basementnoodles

[basementnoodles]

yue the fierce moon warrior | azula the prized fire lily

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Can you imagine if Korra walked into screen looking like this? This started as a doodle and started experimenting rendering

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Finally got a line up of forms for Stella that i'm happy with UwU

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Unfortunately, it's real. Disappointed, but not surprised.

"We don't use AI" my ass, Straffi.

[basementnoodles]

Critique Isn’t Hate: How to Spot Manipulative Arguments in Fandom (and Shut Them Down)

There’s a growing pattern in fandom discourse where people confuse critique with hate, and emotional projection with canon. And when they can’t win the argument? They start throwing around buzzwords like “misogyny,” “anti-feminism,” or accuse you of “not understanding character arcs” not because they care about those things, but because they ran out of points.

Let’s break down the playbook and why you shouldn’t fall for it.

“You’re just trying to control how people ship!”

False.

Shipping is free. Ship what you want. Literally no one can stop you.

But if you enter the conversation saying “Zutara makes sense” or “Aang x Katara was forced,” that’s a claim about the story, and claims can be critiqued.

Critique is not control.

Critique is not hate.

Critique is the bare minimum of discussion in a media space.

“Saying Katara didn’t need a relationship is misogynistic!”

Nope.

Saying a female character doesn’t need a love interest to be complete is not misogyny it’s literally textbook feminist media analysis.

What is misogyny? Acting like a woman’s arc is only satisfying if it ends in a romance.

What’s also misogyny? Guilt-tripping women into silence by slapping the feminist label on your OTP.

Let’s be clear:

Critiquing romantic tropes =/= hating romance.

Wanting female characters to be centered in their own arc =/= “talking down to women.”

“Zutara was about emotional closeness, not just trauma!”

Let’s talk structure.

Zuko and Katara:

-Had one major emotional arc together (The Southern Raiders)

-Shared limited one-on-one scenes outside of that

-Had no romantic build-up: no confession, no longing, no soft moments of mutual desire

They ended the show as allies, not lovers.

Yes, they respected each other. Yes, they grew. But respect and shared pain =/= emotional intimacy or compatibility.

You can imagine a romance from that foundation. But don’t pretend it was ever in the text.

“You clearly don’t understand the story or character arcs.”

Ah yes, the final fallback of every cornered fan: condescension.

Translation: “I don’t like that you made a solid point, so I’ll insult your intelligence instead.”

This is a cheap trick meant to shut you up and frame the other person as “objective” and “logical.” But ask yourself:

Did they actually address your point?

Or did they just try to emotionally intimidate you into backing down?

You don’t have to be a professional analyst to read a show critically. Your perspective is valid, and if they’re trying this hard to twist your words or discredit you, it’s because your critique hit something real.

So... how do you shut it down?

You don’t have to match their tone.

Just make it clear:

-You’re allowed to critique romanticization of imbalance, trauma, or rewritten canon.

-Saying “this relationship wasn’t earned” isn’t the same as “this character doesn’t deserve love.”

-You’re not being hateful. They’re being defensive.

And if they go full meltdown and delete their comments after you reply?

Congrats. You didn’t just win the argument. You showed them they couldn’t bully you into silence.

You can ship what you want.

I can critique what was written.

That’s balance.

[basementnoodles]

[basementnoodles]

This is my first post on tumblr, and I've decided it's going to be of these drawings I did of Stella from Winx club. This is part of a whole rewrite I've been working on for a few months

[basementnoodles]

Winx club Sky redesign

I wanted to give this guy a more princely look, since I feel like he would be under a lot of pressure as prince of Eraklyon. The brown outfit is what he would wear when undercover as Brandon, and is also more aligned with his personal style.

He’s a sad, anxious rich boy who gets an insane character arc of growing a spine and a personality.

