#also no religious undertones implied here i forgot that

[bucketspammer4life]

how the boxers celebrate christmas

merry yaoimas. may your old men kiss and your otps prosper

also assume everyone is getting gifts for each other here goodbye

Glass Joe

Busy setting up his tree and getting ornaments for it.

Tried to make a gingerbread house and got a gingerbread pile instead.

Decided to crochet a gift for someone and got horrible carpal tunnel halfway through.

One of the only few times in the year where’s he’s not pounding down on a questionable amount of espresso, enjoy while it lasts.

Absolutely amazing at wrapping presents, wraps them like he’s personally being held ho-ho-hostage by santa himself.

Appreciates every gift he got. (Excluding Aran’s…)

Most of his gifts are jewelry or trinkets or some hobby-related stuff.

Von Kaiser

Has a very plain tree set up (both at where he teaches boxing and his house.) The children at the boxing school he teaches like throwing it at him so he has to tape it down.

Tried to make gingerbread men but ended up with gingerbread horrors instead because he added too much baking powder.

Has no idea what to get anyone. genuinely. extremely lost.

Used to work in retail so hearing jingle bells drives him insane.

Just gets everyone socks and plain old stuff for christmas.

Did NOT survive the snowball fight between him and his students.

Disco Kid

Has a very tacky christmas tree but loves it a lot, it keeps falling over because of how much stuff is on it but its still lovely.

Keeps screaming “ITS TIMEEE!” to scare everyone.

Calling him festive would be an understatement.

Horrible at wrapping gifts. Had to get help from Joe,almost gave away what he got for him but he managed to make it work.

Awesome at picking out gifts,helped kaiser pick stuff.

Has a santa hat on 99% of the time.

King Hippo

Doesn’t get christmas but still thinks its neat,just kinda copied everyone else’s trees.

His gingerbread men turned out wonderful,so wonderful he baked another batch for himself.

Didn’t know what to get for anyone on christmas,as lost as kaiser.

Likes singing the usual christmas songs with disco.

Wishes santa was real so he could actually not worry about picking out gifts.

Chugged a whole carton of eggnog.

Piston Hondo

Thinks christmas is fun but is sad because he wants to celebrate with his family too. Just kinda facetimes his parents while counting down on new years.

Has a really minimalistic looking christmas tree,very boring to look at.

Accidentally said “Merry Chissmass” and nobody has let it go. Not even him.

Had a lot of fun picking out gifts for everyone and wrapping them.

Hoping for a sailor moon figure.

Bear Hugger

LOVES christmas. Adores it even, makes disco look casual about christmas.

His tree is very rustic. (its just covered in pinecones and maple leaves. Courtesy of Mrs. Bear and his squirrel.)

Dresses up as Santa to surprise his younger fans and does some charity work while he’s at it.

Thinks “Merry Chrysler” is still funny. (IT ISS)

Didn’t struggle with getting the others gifts,DID struggle with getting Mrs Bear a gift,though. What can you get a bear??

Great Tiger

Decorating and baking for him is a cakewalk, his clones handle it for him. Also discussed what to get for the others with his clones.

Dropped a diss track that’s christmas themed aimed at Aran. It went off the charts.

Do not play any christmas songs around him unless you wanna see a full dance choreography from him.

Accidentally knocked over his tree more than he’d like to admit.

Lives for hot cocoa.

Don Flamenco

Loved decorating the tree & his place with Carmen. They baked each other as cookies and found it hilarious.

Had matching sweaters with Carmen.

Overthinking what to get the others for christmas.

Also horrible at wrapping,except he’s in denial about it. One might say he’s ho-ho-horrible at it. (I’ll make sure to take the piss out of that joke,don’t worry.)

Has a cocoa-scented candle he brings out during christmas and christmas only. It smells horrible to everyone except him.

Aran Ryan

Has a single tree branch as a christmas tree with a star taped onto the top.

Treating the whole gift thing like it’s white elephant day. Perfect at picking gifts he knows everyone will hate.

Runs up to little kids and tells them Santa’s not real before hysterically giggling while running away.

Terrorizing mall santas just to get festive. banned from 54 malls so far. Hoping to bump it up onto a 60, his goal is every mall in Ireland & the US.

Hands out coal to his fans for christmas.

Puts on a elf hat & ears along with those annoying little shoes during matches.

Soda Popinski

Has a comically large soda bottle as a tree with more bottles taped onto it.

Has his own soda-themed wrapping paper.

Tried to sneak a peek into his own gifts but got caught.

