#we saw it with Euphoria (granted not the best example)

[travellingtribble]

kinda long post sorry lol. not really spoilers? but some ramblings, no context given.

the fact that even after so much queer joyful scenes in OFMD I still tense up at the first sign of struggle really says a lot about how much (supposedly)"queer" media has fucked us over.

Like, after episodes 6-7 I am legitimately scared of the finale. What is going to happen? Will the drama finally be resolved? Or will we have another S1-style cliffhanger? I genuinely don't know what to think. And I know DJenks & co. wouldn't do that to us, they wouldn't leave us like that.

would they? no they wouldn't. but... what if? I can't stop thinking what if something happens. what if something goes wrong. I want to trust the crew but also I can't bring myself to fully trust them. because we've seen what happens whenever we have a queer character get some happiness. we've seen it. and I am so so scared that if I lower my guard the same thing is going to happen here.

But I guess we'll simply have to wait and see. PLEASE tell me I'm not alone in this and I'm not just making problems in my head and overthinking.

[pinkeoni]

Writing Byler into the Narrative: Chekhov's Lie

Am I making a post about a topic that has already been talked into the ground and needs no further explanation? Yes! Because it's my blog and I get to talk about whatever I want.

So when discussing whatever the biggest "byler proof" is, the easiest and best answer is simply "the narrative." But what exactly does that mean?

Well aside from the characterization and themes tending to point in that direction, there's also a major literary rule at play— Chekhov's Gun

So this is Anton Chekhov.

Famous Russian playwright. Prolific short story author. Very important to the dramatic and literary world.

Chekhov sees one of his colleagues plays and writes him a letter that says "Hey, if you're gonna go through the effort putting a gun on stage, just make sure it goes off, okay? Otherwise, don't put it there." or something to the effect of that.

"Chekhov’s gun is a dramatic principle that suggests that details within a story or play will contribute to the overall narrative. This encourages writers to not make false promises in their narrative by including extemporaneous details that will not ultimately pay off by the last act, chapter, or conclusion. Chekhov’s gun has become a highly influential theory of effective writing that mandates noticeable details are integrated into the plot trajectory, character development, and mood of the work."

Here's a simple example of Chekhov's gun used in the show:

Chekhov's Purple Palm Tree Delight

While burying Hero Agent Man in the desert, Argyle get's stressed out and Jonathan tells him in supposedly a throwaway line to smoke some Purple Palm Tree Delight to help him feel better.

And then later in the Piggyback when they need to distract the Argyle clone in the Surfer Boy Pizza, BAM. Jonathan pulls out a fresh Purple Palm Tree Delight.

What serves as a small detail in one episode, serves a larger purpose in a future episode. It's a very simple yet effective plant and payoff. The gun has been Chekhov'd.

What happens if the gun does not Chekhov?

For this I'll use an example from a different show, here's a scene from Euphoria season 2. (spoilers, btw)

At the start of the scene, the character Nate loads a gun from inside of his car as he is going to confront his dad. We have seen this gun before. Oh my god, is Nate going to kill is dad? The audience may wonder.

Nate then puts the loaded gun into his right pocket as he enters the building where his dad is staying.

Later in the scene, we see Nate reach into his right pocket and pull out the gun he just loaded.

We then see Nate put the gun away into his left pocket, reach back into his right pocket, and pull out— a flash drive?

Granted this flash drive does have pre-established importance, but why the fuck did Nate have that gun with him, if he wasn't going to use it? The most basic rule of a Chekhov's Gun?

I know that it was likely there just to build suspense for the audience, but considering that Nate's gun has already been established (and used) earlier in the season, the show didn't need to build-up the importance of the gun earlier in the scene if it wasn't going to payoff. If we saw Nate putting his hand into his pocket in a threatening way, there might be enough there for the audience to suspect he has his gun in there before doing the twist with the flash drive. It would have given the same effect of suspension and subversion of expectations without it feeling like a shitty non-payoff.

I can only speak for myself, but when this happened I was just baffled and annoyed. What was the point of all that? When a Chekhov's Gun doesn't go off, it feels super unsatisfying.

Another good example of a gun that never Chekhov'd is the Jules-cheating storyline that became inconsequential, was not the reason Jules and Rue even broke up, was seemingly forgotten and forgiven by the end, and did nothing but give fans a reason to hate Jules.

And Now: The Van Scene

We've all seen it and we all know it. Will gives Mike the painting we saw earlier in the season, the one that's supposed to be for someone that he likes, which was a Chekhov's Gun in itself. We saw the painting earlier in the season and now it's being revealed. The gun is Chekhoving.

Really the painting itself has already payed off, but what this scene does is establish a new Chekhov's Gun that has yet to go off, and that's the lie that Will told Mike— that the painting was from El, not him.

Even if this wasn't the "friends don't lie" show, I mean, a lie in a tv show that goes undiscovered and has no major consequences? I mean come on. It's almost too obvious.

Did this gun already Chekhov?

Technically there is still somewhat of a payoff to this lie being told, even if the reveal that it was a lie hasn't happened yet. We see the consequences of Will's lie in this scene here:

Ah yes, the monologue. You know the one, where Will is over Mike's shoulder the whole time, the one spawned by Will remarking "your the heart" which is a reference to the van scene we all just witnessed in which Will pours his heart out to Mike under the guise of it actually being El's feelings? Yeah that monologue.

Contrary to popular belief I am of the opinion that Mike's monologue is NOT the reason El lost to Vecna, however Mike finally confessing immediately followed by El losing does not make it look any better for them. I don't think that the lie had world ending consequences, but it definitely had emotional ones.

The reveal of the lie can lead to one of two things happening (not all once)

Mike finds out that Will lied to him about El commissioning the painting. Mike and El stay together despite it all, Will accepts that Mike doesn't love him back.

Mike finds out that Will lied about El commissioning the painting. El and Mike do not stay together because the feelings of love are not genuine. Mike and Will, despite Will's expectations, end up together since that what Mike's feelings of love are in response too.

The biggest difference between the first scenario and the second scenario is that the first one is already happening right now.

Mike and El are still together by the end of the season, and Will already thinks that he doesn't have a chance with Mike.

Why cock the gun if setting it off is just going to keep things the way they were?

Of course this Chekhov's gun isn't the only "proof" working in byler's favor, and I wouldn't have suggested the second scenario if the show didn't also give Mike an arc where he couldn't say I love you to his girlfriend, make him act weird around Will, actively push themes of non-conformity, among other things.

Combined with everything else, I do still consider Chekhov's Gun to be the biggest proof of byler. Not following through with one of the most popular rules of dramatic writing just to hold together a weak relationship? OK

tl;dr: Byler canon because a Russian playwright said so

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTING A STARTUP IS REALLY HARD

Suppose you are a little, nimble guy being chased by a big, stable organization from which it would be for the company just to break even. And in fact one of the symptoms of bad judgement is believing you have good judgement. So few businesses really pay attention to making customers happy. Suppose another multiple of three. It will, ordinarily, be a group. Business is a kind of ritualized warfare. On the other hand, history is even fuller of examples of young people who were working on Viaweb, a bigger company in the e-commerce business was granted a patent on it. But the founders contribute ideas.

You're probably violating a patent every time you tie your shoelaces. But they are not the main target of those who want to get the best rowers. It would have been a lot of other people's. They'd face the mother of all boycotts. What they go by is the number of sufficiently good founders starting companies, and that often means seeing something the big company will get wrong if they try. In the future, investors will increasingly be unable to wait for startups to present to investors. What the anti-immigration people say that instead of letting foreigners take these jobs, we should expect founders to do it. But that's not the limiting factor on the number of startups is that there is now a lot of immigrants working in it. But money is just the intermediate stage—just a shorthand—for whatever people want, and you will greatly reduce it. If you assemble a team of qualified experts and tell them to make a new web-based software, if you did somehow accumulate a fortune, the ruler or his henchmen would find a way to compress your whole working life into a few years ago.

I want to work on technology per se, so long as you work on problems demanding enough to stretch you. The patent office has been overwhelmed by both the volume and the novelty of applications for software patents, and as a rule they seemed pretty jaded. If you took ten people at random out of the big galley and put them in a boat by themselves, they could probably go faster. But if you try to attack this type of approach now, but it isn't something that has to pervade every program you write. Now an angel can go to something like Demo Day or AngelList and have access to the same deals VCs do. It's part of the game. Even if we could somehow replace investors, I don't see how we could replace founders. For the next year or so, if anyone expressed the slightest curiosity about Viaweb we would try to sell them the company.

