black-ink-on-pink:

Okay. I’m going on another rant here and forgive me, but I saw something that just irks me so, and I’m feeling the need to grab people and shake them and beg them to just understand please. 

So I’m reading various things on tumblr, related to Legend of Korra, the portrayal and representation of dark-skinned characters in fiction, and the question that comes around is: Why is this even important? 

Let me answer that for you.

—-

Okay, so I have a boyfriend. He’s black, and like me, he’s into cartoons, anime, tv shows, etc.   On his facebook, he keeps an gallery of images of dark-skinned characters. Doesn’t matter if they’re Egyptian, South American, Indian, etc. Just dark-skinned characters in general. A friend once asked him why this gallery exists in the first place, and bf answered how they were all positive portrayals of black/dark characters in anime/video games/cartoons. 

That someone, who was Caucasian, was like, oh, and simply though it was a small quirk, little hobby, something my bf does when he’s bored. 

For bf and me, who are both persons of color, that gallery means much more than a quirky hobby. I can’t explain it well, but basically, it’s a huge deal for us, particularly him. It’s a collection of the few black/dark characters in fiction, it’s representation, it’s him seeing people who look like him be scientists and geniuses, do martial arts, kick ass, look beautiful, be human; it’s people who are dark-skinned be valued and be deep, developed characters and have their own stories and desires and goals; and it’s so damn rare in fiction that he has a gallery of about only 50 characters and that’s it. Compared to, say, the hundreds of thousands of light-skinned characters. 

My bf, he’s a writer. He wants to one day make books and tv shows and movies where the main character will be anything other than a straight white male character. He’s making his life goal to do so. 

Because growing up and even now, still, he was loved seeing characters that are black like him. Loved characters that looked like him getting to be heroes, go on adventures, save the day, be cheered on and loved - showing him that little kids like him, black kids, kids of color, can do anything they want and they are just as good as the white kids who are already heroes and adventures and princes and princesses and whatever the hell there is to be. In a society where he eventually grows up to tell me, one day, when we were out for a drive, how to respond if I ever get pulled over by a cop, to be respectful and calm and make no sudden movements - he doesn’t know if it’s different for Asians but still, be safe - and he has to do all this, be extremely careful simply because he’s black…well, it’s something when black/dark characters are portrayed as anything other than dangerous or expandable or a bunch of horrid shit. 

And then there’s me, who’s Chinese and tans easily and, along with my dad, is the darkest in the family. And let me tell you how screw-up colorism, light-skin-is-better-than-dark-skin mentality is, because there’s my mom (pale) who looks down on my dad for having olive skin and would hush hush tell me when I was younger how ‘dark’ my dad was and how ‘dark’ his family was, it was such an unfortunate thing, let’s hope that I don’t turn out like them, and made it as if their being ‘dark’ (at most an olive skin tone, geez) had something to do with all their flaws and whatnot. And then she goes through the trouble of wearing gloves when driving just so her arms wouldn’t get tanned and take out an umbrella when going outside on a sunny day. And I grow up in this setting, being told how pretty I would be if only I was pale like her.

I hate it. I hate all that and love it whenever I see somehow who is olived-skinned or dark-skinned and they were beautiful - considered beautiful, are beautiful-, and I would know that I am pretty too. And I hope no kid would ever grow up in a screwed-up environment like that and they can look everywhere and see that their dark skin is beautiful, desirable as well. 

So, Korra. Dark-skinned Korra, gorgeous and headstrong and desirable and powerful and Avatar, protector of the whole world - it’s one of the first time a dark-skinned character has been portrayed as so, main character of such a beloved mainstream TV-series. (My bf loves Legend of Korra and its predecessor series before it. I do too.) And if she is in fact getting lighter, even unintentionally. Well. That would be a devastating blow. 

And that’s why skin color in fiction is important. Because of formative influences, of subtle stuff in psychology that worms its way into the mind of little kids, telling them this is how the world worked, this is how your life will eventually be, this is the way you should think. Of the simple fact of having positive role models for all types of children. 

Please try to understand. And at the very least, please don’t just brush off and scoff these concerns. 

m0nyart:

Korra and Dewott training

hellozombie:

Fighting Spirit

vengerturtle:

like seriously that is my entire problem with this season, all of this telling and no showing at all. Things happen when the plot needs them to, that’s the way of storytelling. But good shows made it seem seamless, make it a personal journey and a natural progression. You need Korra to be able to airbend at exactly the right moment? Then you don’t completely drop any mention at all of her airbending training and then have it pop up when her crush is in danger, especially after everyone else has already been in the same or even greater and she couldn’t do shit.