Cannot say “christmas” to save his life,it always comes out as “gorrismas”

Liked getting everyone a gift,found it fun.

Dresses up as Santa for matches, calls himself “Father Soda”

Bald Bull

Not really used to christmas since he usually doesn’t celebrate it but decided to since he thought it could be fun.

Overwhelmed by all the lights outside since it reminds him of the paparazzi.

Hated getting gifts for people since it felt like a chore for him. Same with wrapping stuff,he did enjoy decorating his tree though.

Just trying to enjoy some gingerbread cookies.

Thinks hot cocoa is overrated. willing to fight over this.

Super Macho Man

Flew to Australia just to enter the new year before everyone else so he could say he’s one step ahead everyone else.

Going all out on gifts, he loves shopping so this is heaven for him.

Overdecorating everything,his tree’s covered in lights, his house has those comically large inflatable snowmen.

A fan asked him if he was cosplaying as a gingerbread man with that horrible tan of his on twitter,he argued with them for 4 days while getting bombarded by images of gingerbread men with the caption: “cant believe i met smm in a bakery!!” and “this you?”

Has wrapping paper with his face plastered all over it.

Mr Sandman

Has the world’s saddest tree ever, strength can’t give you the ability to decorate properly i guess.

Just kinda deals with the gifts on the same day like its a grocery list.

Likes hitting people over the head with those tubes after you finish a bunch of wrapping paper.

Loves eggnog,likes having it with gingerbread cookies.

Laughed at a gingerbread man he baked for 30 minutes straight once. has a picture of it and loses it anytime he stumbles across it.

[zukkacore]

Whitewashing in AtlaLok: the Western & Christian Influence on s2 of LoK

Ok, so i’m not a big brained expert on all things indigenous or even all things asian but I do think bryke's christian & western worldview seeps so far into season 2 of LoK that i think out of every season it’s by far the most unsalvageable out of everything they’ve ever done in the Atlaverse and is a very insidious kind of whitewashing. I know that sounds hefty but here’s what I mean

For the record, I’m a mixed filipino person & while there is religious diversity among filipinos, more than i think ppl realize or that the catholic majority is willing to let on, when we were colonized a large percent of the population was indeed forced to convert to catholicism so that’s my background, & i don’t know everything about taoism or the what the tai chi symbol represents but the way Bryke westernize the concept of Yin and Yang is honestly… kinda bewildering. They get so many details about yin & yang wrong?? & Yes, it’s possible they could’ve been trying to create their own lore that differentiates itself from the traditional depictions of Yin & Yang, but in the end i think it doesn’t matter b/c the lore they invent is a very obviously western interpretation of the concept of “balance”.

The most important and honestly worst change they make is that concepts of “light” and “dark” are completely oversimplified and flattened to represent basically “good” and “evil” (which, the light and dark side are a bit more complex than representing just “peace/order vs. Chaos” like the show might imply but we don’t even have time for that, but is funny how they get the genders wrong. Like. Traditionally, light is usually coded masculine and dark is usually coded feminine, but never mind that, that’s just a tangent). This really simplifies the nuance of the s2 conflict and makes it a lot less interesting, not to mention just—misrepresents a very real religious philosophy?

And for the record, a piece of media going out of its way to do "the show, don’t tell" thing of stating in the text that “oh, light and dark are not the same thing as good vs. evil” without actually displaying that difference through the writing is just lip service, and its poor writing. A lot of pieces of media do this, but i think s2 of LoK is particularly egregious. The point of this philosophy of balance is that you aren’t supposed to moralize about which side is “good” or “bad”, or even really which one is “better” or “worse”. Even if the show states the concepts are not interchangeable, if the media in question continually frames one side (and almost always its “chaos/darkness”) as the “evil” side, then the supposed distinction between “light vs. dark” and “good vs. evil” is made moot. And besides the occasional offhand remark that implies more nuance without actually delivering, Vaatu is basically stock evil incarnate.