[basementnoodles]

I hate when people say(*writers*) when zuko is an emo bad boy. When zuko acts "emo" and "badboy" as they say it's him reacting to his trauma and abuse as a kid(most of time. Zuko is still badass. But badboy no). Is it an excuse? No. But when zuko is acting that way in canon, his obsession with honor, his yelling, his moodiness, his short temper. That is the product of having his empathy literally beaten/burned out of him by his father(and mocked and emotionally abused by Azula). The reason Zuko is doing this whole thing is because he wants to please his father. Become someone he's not. His struggle of who his father wants to be with who he is. It's because of the abuse of his father and his family. As the series goes on you get more and more flashes of the person Zuko was and the person he can become. By the end of the series it's such a great contrast and Zuko is much more happier because he's with the gaang. His family. He got out of that abusive situation he was in and finally became himself. A dorky, empathetic, caring, skilled swords men, a balanced person. Does he still have moments of anger? Yes. But over all Zuko becomes a fully balanced person.

gasp! but if we don't call zuko a bad boy, however will we make sure people don't get any ideas about shipping him with katara?

jokes aside, you're absolutely right and i roll my eyes so hard when people point to bad things zuko did, or his behaviour pre-redemption as indisputable proof of the kind of person he'd be post-redemption. like you said, a lot of zuko's actions and mannerisms before day of black sun is a direct result of the trauma he suffered, and though that doesn't excuse him - and neither does the show allow it to - discounting it entirely is to erase the abuse zuko endured and how that shaped him.

using the first half of book 3 as evidence of zuko being a supposed bad boy irks me in particular because a) the narrative makes it pretty clear that this is zuko as the worst version of himself, the opposite of everything he actually is and could be, and b) he is stuck in an abusive household at the mercy of his abusers, in an actively life-threatening situation.

zuko knows that he is in a situation where he has no real agency, freedom or control. he knows that aang is alive, that azula has turned him into a scapegoat and that his life will be forfeit if his father finds out the truth. that is an incredibly terrifying and stressful situation to be put in and it's worsened by the fact that he can't even admit it - not just because doing so would mean accepting that he gave up everything that actually mattered in the catacombs to gain nothing in return, but also because no one around him will allow him to do so.

his girlfriend can't understand his experiences or his turmoil and doesn't seem to particularly want to, brushing off his anxieties and encouraging him to stay the course. he is manipulated by his father and gaslighted by his sister, aware deep down that he is entirely under their control and that they have a vested interest in keeping him helpless, yet forced to pretend as though nothing is wrong. he is isolated from the one person who could help - his uncle - physically and emotionally, both because visiting iroh puts zuko in danger, and because zuko's choices have created a rift in their relationship.

all of this compounds the psychological stress zuko is experiencing, forcing him into a constant state of fight-or-flight, and this context is vital to understanding many of the decisions he makes and how he behaves in the first half of book 3.

(this is why i don't agree with the take that hiring combustion man is an ooc moment for zuko because even though i think the idea of combustion man himself is stupid - not to mention disrespectful to the hindu origins it's pulling from - it's a fundamentally desperate move, and zuko at this point is more desperate than he's ever been.)

that's why it's unlikely that zuko post-redemption would behave similarly since many of the factors that contributed to his anger, hostility and moodiness would no longer exist! judging zuko's future behaviour based on a time when he was constantly abused, gaslighted and threatened is just not an accurate or fair means of measurement, especially since we know what he's like at his best. the zuko we see with the gaang still has a bit of a short fuse, sure, but he's also sincere, honest, awkward, shy and far happier than he's ever been. because shocker, people tend not to act the same way in healthy, supportive environments as they do in abusive, traumatic ones. who would've thought?

people who make this argument also usually tend to compare zuko to aang, especially to glorify how aang remains cheerful and peaceful despite his trauma, and... no. just no. first of all, the show barely gives a fuck about developing aang's trauma the way it does zuko's so of course it seems to affect him less, and secondly, there's something to be said about how trauma responses like aang's are a lot more palatable and comfortable for audiences than responses like zuko's, or even katara's in the southern raiders.