You want me to believe that Korra and Mako love each other? Show them actually having more than one decent conversation that doesn’t end in a yelling match. The same goes for Mako and Asami - give me more than one deep conversation to make me actually believe that they even like each other a little bit. And for god’s sake if you’re gonna break them up, do it onscreen.

You want to make the climax of the journey be Korra finally contacting the spirit world and gaining the ability to give everyone their bending back? Don’t show me Korra getting beaten time and again, constantly needing help, and yet never allow her to actually experience any kind of character growth despite all of it. Korra is pretty much the same person that she was at the start of the series, just more beaten down from never being allowed to actually triumph. You can’t tear a character down constantly like they did with her and then at the end pretend it never happened and expect me to believe it.

They brought her literally to the lowest point they could - they took away her bending - and then instead of making it about a journey of discovering self-worth (which would have been perfect for Korra! Ever since we’ve met her, she’s always considered the most important thing about herself to be the fact she’s a bender and even more importantly that she’s the Avatar, and her having to let go of that and discover her worth as a person, as Korra, instead of the “the Avatar”, would have been real character growth), they had someone show up at the end and make it all better for her. They took away any ability she had to make things better for herself, to learn and grow and find that she’s a worthy person outside of what she’s supposed to be able to do (i.e. bend and “save the world” as the Avatar).

Why am I supposed to be okay with that? Why be should I be okay with a character that’s never allowed to grow, who is constantly outshone by everyone around her even when she’s supposed to be the heart of the journey? That bothers me so much more than the love triangle and the lost potential that would have come with a frank analysis of privilege and what it actually means. We finally got a WoC protagonist and she cannot accomplish a thing by herself because the writing never even gave her a chance to try, it just beat her down again and again.

(Source: oldvengerturtle)

avataraang:

I’ve gotten lots of questions about what I think should have been different in the Legend of Korra finale and while I have a lot of concerns of individual character development, I’ll stick to two main issues. The Equalist movement and Korra’s actions on the clifface. 

• Throughout the entire season the Equalist movement would have been slightly written differently. Instead of turning into the total bad guys in the last 6 episodes they would have remained morally nuanced the entire way through. Their legitimate concerns over the abuse of bending power would have been a constant theme in the series. Korra would have had to try and reconcile the fact that bending is the cause of so much suffering in the world and that the current structure of Republic City with its monopoly of power concentrated in bending hands is problematic. Amon turning out to be a bender himself could have reinforced the notion that extreme violence and fear is not the way to secure progressive change. The theme of bending being a source of violence and conflict would be crucial to the ending. 
• All the events play out exactly the same, Amon would take away her bending, Mako would do whatever he does, Amon would go off on his boat and Korra would return to the SWT and go to the cliff face. 
• But this is where my ending would change significantly. At her lowest moment, when she feels like everything is lost, that without her bending she is nothing and that her role of the Avatar is gone she realizes her biggest lesson. Being the Avatar isn’t about fighting. It’s about your Spirit. She realizes that while she might no longer be able to shoot fireballs out of her hands or create a tsunami her Spirit is still the same as ever. She’s still intelligent, caring and determined. She still has her Airbending and she can still mediate the affairs of the world. She won’t be as powerful, but she realizes from the Equalist movement that the abuse of power is what started all this trouble in the first place. Korra realizes she’s still the Avatar.
• That’s when Aang appears and says “When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change.” The key difference is Korra realized the change by HERSELF. She was the one to take agency for her own thoughts and decisions and had a fundamental change in attitude towards what the role of the Avatar does. Aang then of course if able to give her bending back and I suppose she can go makeout with Mako is she wants. 

The key difference with this ending is that it ties in the Equalist movement and their concerns over the abuse of power and Korra’s personal development as the Avatar. It brings in what Tenzin said in 1x02 about the Avatar’s role not always being about fighting. But the most crucial difference is Korra actually does something to deserve getting her bending back and being able to access the Avatar State. Instead of just crying off a cliff face, she reflects on all that’s she learnt in the last few months and actually picks herself up. When she hit her lowest point that’s when she was able to change, but on her own terms. 

racebending:

rairii:

gringatalquina:

atla-annotated:

writingfail:

atla-annotated:

The Missing Plot: Amon’s Platform

Why do thousands of people join him, civilians take up arms for his cause, what is the fodder that incites this civil war?

