#korra is the main character and from the southern water tribe yet there was very little elaboration on wt culture in tlok

[tragedykery]

​getting tired of the amount of elaboration on fire nation citizens/culture in comparison to the other nations (especially the water tribes and air nomads) tbh.

[scorpionyx9621]

In Defense of Mako from Legend of Korra: The Avatar Franchise's Unsung Hero (Warning | Does Contain Spoilers for the Legend of Korra as a whole series)

Well this isn't a controversial topic that's going to garner me hate. My main intro to fandom in general started way back with two franchises: Resident Evil and the Avatar: The Last Airbender Series. As someone who is on the verge of turning 26, I realize I'm on the older end of the demographic trend of those who like the franchise (Even though the show first aired in February 2005) and as many people will tell you, The ATLA franchise and especially the original series is widely lauded as one of, if not the best animated series of all time. With the Legend of Korra coming out as the sequel to the original series back in April of 2012, I was a high schooler during that time and was beginning to develop and understand more nuanced and complex topics and character traits. And to me, despite it's multiple flaws, The Legend of Korra was a brilliant sequel built atop a personally flawless universe.

The Legend of Korra was a more adult take on the Avatar franchise. A series well known for not shying away from very real and very adult topics like war, poverty, death, genocide, classisim, etc. To see this world evolve into an industrial revolution and live through its form of Gilded Age was such a unique and engaging twist on a fictional universe I already had a deep love for. We have our new Avatar; Korra, a young woman from the Southern Water Tribe given the title of the next Avatar following the death of Aang, the main character of the original ATLA series. We get to see her perspective and watch her juggle being The Avatar and being a young adult in the same universe we saw the original Gaang work tirelessly throughout their adult lives to create. We get to watch her make new friends and eventually form her own Team Avatar, which is where we get introduced to Mako and Bolin.

That's enough gushing about the universe this is set in but it does help provide context to what I will try to argue in this post. Mako is one quarter of Korra's Team Avatar, the eventual ignored axis of the Korra/Mako/Asami love triangle, and almost 70% of the drama that happens within the party. One of Legend of Korra's weaknesses as a series compared to Avatar the Last Airbender was its heavy focus on romantic relationships as subplot to create tension and drama within the team. To call Mako a fuckboy is like calling the sky blue. That being said, the sheer vitriol that the fandom has against him is astounding. The Legend of Korra holds no punches with Mako in that they are very upfront about Mako not being a generally nice person at best to being a selfish player at his lowest characterization. However none of this detracts from the fact that Mako has saved the world alongside Korra and the rest of Team Avatar MULTIPLE times.

Yet because of a poor reception of his character to the literal world-spanning conflict that was this show's shipping wars. We've seen Mako get cast to the side over and treated worse than the freaking villains of the show, which include but aren't limited to; terrorists who want to commit ethnic cleansing (Among) a religious zealot who wishes to usher in thousands of years of Darkness (Unalaq) an anarchist who literally does not care who he kills and ALSO wanted to commit ethnic cleansing (Zaheer) and a literal fascist dictator who was willing to go as far as putting her own people in concentration camps all because they disagree with her. (Kuvira)

In this tangent I'm not trying to say any of Mako's actions in his relationships with Korra and Asami were justified or good decisions. I am trying in this post to provide context as to why he is how he is and why he, to this day, still is my favorite protagonist from The Legend of Korra. So enjoy! Or don't, you're choosing to use your free time to read this, I'm just infodumping because I'm a LoK fan, a simp for Mako, and a history buff whose favorite time period to study is the Industrial Revolution/Gilded Age/Edwardian Era. So enjoy! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess we should give a general history of these two because hey, context. Mako is a mixed-heritage fire bender who grew up in Republic City, a nation-state-city-thing founded by the original Gaang to be a city where all people of all nationalities whether you were from the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, or the Northern and Southern Water tribes could come together and live harmoniously.

Mako and Bolin's father, San, was an Earth Bender and an Earth Kingdom national originally from Ba Sing Se who came from a very large family of grocers/produce vendors and hailed from the poorest economic circle/caste in Ba Sing Se. San had aspirations and dreamed of moving to the fabled Republic City in an attempt to try to better his life. This caused a fallout between San and his father, after which San made his way from Ba Sing Se to Republic City. After an undetermined amount of time, San met a Fire Nation woman named Naoki, the two formed a relationship and eventually had a son who could fire-bend. (Mako) Two years later, they had another son, this time one who could earth bend (Bollin)

We don't know the economic standing that San and Naoki found themselves in but considering how Mako and Bollin had to grow up following what happened, it can be assumed they were lower-middle class at best. However after an indeterminate amount of time, the family took this photo seen above together and sent it to San's family back in Ba Sing Se, like you'd take a picture of your family and send it out as holiday cards, which I assume this is what it was. But it let San's family know that he was alive and now has a family of his own and two sons.

Unfortunately this happiness did not last. As supposedly not long after, in a break-in robbery gone wrong, Mako witnessed as his mother and father were murdered by a fire bender. Making him not only an orphan but now the sole caretaker for his younger brother. Now, I need to stress to everyone reading this of the fact that not only was Mako just a kid when this happened, but Mako was EIGHT (8) years old when he watched his whole world get turned upside down as he watched a fire-bender murder his mother and father. Mako was a genuine child. Most human males don't start the very first phases of puberty until about 10 at the earliest. All of this piled on top of the fact that Mako now has to care for his six year old brother when he himself is just a kid.

People ask, 'why didn't Mako take Bolin and himself to Ba Sing Se?' 'What about Naoki's family?' San was basically disowned by his father, and from what we know about how Mako and Bolin stayed in Republic City it's very likely San didn't tell Mako or Bollin about his family. When Mako and Bolin met their paternal uncle Chow and their Grandmother Yin in Book 3, Chow and Yin didn't even know that San had died. That's how little San and his family communicated. The only reason why they even re-united was that Chow noticed the striking resemblance Bolin had to San. Chow's brother and Bolin's father. We literally know nothing about Naoki other than her name and what she looked like. We don't know her family or her origin or where she came from or even if she was a fire bender. It's implied that she was a fire bender because Mako is a fire bender, but we don't even know that for sure because again, all that we know is her name, what she looked like, and that she was from the Fire Nation. Even if Mako was 8, I feel if he had known about these family members, he would have at least tried to find them or reach out to them. But given what we were shown in S3. Mako and Bolin never knew they had family in Ba Sing Se, let alone they had any family left other than the two of them.

As the show went along we got more details about who the brothers were and how they came to be, and even a short mini-series on how three years prior to meeting Korra they met Pabu and discovered Pro-Bending called Republic City Hustle. It's a cute short that sheds light onto their background and insight to their characters.

It's established pretty early on that Mako is the stern, but caring older brother on the show. He still has his funny moments but in general his main focus is keeping him and Bolin alive. It's stated in the show that Mako did anything to keep him and Bolin fed and alive. A lot of people don't get that this show was taking place during this universe's Edwardian Era (it feels like the Gilded Age and the Edwardian Era get lumped together because it falls right after the industrial revolution and before World War I even though the Gilded Age ranges from 1870-1900 and the Edwardian Era spans from 1900-1914/15-ish. So I guess the Edwardian Era because they had radio broadcasts and early forms of movies/televisions but Auto/Satomobiles were just becoming mainstream/readily available.) (Post update I've come to realize that what they were going for was the Roaring 20's but this honestly changes little) ANYWAYS Child Labor laws really weren't what they used to be, even in the most progressive of countries at the time. I want to circle us back to Mako and Bolin by reminding you that Mako was 8 when his parents were murdered. At that point and time, as he watched both of his parents get murdered by a fire-bender, at that exact moment Mako stopped being a kid and immediately had to become an adult.

