darkultimatedragon

[ikkinthekitsune]

About Korra's letter to Asami and whether or not it's about Asami meaning more to Korra than anyone else: when I lost someone I cared about years ago, one of the first people I told about it was somebody who was a good friend but not one of my closest ones. This person had also lost someone and dealt with it strongly, especially for someone her age, and I knew she would understand without getting too gushy about it. It wasn't about who I "cared about more" and it definitely wasn't romantic!

Thank you for sharing your own experiences.

It makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?  If you’re dealing with something difficult and uncomfortable, talking to someone who understands (or seems likely to understand) the specific situation does a lot more good than talking to whoever you feel closest to and hoping they’ll respond in a way that actually helps.

Just because you’re closer to/romantically interested in someone doesn’t mean they’re going to be the one with all the answers.  As such, the idea that going to one particular friend for answers about something very difficult implies closeness or romantic interest just… doesn’t really comport with reality.  =/

[madman479r]

A change of Schneenery

Weiss:... *staring blankly at book*

Ruby: Hey, Weiss. You okay?

Weiss: Huh, what? I mean, yes. Why wouldn't I be?

Yang: Because you've been staring at the same page for 20 minutes, so unless you're a slow reader, something is bothering you.

Weiss: Since when are you observant?

Yang: Nice redirection, now spill.

Weiss:... *sighs* Well, as you know, Winter has been able to visit since Atlas has lent some of its forces to Vale and Beacon.

Blake: The sister you strive to impress and feel that nothing you do is good enough so you push harder? Yes, we know.

Weiss: Thank you for that unnecessary commentary, Blake. But yes. During our tea time, I asked if she would like to spar this evening after classes, but she said she was... otherwise engaged.

Yang: So, what? You're bummed because she's busy with work?

Weiss: It's not that. I understand she is quite busy, having responsibilities as a high ranking Atlas Specialist, I've come to terms with that and cherished the short times we get to spend together, but she said that this engagement was not work related, but rather... a... date.

Ruby: *Gasp* Oh! Your sister has a boyfriend?! That's great, good for her!

Weiss: She doesn't have a boyfriend, dunce! It is apparently her first evening with this person, so he's hardly a "boyfriend", and I wouldn't use such an immature title for Winter.

Yang: Whoa! Calm down, Ice Queen. Jeez, you seem pretty wound up by this guy.

Blake: Maybe it's because she's jealous.

Weiss: Jealous?! Of what, exactly? Why would I be jealous of Winter?

Blake: Not Winter. But of the guy she's going on a date with.

Yang:.. Weiss, please tell me you don't think incest is wincest.

Weiss: W-WHAT?! GET SUCH FILTHY, DEGENERATE THOUGHTS OUT OF YOUR MIND, XIAO LONG!

Blake: Not like that, either of you. I meant as in you're jealous of this mystery guy because you're afraid of him cutting into your 'Winter' time, and she'll have less time for you.

Ruby: Oooooh! Well that's ridiculous too, Weiss. Winter is your sister, your big sister. And she'll always have time for you, the best big sisters do. Even if they can be a little overboard.

Yang: Are you referring to me?

Ruby: I don't know. Do you know anyone else who stood outside my friend's home and watched the house all night while I was having a sleep over?

Yang: It was your first time, I was just making sure they weren't the bitchy type.

Ruby: Anyway, just remember, Winter will always love you and have time for you.

Weiss:... Thanks, Ruby. I guess I just needed to hear that.

Yang: So, who is the guy that managed to capture your sister's heart. If she's got an even bigger stick up her ass than you do, he must have been a catch.

Weiss: Har har. But to answer your question, I'm not sure. She never gave me a name or even a description.

**KNOCK KNOCK**

Weiss: I'll get it. **Opens door to see...**

Weiss: Winter? What are you doing here? And why are you dressed like that?

Winter: Weiss? Oh, I think I may have the wrong room.

Weiss: What?

**Sound of a door behind Winter opening**

???: Winter?

**Winter and Weiss look to see**

Weiss: Urgh, Arc. What do you-

Winter: Ah, Jaune, I hope I'm not too late for our date.

Weiss: YOUR WHAT?!

Jaune: Oh, no. Just on time if anything. And can I say you look stunning.

Winter: *///* Oh, flatterer. You clean up quite nice yourself. Very handsome.

Jaune: *Rubs back of head with a blush* Yeah, I didn't think my hoodie would be a good attire. Oh! Uh? **Offers arm for her to hold** Shall we?

Winter: *locks her arm around Jaune's and waves to Weiss** I shall see you soon, sister. Sorry to disturb you. *walks off with Jaune.*

Weiss:... *twitching eye* (mind .exe has stopped working)

Yang: Dang. Didn't think I'd say this, but vomit boy looked kinda hot dressed like that. He should try that more often.

Blake: I didn't think we'd see the day he actually managed to get a date.

Ruby: Blake! That's mean.

Blake: Sorry but you can't deny what I said.

Yang: Yeah, sorry sis. But Jaune isn't exactly beating the women away with a stick, not with his dorky attitude. But still, I guess Jaune just hit the right buttons for Ice Queen senior.

Weiss: This... this has to be a mistake. A cruel joke! How could my sister, the epitome of perfection and sophistication, even entertain the idea of spending time with that buffoon?!

Yang: Hey, like I said, maybe she just saw something in him we didn't. Besides, it's just a date. It's not like she's gonna marry him.

Weiss: Do not put such disturbing imagery in my head, Yang.

Blake: Uh, guys? What's that on the floor?

Weiss: Hmm? Is... is that...

Yang: Holy shit, that's a condom! Vomit boy is kinda moving fast.

Ruby: Girls...

Weiss: That pervert!

Ruby: Weiss.

Weiss: He thinks he can so easily bed my sister and sully her name?!

