Pinned has the full bracket w/ updates, as well as tags for polls and people's propaganda. Send asks through the FAQ if you need help! Owned by Grey (any/all), lover of fandoms and stewing conflict. Thank you for participating – stay safe!
Have you ever seen a ship that made you boil with rage?
Greetings.
After months of observation over tumblr's newfound ability to create polls, we have observed many people creating interesting and unique ways to utilize this new post format. We have created this blog to further fill this niche, as well as answer a question:
What is the worst ship on Tumblr?
This is a question that has confounded experts for decades. Wars have been waged over this concept. Blogs have been deleted. People, harassed; lives, ruined. And yet that simple question has yet to be answered. We here, on this blog, seek to answer this question, once and for all.
The rules are simple: submit, in the following form, your absolute, most hated ship. Anything goes. Is it horrible, or annoying? Is it popular, or is there personal stake? Multifandom, multimedia, canon or non-canon, all submissions are welcome. They will be ranked by how many votes are submitted- the more people complain about a ship, the more likely it will be selected.
The participant count will be capped at 128 unique entries. As of April 29th, there is no set date for the tournament. An announcement shall be made once preparations are complete.
This is a competition wherein the *worst* ships will gain votes. Anything goes; whether it be truly, morally reprehensible, or simply so pop
hi everyone!! just for fun, i have compiled the different polls in which kuroko no basket or knb characters have been featured in! it has my own commentary, how far characters got, links to poll essays and a bit of art!
if there are any i missed, please let me know!
hi everyone!! just for fun, i have compiled the different polls in which kuroko no basket or knb characters have been featured in! I’ve rope
i did highlight some few moments, so if you'd like to check them out, look for the orange highlights!
the biggest takeaway is that before knb charas have had major losses but also some victories!! also we have an alliance with the a3! fandom who lend their support a lot!! we couldn’t have gotten as far as we have before without them!
under the readmore, you can get a summary of what polls they've been in! such as what polls are currently up (if tumblr lets me edit it in the future), completed polls, and how many polls characters have been in
CURRENT POLLS AT TIME OF WRITING (last updated 6/15/23)
kuroko and aomine are in @lighthairdarkhair-battle
midorima is in the @greenhairandpronouns-tournament and @chikagetits's glasses chara poll! please give him your support im begging you all
the generation of miracles will be in the @skittlesquadsquabble
COMPLETED POLLS
kuroko and kise were featured in the @blueandyellowbracket
midorima and takao were featured in the @orangegreenbracket
takao was featured in the @orangecharactersmackdown
midorima was featured in the @best-green-character
kagami and kise were featured in the @redandyellowbracket
aomine and kagami were featured in the gayest noncanon bitches poll* (may have misremembered the name as that blog has deactivated)
aomine and momoi were featured in both the @blackandpinkbracket bracket and the @pinkandbluebracket
kuroko, kagami, and kise were in the @primarycolorcharactersbrackets
kagami was featured in @redcharacterbracket of the minor bracket!
momoi and midorima were featured in the pink and green bracket hosted by @dxntloseurhead
kuroko no basket as a series was in the @multicolor-fandom-tournament
kuroko and kagami were in @redandbluegaycompetition*
momoi was a finalist in @girls-in-love-bracket!
alex was in @its-to-the-death’s glasses swag tourney!*
aomine and kuroko were both in @mushi-shield’s blue hair charas tourney. aomine was victorious!
murasakibara was in @purpleboytournament
akashi was in @heterochromiasmackdown
the generation of miracles were victorious in @color-coded-squad-bracket*
here’s the current counter of how many polls a character has been featured in! (not counting generation of miracles or knb as a show for their individual count)
Let’s talk colors! ATLA is a colorful show! I’ve already covered color coding at a surface level here if you want to read. But how else does ATLA use color narratively? This post will cover the importance of color in the narrative, which gave us such iconic, visually striking scenes as the last agni kai.
By the way, this is actually a propaganda post for @multicolor-fandom-tournament, where you should totally go vote for ATLA in the final. As much as I love Pokemon, I wanna see someone else win a poll for once. Give ATLA some love. But mostly, it's just an analysis post about Zuko. Anyway, let’s get started.
The biggest use of color in the narrative is long and drawn out, but concludes in the most visually striking scene in the series, the last agni kai between Zuko and Azula. This showdown is foreshadowed at various points throughout the show. Despite red typically being the color of fire and characters associated with it, Azula is strongly associated with the color blue. She is the only character who bends blue fire, and one of the few who can bend lightning, which is also depicted as blue. It’s described as “the cold-blooded fire.”