Mako is often portrayed as this brooding, hard ass type who can be really immature when upset but also gloats and acts even impudent at times. A lot of this stems from the fact that since he was 8, Mako had to learn not only how to survive on the streets of a major city, learn how to make money, how to feed, clean, house, and support not only himself but his six year old brother. Most people in their teens and twenties once they reach the point they can physically have children struggle with this GREATLY. Let alone an EIGHT YEAR OLD. Mako spent the entirety of his formative childhood years and well into his early adulthood having the stressors of a fully-matured adult on his shoulders. I'm not surprised at all he's lacking in terms of the social skills department. Especially when it comes to talking about his emotional maturity around friends and romantic partners. I think it's safe to say outside of what little schooling Mako did receive, his childhood wasn't focused on making friends and maintaining friendships/relationships.

Also yes, Mako detractors, it's proven multiple times that Mako and Bolin both are fully literate. Mako has been made to write NUMEROUS incident reports as a police officer via Lin Beifong, and in probably the stupidest use of the Avatar State ever, Korra used the bright white lights of doom to act as a nightlight for Mako so he could read a book. Infuriatingly stupid? You bet, does it show that a literal street-urchin defying all the odds thrown against him and being someone who is literate enough to enjoy a book on his own free time? You betcha.

In a roundabout way, I'm trying to explain that Mako doesn't have the best social skills based on the fact that he was an orphan in what was essentially the early 1910's for this world's societal timeframe and as such he didn't have much in the ways of a social upbringing. I don't think he really had a good, genuine friendship with anyone outside his brother until he met Korra and Asami. He most likely had to adopt the mindset that everyone who isn't paying him is an obstacle in the way of him earning a means to survive.

Yet at the same time, this is what I grew to love about Mako. Was that despite the literal mountain of trauma he carries on his shoulders, he's an amazingly well-adjusted person considering his circumstances.

When we first meet him in Book 1 he's finally at a bit of an upswing in his life, he works at a power plant that utilizes Fire Benders who can generate lighting to power Republic City's electricity. (Most likely fantastic for the environment, on a meta level thinking about human rights? This is a literal nightmare.) And with this job he's able to keep a roof over his and Bolin's head and he's able to participate in Pro-Bending on the side. Considering not 3 years before him and Bolin were basically wearing rags and on the street doing whatever he can to get him and Bolin food.

Can we also discuss how utterly broken Mako is if we go based on the original lore of the ATLA universe? If memory serves Lightning generation is a thing that naturally not every fire bender is able to do, like it's a genetic thing or something, it has culturally waned in terms of being taught. To the point that at the end of ATLA: The only four humans known to be capable of generating and redirecting lightning were Ozai, Zuko, Azula, and Aang. It became taught by Zuko through the generations and although it became significantly more common again, not every fire bender could generate lightning. Mako already is a fairly talented Fire Bender considering he hasn't had much of any formal training on his bending abilities but the fact that his fire bending is to the caliber as some of the fiercest enemies in ATLA, but having lighting generation skills on par with, if not surpassing that of the literal Fire Nation royal family not even a century ago.

And this is when we just meet Mako when he was just 18. He's able to generate a genuinely powerful blast of lightning at Amon while he's being blood bended and gave Amon a powerful enough blast to temporarily incapacitate him. (Aang was blood bended by Amon's father and was only able to break out by going into the Avatar state) but it gets to the point by book 4, in order to stop Kuvira's Mecha from destroying Republic City, Mako generates lightning at the spirit branch powering the machine to the point he physically burns and disfigures his own arm by just how much lightning this man was generating. The entire power-scaling gymnastics Legend of Korra goes through is already nonsense but this? This is fucking scary. This is some Sozin's comet level shit coming out of some random 22 year old man who grew up on the streets. I don't know how else to emphasize that Mako canonically has killed a person because of his lightning bending. (she was a villain about to murder him but still)

Regardless of his abilities, Mako is a character who has been through an extreme amount of trauma. As a social scientist by trade, Mako had defied literally every statistic placed against him. After losing his parents he not only was able to provide for himself but for Bolin too. He managed to do all of this starting before he even hit puberty. Yet despite all of the years of unresolved trauma. Mako is still a good person.

Back in Book 1 Mako was just as on board with taking down the Equalists as Korra. Mako did this to help people and he did all of this of his own volition. Yes he was at Korra's side and he was technically eating Asami, but Mako had 0 obligation to stay by The Avatar's side. Especially when him and his brother's lives were in danger. Given Mako's background and how he had to live a very selfish life to survive, this shows that Mako genuinely is a good person who went along for the ride and came out on top.

Funnily enough, when you look into the next Book, Mako becomes a cop in Republic City. Our boy here really is just poor Bruce Wayne with superpowers. He got to go on one vigilante adventure with a hot girl paying attention to him and now he's about honor and justice. God, Mako, I want to hit you. He clearly went through a power trip by the end of Book 1 and him working at a Power Plant wasn't going to give him the same kind of rush so he goes to Chief Beifong. And honestly, I'll bet Lin was fucking relieved that the most powerful fire bender she's ever seen is a temperamental 18 year old blue collar worker just suddenly decided to make any potential headache and stack of paperwork disappear by walking to her office and asking her for a job. And as Book 2 would later show us, Mako is literally just an incident report waiting to happen.

Regardless, a large part of his character arc was finding out how to be a good person and be a good friend at the same time. Mako is a character who tears down a lot of personal walls and matures a tremendous amount as the books go on. He starts as an adult at 18 with 10 years of experience to opening up as a friend and love interest, to being confronted with a lot of his own negative traits, him not taking it well, to him recognizing that no, he's not the hero and is actively the problem the majority of the time to bring a fully matured character by the end of the show. Again, Mako really is just Bruce Wayne if Bruce was poor and had to take care of a child once his parents died. I get Bruce's reasoning of being a vigilante hero and beating up "villains" isnt a story everyone likes. But I fuck it, I'm basically 2000 words in and we're still here.

Okay obligatory simp section: people don't appreciate the fact that Mako is INTIMIDATING AS FUCK. Yes the guy is in his late teens and early twenties but Mako is 6'2. And is an athlete who becomes a cop who then becomes the personal bodyguard to the heir of a Queen who was murdered. Wu hired Mako because he KNEW Mako's reputation as a bender. (and as a man) Mako is often portrayed as a stick whereas Bolin is everyone's beefy thick god supreme. Mako isn't thick with 72 C's but Mako is not scrawny and has a very athletic build and is quite muscular.