Ruby: Weiss!

Weiss: I'm going to take this condom, find Winter and expose Arc for his degeneracy!

Ruby: WEISS!

Weiss: WHAT?!

Ruby: That condom doesn't belong to Jaune. It fell where Winter was standing

Weiss:...

Blake: **Slowly goes back to reading.**

Yang:... Damn.

[strqyr]

okay, here's what salem first tells cinder: "you deserve so much more than i've given you. go to atlas, recover watts. he can lead you to the girl."

and cinder does as told, except all she gets from it is a rant from watts, including "you can't just be deserving, you have to be worthy!"

like why do i get the feeling that the game was rigged from the start. something like... watts' rant was closer to what salem was truly feeling towards cinder—hence the torture before the "you deserve so much more :)" manipulation.

and i wonder if that's something cinder figured out, too, in that moment. that the game is rigged, that she really can't trust anyone and their promises, because the goalpost is always moving, i.e. she deserves so much more, but then she does as she's told, and all she hears for it is that she needs to be worthy, too.

maybe that's why she was playing at teamwork only to get rid of watts and neo the first chance she got, why she was so bold and willing to lie straight so salem's face.

if the goalpost is constantly moving, cinder might as well be in it for herself only; no point in putting her faith on someone just to have that trust be broken again.

[takashi0]

This discourse is a week old, but I’ve been meaning to make this between distractions and this week’s episode hasn’t really brought anything to change things so…

[kob131]

8 years later and this is still evergreen.

Except RT did end up being dicks.

[janknabobfdi-xxxnitrodarkxxx]

the internet fucking owes this man an apology

i feel so fucking bad for miles luna and all the shit he went through and the personal attacks against him.

imagine the internet telling you that you tarnished a dead friend's memory for the crime of being a bad writer

imagine being scapegoated as the sole reason for rwby getting worse (despite being the writer of the "past seasons they liked better" from the start while execs were mismanaging funds)

imagine the internet telling you that you're a creepy weirdo for voicing a character (that you didn't even feel comfortable voicing) who has a love interest (that doesn't even become canon)

all while being overworked under crunch culture

(and the fact that noone bat an eye at nora x ren basically proved to me that they were just looking for reasons to hate miles and kerry)

hell, based on his other work I think he's a genuinely talented writer when paired with a good showrunner/the sole showrunner/not working on RWBY

i feel so fucking guilty not defending him when i saw people online shit talk him based on limited econd hand information

i dont care if i think rwby sucks and is badly written

i dont care if jaune arc is an annoying character

miles luna deserved so much fucking more and i am amazed that he survived all the toxicity he went through

[kob131]

To be fair, it's not like Miles is some UwU marshmellow or anything. He definitely can screw up writing for one, since RWBY's cast bloat in spite of the limited budget is consistent with his work during the Chorus Trilogy. And Miles has a bad habit of foot-in-mouth, what with the 'Tifa looks like a prostitute' bit. And hell: MAYBE he encouraged crunch since he was a higher up once.* He isn't without criticism himself, which even the man agrees to.

But speaking as someone who engaged in a lot of discourse about this topic for literal years: it was a sea of, at best, confused and jumbled criticisms mixed with legit points taken too far or...literally putting words in the mouths of the dead. Especially being called out for the writing of the character you're voicing...who you called a 'side character' in his first proper episode and it was the other guy that corrected you.

*-P.S. It's confusing trying to parse out who is to blame for RWBY's mismanagement, since former employees never name drop the last of the original writers outside of a couple of 'yeah, they tried to be nice' moments. They're in a weird situation where they could be victim and/or perpetrator.

Though I don't buy it with Miles since people in power don't have their notes thrown out.

[maliciousmisanthropy-deactivate]

[oddlyending-blog]

I agree, Korra is the antithesis of independence. Look at her first day being independent in her entire life. She comes to Republic City with no idea that she even needs to trade money for food. She doesn’t know that most parks have laws against fishing there, she constantly destroys public property to do her Avatar bid and never considers that she should have to pay for that, and she doesn’t realize that she shouldn’t run from the police! If not for Tenzin, she’d probably still be stuck in jail for destruction and evasion, as well as assault on police officers! She’s never lived alone, had to feed herself, had to survive, barely understands what she’s supposed to do as the Avatar and is easily lured by Tarrlok’s cunning to join his little task force, doesn’t like to listen to anyone, and despite her ability to stick up for herself when it comes to jerks, ONE mention of her being a poor Avatar and all of her bravado against said jerks (Tarrlok!) dissipates as if it didn’t exist and she goes to cry like a baby over it. The entire series, she learned absolutely nothing, not even to be patient and wait for the right time. She lives off of Tenzin. That’s not independent. That’s living off of someone’s good graces. Aang is more independent than she is. He took many spiritual journeys all alone, he did quite a few things all by himself; Korra’s never done anything substantial without a friend around. She spoke of her “Avatar instincts” but the fact is that her “Avatar instincts” never worked, not even one time. Korra has exceptionally poor judgement, and continues to make poor decisions the entire series. She is literally nothing but a bag of bravado, Avatarness and poor decisions. She defines herself solely on being the Avatar (until meeting Mako, after which he becomes a point for definition). Note that whenever she’s challenged, she either says “I’m the Avatar!” or instantly breaks into bending at least two elements, which of course, defines the Avatar! Some people I’ve seen wondering why Korra, despite being from the Water Tribe, instead uses Earth and Fire the most. When she faced Tarrlok, he used his element, and instead of taking him head on with water, she decided instead to use fire. Why would you use fire against water? Earth against water made slightly more sense, but she REFUSED to use water against itself. She’s inadequate, she knows it, she faced Tarrlok with a fear of his mastery of water, despite supposedly being a master of waterbending herself. She played the “I’m the Avatar, I have all these other elements, I don’t need water even though it’s my most natural element” game. And clearly it wasn’t enough, because she lost. When someone approaches her in a way that she doesn’t like, she instantly threatens them with the only thing she thinks she can do against anyone else…bending, and with at least 2 elements. If one set out to reduce Korra to nothing, all they would have to do is play on her insecurities. Of which hers are obvious and instantly draw her into depression when challenged. Considering how spiritually bankrupt she is, I would even be willing to say that it’d be easy to cut her off again from her spiritual center and rid her of the Avatar State entirely. Since there’s nothing saying that once you achieve it, you keep it, I imagine it’s something that an Avatar must keep up their spiritual connection with or else they lose the “qualification” so to speak, to achieve it. Korra is not independent. It’s like you said. She’s physically assured and headstrong. Put together, that can appear like independence. But the only things that allow Korra to be so headstrong are her friends constantly being behind her, which has been reduced to MAKO being behind her. If there was anyone in the world who COULD abuse Korra, it would be him, with how much of her self-worth she determines herself with through him. I also want to point out that Korra did not want to date Mako or accept Mako’s love until after she was restored as the Avatar. Likely because she thinks that if she can’t have both, she should have neither. Bring one down, Korra will topple faster than a card house. And that’s canon.