anger or moodiness, or wanting to punish the people who hurt you, are not inherently wrong ways to react when you've been wronged and traumatized. praising aang for remaining cheerful and forgiving while calling zuko a bad boy for being angry and moody implies a sense of moral superiority that comes with reacting to trauma in the "right" way, which is both inaccurate and insensitive.

zuko will never be aang, and that's fine. he doesn't have to be. he ends the show reclaiming everything his abusers tried to take from him, having found himself and his destiny, in a place of healing that is all his own. that is an incredibly meaningful and powerful narrative, and the last thing zuko deserves is to have all of his complexity and development stripped just to be reduced to the tired trope of a "bad boy" when he was never one in the first place.

[basementnoodles]

I don't think I'll ever not die a little bit inside when I remember Katara had Bumi at 22

They had no idea what to do with her. You're telling me she wasn't an ambassador, a warrior, anything, before she became a mother?? She was barely an adult before she became a mother.

I know Aang was young too. And I hate that he was so young when they had him, but at least they made Aang have a life outside of that. He did things outside of becoming a father.

She just retired and became a healer??? She's a great woman and I'm not saying I don't like that she had children. I just... She was 22. I wish she did more than just end up caring for everyone around her through every stage of her life.

[basementnoodles]

"Why do you want to make a deadbeat dad out of Aang?", "Aang wasn't a bad father, he was just flawed!"

No one said this to me personally, but those or similar claims I read coming from people defending Aang and his actions towards his non-airbender children.

The thing is: I and many A:TLA fans don't want to make a deadbeat dad out of Aang. And for the flawed-thing: where do people draw the line?

I draw the line when the non-bender son apologizes to his father's statue for something he had no control over. Because he felt his father's disappointment, likely more than once in his life.

I draw the line when an air acolyte—one of the persons who are supposed to know everything about Aang's life—doesn't know that her messiah has more than one child. That means Aang never, ever talked about his other children. Wanna prove me wrong? Then show me other air acolytes later on in the same episode who indeed know about his other children and love the stories Aang, as a proud father, used to tell them about Kya and Bumi. And his soulmate Katara...

I draw the line when a father, who barely sees his other two children and his wife who is supposed to be his soulmate, decides to take whole vacations with his one airbender son and neglects the rest of his family even in his free time.

So, no, I don't want to make a deadbeat dad out of Aang. The narrative did it. Bryke did it, and, as someone who loves Aang, I was pissed af. Cancel Bumi's apology, the scene with the air acolyte and the vacations, keep Aang travelling with Tenzin alone to the air temples as some kind of duty and show me beautiful memories of Aang hugging and playing around with his whole family, and I believe that he was just flawed.

The family portrait in which Tenzin was a few months old and didn't even show signs of airbending isn't enough evidence—none at all. You find those happy-smiling portraits in every happy and unhappy household (Pink's song "Family Portrait" comes to mind). I never read the comics, but heard they retcon the scene in Korra so far that it would only make sense if Kya and Bumi would have memory loss or dementia.

The Aang I know from A:TLA would've loved to pass on his culture to all of his children, airbenders or not. They don't have to be airbenders to learn about it.

Bryke are great world builders and artists, but no writers, they should let other people do the job. They are literally the only writers I know who refuse to learn from their mistakes, keep on retconning instead, and are defended by some people among the fandom for it.

And surprise, surprise: what Katara thought about it, if she said anything to Aang or if she just sat back and watched, wasn't even mentioned in the talk between the siblings.

TL;DR: Bryke decided to portray Aang's actions as a father and husband to the extent that it comes off as if he isn't interested in his non-airbender children and Katara at all. It isn't me and the other critics who want to portray him as a deadbeat dad, on the contrary: as someone who loves Aang, it pisses me off. A family portrait makes no difference, because it proves nothing. And neither do the comics. Either you manage to convey the message you want to send in this exact scene, or you miss the mark.

[basementnoodles]

“That is one happy family.” (post-ATLA pre-LoK headcanon)

But seriously.

