#wrt representation

[wygolvillage]

i started reading the sandman comics btw and god damn you can tell it was written in the 90s its kind of fascinating

#theres a lot of stuff thats like. ok this was probably pretty groundbreaking for its time but would get cancelled on twitter #wrt representation #i heard the next volume (a game of you) is very much also like that but idk where it is its mysteriously missing from the bookshelf #my dads rereading the comics at the same time as me reading it though so its possible he took it with him on his trip #(that he comes back from today) #oh well we'll see #i am enjoying them though for the arcs adapted in the show i prefer the way the show is structured #rose feels so much more like A Character you know. comics!dolls house is a lot weaker as a story #introducing the corinthian way earlier in the show was a great idea theres a lot of little changes like that that make it flow better #the show is also a lot less bogged down by attempts to tie it closely to other dc comics but i started noticing that being less of a thing #as it went on #season of mists was GREAT definitely my favorite arc so far. love how you get all ready for dream to go fuck shit up in hell #and then it ends up being 'dream gets stuck with an entire realm he doesnt want and there are a bunch of gods arguing over it' #idk i thought it was fun :)

[averlym]

"now, doesn't that look nice?" [insp]

#*chanting* skask skask skask skask- #vincent aurelius lin #adamandi #hello. let's talk about what's going on here! i've been tossing the idea about here wrt skin translucency ever since that post came out #(it's linked above fyi. but to quote it.) 'attempting to pursue this unachievable white ideal of the young academic; maybe leading to gory #representations of mimicry; replacement; taking on someone else's skin; altering the self' #this is primarily key in vincent and the skask; in the actual show iirc they used a jockey mask or smth? but i was thinking about the #delightful way skin is semi-transparent. and so a literal layer of skin alone would be unlikely to provide the whiteness pursued- #the under layer of the original tone would be there. so smth about the failure and unattainable. #additionally; at this point of the show the skin would have been likely yellowing or greying due to post-mortem development? so even more #Not white. from observations (as a kid;comparing skin tones?) white people have a pinker undertone (this might be. a generalisation but.) #here the lighting is yellowish to further push the difference + give the super harsh lighting that if you suspend disbelief has some hair #appear as blonde to further the ambrose-ness. #also the hair- messier on the non-ambrose side; a reference to the whole monologue about the haircuts they got #we bring to you also another episode of <i like drawing fabric folds> in the jacket symbolism! from bottom right to top left; it tracks #vincent throughout act two: the initial long jacket for standing out (nonchalance?) at ardess is removed; the yellow coat is put on- aided #here by ambrose's ghost which is represented by the hand! (it is very very slightly transparent- you can see the jacket pattern through it) #(if you look close) and then the satchel goes over it; this mimics the clothes in <oh ms reporter> #and then the Actual Ambrose jacket goes above along with the skask; following the outfit from the pyre scene at the end. #the spark/star thing is partially foreshadowing for the upcoming stabby eye trauma thing (@quincy) and partially just so i could highlight #the eye of the mask/ the place where vincent's eye probably is Behind the mask. because i liked the idea of merging faces; intersection. #back to the translucency of skin - you can kind of make out where the rest of his face is from the darker bit? aka it's not the same colour #as the skask. smth smth limited effectiveness... #tldr? face skin. jacket skin. altering appearance over time; unfeasibleness #when i was doing this i suddenly remembered covering my skin in talcum powder as a kid... hm. i'd forgotten about that. #anyways! when i posted my first ever adamandi thing i had the thought of 'this musical makes me want to paint' and surreally enough #that has proved to be so so true. and ngl i am really enjoying it? love it when the motivation to create is there haha #i will add as a disclaimer that i'm literally chinese and if the colours look off.. i did not mean to make a caricature. please be nice #that said because stage lighting tends to shift colours about a Lot i essentially used my own skin as a reference under yellow light? #so hopefully that checks out. <disappears>