[ikkinthekitsune]

There are several major misinterpretations going on here that basically add up to a complete inversion of the darker side of Korra. First, Korra might not be particularly independent, but she never bothers to feel indebted to anyone about it, either.  Everything you mentioned – asking for food without money, fishing without permission, tearing up the city to get her kicks knocking around bad guys, resisting arrest, and even relying on Tenzin for training and a place to live – is a result of a massive entitlement complex on Korra’s part.  Korra expects to be given things because she’s the Avatar, often without thinking about how that affects whoever she’s relying on.  Remember, she came to Republic City to get Tenzin to train her after he explicitly told her he didn’t want her to do that – she might need to rely on him, but she’s not exactly operating from a position of weakness in doing so.  She can always leave if she wants; even if she can’t exactly support herself, she could always get by with charity or petty theft, and the ability to bend at least three elements makes it incredibly easy for her to rough it if need be. Second, I’d agree that Korra’s basically a giant bag of bravado, but “crying like a baby” isn’t exactly her first or most common reaction to having that bravado challenged.  Violence is (which you kind of admitted yourself when you said she tends to respond by bending at least two elements).  We don’t have to wonder what would happen if Mako said something that got under Korra’s skin – that actually happened in The Revelation, and she responded by knocking him halfway across the room with the training ball and looking smug about it.  Korra’s only reduced to tears when force won’t work, she can’t deny what’s being said, and she’s left without any other means to lash out and regain control of the situation, which is what happened with Tarrlok.  Even then, once she’s back on her feet, she tends to retaliate with the vindictive use of force.  I mean, honestly, Tarrlok might have made Korra cry with that “half-baked Avatar” comment, but he probably wished he hadn’t when she took away his water source, knocked him off a balcony, and tried to burn his face off in a blind fury because of it.  Korra is terrifying when she’s upset, Avatar State or not, and there’s no way anyone who tried to tear her down wouldn’t miscalculate at some point and learn that first-hand. Because, honestly, we’ve seen what it looks like when someone tries to use Korra’s insecurities to reduce her to nothing, even someone with the physical capacity to negate her automatic violent reaction.  Their names are Tarrlok and Noatak.  Not only did Korra try to kill both of them, she forced them to confront their own insecurities so much in the process that Tarrlok was driven to end both of their lives in an explosive murder-suicide and Noatak passively let him do it.  I can guarantee you that a guy who doesn’t pose the same level of physical and existential threat attempting to attack Korra at her emotional weak points wouldn’t end up any better. Finally, there’s no reason to believe that Mako is any more important for Korra’s self-worth than anyone else.  Up until their last scene, she’s convinced that he only cares about her because she’s the Avatar.  She was the first one to get over the love triangle mess in The Spirit of Competition, she was perfectly okay with letting Asami have him when it looked like Asami needed him more, and she’s utterly oblivious to him between then and the finale because she honestly had more important things to do that worry about how a guy who’s dating one of her friends feels about her.  She can clearly survive without him emotionally-speaking, even if having him gives her a bit of a self-esteem boost. With all that in mind, if you wanted to make a dark-fic based on canon characterization, you picked the wrong character.  Mako has no real power over Korra, would probably get thrown into a wall at some point if he tried attacking her emotional weak points, and has only ever acted physically violent towards Equalists.  Meanwhile, there’s Korra, who spends a good portion of her screen time beating people up for fun, threatening and attacking an annoying but generally-harmless protestor, knocking around a messenger because she’s frustrated with his boss’s behavior, physically harassing the chief of police by messing with his face in the middle of the police station, and attempting to light a disarmed councilman on fire.  If you stopped looking for reasons to make her into a victim, you’d notice that Korra herself is the one canonically shown to abuse her power over others (the remediation of which is the point of her character arc) and realize that, if any of the main team could turn out utterly terrifying if they went wrong, it’d be Korra.

