19.09.2021

19.09.2021

I'm trying my best with my subjects and juggling to keep up with healthy practices, especially with mental health. It's definitely tiring and a lot of tugging at limbs and will; and the results won't always be what you wish them to be, but at the end of the day I feel thankful for the continuous effort I see my self do. I was never like that, the type to keep on advancing bravely even at the face of adversity; and I'm proudly joyous. Some people may not deem my marks good or high, or myself as intelligent or hardworking enough, but at the end of the day my heart is at peace. That's enough.

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Your avatar the last Airbender posts make me realize how many fantasy stories talk about war, genocide, oppression, etc. Without actually thinking about the implications of what their writing. Like. Bright tried to talk about racism and blamed the orcs for their oppression, harry potter codes magical creatures as different ethnic groups in questionable ways, don't even get me started on LotR lol.

It's always difficult to write fantasy that codes off of real world cultures and histories. Atla is praised loads for its worldbuilding and inspiration from real cultures, but there are a ton of problems if we consider the implications:

If the water tribes are (however loosely) based off the Inuit + Yupik people, it would mean the (white) writers of the series made a purposeful decision to depict these societies as regressive and misogynist (the Northern Water tribe). Besides they chose to have several very significant villains hail from the water tribe in Lok (Yakone, who is a criminal and almost kills Aang, Amon who terrorises Republic City, Unalaq who starts a civil war and tries to unleash a primordial evil, Ming Hua who is part of an anarchist terrorist cell and is brutally murdered). You cannot at once claim praise and pats on the back for your groundbreaking representation, but also continually villainise your meagre rep of a community.

The writers continually try to depict that evil exists on every side, but instead of the good examples like the earth kingdom military thugs from Zuko Alone they choose to zero in on clearly traumatised victims of war like Jet and Hama, using the tired narrative of "activist goes too far" which almost NEVER works well in media. Because the writers always make the villains cartoonishly vindictive while not choosing to address their very real traumas that made them rebel.

So. Much. Time is allotted to making us feel empathy for the Fire Nation imperialists. From Zuko and Iroh to the humanised guards of the Boiling Rock. Hell, even Ozai gets his moments of "omg he was once a cute baby I can't kill him!" while we forget that most of these people supported and perpetuated brutal colonialism, imperialism and the Air Nomad genocide, which is literally. The Tibetan genocide. Like.

Atla hasn't really aged well, I know a lot of people like to pretend it has, in an aggressive attempt to preserve their nostalgia about the show. But the thing is, Shakespeare is still considered the finest author in the world, however, there are a multitude of authors studying his works in the context of racism, Orientalist stereotypes and his overall chequered legacy. Just because something was good for its time doesn't mean it has to be haloed and deified and never critically analysed ever again. Especially when two white men are spearheading a project about BIPOC characters.

when i was a teenager it felt very revolutionary to be cruel to myself. like some kind of slow passive protest against how much everything hurt. i starved myself of sleep and food and tenderness because it felt right. it felt sharp and angry and radical and i wanted to be those things. adulthood is the realisation that the world is already working to cut into you well before you learn how to do it yourself. caring for yourself and others is the real protest

Sometimes Twitter is good

Sorry, I could never be a capitalist, I suffer from “wanting humans to have their basic needs met” disorder, where I care about people who aren’t me.