korielle-writing-fanfics - Tumblr blog

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident

I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.

For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 

We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 

And we saw ourselves in Katara. 

Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 

Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 

Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.

Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?

Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 

After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 

And do better he does not.

The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.

Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.

Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.

The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 

Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.

I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.

I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

if i said it was out of character for mai to:

take zuko back after he broke up with her through a letter and left her in prison

feared azula and loved zuko more

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

a lot of the zutara hate is rooted in misogyny and people don't want to admit that.

disliking and hating on a ship are two different things, no one cares if it's not your thing, but a lot of the arguments that people make for hating on the ship are just illogical and boil down to not liking that katara could possibly had the autonomy to end up with someone else. the level of hate for this ship is so disproportionate to the actual things that could be 'wrong' with it.

a lot of antis just cant see katara as an entity outside of a@ng, which sounds pretty misogynistic to me

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

this but katara as the southern water tribe ambassador and fire lady

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

Palestine Masterlist 

(this is a list of informative sources, materials, stores, charities, books, documentaries etc to better help Palestinians, learn about the Palestinian struggle, and educate yourselves on us as a people. This list will be added on to with more links as they are recommended to me.)

Introduction to Palestine: 

Decolonize Palestine:

Palestine 101

Rainbow washing 

Frequently asked questions 

Myths 

Al-Nakba (documentary)

The Question of Palestine (book)

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (book)

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (book)

IMEU (Institute for Middle East Understanding):

Quick Facts - The Palestinian Nakba 

The Nakba and Palestinian Refugees 

The Gaza Strip

The Nakba did not start or end in 1948 (Article) 

Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948? (article)

Donations and charities: 

Al-Shabaka

Electronic Intifada 

Adalah Justice Project 

IMEU Fundraiser 

Medical Aid for Palestinians 

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund 

Addameer

Muslim Aid

Palestine Red Crescent

Gaza Mutual Aid Patreon

Books:

A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine

The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge

Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean

The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique

From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948

Captive Revolution - Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of The Palestinians 1876-1948

The Battle for Justice in Palestine Paperback

Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom

Palestine Rising: How I survived the 1948 Deir Yasin Massacre

The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer, and the Palestinians 1949-1996

The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples

Where Now for Palestine?: The Demise of the Two-State Solution

Terrorist Assemblages - Homonationalism in Queer Times

Militarization and Violence against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East

The one-state solution: A breakthrough for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock

The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians

The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine

Ten myths about Israel

Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question

Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition

Israel and its Palestinian Citizens - Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State

Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy

Palestinian Culture:

Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture

Palestinian Costume

Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution

Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora

Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing (Oriental Institute Museum Publications)

The Palestinian Table (Authentic Palestinan Recipes)

Falastin: A Cookbook

Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen

Palestinian Social Customs and Traditions

Palestinian Culture before the Nakba

Tatreez & Tea (Website)

The Traditional Clothing of Palestine

The Palestinian thobe: A creative expression of national identity

Embroidering Identities:A Century of Palestinian Clothing

Palestine Traditional Costumes

Palestine Family 

Palestinian Costume

Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, v5: Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia

Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

Documentaries, Films, and Video Essays:

Jenin, Jenin

Born in Gaza

GAZA 

Wedding in Galilee 

Omar

5 Broken Cameras

OBAIDA

Indigeneity, Indigenous Liberation, and Settler Colonialism (not entirely about Palestine, but an important watch for indigenous struggles worldwide - including Palestine)

Edward Said - Reflections on Exile and Other Essays

Palestine Remix: 

AL NAKBA

Gaza Lives On

Gaza we are coming

Lost cities of Palestine 

Stories from the Intifada 

Last Shepards of the Valley

Organizations and News 

Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS)

Defense for Children in Palestine

Palestine Legal 

United Nations relief and works for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA)

National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Times of Gaza

Middle East Eye

Middle East Monitor

Mohammed El-Kurd

Muna El-Kurd 

Electronic Intifada 

Dr. Yara Hawari 

Mariam Barghouti

Omar Ghraieb

Steven Salaita

Noura Erakat

The Palestinian Museum N.G.