(Which isn’t, of course, to say that Korra would canonically be abusive; she has a ton of legitimately good character traits to balance all of this out, and she’s generally pretty good about not attacking people she actually likes.  But it is pretty strange for you to say Mako’s showing the warning signs of abuse for, essentially, romantic insensitivity when Korra repeatedly set off the massive glaring alarm bell of legitimate physical assault against the undeserving and you call her a codependent for it)

[maliciousmisanthropy-deactivate]

[oddlyending-blog]

I agree, Korra is the antithesis of independence. Look at her first day being independent in her entire life. She comes to Republic City with no idea that she even needs to trade money for food. She doesn’t know that most parks have laws against fishing there, she constantly destroys public property to do her Avatar bid and never considers that she should have to pay for that, and she doesn’t realize that she shouldn’t run from the police! If not for Tenzin, she’d probably still be stuck in jail for destruction and evasion, as well as assault on police officers! She’s never lived alone, had to feed herself, had to survive, barely understands what she’s supposed to do as the Avatar and is easily lured by Tarrlok’s cunning to join his little task force, doesn’t like to listen to anyone, and despite her ability to stick up for herself when it comes to jerks, ONE mention of her being a poor Avatar and all of her bravado against said jerks (Tarrlok!) dissipates as if it didn’t exist and she goes to cry like a baby over it. The entire series, she learned absolutely nothing, not even to be patient and wait for the right time. She lives off of Tenzin. That’s not independent. That’s living off of someone’s good graces. Aang is more independent than she is. He took many spiritual journeys all alone, he did quite a few things all by himself; Korra’s never done anything substantial without a friend around. She spoke of her “Avatar instincts” but the fact is that her “Avatar instincts” never worked, not even one time. Korra has exceptionally poor judgement, and continues to make poor decisions the entire series. She is literally nothing but a bag of bravado, Avatarness and poor decisions. She defines herself solely on being the Avatar (until meeting Mako, after which he becomes a point for definition). Note that whenever she’s challenged, she either says “I’m the Avatar!” or instantly breaks into bending at least two elements, which of course, defines the Avatar! Some people I’ve seen wondering why Korra, despite being from the Water Tribe, instead uses Earth and Fire the most. When she faced Tarrlok, he used his element, and instead of taking him head on with water, she decided instead to use fire. Why would you use fire against water? Earth against water made slightly more sense, but she REFUSED to use water against itself. She’s inadequate, she knows it, she faced Tarrlok with a fear of his mastery of water, despite supposedly being a master of waterbending herself. She played the “I’m the Avatar, I have all these other elements, I don’t need water even though it’s my most natural element” game. And clearly it wasn’t enough, because she lost. When someone approaches her in a way that she doesn’t like, she instantly threatens them with the only thing she thinks she can do against anyone else…bending, and with at least 2 elements. If one set out to reduce Korra to nothing, all they would have to do is play on her insecurities. Of which hers are obvious and instantly draw her into depression when challenged. Considering how spiritually bankrupt she is, I would even be willing to say that it’d be easy to cut her off again from her spiritual center and rid her of the Avatar State entirely. Since there’s nothing saying that once you achieve it, you keep it, I imagine it’s something that an Avatar must keep up their spiritual connection with or else they lose the “qualification” so to speak, to achieve it. Korra is not independent. It’s like you said. She’s physically assured and headstrong. Put together, that can appear like independence. But the only things that allow Korra to be so headstrong are her friends constantly being behind her, which has been reduced to MAKO being behind her. If there was anyone in the world who COULD abuse Korra, it would be him, with how much of her self-worth she determines herself with through him. I also want to point out that Korra did not want to date Mako or accept Mako’s love until after she was restored as the Avatar. Likely because she thinks that if she can’t have both, she should have neither. Bring one down, Korra will topple faster than a card house. And that’s canon.

[ikkinthekitsune]

There are several major misinterpretations going on here that basically add up to a complete inversion of the darker side of Korra. First, Korra might not be particularly independent, but she never bothers to feel indebted to anyone about it, either.  Everything you mentioned – asking for food without money, fishing without permission, tearing up the city to get her kicks knocking around bad guys, resisting arrest, and even relying on Tenzin for training and a place to live – is a result of a massive entitlement complex on Korra’s part.  Korra expects to be given things because she’s the Avatar, often without thinking about how that affects whoever she’s relying on.  Remember, she came to Republic City to get Tenzin to train her after he explicitly told her he didn’t want her to do that – she might need to rely on him, but she’s not exactly operating from a position of weakness in doing so.  She can always leave if she wants; even if she can’t exactly support herself, she could always get by with charity or petty theft, and the ability to bend at least three elements makes it incredibly easy for her to rough it if need be. Second, I’d agree that Korra’s basically a giant bag of bravado, but “crying like a baby” isn’t exactly her first or most common reaction to having that bravado challenged.  Violence is (which you kind of admitted yourself when you said she tends to respond by bending at least two elements).  We don’t have to wonder what would happen if Mako said something that got under Korra’s skin – that actually happened in The Revelation, and she responded by knocking him halfway across the room with the training ball and looking smug about it.  Korra’s only reduced to tears when force won’t work, she can’t deny what’s being said, and she’s left without any other means to lash out and regain control of the situation, which is what happened with Tarrlok.  Even then, once she’s back on her feet, she tends to retaliate with the vindictive use of force.  I mean, honestly, Tarrlok might have made Korra cry with that “half-baked Avatar” comment, but he probably wished he hadn’t when she took away his water source, knocked him off a balcony, and tried to burn his face off in a blind fury because of it.  Korra is terrifying when she’s upset, Avatar State or not, and there’s no way anyone who tried to tear her down wouldn’t miscalculate at some point and learn that first-hand. Because, honestly, we’ve seen what it looks like when someone tries to use Korra’s insecurities to reduce her to nothing, even someone with the physical capacity to negate her automatic violent reaction.  Their names are Tarrlok and Noatak.  Not only did Korra try to kill both of them, she forced them to confront their own insecurities so much in the process that Tarrlok was driven to end both of their lives in an explosive murder-suicide and Noatak passively let him do it.  I can guarantee you that a guy who doesn’t pose the same level of physical and existential threat attempting to attack Korra at her emotional weak points wouldn’t end up any better. Finally, there’s no reason to believe that Mako is any more important for Korra’s self-worth than anyone else.  Up until their last scene, she’s convinced that he only cares about her because she’s the Avatar.  She was the first one to get over the love triangle mess in The Spirit of Competition, she was perfectly okay with letting Asami have him when it looked like Asami needed him more, and she’s utterly oblivious to him between then and the finale because she honestly had more important things to do that worry about how a guy who’s dating one of her friends feels about her.  She can clearly survive without him emotionally-speaking, even if having him gives her a bit of a self-esteem boost. With all that in mind, if you wanted to make a dark-fic based on canon characterization, you picked the wrong character.  Mako has no real power over Korra, would probably get thrown into a wall at some point if he tried attacking her emotional weak points, and has only ever acted physically violent towards Equalists.  Meanwhile, there’s Korra, who spends a good portion of her screen time beating people up for fun, threatening and attacking an annoying but generally-harmless protestor, knocking around a messenger because she’s frustrated with his boss’s behavior, physically harassing the chief of police by messing with his face in the middle of the police station, and attempting to light a disarmed councilman on fire.  If you stopped looking for reasons to make her into a victim, you’d notice that Korra herself is the one canonically shown to abuse her power over others (the remediation of which is the point of her character arc) and realize that, if any of the main team could turn out utterly terrifying if they went wrong, it’d be Korra.