As Zuko’s character progresses throughout the series, he becomes haunted by the colors red and blue. The first major instance comes after he frees Appa, a selfless act that doesn’t benefit him in any way. It apparently shocks even him so much that he becomes ill and falls into a feverish sleep, where he dreams that he is the Fire Lord sitting upon the throne. Two dragons, one red, one blue, hover nearby. The blue dragon speaks with Azula’s voice and tempts him, telling him to sleep, to rest. The red dragon speaks in Iroh’s voice. It warns him not to listen to the blue dragon and tells Zuko that he must get out of there. The scene begins to crumble, and the blue dragon lunges for him. My personal interpretation of this scene is that the blue dragon represents the royal family—Zuko’s “destiny” to return to the Fire Nation and take the throne. The blue dragon tells him to sleep, to accept his destiny, while the red one encourages him to break free of the cycle perpetuated by the royal family.
This is supported by another scene with two dragons later in the narrative. In the episode The Avatar and the Fire Lord, Zuko goes below the royal palace to the archives where the history of the royal family is stored. The episode covers the history of Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku and the background of Sozin’s imperialistic goals. We learn that Sozin and Roku were once friends, but had a falling out over Sozin’s ambitions. Despite this, Sozin returns to help Roku when the volcano on Roku’s home island erupts.
What does Sozin arrive on but a blue dragon.
The two fight the volcano together, and appear to be winning, but as they try to escape, Roku takes a blast of poisonous air to the face, and falls to his knees, begging Sozin to help him.
Sozin refuses, saying that with Roku gone, his plans will finally be possible. He flies away on his blue dragon, leaving Roku for dead. Roku’s dragon, Fang, who is red and often appears in visions to help the current Avatar, Aang, curls protectively around Roku as the hot ash consumes them.
Iroh then reveals to Zuko that, while Sozin was his great grandfather on his father’s side, so was Avatar Roku, on his mother’s side. If Zuko’s previous fever dream was any indication, he already knows he’s capable of breaking free of the cycle, but has been using his “destiny” as an excuse why he can’t. He’s destined for the throne. He’s destined to continue the cycle. But now Iroh tells him, if Sozin was a part of his destiny, then too, was the Avatar. And now, Zuko must confront the idea that he has a choice, that he always has, and that his destiny to rule and continue the cycle of violence is an idea of his own making.
When Zuko later confronts Ozai in Day of Black Sun, his choice is solidified, not just by his words as he confronts his father, but visually, as he redirects a shot of blue lightning meant to kill him.
The red and blue dragons also get one final appearance before the big showdown. Zuko finds that after joining the Avatar, his firebending is weaker, as it was once fueled by rage and anger and his drive was chasing the Avatar, which he has now lost. When Zuko and Aang go to the Sun Warriors to unlock the secrets of firebending, they must be judged by the two masters. Up until the moment of confrontation, neither Zuko nor Aang realize that “the masters” are two dragons, since the last dragons were thought to have been hunted to extinction by none other than the royal family.
When Zuko and Aang confront the dragons, they are judged for their worthiness. These two visual symbols, which have been haunting Zuko for the past season and a half, accept his change of heart and encircle Zuko and Aang in multicolored flames, colors Zuko has never seen and couldn’t even imagine. Zuko then says:
“I understand.”
This could be interpreted in a variety of ways, but mine is that Zuko still had doubts about whether or not he was doing the right thing until this moment (or else, wouldn’t his firebending still be working?). He wasn’t totally committed yet. When he sees so many colors dancing among the flames, the big “secret” he understands is harmony. His destiny is to bring harmony and balance back to the world, the red and blue dragons, the Avatar and the Fire Lord, working in tandem to accomplish it. He accepts this as his new drive and motivation, allowing him to firebend again.
By the time Zuko and Azula finally meet for their final showdown, the red/blue struggle within Zuko is long established and all but resolved. The only thing that remains is the externalization of the struggle: him, represented by red, vs. Azula, represented by blue. Zuko has accepted his change in destiny and aligned himself with the Avatar. Azula has not, and remains a representation of the royal family, of the status quo.
And then, we get the most visually striking fight in the whole series.
I really don’t know what else to tell you. This scene is so iconic because it’s been built up to with this color symbolism over the past two seasons. It’s satisfying to watch. It’s beautifully animated.
