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fanfic-gremlin-ft-trauma · 5 months

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This has probably been said before but I really hate/get a laugh out of when people say shit along the lines of:

“Well yeah the Fire Nation was bad and all but they employed female soldiers so at least they weren’t sexist yk 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️”

Like,,,,, my brother in Christ,,,,,

I feel that I don’t even need to explain this but I will.

The Fire Nation from 1-100AG was an imperialist selfish conquest. They committed genocide over one nation, leaving a single survivor. They killed and tortured and traumatised millions of innocent citizens just at the notion that they were ‘spreading their glory’. It was a mass regime that took away culture and community from what was a beautiful and peaceful place to live. The Firelords from Sozin up until Zuko were cruel and autocratic and only wanted what their twisted view of love and fame was from the world. This all continued for one hundred motherfucking years and only came to a stop when the Avatar finally returned, only came to a stop when someone was brave enough, had nothing to lose, was so shamed and guilted by a genocide of their people that wasn’t even his fault. That’s what the Fire Nation was.

So to hear some people say shit like ‘well at least they weren’t sexist’….

Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they did employ female soldiers and treat them like people. But you know who they didn’t treat like people? The rest of the entire fucking world.

They dehumanised the airbenders, made them seem violent and warped their citizens views of them to make sure there was no empathy. They discriminated against the Water Tribes, thought them weak and inferior and didn’t even bother with the South after they’d wiped them out due to their own cockiness. They destroyed and damaged the Earth Kingdom, forever traumatising and devastating so many citizens to the point where some resorted to robbery and murder and crime.

So maybe the Fire Nation itself didn’t treat women unfairly, but they did to the rest of the world. It’s okay to make that as a general statement, but to use that as a justification for everything they did?

Completely fucking insane.

To bring some light to this, one of the responses I could’ve come up with when I saw shit like this was just:

#atla #fandom rant #atla rant #kinda fandom criticism #sofia speaks about herself #hooooooo boy I’m being controversial #again #on main #but yk what I don’t actually care at this point because I needed to say this and #it reaaaaallly irritated me when I saw people trying to justify what the fire nation did with:#‘o-oh but ☝️ they. they actually treated women nicely so 🤓#like dude….#don’t get me wrong I love women hey I’m one of those but wtf

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not-your-asian-fantasy · 1 month

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Elizabeth Yu and Dallas Liu

#elizabeth yu #dallas liu #last airbender #asian actress #asian actor #Asian women #representation #fire nation

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emkini · 1 year

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The fact that some people seem to think the fire nation would be homophobic is somewhat baffling to me. The fire nation that is shown to have minimal if any cultural misogyny? The fire nation that canonically practices ruthless equality to fuel its military campaigns? That fire nation???

#I'm sorry y'all but if we're deciding to put homophobia in atla I'm pretty sure the fire nation would be the least likely to have it #at least in a legal capacity it doesn't track #MAYBE some cultural weirdness about it. *maybe.*#but if there's no weirdness about women going to war instead of starting families #then I doubt there'd be homophobia based on those grounds either #atla #nevermind em

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tragedykery · 1 year

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fellas is it feminist for a country to consider bearing a child to continue the royal line the principal duty of said country’s house of queens, regardless of whether they want to or not? is it feminist to value women primarily for their ability to give birth? is a country feminist simply because it is ruled by women—which, mind you, is not because women are valued over men but rather because the royal line only ever bears daughters because of magic, because this is a fantasy novel—even though they’re treated/viewed like that?