(Which isn’t, of course, to say that Korra would canonically be abusive; she has a ton of legitimately good character traits to balance all of this out, and she’s generally pretty good about not attacking people she actually likes.  But it is pretty strange for you to say Mako’s showing the warning signs of abuse for, essentially, romantic insensitivity when Korra repeatedly set off the massive glaring alarm bell of legitimate physical assault against the undeserving and you call her a codependent for it)

[maliciousmisanthropy-deactivate]

[oddlyending-blog]

I agree, Korra is the antithesis of independence. Look at her first day being independent in her entire life. She comes to Republic City with no idea that she even needs to trade money for food. She doesn’t know that most parks have laws against fishing there, she constantly destroys public property to do her Avatar bid and never considers that she should have to pay for that, and she doesn’t realize that she shouldn’t run from the police! If not for Tenzin, she’d probably still be stuck in jail for destruction and evasion, as well as assault on police officers! She’s never lived alone, had to feed herself, had to survive, barely understands what she’s supposed to do as the Avatar and is easily lured by Tarrlok’s cunning to join his little task force, doesn’t like to listen to anyone, and despite her ability to stick up for herself when it comes to jerks, ONE mention of her being a poor Avatar and all of her bravado against said jerks (Tarrlok!) dissipates as if it didn’t exist and she goes to cry like a baby over it. The entire series, she learned absolutely nothing, not even to be patient and wait for the right time. She lives off of Tenzin. That’s not independent. That’s living off of someone’s good graces. Aang is more independent than she is. He took many spiritual journeys all alone, he did quite a few things all by himself; Korra’s never done anything substantial without a friend around. She spoke of her “Avatar instincts” but the fact is that her “Avatar instincts” never worked, not even one time. Korra has exceptionally poor judgement, and continues to make poor decisions the entire series. She is literally nothing but a bag of bravado, Avatarness and poor decisions. She defines herself solely on being the Avatar (until meeting Mako, after which he becomes a point for definition). Note that whenever she’s challenged, she either says “I’m the Avatar!” or instantly breaks into bending at least two elements, which of course, defines the Avatar! Some people I’ve seen wondering why Korra, despite being from the Water Tribe, instead uses Earth and Fire the most. When she faced Tarrlok, he used his element, and instead of taking him head on with water, she decided instead to use fire. Why would you use fire against water? Earth against water made slightly more sense, but she REFUSED to use water against itself. She’s inadequate, she knows it, she faced Tarrlok with a fear of his mastery of water, despite supposedly being a master of waterbending herself. She played the “I’m the Avatar, I have all these other elements, I don’t need water even though it’s my most natural element” game. And clearly it wasn’t enough, because she lost. When someone approaches her in a way that she doesn’t like, she instantly threatens them with the only thing she thinks she can do against anyone else…bending, and with at least 2 elements. If one set out to reduce Korra to nothing, all they would have to do is play on her insecurities. Of which hers are obvious and instantly draw her into depression when challenged. Considering how spiritually bankrupt she is, I would even be willing to say that it’d be easy to cut her off again from her spiritual center and rid her of the Avatar State entirely. Since there’s nothing saying that once you achieve it, you keep it, I imagine it’s something that an Avatar must keep up their spiritual connection with or else they lose the “qualification” so to speak, to achieve it. Korra is not independent. It’s like you said. She’s physically assured and headstrong. Put together, that can appear like independence. But the only things that allow Korra to be so headstrong are her friends constantly being behind her, which has been reduced to MAKO being behind her. If there was anyone in the world who COULD abuse Korra, it would be him, with how much of her self-worth she determines herself with through him. I also want to point out that Korra did not want to date Mako or accept Mako’s love until after she was restored as the Avatar. Likely because she thinks that if she can’t have both, she should have neither. Bring one down, Korra will topple faster than a card house. And that’s canon.

[ikkinthekitsune]