There is a large random multiplier in the success of any company. I was about 10 I saw a documentary on pollution that put me into a panic. The distribution of investors should mirror the distribution of wealth. Certainly it's a better test than your a priori notions of what problems are important to solve, no matter what the source. 0 has such an air of euphoria about it is the fact I already mentioned: that startups are becoming a more normal thing to do. If multiple investors have to share a valuation, it will help later stage investors as well. In Lisp, functions are first class objects. We tell the startups we fund not to worry about money.

And so far that competitor is crushing us. It's hard to predict in advance which startups will succeed. In some Lisps expressions can return multiple values. No energy is wasted on defense. Increase taxes, and willingness to take risks decreases in proportion. What is technology? Combine this with the confidence parents try to instill in their kids, and every year you get a new crop of 18 year olds who think they know.

For the next year or so, if anyone expressed the slightest curiosity about Viaweb we would try to sell them things. To be patentable, an invention has to be finite, and the only ways to acquire these rapidly were by inheritance, marriage, conquest, or confiscation. For most of history, success meant success at zero-sum games. It's obvious now that he was just an elementary school teacher, after all. Which means, especially in the case of Gilded Age financiers contending with one another for deals, but they are. The reason young founders go through the motions of starting a startup is like a giant galley driven by a spirit of benevolence. The reason you've never heard of him is that he's proven himself to be a contender again, this is how they could do more than search. But they are not the main target of those who want to do this. The first was the rule of law. The startup world became more transparent and more unpredictable. In effect, acquirers assume the customers know who has the best technology. That suit probably hurt Amazon more than it is police or freedom?

Wealth has been getting created and destroyed but on balance, created for all of human history. The world market in programmers seems to be growing. If you can come up with heuristics for recognizing genuinely interesting problems, but for the ambitious ones it can be an incomparably valuable sort of exploration. Get a version 1. Kids often want to be lied to. The first was the rule of law. And when you discover a new way to do venture investing. In effect, this structure gives the investor a free option on the next round, which they'll only take if it's worse for the startup than they could get paid for it. It's hard even to imagine. So strangely enough the optimal thing to do. If you want to patent an algorithm, you have to know who you should be nice to everyone. One thing it means is that there will be a problem that founders keep control of their companies for longer.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, David Hornik, and Aaron Swartz for reading a previous draft.

[colossal-fallout]

Can we have a hella needy (to the point near crazed) dom Hange annihalating a GN reader's cognitive functions with a strap? Thanks :D

I certainly can. 😚

Hange just awakens something in me...

GN reader X Hange

Warning: NSFW 18+ SMUT. Mouth spitting. Slight deg. Strap on.

   “Levi, did you need section A3b put with the Research grant, or the Research progress report?” You ask, holding up two rather large chunks of paper work.

Levi’s eyes flicker up to you from his standing position at a table in Hange’s office; elbow deep in his own work. 

“I have no idea.” He mutters honestly. “Ask shitty glasses.” 

You turn to look at Hange who was usually at her desk in the corner. “Hange, do I pu-” 

You freeze when you notice she’s staring at you intently, her elbows on the desk and covering her mouth with her entwined fingers; her eyes dark and an eyebrow raised. You knew that look. She was so deep in thought that you would probably have to rouse her from her daydream. 

“Hange?” 

“Oi, wake up.” Levi scolds, throwing a wooden pen-pot in her direction. 

She flinches as it crashes onto the surface of her desk. 

 “Hm?” She blinks. “Sorry. I was miles away.” 

“We know.” Levi mumbles with a cold glare from his steely eyes. “Which file do we put A3b into?” 

“Both. You need two copies.” 

You and the captain both let out an exasperated sigh, pulling out an extra sheet of paper and readying your quills. 

 Her chocolate pooled eyes return to you, her mind slowly sinking back into her daydream as if she were sliding into a hot bath. Those beautiful orbs latch onto your form, drinking you in deeply. You’d assumed she was pondering some science thing like she usually did. But unbeknownst to you and Levi, under her desk her legs were crossed tightly, her crotch thudding and pulsing with intense yearning for you. There was just something about you that just ignited the kerosene of her wildest, most feral desires. 

 The way you moved for example; to anyone else you’re just... moving. But to her its like your movements are pronounced, your unique mannerisms standing out as if the air around you were a liquid and you just sort of...stood out. 

And those eyes... that smile... that ass.

 You and Hange Zoe had been dating for a little while now, but it wasn’t too often you got to spend time alone these days. Erwin was really piling on the workload and the much needed anti-stress hormones only added fuel to the fire. 

Her thighs tense and squeeze together, hardly not able to take the hot gushing sensation her body was providing her with; her skin heating up as she watches your furrowed brow concentrate on your writing.

 She runs a hand through her hair in frustration, her leg beginning to bounce up and down with impatience. 

 Come on, Levi. Hurry and finish your work... She silently pleads, her nails now digging into the wood of the chair her own perfect ass was placed upon. 

Her eyes enlarge when you bite your lip in concentration - the last time she saw you do that was when you were riding her face into glory. Your cum so deliciously sweet and filling. Who needed food if she had your bodily fluids to feast upon? 

She relives the moments you’d come undone at her doing, your cries of pleasure melodic, your facial expressions as you -

“I’m done.” Levi finally sighs with relief, head rolling back to your direction. “You need any help? Or can I go and take a shit?” 

“They’re fine.” Hange snaps her head up. “I’ll help them if they need it.” 

“Okay.” Levi shrugs. “Don’t torture them too much.” he heads for the door. 

Oh if only he knew.

Hange gets to her feet, slowly circling to the other side of her desk as he makes his way to the door, trying to hold herself back as much as possible during those torturous last few seconds of Captain Levi’s presence. 

She follows him to the door feigning a yawn as he opens the door. 

“Goodnight, Levi.” 

“Night.” 

 Not even a second after he leaves the threshold of her office, she slams the door behind him and locks it, the loud bang catching your attention. 

“H-hange?” You ask, noticing her expression as she stalks towards you - The very same she rarely showed when she was about to go ape shit over something. “S-sorry, i’m almost done I swea-” 

She silences you by yanking your hair and slapping her lips off yours, tongue instantly sliding down your throat with no reservations. Her free hand rips your shirt before you even have time to register what’s going on. Her hands ravish you, like a person who’d been staved for days, finally able to get their hands on a human sized piece of meat. 

“Take off your pants. Now.” She growls. 

The authority in her voice sends an immediate rush of arousal down between your legs, yet you were still trying to take in what was going on. You automatically obey, sliding your trousers down your thighs, her hand grabbing your sex as soon as it tasted the fresh air. 

“This is mine.” She growls, her teeth nipping your neck. “And I demand to use it. Right now.” 

You nod, lips parting. “Y-yes ma’am...” 

In a flash she has you bent over, face on the desk sticking to the now not-so-neat stack of papers, your hands pinned behind your back as she harshly takes her free hand and slithers it around your body, starting to rub and caress between your legs, her crotch grinding against your bare ass as her clit demands your friction. 

Her long body leans down and caresses her face into your nape, hand still working you as you whine, her hips rolling against your soft flesh. 

“mmm...” She groans in your ear, “Your body is mine. I can do what I like to you.” She reinforces this with a territorial sinking of her teeth, sucking your neck and leaving a nice darkening mark upon your flesh. 

Hange is beyond feral. 

She crossed that bridge an hour ago when you’d dropped your papers and bent over in front of her. 

She was now well within the territory of hysteria. 

Her grinds become more desperate, your shoulders hurting from how she hand you pinned, but it was complimented deliciously from how her hand and fingers were attentive to your sex, your knees weak as her hot breath invades you in the best possible way. 

She suddenly spins you around, the relief of her grasp making you sigh deeply while you watch her remove her own trousers and unveiling her pussy - her arousal leaking from her lips and spreading to her thighs and ass as she harshly pushes you down onto your knees, pushing herself into your mouth with a high pitched whine. 

“Good little soldier...” She hums, eyes closing and head throwing back as her hands rock your head at her own pace, totally under her control. “You make me feel so... ah~! so good.”  