Imagine that small, barely-readable moment of disappointment that must’ve passed through Aang and Katara, when they realized that their firstborn child… born from a prodigious air -bending Avatar and the most powerful water-bender to exist in a century… was a non-bender.  

Knowing Katara, she would’ve just breathed deeply and held that child even more tightly and lovingly, accepting the little boy as is.  

But Aang?  

Aang must’ve thought the Spirit World was taunting him. No doubt he would be devastated, thinking that bringing air-benders back into the world would be a lot trickier than he thought.  That guilt he once felt about running away from his people would come crawling back under his skin, all over again.

Katara would comfort Aang, as she always does.

He would be adamant, saying that no, Bumi has to be an air-bender!  He has to be.  He just needs some time!  Aang would double-down.  He would make sure to give Bumi the same air-bending spirituality and influence to hopefully trigger the boy’s air-bending gift.  As soon as Bumi were weaned, Aang would take him to visit all of the Air Temples for weeks at a time, and Katara would oblige, staying behind in Republic City to work diligently on behalf of the Avatar.  

But there’s only so much time that Aang can be away, because Republic City needs him.  So, Aang would build a fifth temple just off the coast of the city: Air Temple Island.  It would be Aang and Katara’s permanent home base, bringing as much influence of air culture as he can… with air bison and air acolytes to give Bumi all of this immersion in his first few years of life.  

Katara doesn’t protest any of these changes, despite not having much say in them; she doesn’t reject all of the young pretty female acolytes suddenly living in their home, spending time with their son, her husband… because Katara knows it’s for the best.  She knows how desperate Aang is to have their son be an air-bender.  She still gets to know Bumi regardless of his lack of bending, still finds herself laughing with him, teaching him things whenever the acolytes can give her some quality time with her son.  In secret, Katara also tries to connect with Bumi with water-bending… wondering if, just maybe… but that, too, becomes a fruitless search.  

But actually, no– she notices how Bumi loves the water anyway.  She notices how he loves going out into the water near the island, his hands paddling the water-bent boogie board she makes for him.  She wonders if it would be a good idea to visit the Southern Water Tribe regularly in the future, to see if Bumi can connect with that part of his identity… or perhaps visit the Fire Nation to immerse the boy with Fire Lord Zuko’s naval ships, to see if he might someday be a naval commander.

She brings this idea up to Aang, hopeful that he would like this idea, too.  Aang smiles, but he lowers his head in the way that looks defeated, beaten.

Katara would comfort Aang, as she always does.

Five years pass, and Bumi has visited the Southern Water Tribe and the Fire Nation multiple times.  He has grown to enjoy the water, despite not being a water bender.  No, he is still not showing any signs of air-bending. Aang is sad, but still tries to connect with this child.  It doesn’t come easily, since he knows nothing else… since he was raised by air-benders, who laughed at the idea of gravity all the time.  

Aang becomes more emotionally removed, feeling like a fraud parent in front of this child, and finds himself telling Katara how she’s always been great with kids, how she practically raised Sokka, another non-bender... hears himself making so many excuses to not be around Bumi. 

Katara would comfort Aang, as she always does.

He spends most of his time alone, meditating, traveling to the Spirit World to find an explanation as to why.  Why would the Spirits give him a non-air-bending child in the midst of an extinct air-nation?  Months pass by, and no answer is found, and despite being among his air-bison and acolyte kin on Air Temple Island, Aang feels so empty.  Hopeless.  Alone.

Aang runs off to find solace in the other air temples and acolytes, focusing his energy on bringing back his culture with his most devoted followers, once again leaving Katara to speak on behalf of her husband whenever Republic City asks about Avatar Aang’s absence.  She says he will return soon.

He doesn’t come back for a year.

His relationship with Bumi would suffer.  His relationship with Katara would strain.  Despite her emotional distance from Aang, and his neglect to their child, Katara remains devoted to the Avatar (and her husband, for better or worse) so she stays on Air Temple Island raising their son until his return.  