Add on top of the fact that benders, particularly Fire Benders, had a very negative stigma surrounding them during the events of book 1. Mako, to someone who you've never met, a 6'2 muscular, sharp-faced rough looking fire bender coming your way is a very intimidating site. And this information isn't lost on Mako. He's well aware that he holds the exact same power that many people in Republic City fear. He apologizes to Asami after finding out a fire-bender killed her mother. He carries the exact same power that was used by the very person he watched murder his own parents. And Mako knows how to capitalize on it. Mako has threatened to use his bending to harm people on numerous occasions as a means to get what he wants out of them. Notedly for the greater good but still. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a pissed off 18 year old who is pinning me to a wall and has fire superpowers and lightning superpowers to match that of the gods all whilst he's generating a knife made out of FIRE and putting it between my arm and my head. (Don't fucking lie you simp that is your DREAM)

One of the areas where I feel we see LoK succeed over ATLA is we truly get to see these characters evolve over the course of years. There's a big gap between books 2 and 3 and an even bigger gap between books 3 and 4. By the time we re-united with Mako at the start of book 4, he's 22 and a fully established adult. He's now the personal bodyguard for the extremely eccentric Prince Wu, the nephew of the now deceased tyrannical Earth Queen and next in line for the throne of the Earth Kingdom.

They establish very early on that yes, this is the same Mako as before for better or for worse, but Mako has truly come into his own of who he wants to be, a protector. He wants to be someone who defends the innocent and punishes those who are unjust (Insert Bruce Wayne reference here) However when we look at his re-design for Book 4 Mako has one of the most dramatic design changes. He's very non-descript with a toned down style as opposed to his loud and brash style with his rocking up-do haircut. He's now settled for a neat, gelled comb-over that looks like it ages him about 5 years older than he actually is. I feel a large part of this has to do with him working with royalty, as in the follow-up comics to Book 4, when given the choice and not under obligation to protect Prince Wu, Mako will choose to go back to his original hair style.

But Book 4 serves as what I consider a good enough wrap-up to his character. Mako realizes that even though he does still harbor feelings for Korra. That's not what is in both of their best interests and that's completely okay. Him and Korra are still able to maintain a solid friendship based on a deep amount of trust they both have for each other. I cannot stress enough that again, Mako and the rest of Team Avatar were walking into a mission against Kuvira they very likely wouldn't make it out of. And Mako very nearly almost killed himself by just how much he was exerting himself to destroy the Spirit Branch. Hell the actual burst of lighting he generated was so powerful and was so prolonged he literally physically burned his own arm to the point he's physically disfigured now because of it. That is how far Mako was willing to go for the Avatar and for what he believed in.

The Legend of Korra is a phenomenal successor to Avatar the Last Airbender. That being said, LoK had a lot of glaring weaknesses that overall dragged the show down. Its heavy reliance on its romantic subplot has got to be the biggest weakness of the show. As it polarized the fandom very quickly to the entirety of the main team. Mako fell on the short end of that straw because he was the player, the main love interest of the Avatar for the first half of the show and we spent the latter half dealing with the fallout of their relatively messy break up. Causing many in the fandom to immediately subjugate Mako to just being a fuckboy hard ass.

Mako is a character who has seen and lived through an untold amount of trauma from a very early age. I don't need a PHD or MD to tell the people of Tumblr.com that trauma literally changes the way you form relationships and respond to the world. Mako is no different. Yet he doesn't let his trauma define him. I like Mako as much as I do because he's an absolutely ridiculously powerful bender but also this is a man who you can't say no to. You can't tell Mako no or he can't do that because he's smart and creative enough to give it a multiple good college-trys and he's also strong enough to electrocute a quarter of freaking Republic City so he'll find a way to do it and get it done.

I think Mako's key sticking point is that he's a bit too adult of a character for this TV shows. A lot of the decisions he makes are seen as cold and harsh but this guy has spent a decade on the streets trying to keep not only himself but his kid brother alive. And the second he gets a moment to actually express himself emotionally and romantically things go awry because he wasn't properly socialized on how to sustain and maintain healthy friendships and romantic relationships. It almost feels like he was set-up from the get-go to fail in this regards.

Regardless Mako is not the demon the fandom makes him out to be. He's brash, brooding, and a little bit immature, but to call him the villain of the show is both an insult to Mako but to the villains of the show. Because Mako is the man who I genuinely believe would give you the shirt off his back if you were struggling and my single favorite part of this whole series is the villains. Where Korra's Team struggled and felt conflicted the villains were the true highlight of the show.

Anyways long tangent over: I love Mako and his absolute dorkiness and his stupid eyebrows and nice muscles. He's a genuinely good character who deserves his pearls but to be studied as well because why did we need to give him the power of Thor? Why? It was very sexy of them to do it but I'm just confused as to why. Anyways I hope you gained something out of this infodump because boy this took a day and a half.

[avatarfromtheashes]

[Image ID: A header image with a low opacity painted background of the Fire Nation at sunset and text that reads “So, what is Avatar: From the Ashes?” //End ID]

Hey everyone! @yueqqi here, but I respond to anything including “dumbass (friendly).” 💙 From the Ashes has been a project I’ve been working on over the course of the last 8 months, first incepted in late May 2020 as a small Dungeons & Dragons campaign between friends. After the campaign ended with the first arc, I was inspired by the awesome fancomic work by @legendofgenji, @avatarhanami, and @niikocomic (please check them out if you haven’t already!) to realize all of mine and my friend’s (massive shout out to Magpie and Josh) worldbuilding and plot building into this project starting late fall of 2020. It might not be a fully fledged comic since we’re new with only a small team of worldbuilders/writers and 1 main writer/artist, but for now we will focus on sharing our story in the form of fic writing and concept art.

This is a fun project done on our own time, first and foremost. It is also an important project, for me anyways, to build on what Avatar could be, written by POC for POC, written by LGBT for LGBT, and to be shared with people who want to learn more about our communities and support us. The story’s narrative is supposed to expand on Chinese and other Eastern cultures and address serious topics that mirror our real world problems. As a Chinese diaspora author from a family who immigrated from post-war Vietnam, those topics are what I hold with importance and I hope to be able to share it with you. I love interacting, so the askbox is officially open! ☺️

What is your story?

From the Ashes, also titled Tian Hui Yuan (天灰園, meaning “garden that grows from the sky’s ashes”), is set during the time of the second earthbending Avatar of Korra’s cycle in a world ravaged by the Great War—which, wasn’t as “great” as it says on the tin until the end of the 36 years of battles with long intermittent periods of silence, when it devolved into an all-out nuclear war between the democratic Earth Republic and the Fire Nation. Who instigated the war? If you live in the modern Earth Federation, history lessons at mandatory school left it pretty fuzzy until recent years but everywhere else, including the remaining Southern Air Temple and the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, agree that it was President Qin Namyao of the Earth Republic who first developed nuclear technology for non-peaceful purposes and his successors that dropped the first bomb, the effects rippling even today in 539 AG, the rough equivalent to the 1980s era.

The three-month-long catastrophe led to tragic losses not only in the initial blast and ensuing fallout, but the generations of famine it triggered after the decade-long nuclear winter. With the first airbending Avatar’s help, society managed to rebuild itself within a century, though still long ways away from returning to how things used to be in peace times in between turf wars and fighting over resources. With the rise of Avatar Niraq, the second waterbender, the period of warring factions was put to an end—at the great cost of destroying autonomy and bringing down the working middle class in the act of rebellion against the upper class with the creation of the (now Old) Order to unite all the nations and their factions under a single banner.

After Avatar Niraq’s assassination and the New Order taking over and returning control to world leaders, 18 years later the new Avatar is (still) missing and the original plan to take the Avatar young to prevent another tragedy becomes more loose as tensions rise and the New Order has to reconsider their game plan on how to handle the Avatar—including arrest at best, or making them “disappear” at worst.

As for our new Avatar? He has no idea what’s coming, nor that he’s even the Avatar.

