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this is how one becomes my favorite character. anyway (dumps her out of the fish tank)

[also i wrote a now-irrelevant tadc fic two days ago but you should read it or something]

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Winter, spring, summer, fall

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Death happens in an instant; people die and so do souls, and he knows that all too well. (Jax didn't get so lucky for death to be an option. Instead, he's left to harbor these memories of another life for the rest of his sanity — for the rest of his time on this digital plane. He hopes that their story ends here.) "God," Ragatha spits, "you're insufferable, did you know that?" Jax smirks and it settles like the final dredges of the sun over golden fields, like the corpse of a bull slathered in blood. "Of course I know that," he scoffs mockingly. "I try my best to be." Abruptly, he swings the gun towards his head. or: jax and ragatha, locked in a room with a loaded gun.

not yet posted to my main account (might de-anonymize it when i'm posting actual content) but here's an impulsive shitpost!

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ever-suffering man traverses the seven seas, single-handedly carrying his two pretentious but soggy-cat companions, for @shadelorde

anyway you should join my SUPER AWESOME lok discord server where conversations that conjure such drawings ensue:

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Just wondering, have you read "The Mystery of Penquan Island" yet, and if you have what did you think of it?

hello again! upon getting this ask i felt like i should probably reread the comic in order to give an appropriate response, so apologies for the wait, as well as the lengthy and unedited nature of the response.

in short: i think it has some solid beats of detective-isms that make for a fun story, if not a little bit flat. it also has some solid emotional beats, though they don't go as in depth as i would've personally liked considering the context of the complex, Absolute Mess that mako and bolin's relationship is. it does a good job at capturing much of the comedy between bolin's excitement and mako's long-suffering despondence.

i think it's interesting that penquan island is pretty much our first foray into the fire nation in LOK and that it's a very backwaters, deeply traditional place that is also the first time the authors recognize mako and bolin's mixed heritage, as the show fails to do. i enjoyed the worldbuilding and the naoki backstory reveal. (i'm very relieved that she was not, in fact, fire nation royalty…) the action sequence and much of its dialogue is very nice and i think that it's overall a satisfying comic.

as i feel is often the case with mako and bolin in LOK writing beyond the show in general (points at republic city hustle), it does feel kind of like a strangely sanitised version of their dynamic and their history in the sense that while there are a lot of nuances to extract from the story, the writing doesn't make much of a point to acknowledge them. i also would've liked to see more explicit backstory of the two of them, as this really seemed to be the opportunity to finally do that, instead of once again being left to extrapolate based on other characters and sibling dynamics that we're given.

i think that this would've been more suitable to fit between seasons 3 and 4, but i'll elaborate on that. it makes some kind of odd visual design choices for the characters considering that this is supposedly post season 4, but that's not on the artist at all.

as some longer, less cohesive thoughts:

there's a lot of interactions between mako & bolin sprinkled throughout that just scream on point characterization as a continuation of canon, but to me, kind of straight from season 3. like bolin starting to mess with the evidence left in hai jun's room, mako sarcastically quipping for him to get out of the way, and then apologizing and putting on a positive face when bolin is offended and gets defensive. it's very much an exemplification of the parent-child dynamic that mako and bolin carry throughout the first three seasons, where mako takes on far more — i guess culpability? responsibility? — than you would naturally expect of a brother only two years older. just the way that he backs up and switches into being a placating parent instead of an annoyed brother (which, note that he's in the right to be annoyed about bolin messing with evidence). i want to say that mako and bolin's dynamic had evolved through season 4, in the sense that they are far more independent from one another, and hold each other to accountability better. the scene in the colussus where mako tells bolin what his plan is, and they handshake-hug it out before bolin leaves — i feel like it's meant to show how they have progressed to a better balance than they had before, a closer semblance of equality. obviously it runs deeper than that and i don't think that even by the end of season four, mako has pulled out of his role as bolin's protector and parent nor bolin as a kid, but i think that it's supposed to show that they're approaching a more equal footing than they had held at the beginning of the show, and i can't help but feel that the comic takes a slight step back from season 4.

