#mentioned:

Vlad, scoffing to hide his fear: 'Fluffy'? Really Daniel-

Danny: *whistles*

Fluffy: *massive, bigger than Cugo, black and red wolf like creature exiting a red portal and drooling lava*

Vlad: D-Daniel what is that thing?!

Danny: This is Fluffy. Hes a hellhound.

Fluffy: *snarls at Vlad, but leans into Danny as he pets under his chin*

Danny: Am I clear?

hoimycraft

Jazz had been wandering about for a week or so by now.

After an accident involving the Ghost Portal, the GIW, and a stray blast to the filter, she'd suddenly found herself in a city called Gotham. Fortunately, she got lucky early on and found a women's shelter that would take her in with few questions, sponsored by an apparently large company called Wayne Enterprises.

She'd taken daily trips to the local library, hoping to contact the others. They'd all been sucked into the portal when it went critical. Hopefully, that meant they'd landed somewhere on that same, strange world.

Perhaps that was how Nightwing found her in an alley, heading home after a long day of fruitless searching.

"Miss Fenton, I presume," said the masked hero, "we have been looking for you."

"Who- who's we?"

He pointed towards the end of the alley, where a black car waited idly. The passenger door opened to reveal a familiar face on an unfamiliar body and clothes.

"Hey Jazz."

"Sam?"

It wasn't possible.

She was taller, almost her own height, and her face was missing the light layer of baby fat she'd last seen on her.

"It's been a while."

But they'd seen each other a week ago.

"How-? Why-?"

"Why don't you come with us," Sam proposed, "there's a lot we need to explain."

Jazz nodded numbly, not liking what was coming.

"We all landed in different cities," Sam explained as Nightwing drove them... somewhere, "Tucker was first, he landed at Central City."

"Is he-?"

"He's fine," she cut in, "but there's something you need to understand. Can you let me explain?"

Jazz swallowed as dread built in the pit of her stomach, but nodded.

"Ok... Dani came out next near Dakota City... six months later. When she and Tucker found each other, they figured that all they had to do was wait for the others to arrive."

"So we're all here now?"

"Yes, but it wasn't that simple. Val didn't show up for another year, then Danny popped up in Star City two years later, and I appeared in Metropolis four years after that."

Jazz was seeing the pattern and didn't like it.

"How- how long have you been here?"

"... Eight years," she admitted, "Tucker is almost 31, Val is 29, Danny and Dani are actual twins now at 27, and I'm 23. Here, we took this about a month ago for Val's birthday."

She gave her a picture with the whole group. Tucker looked surprisingly slick, Val had gotten a shorter haircut and was wearing a beautiful red dress, Dani was a lot taller than she'd expected, and Danny was somehow even taller.

"They're huge."

"Dani was a little taller than Danny when he first arrived and she did not let him forget it," Sam chuckled, "but then he hit a growth spurt that didn't stop until he was 22. She's still salty about it."

A soft sniffle brought her back from that hilarious couple of years.

"Jazz?"

"How- how much did I miss?"

"Well... a lot. We'll catch you up."

Jazz would have probably broken down if she hadn't noticed the rings and the surprisingly intimate way Dani was holding Val's waist.

"Sam, are Val and Dani married?"

There were those antis explaining it’s because of the shippers. That Zutarians have an attitude and claim their ship should’ve been canon. I was certain they were talking about rude shippers who enter K@taang or M@iko spaces to harass them. One commenter claimed that they haven’t seen this attitude coming from other non-canon shippers. When I contributed that it’s not only Zutara shippers, and made examples, they just replied "yes, only Zutara" and ignored those examples.

As the conversation with the other anti (who talked to other ZK shippers, not me) went on, I realized: They weren’t talking about harassment but analyses. Perfectly constructive and respectful analyses that are properly tagged here on Tumblr or that you can just ignore if you stumble across a video on YT or TikTok titled "Why I think Zutara should’ve been Canon", for example.

Analyses that other K@taang or M@iko or whatever shippers watched/read to understand where Zutara shippers are coming from, even if they still don’t ship them afterwards—they were even thanking the creator in the comments and disagreed respectfully with their view on the canon ships, so I fail to see where the bad attitude those antis are talking about is coming from. They wouldn’t thank them and start a respectful conversation if the creators had bashed the canon ships and demonized Aang or Mai.

And, even if some analyses contain bashing and demonizing: again, this comes from EVERY side of the ship war. I can’t count how many times I came across a post claiming Zuko is such a manipulator in The Southern Raiders and poor, angelic Katara fell for this manipulation, but luckily listened to Aang in the end—I came across one of those BS takes just yesterday. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Those analyses exist for K@taang and M@iko as well. Not to mention that those aren’t only done by the shippers themselves but well-known ATLA YouTubers like Sarcastic Chorus or Hello Future Me, some of which even tend to be more of the canon shippers.

So, even if Zutarians were the only non-canon shippers claiming their ship should’ve been endgame—which they aren’t, this is just a wrong and ignorant take—so what? How is this an attitude? It‘s a damn opinion and absolutely normal, because this is what happens when you release a TV show, a movie, or a book: not everyone agrees with the canon material, because people are different, that’s it.

I stopped shipping Edward x Bella from Twilight eventually, but back when, you think I cared when they became endgame and Jacob x Bella shippers still claimed that their ship is better? No, and why should I? It’s an opinion that doesn’t change just because the other pairing became canon, this should go without saying.

Same thing with Geralt x Yennefer from The Witcher. Those two are so freakin toxic, but I don’t care, I love and ship them together, anyway (yes, they are toxic, I’m perfectly fine admitting it. That’s why I always have to laugh when people claim the same about Zutara, but whatever…). Those two are canon. But you think I care when people consider the dynamic between Geralt and Triss, Shani, or whatever other woman he’s banging, or between him and Dandelion, better and get respectfully vocal about it? No, again, why should I? Media preference, totally normal thing.