Palestine Museum US

Artists for Palestine UK 

Muhammad Smiry

Eye on Palestine

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

kinda wanna make a post about parallels between zutara and tantai jin and li susu

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

how dare i have an opinion the quotes are crazy 🙄

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

WHAT DO YO MEAN ADRIEN HAS A VOICE LINE IN THE OPENING NOW

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

What’s . , your Opinion On Katara. And Aang relationship, with each other.?

Short answer :

In my opinion, Katara and Aang's relationship would more beautiful and healthy as very good friends, because they support each other way better in friendship-relationship.

Long answer :

Kat/ang as couple wasn't build up with a good storyline even from the start. Their relationship felt and looked like siblings, Katara even acted motherly to him - many proof for that and the writers said so.

So, there's no reason for me to see them as lovers in the future but just supportive good friends with a crush. But a crush - even in real life - isn't a deep feeling and it's very easy to fade away. A strong feeling needs bond, chemistry, sometimes needs twist and turns to understand each other better and strengthen the foundation of their relationship.

Katara and Aang didn't have much chemistry, just physical contact (kisses on the cheek and hugs) and blushing. But for me, chemistry is not just about physical contact, chemistry and bond is about relationship development - it's Maiko problem as well.

Actually, the writers had so many opportunities to make Katara and Aang's relationship well-written - especially since the writers worship this ship - but instead they built up the conflicts between Aang and Katara in the last few episodes.

Well, at least, Aang and Katara's conflicts was resolved in season 1, but I can say that they were forced to end up together, even though their conflict wasn't resolved in season 3.

Conflict 1 : Aang kissed Katara without consent, then Katara acted like nothing happened in the next episode.

Conflict 2 : Aang yelled at Katara, even though she wasn't mocking him like the others, and she just wanted to help him, then they separated and there wasn't even a single conversation at all until they kissed in the end of the story.

Yes, the kiss was canon, but only because the writers forced it, not because Aang and Katara - both of them - deserved it.

The writers tried hard to keep Kat/ang as the winners in post ATLA. But, the more the writers fix Kat/ang the more the writers failed to make them better in their relationship, in fact the writers even ruined some of the characters - especially my lovely Katara, whose role was increasingly decreasing.

That would happen if two characters are forced to become lovers without being built with a good storyline and the writers don't care about female characters.

I don't read the comic and I don't want to read it. But I read quite a lot of criticism about it, especially how Katara's role was nothing more than just the Avatar's girlfriend.

Also, writing them calling each other 'sweetie' all the time is so cringe. I mean, look at Suki and Sokka, most people said they were the best canon pairing, I said the same. They never called each other 'sweetie', they called each other by name and they were still romantic.

Do you know what I felt when I saw this?

Katara sat alone in the corner, looked sad watching her boyfriend having fun with his fans. I could almost feel what Katara was feeling. Katara was angry, of course, but Aang couldn't understand her feelings. In the end, Katara was the one who understood Aang and let it go. Why is it always Katara who understands Aang? She deserved an apology!

Once again, the writers tried hard to keep Kat/ang as the winners in TLOK by writing them as a married couple with three children. Avatar's girlfriend changed to avatar's wife, but the writers still failed to convince people that Kat/ang was a healthy and happy couple.

Instead, Aang was written as a bad father who only favours his air bending child, while Katara had no role, no statue to honour her, and even her grandchildren didn't recognise her.

Actually, even though I am Zutara shipper, but sometimes I'm glad that they weren't canon. I mean, the writers worship Kat/ang but they failed to convince a lot of fans how good this pair - except the shipper only.

I can't imagine Zutara was canon while the writers hated it, the would ruin Zutara badly!

And since the writers are on board in The Avatar: The Last Airbender Movie next year, I'm guessing they'll try to win Kat/ang over (again) and I wouldn't be surprised if it fails (again).

That's why I'm not waiting for the movie.

Katara and Aang don't need to be lovers to be great characters, they can have a sweet relationship as friends and family. All the crush scenes between them could be removed and it wouldn't change the storyline one bit - maybe just annoy the shippers.