This depiction of conflict as “defeating a singular representation of total evil” isn’t solely christian, but it is definitely present in christian beliefs. And I think those kinds of stories can be done well, but in this case, in a world filled entirely of asian, Pacific Islander & inuit poc, to me it feels like a form of subtle whitewashing? B/c you’re taking characters that probably wouldn’t have christian beliefs, and imposing a christian worldview onto them. Not to mention removes what could have been an interesting conflict of any nuance and intrigue… and honestly, sucks, because I do think s2 has the bones of an interesting idea, mostly b/c there are potential themes that could’ve been explored—I know this b/c they were already explored in a movie that exists, and it’s name is Princess Mononoke! It has a lot of the same elements—tension between spirits and humanity, destruction of nature in the face of rapid industrialization, moral ambiguity where there are no easy or fast answers and both sides have sympathetic and understandable points of view. (Unsurprising b/c Miyazaki is Japanese & Japanese culture has a lot of influence from Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, etc)

Bryke’s western & christian worldview also totally seeps into the characterization of Unalaq, the antagonist of the season which is a real problem. I’m in the middle of rewatching s2 right now and what struck me is that….. Unalaq comes across kinda ecofash AND fundamentalist which is 1) seems like an odd combination but maybe it really isn’t? 2) i think is a really tacky choice considering that the water tribes take the majority of its inspiration from inuit and polynesian indigenous cultures.

I honestly forgot abt this but Unalaq gives this whole lame speech abt how the SWT & humans as a whole suck b/c of their lack of spiritual connection & it was really eerie to me b/c "humans are morally bankrupt and they must be wiped out/punished for their destruction of the environment" is total ecofash logic bc it blames all of humanity for damage caused by those in power—be they capitalists or whoever. It’s a worldview that blames the poor and powerless for something they have no say in, and has real eugenics undertones bc with every implication of culling, there has to be someone who appoints themself the job of culling—of who is and isn’t worthy of death.

This belief also struck me as......... kinda christian in it's logic as well which is WEIRD b/c once again........ their cultural inspirations are DEFINITELY not christian...... The whole "man is inherently evil and must spend their whole lifetime repenting/must face punishment for it’s wickedness" thing and the way that christianity treats humanity as born with original sin or inherently corrupt—as well as above or separate from nature are really stronger undertones in Unalaqs worldview....... which isn't really an indigenous way or thinking.

I'm generalizing of course but from what I have seen from the indigenous people who speak on this is that (feel free to point out or correct me if i’m mostly generalizing abt Native Americans and not other indigenous cultures & there are some differences here) is that while native tribes are not monolithic and do vary wildly, there are a lot of common threads and that reverence and respect toward nature and your surroundings is an important tenant of indigenous beliefs. (I specifically remember the hosts on All My Relations saying essentially that we humans are a part of nature, we are not separate from it, and humans are not superior to animals—I’m paraphrasing but that is the gist of it)

So, yeah, I think it’s just really distasteful to write an indigenous character who is characterized in a way that’s way more in line with a christian fundamentalist & wants to bring about a ragnarok style apocalypse end of the world when that isn’t really a tenant of our beliefs? (btw, the way the end of the world is framed is also kinda fucked up? If i were being charitable, I could say that maybe s2’s storyline is a corruption of the hindu depiction of the end of the world, but even that sounds mildly insulting for reasons I won’t get into b/c i am Not The Expert On Hinduism. I will say that once again, the framing of the concept is all wrong, the show views the idea of apocalypse through a very western lense)

To wrap this up, I think the depiction of Unalaq could *maybe* work b/c he is the antagonist, so someone who strays from the NWT cultural tradition in a way that makes his view of morality more black and white wouldn’t be a *horrible* idea for the bad guy of the season. Especially because the introduction of capitalism to the A:TLA universe could probably cause a substantial shifts to… idk, everything i guess, b/c capitalism is so corrosive. Like. Sometimes people are just traitors. I do think it would be interesting to portray the way capitalism manifests in a society without white christians. Like… I do think there are a lot of ways secular christianity and capitalism are interlinked. But Unalaq is not portrayed as an outsider, he’s portrayed as hyper-traditionalist in a way that’s vilified? I guess rightly so, he does suck, but it’s just hard to conceptualize how a person like Unalaq comes to exist in the first place. In the end, I don’t really think it makes sense, in a world without white people, I don’t really know where this introduction of black and white christian morality would even come from in the avatar world?

TL;DR, Bryke applying western christian morality & world views to non-white characters in a world where white people have NEVER existed to affect our beliefs is a subtle form of white-washing. It imposes simplified “good vs. evil” world-views & cultural beliefs onto its characters. Any attempt to represent or even just integrate our actual beliefs into the A:tla lore are twisted and misrepresented is a way that is disrespectful and saps out any nuance or intrigue from the story, and alienates the people its supposed to represent from recognizing themselves within the final product. And Finally, on a more superficial story level, these writing choices clashe with the already existing world of ATLA--and is honestly just poor world-building.