Black and fab. 22. Libra. ENFJ.
Bay Area. Media Studies Student @ UC Berkeley.
Writer, artist, illustrator, producer, critic.
Benevolent Media Proprietor in training.

I made PoCentric a word.
It's also my business standard.

#E*TonesOrBust.

Honestly.

I want more members.

I am covetous. 

I want all the members.

Shh. Just come. 

owldee:

swan2swan:

owldee:

“When asked if he had the whole arc of the series mapped out from the start, Vince gave an answer that really resonated with me and it applies to both A:TLA and Korra so I thought it was worth mentioning. He said he had a general idea of where the character was headed from the start — following Walt as he goes from “Mr. Chips to Scarface.” But he was very clear that he didn’t have it all figured out at the start and that the collaboration he has with the writers, actors, and directors added a lot to the show. Other people helped him come up with ideas he never would have thought of. Same goes with Korra. Bryan and I knew we wanted to take Korra from brash warrior to a spiritual being over the course of her story, but we didn’t know if that would be one season or more. Unlike The Last Airbender, we wanted to make the seasons (or books) more standalone, with one main threat per book. However, we don’t just hit the reset button with each book. Everything Korra does and learns in one book definitely carries over to the next and ties into her overall spiritual path. It’s great to have multiple books to tell her story, as we can dig deeper into the spiritual side of the Avatar and the world. But there’s no way Bryan and I could have come up with all of this by ourselves. We have an amazing team of producers, writers, directors, and designers all of whom add to the world in surprising, cool ways.”

— From Mike’s most recent blog post. I’m just gonna leave this here.

This is why I’m willing to give the series more chances and I’ve dialed back on a lot of my bitterness in regards to Korra and her story; granted, I will probably never fully forgive or enjoy the finale, and Makorra is going to really have to win me over with their interaction (it can be done, I think), but it’s very possible for me to stick with this.

Again, my prediction is that the ease with which Korra has apparently mastered the Avatar State by the second book will actually be deceptive (though to be fair, I don’t even know if scenes like that will be in the next book, they could just be concept designs, for all we’ve seen, like the original Avatar pilot and that one animatic scene from Toy Story where Buzz is Tempest from Morph and all that). It’s possible that she may “believe” that she has control, but then lose it; again, her spiritual side can be called into question. 

Though I also believe that the “furious destructive wrath of the Avatar State” is a theme that should probably be limited to Aang; Korra’s already destructive, and while it’s not mindless, Aang already had to work with controlling it, and with his fear of it. Korra can approach it from a different angle…at least, I hope that’s what they do.

Just as long as she doesn’t run into a continuous chain of villains who expose their own thinly-veiled secrets and as long as she doesn’t have to keep being bailed out by Aang and as long as she actually takes a supervillain down properly without having to be rescued by her manly man…we should be good. :)

well said swan. i agree with all this :) (although i do personally feel the destructive power of the avatar state could be done again with korra - idk i just kind of see it as a consistent challenge for each avatar…i mean korra shouldn’t have the exact same challenges as aang but i can see her struggling to control the avatar state too to some degree idk?)

willwednesdaywin:

#fixing your finale

turdlewexler:

4fthechallenger:

missturdle:

Izumi Curtis is a wonderful, chronically ill, kind, friendly housewife who is also an alchemist who will fuck shit up if you hurt her family.

Courtesy of Arakawa’s: There’s no wrong way to approach femininity, womanhood, or asskicking school of thought.

Yet another of the many brilliant commonalities between Bryke’s (Avatar) and Arakawa’s (FMA) defining stories, which explains why they share so many fans in common as well and why I love the idea of crossing them over so much.

They don’t rely on just 3-4 types of characters, let alone 3-4 characters period. They showcase loads and loads of faces, with a very dynamic range of personalities. Aang; Edward; Korra; Izumi (as seen above); Ursa; Tenzin; Sozin; Winry; Sokka; Lan Fan; Greed (also seen above); Azula; Kimblee; Asami; Lust; Ozai; Scar; Toph; Hiroshi; Iroh; Father; Amon; Bumi; Alex; Hakoda; Hama; Pema; Olivier; Bradley; Zhao; Zuko; Mai; Alphonse; Bolin;  Riza; Ty Lee; Jet; Ling; Lin; Roy. These names, and those are not even all of them, are those of figures who all share similarities yet differences which make them unique; just like real people.

When Michael Dante Dimartino and Bryan Konietzko created Avatar, when Hiromu Arakawa created Fullmetal Alchemist; they didn’t create stories that said you were unacceptable as a man or woman without a(n) [insert X here] personality or approach to life. Their worlds are a showcase of how any kind of person, with any way of going through each and every day or any great or terrible story behind them, can be weak and/or strong in soul.

