#but the fact it can't even manage to choose accurate costumes?

[zahri-melitor]

I opened Robins and I actually think my biggest complaint about this title is actually that Tim Seeley doesn't know when this story is happening. It's signposting one thing and then the art is suggesting a very different thing, and then referencing a third thing...

Like, if you want to write what is supposedly a high-context reflective miniseries referencing old stories with the characters, it would help if you actually set the story in a period, so we know what characters know what.

And Dick-in-a-manbun (his hair hasn't been that long and shaggy for decades) and realistically a version of his Nightwing costume that hasn't been seen at ANY point in Rebirth (no boot stripes, no hand texture), Damian in a costume he stopped wearing in late 2020, Steph using the name Spoiler and in a mash up of her Rebirth Spoiler costume with a purple bat on her chest that does NOT match her costuming once she took the title of Batgirl again, as she moved to a half mask not a full face mask in 2021, Tim getting referred to as 'Red Robin' but wearing his NINETIES Robin costume and also having Damian make a Drake joke?

When is this supposed to be set? How is anyone supposed to believe this? If Tim has been 'Drake' it means it has to be after September 2020 as that's when he changed back to Robin, but at that point Damian's stopped wearing green and is running around in assassin gear in the prelude to switching to his grey costume, and Dick has only just grown out a buzzcut! Steph stopped being Spoiler around the end of 2020!

Are you trying to suggest this title happened in very late 2020, when Damian's going wildly off the rails and running away? Because that's my best guess for the costuming to almost line up, but that is extremely not the Damian you've put on page!

(also Tim Seeley pretty obviously doesn't actually care about several of the characters appearing in it, making things harder)

[vartamin]

i will say that i think kiawentiio is a great casting choice for Katara, she's a great fit for the character and im super excited to see her perform. i will also say however (and this is no fault of kiawentiio's) that im rly disappointed in the costuming choices regarding Katara specifically

Out of all the pictures of the cast so far, Katara definitely feels the most "costume-y" and unrealistic

The design of the patterned pieces on her coat do not resemble any type of Inuit or otherwise indigenous embroidery that I know of, in fact they aren't embroidery at all (which I find personally offensive because embroidery would've looked SO much better and more natural and would relate it more solidly to the Inuit and indigenous clothing it should be based off of) but they are reminiscent of water tribe designs in the show so I would give them a pass on that technicality. However, it's just so bad looking I really can't let it go. It's ugly! There! I said it! I have no real reason to dislike it other than my own personal preference! So what!

Moving on from the coat, the absolute lack of Inuit inspiration is a lot more apparent in the inner layers/traveling clothes. I understand that the Southern Water Tribe being inspired by Inuit/Inupiat/Yupik culture is a cultural outlier in the rest of the show, where the other nations draw from an amalgamation of East and South East Asian cultures, and the Northern Water Tribe of Mongolian and various Siberian cultures. Katara and Sokka's traveling clothes (both in the og show and the netflix adaptation) seem to be inspired more by East Asian clothing in order to bring their designs more in line with the rest of the show, but the lack of Inuit and indigenous inspiration in any of these new designs (that we've been shown so far at least) really annoys me

To my knowledge, even the inner layers in Inuit garments are commonly made of skins, not cloth, but there are other cold climate cultures that will use fabrics like cotton, wool and silks in their clothing, so I could forgive them (again) if they drew accurately from those designs instead.

Katara's outfit appears (to me) to most likely be based off of the Mongolian Deel, but I think an argument could be made for Qing Dynasty Chinese dress as well as they both wrap around the body to clasp to the side of the chest (the look of the clasps however do not seem to have any basis in anything whatsoever)

However, netflix seems to have gone the same way as the shyamalan movie in choosing what looks like a linen(??) fabric? which really stumps me because, to my knowledge, linen is not a fabric often used in cold climate cultures. While it does have thermoregulatory qualities and works well for insulation, it is much more well known for its cooling capabilities than its warming ones. I understand that, to be true to the show they needed to use fabrics not common in traditional Inuit fashion, but even the Mongolian Deel is much more likely to be made of cotton, wool, silk or skins, so the decision to use it seriously throws me for a bit of a loop.

Katara's iconic "hair loopies" are a reference to a traditional Inuit hairstyle (Nunavut Inuit specifically), but the way they have the braids start so far from her part with those plastic beads just makes it look so unnatural. It might be more accurate to the look of the show but spirits it doesn't look good (also just realized now writing this that her necklace pendant is white too it looks like a plastic bottle cap what the fuck EDIT: you see the difference between the faux fur lining her hood and inside it??? CHEAP OLD NAVY DOLLAR STORE LOOKIN ASS COAT)

Even Kanna, who wears the same hairstyle, has her loops integrated more naturally and they look so much better in general

the beads in Katara's hair are not culturally Inuit as far as I know, and instead seem to resemble Tibetan beaded and braided hairstyles. You can see here, though, that they somehow manage to not look like absolute shit and out of place like netflix has Katara's looking (and also are not plastic dental floss white they aren't even white in the show why would they do this to me specifically??)

Somehow, the studio producing a franchise live action show cannot make Katara's hair look better than one of those cheap cosplay wigs you can get off aliexpress

It's not hard to make a show-accurate Katara hairstyle work, though. Silvousplaits on YouTube has a great tutorial for a realistic Katara hairstyle that, in my opinion, is somehow better than the multimillion studio hair they've given Katara in the live action

https://youtu.be/tXP-7ja6J_k?feature=shared

Cosplayers are great and devote so much time and talent to making their costumes, but there is absolutely no reason that professionally produced costuming should look worse than something handmade by amateurs that can often only devote so much time to a craft they've picked up outside of their actual careers.

It's ridiculous.

I don't want to prejudge the ATLA live action before it's even out yet, but I already know I'm going to spend the whole time lamenting every single design choice they've made regarding Katara, and the lack of care that I see in her design makes me reticent to watch it.