#obviously jay is a firebender

[koishua]

small discussion but in the atla universe, which element would the enha boys be able to bend??

[arandompigeon5]

been thinking about riptide in the avatar world

do you guys think Jay would be a fire bender or a nonbender???

[the-storming-sea]

also also read ur intro post just now may i politely ask about your opinions of asian media and rep. is it specifically for fantasy? or just lots of genres with general trends or themes youve noticed? 👀

omg i wrote that so long ago and my brain is kinda fried so i'll be a little brief. may expand on it later but eh its all good. these are just rambling thoughts

a lot of asian rep in media mostly revolves around the east asian experience, which is valid bc god knows they need it, except often times it leaves out literally everyone else in its wake, or it keeps grouping up certain asians together. currently south east asian cultures are particular victims of this. But sometimes what ends up happening is that there is a "fantasy asia" world where the world is not technically Asia, but it might as well be given the inspiration behind it. in my personal opinion its kinda orientalist and a bit fetishistic of the 'exoticness' of asian cultures. Like it wants asia but without all of the real people in it

like for example the world in raya and the last dragon. it was great seeing someone who looked at me on screen but goddamn they couldn't at least set it in south east asia, let alone have distinct cultures instead of just taking little aspects of culture and making fantasy. it was a great movie for diaspora sure, but anyone actually from south east asia was disappointed. Xiran Jay Zhao compiled a two part video on it that elaborates more on it better than i could right now–i say compiled bc she doesnt do much talking in them aside from the beginning of the video; everyone else talking in it is south-east asian.

another fantasy world heavily inspired by Asia is ofc atla's world. my problem is that While its a good representation of east asian cultures, south east, south asian, northern asians, and western asians are left behind.

and what bothers me is that there are many places where they can fit in. Like the swampy tribe areas and the ancient firebenders from the dragons era feel like they should be south east asian inspired somewhat, and if you wanted to make a commentary on how these lands have been taken over and colonized (or at least there was an attempt on colonization) would be interesting. or how it feels like it makes more sense for katara and sokka to be more north asian inspired than american inspired. and of course there was the one (1) south asian inspired character who was. more of a caricature than anything else. im not saying the indigenous american rep is bad. obviously any representation is great, especially for indigenous americans. But if you are going to create a clearly "asian inspired" world (like nearly every aspect of this world is asian in culture and the main character is clearly a buddhist monk, it would be hard to argue otherwise), then at least take inspiration from asian cultures?

(side note people making fun of the swampy fog people is not great. does not feel great. regardless of whether they believe they're south east asian rainforests or the american bayou)

other small things are more of fan issues than creator issues. specifically the way people treat some anime characters like they're white instead of japanese/asian and then hold them to white cultural standards. all might is a great example, where despite being named Toshinori Yagi and being from a world where the mc has green eyes and green hair, people still think hes white bc hes blonde haired blue eyes and loves america? which–side note, you dont have to be an american to love america, lots of older people who got really into the american dream still like america. another thing was when i read a bnha fanfic that described someone as looking "asian" which. yeah i sure hope so. the story takes place in japan. and then theres some people not recognizing that asians all look very different from one another even if they're from the same area of the world.

more recently ive noticed the fandom racism in dungeon meshi specifically towards shuro, who despite being from a fantasy world is clearly japanese, and from a japanese-inspired culture. and its his culture which leads him to respond to laios in the way that he does. im not saying its racist to be upset that shuro responded to laios that way, but like. different cultures come with different cultural views and different ways of responding. shuro and laios come from two very different cultures. it happens.

this is kinda a lot and may not make sense bc im super tired rn jhfdbgdhjfbgd but i didnt want to forget this ask and just never respond to it

[brokengem]

Do you like Avatar? Legend of aang and legend of korra? so if you like it who do you think of the descendants universe could be the avatar and what element could each character masters? like Uma and Mal are obviously Water and Fire but what element could Evie, Jay, Carlos, Ben, Harry, Gil, Doug , Lonnie, Jane, Audrey etc master?

Okay, here’s my thing with Avatar. I have sadly not seen the whole thing (I know, I know. I’m the worst and slacking. Please forgive me!). So I also haven’t seen LoK. Both are on my to watch list, I just haven’t gotten around to it. I have seen the movie. But we’re not going to talk about that one lol.

I’ve seen a bunch of episodes of Avatar, just haven’t seen every single episode and I really need to fix that. Going with what I remember though...

I think our Avatar would be Ben. With how kindhearted he is and how he wants to keep the peace.  

I feel our Airbenders would be Carlos, Jane and Dizzy. All for being the least confrontational and since Airbending is usually more defensive than offensive it seems fitting for them. 

Waterbenders would definitely be Uma, Evie and Audrey. Uma is a no brainer as to why. But I also remember waterbending being very elegant and graceful. So definitely fits with my two favorite princesses. 

Earthbenders I’d say would be Doug, Lonnie and Gil. Doug I’m actually torn on, because I think he could be an airbender since he’s not all that confrontational. But since he’s a dwarf and affiliated with earth anyway, here he is.

And finally our Firebenders are Mal, Jay and Harry. Again Mal, as you pointed out is a no brainier. When I thought of Firebending, Jay automatically popped into my mind. Harry, I was a little torn on since he’s pretty affiliated with water...but he also reminds of a mellowed out Azula.

Chad. Chad I’m not sure about. He could go with the Airbending crowd at least his D2 version. But Chad in Descendants one, hmmm, possibly firebending. 

So those are my thoughts on that. Take it with a grain of salt since I’m just going with what I remember of what I’ve seen of the series. Don’t judge me too hard on my lack of knowledge on AtLA T^T

 I promise to get my ass in gear soon and watch all the goodness though! What about you Anony? What do you think?