The taste of your lovers thick juices makes you whine like a little lap dog, wanting nothing more than for her to totally ruin you like the little bitch you were for her.

Her over sensitive slit that was good to blow at the best of times began to flex and quake, her loud moans warning you she was about to detonate.

Your eyes enlarge as she screams your name again and again into the heavens, her orgasm igniting the flames of your own yearning as she cusses and swears, her grip on your hair becoming tighter.

She begins to laugh softly as she comes back down to earth, the euphoria of finally having you possessing her - that succubus within her clawing its way to the surface as she throws you back onto the desk with ease, reaching into the drawer.

She'd been prepared.

She knew you were going to be in her office this evening and she wasn't about to let this chance of annihilating you slip through her starved fingers.

"Hange..." You whine in wanting when she pulls out her large strap, not taking her snug eyes off you as she fastens it to herself, adjusting it with such familiarity she didn't need to look down.

Running her tongue up your neck and into your ear, she lines it up to you, the anticipation a disgusting drug that made you feel almost ashamed to be excited to be destroyed by this magnificent woman. Hange turns you into something you weren't too familiar with, but you didn't care; especially as she slides it into you after spitting down onto your entrance.

You cry out as she thrusts, the friction on her clit from the toy enticing an evil grin as she fills you to the brim over and over again - that wild insane gleam in her eye as she smirks at you was enough to hurtle you into your own corner of lustful insanity.

"Beg for me" she hisses with malice, grabbing your face with force.

"Hange! Oh my god! Please! Harder!"

Her nails dig into your cheeks as she graces your wish, slamming herself roughly in and out of you, watching your eyes roll and cross, your body becoming a pile of mush in the palm of her hand.

She gives your cheek a squeeze. "Open."

You obey, parting your lips and flattening your tongue as she gathers spit at her lips, pushing it out with her wet muscle and watching you swallow it like it were holy water - a sinner desperate for their retribution.

Her hips slam harder, the desk clanking everything that were in the drawers as your orgasm quickly hurtles towards you.

"Cum for me." She commands.

You heard the scream. But it didn't feel like it came from you. But apparently it did as your body explodes into waves of white hot surges, rolling through you over and over again, your jaw slackening, still in Hange's grasp, your tongue falling out - the sight of this pushing your lover back into that higher plane of existence her own loud cries almost harmonising with yours and you both blindly tumble down into the void.

Hange had wanted - no needed you for days. The supernova of finally having you was more than heavenly as your ruined sex gets pushed into ecstasy again and again. Hange really does bring some dark shadow aspect of yourself to the surface. You really were just her bitch.

And you love it.

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

[clairecrouch-blog]

Morsmordre

Campsite near the Quidditch Trillenium Stadium, Dartmoor, Devon.

Quidditch World Cup Final, 18 August 1994

  Yes. Oh, fuck, yes

I think, turning the wand in my hands.

It’s been too fucking long since I was allowed to have one, and I just have to say it, I can’t wait to try it.

I know exactly what I want to do because, even if being finally free, for the first time in so much time, is filling me with a good dose of euphoria, there’s something that I’m not willing to tolerate.

The little drama that my former ‘friends’ have set up to frighten the mudbloods may have scared the Ministry, but it made me want to poke my eyes out not to be forced to look at such a mess.

I’m pissed off, I can feel rage crawling under my skin in short bursts of adrenaline, and at the same time I feel fine.

Fucking alive.

That fucking moment. That in which I felt the Imperius loosening its grip, frayed by the incessant work of my will, that has corroded it piece by piece after many years in which its icy fingers had taken everything away, leaving me as a fucking puppet in my father’s hands.

Dad. You damn bastard.

You’ll pay for this, you’ll pay for every single day in which I was forced to live a half-life.

And I’ll make sure it will be long and painful.

That fucking moment.

That in which I opened my eyes as from a long dreamless sleep, and around me there was the shouting crowd, a noise that hurt my ears, because I’m used to silence.

There aren’t any noises in our house, it’s a fucking mausoleum, a tomb where my father would have wanted to bury me forever.

That was definitely not what my mother wanted,when she begged him to get me out of Azkaban, because what good is saving someone’s life just to condemn them to another imprisonment, devoid of any will?

Just the books. He left me just those, and not even all of them.

I believe he enjoyed doling them out to me, and I suspect the same sadism that runs through my veins also pumps in his, although in a completely different way.

I’ve never given myself a limit, my father imposed too many of them upon himself, but I think that at a certain point perversion must find its way out.

And dad isn’t exactly the kind of guy who would pay a whore just to rage against her.

No, he’s a marvel of repression, in his vision, which is no less twisted and obsessive than mine, everything that isn’t ‘normal’ is to be deleted.

I, for one, and he has always looked at me as a mistake which he didn’t know how to fix.

In that moment I wasn’t really aware of it, it was a weird sensation, I was there but at the same time I was elsewhere, as if any instinct that had ever driven my life had been brutally extinguished.

But now, looking back, I can see how I was, and I see it with hurting clarity.

Even the house elf pitied me, I remember how she asked my father to grant me a prize

Master Barty, the young master is behaving, please, let him go to the Quidditch World Cup

as if I were a retarded child who managed, after a thousand efforts, to make a ten-piece jigsaw puzzle.

That fucking moment.

That in which I saw a wand sticking out of the pocket of a boy who was sitting in front of me, in the Top Box of the stadium, and I realized that there was nothing to hold my hand back.

And now I’m holding that wand in my fist, and I’m feeling so fucking myself that it’s almost scary.

I breathe in deeply.

Calm down, Crouch. Relax.

Just think rationally, we don’t want to get back to the old man’s house, do we?

No. Definitely not.

Let’s use our heads, then.

But I must do something, I can’t let those hooded bastards, with their decorated masks, take credit for all this mess that broke out.

They haven’t done anything, all these years, they just got back to their nice fucking jobs, while I was left to rot, first in Azkaban, and then in my father’s house.

They kept on screwing their nice fucking wives, while I’ve spent all these years without seeing a woman even from afar.

And even if I had seen a woman, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.

I was nineteen when dad threw me in Azkaban.

Now I’m thirty

no, thirty-one, don’t you remember? You turned thirty-one in April

and when I think that my father practically fucked up the best years of my life, I also think that it won’t be enough for me to kill him just once.

I look around, only a pile of ashes and burnt wood remains of all the colourful tents that crammed the campsite, and the burning smell takes my breath away, but it’s fine.

I haven’t been out for too long, any feeling different from the oppressive air of my room is like drinking a sip of water in a hot sunny day.  

I haven’t been under the sun for years, dad wouldn’t even let me go in the garden, and when I look at myself in the mirror I see a pale ghost, with almost no blood in his veins.

But now I feel it, my blood, pumping like crazy, and I breathe in again, as I take big steps among the debris, as if all of this belonged to me.

I kick a pile of scorched wood, just for the sake of it.

Because now I can.

And I instinctively draw my wand, pointing it towards the sky, as I used to do back in the old days, as I haven’t done for so long.

“Morsmordre!” I shout, and it’s absurd, feeling the wand feebly shaking in my fingers, while a flash of green light explodes in the darkness, shading the night with a ghostly and unsettling glare.

Jesus Christ.

It’s beautiful.

The Mark. I haven’t seen it for years, and I linger charmed for an instant, peering its sinuous shape twisting and leaving an evanescent trail of green smoke.

My Lord.

I will be forever faithful. Forever

I think, with an overpowering feeling of pride, because I haven’t denied him.

I didn’t hide, I fought.

I lost, and I paid the ultimate price.

And my thoughts go out to those who are still in jail, to Bella, to Rodolphus, and Rabastan, and to all the others, and I don’t even know if they’re still alive.

I felt guilty, when my mother took me out of there.

My instinct for survival yelled to me to put as many miles between me and that cursed place as possible, but the thought of all of them has been digging inside me like a worm.

That’s why the Dark Mark now stands out as a warning over the ruins of this night that should have been the highest celebration of peace, love, and fraternity.

My ass. You have failed, dad, with all your speeches on the necessity to cooperate, on the need to cement the links between wizards of different countries.

You have failed, because man is, by nature, an aggressive animal, and he will always find a good reason to take down his neighbour.

The Mark is here to remind my so-called ‘friends’ that there is still someone who’s not afraid.