[irrealisms]

so like the thing is. in many ways the dsmp seems like it ought to be more similar to film acting than it is to theatre-- you've got a close-up camera on you! a lot of the differences are often boiled down to that: theatre is more exaggerated, more full-body, because you're performing to an audience that is far away. film has a camera close on you so it tends more realistic and subtle. BUT the dsmp is actually!! way more like theatre in a lot of ways!!! to the point of REINVENTING theatrical devices that have largely fallen by the wayside in film

the dsmp has soliloquies. it's got asides. you see the same actors playing different characters. you have the tacit understanding that what you see on stage is not always what is literally happening in the story's world, but a symbolic representation. it's aware of audience, it interacts with and talks to the live-reacting audience!!

which i am. obsessed with, tbh! when tommy mutes in conversation with sapnap to say to chat "we're not going to team with him, chat, obviously we're not" before unmuting and saying "yeah, okay, let's team"--when wilbur on the 16th looks at the camera and holds up his hand when they're asking who the traitor is--when technoblade types and deletes "INVIS POTS DONT LAST THAT LONG" in in-game chat while talking to dream--these are all giving information to the audience abt the characters' internal thoughts, in ways that are much more typical of stage theatre than film! it's unusual for a character in a movie or tv show to say things (or take actions) in a conversation that are inaudible to the other characters in that conversation and intended for the audience. film tends to convey information about the characters' thoughts in other ways! it's a very Stage sort of thing, and i doubt they were thinking of it that way, it just sort of naturally emerges from having a live audience that they're entertaining + the ability with livestream technology to communicate things to the audience while being actually imperceptible to the other characters

and ofc whenever they are alone they are not silent, nor do they rely on voiceover or framing devices such as a diary to communicate their inner thoughts--they narrate their thoughts aloud, to the audience. they walk around and sometimes they have conversations with their donos but just as often they soliloquize! i'd include examples here as well but it's so ubiquitous, tbh, tommy does this, sam does this, ranboo does this, techno does this, wilbur does this, jack manifold does this, niki does this, everyone does this constantly. and it makes sense given the medium but that's also so fascinating to me! because again i really doubt they were thinking of it that way, it's just the obvious thing to do, the obvious extension of streaming commentary!

point is. dsmp stage show. I'm Normal About It

#the thing i mean wrt symbolic representation and it being Nonliteral #is like.... stage acting is very Representational #you pretend that an obviously-toy gun is (for the purposes of the story) real; you pretend that the stage crew is not there; #in musicals you often accept that they are not in-story breaking into song and dance; etc #and while i think there is definitely A Range of interpretations in terms of how literally vs representationally to view the dsmp #it's definitely more representational than most modern film and tv! #therapists dni #any british ants in the chat?

[therukurals]

The reclamation of such images appears to be Patel’s goal—one he shares with numerous Hindu leaders who have continued to battle Hindu nationalism. But the use of Hindu imagery as a call to violence, reminiscent of the Hindutva project, is central to Kid’s mission, resulting in narrative dissonance. In comparison, the movie’s villains only use Hinduism as a façade for violence and financial gain, rather than as a sincere fixture of their fanaticism. They represent Hindutva only in the abstract, echoing its power structures without its ideology. Kid, meanwhile, perhaps inadvertently, embodies it in both belief and action. In a key flashback, Rana—acting on Shakti’s orders—clears out Kid’s forest-adjacent village so the land can be used for industrial growth. This bears a striking resemblance to the Indian government’s recent attempts to evict thousands of Muslims along India’s Eastern border and millions of indigenous people from tribal lands. The BJP’s political opponents believe these land seizures are an attempt to transfer tribal resources to corporate allies, not unlike Shakti’s plan for Kid’s village. However, the metaphor is muddled. Rather than framing Kid’s community as an oppressed caste, religion, or tribe, the only visible culturally specific moment involves the villagers enjoying a marionette re-telling of the Ramayana, which is interrupted by incendiary violence. In the movie’s purview, Hinduism is under attack from something non-Hindu, or falsely Hindu, rather than from dangerous factions of Hinduism itself. This grants Kid permission to weaponize it freely, sans conflict or spiritual reckoning—a thematic tension the movie never reconciles.