All we get in 12 episodes is that the non-benders feel oppressed, but we never get a concrete example, but for after the fact when Tarrlok starts rounding up Equalist supporters.

The thing is that the oppression was shown but never pointed out. For example, pro-bending is a bender-only sport, working in the factory seems to require firebending, to be a cop you must be an earthbender, and there is no one to represent the non-benders in the council. The non-benders are underprivileged because they get less access to jobs and political positions, yet the show refused to point out any of these things because Korra was too stubborn to see things outside of her privileged position. It’s even worse that Korra gets handed everything and doesn’t once question why and how she is seen as special compared to everybody else, especially non-benders.

So the Equalists saw all this just… nobody was there to point that out to Korra or the audience. In the end, everything fell flat.

1. Pro-bending is not oppression. I am 5’2, I am not oppressed by professional basketball players.

2. There are non-benders on the police-force e.g. the cop in the park that chases Korra and Gommu

3. There are non-benders on the council: Sokka

4. Factory workers: Are you saying that Sato, one of the major employers in the city, does not hire non-benders? Same goes for cabbage corp.

5. Even though these are examples, we have no proof that Amon uses any of this to gain followers, which is my point.

I disagree.

1. Probending may not be a form of opression per say, but it does inform the public’s collective imagining of bending; bending is glorified and celebrated, implying that those who can bend are worth more than those who can’t. Also, pro-bending is a job that non-benders don’t have access to; Mako and Bolin might still be on the street if it weren’t for pro-bending.

2. There may be non-benders in lower ranks, but as far as we can tell the high-ranking officers (i.e. those who fight alongside Lin) are metalbenders. Non-benders have less access to better jobs.

3. There were non-benders on the Council. In Korra’s time, Tarrlock makes it clear the all of the Council-members are benders, so non-benders have no political representation whatsoever. So, not only are they at a socioeconomic disadvantage, but there is no one in the government trying to help fix the societal oppresion of non-benders.

4. Non-benders do have access to jobs that aren’t bender-specific, but so do benders. Therefore, non-benders are competing with benders for jobs in a society that seems to think that benders are inherently better. And benders have a huge advantage because their job market is much broader.

5. Then there are the Bending Triads. Non-benders are less able to defend themselves against these gangs. Furthermore, they act as a refuge for impoverished benders that is inaccessible to non-benders; again, Bolin and Mako might non have survived if they weren’t benders.

So yeah, there are some benders who are poor despite their privilege (Bolin, Mako, and the inhabitants of Gommu’s tent city) and some non-benders are rich despite their societal disadvantage (Hiroshi Sato and Cabbage Man Jr). Still, their societal structure is clearly oppressive to non-benders. However, the only oppression Korra recognizes is Tarrlock’s insane power-trip. Coming from an uber-priveleged, sheltered environment, she has no idea how complex the problem truly is. Therefore, she’ll probably be shocked to discover that the Equalist movement didn’t die with Amon, as will most benders. (Though I do hope that Book 2 will show that there were some benders who were Equalists as well.)

Granted, none of this was explicitly stated, because the show was almost exclusively composed of action sequences, dramatic revelations, romantic subplots, and punch lines. Still, to me, the Equalist movement made a lot of sense, and I certainly hope it ultimately leads to tangible reform.

^ This. But they should have done a lot more to make this more obvious and for Korra to realize this and actually bring harmony and equality as the Avatar.

Also, to your tags, I could analyze the heck out of all the implied systems set in place and draw parallels to currently existing institutions.

Also, a whole paper on why Mako is being a jerk.

The twisted part of all of this is that at the very end, non-benders as a group were just pawns used to further the ambitions of just another bender.  They lose out the most from this Avatar vs. Amon fight.   Now, when non-benders voice legitimate grievances about social institutions that reflect inequalities in society, they can be dismissed or even persecuted simply if benders conflate them with the discredited Equalist movement.  