It’s not until she writes to him in the temples: Don’t worry, Sweetie, we’ll make an air-bender sooner or later. Just come home, please…  that Aang is finally compelled to return to Air Temple Island to try again for another kid.  He has a good feeling about it, too, considering that this second child would be born and fully-immersed in Air Temple Island.  

Imagine the surprise, then.  How… in spite of all of that air culture… their second child is born to be a water-bender.  

Katara is beside herself with joy, and Aang smiles, seeing this sweet little girl who shares her mother’s eyes… but he cannot hide his disappointment.  Katara sees it, too, and she fights that bitter, stinging feeling of guilt in her stomach as she gradually builds a connection with her own daughter.  

Aang, you’re a water-bender too, remember? she encourages, and that little fact brings some light in Aang’s disappointed eyes, and he spends time with his daughter, building a connection through his natural water-bending skills.  

But still… that is not enough, and Katara knows. 

She sees it in the way Aang’s eyes aren’t fully present when he plays with his daughter, his son.  As Katara looks at her husband looking at their children playing together, she can tell by his his defeated, weighed-down grin that truly… deep-down…  he wishes they were something else.  

When Aang packs up to travel again to the air temples, Katara doesn’t protest.  When she learns how Aang has been refusing to even mention Bumi or Kya in the other temples, Katara reasons to herself that it must be because of that pain it causes him– that internal shame Aang carries with him as the Last Airbender who cannot bring more of them to the world.  

That’s what Katara keeps telling herself, as she continues to raise Bumi and Kya on the island on her own for almost another year. 

Thankfully, Aang returns to Air Temple Island, refreshed and fully new.  There’s a sense of hope in the air – now that the Spirits blessed him with a water-bending daughter – that an air-bending child might not be so far away. 

And the third time becomes a charm.  

When Tenzin is born, Katara is indeed happy, joyful… and also relieved, by the look she sees in Aang’s eyes, discovering that this child’s silver eyes match his.  Katara is too preoccupied living this specific kind of joy vicariously through Aang… she forgets to be happy about just having this third child. Her child.  

And when Aang refuses to let go of this child… refuses to give up Tenzin for his mother to hold him that day he’s born… Katara doesn’t protest. 

She brushes off her tears as more happy ones than sad ones, because it’s all she can do to live with this man, now.  This man who is also a kid, who is also the Avatar.  Who’s already gotten so accustomed to the world bending to his every want and need, there is now no going back. Katara knows. 

The world is, of course, rejoiced by the first air-bender born in over a century, and no sooner is Tenzin weaned that Aang takes him all over the world.  

Katara remains with the other two children, keeping this emotional hole in the relationship to herself, but downright refusing to give Aang more children, no matter the eagerness he shows about wanting more air-benders. He talks about it publicly, unapologetically… in written and oral documents…. but whenever Aang tries to place a hand on her shoulder, her back… Katara now shrugs it away.  

When Aang asks her if she’s okay, it’s in that concerned, wise voice of a monk who knows all.  As if this were obviously something to do with her, never about him.  

As usual, Katara says she’s fine, but her arms remain folded, her eyes lowered and distant, all but gone.  

He never asks Katara if she still loves him; that would be ridiculous.  That’s all but assumed; she did marry him, didn’t she? And they had three kids together. 

She never asks Aang if he still loves her; that would be ridiculous.  She already knows the answer.  She’s always known.

No Avatar has ever broken their marriage… according to what Katara has read… and through the stories her Gran Gran always told her, she knows that a marriage is a sacred bond, held for better or worse, before the spirits of Tui and La.  Katara looks at her husband, and then their children… still very young, still considered the Avatar’s kin… and she stays.  She chooses to.  

It’s what she tells herself, on particularly rough days– that she had a choice, and that she made it.  