#monkey man #saw this in a letterboxd review and i feel like helps articulate the films politics #i still stand that this is most left a diaspora south asian creative in the mainstream has been recently #particularly in its critique of indian and hindutva nationalism which...unfortunately is not saying alot. its a fairly low bar #like the contemporaries of medias that hype around its shallow representational politics like nhie bridgerton etcc come to mind #i also am going through a struggle currently wrt my hateration i guess lol too and #like sometimes films dont need to be a major political thesis and im okay with that but #also at the same time if that is what you are attempting to do #i cant help but be critical #idk just ramblings tbh #i think also part of my frustration and challenge with this films politics #is also tied my frustration with the politics of my indian diaspora peers

[daeluin]

can't believe a man can't say i like men without having the label police on them questioning

#moreso if that man is non white #like that post about gay/queerness being reserved to whiteness??? yeargh #people will jump over hops to validate a white person's identity but pocs have to work thrise as hard to be acknowledged #<- this also goes to wrt gnc/not wanting to acknowledge a moc as femme & the intersection of race and gender representation #also that dumb skirt post #jesus im still so mad about that post #a white dude wears a skirt once on stage and bandom loses its mind. but god forbid another dude does it for ten years now & suddenly it #doesn't count bc the skirt is too long??? not skin thing????? lmao get fucked #just say it doesn't count until your favorite white guy does it and go

[rathologic]

anon thanks for sending that comment re: biphobia in a recently reblogged daniil-eva comic, I appreciate that you did decide to message me about it! absolutely my bad. that's a blind spot for me as a bisexual who calls myself gay a lot of the time (although, seeing op's tags should have clarified they were depicting the two as not bisexual), but the real-world harm in showing a gay man and gay woman together is something I should've been attentive to, especially with the gender dynamic in Eva being the canonically bi character. rb deleted, I'll be keeping it in mind in the future 👍

#not posting the full message because it has some details about you - but again I really appreciate the feedback! and that you checked in #about it in general. re: the addendum no worries; I'm interested (but glad) to hear that the landscape seems better these days! #now that you mention this I've been overlooking bisexuality hcs where they would be reasonable lately (a lesbian voronika post when FF #deals pretty specifically with her 'attraction' to a man). I think it was overcompensation re: wanting to see more f/f content produced but #a strikingly out of touch / out of character move for me that I'll need to unpack... your note about representation as specific and #descriptive was especially thought provoking wrt: having underrepresented my own identity. to be improved 🤔

[circesoracle]

Please please please I need to know what you dislike about bg3 cause I love hearing flaws in things people praise (nothing is ever perfect) ((I am a huge bg3 fan and have my own gripes))

assuming this is about that vague text post I made a little while ago, all I'll say is playing Dark Urge makes me a bit uncomfortable as I don't enjoy the fact the character you're required to kill and the character you are heavily encouraged and incentivized to kill in that story are both women only shown to be attracted to other women and those are the only two characters the game ties Dark Urge specific rewards to when that easily could have Not Been The Case

if this is more in general I think I could literally list what I dislike about this game forever, but that's true of pretty much every game I love with few exceptions

#I will not go into more detail #and this is NOT an invitation to come debate me or “well actually” me #if I get asks like that I will just delete them #I am aware there is a (very hidden not well known) workaround with the first character #I am aware you do not HAVE to kill the second character #but that does not negate the fact those are the characters chosen and there is a pattern between them when there DIDN'T NEED TO BE #and I also do not think this was done with malice on the part of writers #but I do think there's an overall problem in all mediums wrt not thinking about the bigger picture of representation #that leads to stuff like this #ANYWAYS #I'd go into more detail if this wasn't a public post but I'm being mindful of spoilers #thank you for the ask tho <3 #I love to gossip and bitch about stuff I'd usually have a better answer #but not on a public post!!