having said that, i think that this comic fits in better between seasons 3 and 4 rather than as a post seaon 4 comic. one, just on the surface, aside from bolin's shirt, that one picture of korrasami, and some otherwise negligible details, there's pretty much no indicator that this sets place after season 4 (not even the lightning scar on mako's arm!). two, with me saying that this feels more like a continuation of mako and bolin's dynamic from season 3 rather than season 4, i think that this could be a natural in between for the two seasons, where mako injects a little bit of his own reality into bolin's and expresses some of his feelings about responsibility and protecting, and this could be an event that drives bolin to try to be more independent by branching out and following after kuvira. bolin has an awareness that he's not a little kid anymore and yet he continues to allow himself and mako to very easily fall into their roles from when they were younger (like him messing with the evidence), and instead of trying to be a brother back to mako the way he wants mako to be a brother to him, he just sort of says petty shit storms off the exact way he would in season 2, almost proving to mako that his seeing bolin as a child isn't wrong. (i think things between them literally cannot change without physical space between them — which with bolin joining up with kuvira and returning to a changed dynamic with mako, tracks.) bolin needs to become more independent and responsible, and mako needs to learn to consider his own self and stop smothering his younger brother, and the only they can detangle how truly fucked their dynamic is would be through the separation that book 4 begins with. and i guess this is also why i feel like it's a step back from season 4, where it feels like they were finally taking a step in the right direction, only for this comic to go back on it. which i would like to say isn't unbelievable considering how entrenched their lives have been in this parent-child dynamic, and you can't just expect linearity in progress. still, i feel like narratively… augh this isn't very well articulated, but i hope the sentiment comes across.

i also think it's very on point for mako to get himself so involved in a case where the adult figure doesn't want him involved, maybe even especially because of that. there's very clearly supposed to be a parallel between jian and mako ("they reminded me of us") ("you've been a very brave big brother… you should've have to do that when you're still just a kid yourself")… i think that the murder of san & naoki wasn't looked into as thoroughly as it should've been and that it was dropped very quickly and callously, especially considering that they weren't anyone important, and the only witness was a nine year old kid. the detective saying "our job is to close cases, which is a lot easier when they don't open to begin with" seemed to really strike a nerve in mako, and i think that's precisely why he's so driven to help the kids and their case that they presented to him. i feel like he very much does see a reflection of himself in not just the kids but the situation, and realizing just how cold other police detectives are about this — how they must've been about his own parents — made him feel like he needs to give it his all, if only to be the detective that he and bolin never had pursuing their case. it's true that these aren't the most exciting stakes at the start, following a very detached mystery as retold by some kids, but in the context of understanding mako, the emotional stakes are very high. therefore i think that the authors did a good job of establishing a case/situation that has the right amount of motivation despite lacking huge amounts of plot drama.

i most especially liked the scene in the fire nation shop. the background details were fun and i liked the small details of worldbuilding and culture. i also find it funny that bolin is apparently the one who cooks decently… it goes against pretty much all of fanon saying that mako is the only one of the krew who can cook, let alone cook well.

for penquan island itself, i think it's an interesting choice for this to be the first time anyone really points out mako and bolin's mixed heritage, let alone with hostility or judgement. and i also think it's an interesting choice for the comic to suggest that this is the first time they have experienced this sort of judgement or distrimination, because i sort of refuse to believe that that's the case. they're children of fire and earth, living in a former fire nation colony that was once earth kingdom territory, before being converted by the sovereign ruler of the colonizer into a so called republic city or whatever. they grew up on the streets in abject poverty, and all other gangs except the triple threat triads exclusively recruit single types of benders. i do think that this is a symptom of a lot of LOK's world building as a whole though, with the somewhat strange dispersal of progression throughout the world that we explore, but whatever. this is one of the points that i refer to when i say that strangely sanitised version of the gritty potential that the brothers hold. i like that it's not actually a departure from LOK though, and more like a parallel of grandma yin and the persisting traditionalism of much of the earth kingdom that we see through season 3.

again, i really enjoy the action near the end and a lot of its dialogue. mako quite literally being compared to his mother by the man who hired a hitman to kill her,,, fantastic. mako's frustrations and anger about his time on the streets, finally manifested verbally for the first time. mako has been so mature about the circumstances that he and bolin grew up in for so long that seeing it released was really satisfying. very badass stuff lol.