None of them has been through what I’ve been through, and yet I am here, and I want them to know that I intend to find a way to bring the Dark Lord back.

I know that he’s not dead.

There are the Horcruxes, he cannot die.

True, not everyone knew about the artifacts in which Lord Voldemort had sealed parts of his soul.

On the contrary, just a few of us knew, only those of the inner circle, but not everyone has ended up in Azkaban.

Malfoy, for example. He’s still out there, I know because dad spoke about him a couple of times, he has kept his place at the Ministry.

If I had Malfoy on my hands I’d claw his eyes out and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine, and he should be grateful that I wouldn’t touch his wife even with someone else’s cock.

I’ve always fucking hated Narcissa, so different from Bella, so disgustingly involved in her role of stage mommy.

I remember how she carried that shrieking little monster around, displaying him as if he were a gemstone.

What I saw, when I looked at illustrious little Draco Malfoy, was just a twenty-inch thingy, drooling all over himself and constantly whining.

I don’t like children.

I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want any kids, but certainly I wouldn’t want to deal with them in their first years.

That’s women’s business, after all.

I don’t know exactly what to do, now that the Mark has been conjured, but one thing is for sure.

I can’t stay here, and all of a sudden I hear a noise on my left, I turn and I see him.

A young boy, staring at me.

He looks dizzy, as if he had just come to his senses, but he saw me, he saw my face very well.

Kill him.

I don’t want to say some bullshit, but he looks like the same kid I stole the wand to, in the Top Box.

Maybe.

Kill him.

I don’t lack the inclination, christ, I haven’t used the Avada Kedavra for ages, and for a moment I get carried away.

I move a few steps towards him, intent on taking him out, just for the sake of being free again.

I know that I shouldn’t, the Dark Lord has never wished for the killing of other wizards, but as far as I’m concerned, this little prick could even be a muggle-born.

Plus, don’t I deserve it, after so many years?

I’m still holding the wand in my hand, when I hear voices approaching, along with the crackles of Stunning spells and magic shields.

No, change of plan.

Let’s pull up stakes, and quickly, too.

And that’s what I do, I turn around and I go, also pretty fast because, obviously, I couldn’t expect that conjuring the Dark Mark after almost fifteen years wouldn’t have alerted the Aurors.

It’s not a problem, there’s a wood nearby, and it looks perfect to disappear, and I’ve got a wand.

I can apparate wherever I like.

Do you still remember how to do it?

I crawl in the leafy shadows of the trees, while I think about the fact that I’ve got nowhere to go.

I know that I want to look for my lord, but I have no idea as to his whereabouts.

The truth is that I don’t have half a galleon in my pockets, even if I think I could make do, one way or another.

In short, being free is enough, then I’ll think about the rest.

Then hurry up and get away from here, fuck, wake up, don’t you realize that if they find you, it will be Azkaban again?

But I can’t even finish this thought.

They have noticed that something is moving, and a sequence of flashes starts raining on me, basically from every direction.

I raise a shield, but it’s weak, because in the meantime I’m running as if the devil were chasing me.

I can’t disapparate, it’s too dangerous in a situation like this.

Run, Crouch, fuck, don’t let them find you

I think, dodging a Stunning spell that whistles beside my ear, and a second, just a few inches from my arm.

And the third one nails me, and I just can think

God fucking damn it

and then everything goes dark.

  “Barty.”

I can’t believe it. Fuck.

Not you.

Not again.

But when I open my eyes, there he is, his goddamn face, with that goddamn expression of eternal disappointment.

There is nothing, in him, that I don’t hate.

Those ridiculous little moustache, that constant trembling of his hands, his blank eyes, his wrinkled skin, with that yellowish and vaguely nauseating colour.

I look around, and I’m in my room again.

My prison.

Maybe someone would say that it’s better than Azkaban, maybe it really is, at least there are no Dementors.

But the truth is that I have failed, that I only had one possibility, and I screwed it up.

I immediately realize that something’s missing.

My books have disappeared, , the bookshelf is empty, and I can’t see Winky’s trembling and huddled figure anywhere.

“Where...Where’s the elf?” I mutter, slightly dazed.

I’ve got the Imperius on me again, I still feel that numbness, that lack of will, that disgusting apathy that has been my condition for ten years.

Maybe I just dreamed about escaping, maybe it happened only in my head.

“And you ask me where she is? I threw her out, obviously.

That entangling little creep is done making fun of me.

So, I’m sorry, but no more Winky.

No more grants.

No more books. We’re doing things my way, now” says my father, and the sharp blade of his voice descends upon my neck, brutally breaking any hope.

“I don’t know how you managed to oppose the Imperius, but I can guarantee this will never happen again” he sentences concisely, looking at me the way you’d look at a cockroach in your pantry.

I don’t answer, I can’t.

I don’t have the strength, because he won.

And he waits for a moment at the door, with his hand on the knob, without even looking at me.

“There are some things that never change, Barty, and you’re one of them.

You know what?

I wish you’d never been born.”

(Sorry for any mistake, I wrote this in Italian and then I had to translate it) 

[kit-snicket-rps]

Divorce starts with marriage.

"This is all your fault, I hope you know that" Kate's tone was cutting, but something had to cut through the thick tension that had built up between them in the car. 

To be fair, she wasn't entirely wrong, it had been his idiotic plan that had landed them out into the middle of nowhere, insisting that the gardens of what seemed to Kate like a small castle would be the ideal location for an intimate reception. As usual, she'd lingered behind on his tour, nursing a glass of champagne and doing her best to bite her tongue about the unnecessary opulence of it all, at least she could thank years of practicing the law for her spectacular poker face - even if it occasionally dropped to give way for an eye-roll or two when their eyes met.

She had missed the boat - or rather the car - as she watched her sister speed away, leaving behind a trail of dust that clogged the scene, and a coughing Kate. Once it cleared, she became painfully aware of what her sister was attempting to do, and it was met with a disbelieving scoff, raised eyebrows and a clenched fist as she pulled her phone out and began to search for a spot that would somehow grant her the signal she'd been lacking since they'd arrived.  

Anecdotal sayings were rarely ever based on reality, but she found herself wondering how accurate that theory might have been as David's tire lodged itself into the mud that had formed when they'd hit a pocket of unexpected rain - if this entire situation wasn't a real example of when it rains, it pours then she wasn't as smart as all those degrees on her wall liked to flaunt.

Kate had been expecting some sort of response, perhaps a witty retort of some form? Instead he laughed and proceeded to get out into the car, the headlights still shining on his form as he trudged determinedly forward, as if taking his chances on a dark road in the midst of a rainstorm was a safer choice than staying in a car with her. It was by far the most confusing behavior she'd seen from him so far, and it took her a few minutes to realize the last place she wanted to be was stuck alone in a car in the middle of nowhere, she'd seen enough horror movies to know how well that turned out. "Fuck" she moaned to herself as she turned the car off and pocketed the key, after a few short seconds of both building up the courage to follow him in the rain and convincing herself that if he somehow died she'd likely be charged with manslaughter, and jail was something she was not cut out for.

Thankfully, he hadn't gone far; not so thankfully, she hadn't quite made out the large puddle of mud she was about to slide into.

By time they had made it to the nearest building - a strange looking shack that made her almost positive that this had all been a plan to lure her away and murder her - she was sure they looked like they'd been through hell and back. Quickly making her way to the bathroom in the hopes of somewhat cleaning up - at least the rain had somewhat helped in removing the mud on her arms and legs - though she knew her outfit was entirely ruined. All she desperately wanted in this moment, however, was a drink in her hand - funny how a working phone was only a secondary concern to her at this point.

Groaning at her reaction in the mirror, she jumped back a bit when she suddenly found herself standing next to a tall woman with a thick and booming voice that made Kate think she'd be shanked (that's a thing, right?) on the spot. "Damn. Bad fall on the bike? Been there, girlfriend. Wait." Just like that the mystery biker woman, at least that's what Kate had assumed she was, had disappeared again; it would have been the perfect moment to make a run for it, had she had somewhere to run to that wasn't a car that would eventually run out of battery. To her pleasant surprise, however, the woman returned with an extra set of clothes that were clearly far too big for Kate, but she couldn't help to be a bit touched at the kindness of a complete stranger - it wasn't something you saw much of in the city.