There are several major misinterpretations going on here that basically add up to a complete inversion of the darker side of Korra. First, Korra might not be particularly independent, but she never bothers to feel indebted to anyone about it, either.  Everything you mentioned – asking for food without money, fishing without permission, tearing up the city to get her kicks knocking around bad guys, resisting arrest, and even relying on Tenzin for training and a place to live – is a result of a massive entitlement complex on Korra’s part.  Korra expects to be given things because she’s the Avatar, often without thinking about how that affects whoever she’s relying on.  Remember, she came to Republic City to get Tenzin to train her after he explicitly told her he didn’t want her to do that – she might need to rely on him, but she’s not exactly operating from a position of weakness in doing so.  She can always leave if she wants; even if she can’t exactly support herself, she could always get by with charity or petty theft, and the ability to bend at least three elements makes it incredibly easy for her to rough it if need be. Second, I’d agree that Korra’s basically a giant bag of bravado, but “crying like a baby” isn’t exactly her first or most common reaction to having that bravado challenged.  Violence is (which you kind of admitted yourself when you said she tends to respond by bending at least two elements).  We don’t have to wonder what would happen if Mako said something that got under Korra’s skin – that actually happened in The Revelation, and she responded by knocking him halfway across the room with the training ball and looking smug about it.  Korra’s only reduced to tears when force won’t work, she can’t deny what’s being said, and she’s left without any other means to lash out and regain control of the situation, which is what happened with Tarrlok.  Even then, once she’s back on her feet, she tends to retaliate with the vindictive use of force.  I mean, honestly, Tarrlok might have made Korra cry with that “half-baked Avatar” comment, but he probably wished he hadn’t when she took away his water source, knocked him off a balcony, and tried to burn his face off in a blind fury because of it.  Korra is terrifying when she’s upset, Avatar State or not, and there’s no way anyone who tried to tear her down wouldn’t miscalculate at some point and learn that first-hand. Because, honestly, we’ve seen what it looks like when someone tries to use Korra’s insecurities to reduce her to nothing, even someone with the physical capacity to negate her automatic violent reaction.  Their names are Tarrlok and Noatak.  Not only did Korra try to kill both of them, she forced them to confront their own insecurities so much in the process that Tarrlok was driven to end both of their lives in an explosive murder-suicide and Noatak passively let him do it.  I can guarantee you that a guy who doesn’t pose the same level of physical and existential threat attempting to attack Korra at her emotional weak points wouldn’t end up any better. Finally, there’s no reason to believe that Mako is any more important for Korra’s self-worth than anyone else.  Up until their last scene, she’s convinced that he only cares about her because she’s the Avatar.  She was the first one to get over the love triangle mess in The Spirit of Competition, she was perfectly okay with letting Asami have him when it looked like Asami needed him more, and she’s utterly oblivious to him between then and the finale because she honestly had more important things to do that worry about how a guy who’s dating one of her friends feels about her.  She can clearly survive without him emotionally-speaking, even if having him gives her a bit of a self-esteem boost. With all that in mind, if you wanted to make a dark-fic based on canon characterization, you picked the wrong character.  Mako has no real power over Korra, would probably get thrown into a wall at some point if he tried attacking her emotional weak points, and has only ever acted physically violent towards Equalists.  Meanwhile, there’s Korra, who spends a good portion of her screen time beating people up for fun, threatening and attacking an annoying but generally-harmless protestor, knocking around a messenger because she’s frustrated with his boss’s behavior, physically harassing the chief of police by messing with his face in the middle of the police station, and attempting to light a disarmed councilman on fire.  If you stopped looking for reasons to make her into a victim, you’d notice that Korra herself is the one canonically shown to abuse her power over others (the remediation of which is the point of her character arc) and realize that, if any of the main team could turn out utterly terrifying if they went wrong, it’d be Korra.

(Which isn’t, of course, to say that Korra would canonically be abusive; she has a ton of legitimately good character traits to balance all of this out, and she’s generally pretty good about not attacking people she actually likes.  But it is pretty strange for you to say Mako’s showing the warning signs of abuse for, essentially, romantic insensitivity when Korra repeatedly set off the massive glaring alarm bell of legitimate physical assault against the undeserving and you call her a codependent for it)

[maliciousmisanthropy-deactivate]

[oddlyending-blog]

I agree, Korra is the antithesis of independence. Look at her first day being independent in her entire life. She comes to Republic City with no idea that she even needs to trade money for food. She doesn’t know that most parks have laws against fishing there, she constantly destroys public property to do her Avatar bid and never considers that she should have to pay for that, and she doesn’t realize that she shouldn’t run from the police! If not for Tenzin, she’d probably still be stuck in jail for destruction and evasion, as well as assault on police officers! She’s never lived alone, had to feed herself, had to survive, barely understands what she’s supposed to do as the Avatar and is easily lured by Tarrlok’s cunning to join his little task force, doesn’t like to listen to anyone, and despite her ability to stick up for herself when it comes to jerks, ONE mention of her being a poor Avatar and all of her bravado against said jerks (Tarrlok!) dissipates as if it didn’t exist and she goes to cry like a baby over it. The entire series, she learned absolutely nothing, not even to be patient and wait for the right time. She lives off of Tenzin. That’s not independent. That’s living off of someone’s good graces. Aang is more independent than she is. He took many spiritual journeys all alone, he did quite a few things all by himself; Korra’s never done anything substantial without a friend around. She spoke of her “Avatar instincts” but the fact is that her “Avatar instincts” never worked, not even one time. Korra has exceptionally poor judgement, and continues to make poor decisions the entire series. She is literally nothing but a bag of bravado, Avatarness and poor decisions. She defines herself solely on being the Avatar (until meeting Mako, after which he becomes a point for definition). Note that whenever she’s challenged, she either says “I’m the Avatar!” or instantly breaks into bending at least two elements, which of course, defines the Avatar! Some people I’ve seen wondering why Korra, despite being from the Water Tribe, instead uses Earth and Fire the most. When she faced Tarrlok, he used his element, and instead of taking him head on with water, she decided instead to use fire. Why would you use fire against water? Earth against water made slightly more sense, but she REFUSED to use water against itself. She’s inadequate, she knows it, she faced Tarrlok with a fear of his mastery of water, despite supposedly being a master of waterbending herself. She played the “I’m the Avatar, I have all these other elements, I don’t need water even though it’s my most natural element” game. And clearly it wasn’t enough, because she lost. When someone approaches her in a way that she doesn’t like, she instantly threatens them with the only thing she thinks she can do against anyone else…bending, and with at least 2 elements. If one set out to reduce Korra to nothing, all they would have to do is play on her insecurities. Of which hers are obvious and instantly draw her into depression when challenged. Considering how spiritually bankrupt she is, I would even be willing to say that it’d be easy to cut her off again from her spiritual center and rid her of the Avatar State entirely. Since there’s nothing saying that once you achieve it, you keep it, I imagine it’s something that an Avatar must keep up their spiritual connection with or else they lose the “qualification” so to speak, to achieve it. Korra is not independent. It’s like you said. She’s physically assured and headstrong. Put together, that can appear like independence. But the only things that allow Korra to be so headstrong are her friends constantly being behind her, which has been reduced to MAKO being behind her. If there was anyone in the world who COULD abuse Korra, it would be him, with how much of her self-worth she determines herself with through him. I also want to point out that Korra did not want to date Mako or accept Mako’s love until after she was restored as the Avatar. Likely because she thinks that if she can’t have both, she should have neither. Bring one down, Korra will topple faster than a card house. And that’s canon.