Aang stops trying to touch her, eventually, and when he takes Tenzin on long-term trips to the other air temples, Katara doesn’t protest.  Whenever he returns to the island, of course she’s there to greet his arrival, but they now sleep in separate quarters.   

When people ask Aang about the possibility of more air-benders after Tenzin, he replies that it’s Katara’s health that is now preventing them from trying for more children, and Katara confirms this with a smile… assuring that Tenzin will be kept safe and protected, with constant vigilance wherever he travels, before he one day has air-bender children of his own.  

In public, Katara still smiles.  In writing, Katara still praises the Avatar. 

When Aang asks her to write a letter to Tenzin for his air-bender legacy book, she obliges quietly, too tired to argue anymore. 

In this letter, she explains to Tenzin what got her to fall in love with his wonderful father, and of course shines light on his fun and kid-like way about living, and how she felt lucky enough to stand by and witness his many deeds for the world and the air-nomad culture.  Katara is too enveloped in this internalized, shameful resentment that has sat and grown for the man who has become her husband… she doesn’t realize she has failed to remind Tenzin in this letter that he is also part Water Tribe through his amazing mother… a woman who stood by the Avatar when nobody else would, who was his anchor of hope and strength when he had none… who taught herself water-bending and became her own hero while waiting for one to be realized.   Katara’s tears stain the parchment of this letter, so much so that she doesn’t notice she didn’t even mention Tenzin’s beautiful siblings, Kya and Bumi, who – while they might not be air-benders – would still love him and be there for him throughout his life. 

The photographs of the family are indeed happy, and courteous… rehearsed, and poised… because this, this is the family that must inspire people.  

Leave it to Katara – the one who always placed others before herself – to always be thinking about that bigger picture.  

After all, what kind of message would it bring to the next generation… a world, still vulnerable by the consequences of war… if they saw the Avatar’s family as unhappy?

[basementnoodles]

LOK has an extremely weird attitude towards abuse victims

Just off the top of my head:

- Korra ended the series believing that she needed to be chained up, poisoned, beaten, and asphyxiated in order to learn compassion. This is the message that the show ends on.

- Zhu Li marries the man who verbally abused and humiliated her for years, and we know that he will continue to do so because in his marriage vows he requested that she keeps washing his feet.

- Asami forgives her father and even declares that she loves him. Mind you, this man tried to murder her in cold blood

- The Korra-Zaheer confrontation was very weird. The “camera” frames Zaheer above Korra, which is a technique that denotes power over someone. Zaheer is also the one in charge during the scene, he guides Korra into the spirit world and heals her spiritual block. Why would the creators write a scene where the abuser is framed as powerful and gets to heal the woman that he abused as a child? Why, why, why?

- Mako and Asami become Varrick’s buddies even though he manipulated them, robbed Asami, and incriminated Mako in a way that would’ve resulted in him being in prison for life

- Lin forgives her mother even though Toph spent the entire episode being downright verbally abusive to her

- Bolin sexually assaults a woman and rejoices about it. Then, his victim seemingly forgives and kisses him for being a hero

- The Eska-Bolin storyline is a mockery of male domestic abuse victims

- Kya and Bumi were neglected by their father, but the episode ends with them smiling at a family picture and declaring that they were a happy family after all! (Except for the neglect, I guess)

Every single abuse victim either forgives or forgets, sometimes both. Compare this to Katara humiliating Yon Rha, Zuko’s “It was wrong and it was cruel”, and Aang beating the shit out of Ozai. It seems that in between the making of ATLA and TLOK, the showrunners decided that abuse isn’t a big deal, actually!

Edit: Here is a whole think piece about this issue

[basementnoodles]

Does The Legend of Korra have a gender disparity problem in the writers’ room?

Being nosy, as I was watching ‘Korra’, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these episodes were written by women. Well, here are the numbers:

How many TLOK episodes per season were written by a woman?

Season 1: 0/12

Season 2: 0/14

Season 3: 1/13

Season 4: 1/13

Total: 2/52 episodes were written by women. That’s 3,8% of the series.