overall, i think that it made good use of the pages it was given! more sanitised than i would've liked, but not unexpected, and for that it still delivered a solid story both plot-wise and emotionally. i realize that me rambling so much about some of my critiques and keeping the praise short makes it sound like i disliked it, which i very much didn't. i very much did like it i promise, i just would've liked more. i just talk way too much. i know you didn't ask for it, but this fic from 2020 is pretty much everything i would've liked to see from a storyline following mako and bolin trying to figure out naoki's origins, so.

let me know if you want me to elaborate on anything! take everything i say with a grain (or shaker's worth) of salt, and i'm sorry for how long this ended up being!

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Ik you went into the whole stupid "nonbenders are oppressed" thing in lok in one of the asks I sent you, but it keeps on making me think about how much I wish i got to see mako and bolin's mixed earth kingdom fire nation heritage play a role in the story. Maybe if lok had the themes of atla it could go into how the two are treated differently for Mako looking more fire nation and bolin looking more earth kingdom. I think it'd be interesting if Korra keeps on hearing Amon's followers yell on the streets about how benders oppress everyone but then notice how Bolin gets treated significantly better when he pretends to be a non-bender fire national/lean into his fire nation heritage by ignoring his bending compared to when he is openly an earthbender which directly ties him to his earth kingdom heritage.

right!!! i am literally always saying this. like it’s sooo weird how lok does not understand what it means to be mixed in any meaningful capacity. neither with the kataangs nor with mako and bolin, they’re each just largely tied to the element they bend with no consideration given to the other half of their heritage. bumi doesn’t consider himself an air nomad until he magically gains airbending, despite his father literally being the only air nomad currently in existence. instead of trying to preserve his familial heritage, he completely undermines all of aang and katara’s cultural values and joins the fucking military. kya doesn’t seem to give a shit about air nomad culture either, seeing as she doesn’t even know guru laghima’s name (and he’s the wisest air nomad who ever lived!). despite apparently being an independent free spirit who values her freedom, she seems 100% affiliated with her mother’s heritage, because waterbender. even though the values of community and tradition kind of conflict with her whole “you can’t tie me down” attitude, so. um. and they never once explore how the value of, for example, hunting as an important cultural tradition in the water tribes may conflict with the value of vegetarianism and doing no harm to any living organism. these are interesting tensions that could have been explored!! but instead, tenzin is merely an air nomad who takes after his father both culturally and physically, kya is a waterbender who takes after her mother, and bumi is a…..cosmopolitan, and nobody likes him.

as for mako and bolin, they don’t even get the privilege of being the children of the avatar and the chief of the southern water tribe (i said what i said), so being mixed race in the neocolonial cesspit that is republic city would be bound to cause some tensions. but instead of actually addressing what the ramifications and complex colonial dynamics of inter/multiracial family structures in a postwar society that is nonetheless still struggling to contend with a century’s worth of global imperialism and the lingering trauma of that violence would be, they kind of just….ignore it. yes, mako is a firebender who takes after his fire nation mother, and bolin is an earthbender who takes after his earth kingdom father, and they live in a city that was once earth kingdom land that now functions as a neocolony of the fire nation, but also, the police force are all earthbenders, and there isn’t any sort of lingering racial/colonial tensions in this city whatsoever! you know how mako and bolin were orphaned as children and forced to live on the street and dumpster dive for food and eventually did labor for a gang because they had no other means of survival? are we going to question or implicate the systems that enabled those abject conditions? no, of course not. look at mako fumble two gorgeous, ridiculously privileged girls! look at bolin do the charleston! isn’t republic city FUN???

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Have you ever felt that a part of yourself was missing and known, deep within the places where your bones come together, that there is nothing you could ever do to get it back? That you were born incomplete and destined to die as hollowed out as the day you realized what you were? A bad, broken thing. An ugly-hearted, angry waste of potential. I could have had everything, been anything. And yet I am me. There is a part of you that knows that you are ill-fitting among others. Your mishapen self scrapes against them as parts of you stick out at odd angles without your control. The look in the eyes of your mother as she struggles to love you. You despise her for how hard she tries to hide her hate. She can never quite mask her disappointment. It peaks through the cracks in old photos of her, when her smile was its brightest before you were born.