[ikkinthekitsune]

There are several major misinterpretations going on here that basically add up to a complete inversion of the darker side of Korra. First, Korra might not be particularly independent, but she never bothers to feel indebted to anyone about it, either.  Everything you mentioned – asking for food without money, fishing without permission, tearing up the city to get her kicks knocking around bad guys, resisting arrest, and even relying on Tenzin for training and a place to live – is a result of a massive entitlement complex on Korra’s part.  Korra expects to be given things because she’s the Avatar, often without thinking about how that affects whoever she’s relying on.  Remember, she came to Republic City to get Tenzin to train her after he explicitly told her he didn’t want her to do that – she might need to rely on him, but she’s not exactly operating from a position of weakness in doing so.  She can always leave if she wants; even if she can’t exactly support herself, she could always get by with charity or petty theft, and the ability to bend at least three elements makes it incredibly easy for her to rough it if need be. Second, I’d agree that Korra’s basically a giant bag of bravado, but “crying like a baby” isn’t exactly her first or most common reaction to having that bravado challenged.  Violence is (which you kind of admitted yourself when you said she tends to respond by bending at least two elements).  We don’t have to wonder what would happen if Mako said something that got under Korra’s skin – that actually happened in The Revelation, and she responded by knocking him halfway across the room with the training ball and looking smug about it.  Korra’s only reduced to tears when force won’t work, she can’t deny what’s being said, and she’s left without any other means to lash out and regain control of the situation, which is what happened with Tarrlok.  Even then, once she’s back on her feet, she tends to retaliate with the vindictive use of force.  I mean, honestly, Tarrlok might have made Korra cry with that “half-baked Avatar” comment, but he probably wished he hadn’t when she took away his water source, knocked him off a balcony, and tried to burn his face off in a blind fury because of it.  Korra is terrifying when she’s upset, Avatar State or not, and there’s no way anyone who tried to tear her down wouldn’t miscalculate at some point and learn that first-hand. Because, honestly, we’ve seen what it looks like when someone tries to use Korra’s insecurities to reduce her to nothing, even someone with the physical capacity to negate her automatic violent reaction.  Their names are Tarrlok and Noatak.  Not only did Korra try to kill both of them, she forced them to confront their own insecurities so much in the process that Tarrlok was driven to end both of their lives in an explosive murder-suicide and Noatak passively let him do it.  I can guarantee you that a guy who doesn’t pose the same level of physical and existential threat attempting to attack Korra at her emotional weak points wouldn’t end up any better. Finally, there’s no reason to believe that Mako is any more important for Korra’s self-worth than anyone else.  Up until their last scene, she’s convinced that he only cares about her because she’s the Avatar.  She was the first one to get over the love triangle mess in The Spirit of Competition, she was perfectly okay with letting Asami have him when it looked like Asami needed him more, and she’s utterly oblivious to him between then and the finale because she honestly had more important things to do that worry about how a guy who’s dating one of her friends feels about her.  She can clearly survive without him emotionally-speaking, even if having him gives her a bit of a self-esteem boost. With all that in mind, if you wanted to make a dark-fic based on canon characterization, you picked the wrong character.  Mako has no real power over Korra, would probably get thrown into a wall at some point if he tried attacking her emotional weak points, and has only ever acted physically violent towards Equalists.  Meanwhile, there’s Korra, who spends a good portion of her screen time beating people up for fun, threatening and attacking an annoying but generally-harmless protestor, knocking around a messenger because she’s frustrated with his boss’s behavior, physically harassing the chief of police by messing with his face in the middle of the police station, and attempting to light a disarmed councilman on fire.  If you stopped looking for reasons to make her into a victim, you’d notice that Korra herself is the one canonically shown to abuse her power over others (the remediation of which is the point of her character arc) and realize that, if any of the main team could turn out utterly terrifying if they went wrong, it’d be Korra.

(Which isn’t, of course, to say that Korra would canonically be abusive; she has a ton of legitimately good character traits to balance all of this out, and she’s generally pretty good about not attacking people she actually likes.  But it is pretty strange for you to say Mako’s showing the warning signs of abuse for, essentially, romantic insensitivity when Korra repeatedly set off the massive glaring alarm bell of legitimate physical assault against the undeserving and you call her a codependent for it)

[raxistaicho]

don't some of the anti's say genocide of the nabeteans is bad but at the same time say the agarthians back in sothis time deserved it cause actions of the few and all that

The assumption just seems to be that no innocents died along with the guilty, which is dubious at best given the implication that Sothis flooded the surface of Fodlan.

This came up in The Savior King, The Master Tactician and the Queen of Liberation, where Lysithea said they should hold a holiday to celebrate the day Sothis wiped out two city states.