Having cleverly maneuvered herself into the new clothes, she stepped out and - for the first time in years - she wrapped her arms around the other woman in a genuine hug. "Drinks on me, yeah?" She grinned as she stepped out of the bathroom, meeting David's eyes that on initial glance were frustrated, but quickly melted into amusement at her new getup."What? I was getting a makeover, fashion waits for no man," she shrugged, her life had always been a series of bizarre events, why start to question them now.

"No luck with the phone?" She asked, answering her own question as she picked up the handset and tried to get a dial tone numerous times, eventually sighing as her head landed against the wall next to the phone. Taking a seat next to him at the bar, she glanced over at what he was drinking - she hadn't really taken much interest in his tastes the first time around, and she was positive she hadn't seen him drink once while on the job. "I'll have what he's having, and oh yeah, my friend over there is having a drink too on me, whatever she wants" she pointed over to the table where the woman was sitting who quickly smiled and gave a friendly nod in her direction.

                                                 ______

Kate wasn't sure how much money she'd shelled out in the last few hours - days? weeks? - it was hard to tell time over covered windows, the sense of drunken familiarity, and the sloppy renditions of old rock songs that they'd belted out and rung out throughout the bar. There was a general sense of joy in the air, a much difference ambiance than the stale silence they'd been torturing themselves with for hours in that car. The downside of the euphoria of alcohol was how loose it made your tongue, especially at the high pace they'd been going at.

Perhaps he sensed the drop in her defenses, it had felt like he'd been watching her since she left the bathroom, as if he was trying to figure out just who she was and what had made her that way. The attention was not lost on her, who simply responded by sliding her elbow further down the, still wet, bar to allow herself a better angle to stare up at him while still allowing her access to the tiny black straw swirling in her drink. "What?"

"Why do you hate weddings?" there it was, the big question she was sure everyone whispered to each other - especially now that her younger sister was about to walk down the aisle before she had; scandalous, she laughed too drunk to recognize that it seemed like she was laughing at his question. "I got married once, or like psh, if you can even call it that? We enveloped? The one where you do it without telling anyone?" she shrugged a shoulder, dipping her sight to her drink and closing one eye to help her hone in on just where the black straw was lingering.

"Obviously, that worked out," she let out a self-deprecating chuckle, her trademark eye roll following her words, "it was dumb, we were young, and in love and we could take on anything as long as we had each other" her voice dripped with mock affection, her eyelashes batting quickly and hands sweeping up as she pretended she was some sort of Disney princess - clearly an insult in her eyes, "and then I caught him fucking my so-called best friend, so you know, as the french say c'est la vous coucher avec moi," her eyes narrowed for a moment, clearly questioning the words that had just come from her mouth, but she was far too intoxicated at the moment to really care, and instead she reached over the bar and poured them both another shot.

"Don't hate marriage, but I'm realistic! I know what happens, so why do I suck for wanting to protect my sister, right? People only want love when it's convenient, and then as soon as stuff gets hard people head for the door; that's not love, that's bullshit." She drove her point home by signaling at him poignantly with the now empty shot glass, as if she'd made a valid and logical point - and in her eyes she had. "C'mon, really. How many of the people you've put wedding together for are still married? Tell you what, I'm even willing to bet the ones with the most expensive weddings were the ones that barely made it a year," she stated confidently.

A brief silence settled between them again, more amicable this time, and it dawned on Kate that the bar was much more still now than when they'd first entered it - a clear sign that they should likely try and get moving again - but instead she poured them both another shot and rested her chin on her knuckles, this time watching him closely, noting how somehow this rugged, befuddled version of him was also much different than she'd thought him to be - not that she'd given him much of a chance so far. "Why do you love weddings so much? And seriously no extra unnecessary sappiness in your story, at least not until there's food and coffee inside me."

[fallendawn]

i saw totally cringe worthy forced romance earlier and i wanted to cry so i alleviated the pain with some morning ship fluff in a similar scenario (person a admits their feelings to person b and gets flustered) so anyways enjoy

under the cut ‘cause this turned into a monster oops @quinzelade @cerulean-city @so-anywayy it’s nothing spoilerly seeing as this probably doesn’t even happen in the canon (i have an idea of how it becomes Official)

Astri grabs a damp towel from the rack and immediately begins dabbing at her skin. The room is nice and crisp, aiding her cooldown, and though she is tired, she makes no attempt to sit down. On the wall hooks, her uniform hangs patiently, a black tee shirt crumpled on the floor beneath, but she remains in her shorts and sports bra for now. It’s too hot.

Wow, did it feel good to lose herself for so long. Checking the time, she realises she’s been in the gym for hours, the majority of it dancing. Alerts pinged in her head reminding her of staff meetings, mission scenarios, and other important things she still needed to tend to and now is running behind. For once, she doesn’t care. Well, in this instance that she’s still in the euphoria of a great workout. That will soon change once she puts back on the clothes and the “Captain persona” that goes with.

She throws the towel around her shoulders while still holding onto the ends. Walks to the bench where her bag is and grabs her cannister. Oh yes, she knows this is the year 3765 and the world has evolved into a time where the flying ship provides clothing, food, and water at a mental command, but there is a particular grounding experience she enjoys from bringing her own sports bag. In few quick gulps, she empties the cannister. She knows better, don’t rush it all at once, but again, that satisfying moment of breaking the rules. The uniform isn’t on yet. Nor does she make a habit of abusing her body.

Placing the bottle beside the bag, she grabs a second container, and this one she’s more conservative. There’s food inside the bag tucked somewhere beneath the gym shirts and track pants that she never really wears. And if she does wear them, they usually come off after the warm up. The squad has a point when they claim she seldom wears clothes, but she also doesn’t understand their modesty to this day.

Hydraulics releasing air pressure captures her attention, and she looks to the entrance curiously. Not that this is a private gym, but it’s in such an out of the way location of the ship, no one really uses it. For as long as the Midnight has been commissioned, this section, once the weapons armoury but repurposed for obvious reasons, served as Astri’s personal training area because of its remote location. Who made the special trip all this way?

Meriel Blodwyn. The prodigal rookie. With excellent magical potential. Shown to be an exceptionally fast learner. Very fit. Attractive. And if the centuries spent in the Celestial Aetas stasis are to be ignored, very close in age to her.

She takes another swig from the cannister, caution be damned.

“Hey, boss!” Meriel waves cheerily, and Astri responds with a nod while still drinking. Over Meriel’s shoulder is a bright orange athletic bag. She’s wearing shorts of the same colour that stop mid thigh, and a white shirt that’s tied to fit like a crop top. Her hair, strawberry blonde today, is loose and playful, bouncing along with her. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Astri shrugs. It’s taking longer to cool down than she is used to. The workout was longer than normal, but her face is still flushed, she’s still sweating, and her breathing is still uneven. And she’s reached the bottom of the second bottle.

Meriel pauses when Astri still says nothing and tilts her head curiously. “Everything okay?”

“Mhm.” Now her heart is beating faster, and she wonders if she overexerted herself.

“I can go to the main gym,” Meriel offers, pointing behind her. “I just wanted to practise somewhere with less people so I can have more room. And NocNoc recommended this room.”

“Of course she did.”

She doesn’t mean for it to sound as dry as it does. The edge is directed to Nocturna who hears all and needs to stop interfering in Astri’s personal life. But to her surprise Meriel’s reaction is an eyebrow raise and a smile that teases. Astri finally stops kidding herself. This chain of reactions has nothing to do with her workout.

“You’re flustered.”

Astri glares. “I’m not flustered.”

“Spirits, you’re adorable.”

“I’m not flustered,” Astri repeats through gritted teeth.

“It’s the day we met all over again,” Meriel laughs, resuming her bouncy step to the bench. She casually drops the bag next to Astri’s and takes a seat to remove her shoes.

She can’t help it. Astri smirks. “Maybe. Less ambush.”

“Hm…” Meriel looks up after the first shoe is off, but Astri can’t read her expression. Because her hair continued to get in the way, Meriel pulls it back while she is up, using the spare hair tie on her wrist to make it a tail. Then she lowers herself again to take off the other shoe.

The instant it is off, Meriel strikes. Astri’s quick reflexes are what save her, but Meriel’s wink and grin almost stop her heart. “Better?”