[empiriical]

i know i don’t write firo yet but there’s just something about a heavily trans-coded character finding a place && a group of people that see him for who he is && what he brings to the table && even though he has reservations about belonging among them, they make him feel welcome && validated that he deserves to be there because that’s who he is, && he’s proud of that. also he’s like. mean. && I think we deserve that rep

#he’s also the most generic looking white (trans) guy ever and that’s so validating /hj #no one: #me: hey have you watched the hat shop scene in baccano I want to talk about the hat shop scene in baccano why are you screaming come back #wrt the last point tho I just think overall it’s nice to see characters who are genuinely good people but aren’t nice #it’s a weird morally grey spot that I enjoy #something something the opposite of last midnight. you’re so nice you’re not good you’re not bad you’re just nice #actually that’s super Maiza coded… huh #ok anyway. representation for people who are just a little mean #& PATTERN FINDER. ( OOC )

[hauntedpearl]

i got off booktwt for a good reason but my god the Babel-related drama has been hilarious and i am sad that i missed being involved in it real time

#LIKE. WHITE FRAGILITY AT ITS BEST I WAS LAUGHING SO HARD I WAS CRYING #this woman really said 'this book did what it was supposed to do (make white people sit in their discomfort wrt racism) and that was awful. #FOR ME personally. 1/5' sjgdhdjd like. LADY. #i mean a few of my friends didn't like babel but like it had more to do with the way it executed the premise..like some ssid it was not #engaging enough for the genre and all that. which is fair criticism imo. like i LOVE rf kuang but i also know she's not the perfect writer #or anything. but like damn. the way that woman went on a rant was sooo funny 😭😭😭😭 #she got trolled to hell and back which. like. okay. but also. SHE CHOSE TO PUBLISH THAT POST AGFSJDJD #and then she was like 'this book is racist to white people' so like. the performance of it all kind of broke down hsfshsjdkdld IT WAS. #anyway. was looking st my amazon wishlist and saw babel in there and was reminded of this </3 #rip i probably will never read it it's long as hell and i still haven't finished the poppy war trilogy #BUT IT'S ON THE WISHLIST JUST IN CASE #anyway 😭😭😭✨✨✨ #also side note: i literally don't think anything kuang wrote in babel would've been anything less than an acccurate representation of the #system. because like. she set it in oxford. and she. SHE LITERALLY WENT TO OXFORD AS A WOMAN IF COLOUR LIKE. #it's not exactly the same but my friend went to Cambridge and she faced a lot of bullshit too and like. one. can imagine. considering!!!! #anyway. maybe if we as oppressor classes didn't shy away from what we are doing to the world just because it clashes with our ideas of #self as 'Good People' then maybe we can actually make progress. like ignoring the porblem is not how you solve it etc. #OUGH. SORRY I MISS BOOKTWT SOMETIMES

[irrealisms]

okay so my most recent web weave was not in fact Intended to be about the dsmp but. while we are all here and thinking about metafiction and the dsmp. let’s talk about c!wilbur in pogtopia because it’s something that makes me chew on the drywall. specifically let’s talk about this bit that i transcribed, from his oct 17 VOD, at 33:47:

My L'Manberg. My L'Manberg. Ohhh. (hits desk) As long-- Chat, Tommy and Big Q can't know this. As long as I know the button is here. As long as I know. Hold on-- as long as I know the button is here. As long-- I'm-- it's just-- not, not today. I just need to know that it's there, for a fallback. I need to know it's there. You're saying "do it", chat, but you're-- this isn't-- you aren't affected, you just want to see explosions, you guys aren't affected, I understand, I understand, I-- I've been hasty. But the fact that I know it's there, and I can just.. stroke my right mouse button. (deep breath) That's all I need. As long as I know it's there. I'll be back. (breaks open exit) I'll be back for this. (leaves, blocks up exit. takes a deep breath.) Where are they, they've just left, they've just left the VC, where have they gone, have they gone to-- (clicking) I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Not sorry to you, I'm sorry to chat, I'm apologizing to chat.

now there’s a lot of things you could say about this--in particular the “I just need to know it’s there, for a fallback” is something I could talk about for ages-- but the thing I want to focus on here is that he’s very aware of his audience and what his audience wants. he’s aware of his chat, he talks to them directly. more than that, he’s aware that they want him to destroy things-- but only because it’s entertaining for them and they won’t actually have to live with the consequences. yet he still wants to do what they want-- he’s sorry to them for not doing what they want him to do. he’s more openly sorry to his chat than he is to c!Tommy or c!Quackity, who he has just put in a life-or-death situation.

