bitterloner

[bitterloner]

{inactive}

Thanks for following, but I’m afraid this blog will be inactive from hereon out. My deepest apologies.

[bitterloner]

Hi! :) Could you draw Lin and Korra hugging? I've always hoped to see Korra hugging and thanking Lin for saving her but it never happened. She's hugged Su a couple of times. Lin totally deserves some love too :p

bruh yeah lin is owed like 3 hugs from every cast member, also a bottle of wine, box of chocolates, their entire life savings, they first borns and the key to their safety deposit box.

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What do you mean this totally isn’t how it happened??

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lin and opal are left handed

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FAVOURITE CHARACTER CHALLENGE:

LIN BEIFONG - SEVEN SCENES (1/7)

[bitterloner]

As much as I love those first two Zaofu episodes for what they do with Lin's character, I still feel varying degrees of annoyed with Su depending on the hour of the day because of how she acts in them when it comes to Lin, and how the show doesn't really address those issues. BUT, I was happy for Lin that she was able to come to a peace of some sort with her past, both with Su and Toph.

Okay, so in general I was really happy with the Zaofu episodes (the first two) because I was head-over-heels in love with the idea of learning more about Lin Beifong. I was even more excited to learn about her family situation, because family stuff always gets me hard in the feels.

That said, I agree with you (and have some stuff to add).

My issue with the Zaofu episodes are the same issues I have from other points in the series: the way Lin is treated by the rest of the cast is really disturbing to me.

[This is 4,000 words long so it’s under a ReadMore.]

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[bitterloner]

I quite enjoyed your analysis of Lin and how her loved ones have had hurt her so. At the end, you explained how you found it a bit unrealistic that Lin forgave Su "out of nowhere," which is fair, considering it's been 30+ years. BUT, I've known people, and I am one myself, who can, and do, make sudden changes within one day if we've motivated enough. Do you think it's possible Lin could be this kind of person? That she's simply sick of being hurt, tense, stressed all the time so she changed.

Thank you for taking the time to message me!

Disclaimer: These are, of course, my own thoughts based on interpretations of the characters as seen in the canon. I see Lin as the type of person who has a very difficult time living in the present, Su and Toph both as being generally (both intentionally and unintentionally, at times) manipulative people, and Tenzin as being good-hearted and unwilling to hurt people he cares about.

Also: I think Toph and Suyin are both fascinating characters, in part due to their faults. The older Toph and Su got, I think the less manipulative they were—intentionally, I mean. And let’s be real: Lin’s no saint. She has a lot of faults, too

(Under a ReadMore for length again.)

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[bitterloner]

Does Lin wear make-up?

She wears lipstick (or colored lip stuff), but she didn’t always:

Look at her crinkling up her nose though. What a cutie.

Sometime between this scene (where it’s hinted at that she’s not a cop yet, but still in training) and the next “young!Lin” scene (where she is a cop), she starts wearing lipstick.

In her 50s (we never do see like, late 30s Lin), she still wears lipstick:

If I had to guess, it’s probably the same color she’s always worn; Lin strikes me as very habitual: definitely the type to find something she likes and then stick with it. 

Because it’s not just the lipstick (the only makeup she seems to bother with). She also does her hair the same way.

Now bear with me, here: lots of people find a hairstyle and end up sticking with it forever. For example, a friend of mine named June? She’s been wearing her hair the same way since before she got married (in her 30s; she’s now in her late 70s). 

Though Lin’s hairstyle has changed slightly (seems to be parted in the middle instead of to one side, which IMO is something she did for more practical reasons), it’s almost exactly the same as it was when she was in her early 20s. And that hairstyle isn’t, IMO, an artistic rendering of curly hair (because we have Suyin and Asami whose hair seems to curl/wave a bit, and it’s not drawn like Lin’s). Rather, I’m pretty sure that Lin’s hair is naturally straight and she curls and pins it to get that hairstyle.

I know some people consider Lin very down to earth and have a hard time believing that someone like her would spend time doing her hair, let alone slapping on some lipstick, but it was probably an idea shoved into her mind at a pretty young age that she needed to look “professional” (and that “professional” meant being clean, neat, doing her hair, wearing lipstick). Asami also does her hair and wears makeup (not just lipstick)—and she’s also down to earth, takes her job seriously, et cetera.

(And while Zhu Li is also a professional and doesn’t wear makeup or really do her hair nicely, I always felt that was the point of Zhu Li’s character: to remain unnoticed in the background. Asami Sato and Lin Beifong hardly have that opportunity, considering one is a police chief and the other head of a corporation.)

Anyway, while I think makeup for Asami serves a dual purpose (makes her look nice/feel nice + helps her appear more “professional”), for Lin it exists solely (or mostly) to maintain a professional appearance*. Her hair does the same thing, and because she parts it in the middle, even if it starts to come undone it won’t fall into her face/get in the way. Also, I feel like…if Lin was attempting to make herself attractive, she might wear her hair differently. Personally I think it looks fine, but I also don’t think she’s trying to impress anyone by doing it that way. IMO, it’s just that habitual thing I mentioned earlier—and it’s probably pretty practical! I mean, if she pins it like that, as a metalbender, it gives her extra weapons if she really gets into a pickle.