[thanatosra]

the more and more I find out about this fic the more how the hell was this able to become as popular as it was, first the elites calling series a hero when why would they when they followed nemesis cause they saw him as a hero, then theirs the whole calling caulde a half well you know what and dimitiri being a white saviour

then theirs the writing of el being entitiled to byleth, her going how dare they turn dora against me and going full Jeoffrey from got.

now we have them celebrating a genocide

Then theirs the petra stuff where oh yeah we need to save her better have the white chars do it from the evil edelgard (who like I said above is so out of character)

[werewolf-cuddles]

This guy is STILL out here posting this shit?

This isn't even "RP advice" at this point, they're just straight up doing anti-ship discourse now.

[werewolf-cuddles]

#HUH??????#is the op in the pic like 14#what

I regret to inform you that they are apparently 39

[stalker-among-the-stars]

39 and acting like this is a sign of.... Something bad. Can't place what exactly it is tho.

[marquisdeglad]

"taboo is right wing"

Holy merciful god, how do you get that dumb. Yes, of course, right wing conservatives, renowned for their love of taboo sexual preferences, pornography, and kink in general.

When did words stop having meanings?

[kob131]

I know you aren't plugged into discourse so let me explain:

Basically, a LOT of people are convinced that taking an anti-censorship stance is 'right-wing', which is what a lot of these stances either are or lead to in order to even exist. And a lot of left wing people are convinced it's solely a right wing thing.

Ignore the very loud and obnoxious neo-Christians trying to force censorship. Because these people are incapable of discerning between differing flavors of conservatives.

[cori-randomstuff]

People often talk about how Subaru and Reinhard have opposite family situations but the same could be said about Emilia and Rein.

Emilia is hated by the world but has/had a loving family who are willing to sacrifice themselves for her while Rein is loved by the world but the Astrea family can be described as a complete shitshow.

[darkultimatedragon]

a refutation to the claims that Weiss was being objectified in v2 dance arc

[fantastic-nonsense]

This is specifically about “Remembrances,” but if anyone has any other instances to add, feel free.

This is something that came to mind while I was working on another post analyzing the lack of development in the Korrasami relationship. I suddenly realized that during…

[distant-moon]

How Mako Talks About Korra vs. How Asami Talks About Korra

I think that Asami’s responses to Korra and the subsequent flashbacks were the result of Asami trying to address very specific fears Korra had at the time. I think if the conversation went like this…

Korra: “I’m the worst Avatar ever. The world doesn’t need be anymore.”

Asami: “You’re a great person, you know.”

Korra: “Yeah, too bad being a great person isn’t enough to save the world.”

…there is a good chance Korra would have felt worse. Because her current preoccupation wasn’t with how good of a person she was, but with how good of an Avatar she was. That’s why all of her flashbacks had to do with her previous battles and accomplishments as the Avatar. Her relationship with Asami wasn’t being called into question the way Mako’s was with both Korra and Asami.

[ikkinthekitsune]

This would be far more compelling if Tenzin wasn’t successful in helping Korra immediately afterwards by switching the subject to Korra as a person.

Here’s what Korra finds legitimately helpful:

Tenzin: It’s true, there will always be new conflicts and enemies to face. But the important thing is to learn from your enemies and better yourself over time, which you have.  You’ve changed so much since you first arrived on Air Temple Island. When you first came here, you were hot-headed and a bit selfish. But you’ve matured into a thoughtful young woman who puts the needs of others before herself. The new Air Nation is a testament to that. You sacrificed everything to save them. You’re an inspiration to the world.

None of that is about Korra-as-Avatar – it’s all about Korra-as-Korra, and how she should focus on her own inner growth as an indicator of her progress rather than the state of the world, since the world’s always going to get itself back in danger.

Also, I question that the main theme of Remembrances was relationships. I think each character that had flashbacks had some unresolved inner conflict that needed venting so they could begin to see things from a new perspective. Korra got to hear Asami and Tenzin’s view of her progress instead of beating herself up for her supposed mistakes. Mako starts to acknowledge thanks to Wu and his family that he can’t please and protect everyone all the time and that he needs to be more clear in his relationships (even with himself). And Bolin needed that reassurance that if he places too much focus on his own shortcomings, he’ll miss his own potential and won’t be able to redeem himself (specifically with Opal).

That’s how I saw it, anyway.

I agree with you here, though, except insofar as Mako’s segment was so heavily focused on relationships that it couldn’t help but be about the relationships themselves, too.  If it’s not about his relationship with Korra, it loses a lot of its value.

[memingursa-deactivated20250625]

*firebombs your dashboard*

[kob131]

Still one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.

[werewolf-cuddles]

Until they're proven true, allegations are just that; allegations. It is always important to keep that in mind whenever something like this happens.

That being said, the Vulture article was a horrifying read, and if the allegations made in that article about Neil Gaiman (and Amanda Palmer, let's not leave her out of it, she was absolutely implicated in this) are true, then I am absolutely disgusted and hope the proper action is taken.

[kob-bitches-about-rwde]

I think ‘RWBY is glorifying suicide’ might just become another of my pet peeves.

I legitimately cannot see how, when the topic of suicide is even tangentially touched on, this show handles it poorly. It doesn’t glorify the act, it doesn’t make the thoughts seem anything but horrifying, it doesn’t villainize people who think that way, it doesn’t make light of the act or death, let alone in a way that’s more so than normal, it’s not done for shock alone- It doesn’t make sense.

Even going deeper: Jaune’s implied suicidal tendencies are treated as a serious negative that he had to get over.

Penny’s death is deliberately tragic and has a massive effect on the story.

And Ruby’s act is out of the actions of another deliberately trying to break her.

Fuck, I’d argue it handles the topic better than Doki Doki Literature Club. Sayori might be slightly more realistic but her death almost by design couldn’t have an effect on the story and an argument can be made it was done for shock value- to start the downward spiral of the game.

Like, as someone who dips into suicidal thoughts and suffers from depression, how is this offensive?