u/hrgood

Hello! A week or two ago, I posted this asking if I was going nuts with all the Kataangers on TikTok claiming Zutarians were the more toxic shippers. Everyone kindly validated my memory, as I was 11 when the show aired and 14 when the finale aired, and involved online, especially in the following 5ish years.

But I like being able to prove my claims, so I did a deep dive into the fan sites I had been a part of, including ff.net, deviantart, and YouTube. And then I also did a little digging on livejournal.

Anyway apparently this is a hot button issue right now, so I posted this comment and, upon request, decided to make it it's own thread so I can include screenshots. Okay!

2005 wasn't overly antagonistic. I think Zutara was largely seen as a crackship during/after the first season but before the second season by non-shippers and people who shipped other than Zutara. That said, it was still popular then, and there were Kataang vs Zutara forums on ff.net as far back as December of 2005.

The first few forums from 05/06 generally polite debate requested

2006 Zutara was gaining popularity and less of a crackship, especially with the finale Crossroads of Destiny. There's actually a Zutara fanfic that started in 2005 and ended in 2014 i think? And the first Kataang comments started in 2006 as well.

First Kataang comment on long running Zutara drabble series

Based on the ff . Net forums that survived, you can see the early shipping wars were pretty chill, a few kataang vs zutara threads, an alliance thread, pretty normal shipping stuff. Even in those early, 2005 threads you'll see references to rabid fans, Kataangers mostly, but not the actual comoments. Some of this is from loss of comments and threads, of course, but what I can verify with receipts is that it was pretty chill.

2006 and 2007 were starting to heat up, we had what seemed like good faith questions of "Why Zutara?" That would eventually devolve into "i just hate zutara" type stuff. But people did seem to try to stick to their forums and police each other on both sides, Kataangers asking other Kataangers to be nice, Zutarians telling other Zutarians not to be rude.

Forum that started as \"I don't get Zutara that just... devolved

-also important note is the air dates.
Season 1: 02/2005 to 12/2005
Season 2: 03/2006 to 12/2006
Season 3: 09/2007 to 11/2007 THEN 07/2008 was the last 10 episodes.
As I remember it, from 2007 to July 2008 (which felt like a long time back then) we didn't actually know if AtLA was ever going to be finished. I also remember there being some issues with how many episodes they were given, but each season did end up being 20, 30-minute sections, season 3 just had a lot of 2 parters, so I might be misremembering.
Anyway I remember the shipping wars starting to heat up a lot in that 07/08 hiatus.

But then in 2008, everything changed when the Kataang Nation attacked.... kidding. But not exactly. So the Nick had been p u s h i n g the zutara vs kataang thing, in the promos, in the extras, in the behind the scenes stuff. I think Bryke was fine with it because they wanted the viewership. I don't know what happened behind the scenes then, Bryke says one thing, production says another. I just hope we get a documentary someday about this, into the comics and LOK, the live action, even the terrible LA movie, I think there was quite a bit behind the scenes going on, if ya catch my drift. The important thing to note here is BRYKE WAS PLAYING INTO IT. They were giving interviews implying that Zutara was a possibility, like people really believed that Bryke wanted Zutara and were the masterminds behind all of AtLA and everyone else was just doing their bidding.

Bryke interview implying Zutara p 1

Analysis from GreenifyME on why this interview could be read as pro-Zutara, like always knew there'd be tension, \"jumping ahead\" could imply something that hasn't happened but will happen. Looking back its obvious what they were saying, but in the moment, with the Avatar Extras saying Zutara had been intended, Nick pushing it, this really seemed like it could've been supportive.

I digress.

2008, Nick has been pushing the possibility of both. We had some real heavy hitters of content creators, Kataangers were around and ship wars going, but it really seemed like a neck-and-neck race at that point.

In May of 2008, a book was released (and then recalled??) That completely spoiled the finale. Again, AT THE TIME, it seemed impossible that they really released a book spoiling literally the ENTIRE finale 2 months in advance of the finale (swriously tho Nick wtf). In this book, Kataang was spoiled, and Bryke made their first nasty comment about Zutara. Many people were super upset, as much at Bryke for being mean, but it was kinda shocking, and I don't think it really sunk in for anyone at the time, especially because we still weren't sure if it was actually going to play out that way. Cuz setiously who the fuck spoils their own finale 2 months early??