FtA focuses on Leaf’s story years after all hell broke loose, where things seem better, but the picturesque peaceful times keep unraveling to reveal a very ugly truth where what seems to be the right path is one in darkness and the seemingly amoral one is the only one that can make a change.

Who is the Avatar?

[Image ID: A young man in motion appearing to be in mid brake while running, earthbending shards of grey rock and kicking up a dust cloud. He is lightly tanned with slight pink undertones to his skin, with hazel eyes that lean more deep green, and he wears his brown curly hair in mullet, sadly missing the hair spray and mousse, with a slight chin scruff and a ratty mustache. The man wears a red shirt with its sleeves ripped an a v-neck ripped to expose his collarbones and a part of his chest, paired with a silver dog tag on a chain necklace, light wash skinny jeans with a brown and brass belt, and green canvas high tops with drooping flaps that look suspiciously like Converse. //End ID]

The Avatar is this idiot right here and his name is Leaf (Ye in Chinese, but to emphasize strangeness of his name, it stays in English except for nicknames) because he never knew his birth name. He hasn’t even mastered his birth element yet, smh. (Backstory? Well, that will be revealed. :) All you need to know is that he has a stack of crimes hiding there.)

Team Avatar??

The team is called the Vine by the writers (ha, get it? Leaves from the... *crying*). You’ll see them around as I post their finished sheets! They aren’t the only main characters, though. :)

Who are the villains?

For now, all you need to know is that the Order acts as antagonists (obviously), but it gets heavily into some grey areas on who’s right and wrong here. There are bigger sharks in the sea, eventually.

Okay, so we know the rough backstory of the story. What about the plot?

Now, that would be spoilers. :) But if you want something to start guessing with, many game changing events can be described with Bon Jovi, Metallica, and Bonnie Tyler top hits. Here’s a Jon Bon Jovi pic from the 80s who may or may not have been the inspiration for Leaf’s aesthetic. 💙

[simplysparrow14]

Why I absolutely hate Korra.

 Gifted Children do not make good protagonists. 

I really hate Korra. Like, I fucking cant stand her as a characters. She’s honest to god one of the only characters besides Kylo Ren that I just full on hate. 

She’s whiny, She’s cocky, she’s too brash for her own good. She got the biggest overinflated ego the size of Mount Fuji. She bitches and moans when something doesn't go her way, and then as the balls to blame other characters or blow up in their faces when she’s starts the fire herself!  

She leaps into battle before she thinks and when the villain of the season kicks her ass to the curb, we’re supposed to sympathize with her and feel sorry for her, even though She deserved everything she had coming to her

Her god complex is bigger then the fucking sun and she gets all pissy when someone even mildly calls her out on her bullshit or even gives her polite constructive criticism on her Avatar duties. 

She never learns diplomacy or peacekeeping or patience or empathy for others around her or when to shut the fuck up and take a step back before you get the shit kicked out of you. 

One of the prime examples of her being absolute stupid was when She and Mako go to one of Amon’s rallies, and after figuring out that Amon was a bloodbender who locked his own brother up in a cage, they decide to go to the rally to boldly claim that Amon is a bender without presenting any physical or damning evidence that suggest otherwise.

“How in the world do we beat him?”

“We cant. Any attack we throw at him, he’ll redirect with his mind. That’s how he’s been able to challange any bender.”

“So much for our ambush....If we stay here, we’re toast. But there’s another way to beat him!”

“How?!”

“This whole time, Amon’s been one step ahead of us. But finally, we have an advantage...We know the truth about him!”

“If we expose him as a bender in front of all his supporters, we can take away his true power!”

.......huh...... WHAT?..... A-are you serious?! THAT’S YOUR ADVANTAGE AGAINST AN ALL-POWERFUL BLOODBENDER ?! WE’RE REALLY GOING TO  BLATANTLY CALLING HIM OUT IN FRONT OF ALL OF HIS FOLLOWERS WITHOUT EVEN A SHRED OF EVIDENCE?!

what makes matters worse is that they don’t even take Tarrlock with them. They just leave him in his cage. Like, yeah, he tells them to go because he doesn’t want Amon’s supporters and the rest of the public to know he was Amon’s brother, but honestly, that hasn't stopped Korra before from forcing someone to give her what she wanted. She’s not lik a regular person who has to abide by the rules of Rebublic City, she’s the goddamn fucking avatar: If she wanted a fucking statue erected in her honor, she would order that in a fucking heartbeat. 

ANd  May I remind you, lovly readers, that Korra literally  manhandled a non-bender activist to give her information about Amon’s next rally not just a few episodes before this?

So her acting this respectful and this pulled-back is so out-of-character and jarring to watch because the show clearly states that Korra is a bad bitch and if she wants something really badly, she’ll fucking get it herslef, no questions asked.  

 And then when Amon corners them in a storage room and beats the shit out of them with bloodbending and chi-blocking, we have to feel sorry for them. We have to feel sorry to Korra  All because her “expertly” constructed plan didn't work out, and that Amon took the brats bending away when she  busted into his rally uninvited without evidence to show to his followers,  or even a half-ass plan on how to effectively beat the shit out of him if he refused to go down easily.

Look, I get that we have to have dramatic tension for the story, but that doesn't mean that the characters have to lose a majority of their very limited brain-cells  in order for it to happen. We should not have to sacrifice a character’s personality in order to progress the story. 

There’s also the fact that during Season 1 when Korra literally barges into Tarrlocks’ office unannounced to let the non-benders out of jail and berates him about how he’s intimidating people into falling in line with his views and opinions 

I

“You’re using your power to oppress and Intimidate people!”

Its only when Tarrlock pulls the Reverse Uno Card on Korra’s superiority complex that we as the audience get the first and maybe last good spot of introspection and interesting character development within this show 

“And you don't? Isn’t that what you came here to do? Intimidate me into releasing your friends?” 

But then, its all thrown out the window when Korra goes full ape-shit and tries to fuck-up Tarrloq, and we’re again supposed to feel bad for her when Tarrlok fuck her up right back with blood-bending, kidnaps her and locks her up in a metal box. 

Your avatar, every one. 

All throughout these scenes, we never get any notion that she’s gaining character development. 

She never takes a step back, never looks into the situation, She never shuts the fuck up,  never considers that maybe, just maybe, her plan might not work. There’s no patience in her what so ever and it infuriates me to no end! 

And yet, the show treats her as through she did nothing wrong! They treat her like a goddamn goddess, and its so....

There’s also the fact that throughout the series, Korra goes through more pitty parties and anger bursts then most characters have in their entire series run and in the end, her woes/ temper tantrums are forgiven because, well, she’s the protagonist.

Your boyfriend calls you out on your bullshit about the civil war happening between your home-tribe and the sister tribe? Crash his place of work and throw his desk across the room and tell him that he’s a traitor just for doing his job--A job he;s wanted to be apart of since he was little, no less. 

Cant figure out how to work with the wind panels without getting punched around? Don't be the leaf and burn a historic Airbending training device to ash!

“That was a Two-thousand year old historical treasure… WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

“There’s nothing wrong with me! You’re a terrible teacher!” 

Cant handle being called a wuss?  Challenge the mastermind of a political movement with chi-blocking and blood bending to a fight under your previous incarnations statue and then cry like a bitch when he kicks your ass. 