NATLA proved that. Aang and Katara had a family-relationship and it was very very sweet. NATLA removed all the scenes of Aang having a crush on Katara, even the Cave of the Two Lovers scene was replaced with Sokka and Katara. Did the main storyline changed? Not at all.

I once read an opinion from a Zutara shipper. The point is, when Aang and Katara are together, Katara has to stay away from Zuko (because their chemistry is stronger). It happened in TLOK, when Katara didn't show up to her granddaughter's coronation because Zuko was there.

Meanwhile, if Zuko and Katara are together, while Aang mature enough to accept his destiny, they will be forever great friends. He also will be a very very very sweet uncle and steam babies' favourite person. It happened in Zutara fanfics and fanart.

I agree 1000000%!!

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

saw a comment say that katara being a fighter and mother were never a dichotomy and how even as a mother (at least in tlok) we don’t see her do much in terms of even being a mom and i had to think a bit

and yeah shes not present as a mom or grandma and damn they have her not even the bare minimum to do

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

bi person: i headcanon this character as bi

y'all: ok

bi person: cool so [male character] is dating [female character] and they're both bi

y'all: lol shut up hettie these characters aren't straight

bi person:

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

Currently watching Avatar and…

It seems weird to me that Aang suddenly shows feelings towards Katara even though there was like, no build-up to it at all…?

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

So, a Kataang fan made a post about a week ago "asking" (rhetorically, of course) why it's a bad thing Katara acts like Aang's mom. And I just-

First of all, isn't that something that Kataang shippers have been trying to actively dispute for almost two decades at this point? That Katara doesn't treat Aang as a younger brother/son? There's literally an entire post about it from The Headband that's made its rounds on almost every single social media platform.

So which is it, besties? Does Katara act motherly towards Aang or not?

(The answer is yes of course, as The Runaway outright confirms it multiple times. The whole premise of that episode is that Katata acts as a mother to Toph, Sokka, and Aang)

Now, why is it a problem? The fact that I have to explain this is telling for how little a lot of Kataang shippers understand Katara.

Katara was parentified. She took care of Sokka (by his own admission) as well as her entire village after Hakoda left. Even before then really, as she says in the very first episode that she's been doing all the chores around the village since their mother died which was years before that. She was delivering literal babies while basically being a baby herself.

Traveling- and being- with Aang is supposed to represent her freedom and childhood, right? That's what the first episode shows us and what Kataang is built on. But if anything, it has the opposite effect.

Book 1 wasn't terrible. Katara was very free-spirited and joyful in addition to being caring and empathetic. Her and Aang could still goof off together, even if she was doing her best to support him emotionally. You could easily see that as her being a good friend.

But somewhere between Books 2 and 3, that changed. Katara went from being his supportive friend to being his emotional crutch. During The Desert, she bears the brunt of him lashing out (he does yell at Toph once, but he's the most volatile with Katara). He also gets frustrated with her during Sozin's Comet, even though Zuko and Sokka were the ones pushing him. It's always Katara who has to bring him back when he loses control of the Avatar State, risking her own safety.

(This isn't emotional, but it was Katara who healed Aang after Azula's attack. She was the one who stayed by his side, staying awake for hours to make sure he would be okay. I like to look at it as a physical representation of their relationship. Aang's wellbeing is always put on her shoulders. If she isn't there to lift him up, he'll fall. And if he falls, the world falls. No 14 year old should be responsible for that. But it's so easy for the show- and y'all- to shove it onto her because this part of her character is never addressed. It's just used as a testament to her caring nature)

Even without Katara's parentification, this causes a major imbalance in their relationship. It puts Katara in charge of managing Aang's pain and being emotionally unsupported in return. The Southern Raiders is proof that Katara can't depend on Aang emotionally the way he does her. She's been his shoulder to cry on through everything and the one time the tables turned, she couldn't even get that from him.

And the saddest thing about this? Katara says to him, "I knew you wouldn't understand." She never expected Aang to support her. She's become so accustomed to being there for others that she's never once expected anyone to do the same for her, least of all Aang.

(But Zuko does. He's the only one who recognized Katara's pain- admittedly, mostly because it was directed at him- and tried to help her. Without being prompted. I gotta give this one to the Zutara folks)

In what world is this dynamic healthy for a romantic relationship?

