Can we drop the topic of canon Zutara and just ship? Also drop the faux wokeism of shipping on this side at least?
I really hope this doesn’t offend anyone. The Alta fandom needs to move on.
A lot of the discourse around Zutara lately, especially since the LA, has revolved around either baiting or whether it’ll become canon. I think the majority of us already know it won’t, and that’s never really been the point.
What I’ve noticed on this side of the fandom is that with every resurgence, whether it was the movie leak or any other one, puts us between a rock and a hard place. We’re constantly met with comparisons between fictional characters and real world atrocities, alongside an abnormal level of loathing for the ship’s sustained popularity for two decades.
It’s exhausting.
This ship is over twenty years old. At this point, anyone insisting that people only ship Zutara for some superficial reason, or whatever the latest accusation is being willfully ignorant and delusional. There are countless essays, videos, and analyses explaining why people ship and prefer Zutara.
Personally, I think it’s time for a different approach. Rather than constantly defending the ship against every accusation, we should simply stop engaging. Fandom spaces increasingly consume fiction through a moral lens, and as someone who reads a lot, I know so many whom authors have written deeply moving and radical stories they don’t stand for in real life. Anything can work in a story IF done right. But real life, that’s an entire different ball game. And frankly, people who are actually living under oppressive systems are far more concerned with the realities they face than with policing what fictional characters strangers enjoy.
I understand why the topic is so heated right now. But Kataang becoming canon over two decades ago didn’t end the ship wars, and I don’t think either ship becoming canon would magically resolve them now. I think we’ve reached a point of no return with the animosity people have toward each other over fictional characters.
I’d rather we enjoy the ship than endlessly justifying why we enjoy it. They aren’t interested in understanding.