No Korra, you don’t get to cry when it’s clearly you’re fault it happened in the first place. Look, I get that you’ve just had a low-key high-key traumatic moment.....But you don’t have brain-cells. You knew he could take away bending--You saw it at their rally not just a few days ago-- so i don’t know why you thought that challenging him to a one-on-one duel in a dark, abandoned place where no one can hear you scream was an perfect idea you dumb bitch.  

Aparently,

Its also apparent within the series that she never has to work for her character development, or work for what she wants. 

People often remark that Korra was coddled at the Avatar, but I feel as if Spoiled is the best word: 

In the beginning of the series when the White Lotus comes to the southern Water Tribe to Search for the Next Avatar, we're Introduced to Korra punching a hole through the wall, spewing flames from her fists and using water to put out the fire. Hell, the first sentence that we hear from the brats mouth is “I’m the Avatar. You gotta deal with it.”  

 Look, no one likes gifted children (unless those children are yours). Gifted Children are probably the worst type of main character to have, because the whole point of your main character is that people are suppose to relate to them. People cant relate to gifted children, because we, as normal human beings, are not all gifted. 

Cut to 15 years later, and we learn that Korra hasn't even left the Southern Water Tribe.  Teachers have been flown into the water tribe to teach Korra more on the elements. And at the every start of the first episode, we see her pass her her fire bending test, with her commenting on how already she’s mastered Water and Earth.

 The whole point of the Avatar journey was that the Avatar had to journey to find their teachers and experience the world they needed to protect. When you take away that Journey, you’re just leaving the Avatar to be handed everything on a silver platter. 

During Season 2 when Kaiju Korra nearly gets her ass handed to her, Jinora force-ghosts her way into the battle and gives Korra the upper-hand during the battle with Vaatu, almost entirely erasing any the trace amounts of danger that the battle was trying to portray. 

There’s also the fact that in the middle of Season 2 when she’s fighting Eska and Desna, suddenly out of no-where she can Spirit bend (Or as I like to call it, Spirit-pacification) without so much as a single day of training. Like, talk about pulling out an ability out of your ass. 

There’s also the fact that during her visit to the Su-yin’s home, she  masters Metelbending out of no-where and then has to gawl to show off in front of Bolin, who’s been trying to metelbend for a while.

There’s also the fact that she’s never punished for any of her actions. 

When Amon takes her bending away, she never as a moment to reflect on how her actions affected her future or the rest of the avatar cycle.  We never see her come to terms that facing Amon head on resulted in her losing her bending. And when it looks like it does have an impact on her, Ghost Aang pops up right out of nowhere, takes pitty on her and gives her back her bending. Oh, and we’ll also throw in the Avatar State as well, as a treat. 

Right after she destroys the alleyway in the first episode of Season 1, Tenzin busts her out of jail and says to Lin that he’ll cover all the damages Korra caused! 

There’s also the incident where Tenzen told Korra not to go to the Pro-Bending tournament. And when Tenzen does have to drag her ass back to Air-temple Island, he remarks that Pro-bending is what she needed, completely Ignoring the fact that she disobey’d a direct order from her master and thus is never punished for it! 

 She’s never called out on her bullshit regarding her very sudden kiss with Mako when the man openly and explicitly said that he was dating another woman. 

(Like, girl, i get it. you have feelings for him, I get it. But when someone says: “I’m already dating someone right now.” and they admit they might be also have very confusing feelings for you as well,  You back the fuck up and give them time to make a decision. You just don’t go: “Oh you already have a girlfriend? oh, smoochy smoochy time then.”) 

Omg, it’s like the show was entirely written by male writers who have no idea how to write romance or develop unique and interesting characters who are not homicidal bat-shit insane brats who cry’s when they’re not the center of attention 

I guess my big question towards Korra’s character is… Why? 

Why do we have to root for a character who doesn't struggle, doesn't think she has to try to master her bending and that everything should come easily? How are we supposed to connect to someone when they blow up and get all pissy when someone even just lightly insults their god complex? 

Why is she a waterbender when she has the temperament of a fire-bender? Why is she getting her ass kicked by every villan if she’s the all powerful avater?  Why is she the avatar when she doesn't  have when a shred of humbless or appreciation for the bending she’s been given? Why do we have to put up with a brat of a protagonist for 3+ seasons? 

She is, in the bluntest term I can say, a meaningless character. She holds no purpose to the story or its messages or its themes. 

Aang was meaningful because it was his story and he was a 12 year old with the weight of the fucking world on his shoulders as both the last living Airbender and the Avatar, all while trying to navigate a world that did not and would not uphold his peaceful beliefs. 

Katara was meaningful because she broke down social norms by not only mastering the both the female -only water-bending techniques and Male-only water-bending fighting style, but also the scary-as-fuck-blood-bending. She showed the duel sides of being a bad ass strong independent woman. 

Toph was meaningful because she was an all-powerful earthbender who was fucking blind, showing that disabilities cant stop you from kicking ass. 

Sokka and Suki were meaningful because they were two badass people who didn't need bending to kick fire-nation ass. You don’t need to be like everyone else to save the world. 

Zuko was meaningful because his failures,and mistakes and abuse and scar showed people that no matter how awful your current situation was, you’re able to build a better life for yourself through hard work, self-love and good people who love you. 

Korra is meaningless. She is selfish, and spoiled and the only message she has to tell “Be a brat, cry a lot, and throw temper tantrums until you get what you fucking want.” 

Fuck Korra.  Fuck her character. I’ve never seen a character so poorly executed in my life, and I surly hope I dont ever get to see that ever again. 

[the-yellowturtle]

The Curious Case of Master Katara (Pt.1)

Rating: T

Relationships: Minor Katara/Zuko, Minor Katara/Yue, Katara & Toph, Katara & Sokka, Katara & Zuko, Katara & Korra 

Summary: In the sixth year of Fire Lord Zuko’s reign, Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe is assassinated. (OR: Katara Becomes the Painted Lady!AU) 

CW: some cussing, mentions of violence, brief mention of the the desecration of a corpse, misogyny and Katara slander

Special thanks to @levitatingbiscuits for the beta :3 

AO3 Link 

An extremely popular saying in the Western Earth Continent, to save the Fire Lord and Avatar in your past life, means that an individual is extremely skilled or fortunate in some way; so much so that the only way a person could have earned such a splendid life was by living a virtuous past one. 

The phrase references Master Katara’s actions during the final year of the Hundred Year War, in which she saved the lives of Fire Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang. Although initially not common knowledge in the immediate years after the war, Fire Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang would go on to confirm multiple times that Master Katara saved both of them with her healing abilities. Strangely enough, it was Princess Azula, Fire Lord Zuko’s younger sister, that landed both of these mortal injuries. 

However, it is mainly thanks to Master Toph Beifong that this saying became commonplace. While teaching metalbending, Master Beifong was known to ask particularly arrogant students, “Do you think you saved the Fire Lord and Avatar?” Often hearing this remark, Master Beifong’s pupils soon began to compliment one another by saying that an individual “must have saved the Fire Lord and Avatar” to be so skilled in the bending discipline. When these students finished their metalbending training they would go on to further spread the saying throughout what was then known as the Earth Kingdom. 

-The Origins of Common Earth Phrases

Toph knows who she is. She is the Greatest Earthbender in the World. She is the inventor of seismic sense, truth seeing, and metalbending. She is the teacher of the Avatar, and one of the people responsible for ending the Hundred Year War. She is a Beifong, but she has carved out her own destiny and chosen her own family. 

