[ SECRET POST #3503 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3503 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Avatar: The Last Airbender]


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[Overwatch]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 56 secrets from Secret Submission Post #500.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. http://i.imgur.com/sXlQZbL.png
[Avatar: The Last Airbender]

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, there are a few het pairing wars that seriously out-ridiculous any slash equivalent, and the Avatar wars definitely rank up there.

While I wasn't really into either pairing, I was more repulsed by Katara/Aang, because Aang is a prepubescent kid, and Katara's interest felt mostly big-sister-ish until then. I felt it would've been much more appropriate to have none of them "get together" at the end. That last kiss felt cringey and awkward. And then you could let fans ship how they like (well, at least until the sequel series).

[ariakas]

Oh man. Any time someone whinges about how turrible and catty slash fans are I just remember Cloris vs Cloti and Shinji/Rei vs Shinji/Asuka and Ron/Hermione vs the Harmonians and laugh and laugh and laugh.

I've never seen slash ship wars as bad as het wars can get, probably for exactly the reason you identify: slash is almost never canon and slashers know it. Het shippers actually do have a chance of their ship becoming endgame AND BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES FIRE AT WILL

[(Anonymous)]

Haha right? I mostly ship slash, but as someone who dabbled Cloris and Zutara fandoms, I always found slash ship wars quite chill and friendly.

I think that's the problem - slash, sadly, almost never becomes canon, and that sucks. Everyone knows it, deep down. Het is almost always canon, and live triangles are almost always resolved, or at least you know for certain creators probably intended it.

[nightscale]

I always boggle when people act like slash fandoms are so much worse when it comes to ship-wars or whatever, like yeah I've seen bad behaviour in slash corners for sure but as someone who was a het-shipper for the first 10 or so years of my fandom existence het ship-wars are something else. And it's exactly because each side(unless the ship really is out-there) has the very real chance of becoming canon and that just does something to the waters.

(Bleach fandom veteran here, good lord it was nutso years ago when it was bigger, I don't even want to know what it's like now).

[ketita]

lol, Clerith vs. Cloti are still at it. And given the upcoming remake, they will probably go on for eternity...

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I really don't get endgame wank. Why does it matter?

[nightscale]

I like to go read-through old fandom drama sometimes too, I probably shouldn't but it's just so fascinating sometimes, plus not being at all involved in the situation means that I can have a more jovial outlook about the whole thing when reading it.

[lb_lee]

Man, I'm not even IN this fandom and I've still seen some really weird rationales for this ship war. (One of my friends is a fan, and writes fic for it, and sometimes will get a rogue time traveler who apparently thinks the ship war ain't over.)

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, we were definitely the more wanky side. Not just because we didn't "win", but because Bryan and Mike was really juvenile about it and the responses were just as immature. (My god, we got Dante Basco to say he'd voice Zuko if we animated an alternate ending.) I was one of those Zutarans who didn't care if it became canon, so I didn't go to war against the good ship Kataang. The Kataangers seemed to be a younger crowd and hung out on certain message boards rather than LJ.

From the stories that have come out over the years, Bryke were really the only ones millitantly opposed to Zutara in the show's crew.

It's hard to gage because there was a big time gap between ATLA and LOK, less people watched LOK, etc., but there were also a significant portion of Zutarans who didn't see Makorra as Zutara 2.0 and didn't ship it. Makorra just never seemed to reach juggernaut status. (Full disclosure: I shipped Borra for five episodes before it was torpedoed, then switched to Korrasami. It was weird to finally "win" and feel the bittersweet emotion that I've heard some Kataangers express over the years: my ship is canon, but I wish it had been done better.)

Man, this has made me kinda nostalgic. OP, do you have a link to a writeup of this? I'd love to read it.

[(Anonymous)]

OP

Isn't Bryke like...the creators for this show? Dante Basco may have voiced the dude but he had no part in the character creation so ultimately his opinion doesn't really mean much? If I listened to the voice actors from some of my favourite shows...man those shows would be much more interesting, both bad and good. (More than one voice actor has tacitly stated that certain male/male and female/female pairings were played 'as if they were in love with X character', even though the creators of the show either deny the homo subtext, or just stay mum on it.)

I mean, I do think the whole thing is hilariously wanky, they definitely one-upped themselves (that fan video is...something else), but after reading a bunch of comments from Zutara shippers in the wild, I have to say...

I kind of see why they were so juvenile and angry about it. I'm not really into either ship, I think Kataang could have been cute if there was better build-up for it, and I'll be honest Zutara feels like the same wishy-washy DEPRESSED EMO BOY JUST NEEDS LOVING GIRLFRIEND TO ~FIX~ HIM crap that I've seen in every other het ship that involves a whiny brat of a male character.

And I'm sure there are really cool Zutara shippers out there. I've seen some gorgeous fanart and even saved it. But some "BNF" types and the general Zutara fan is just....wow. One popular "why Zutara is the best ship" manifestos literally had the line "Zuko deserves something nice after his hard redemption" (paraphrased, but basically exactly that), and of course that "something nice" is Katara herself. And everybody was enthusiastically agreeing with Katara basically being a chattel "first prize" for Zuko and just, whoah. No.