It is cute how much Meriel has to reach because of their height difference, but even with her disadvantage, Astri knows how much of a threat she is. She takes no time in a follow up that Astri deflects. The moment Meriel enters Wolf, Astri counters with Falcon and is no longer focused on her fluid movements from one step into the next, or the loose strands of hair that fall over her face, just short of the warm brown eyes that light up her beautiful smile, or the very faint freckles only seen this close…

Well, not as focused.

They come to a stalemate not too far in and Astri stares for just a second too long. She disengages quickly. Hands on hip, Meriel laughs and takes a moment to breathe, just watching Astri fumble for her third and last water bottle in the bag.

“I’m not the only one who sports one!” Meriel says excitedly, indicating to Astri. “I never see anyone use one. They’ll get water and stuff from NocNoc.”

Astri swallows and lowers the bottle to look at their partnered bags. She shrugs. “It feels more natural to me.”

“Same, to be honest,” Meriel replies, affectionately patting hers. “Inner city schools didn’t have all this fancy tech, you know? We probably played with toys that you’d be used to. But it made cheerleading really fun. More authentic. And brought out the best in us.”

Astri nods. One look at Meriel and no one could argue with the results. “Old school” is simply better in some regards.

Now that she can mostly recover from her earlier nerves, Astri begins to gather her things. She walks to the shirt on the floor and picks it up. Then she glances at the captain’s uniform and sighs. There is nothing heavier than this suit which literally bears the weight of the world.

“You know.” Astri nearly jumps out of her skin at Meriel’s sudden statement. “I like it when you let your hair down like this.”

She throws a confused look back at her. Her hair is very clearly up. Granted it’s no longer in the bun she started with, but that’s because it’s so heavy it always falls apart halfway through the Warriors. Still, it’s braided and back.

Meriel chuckles. “Sorry, it’s a figure of speech. Um, basically I like when you cut loose. Out of uniform, I guess.”

“Ah.” Astri returns to the uniform and shrugs. “Same.”

She must have hesitated for much longer than she thought. Meriel’s hand is on her arm, and she looks at it for a second before locking eyes with Meriel. An inviting smile. A brief promise. “What’s the rush?”

There were reasons. In fact she had an entire list of why she needed to go back. But Astri can’t seem to remember any of them right now.

Tingles of energy pulse from Meriel’s fingertips as she skims her arm to hold Astri’s hand and pull her away from the uniform. “Let’s dance.”

“Okay.”

By every definition, Astri should not be able to keep going much longer, but yet again time is lost. Today will be completely unproductive as far as military operations are concerned. Saundra can deal with it. Astri needs this moment to be “loose,” and now with a partner it feels even better. She pulls and pushes, she leads and follows, she goes from step into another. Meriel imitates her, sometimes taking an initiative to show off what she’s learned, but mostly taking Astri’s example.

It’s when Astri’s body begins to physically complain that she comes to a stop and takes a seat on the bench, Meriel right beside her. But she is smiling. She doesn’t even realise it, but it’s the kind that lights up her entire face and makes her absolutely glow. Meriel is reciprocating.

After a few minutes of drinking water and catching their breath, Astri looks over to Meriel. Once again high off the rush, the words are out before she is able to fully process.

“I’m glad you joined.”

Meriel laughs. “I mean, let’s be real, my options were pretty limited.”

“No, I mean, I’m glad you joined my team.” For once Meriel is the quiet one as she takes this in. “That you’re here with us. With me. I really like you.”

Too late it clicks what she’s said and she flushes. She takes another drink, half-wishing it to be stronger than water, to avoid Meriel’s look. It’s not until their hands are joined that she realises she left the side adjacent to Meriel free. She looks down at the contact, and then makes the brave gesture of meeting Meriel’s gaze. She’s beaming. Astri doesn’t know how to process this. She gets up and very quickly gathers her things.

“I need to go. Lots to do.”

Meriel chuckles and watches. Astri reaches the uniform and makes a mental command to Nocturna to return it to her cabin. It’s swallowed up by the wall and disappears. She slings the bag over her shoulder and starts to leave.

“Hey, Astri?”

Her name sounds rich on Meriel’s tongue. Sweet. It also leaves her longing for more. But she only offers a halt in her step and a look over her shoulder.

“I really like you too.”

Astri smiles but still isn’t ready to take this in. She nods and continues out the door.

[fluxuslaphil]

La Monte Young and Jung Hee Choi in conversation with Fluxus Festival Curator Christopher Rountree

"We all know that you have to go to the grocery store. But don’t make it into a life structure that allows you to do it without letting it interfere with the greater goal, which indeed is musical euphoria.”

Chris Rountree: My first question is about the West Coast. I know your work doesn’t often happen in Los Angeles. I wanted to ask how your early experiences, in music in Los Angeles, aimed you where you’ve gotten now?

La Monte Young: Yeah. Basically I grew up in LA. I started playing jazz in high school. I went to John Marshall High. Right away, I fell in with a group of guys who were really into Charlie Parker and the New Sound. That’s what I listened to high school. I then was playing in sessions as soon as I got out of high school. I went to a club called The Big Top. I played there almost every night from about 8PM until 4 in the morning. Billy Higgins would say “Hey, man. I know a place that opens at 4. It’s an after-hour place. Why don’t we go there?” You know who Billy Higgins is, right?

CR: Oh yeah.

LMY: Well, he was my drummer. Probably one of the greatest drummers that ever played. He was just incredible. Yeah, I wasn’t surprised that he died, but I was regretful. He was quite a wonderful person. He was very, very interested in my playing. He went all over LA getting us arrangements to play. So, gradually, I was composing.

CR: Were you composing while you were playing jazz as well? And were the compositions different then too?

LMY: A little bit. Yeah, I was composing some tunes. There was a composition called “Annod.” Which was Donna backwards. She was my high school girlfriend. She had perfect pitch. She was a very good musician. It’s quite a good composition, I think. Maybe my very first one that counts. I was always also in school, I went to LA City College. I studied with Leonard Stein. Leonard Stein was Schoenberg’s teacher disciple really. He did as much for Schoenberg than any of the others. Even though Webern was probably the most important composer in my mind, Leonard really promoted Schoenberg’s work.

CR: Why was Webern the most important for you?

LMY: For me, he was the most original composer who ever lived. He did things in music that were just unimaginable. For me, creativity has always been very important. His untimely death was very unfortunate, but he grew up in that tradition with Mahler and Schoenberg. He listened to Mahler concerts and Schoenberg. He was always there. He had a very traditional upbringing. What he did in music had never been done before. You can hear it coming out of, certain parts of Five Pieces for Orchestra. But he gave us something that has never been in music before. I followed it. I elaborated on it. I went further.

CR: We were talking about LA City College.

LMY: Yeah. I was studying with Leonard Stein. He was really a remarkable person. He knew everything about music. So it seemed. I went directly from LA City College to UCLA, where I studied with Dr. Robert Stevenson. These two individuals, Leonard Stein and Dr. Robert Stevenson, were very important to me as formal teachers. I was also studying saxophone with William Green at the L.A. Conservatory. He was a saxophonist saxophone player. He could play classical, he could also play some jazz. He really was almost like a father to me. I was leaving home and getting out in the world. Probably needed a father figure at that point.

In the Mormon church, where I started, authority is very strong. You grow up with authority around you at all times. I was considered an outstanding member of the Mormon church when I left. I was 17 years old. It was a big shock to my entire family.

CR: How did you make that choice to leave? That must have been really hard.

LMY: There’s an interview that everybody has. After you’ve been in the Aaronic priesthood for a few years, they want to advance you to the Melchizedek priesthood. One of the questions, I knew this question was coming, “Do you believe the Mormon church is the only true church?” I said no. I think it’s true, but I said “I think a lot of them or all of them are probably true.” They wouldn't buy it. So I was unattached and basically left the church right there and then.

CR: It sounds like, when you were in the interview itself, that was the moment you decided to leave?

LMY: I knew what was happening. I had already been in school. So I’d been part of the Mormon church for my entire life. I had absorbed a lot of information to realize that the Mormon point of view is very beautiful, but it was very limited to a certain way of thinking. It evolved from the Mormons coming across the plains. They had nothing and they were eating their shoes because they just didn’t have anything to eat. It was a rough existence. When they got to Utah Valley, Brigham Young says “This is the place.” So they settled there and things got better because they settled in a beautiful valley.

