#bridgerton makorra

[ayur1n]

" you burn for me? "

Seems like the Southern Watertribe princess fallen for a mixed nations low class, they're the hot topic on everyone lips since they got caught by Lady Whistledown ✍🏽

[anghraine]

A few bad but fairly typical P&P takes got me thinking about ... Mako from Legend of Korra, actually, and also, just fandom dynamics.

Many of you weren't in that fandom (or perhaps any fandom) back when LOK aired, but I was very active in it. I actually liked—and still like—some aspects of LOK better than ATLA, and I certainly liked the fandom better than ATLA's.

That said, LOK fandom was still less a dumpster fire than a landfill explosion. To this day, I couldn't even identify the single character who got hit the hardest by LOK fandom's approach to discourse, which like most fandoms today, painted a thin veneer of social justice over good old-fashioned stanning/ship wars, but did it much more transparently.

In any case, if I were going to try and pick the character who got hit hardest by the LOK discourse truck, Mako would at least be in the running. The later days of LOK fandom can give the sense that the basic ship war from Day 1 was Korra/Mako (Makorra) vs Korra/Asami (Korrasami). But my strong impression back when the first book aired was that the ship war dynamic was much more Korra/Mako vs Korra/anyone-but-Mako.

There were plenty of not-Mako options. Korra/Bolin was pretty big for awhile. Korra/Tahno had a substantial following during/after Book 1—Tahno was the waterbender from the rival pro-bending team who got curb-stomped by Amon. There was, of course, Korra/Asami (seemed like no chance in hell at the time, but sweet). It was even a good fandom for hero/villain shippers like me.

I think a lot of this activity ultimately coalesced around Korrasami. But at the time, it hadn't quite happened yet. The fandom was wanky (sorry, discourse-y) about virtually every character, but a lot of people really, really, really hated Mako in particular—Mako haters could encompass people who liked or hated the first season, people who loved or hated Korra, people still mad about Zutara, whatever. I didn't like him at the end of Book 1, myself, though I couldn't buy into the screeds about how abusive and exploitative and otherwise problematic he supposedly was.

Since I didn't actually have much of a stake in the main ship wars, I've always found this dynamic more interesting than anything else in terms of fandom behavior, because I've seen it happen many times, but I hadn't often seen it at the level that Mako hatedom took it to back then. So I was thinking about how this happens, and the particular way it happened with Mako back in the aftermath of Book 1.

Early in Book 1, Mako is revealed to be a tragic, brooding orphan with a slight edge trying to support his sweet-natured younger brother and himself through a mixture of industrial work and magic sports. He gets swept off his feet (literally and metaphorically) by a beautiful, very cool, very rich girl (Asami) and enters a romantic relationship with her, only to feel increasingly drawn to his beautiful, very cool, very powerful friend Korra, our heroine.

Some people pointed out that "which awesome and hot girl do I choose :( it's really hard :( :(" is not the most sympathetic quandary for a character to be in, and for the target audience, particularly unsympathetic coming from a young man. And the choice to repeatedly cut from shippy Mako/Korra moments to Asami looking upset didn't help (especially since Asami lost almost everything when she chose to stick with them and turn on her father). And Mako's eventual apology to Asami was genuinely a bit underwhelming—it's basically "mistakes were made."

And, yeah, those things are true. But fandom is not always so OTT hostile about the man in that kind of love triangle taking awhile to get his shit figured out, even when the man is much older than Mako, a literal teenager. Like, I never thought I'd compare Avatar to Bridgerton, but the Edwina-Anthony-Kate dynamic seems roughly similar and most of the fandom came away from it really invested in Anthony/Kate and sympathetic to them. It depends on the fandom and on the depiction.

It's not that Mako didn't screw up in Book 1. It's that the reaction—he's an awful person for pretty ordinary missteps and some poor relationship choices, he's an abuser, he's the worst character in the show, whatever—just seemed wildly disproportionate.

And also, yeah, overreacting to minor misdeeds and reducing a character to ultra-exaggerated versions of their worst selves out of sheer annoyance is a fandom staple (especially when the misdeeds take up as much air as the early LOK love triangle seemed to for many people, with other aspects of the story crammed into limited space). But the extent of the hatred still struck me as rather extraordinary, especially since he seemed to go from reasonably well-liked to feverishly hated in a short period of time.