I'm also not saying there aren't immature Kataangers. There definitely are. From my vantage point as someone who didn't really have a dog in this fight though, they're a more....benign kind of immature.

There really isn't a writeup though, sorry anon! It's honestly just me going through the fandom.

[insanenoodlyguy]

It was so much fun when Bryke actually started actively trolling. In those days they were our Heroes of the internet, those magnificent bastards.

[otakugal15]

Man, I am STILL salty that Borra didn't go anywhere. They meshed far FAR better than Makorra ever did. And I even dare say far better than Korrasami. But then again, I can't watch that ending and definitively say that they are pair. It was way to ambiguous for that.

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty much this. I watched the drama unfold, but felt a lot of sympathy toward the Zutarians. And I enjoyed their fanworks too. I didn't see anything wrong with their ship and thought it was unprofessional of the Bryke team to make lame jokes about them. Just because they are the creators doesn't mean that fans have to approve or like every single thing they do. Fanwork is fanwork, why not leave things be?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, this fandom. This was the fandom that actually introduced me to the concept of shipping and ship wars, and I'll never forget how completely bewildered I was at the frothing hatred of that one-shot female character in season two (Song?) who helps out Zuko. It was only later I understood that it was the typical Die For Our Ship attitude being levelled at her, which was a complete waste of time since she was never seen or heard of again.

I never really shipped anything in this show, and a tiny part of me felt resentful that SO MUCH of the fandom discourse revolved entirely about which dude Katara was going to end up with (even when it was obvious from the very first episode it would be Aang). I mean, you've got a story about a beautiful world at war, filled with people who have supernatural abilities, with moral challenges and ancient history and mythological creatures - and everything just focused on shipping. For that I can understand why Bryke got so fed up.

[(Anonymous)]

OP

I actually had a bonus secret in here before I took it out, I really wish Zuko had a more interesting love interest. Mai never sat well with me. I would have loved to have seen him with someone bad-ass but cheerful and independent.

It's one of those few cases where if someone made an engaging and interesting enough OFC and wrote great fic I'd totally read OC/Canon character romance.

Nothing against Mai or the people who enjoy the ship. I just didn't like her appearance, her voice, or her personality, and seeing them act like woobie emos together felt kind of...dumb to me.

[(Anonymous)]

So you enjoy the wank surrounding Zutara, you should check out the Reylo shippers in Star Wars fandom, as they've pretty much affixed the same narrative to them as they did to Zuko/Katara (poor misunderstood guy will be redeem by the love of a spirited girl on the opposing team).

I actually wouldn't be surprised if Reylo shippers ARE mostly Zutara shippers, and it'll end the same way.

[(Anonymous)]

OP

Yes THIS. I just commented to another anon about that. The Zutara shippers seemed majorly invested as Katara being some sort of weird "prize" that Zuko got to "win" because he was such a good boy now, he reformed himself! (All because of the love of a beautiful girl!)

The Kataangers were bad too, but as an outsider I felt they were, as I said in the other comment, more of a "benign" sort of immature.

As for the Reylo wars, what is the wank over them? Who is the opposing ship? Have any highlights? :D

[(Anonymous)]

To tie in the secret below, would that mean that they really are the Migratory Het Fandom?

[otakugal15]

Except...Zuko never killed his GOOD HEARTED father just because he wanted power. And Zuko had a father figure that was doing his utmost to teach him right. The only big thing Zuko did that could even be even REMOTELY similar to Kylo's thing, is that he turned on the Avatar. But he was already well on his way to redemption before then anyway. He just wanted is father to LOVE him.

Kylo just wanted power and to no longer feel attached to those he feels were a weakness.

Zuko is the far more nuanced character here that the general audience and shippers can actually relate to and feel sympathy for.

Kylo, as of right now? Hahaha, no. Not by a LONG shot.

[otakugal15]

Except, as fars as the first two seasons were concerned, yes, Makkora WAS supposed to be there for the Zutara fans. Just that Bryke SUCKED at writing romance. Like, deep throat w/the balls sucked hard at writing romance.

Then, when fandom went crazy over the prospect of Korrasami, they rode the fanon wagon and made it canon...but...once again, FAILED to get that relationship across. It's why people who saw the whole series and saw that ending will still see it as two friends as opposed to girlfriends.

Either way, Bryke and crew just fucking sucked on the romance front, in both series and they handled the fan aspect terribly, on both occasions.

[(Anonymous)]

I was under the impression that they couldn't do much with the Korrasami thing, because of Nickeloden not wanting a gay realtionship to be obvious so they could avoid controversy and still market the show to other countries that wern't super lgbt friendly. Could be wrong, but that's what I figured.

[caerbannog]

I always felt a bit bad for how the zutara fans were treated by the creators. Not cool.

[(Anonymous)]

Great ship wars I've been privileged to see from the outside:

Avatar
LOTR
Harry Potter

I'd say that the LOTR shipping was clear out in front in terms of obliviousness to reality (mostly for the line-fudging between shipping and actor conspiracy theories), but Harry Potter was the most aggressively lunatic.

Great times.

[sachiko_san]

Avatar Extras even makes fun of the ship wars.

But every now and then, /co/ storytimes How I Became Yours lol