How many women worked in TLOK?

Just one. Katie Mattila, she wrote Old Wounds and The Calling.

Now, still being nosy, let’s compare it to its predecessor:

How many ATLA episodes per season were written by a woman?

season 1: 1/20

season 2: 5/20

season 3: 5/21

Total: 11/61 episodes were written by women. That’s 18,03% of the series.

How many women worked in ATLA?

Let’s list them:

Elizabeth Welch: The Northern Air Temple, The Avatar State, Return to Omashu, Zuko Alone, Appa’s Lost Days, The Avatar and The Fire Lord, The Western Air Temple, The Southern Raiders

Joann Estoesta & Lisa Wahlander: The Tale of Toph and Katara (segment in The Tales of Ba Sing Se)

Lauren MacMullan: The Tale of Sokka (segment in The Tales of Ba Sing Se)

Katie Mattila: The Tale of Zuko (segment in The Tales of Ba Sing Se), The Beach

May Chan: The Boiling Rock part 1

I don’t like making assumptions about artists, but I find it very revealing that the showrunners made the sequel be about a female protagonist and promptly kicked all of the women out of the writing room. Maybe a female writer could’ve told them that Asami was a flat character, or that the torture scene was awfully fetishistic, or that ending the show with Korra saying that she deserved to be abused because it made her “humbler” was a mistake. Alas, a girl can dream about a TLOK with female creatives.

[basementnoodles]

Lok will always be a trash ass show for how they handled korra’s ptsd in season 4.

How they literally have her go to the person who CAUSED her trauma for help, how she “overcame” it and how she said she deserved it because she needed to learn true suffering to be a kind person. Who wrote this trash? It’s so disgusting they put this in a kids show and thought it was a good idea.

I don’t care what anyone says, this was an awful and poorly written storyline.

[basementnoodles]

This page meant this as a cute post but it made me so sad. None of Katara’s descendants will have any connection to her culture. They will rarely visit the water tribe, if at all.

How depressing is that? The last southern waterbender, the woman who wanted to rebuild the water tribe, and she won’t have any descendants who identify themselves as water tribesmen after 1 generation. Yet Aang’s legacy only grows stronger.

[basementnoodles]

Do you like legend of korra? I see you like korra as a character (honestly so validating for me most ppl see her as a mary sue when she's literally considered the worst avatar) so maybe you like the show too?

Korra is NOT a mary sue. It's true some people are big mad about cartoons depicting muscular ladies and like just hold female protagonists to waaay higher standards compared to their male counterparts (*cough* Aang *cough* ) but I can actually see where the argument comes from. The problem is Korra is never morally challenged by the narrative, especially on her pro-bending anti equalist stance. And to overcompensate for that, she's challenged an extreme amount in other aspects to the point where she can actually be considered the opposite of a mary sue. She never gets to fix her mistakes on her own whereas a sue wouldn't be making those mistakes IN THE FIRST PLACE. Even personality-wise she gets called out for her arrogance, and ACTUALLY struggles with her bending due to it. Her flawed development is more on Bryke and tlok's lack of moral complexity and sensitivity and detail that issues like the equalist movement, anarchism, diplomacy etc deserve. And it would, to a certain extent, be worth it if the relationships between the Krew and the Gaang were well written. As much as I dunk on spy x family, I do appreciate that it actually focuses on its characters even at the expense of better worldbuilding. But in tlok instead we have a love quadrilateral, annoying kid(s), a golden child who bears the burden to increase airbender population, Aang being an awful dad, Katara barely being there at all and suddenly can't waterbend anymore despite most likely being the one to train Korra. I don't think I need to say this anymore, but no I'm not a fan of tlok.

To end on a positive note, Korra is my blorbo because her personality is eerily similar to mine (except maybe the talkativeness lol) and I just hate that she was so underutilised and screwed over. She may seem like Bryke's darling because the latter tend to make everything about the protagonist but I do believe they have some level of bias against Korra due to her gender.