Toph knows who she is and she is proud of that person, but it’s not until Aang comes to her one day after her metalbending class that a part of her wishes that she was only the second best earthbender in the world. She could keep metal bending and seismic sense, but truth seeing? She didn’t need that anymore; she didn’t want it.

“Toph, Katara… she… she’s missing.” True. 

“What are you talking about, twinkletoes? What do you mean, she’s missing?” Toph can barely feel his heartbeat over the ringing in her ears. 

“There was an attack. We don’t know what happened to her…. We can’t find her.” True. 

“You need to come with me to the Fire Nation, the rest of us are gathering and trying to find out what happened.” True. 

In the beginning, she is eager to help. This is her friend, and she’s probably out there waiting for them to find her. Toph can also totally hold it over Katara when she has to rescue her like a damsel in distress. Besides, she can’t sit around in the palace waiting for good news. Zuko isn’t allowed to go out there, but there is nothing stopping her. Toph volunteers her services without a question. She will be the investigative bureau’s lie detector; she is the only person in the world with this skill. They will get to the bottom of this in no time. 

They don’t. 

“She was purifying the water when all of a sudden she was struck by an arrow.” True. 

“No, it was two arrows!” True. 

“Arrows? I’m not sure… I didn’t really see anything. It looked like she just fell over… maybe she just tripped or something?” True. 

“One minute she was there and the next minute she wasn’t!” True. 

“She had to have been there! I even found the necklace she was wearing in the water!” True.

“It was the strangest thing. She got shot and then before my very own eyes she disappeared. She just vanished into thin air.” True. 

“Vanished? Her body? You think you’re all so mighty bowing down to the usurper, but then you trust gossip from the rabble. She didn’t disappear. One of the higher-ups brought the body back to the headquarters. Saw it with my very own eyes. Blue robes and everything.” True. 

“Yeah, I saw the corpse, too. We had a feast to celebrate killing one of the war heroes.” True. 

“It wasn’t the waterbender. It was some random peasant girl he came across on the way back.” True. 

“Where is the waterbender? Beats me, probably only the Spirits know now.” True. 

“I don’t know where she is! I shot her twice, she fell back in the water, and then she was gone! I blinked and she was gone!” True. 

“Why? Why did I do it? Because it was easy. You all think you’re so great, but she went down without a fight, that pathetic bi—” 

Toph is given the day off after she pummels the perpetrator through the wall. 

Eventually, they find all the hideouts and headquarters of the New Ozai Society. They find the leaders, their secret stash of funds and a list of their supporters. They find the body of the farmer girl the assassin happened across during his escape, and return her to her family for a proper burial. 

They never find Katara. 

In the past, Toph treated truth-seeing like a fun party trick; a way she could make her friends squirm. Now? She’s tired. She doesn’t want to know that Zuko is lying when he agrees that it wasn’t his fault. She doesn’t want to know that Sokka thinks Katara being alive is an unlikely possibility. She doesn’t want to know that Suki has doubts when she suggests that Katara’s reported injuries would have resulted in a quick death. 

She doesn’t want to see what people believe to be the truth anymore. 

Some semblance of closure finally comes to the group when Aang returns from his journey to the Spirit World. 

“Sokka was right. She’s with Yue,” he states, “She’s a spirit now… the Painted Lady.” True. 

Toph doesn’t know how to react to that statement. She knows Aang believes what he said to be the truth, but a part of Toph wants to scream. Stop using the flowery language, Twinkletoes! With Yue, with the Spirits, is a Spirit, dead; they’re all the fucking same! It doesn’t matter if she’s having a grand ole time with the Moon! It doesn’t matter if she’s some type of Spirit now! She’s gone! She’s not coming back! 

For once in her life, Toph Beifong doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing. She hugs the others, visits the South Pole for the first time, and offers a shoulder to cry on. However, the tears don’t come for her. Not yet, at least. Maybe she’s tougher than she thought. Maybe that’s a lie. Maybe she’s just in denial. 

Maybe it’s real, though. Maybe Katara really is gone forever. Letting the entire world mourn her doesn’t seem in character for Miss I-Will-Never-Ever-Turn-My-Back-on-People-Who-Need-Me. Because Toph really needs her right now, and she’s still nowhere to be found. 

___

At first Toph doesn’t talk about it. She says her bit at the South Pole, and then Katara and all things relating to Katara are locked away, never to be prodded again. She’s a busy person, being the inventor of metalbending and all, and she doesn’t need to rehash her feelings over and over again for any curious passerby. Besides, isn’t this what Katara would want? For them to get on with their lives? 

So with the resolve of a saber-tooth moose lion, Toph decides to “get on with her life” and resume her position as the Greatest Earthbender in the World. 

Her plan quickly falls to shambles when she attends a play with her metalbending students as a reward for their progress in the discipline. She had thought the night out would provide her with some content to tease the rest of the gang about during their upcoming Ember Island trip. Oh, how wrong she was. Toph at twelve would have found the play hilarious, but Toph in her twenties, with a better understanding of the world, was furious. She was not sure how they managed it, but somehow a post-war Earth Kingdom production managed to treat Katara with less dignity than Fire Nation war propaganda.

Reduced to the ‘Water Tribe Girl,’ the role blatantly reflecting Katara was egregious in every manner. Throughout the play, when Water Tribe Girl wasn’t crying out for someone to save her, she was seducing the two main protagonists —the Fire Lord and the Avatar— thus causing a rift in their friendship. After a brutal onscreen death where a local hunter mistook her for game and accidentally shot her, the Fire Lord and Avatar rejoiced, for they were finally free of her wicked temptations. 

Despite using the Beifong name to promptly end the playwright’s career, she soon learned the production was not particularly unique. Once she started looking, there was a plethora of plays, stories, artwork, and rumors that seemed to thrive off of smearing Katara’s name. The better ones would portray her as the supportive love interest, the Avatar’s Girl, the cheerleader that had no skills of her own to offer. In the worst, she was an immoral temptress threatening to wreck the balance of the world, or a parable for children to learn about the dangers of not planning ahead. 

Toph had fucking had it the day she overheard her students using “tearbend” to mock one another. She couldn’t track down the creators of every shit opinion and piece of art, but she could directly influence the opinions of the people around her. She was never going to give them a rendition of her eulogy all those years ago nor was she going to let them see all the precious moments they shared, but she could tell them the truth. A version of the truth, anyway. 

“Katara was the only person in the world that could claim to be a Master of all three waterbending styles: Northern, Southern, and Foggy Swamp.” 

“Katara successfully traversed the Si Wong Desert with only a single pouch of water.” 

“Katara was such a badass in the North that they decided to start training women in martial waterbending.”

“At the age of fourteen, Katara led a prison uprising that freed hundreds of earthbenders.”

“During Sozin’s Comet, Katara defeated Princess Azula and saved Fire Lord Zuko’s life in under three minutes.” 

“Using only scrolls and secondhand accounts, Katara successfully revitalized Southern Waterbending.” 

It got easier for Toph to talk about her as time went on. She was neither an artist nor a poet, but she could do this. She could get it into her pupils’ heads that while she may be the Greatest Earthbender in the World, Katara was the Greatest Waterbender, and that they better not forget it. The statue she had metalbent of them together that stood outside in the school’s courtyard was sure to remind them if they slipped for even a moment. 