You know, I just saw a movie on the Donner Party yesterday, a documentary. Those early people going across the plains, they had some vision of something they hoped for, but they didn’t realize what they had to go through to get there. They suffered tremendously and sometimes ended up using cannibalism to survive. It was a rough situation. They didn’t realize what they were getting themselves into when they said “We’re going to go west.” It was holy hell. Anyway, that’s how I grew up. That kind of heritage was all around me.

CR: Amazing. You were talking about composition at UCLA and your teachers. And then about looking for a father figure.

LMY: It was Leonard Stein. Then I went to UCLA where there was Dr. Robert Stevenson. Dr. Robert Stevenson grabbed me as soon as he saw me and heard me. He took me all around the music department, said “This is guy is really good. He’s a genius.” I was the only one who could get straight A’s in his classes. All the other kids wouldn’t even take his classes. He was really a very great scholar. He had no patience with anybody who wasn’t really outstanding. He gave them grades that were so low that they wouldn’t take his classes.

CR: Were you still writing jazz at that time?

Jung Hee Choi: The most important early works were written in LA, were Poem for Chairs, Tables and Benches; Trio of Strings; and The Four Dreams of China.

LMY: The Trio for Strings, I wrote in 1958. It was very inspired by nature, but it was all walks of day tones and there’s nothing like that in music before, really. Some people thought it was really far out but Leonard Stein and Dr. Robert Stevenson thought I was the best there ever was and ever had been and ever will be.

CR: I wonder what the moment was when you departed from jazz and moved into the style that you then developed. Was that at UCLA?

LMY: I don’t know. You know, the Trio of Strings, 1958 is very, very profound. It’s all one sustained tones, and it’s the precursor for The Four Dreams of China. With The Four Dreams of China, I simplified the idea.

There’s a very important chord, CFF#G, in one key. I used that chord in all four inversions, F sharp is the bass, F above it, then G, then C. And I used these four chords in the Four Dreams of China. Each of the dreams is based on only one chord. In the Subsequent Dreams of China, I began to combine dreams. That was very complex so I had to have more players. So, Charles Curtis and Ben Neill, we had early on. I was teaching Ben rather early on and then Charles Curtis discovered me and he became the only person in the world who could really lead the Trio for Strings.

I was fighting, over my head and one great friend and he said, “Well, you know man, it's unplayable.” But he played it. And people worked hard at it.

CR: And unplayable in what way, do you think?

LMY: Unplayable in what way? You have to come down to his own way, there were long silences and then play it for record tune or complex intervals. You know it’s not melodic. A long silences, long tones—

it gets very hard to bring that in, perfectly in tune. Even like Charles and later Steven Burns, they just specialized in it. They were amazing, how much they could play a tune out of a blue sky.

CR: What’s your approach to making work with a collaborator like Charles?

LMY: Well, for one thing, they frequently studied Raga with me. Raga is a very profound musical system that’s thousands years old. They worked out all of the details. If you can learn Raga, which most people could never do, you’re ready to become a great musician, or you are a great musician. I teach all of my students Raga. Ben and Charles were the very advanced, and they could learn Raga and they could play. You had to do it to approach the Trio for Strings. The Four Dreams of China is more playable, because it’s just one chord, and you can start to get it really in tune. The problem would be the Trio for Strings, because you’re moving from one chord to another, time to time. It’s much harder to have perfect intonation that way.

CR: Would you say that intonation is the most important thing in your work?

LMY: If you’re not perfectly in tune, you’re not doing anything. You’ve got to be perfectly in tune or you’ll never send the message. It’s something you learn to do the more you work on it. You just take it for granted after a while. Certainly it took me time to realize that. That’s what I was doing, but I was. Jung Hee, say something about it. You know, Jung Hee’s very in tune, and she’s very advanced. Say something Jung Hee, anything.

JCH: The tuning system is the most important aspect of La Monte’s work. The Well-Tuned Piano, is a good example of how he transformed the traditional Western intervals in those two instruments, that created a new acoustical phenomenon that he calls Clouds. In which on experiences all the harmonics, sustained harmonics, they all form in the air. It’s something you’ve never experienced before, by tuning all the strings in a piano with the grammatical ratios that he finds. One of the difficulties that musicians found when they performed The Second Dream from the Four Dreams of China, was they had never heard certain musical intervals.

LMY: Neither had I! I imagined them, then made them happen, and there they were, and they were a model for mankind.

CR: Can you describe that a little more?

JCH: Musical ratios, four notes in the secondary: 12, 16, 17, 18. So 16, 18, and 12 are very well known intervals. They can be reduced to 8 and 9, and 3 to 2. So it’s a very simple intervals that we’ve been using. But 17 is very, very unique. It only can be achieved by gifted musicians, and even very perfect musicians can only hear the interval, after many years. Charles found his. He remembered that moment: when he first met La Monte and rehearsed it then—he was a child prodigy and was already a professional musician—La Monte asked him to hold a perfect fifth.

LMY: I asked what?

JCH: You asked Charles  to hold the perfect fifth, without accenting the 5th harmonic. Meaning the 5, the vector 5, the third harmonic, in one exercise.

CR: Wow.

JCH: Charles was very, very impressed, because no other composer, no other musician had ever asked him to emphasize the harmonics. That is the first memory Charles has of working with La Monte.

LMY: See this is a whole new world were you have to worry about which harmonics were made louder than others. In order to create a certain mood, you wanted some louder than others, and some softer than others. I think I was the only person who took this path. Various band musicians like Jung Hee and Ben Neill, and Charles Curtis took it very seriously and worked on it.

CR: It’s something so many musicians never think about at all actually. Do you think, that when you encourage musicians to think like that, it fundamentally ... clearly it changes them, but does it put them in a different space when they perform the music?

LMY: Oh yeah. It changes their lives. We all grew up playing melodies. Gradually, we heard various guys in music, Mahler and Schoenberg and Webern and Debussy. I was crazy about Debussy. But, all of these different musics exposed us to a different way of thinking.

CR: Would say that way of thinking is spiritual in nature? Or is it about mindfulness? Or?

LMY: Well, you know, listen, what is spirituality? We all grew up in various spiritual systems and ... we have to first define spirituality, before we can say whether something is or isn’t. What does it mean? What does spiritual mean?

CR: What is it for you?

LMY: Well, I think that it’s something real, it’s a life devoted in music. Music is extraordinary ability and fulfills a spiritual need. So that when a musician is involved with the music that fulfills that need, it takes them into, what to him or her is a spiritual state. Eventually, some people wanted to stay in that state all of the time. That’s a lifestyle. Many of us participate. It’s just, we do it to different degrees.

CR: When you feel inspired to make music, where does that inspiration come from? Does it come from, as you’re saying, just the experience of being in music every day?

LMY: Many musicians eventually just devoted every of moment of their life to music. Some have found a way, like Marian [Zazeela] and Jung Hee to combine visual reality with audio reality. Eventually you try to give up all of the elements of your environment and to create a world that is totally self-supportive and fulfilling. So that everything supports everything else and you don't get sidetracked. Because we all know that life has to do with going to the store and buying a quart of milk. But try to set things up in such a way, that it’s not a distraction. You want to make your life so totally organized it’s always fulfilling itself and fulfilling the goals of the particular recipient.

CR: You said recipient, do you mean your own personal goals?

LMY: Yes. You have to deal with: being in a state of doing what you’re supposed to do with your life. To some degree, you find out what you’re supposed to be doing, by doing it. So, if you get off the track, you’ll know right away. We all know that you have to go to the grocery store. But don’t make it into a life structure that allows you to do it without letting it interfere with the greater goal, which indeed is musical euphoria.

La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s The Melodic Version (1984) of The Second Dream of The High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer from The Four Dreams of China (1962) in Dream Light, directed by Jung Hee Choi, will be performed at the Nov 17 Fluxconcert at Walt Disney Concert Hall, part of the LA Phil’s season-long Fluxus Festival.

La Monte Young’s Piano Piece for David Tudor #1 will be performed in conjunction with the May 2, 2019 Emanuel Ax plays Mozart concert. A post-performance, archival installation will be on view in the Walt Disney Concert Hall lobby through May 5, 2019.

[spiritualreverie]

Tapovanam 2017-2018 Newsletter 4

Deepavali

I am sure you all know the meaning of Deepavali and the symbolism behind the celebration.  Let us look at a few more reasons people around the world celebrate the festival.

