'katara was never canonically into zuko, so therefore, i HAVE to go with kataang - ' first of all, we as the audience have no clue how katara feels about her relationship with aang other than one dance scene right after a scene where she fakes being his pregnant mother, a kiss sprung on her after she expressed confusion with barely explanation, and legitimately treats aang the same way she does a baby, combined with the show making joke after joke about them having a mother-son dynamic
the cherry on top? the directors were aware that her 'normal' animation model would look extremely inappropriate in romantic scenes with aang, so they had to make a younger-looking model so that it doesn't look like a mom interacting inappropriately with her son. i need someone to draw katara's model from the southern raiders in her kiss scenes with aang
like if you want to sell me on the idea that katara was into aang at all, there needs to be a lot more than one moment in season 1 with the fortuneteller's theme getting undermined by katara being welded to destiny, the surprise kiss that should have ended with katara smiling if bryke didn't want me to want to take a hammer to kataang, and not even talking to aang about their relationship after the disasterclass that was ember island players
i don't care if the show canonically played with zutara or not. i saw the parallels, themes, and chemistry. not my problem that kataang couldn't actively give katara agency