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

waiting for disney to ever address aladdin and jasmine in descendants and i get a lego spin and “call us jaladdin” and they’re indian instead of like ya know arab

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

Sorry if I'm bothering you but can you share why you think avatar is bad?

ur asking for a lot bc that show is a complete and utter mess. first my tibetan ass wants u to think about the fact that its a show using asian/indigenous ppl and their devastating histories made by ignorant weeaboo white men. I wanted to write about it in detail bc i’ve always wanted to say something about this but never rly got around to doing it. avatar was a big part of my childhood (that did make my father uncomfortable) so I’m speaking from a place not entirely out of hatred or spite. maybe ill send this in letter format to the writers lol. anyways im going to split this up into parts. I’ll put a readmore bc its kinda long

@bryankonietzko i really hope you take a nice long look

1. Unexplained, Stereotyped, and Insensitive/Uneducated Political Parallels

avatar uses cultural and religious elements of different asian/indigenous cultures and sorta smashes it all together to create a very superficial fantasy world. The first thing you need to know is that the air nation is an obvious but flawed representation of my home country, Tibet. Air nomads are devout pacifist monks/nuns who live in the high mountains, an extremely common and one-dimensional racial stereotype of tibetans and the religion of tibetan buddhism by westerners and western media.

The complete genocide of the peaceful air nation by the technologically advanced fire nation directly represents the invasion and occupation of tibet by the peoples republic of china (PRC) in 1959. the PRC directly caused the deaths of millions of Tibetans through murder, warfare, pillaging etc. Tibet is now one of the most oppressed countries in the world (https://www.freetibet.org/about/human-rights), with no freedom of speech/religion, mass internet and media censorship, prison torture, forced assimilation into han society, police brutality, and cultural destruction and erasure by the chinese government. (Its so bad that hundreds of Tibetans are committing mass suicide through self-immolation https://savetibet.org/tibetan-self-immolations/) while geographically avatar’s fire nation might resemble japan, while earth nation seems more similar to China, the fire nation government and mission to conquer and colonize are in direct accordance to the approach of both imperialist Japan and the PRC. The Tibetan population numbers have been severely reduced bc of chinese occupation, with the threat of cultural extinction through murder and assimilation being a big concern in the community. With Tibetans having a very sensitive history of oppression, genocide, and constant brutal suffering, having media content for children about tibetan-like people being completely massacred to extinction bc they’re too peaceful isn’t exactly tasteful.

One of the main faults of the show I cannot forgive is the use of “cool flashy asian” words/names used in the show that in reality have tragic political context, like lake laogai: Laogai 勞改 (https://laogairesearch.org/laogai-system/) are real Chinese prison camps that hold hundreds of thousands of tibetan (and chinese, and other minority groups of china) political prisoners (normally activists who protest for justice and freedom). they “reform” people through unethical slave labor, and many prisoners have painfully starved to death. Thousands of real people (including family members and friends of mine) suffered and died without right to fair trial and humane living conditions, and the treatment of human beings in the laogai is an extremely horrifying and obvious abuse of human rights.

I feel like a response to this might be “why are these representations offensive? you can make a show that addresses and promotes awareness of issues and its not offensive! its a good thing that helps!” but the problem with avatar is that the real world comparisons that the show makes are never actually explained or clarified to the viewers. with most of the target audience knowing absolutely nothing about tibet/asia and these real political issues, all of these references go right over their head. The average viewer will believe this show is using original ideas when its actually desensitizing a real and horrible history. Using politics that reference the real suffering and deaths of millions of people and not having the courtesy to properly acknowledge it isn’t funny or cute. And even worse, using stereotyped caricatures instead of a more accurate representation of the culture you’re “borrowing” from just makes your content outright disrespectful.

tumblr user atla-annotated said this in a post about the use of laogai in avatar which I think better words my point:

“I personally feel that when drawing from dark real world events/situations (especially if you are using the real term and are not substituting i.e. Air Nomads - Tibet vs. Lake Laogai), and if those events are not that well known to your audience, you are obligated to give context, be it in the form of interviews, the art book, on the website (there are loads of options). Why? Because it is disrespectful. Bad shit happened to real people, real people suffered in those camps and having fans off and online referring to said camps without knowing what they are saying is not cool.”