#I’ve had enough of the inys is a hashtag feminist matriarchy takes I’ve had enough!!!!!#this is ‘the fire nation is feminist’ all over again #the priory of the orange tree #a day of fallen night #tpotot #inys #sabran berethnet #though unlike the fn I wouldn’t go so far as to call inys structurally sexist because there is evidence it isn’t #(see: succession being determined solely by birth order and gender not being a factor; women and men being able to hold the same positions #and it not being remarked upon)#but it is not. feminist either #which tpotot & adofn especially. explicitly criticise #elli rambles #also dgmw I’m not saying the queens of inys have the hardest & most terrible lives ever but. they’re definitely not exempt from the sexism #that is inherent in monarchical systems…#which is like a focal point of adofn!#I understand that a lot of ppl who’ve read priory haven’t read adofn bc it hasn’t been out for incredibly long but like. use your brain…#<- impossible task for fandoms apparently #roots of chaos #roc #r #a

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comradekatara · 1 year

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responding to @rahrahkatara's response to my response (lol)

1."Bryke [did not] deliberately work any nuanced gender discourse into the show" + "it can be tricky to tell if authors are doing their worldbuilding with values that are internally consistent with their character’s worldview, or if they’re simply injecting their own cultural biases into the narrative"

this is an interesting point, because it's probably true that bryke did not intentionally imbue atla with incisive gender politics. that said, i don't care whether or not it was intentional; my point still stands. when i interpret the gender dynamics of a text, the notion of whether the author was influenced by a conscious decision to include such commentary or was rather influenced by unconscious biases that informed the characters and worlds is irrelevant to me. i am analyzing the text itself. if i wanted to analyze the authors' intentions, i would do so, but that is simply not what i'm doing when i make posts such as these.

furthermore, your point that azula is not framed sympathetically is one i just straight up disagree with. obviously this is a very subjective claim, but i definitely think that azula is shown to be a sympathetic character within atla (whether or not bryke sympathize with her is another story). episodes like "the beach" and "sozin's comet" show the tragic effects of her upbringing and the emotional/psychological damage of ozai's abuse. people might treat azula with a sexist double standard both within the show and outside of it, but i don't think that means she's framed unsympathetically, unless you mean that she's framed as a villain, which i can't argue with nor would i want to. she is a villain. a sympathetic villain, but a villain nonetheless.

2. "aggression very much seemed to be the order of the day in the FN in Kyoshi’s time, even amongst women ; Sozin just harnessed & directed that energy outwards towards the FN’s neighbours, rather than towards rival FN clans. The books suggest that super avoidant characters like Roku & Iroh were in fact the cultural anomalies" + "a whole nation doesn’t just wake up one day & choose violence, and it’s unrealistic to blame systemic issues on one person (Sozin)"

i've read the kyoshi novels, and i like them. as you say, the fire nation citizens behaved aggressively towards rival clans. but by the time of roku and sozin, there were no rival clans. roku was completely secure in his status as a high ranking nobleman, and thus had no reason to show aggression or competitiveness. since he was sixteen, he was taught to be an impartial mediator who made choices that were best for the sake of the world, rather than for one nation. the fact that he isn't able to remain impartial is actually what ruins his legacy, specifically because he lets sozin off the hook in the name of their past friendship.

obviously sozin tapped into preexisting cultural expectations and systems, but i think he'd be a bit offended to hear that you can't attribute his fascist regime to one person. fascism never comes out of nowhere–my guess is that the state of the world steeply declined after kyoshi's death, and sozin capitalized on those anxieties by presenting himself as a pillar of strength for his citizens to emulate–and a culture that values displays of aggression and power is far more likely to adopt imperialist ideals than say, if an air nomad suddenly tried to implement fascism among their community. but it's clear that sozin wants to be seen as the individual who shaped the fire nation in his image, even if it was already mostly there to begin with. i don't think it's unfair to attribute the fire nation's shift into becoming an imperialist power to sozin, considering that he did have the power of absolute ruler and it was 100% his decisions which led to the genocide and colonization of the other nations. the fire nation may have long been an image-obsessed, power-hungry, aggressive, violent, and individualistic place, but sozin was able to stoke those values to achieve an ends they might not have considered were he not their ruler, and that counts for a lot.

