H-Azraqnar

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I used to ship Zukka because I thought that they could be cute as a fun, lighthearted ship. I acknowledged that both Maiko and Sukka were canon, but I enjoyed the idea of Zuko and Sokka together. They had the red/blue aesthetic and enemies-to-lovers trope going for them (like Zutara), and their personalities seemed like a fun match up. They both have their swordsmanship thing going on, and they both lost their mothers to some capacity. They had a lot of room for comedic shenanigans (along with the whole idiots stumbling into love trope). I didn't take the ship too seriously, and it was a lot less popular back before the ATLA Renaissance because it had no real canonical backing. Once the Renaissance happened, though, and everyone was watching or rewatching ATLA, all these shippers who were hardcore Klancers suddenly switched over to the Zukka ship. It was really weird.

I don't like how a lot of Zukka shippers blatantly ruin Zuko/Sokka's characters (examples being the infantilization of Zuko, the dismissal of Zuko's attraction to women, the portrayal of Sokka as an overly smooth charismatic top, etc). I don't like the way that integral parts of Zuko's personality are shoved to the side in order to make him out to be a blushing soft boy; despite his softness, there's still an edge to him that gets erased throughout a lot of Zukka fandom. I don't like the way that integral parts of Sokka's personality are disregarded in order to make him out to be a hunky, perfect socialite; despite his goofy/comedic side, he's fairly guarded and closed off. Their characterizations are often off to me, and they're both pushed into a sensitive/heroic dynamic that they really don't fit based on their canonical personalities/experiences. In addition to all that, I also just genuinely dislike the fact that Zukka has now essentially become "Zutara but gay."

Overall, the vibes projected by most current Zukka shippers now is that they ship Zukka solely because of the fact that both Zuko and Sokka are really attractive male characters in the series and they're looking for a new MLM ship to obsess over. It made me really uncomfortable, and I genuinely don't think many of the new wave of Zukka shippers have even watched the show.

That, coupled with the fact that some Zukka shippers severely antagonize other shippers in the fandom while also claiming that the show queerbaited them (I still don't get how. Sokka is the literally the straightest character in ATLA), really drove me away.

I enjoyed the idea of Zukka as a fun ship, but some Zukka shippers take it way too seriously and way too far. To go so far as to antagonize Dante Basco and call him a pedophile for shipping Zutara while Zuko and Sokka are literally minors too? That's hypocritical. To go through and steal all of the Zutara headcanons that those shippers have been building for YEARS since the end of the show? That's messed up too. To hyper-obsess over a non-canon MLM ship over the canon WLW ship in the show? That's fetishy.

If anyone points to the boiling rock episode or the tent scene as evidence, I will lose my shit. Those episodes were literally about Sokka wanting to make out and more with suki. That’s canon. Zuko went into the tent, and when Sokka asked, “what’s on your mind?” Zuko said, “your sister.” With a pause, and then stayed outside her tent all night. I just don’t understand how delusional these shippers are with their “we were queer baited” Bull shit. If they wanted to ship an MLM ship with canon evidence, they would ship jetko.

This is just the most blantantly obvious gay fetishizing I’ve ever witnessed in any fandom and it pisses me off because I’m part of the lgbtq community and I’ve been called a homophobe and a pedophile for shipping Zutara. I have all of these insane asks that are just frankly disgusting and it’s all from Zukka shippers.

As part of the LGBTQ community, I am bi, so seeing all this, “Sokka is bi because of these stereotypical things that LGBTQ people have been trying to normalize as not sexual orientation indicators.” It’s disheartening because these shippers perpetuate these stereotypes from very minimal scenes meant to portray Sokka as someone comfortable with his masculinity rather than secretly into men.

They use the whole, “he was so sexist, so he was obviously into guys.” No, he was sexist because he grew up in a culture surrounded by women doing all the work men would traditionally do and felt inferior to his waterbending sister, who literally carried the village in her father's absence. He got his shit together after his badass soulmate Kyoshi warrior Girlfriend beat the sexism out of him.

Sokka was actually and still is one of my favorite characters because he proves that men can be interested in society deemed unmanly things like handbags, shopping, and showing emotion, and not feeling those toxic masculinity emotions along with them. That was his character's purpose and now making it because he’s bi or gay just cheapens his character development.

I’m just glad people in the fandom are finally seeing where all the new toxicity is coming from, and it’s from teen girls fetishizing two characters who are clearly not interested in each other beyond a brotherly way. Zutarians have seen it because they have constantly harassed us.

The evidence I have for fetishizing comes from AO3 and how many fics they increased as explicit during kinktober. Also, just look at the difference in explicit fics from zutara vs. Zukka. Zukka is the one with more explicit material. That says it all. It’s not subtle and frankly it’s annoying.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with explicit fics at all. What’s frustrating is playing the Puritan card while bashing zutarians and calling them pedophiles.

Meanwhile, Zuko and Sokka relationship don’t have that level of depth that Zuko and Katara have. Let’s not to forget the writers were about to make it canon, but later revise their decision. Meaning, even the word of God almost had to say in this.

Also, I noticed  the shippers have this undying hatred for Katara, without understanding her character, and reduce her to just crying over her mother, meanwhile, taking all of her beloved character traits, and putting them on Sokka, making him into something that he is not like the OP mentioned.  It’s really annoying how much genius writing went into Zuko and Katara’s characters, and their parallels to each other, only for it to be tossed aside by the fandom in favor of a mlm ship that quite literally has zero chance of being Canon.

So have some fanart I drew of them from last week.