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this is about procrastinating. or executive dysfunction. i think

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Me on my way to check #brotherband like it's a daily news

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some supbar sloppy shitpost scribbles (3am last night </3) (the only one on this page that i still like is human zooble)

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Hi Lychee, It's been a while since I sent you asks! So in my absense I thought about the often overlooked Mako&Bolin's relationship with Toza. They're so important to me! He's like an uncle to them at the very least! I need a second short, a comic, or some Toza backstory in avatar RPG guidebook - literally anything, because they're so special and I desperately want to know more.

But for what exactly has been on my mind is fem!Mako & Toza. I definitely do not see her getting used to him easily, since she's been around shitty dangerous men for so long. It's going to be a long and tedious process for sure. Does Mako jerk away and look at him like she's going to bite his arm off every time Toza tries to give her a pat on the back? Is she surprised how easy the probending training is compared to lightningbending training with Zolt? Does Mako ask Toza "is that all for today?", just for him to look at her like she's insane? And how patient is Toza with Mako? Would he try to ask Mako about her past with triads, or does he understand that it's not a good topic to bring up? So little canon, so much to think about...

oh absolutely i also need a comic on toza,,, from the show canon alone you get the impression that he's literally just Some Guy but from republic city hustle i can't help but feel that his relationship with mako&bolin has to run a little bit deeper than that, yknow?

fem!mako and toza,,, you are 100% on the right track!

i like to imagine that at the start fem!mako is, as you say, entirely distrustful and actively hostile towards toza, for good reason considering her time with the triple threats. she sees how strangely thoughtful toza is with bolin and can't help but feel all the more a failure for the way bolin visibly looks up to the older man, and i think that also clouds her judgement on him even longer. like, she's raised bolin since the ripe age of eight, yet she could never provide for him beyond scraps and getting him into bad situations with bad people… and then this random guy traipses into their lives, suddenly allows them to turn it completely around on his goodwill alone, and has clearly become a male role model for the younger brother that she raised? fem!mako thinks that she could never be anything of a true role model for bolin — she's a provider, but never someone to look up to; why should he, when the things that she's done to protect them both she can't help but condemn in her dreams?

needless to say, i think it'd make her feel really shitty, and start to project her insecurity onto toza, which makes their relationship even more strained! already she doesn't trust him, even if rationally pretty early on she can tell that he's not like that. toza recognizes that her beef with him runs deeper than just fear, but doesn't know how to address it. as a response that he can't quite control, he ends up going harder on her than he does on bolin — mako isn't something you can just control, she's sort of feral and doesn't abide by any rules when everything goes on the street, and you stick her in an arena where there's rule after rule? she's not thriving at all, despite her martial arts talent, and it frustrates toza to no end because unlike bolin, he spends more time fighting her to stand down and listen than he does having to teach her anything about fighting in the first place. it's a mess and i love it <3

i also almost feel like she feels probending training to be more difficult than lightningnbending training? in the sense that while lightningbending is more lethal, more dangerous, more hostile towards her, she also understands it entirely. she's good at shutting herself down and channeling cold fire, an apathy she learned quickly from a young age… while probending, as mentioned, is just full of rules that she isn't used to. has more eyes on her. a trainer who won't punish her, but that's unfamiliar, and that unfamiliarity is exhausting — she spends every moment in the gym trying to figure out what toza really wants from her, how he's going to react to her failures, to her inability to catch on. it's not good for her to shut down in lightningbending, but it's easy because she's spent her life since eight doing that. instead she has to be fully concious and in focus for probending, while simultaneosuly trying to learn the rules of not just the game but also of toza. she doesn't know where The Line is and therefore she doesn't know how to avoid crossing it, and that anxiety keeps her exhausted despite what should be comparatively physically easy. their physical conditions are better, yet mako is so much more wound up than she used to be (at the start of their probending time!) because she just doesn't know what's expected of her! or how to fit in! how to restrain herself, how to be less feral, how to not make toza look like a fool in front of his peers.