Transcript of the rude quote from Bryke in the spoiler book

GreenifyME's reaction to the book release

The final 10 episodes came out, Kataang won, I remember thinking that when Katara and Zuko didn't kiss during the Agni Kai, it was over. Kataangers were celebrating, Zutarians honestly kinda shocked. Like it seems really obvious now, looking back, but at the time it wasn't.

Then San Diego Comic Con happened. So this happened literally days after the finale aired. Finale aired July 19, Bryke was at SDCC July 25. This was when that disastrous Book 4 "joke" came out, where they took fanart (idk if it was submitted, fanart they'd been sent, or they just straight up stole it) and absolutely trashed non-Kataang ships, but especially Zutara. This, coupled with the book, really kinda showed Bryke's true colors to Zutara fans.

A lot of Zutara creators and community leaders deactivated after that. It wasn't because Zutara lost, really. But a lot of people really really looked up to and respected Bryke. They were peoples' heroes. People credited them with their writing, their career goals. And for Bryke to just trash them... like it completely changed how Zutarians interacted and engaged with AtLA, it was a long time before some of them could find it in them to separate Bryke from AtLA and continue loving AtLA.

Bryke had basically declared open season on Zutarians. Things got vitriolic. 2009 seemed to be the worst of it until a small Renaissance in 2020, and of course now, but Kataangers kept at it all the way through the 2010s.

Someone explaining why they like Zutara on a forum, Kataangers being rude about it

Both Kataang and Zutara being rude, but clearly it was started by Kataang.

2009 thread

Another 2009 thread with Kataang bashing Zutara

This one is my FAVORITE because wdym they kept telling us to \"move on\" and \"get over it\" when they admitted they would've reacted poorly if it had been Zutara

If you look on ff.net, "Zutara" under forums is 1 pro-Zutara forum, 2 or 3 civil debates from 05/06, and then Zutara hate forums.

Results for Zutara search in forums

But the real kicker is that "Kataang" has no forums. So Kataangers weren't making forums to enjoy talking about Kataang. They were making forums about hating Zutara. And in most of the debate forums, things would be civil until a Kataanger started trashing Zutara. Now I won't pretend Zutara never gave it back, but in 90% of the threads, Kataang started it.

Kataang search results rip to the poor taang thread in there

Zutarians mostly seemed to retreat. Moved on to new Fandoms. LOK brought on new criticisms of Kataang, for sure. A lot of commentary on Aang neglecting, even abusing, his kids. But it was much smaller than it had been.

But Kataangers were still writing entire think-pieces on how much Zutara sucked. I found pieces from 2020 on live journal that were "writing from the Zutarian perspective," getting it wrong, and then taking down their own imaginary argument.

Livejournal post from a Kataanger, they made 3 of these

Bruh it was 2020 you won let it goooo

Okay and here are some extra screenshots I wasn't sure where to put.

ZEFID videos were high quality

Kataangers blaming us for the shipping wars

More LJ comments calling Zutarians puppets, self-insert, etc in 2011

Complaining about the quality of fanfic they supposedly don't read

Ok I think that's everything. I left most usernames since its all largely defunct now, but I did try to block out names that looked like they could be real, let me know if I missed any!

Im sorry if this isn't allowed, feel free to delete.

But as the movie got leaked and Live Action season 2 is coming out soon, I've seen a HUGE uptick in shipping content all over the internet. And, what I perceive to be, rewriting of fandom history.

I see a lot of people claiming Zutara fans were more rabid than Kataang, Zutara fans harassing and threatening Kataangers. But I was there in 2005-2008, shipping Zutara, and that is not what I remember. I remember specifically being so frustrated in the hate kataang put on so much zutara fan art and fanfics. I even remember, on deviant art, thinking it HAD to be both ways, so I checked comments on kataang art and nope, there were no zutara fans in their comments.

Now truth and accuracy are very important to me, so I checked the "receipts" kataang shippers have posted, and they're all claims from the 2020s about things that allegedly happened during the airing of the show, but no actual proof. So of course I went back to old videos and fan art to find my own. And I can't!

I feel like I'm going nuts! I remember it so vividly, I remember major creators getting bullied off platforms by kataangers. I remember zutarians begging to be left alone.

Am I wrong? Like it's totally fine if I am, I just feel crazy for having such distinct memories and no proof!

Katara Vs Aang: who's more supportive?

Fandom Lore Deep Dive