RESPECTFULLY SPEAKING: the times Bryke does manage to do it right are the times they get out of their own ways and let their writers improve their story to become more like Arakawa. 

Bryke aims for what Arakawa does. They don’t…they don’t always hit the mark. You can be any type of girl, of course, but ultimately and arguably the most important female main character of A:TLA (Katara) just ends up becoming a footnote to the male main character. The fact that the majority of the character development in Korra comes from Love triangles (Pema/Tenzin/Lin; Mako/Korra/Bolin; Asami/Mako/Korra) only really furthers my distinction between the two series, and why I ultimately enjoy FMA much more than A:TLA despite loving both series quite a lot. 

Arakawa doesn’t waste time with unnecessary conflict. There are romances, yes, and they go through conflicts, and love and family are arguably the driving factors of the series. But these factors are part of the story, they don’t overwhelm the story, and they certainly don’t eclipse entire characters in favor of some romance triangles. The people who love each other love each other obviously, strongly, and display it through their actions and choices. 

A:TLA/A:TLOK…is more concerned with love and lust over-writing the story rather than being a driving motivator. I think A:TLA is not as guilty of this, but certainly by Korra, even Katara’s entire journey was summed up as “she married the Avatar.” The relationships conflict with the actual conflicts and plots and let’s be entirely honest, any time Bryke has tried to characterize a villain, they’ve usually only been a villain, without any of the real nuances there. Which is a shame, Amon would have been the perfect nuanced villain to follow up the very non-nuanced Ozai, or Zhao. 

A:TLA did well because of other writers. But Bryke and TLOK didn’t pull anywhere close to FMA for me in this area. It tried, sure, but I wouldn’t say it got there. Hell, we never get an Izumi character from Bryke: Katara’s mother is dead, Gran Gran has little screen time, Pema is only a housewife and an acolyte - it’s Lin who is Not a Housewife and Chose Her Career Instead of the Man who has to save her, Ursa was also essentially fridged/put on a bus for the entire series, leaving the ONLY motherly figure to be Katara who is never shown actually parenting in any flashbacks (or in flashbacks whatsoever at all - badass or otherwise). 

So actually I would say that…didn’t really happen as much as we’d like to think it did in A:TLA/TLOK. The variations on women are definitely not as strong. 

anavatarmadefullmetal:

turdlewexler:

edwardelricsexual:

Reblogging because of the excellent analysis. 

I fully agree with this, but let us not forget that while FMA is a manga/anime, A:TLA/LOK is an american cartoon, and the narrative and concepts of heroism, epic, and badassness are different in both genre, in my humble opinion

I would say that’s not true, and even if it was, the rest of A:TLA/LOK is supposed be drawing from Asian mythos narratives. The very point of the Avatar is a heroic narrative based on Asian philosophies.  As a shonen manga/anime FMA pushes far past the expectations of the prototypical shonen and instead gives us a heroic tale that also includes love, romance, family, and strongly developed female characters. FMA is already not entirely of the shonen genre mold, and A:TLA/LOK is arguably supposed to be taking from the very same ideas and philosophies that much of FMA uses (especially Buddhism). 

Plus if “American heroic narratives” involves “less developed female characters who fall in the spectrum between really masculine or really feminine” that uh, is a big problem! And shouldn’t be part of the narrative. And then we should ask ourselves why Japan accepts this, but why the US apparently would not?

I would say the big difference here is that Arakawa is a woman who wrote good characters, and Bryke are men who tried to write female characters who were good because they were just like the boys. 

[you don’t have to reply but discussion is there. idk not attacking you just talking]

“Arakawa is a woman who wrote good characters, and Bryke are men who tried to write female characters who were good because they were just like the boys.”

roamingcatholics:

Legend of Korra Fancast- Part IV

• Kim Yoo Jung as Jinora
• Ashida Mana as Ikki
• Jang Geung Suk as Tahno
• Rudy Youngblood as Hasook

roamingcatholics:

Legend of Korra Fancast- Part III

• Tatanka Means as Tarrlok
• Jay Tavare as Amon/Noatak
• Ryo Kase as Lieutenant
• Randal Duk Kim as Hiroshi Sato

/sobs

roamingcatholics:

Legend of Korra Fancast- Part V

• Sacheen Littlefeather as Master Katara
• Tony Leung Chiu Wai as Adult Aang
• Irene Bedard as Senna
• Billy Merasty as Tonraq
• Wes Studi as Yakone
• Raoul Trujillo as Bumi