and i think it all has to come to a head at some point! everything you mentioned, about fem!mako wanting to bite toza when he's trying to show affection, mako trying to play it cool and toza thinking she's out of her mind. and rather, i think toza's impatience with her, due to her inability to follow the rules. he doesn't realize that it's because she's too busy trying to decipher the secondary, hidden rules that don't exist. he doesn't fully realize why she's so cold towards him — he can attribute it somewhat to the triads, but the rest? especially after he tells off some jackasses for harrassing her, he thinks that maybe just maybe things can change — but they barely do. she seems to trust him more, but like him no more, and he compares her to her younger brother and just feels so sad. i think he knows to not pry about the triads; after all, he's had his own experiences with falling low, if for different reasons than her, but he knows.

i think that fem!mako at this point has to learn to relinquish some control, not just over herself and her life but over bolin's life. i think she's got to learn that she's not as alone as she used to be, and that this is how it's supposed to be. that toza taking on a role model place in bolin's life doesn't take away from the years of hurt that she spent for her little brother. she's got to adjust, settle, do some introspection before she can even begin treating toza more normally. and toza himself, i think that he has his own struggles trying to handle mako. i think he's so good with bolin that the moment it comes to his older sister, the way that he's so entirely out of the water is scary for him, and he makes a lot of mistakes, does his own projection, loses his temper and patience with her more often than not and though it's never extreme, it's also always more a reason for fem!mako to distrust him more. she's forcing tallies onto the board against him and he doesn't know how to stop it.

sorry this reply totally got away from me LOL let's talk about it on discord! i have many many disjointed thoughts,,,

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i feel these needed to be compiled. feel free to add more genre related posts in the notes if you want

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A childhood journal

English added by me :)

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hiiiii this is my losergirl masumi okay bye i spent way too long on this

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gooseworx saying "there's meaning to be found in a stagnant life" tells me that the circus is really just a reflection of real life. it's monotonous, it's numbing, it's sickening and saccharine and uncontrollable and there's no escape from it but abstraction. it hurts and is full of awful things and people and there's no escape from it but through death. but at the same time you learn to make something of it, with the people that you've learned to love. the vast majority of people don't lead lives of adventure and exploration — we live in our quiet hometowns, in cities without character, countrysides without horizons: places of inertia. life stagnates and so does the circus. you don't go anywhere real in the circus the same way that real life rarely brings you new, tangible places or feelings. the way life becomes monotonous and dull from paycheck to paycheck of obligatory jobs that you hate, from cycles of washing dirty dishes and folding more laundry and buying new groceries, from numbing yourself to the terrible uncontrollable events burning around you in the driver's seat of your car late at night — it's just the same. it plods and staggers and the highs collapse before you've reached them. but still you find meaning in it. you find meaning despite and because of the way life beats you down and hurts you and is full of so much awful crap and sometimes becomes so terrifyingly empty, because there's meaning to be found in a stagnant life. you have to find it, or it becomes unbearable and you seek to leave. the circus is just a reflection of reality. escapism is a temporary idea that leads to no where; the concrete escape, an exit, is a lie to tell yourself to protect yourself — to feel more at ease with your stagnation. the only lasting escape is learning to embrace life and love.

i don't think anyone's escaping the circus by the end of the show. i think that the characters we're given in tadc are people who felt profoundly trapped by their real lives for whatever weights and traumas existed, and they feel similarly trapped in the circus. nobody wants to be in there, the same that these people never wanted to be in the lives that they led in reality, but still — they will find meaning in the unchanging and sickening circus through each other and learn to manage, to cope, and maybe even better than that. there is no resolution in escape, the same as there is no resolution but death to escape the real world. and what i think is kind of strangely beautiful is that these characters so badly don't want to abstract. maybe moreso impactfully than in real life's equivalent of death in suicide, abstraction being such an inconceivable preference suggests to the circus members that they must learn to live despite. to me, it's like them being held here indirectly forces them to understand that there is no relief in suicide over life*, therefore they must hold on until they figure out how see more. it's the only option. i think that they'll learn to let go of an "exit" and instead search to find meaning. stop burying yourself in the motionless dream of a better place to escape misery and a better tomorrow to exit today; maybe you'll make it and maybe you won't, but you can't live a life hinged on something intangible and leaving behind what you do have.

believe me that i wish that they would escape because it would make me feel satisfied narratively. that's a plot that wraps up nicely and has potential for lots of dynamic story beats. but i think that thematically it makes sense for them to not, and that the story becomes so much more profound should they never.

