2. There is zero understanding between them. Sakura doesn’t understand Sasuke. Not his feelings, not his motives, not his past. None of it. Despite what the emotionally stunted SS fans will say, yes love does need a reason. More than anything, though, love needs understanding. Loving a person requires understanding their flaws, their mentality, the beliefs and their motivations and the things that haunt them. Love is understanding a person’s faults, understanding that they’re [i]not[/i] perfect and accepting their faults while trying to help better themselves.

And this is something that Sakura has never accomplished. Sakura has never been able to understand Sasuke, or even Naruto for that matter but I’ll make another post on that later, and thus the two could never be in love. What Sakura experiences is infatuation.

3. Sasuke couldn’t care less about Sakura. The only time he’s shown any concern for her is pre-shippuden, and that’s only because she was on his team. He’s rarely shown actual concern for her…he’s never shown caring about her in a way deeper than that of a teammate.

4. They are at their worst around each other. Sakura is a talented medical ninja and, although her battle abilities are incredibly lacking, she has a strong personality with an admirable goal(of getting stronger and moving up in the world) but around Sasuke she reduces herself to a submissive doormat. Sasuke is…quite the same as he always he is. Completely focused on his own motivations and in complete disregard to anyone that gets in his way.

This topic will probably be expanded on in the near future but have this for now.