1.  Rama returns to Ayodhya

Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya from exile after defeating Ravana.  The people of Ayodhya rejoiced by lighting lamps welcoming him home.

Whenever God enters our home (our hearts), our consciousness is filled with bliss.  This is symbolized by the lights.

2.  Krishna and Satyabhama defeat Narakasura

Krishna vanquishes the demon Narakasura with the help of Sathyabhama who is an incarnation of Bhoo-devi (lakshmi).

Narakasura symbolized tamoguna and even mother earth wanted that guna to go!!   Narakasura requested his death to be celebrated by the lighting of lamps symbolizing the defeat of lethargy and inertia.  

3.  Return of King Mahabali

Bali was the grand son of Prahlad and hence had craved for the blessing of the lord while doing his duty as a kind and good Asura King.  However, he had a trace of "I" and "Mine" in him and Lord decided to clear that sheath and came as Sri Vamana.

When Bali grants the little Vamana three feet of land, Lhe Lord expanded to measure the entire earth in one step, and the entire universe with the second.  King Bali gave up his Rajoguna by sacrificing all he had to Lord (who owns all any way) and became a dasa by getting the blessed feet (third step) of the Lord on his noble head.   The humbled Mahabali surrendered his Atman to the Lord!  

His one request was to return to his beloved kingdom to be with his subjects and his return is celebrated till this day.

4.  Goddess Lakshmi's birthday

Goddess Lakshmi is venerated as a manifestation of the divine who takes maternal care of all the beings with prosperity and purity. She gives happiness and spreads auspiciousness all around.  On this day, people pray to Goddess Lakshmi to instill the wealth of values.

5.  Lord Mahavira attains Nirvana

The day of liberation is celebrated by Jains as Moksh Kalyanak.

Karna

Karna is brave and generous and has high integrity.  Although he is plagued by self doubt stemming from uncertainty of who he really is, he has tremendous confidence in his abilities and adorns self respect.  However, when ridiculed in front of the entire populace about his lineage, he is driven right into the hands of Duryodhana.  Duryodhana who sees in Karna a worthy ally and opponent of his hated cousins, showers him with affection, grants him a kingdom to provide him stature and stands by him when Bhima mocks him mercilessly.  This unfortunate twist of fate makes Karna pledge his unconditional loyalty to Duryodhana.  

a.  The need for equipoise

Whatever the emotional state we are in, we need to strive to be balanced in our reaction.  When crowned the prince of Anga, Karna is elated and overwhelmed with extreme joy and happiness.  In this mental state, he rides his chariot recklessly running over and killing an innocent calf.  The owner of the cow and calf, a brahmin curses him that in a critical moment in battle, his chariot wheel will get stuck.  Karna has glorious qualities and character and yet, he the son of Surya at a moment of elation reacted badly that eventually caused his downfall.

We hear stories of college students and other youth in their wild enthusiasm and exuberance destroying property when the teams they love, be it a college team or a professional team wins a championship.  Why does this happen? These are not illiterates, and they do know right from wrong. However, in the state of euphoria and elation, they loose their equilibrium.

Swami Vivekananda said being cheerful always and smiling, takes one nearer to God, nearer than any prayer. "Always" here implies we should be cheerful during the good times and the not so good times especially when we feel down and depressed.  This is the true definition of equipoise where we are not carried to highs and lows by our emotions.

b.  Truth

Karna in his desire to learn the art of warfare, lies to Parashurama that he is a Brahmin.  When Parashurama finds out, he curses Karna that at the critical juncture, the learning will be forgotten and karna will be unable to remember them.  No matter what the intent is, truth has to be adhered to.  It is said that one should never lie to a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher.  If only Karna had heeded to this!

We contrasted Karna's quest to learn with Kacha's quest to learn the sanjivini mantra from Sukracharya, the teacher of the asuras.  Kacha took a rather straight and honest path and came clean right at the offset.  He mentions to Sukracharya that he is indeed the son of Brahaspathi, the teacher of the devas and that he seeks to learn from Sukracharya.  Being a teacher, Sukracharya accepts Kacha as a student.

Friendship

What is true friendship?

Can a king and a beggar be friends?  How about poor and the wealthy?  Should friendship be only amongst equals?

Some of our best times are when we are amongst friends.  Friendship is the pure relationship that exists between true friends.  We are comfortable in their presence, and their company puts us at ease.  Friends comfort, friends heal, friends love, friends do not judge, and friends are there in our time of need. This relationship is very different than that between parents and children, between spouses, between lovers, between colleagues and other acquaintances.

This is precisely why perhaps great saints and poets have considered even Gods as their friends.  The following stanza from Kannan en thozhan (Krishna is my friend) penned by the great tamil poet Bharathi, illustrates this relationship. Here Arjuna talks of his dear friend Krishna:

Even on the days of wandering the forests, He would make sure the heart is without fear;

While fighting war as the chief general for a big army, He would come as the charioteer;  

While suffering from ailments to body, He would suggest appropriate medicine;

While the heart gets disheartened from worries, He consoles with soothing words;

When Drona visits his childhood friend Drupada's court, he is belittled and humiliated in front of the entire court.  Drunk with arrogance and power, Drupada destroys the sanctity of friendship by stating friendship can only be amongst equals, and chides Drona for presenting himself in front of the court as his friend.  It is true that Drupada is a mighty king and Drona is a poor brahmin. However, should this come in the way of friendship?

Compare this with Krishna's warm embrace and acceptance, when his childhood friend Sudama visits him in his palace.  In this instance, Krishna is a mighty king and Sudama is a poor brahmin as well.  Krishna put Sudama at ease from the instant he saw him and the entire experience was so great that Sudama completely forgot what he came for!   The mere sight of his childhood friend the warmth exhibited was sufficient.

Friendship transcends wealth, color, creed, religion, gender and race.  Have you heard of the Florida judge who saw her middle school friend plead guilty to burglary in her court?  The years and circumstances had placed her as a judge and her friend as a burglar.  She could have ignored her friend and moved on.  But she did not.  Their exchange and what transpired is a heart warming story that humanity is alive and well.  See:  

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/suspect-cries-judge-reveals-childhood-classmate-article-1.2280308

You are judged by the company you keep

While you may have many acquaintances and befriend many on social media, there are but a handful of true friends.   We learn a lot from peers, more than any others and therefore, it is important to be careful to identify true friends and associate ourselves closely with only those who share our values.  

As we have seen with Karna, Blind allegiance and loyalty to those who help in a time of need is not the only barometer for true friendship.  Karna should have checked his values with that of Duryodhana before making the fateful decision and this would have led him to pause.  Furthermore, as Karna's association with Duryodhana flourished, his own values began to erode causing him to abet and participate in heinous acts.  This is an example of friendship gone awry.

Students and Teachers

We often hear students complaining about their teachers in school or college and even label them as incompetent and with other strong adjectives.  While not all teachers are equal and some may be sub par, it is extremely important to not judge and sport a poor attitude.  Every teacher has something to offer and even a dull or boring class can present a thing or two.

If you are in a class and are indifferent, do you believe the teacher has any interest in interacting with you or spend calories to ensure that the material being covered is understood by you?  The teachers role is to teach and the students role is to learn.  Unless both are operating in the same frequency, there can be no learning.  If the class room is the broadcast medium and the teacher is using FM 88.5, you will get no news if you tune into 99.5 FM which is broadcasting something else.

Although there were 105 pupils in the kingdom of Hastinapur, Arjuna was the favorite of Drona.  Was this because Drona exhibited nepotism or favoritism?   Quite to the contrary, it was Arjuna who was inspired and exhibited an eagerness to learning that caught the teacher's attention.  Naturally, the teacher is drawn to those who are energized and responsive.

There is an episode where Drona had set a wooden bird as a target on a tall tree and the requested all the pupils to aim their arrow at the target and before shooting, tell what they saw.  Most of the students say that see a tall tree with a bird, some describe the distance to the target, elevation, others describe the color of the target etc.,  Arjuna was the only one who said that sees the eye of the bird.  This is the supreme focus of Arjuna and alignment of frequency between him and Drona.  

When you bring in energy, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn, you get the maximum out of any class.  On the other hand, if you are bored, uninterested and act as a know-all, there can be no learning and the only loser in this equation is the student.

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. 

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!