We never saw Korra reflecting on why Amon was able to successfully use the inequities faced by non-benders as an effective strategy to build a base of followers, or to consider that there might be legitimate reasons why people would speak out about their experiences as non-benders.

ave-aria:

*why does the picture shriiiink make it stopppp*

requested by tophbreaker

(Source: tophed)

jhenne-bean:

flamingzebra:

I am going to make a comic.

Where Korra’s walking out after barking that things aren’t going to be okay. You see Mako start to follow her - 

And then suddenly Lin is there, planting her hand on his chest. And she’s like, “Not this time,” in a really grave voice. And Mako starts to protest but Asami grabs his arm and holds him back and he looks all annoyed and upset but Lin goes out.

And she calls for Korra’s attention and Korra stops without looking back at her. And Korra says she failed. She’s not the Avatar anymore. She can’t help anyone anymore. She’s worth nothing.

And Lin turns her around and glares down at her and is like, “Do you think I’m worth nothing now that I’ve lost my bending, Avatar?”

And Korra looks up all teary-eyed and shocked and is like “N-no that’s not what I - “

And Lin cuts her off with one of those badass handslashes that say SILENCE. And she says, “You are still the Avatar and I am still the Chief of that godforsaken city. Bending doesn’t make you an Avatar” And she prods Korra in the chest with her finger and is like, “It’s the choices you make.”

And Korra gets all weepy-eyed again and Lin pulls her into a tight hug.

They pull back and Korra shudders a sigh and is like, “I…need some time alone.”

So Lin lets her ride away on Naga and she’s at the cliff again, teary eyed, looking more angry than distraught.

And then she says softly. “I am the Avatar.”

And then she screams it, throwing her arms down.

“I AM THE AVATAR.”

And she blasts the huge air that shakes the cliff and blows back water and she’s panting and shit and then she rides back on Naga with a determined expression on her face and a new outloook.

END SERIES.

;a;

yes

YES

YESSSSSSSSS

priinceofhope:

masterarrowhead:

howrra:

lol remember episode 10

lol remember episode 1?

Guys remember….

(Source: duckypooop)

crystalzelda:

I don’t get how this is the episode that has people calling Mako a total douchebag. Don’t get me wrong, he absolutely has been, but for this episode? I don’t agree.

He’s with Asami. He made a choice and has stuck to it - he kisses her when they reunite, he’s stuck with her through thick and thin. But now, Korra has been kidnapped by the enemy, left alone to be energy bended, tortured, murdered. That would send anyone who likes her into sheer panic, but obviously Mako has deep feelings for her, that he can’t help, even if he decided not to act on them.

I found his reactions in this episode to me understandable. His utter panic and devotion to Korra is hardly flattering to Asami, but it’s reasonable in the circumstances. If Asami was kidnapped, I’m sure he would have been in the same state. Is it cool for a guy with a girlfriend to be that worried about Korra? Yes and no. Is he supposed to not care about her cause he’s with someone else? It seriously doesn’t work that way. (And to Asami - is this really the time to question your boyfriend’s brother as to why he’s worried his friend got kidnapped? Korra could be dead. I mean gurl).

But things have changed. Asami has doubts that’s she’s entitled to, and I think Mako can come to terms that while he’s tried, his feelings for Korra are not fading. Now he needs to put his big boy pants on and break up with Asami, since it’s very obvious that he’s not getting over Korra. He gave it a shot with Asami so fair enough, you know, but he needs to real with both of them now. So to me, his actions so far aren’t awful. We’ll see what happens in the aftermath though.

fangirlingforeverz:

delicioustrap:

ravenshermithole:

ctchrysler:

Warmup of the day!  6/3

Air Korra … not the airbending kind of Korra this time.  The MJ kind of Korra who can bring the heat on the court, handle the rock with fluid moves aaaaaaaaaaannnd probably needs to work on her hops with coach Tenzin :l

I am the lamest of the lame :D

ID TAP THIS.

HNNGGGGG

sjadh;sdaghasldighsdf holy shIT GET ON MY BED

OMG.

I APPROVE OF THIS SO HARD. DLFKGJLDFKJG

jhenne-bean:

fuckyeahavatarshipping:

!!!

I was so happy when Korra actually did try to do something. Show the people that she really does care. 

I love this scene BUT I WAS ALSO DISTRACTED BY THE PRESENCE OF FEATHER HAT GUY.

But really, I was happy about this scene.

(Source: saruhikos)

(Source: -everdeen)

m0nyart:

Tiny avatar, master of all four elements~