My theory after B1 aired was that this really came from the intersection of a fandom that was very prone to this kind of exaggeration and poor faith readings with the actual structure of his characterization in B1. We quickly discover his tragic past with his parents being murdered, and that he's been struggling on the streets, and has to look after a cuddly but clueless brother who doesn't seem to get the urgency of their problems. He uses his prodigious lightningbending abilities to make just enough money in a sort of magic power plant to get by in combination with pro-bending successes. Essentially, we're given far more than the minimum required to sympathize with him and tolerate the occasional asshole moment.

But later on in B1, a lot of his characterization and scenes are directly tied up in the love triangle, and many of his original, somewhat more ... pressing concerns, end up getting pretty much resolved in one way or another. So a lot of those original sources of sympathy that were so concentrated in his early scenes are no longer a concern, while others are no longer being emphasized by the narrative.

And it's certainly the case that Mako was much less widely and disproportionately hated later on, at least in my fandom experience. Some people still hated Makorra with a passionate fire, but Mako himself seemed much more endearing to many people once the narrative dialed down the love triangle, explicitly paid attention to his loyalty as a friend, his basic heroism, his close yet sometimes difficult relationship with his brother, and a certain adorkableness that was not absent in B1, but which wasn't as heavily emphasized.

I don't mean to argue that this later narrative treatment was necessarily better, but I do think the more even distribution of sympathetic qualities or revelations about him alongside his flaws made him much more palatable to a lot of the fandom. It's like people ... just kind of forgot why many of them originally liked him unless the narrative went out of its way to remind them.

This is really long, but I did feel that B1 kind of overplayed its hand with Mako early in the season, and then underplayed it in the later parts of the season, and fandom being fandom, people enormously overreacted to their sense of what was going on in that phase of the story (for many: ARGH!!) and not all the information they actually had.

This isn't a hill to die on for me, exactly. It was just how I saw what was going on—this kind of toxic mix of fandom bullshit with some peculiar choices in the structure of his characterization and what got emphasized (or even mentioned) where. That is still my general impression, though—that the fandom's response wasn't coming from nowhere, but that we were getting this kind of intersection of a fandom even more prone than most to over-reaction and poor faith assumptions + some genuine oddities in structure and emphases in his characterization during that first season.

What does this have to do with P&P? Well, I'll get to that. But this post is honestly long enough already, so I'll do the follow-up tomorrow, probably.

[badlucksav]

About Me

For those of you new around these parts, I’m Sav: writer, artist, multishipper extraordinaire. I like a lot of pairings and a lot of fandoms. My interests are always shifting, but I’m always in the AtLA/LoK fandoms.

This blog has NSFW content, so minors DNI. All NSFW posts are tagged as such and content is placed under a cut.

Here are my current fandoms:

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: Legend of Korra

The 100

Six of Crows

Shadow & Bone

Spider-Man (Tom Holland)

Harry Potter

Stranger Things

The Umbrella Academy

Teen Wolf

Scooby-Doo

Spy X Family

Law & Order: SVU

The Last of Us

Twilight Saga

Game of Thrones

Bridgerton

Just because I haven’t made content for some of them doesn’t mean anything ok

Here are my current OTPs:

Irosami • Makorra • Makonora • Twiyor • Linko • YuTen •Jetko • Zutara • Bellarke • Kanej • Spideychelle • Dramione • Harmony • Stydia • Diego x Lila • Bensaro • Hellcheer • Jabella • Polin • Benedict/Tilley/Paul

I’d do a fic master post but…that’s a lot of work and no way I’d remember to update it, so you can find my Ao3 here, or by fandom:

• Avatar: The Last Airbender

• Avatar: The Legend of Korra

• The 100

• Six of Crows

• Spiderman (Tom Holland)

• Law & Order: SVU

• Shadow & Bone (TV)

• Soul Eater

• Harry Potter

• Spy X Family

• The Last of Us

• Guardians of the Galaxy

• Twilight Saga

You can find my art here on Tumblr but since the search function is kind of trash, you can also find it on my Instagram. My NSFW art can be found on my (18+ only) Twitter. And if you wanna see me randomly yell about things and retweet random content, follow me on my SFW Twitter too.