(Did the writers for the series think of that? I doubt it. But I did. And it’s one of my favorite pet theories/headcanons. Huehue.)

*I’m not saying anyone has to or should do their hair/makeup to appear professional, but considering that Lin is in her 50s, it’s probably a mindset she’s had for a long time, especially if the writers were attempting to mimic any of our own reality, where many of our parents or grandparents had to do their hair and/or makeup to be taken seriously in the workplace. Even though Lin is Toph’s daughter, I don’t think she ever got—or wanted—a free pass. She earned her position through hard work and dedication—but she sure as hell wouldn’t have been taken very seriously if she’d looked like a slob. Hell, even Toph, as police chief, was dressed neatly and had her hair done up.

[bitterloner]

I agree with 90% of your Lin and Su post. Lin's treatment by others throughout the series has been despicable. For all that she's always there for them, they never seem to return the favor. Lin's always the one making concessions and, ultimately I think, forgiving people who haven't given her a genuine and sufficient apology. Nor has she, in my recollection, ever been thanked for actions, labor, and sacrifices on their behalves.

Thank you very much for your messages, which were wonderful!

As much as I love words, I do have a tendency to use them in a way that’s different than how other people use them (mostly because growing up I picked up more on intuitive meanings of words instead of actual definitions), so I looked up the meaning of bitterness:

Wikipedia:

Resentment (also called ranklement or bitterness) is the experience of a negative emotion (anger or hatred, for instance) felt as a result of a real or imagined wrong done.

TheFreeDictionary.com & Dictionary.com (combination of the two):

Having or being a taste that is sharp, acrid, and unpleasant (like that of aspirin, quinine, wormwood, or aloes. ); producing one of the four basic taste sensations; not sour, sweet, or salt.

Causing a sharply unpleasant, painful, or stinging sensation; harsh: enveloped in bitter cold; a bitter wind.

Difficult or distasteful to accept, admit, or bear; distressful; grievous: the bitter truth; bitter sorrow.

Proceeding from or exhibiting strong animosity: a bitter struggle; bitter foes.

Resulting from or expressive of severe grief, anguish, or disappointment: cried bitter tears.

Marked by resentment or cynicism: "He was already a bitter elderly man with a gray face" (John Dos Passos).

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My personal opinion here is that “bitter” is just one of those words that has a metric tonne of associations that are hard to disassociate from the word when we see it. When you think of a “bitter old man” you think of a pissy guy who hates teenagers walking on his lawn, who is probably convinced everyone’s out to get him, whose hatred stems from nothing in particular but is fueled by the world around him. He isn’t bitter about [insert circumstances here] or bitter toward his neighbor who throws rotting celery stalks into his garden, but everything and everyone. And when the media portrays someone who is bitter, it tends to show us someone who is a mean, hateful sort of person to everyone who crosses their path. That wasn’t what I had in mind when I said Lin was bitter.

Bitterness is something slowly acquired: people grow bitter over time. It always has a reason for existing, whether imagined or real. But like you said, the term has all these other connotations that kind of eclipse the real meaning.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t very clear on what I meant by the term, though, so my apologies. I hope this helps clear it up!

I still think that Lin is bitter—but it’s justified, directed bitterness: bitterness brought about because she’s been hurt by specific people and isn’t sure how to deal with it. The thing is, the only people she really acts bitter toward are the people she’s been hurt by, so she is not, in general, a bitter person (even though she comes off that way).

This brings me to your point though: she is generally abrasive (overly aggressive is the definition) to most people, but because she is socially polite at the required times, I agree that it is a defensive part of her personality. I’m not sure that I agree that she uses it against people who have already hurt her, though.

Instead, I’ll argue that her abrasiveness is to keep people from even getting close to her to begin with, and her bitterness is reserved for people she’s let in who have already hurt her.

—

That said, it’s true that we haven’t really seen Lin relaxed or happy at all. The other characters increase her stress levels tenfold just by basically existing, and she has to deal with the media, with injuries, with sacrificing herself…

And she doesn’t get much in the way of thanks or apologies when she deserves them, either. I’m glad you pointed out these things because even though I don’t think Lin personally needs to be thanked (it’s not essential to her happiness, nor does she do things for people hoping to receive thanks), but it’s really basic human decency to thank people who do nice things for you. We see statues of Toph, but Lin doesn’t get that kind of thanks from Republic City (though IMO she’d rather not have a giant statue of her anywhere); it’s like Lin works this thankless job and people are all too happy to replace her, tell her that she’s in their way, avoid her, et cetera: even though she’s extremely competent at what she does. Even one heartfelt “Thank you for what you do” could easily make her day.

Hell, Meelo pays her the greatest compliment she’s probably ever gotten (“That lady is my hero!”) and she never even gets to hear it. It almost makes me want to write a fanfic where, idk, Pema tells her—just so Lin knows she’s appreciated.