___

For the majority of her life, Toph spent her summers the same way. Once the students were out on their summer break, she would first visit the Fire Nation, then Kyoshi Island, followed by the Southern Air Temple, and finally the Southern Water Tribe. She would often see her family throughout the year, but it was important to set aside a time where it was guaranteed. It was a tradition, and not even the daunting task of traveling with a newborn could stop her from following it. Toph was extremely grateful, however, once Lin was old enough to be an eager participant. 

It’s only when she’s starting to get up there in decades that she adds a new stop to her route. About a day’s journey by foot from her bending school in Yu Dao, there’s a harbor town situated near a waterfall. It is here that one of the Earth Kingdom’s first shrines dedicated to the Painted Lady was constructed. After tales of a civilian ship avoiding disaster by being guided to the eye of the storm by a veiled woman had spread throughout the Western Coast, the Spirit had boomed in popularity. It was now a common practice before setting sail for people to visit the shrine with offerings to pray for a safe journey. The Painted Lady had come to be seen as the guardian of clear skies and smooth waters in the Western Earth Kingdom. 

Although it was never going to be the same as seeing her in person, Toph had found herself adding the shrine as the last leg of her summer vacation. Once arriving in town, she would use the ingredients she had purchased in the Southern Water Tribe and the knowledge Gran Gran had shared with her decades ago, to prepare a pot of stewed sea prunes. After her hard work, she would carry it with her up the steps to the Painted Lady’s shrine to present as an offering. 

Most people would donate money for the maintenance of the shrine or light incense when praying to the Painted Lady. However, Toph wasn’t begging a Spirit for any favors; she was visiting the dead. Gaoling may no longer be her home, but some of the traditions were still ingrained into her. In the Southern Earth Kingdom, you present your loved ones with food, and Katara’s favorite most definitely was her grandmother’s sea prunes. 

Toph has never encountered the Painted Lady in all of her years visiting the shrine, not that she ever really expected to. However, sometimes after she’s done wiping her eyes, she swears that her aching joints feel a bit lighter. 

“‘Till next year, Sugar Queen,” is how she always concludes her visits. If sometimes she hears a “Thank you” in the wind, then that’s between Katara and her. 

[comradekatara]

in an ideal fic, what ships would there be and how would they interact? gm ☀️☀️

goodmorning! well, it’s 3pm now, but i love the sunshine emojis 🌞

obligatory disclaimer that i have mixed feelings about fanfiction as a medium. i much prefer reading paradise lost to the bible, but pride & prejudice & zombies does nothing for me. i think it’s similar to how when staging a play that’s been done a million times before, changing the setting must reframe the text on a thematic level for that staging to be necessary, and thus, good. 

a lot of fanfiction, to me, whether published or lost to the archives of the internet, attempts to reframe the text without actually understanding the text. i realize that not all fanfiction exists to explore the text in the first place. sometimes it just works as good shorthand to explore one’s (often sexual) fantasies. you already know these characters––oh, and now they’re fucking. 

so in that regard, i can’t exactly fault these authors for not understanding the text. i can fault them for other things, certainly, but thematic relevance was clearly not a goal in the first place. it’s the difference between a ship existing in a work of fanfiction to further the themes, and a fanfiction written for the sole purpose of exploring a ship. 

with all that in mind, here’s a bullet-pointed list of fanfictions i would read should they exist and be well-written, but definitely do not exist and are not well-written because i have the appropriate amount of faith in the fanfic community (and that is... very little)...

a really long story from mai’s pov elapsing from her childhood to at least a year into zuko’s reign. the climax of the story is the turning point at the boiling rock wherein ty lee betrays azula. the first act is the buildup to all of that, and the second act is the fallout. the main ship being mai/ty lee, obviously. oh and at one point towards the end, mai and sokka play pai sho together. that is of the utmost importance. 

a story told almost like an epic poem (perhaps with the structure of one, but still in prose) about suki’s adventures throughout the show’s chronology and then spanning afterwards as well. we learn about her backstory, what she got up to in the months in between seeing sokka. it’s usually quite bleak, as she is mostly helping refugees before getting kidnapped by azula, tortured for information, and then thrown into a horrific maximum security prison! but it’s not all bad. and seeing as suki is the protagonist, it would never make for a bad read, either. the main ships are sokka/suki and suki/ty lee. because duh. 

azula, in the years spanning the depths of her recovery, going on hikes with toph. basically each segment is just the next hike with toph, in chronological order, and it tracks her development just through how much she is willing to divulge, and what toph would say in response. she grows a lot. unsurprisingly, toph makes for a great therapist. no romantic shipping of any sort, but azula & toph would share a really fascinating bond. 

sokka and iroh playing pai sho. sokka and asami playing pai sho. (AU?? or are they in the spirit world?? idk lol) i suppose korra/asami would be present because korra’s all “kick his ass babe” and sokka/zuko would be as well because wherever sokka and iroh are together, zuko must be too. and of course, he is very invested in the outcome of this game, even if he does fall asleep at one point. i guess you’d have to make up the rules of pai sho, at least vaguely, seeing as there are no official rules, but isn’t it a lovely idea? 

chell’s AU wherein azula and zuko run away together as children and join the gaang. just gonna link to it here. (read it if you know what’s good for you.) i don’t think there are really any ships, other than azula’s one-sided crush on suki, because azula does not have time to care about other people’s love lives (and it’s from her pov) but sokka/zuko is alluded to, if i remember correctly. 

my AU that simply exists as an excuse to have sokka be a lightningbender. here. 

a whole fucking novel of an AU wherein instead of being tasked to capture the avatar, zuko was simply left to die in the southern water tribe. he expects to either freeze to death or be eaten by wolves or, if he’s lucky, be killed instantly by the people there, but instead, sokka and katara take him in and he grows up in the swt, and goes with them when they find aang three years later. then of course shit goes down once azula shows up, and it’s all a whole thing! since it’s from zuko’s pov, the primary ship is sokka/zuko, obviously. 

epistolary between firelord zuko and chief katara of the southern water tribe. none of their letters are remotely diplomatic, and mainly serve as gossip with only the occasional reminder that they are, in fact, world leaders. no ships. 

sokka’s life postwar that kind of just details all the cool shit he did. shrug. 

idk whether this counts as atla or lok, but i would read a chronicle of kya/izumi dyke drama in a heartbeat and am not ashamed to admit that. 

ty lee and azula’s very complicated dynamic from alternating povs. i just think their respective feelings towards each other are super interesting. especially the night at the beach and the turning point at the boiling rock, though all the moments leading up to that are just as important. the ‘ship, though, would be mai/ty lee. (y’all know theyre my favs, right) 

the katara cinematic universe is its whole own post, so i’m not even gonna discuss that here. 

and then of course, our somehow very in-depth highschool AU (i don’t know how we got here, either) that could be its own series of young adult novels if written by someone with that kind of patience and focus (so to be clear, not me). hopefully, it would be imbursed with that painfully authentic sensibility american vandal (rip legend) had, while also being a bit too earnest, the way all coming of age stories are––but charmingly so. it might even be a series of vignettes, short stories from various povs that all come together in a painfully hilarious tapestry. azula begins studying for the SATs freshman year. mai sarcastically quips at anyone who deigns to speak to her. also she’s dating zuko, so that’s great comedy fodder of course. katara runs for student body president against azula. sokka and zuko land themselves in detention and they find a way to escape. toph joins the science club just because sokka runs the science club; things explode. stuff like that. 

i used to say i’d want a kyoshi backstory, but now we have one, and i simply have yet to read it. oops. 

oh and this is lok, but i’ve always wanted more on mako & lin’s dynamic. i just think they’re really cute together. (to be clear, not romantically. ew) 

i think the avatar universe is also just rife with fascinating lore, though, and you could pretty much write anything, set in any time period, that complies with canon and– hopefully– enhances it. for example, i would love to read a story that incorporates the physics of their universe into its thematic framework. i really liked the stuff with the lionturtles, for example. 

oh, and of course, a sokka/zuko vignette that’s just them going to see a production of king lear and then discussing it afterwards. that fanfiction exists for an audience of one, but you did ask me, so... 