I am currently accepting prompt requests from these lists [x, x], but my inbox is always open and you’re free to submit ideas you have, but I can give no promises on if/when they’ll actually be completed. I’ll also write for more than just my OTPs, so feel free to send just about any pairing (barring inc*st etc). You can also come to my inbox or DMs just to talk about headcanons and whatnot! I love hearing from people.

I also open commissions sometimes! Most of the information is located below, but feel free to DM or email with other questions. I will always indicate on this post if my commissions are open or closed, but always feel free to message me in case I have an opening.

I also have a Redbubble shop that I was neglecting, but now I’m taking care of it, with some new designs already up and more to come!

I’m not one of those people who has multiple blogs for their different interests. This is a one stop shop, so you’re also going to see a lot of: random art I find, photography, shitposts, body positivity, LGBTQ+ posts, other fandoms I’m not super into but the art/post looked cool, memes, the occasional political post, and anything else that looks neat in addition to fandom stuff (I tag most of these #off topic).

I try to tag thoroughly, but if I miss something please feel free to DM or send an ask (my anons are on) and let me know (this also includes my Ao3 tags). I tag #off topic for things not fandom/writing related, #sav’s scribbles for my writing, #sav’s sketches for my art, #sav answers for asks, and #sav’s stockpile for things I’ve put in my queue.

I have run a few events. You can find the blogs here:

• YuTen Week (2022)

• Avatar March Madness (2022, 2023)

• Azulaang Week (2021)

• Zutara Mythical Creatures Week (2021, 2022)

• Avatar WTF Weekend (2022, 2023, 2024)

Lastly, ask me about my discord servers:

• Lin Beifong server.

• Scooby Doo server.

• Zutara server. (18+)

Commissions are currently closed.

[signed-manny]

fandoms ♡

there are a lot so just be warned

🍒 kpop

bts → ult: jungkook | bias wrecker: jin enhypen → ult: jungwon | bias wrecker: sunghoon stray kids → bias: chan | bias wrecker: changbin xdinary heroes → bias: jooyeon | bias wrecker: o.de red velvet → ult: yeri | bias wrecker: seulgi twice → bias: jihyo | bias wrecker: sana aespa → bias: ningning | bias wrecker: karina ive → bias: wonyoung | bias wrecker: rei new jeans → bias: minji/danielle | bias wrecker: hanni, haerin, hyein seventeen → bias: mingyu | bias wrecker: seungcheol woodz bibi

🍒 other musical artists

hozier (i'd follow him into the woods) sabrina carpenter (my fav honestly, i love her so much) the weeknd (HIS MUSIC) lana del rey (HER MUSIC) chxrry22 (pls pls check her out i beg) maeta (her voice 🧎‍♀️‍➡️)

🍒 avatar: the last airbender & the legend of korra

i've watched the show numerous times since the age of eight have seen lok about four times now, still prefer atla tho ship: zutara, sukka, korrasami, makorra, taang, azulaang, mailee dni: toxic stan of kataang, maiko, and/or zukka show purist, refuse to read the comics bcs imma get pissed off, only read Suki Alone bcs she's the loml

🍒 httyd

watched all the movies and tv shows since the release in 2010, read some of the books, haven't seen the modern day "reboot" and do not want to

🍒 the wizarding world

i'm a gryffindor with a brown bear patronus prefer the marauders and i live in complete denial about their deaths will not discuss jkr on this blog unless it's slander

🍒 dc heroes

battinson is officially my favourite batman tyler heochlin and tom welling are my favourite supermen grant gustin will always be the flash fucking love young justice and i am an obsessive nerd about the bat family WFA >>>

🍒 marvel

spiderman (currently hyperfixated on noir), the og six, the falcon and the winter soldier (esp torres)

🍒 avatar; pandora

huge neteyam girly, like, HUGE he's the love of my life. fr. we ignore his death on this blog bcs wtf are you talking about? he's alive ...

🍒 other stuff (no particular order)

the rookie the good place smallville superman & lois modern family tracker purple hyacinth bridgerton barbie spy x family one piece supernatural camp camp friends brooklyn nine nine the mentalist white collar outer banks vincenzo teen wolf derry girls himym percy jackson inside job the secret history a study in drowning

let's be honest, i definitely forgot something - and it was probably something very niche