The series treats Lin so badly, though, honestly. It upsets me. (IT MAKES ME BITTER? Maybe a little.) She’s always the one backing down, always being proved wrong, and her accomplishments are expected of her, so nobody seems to consider that she might like a thank-you.

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Because Lin can’t move past the things people have done to her, and the way they’ve acted toward her, I find it pretty believable that Lin reserves her bitterness for those specific people, and that the abrasive behavior is the defensive stance to protect her from new hurt. While her abrasiveness might have always been a part of her personality, it seems more adopted than innate. If that makes sense. Something she picked up in her 20s.

I mean, it works. She doesn’t seem to have friends because even her relationship with Tenzin is strained at best when we first see her. If you don’t have friends, and you don’t have family, and you act tough and unconcerned with everything but getting your job done? Yeah, it’s easy to deflect hurtful things. It’s easier to say, “What that person said about me doesn’t hurt—can’t hurt—because they don’t even know me.”

I don’t think that she’s spent the last 30 years free of feeling hurt because she’s a police chief; I’m certain that she’s had a lot of really, really nasty things said about her in the media, to her face, and behind her back: all things that did, sometimes, hurt, even if she only let them hurt in private.

The difference, though, is that when she’s close to someone and they do something to hurt her, she can’t let it go. It festers and breeds bitterness. And like you pointed out with the stress she deals with, she can’t really afford to feel that way about very many people.

Tenzin was a more easy-to-forgive person, because he comes across as very genuine, and I think even Lin knew that he never wanted to hurt her. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt even after however-many years it’s been since he ended things with her (and we see, in her fight with Su, that it still hurts her very much, IMO for a myriad of reasons), but it’s forgivable.

Su and Toph, on the other hand, are much harder to deal with because even though Tenzin seems to understand the pain she’s been through, her sister and mother…don’t. They basically just tell her to get over it. Tenzin never tells her that, especially not with the same meaning behind it. Tenzin would want her to move past the bitterness she feels because that bitterness is hurting her—is making her unhappy, and he would never wish unhappiness on Lin. Su and Toph seem to just want her to get over it so that they feel better about themselves—even though I’m not convinced that Su and Toph know that that’s what they’re doing.

—

I guess in the end, for us, it’s very dependent on the connotations we draw from the word “bitter.”

When I use it, I mean it differently than Korra does when she uses it. When Korra uses it, the way she says it tells me, at least, that she thinks Lin’s bitterness is not only unreasonable, but that she’s been unjustifiably hateful and that hatred isn’t even directed properly: which says that Korra has no idea what’s going on and thinks that Lin just hates everyone.

When I use it, I definitely intend it to be in the sense that Lin is upset—sad, angry, and hurt—over the things that have happened to her by people who were supposed to care about and love her. The fact that she felt betrayed by these people factors in, too, and after thirty years, she’s become bitter toward those people who hurt her so thoughtlessly. Her general abrasiveness toward everyone was definitely a defensive mechanism she developed to deal with everyone else. I would argue, of course, that her attitude toward Su is a lot more than just “abrasive.” I’m not sure what word I want to use, here, but the way she acts stems, IMO, from bitterness.

(So her sudden forgiveness of everything didn’t work because even by the end nobody seems to understand how badly Lin was hurt and even if they do it’s like they don’t even care.)

All that aside, though, I definitely don’t think she is, in general, a bitter person. She doesn’t hate her job; she seems to take pride in it. She doesn’t want people to get close to her, which, considering her life, is completely understandable. She’s tired of being hurt.

But opening herself up to hurt again, particularly hurt that would be coming from people who 1.) have already hurt her, and 2.) don’t seem to understand how badly they’ve hurt her (which means they’ll probably do it again), not to mention 3.) were supposed to love her and not hurt her in the first place…

That’s really hard.

That has to be the hardest thing she’s ever done in her entire life. And it goes completely unrecognized by the people who should understand it for what it is. Which is another sacrifice.

Because like you said, it’s always Lin making concessions.

TL;DR: I meant that Lin was a bitter person in terms of bitter toward her sister and mother, and abrasive toward everyone else as a way to keep people away because every time she’s let someone get close to her they’ve just ended up hurting her so deeply she can’t let it go.

[bitterloner]

"That's not safe," she muttered under her breath. But maybe Ikki wasn't actually attempting it so much as she was playing at attempting it. Lin wasn't about to pretend she understood the mind of a child. 

Like any other situation, she supposed she just had to ask the right questions. "So, how's this work, exactly?"

 ” I’m trying to freeze myself in to an iceburg like  Grandpa Aang!”  The little girl said going back to  gather more snow.

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(6/6)

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(5/6)

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precociousikki liked for a starter.

Lin looked down at Tenzin's youngest daughter, one eyebrow raised. "Hey, kid. What in the world are you doing?"

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(3/6)

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Like/comment for a starter

I won't be able to write them for a few hours, but this'll give me something to do when I get home.))

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(2/6)

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I took some screenshots so yeah here have these. (1/6)