2. Promotion of Cultural Appropriation and Insensitivity

if you’re a poc who is very close to your culture, it will become pretty obvious to u that this show is written by white people. you can especially tell in episodes that address culture/religion and appropriation, bc they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. one thing that stuck with me since I was a kid was that northern air temple episode. aang saw those earthbenders destroy and deface the air temple and got rightly upset, but it was treated as the wrong way of thinking. even when i was a dumb kid i never understood this. when i projected onto this character I did feel like aang (despite being a racial caricature) had every fucking right to be angry and hurt?? these temples are a part of his religion, his culture, his faith and his way of life? seeing the last remnants of your extinct people and culture being destroyed and defiled by sewage would obviously be offensive? but his feelings are disregarded bc that guy who’s making tech for the fire nation, the literal murderers of the entire air nation, is important too or whatever. instead of the message being “appreciate past cultures and their religious artifacts/temples and live alongside them respectfully”, it was “cultural preservation is stupid if it stands in the way of better technology” which feel like a very colonial way of looking at culture, esp by the PRC, bc of how communism considers religion to be a hindrance to revolution. also the fact that the prc destroyed thousands of holy tibetan monasteries for chinese shopping malls and parking lots.

Also in legend of korra the whole “neo non-airbender airbender” cult on that island parallel real western cults (white hippies with dreads) obsessed with living what they think is a “tibetan lifestyle”. they appropriate and fetishize tibetan religion and culture, to the extent of being condescending, racist, and disrespectful towards real tibetans and invading tibetan spaces (”it might be tibetan culture, but tibetans just dont get it like we do”). I remember my sister reading a comic where tenzin or someone was upset at these non-airbender’s blatant appropriation, but his feelings were shut down for the message “anyone can be a part of this culture bc tibetans airbenders r all dead lol!!1! we keep it alive!!” like, wow, Mike and Bryan, ik u think all tibetans are doomed for extinction but thanks for that.

3. Ignorant Fanbase

Last, about the fans. Because the show’s previously mentioned lack of educating/raising awareness towards what this show references, many fans tend to be very (sometimes unintentionally) racist and insensitive towards aspects of cutures/tradition that avatar borrowed from the real world (the most common I see is fans butchering pictures of his holiness the dalai lama, the most sacred religious figure for tibetans to make a shitty avatar joke. He’s the reincarnation of an enlightened being, even his photographs are supposed to b treated with RESPECT). Because of this, praising the show to high heaven bc of its racial “representation” when its actually racist caricature feels kind of shitty.

also this isnt necessarily “problematic” but the “are u named tenzin after the guy from avatar” line from nerds is literally SO ANNOYING and SO COMMON, especially when its the name of his holiness the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso, both his auspicious first and last name were used in the show) and the most common tibetan name ever (We have a tradition of high lamas giving their names to our children as a blessing, which is why every other Tibetan you meet will be named Tenzin). so if you like avatar and you’ve never met a tibetan before, please dont ask weird shit like if their name is from avatar or if tibetans are like the funny blue arrow monks (i’ve gotten that one before) its fucking irritating. 

Honestly, I normally don’t really have such a big problem with white ppl writing tibetan characters. Its all stereotypes and monks and ignorance, but im so desperate for representation i usually halfass accept it anyways. but i just couldn’t handle the way the writers of avatar are so obviously insensitive and idiotic while going out of their way to try and use “~huge political messages~” that they dont understand and dont want their fans to actually learn more about. If the writers did some actual research and made avatar respectful towards Tibetans and raise awareness about tibetan/PRC politics I would have definitely appreciated it. But they didn’t. 

also the movie is just its own shitshow, but I hate how everyone thinks the cartoon is okay when it really isn’t. 

also a plug for the crew https://studentsforafreetibet.org/

[korielle-writing-fanfics]

you know what zuko likes to surprise katara with flowers and other like natural small gifts that reminds him of of her. like and for him it’s amazing to have someone appreciate the gifts you know like seashell and for katara someone who is thinking of her consistently and showing their love versus forcing it.