#as for the fn becoming more sexist due to sozins regime #i think thats true #which isnt to say that the fn was some genderblind utopia beforehand #but ofc theyd enforce 'traditional values' under fascism #both for the purpose of making sure women have more babies (aka future soldiers who will serve their great nation)#and emphasizing traditional masculinity within a military culture #(which is why ppl who say sexism/homophobia shouldnt exist in the fire nation are just ridiculous. but anyway)#also obv iroh is only avoidant post-lu tens death #he sure wasnt avoidant before that!#mr im gonna burn everything to the ground #lol #rahrahkatara #sozin #I’m rly enjoying this convo sorry it took a few days for me to reply tho I’ve been super busy 😓

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everyone-deserves-a-pet-name · 5 months

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i recently discovered that the fire nation canonically outlawed gayness and i just want to say, respectfully, no. if anything, the northern water tribe looks more homophobic to me.

#atla #theyre traditionalistic assholes honestly #the nwt #to me the fire nation drinks their respect women juice every morning #there's no time to discuss two girls kissing when you're fighting for the honor of your nation cmon

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orcelito · 1 year

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the infinite cycle of "FINALLY we get a female character that's strong AND cute!" as if that's not like. the standard for the rare few female characters that are allowed to be visibly strong lol. like come on, i wanna see some women that r buff as hell & dont care about looking cute while they do it. dont get me wrong i love cute buff women too, but we gotta have some love for our butches out there, ok? ok.

#speculation nation #this is a vague about twitter lmaooo #i saw a post with some1 talking about a fire emblem character who's a girl & has abs but is still very cutesy #i mean i do enjoy her design but she's a fuckin twig actually. just with some ab definition.#which is great! more than we couldve gotten. but like. lol u dont gotta call that buff #also the continuous insistence that this is some rare thing that strong female characters arent shown as feminine #like. i could name a number of characters like that off the top of my head probs #i saw this take with that one girl from uhh. encanto i think it was?#and it's just like. Yes i love a good feminine buff woman. but like. come on.#they talk like this is unheard of. never seen before. but like. They're Out There. unfeminine strong women r much rarer lol

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tobiasdrake · 2 months

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*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.

I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.

But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.

Katara

So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.

They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.

And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.

Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.

This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."

"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.

Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.

In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.

But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?

No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.

And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.

In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.

Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.

Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.

The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.

Suki

Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.

They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.

Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.

Yue

Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.

"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."

Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.

They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.

Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?

June

June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.

Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.

She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.

Kyoshi

And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"

She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.

Azula

Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.

There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.

This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.

They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.

This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.

Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.

Conclusion

The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.

Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.

But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.

The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.

"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."

The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.

#avatar the last airbender #drake watches netflix last airbender #kyoshi #katara #azula #suki #yue #june

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3cosmicfrogs · 11 months

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I wanted to go a bit more in-depth with this piece that I did for zukka week 2023 because i got inspired to do more insane clothing details. ID in ALT.

Ramble about the influences/inspirations below:

Design inspirations for Sokka's clothing are mainly Inuvialuit and Yup'ik, with Nenets, Tlingit, and Chukchi inspiration for the tassels, patterns, belt and beadwork. I mixed these with the ornaments canon shows us used by the Northern Water Tribe, and also in Legend of Korra. I got particularly excited about drawing from Inuvialuit sources since the tassels we see in canon look like they could be inspired by this. Going beyond canon's animation-friendly colour scheme, I drew from Nenets patterns/embroidery/sashes and Yup'ik beadwork for accent colours. I think in the future I'd like to find ways to incorporate more Tlingit-style patterns since I rarely see them in fanart (which is a shame - they're stunning), but since they tend to be very big I ultimately decided to only include them as a nod in order to keep the regalia recognisable as 'Water Tribe'. I wonder if I could start using Polynesian influences as well?

Zuko's headdress and particularly the shoulder garment and beaded embroidery draw heavily from women's clothing styles of Lê Dynasty Vietnam. The other main influence is men's royal clothing in Tang Dynasty China, and patterns worn by Mongolian Khatun. Since we have a bit more to go on in canon as to what fire nation regalia looks like, I blended that in as well. I got particularly excited about the embellishments on Lê Dynasty clothes because I could give a little nod to Zuko's dragon-fire by adding more colours to the embroidery. In the future I think I'd want to make the Mongolian influence a bit more obvious... perhaps even push the envelope by incorporating some Bashkir designs, though I'm not sure how well that will go.

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