[kuno-chan]

Asami Sato: An Analysis on the Privledges Colourism and Classism (in Fandom and IRL)

So, I just had a conversation with one of my friends (who is basically irl Asami as far as social and economic circumstances go) who actually gave me a good perspective on why I have this strange personal peeve with Asami and just... has anyone ever considered that Asami, in some capacity, whether it’s intentional or not, is the glorification of light-skinned rich girls?

In season one, Asami didn’t do that much. She didn’t. I will forever mourn the opportunity to make her an Equalist (permanently or not) because it would have given her a much needed layer of characterization. Yet, still, people were so gravitated to her, literally saying that this show should be the Legend of Asami. Asami was, and still is, just worshipped. As a middle class black girl, I didn’t understand why. It just irritated me on some level as the show went on. Then it hit me after my conversation with my friend (who I will keep nameless because if this blows up into some drama I don’t want her to be forced to be involved.)

Asami benefits from the privileges of colourism and classism.

People are gravitated to her just so easily. I get it. Look, Asami’s a nice character and it’s not really her fault, but the core of her character is often based off the fact that’s she’s a wealthy heiress. Not only that, but she’s light-skinned, regardless of the fact that she’s not white.

People gravitate to rich, attractive light-skinned people. Society has proved that again and again and again.

Had Asami been rich and dark-skinned? I guarantee you people wouldn’t have been as gravitating to her. People wouldn’t like her nearly as much. Her existence wouldn’t have come at such a cost to Korra, who people shit on all the time (from straight up saying Korra’s a shitty character to having Korra be subservient to Asami in their au’s and fanfiction.) Look at in real life. How many black and dark-skinned heiresses do you hear about? Look at the Obama girls. Those girls did a perfect job as the President’s daughters and society still tries to find flaws about them. From what they wore to how they behaved to the very looks on their faces! Take a shipping standpoint: Reylo is super popular. Ben isn’t exactly rich, but his lineage is rich enough and he’s light-skinned. Nevermind that Rey’s journey was with Finn, a black man who met her on Jakku.

I think that’s why Asami’s character, while I couldn’t hate her outright (nowadays, the fandom’s worship of her just makes me somewhat spiteful), bugged me. I realize now she was never made for me. Asami was never made with darker-skinned non-rich girls in mind. It’s hard for me to relate to her. Girls who are bi and/or into engineering can probably relate and love her, but that doesn’t explain the massive pedestal she was put on from so early in the show. Didn’t explain why people specifically put her over Korra. Over Korra. The main character of the show. All of the time.

Still do.

She was a light-skinned, upper class rich heiress and Korra was a dark-skinned girl from the Southern Water Tribe who was probably middle class at best.

In other words, society hasn’t changed even when pertaining to fiction.

[sokkagatekeeper]

Hi! I love your rants about sokka, i think he is a very interesting character that isn't that explore to his core (i mean people tend to think of him as the genius cómic relief) and I identity a lot with him. Anyways, I intensely ship him with suki, and i wanted to know your thought about:

- suki, as a character (i know it's not sokka related, but I'd like to know)

- their relationship during the show

- their relationship during the comics (if you have read them, and maybe your opinion about the comics per se) and post-atla period

- that period after alta but before korra, and what happened canon wise to sokka, and maybe suki, because im kinda confused (also your hc from this era)

You can answer the ones that you like, or none at all, This were just some ideas :))

Have a nice day!

oh well i love suki and i love her relationship with sokka!! however i haven’t read the comics or finished tlok, and people whose judgement i trust have told me none of those are as faithful as they should be to the carefully crafted text that is atla therefore i have no intention of engaging with the paratexts anytime soon (except for the upcoming suki alone 🙏 i have high hopes for this one). that said;

i think suki is a good character. she is albeit “underdeveloped” because she is a minor character whose purpose in the story is to further other main character’s arc (sokka in this case), but she serves her purpose. most of suki’s depth is implied, and to understand suki as more than the local baddass one needs to take into account how she parallels sokka; suki takes pride in her responsibility and her duty to her warriors, the active side of the war that she’s in and therefore the avatar she never hesitates when she must make a sacrifice for the sake of the greater good at her own expense, just like sokka (and just like yue). an example of this is the entirety of her interactions not only with sokka but with the rest of the gaang, even those she doesn’t really know or has any reason to trust, like when she jumped into the water to save toph or when she allied with zuko at the boiling rock since sokka trusted him and his help was indeed necessary for them to get out of prison; when she stayed and fought a battle she could not win against azula in order for appa to escape. all of this is suki knowing her place in the war, where she’s needed the most and what her duties are — values that are an important part of the core of sokka’s character.

suki is also a blatant idealist. she sees a cute boy who’s like wrong about stuff, she teaches him better, she dates him. suki is determinate, smart, outspoken and emotionally open (good news for sokka, also known as the king of self-repression and infuriatingly low self-esteem who won’t believe someone values him if they spit compliments to his face). she’s not afraid to talk about her feelings and she has no reservations calling zuko out for burning her village. overall a very direct, fun-to-love character.

suki also knows how to have fun and relax which is undoubtedly yet another thing that makes her and sokka compatible – they’re both responsible at their cores, but when it comes down to it sokka can get a bit neurotic and suki grounds him and helps him relax and let go of his responsibilities for a little while. she’s both physically and emotionally strong and stable (admittedly her lack of emotional depth is a little due to her status as a minor character, but alas we’re basing this analysis on the text), and she’s able to do something people haven’t done for sokka in a while; take the role of the protector in their dynamic. coming to mind when during the journey to ba sing se, when sokka asks her “did you come here to protect me?? ME????????” and suki is like “yeah.... ??” because as we all know sokka has the named protector complex that eldest sons are burdened by forever and ever. suki gives him a safe space in that sense.

i’ve stated why i believe sokka travelling the world after the war (and after he has spent a long time at the southern water tribe, recovering and probably helping to restore the village and just like relaxing for a while after all that batshit frontline he was at) is the most satisfying & accurate continuation of his arc of learning and discovering himself through the world, similarly to how katara becoming chief of the southern water tribe is the most satisfactory & accurate continuation to her own arc. and for suki’s sake, i’d say the best future possible for her after the war is some nice therapy back at kyoshi island, reuniting with her warriors, spend her life travelling and helping people along with them all around the earth kingdom and definitely not become the bodyguard of the boy king of a racist nation (i love zuko in all his boy king-ness but i had to say it).

suki and sokka’s relationship after the war is pretty much the way it was throughout the show; each of them being happy doing their own thing, when they’re at the same place they have a fun loving time, when they aren’t they love each other anyway, and in the meantime they’re open to relationships with other people (namely a dear interpretation of mine, ty lee and zuko respectively) without ever really falling out of love. when they’re together they go on fun little dates which help sokka have excuses to shower suki in gifts and appreciation and an excuse for suki to be allowed to help sokka relax and just exist for a couple of hours. just healthy relationships all around!!