(we also see him, throughout his time on the dream smp--during unambiguously in-character moments--look directly at and address the camera; here’s a video compilation of that. he’s definitely aware of the fourth wall!)

i also want to talk about a couple other things from pogtopia. the first is his famous conversation with Tommy about Chekhov’s gun (also from his October 17th VOD, 30:14):

Wilbur: You know what they say. Have you heard of something called a Chekhov’s gun, Tommy? Tommy: No. I’ve heard of a real gun, but… Wilbur: A Chekhov’s gun is the-- is an idea in, in, in plot devices, where if you tease something for long enough, and you keep showing it off, you have to do it at some point.

And he clearly considers himself bound to this! On November 16th, when deciding to blow up L’Manberg, he leaves the main VC to deliver a soliloquy, and the first thing he says is “Chekhov’s gun.” (The second thing he says is “I’ll be honest with you, chat”, emphasizing that this is directed to his chat, rather than just to himself.) But it’s an idea in plot devices. Most people do not consider Chekhov’s gun to be something that constrains the real world. It’s a dramatic principle, for writing a good story. c!wilbur is--at all times but particularly in pogtopia--aware that he is in a story, that he’s performing for an audience. Twice, in the button room conversation on October 17th, he exclaims “I’m such a fucking showman”, having been derailed in his plans to blow everything up due to his desire for an audience (in this case, because he brought Tommy and Quackity to watch)--

[27:20] I should have just done it. I should-- I’m such a fucking showman. I’m such a sh-- I should have just done it.

[29:37] I should have just-- I’m such a fucking showman.

And then, at Niki’s birthday party, when he derails it to go to the button room, we get the famous comment to Quackity of “you’re going to watch”, but we also get this comment:

[2:56:24] Look, I was waiting for there to be a stream that lots of people were watching, uh, before I did this-- because I didn’t want to do this off-stream, you know?

now, can you take this as an OOC comment? sure. but... he’s going to the button room, he’s talking about how he wants to blow everything up, Quackity has to talk him down by proposing a timeline for a meeting with Schlatt. he’s shown, in character, repeatedly, that he wants an audience of the other dsmp members; and he’s shown, in character, repeatedly, an awareness of the fourth wall, of his chat, of the camera and the audience. I think it’s fair of me to argue that this was IC, that c!wilbur was waiting for a big stream because he wanted a large viewer count for his suicide.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this, just... man, is that fucked up or what? Even more so because he’s right, he is a character in a story. There are people watching him, people who don’t necessarily care about him--or, at least, not in the same way as they would care about a “real person”? Obviously I care about him as a character immensely or else I wouldn’t have written all of this, but, like, if he were a real person I cared about, I would not be writing meta about his suicide, and presumably his chat would have been wildly different. As it is, I want the story to be interesting; I want it to be satisfying; I want it to cohere. I am interested in catharsis, in setup and payoff. I am much more flexible wrt whether him or his friends and family are happy and alive. and in Pogtopia he shares these priorities-- in addition to, among other things, his desire for attention, to put on a show, to be remembered. there are definitely other things going on as well, but it’s... a very bad combination, for him. and he dies for it, for us, for a satisfying finale, for the 100,000 people watching and egging him on.