(uhh the same way that thematically, i don't think anyone's abstracting...)

(*like a really fucked up version of therapy!)

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All Roads Lead West: Asami and the Legacy of the Automotive Industry on Infrastructure

Before I begin a brief disclaimer that this in no way is meant to be a call out of Asami Sato. As a fandom we can be, rightfully, defensive of Asami and Korra as they 1) were some of the first sapphic rep many of us saw and 2) receive a lot of unjustified, misogynist hate (sometimes asa direct result of point 2 or just because they’re women). That being said I think we can be critical of the ideologies that Asami’s character promotes and still love her.

That being said this meta is going to argue that Asami, as the head of an automative company, Sato industries, being chosen to design season 4 Republic City is used to support American urban planning ideologies. Now what do I mean by that?

I don’t think it’s any secret that Republic City took a lot of inspiration from Western cities (cough New York cough). And when the show begins Republic City can be seen as falling into what urban historians have called the streetcar city era source

This urban model being built around the streetcar, as streetcars were introduced as a means of getting workers to factories, as zinging often meant factories were grouped together pushing out living space and pulling workers from other neighbour hoods within the city. Mako is running to catch a streetcar after his factory shift when Asami hits him on her bike.

This model favours public transit such as street cars and busses, as well as pedestrians. For evidence of this I looked at the chase scene in Welcome to Republic City and the flashback chase scene where Lin chases Suyin. In these scenes we can see light traffic, which I am taking as an indicator that traffic primarily comes from business (deceiver, police, ect.) and leisure. This paired with an emphasis on street level business, I argue that the city is primarily modelled for pedestrians and not cars; many of the streets are too narrow for two way driving, let alone passing lanes. There is not a lot of parking. And the animators included side walks and pedestrians (purposeful, this is extra work). In Lins chase we even get a glimpse of an outsdoor market in a public square.

The point being that while roads do exist Republic City is not designed around car ownership, and one does not need a car to effectively navigate the city. So what changed?

In the United States, as a means of growing the post war economy the government was pushing home ownership, and thus subdivision development (may I suggest reading the bulldozer in the countryside, as a history on this). While many point to this as the cause of the car ownership boom these divisions could have been designed to facilitate public transportation into urban centres. What happened instead, was automotive industries saw an opportunity to turn their leisure product into a necessity. By creating highway systems which discourage walking and complicate transit routes (there is no place for a streetcar on a highway) working class families now need a car to get to work and run errands.

Season 4 of LOK begins by catching the audience up on what the Krew has been doing over the three year time skip; link. In this time it is revelealed that Asami, and Future Industries, have been rebuilding Republic Cities infrastructure after the wreckage resulting from harmonic convergence. This redesign is revelead to be an intricate highway system.

There is, in fact, a precedence for automotive companies heading these projects in place of the states (I’m thinking of Detroit’s I-94 which was headed by Ford but that’s the tip of the iceberg). So if the goal were to recreate the current urban infrastructure model of North America, then having Asami lead Republic City’s urban planning makes sense.

The problem however, is that Asami as a hero and a genuinely altruistic person frames these infrastructure projects as being positive, prosocial changes. As making Republic City better. This however is not true. It is a business model to sell cars, which makes cities much harder to live in, especially for poor people. If you do not have a car (or a flying bison) you cannot get around republic city.

This also perpetuates the idea that these highway projects built up the city, not demolished it.

Republic city is in ruins when Asami builds these roads, and the neighbourhoods which were demolished and divided to fit these highway systems in North America (always poor and often racialized) were similarly seen as being ruins- as areas that would serve the city (ahem- interests of rich factory owners) better were they to be paved over.

I don’t believe that Bryke intentionally meant to endorse America’s infrastructure history, I doubt they even fully considered the implications. Asami- the automotive industry- building a highway city falls into the same trap as the republic city police force and zaofu; Bryke cannot imagine modernity that doesn’t look like the west, so rather then create something different they simple rebuild it within their own world. The avatar universe may have been designed and modelled after the East, but it’s story leads West