#mcyt #dsmp #dsmp analysis #c!wilbur #wilbur soot #oh cwilbur my cwilbur..... representation for people who are paranoid and psychosis-y about being in a story but also Right #wilbur #therapists dni #any British ants in the chat? #i have been insane about this for MONTHS before his ending btw #it's not a new opinion wrt ending discourse #i've been thinking about it since. april at the latest? quite plausibly earlier? #just mostly on discord rather than tumblr #and i'm trying to get in the habit of posting more of my stuff to tumblr again

[latinokaeya-moving]

wanting to talk abt smth in this one assignment but my linking back to the main point skills r lacking lmao

#x #its just a short log on postcolonial critique of representation (w the implication of it being in the field of anthropology) #which like. fine. i can talk abt traditional orientalism / how anthro aided the colonial project. but i wanna talk abt techno orientalism #sooooo bad and im like finding a lotta of stuff abt it but mostly wrt media and general perceptions of east asia in the west... not so much #specifically in the field of anthropology... #i kinda wanna write abt it anyway n see if iget away w it lmao #idk. i can just say its a way orientalism has evolved or smth. IDKKKK

[4trackcassette]

ok sorry for being a hater yesterday. I started reading some Ursula k le Guin essays and i have positive emotions again. i love her.

#sometimes I'm like I should engage Deeper with the things I read but then I'm like who likes a book report #I think about most books I read again and sometimes I don't think about them #The one I've thought about the Most Is this work book sacred ground about American battlefields lolol #Idk I think you could spend years on every single book and there's always more #I wrote this paper on Charles hirschkinds the feeling of history #And I keep thinking about it like #I took the easy option for writing the paper #And I think i was wrong to #I keep thinking back on the other question #Then again that question guided my next paper and so on and so forth #Oh my how do I miss school so badly already it's been almost exactly two months #I just don't THINK like that on my own #No matter how. Much I'm reading #Or even the stuff I write/present for work #Cuz it's all for the PUBLIX #what I really want to do at work is like. Talk about theories of the secular wrt to a battlefield defined by the NPS as sacred ground #and how that relates to the Def of sacred in like... Nagpra #and then like... also the relationship of this site to civil religion. And also representations of manifest destiny. #Etc.

[zippers]

yay just found out that zac oyama is indeed a southerner. i keep hearing bits of his accent when he's out of character, told myself not to get my hopes up, looked it up, sure enough he's from alabama :)

#i just love seeing ppl from the south thrive in like... progressive circles bc #multiple sorority sisters told me that they thought i was a bigot (despite being openly gay and trans when they met me???) #solely based on my accent and my ''don't mess with texas'' attitude #(the irony of it is that dont mess with texas is an anti littering campaign created under a democratic governor) (anyway) #it's a bizarre type of hashtag representation but with how polarized people get wrt geographical borders and politics. i like it #and also i just love southern accents ♡ #and he has such a soothing voice :)

[patricia-taxxon]

theres a small but annoying habit i see sometimes wrt online art analysis, where if there's any acceptance of the validity of "metaphor" it comes with the stipulation that the metaphor is still representational in a sense, that you're watching an obfuscated version of the "true" story underneath. this leads to some confusion, like the maddeningly popular theory that Turning Red is about prostitution, because the red panda transformation is at once a representation of puberty/early sexual development but there's also a plotpoint based around using this transformation as a performance to get money for a concert. however, the reason that the movie is about a girl who turns into a red panda monster instead of just being a movie about puberty is to allow the transformation to mean multiple things, it is early sexuality AND self-actualization/autonomy AND the forming of a personality independent of her controlling mother. it is an abstraction for the purpose of reaching a greater potential range of meaning. "x represents y" isn't metaphor, it's just literalism with extra steps.

#mini essay #cilantromixture

[brother-emperors]

ALRIGHT okay I will attempt to explain this to the best of my ability, which is currently being held together by tape and coffee

so I have a long running post philippi story focusing on the octavian-antony divorce arc conflict and it's heavily dramatized and full of dead people. it's one part historical, one part my own invention, and one part fucking around with ideas (or the lack there of) in movies about antony and cleopatra. many of which are bad! however. there is a bad one that's actually good. like, I wouldn't recommend it except that I talk about it constantly.

it's the 1953 movie, Serpent of the Nile and I have not known peace since watching it. it's one of the more interesting takes on antony and cleopatra (TO ME), and more importantly: I'm obsessed with the plot point where antony helps lucilius escape egypt to warn octavian.

this scene is partially inspired by that! this scene is partially inspired by several things, but that's the one to mention bc I haven't published any of this story except for the periodic scene I've drawn for fun so listing the rest of it will not add to this experience and also I’m very sleepy right now

the egyptian wall backgrounds in the first page and the last page are of a tomb wall painting, the third page uses an illustration of the death of antony for shakespeare's antony and cleopatra, and on the second page is actually my own painting of antony and cleopatra after giambattista pittoni's painting of antony, cleopatra, and the famous pearl incident

additionally, that last page. the floor. that's a relief commemorating the battle of actium. I'd been reading about depictions of actium and it is. intriguing, especially since my first thought wrt to all of that is usually abt the bodies in the water and how they'll never be buried or antony's parthian fuck up setting the stage for all of this.

also this specifically. fascinating.

Representations and Re-presentations of the Battle of Actium, Barbara Kellum

#mark antony #lucilius #roman empire tag #drawing tag #komiks tag #long post #antony and octavian are divorced but also in a 'the monster you know' kind of way #octavian's reaction to antony's hello is to turn to octavia and say 'how sweet. I almost miss him. what do you think?' #sometimes a marriage is to two people but also that's on antony for not realizing the extent of which marrying octavia was also marrying #octavian. you know. like bro. that scene in the french musical where octavia is like no :( i love him :( and octavian is like #he FUCKED ME OVER BY FUCKING OVER YOU. that's what it is #god have i ever talked to you guys about french musical octavian. obsessed with him. what on earth is going on with that guy #anyway! farewell! I have been watching the live action one piece and I NEED to draw mihawk and shanks RIGHT NOW

[ecoterrorist-katara]

i have always wondered what happened behind the scenes between the show and and the comics. in the show, while s3 definitely relegated her to trophy for the main character to win in the end, she still was competent and her own person. the comics though? the writers actively hated her and it always felt like a very personal 'fuck you' from the writers to the (female) katara fans. there is such a huge difference in how they treated her, it still breaks my heart. she deserved so much better.

I think it’s telling that so many Katara fans take her post-ATLA lobotomy arc very personally. So many young girls loved her, looked up to her, saw her as the epitome of Girl Power TM because when ATLA was airing, that was the pinnacle of pop culture feminism. And that’s great, honestly, because she’s an amazing role model.

Let’s not forget that ATLA, despite its all-ages appeal, is a franchise for children. Unlike adult media, children’s media should have morals, and role models, and aspirational narratives. Katara is more than a fictional character: she’s a fictional character carrying the burden of not only representation, but aspiration. We want girls to look up to Katara and relate to her and put themselves in her shoes (and that’s why I never got the “self insert” argument wrt Zutara — if girls relate enough to Katara that they want to be like her, and shipping Zutara is a manifestation of that, how is that a problem?). We want girls to stand up for what’s right, to be brave, to embrace their own power and their agency. Which is what happened in most of the original ATLA, like you said.

and that’s why Katara’s later arc is such a slap in the face, because here’s a fictional character that so many girls looked up to…and now the narrative is going to relegate her to, what, a girl who follows her bf around and never does anything of note? A woman whose biggest contributions to the world happened when she was fourteen? A woman who begins to inexplicably take the backseat, again and again, whether it’s supporting her friends or maintaining world peace or even just making sure some groupies don’t hit on her boyfriend?

To be clear, I don’t give a fuck about the “what about the children!!!!” argument for most media, because most of it is just pearl clutching and purity politics, but children’s media is the one place where actually, you should ask, what message are we sending to the children? And apparently the answer here is “fuck you girls, no matter how accomplished and cool you were, you get married and have children and never do anything of note again. Leading a country? Saving people? Forget about it!”

#katara deserved better #anti bryke #can i ask you a question? #zutara #my meta