It ends with Azula getting one last shot of blue lightning, which up until now was believed to be an instant kill shot. The monarchy’s last ditch shot to bring Zuko down with it. But Zuko throws himself in front of Katara, taking it head on. It should have killed him, but Katara saves him. Azula is defeated, Zuko survives, and he lives to bring balance back to a world divided by war.
And when Zuko finally gets his own dragon, what color is it?
Red.
And there you have it, folks! There are some other scenes that could be color analyzed, but this is getting pretty long, so I’m going to end it here. Thanks for reading!
Let’s talk colors! ATLA is a colorful show! It’s pretty obvious at first glance that each element and thus each nation has a color association. But how else does ATLA use color narratively? Today I’m gonna be doing a little analysis at two levels: surface and narrative. This post will cover the visual, surface level.
By the way, this is actually a propaganda post for @multicolor-fandom-tournament, where you should totally go vote for ATLA in the final. As much as I love Pokemon, I wanna see someone else win a poll for once. Give ATLA some love. Anyway, let’s get started.
For individual characters, there is some pretty obvious color coding/representation going on that is notable. For instance, Ty Lee wears pink and is girly with a bubbly personality. Mai wears dark red and black and tends to be gloomy and serious. Zuko wears red and is often prone to passionate, angry outbursts. Aang wears yellow and tends to be cheery and positive. Sokka, for all his cool collectedness, wears blue. Toph is represented by green and is first introduced as a vision in a swamp, where there are themes of connectedness, growth, and new beginnings. These are all fairly obvious and surface level, so I’m not going to go into them too much.
Beyond individual characters, each nation gets its own color. This is fairly straightforward. Fire is red, air is orange/yellow, water is blue, earth is green. People from each nation wear their nation’s color for the most part, leaving us with recognizable character designs that easily allow us to discern any particular character’s origin.
There are a few other interesting cases where specific colors are reserved for specific things, such as purple, which is only worn by royalty, Princess Yue, and gold, which is used in small accents in the Fire Nation, but larger usages seem to be reserved for the royalty there as well.
However, throughout ATLA and some of the extended material such as the comics and Legend of Korra, the colors a person wears has been further used to show their multiculturalism, and sometimes detachment from culture altogether. In ATLA, there is a travailing music troupe that wears a variety of colors, presumably due to their travels necessitating the need to replace worn out garments with whatever colors are available. In the comics, there is a plot line about conflict arising in the former Fire Nation colonies, where people have been raised in a mix of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom culture. Some of the people there wear both red and green.
Later on in Legend of Korra, we see that while Republic City is multicultural, many of the people there don’t identify super strongly with any one nation. After all, many of the people there have never lived anywhere but Republic City. As a result, a lot of the Republic City characters such as Mako and Bolin wear more muted colors such as gray. Although their outfits still have accents in their respective bending colors, their outfits reflect their heritage to a place that does not strongly emphasize any one nation’s colors over the others. Notably, Amon and his chiblockers wear gray too, because their entire deal is equality among benders and nonbenders.
Another thing that is heavily color coded in ATLA is eye color. Each nation has a corresponding eye color too. For fire it’s gold/amber, air is gray, water is blue, and earth is green and brown. Eye color is so heavily color coded that it even picks up some narrative importance. When Azula takes over Ba Sing Se, she, Ty Lee, and Mai disguise themselves as Kyoshi Warriors. Katara runs up to then to warn them of the coup, but realizes something is wrong when Azula’s pretty Fire Nation amber eyes flash in the light.
Eye color is used like this in a few other places too. In the Kyoshi novels, there is a character who goes undercover who must disguise his eye color to avoid being discovered. In the Yangchen novel, there is a character from and island in the Mo Ce Sea (which is roughly in the middle of the map) who describes how her home became so cut off from any one nation that she didn’t feel allegiance to any of them. Her eyes are specifically described as hazel/brown, which can be found in all four nations.
Eye color is so heavily nation-coded that it has spawned plenty of fan theories and arguments. Suki, for instance, has green eyes in some art and blue in others. Fans argue about what her eye color actually is, with some suggesting blue-eyes Suki may have Water Tribe heritage due to Kyoshi Island’s proximity to the Southern Water Tribe, and others suggesting it was just an animation error and that they were actually supposed to be green. Another example is Ty Lee, who is a nonbender but has gray eyes, causing many people to speculate she has Air Nomad ancestry. Notably, Zaheer ALSO has gray eyes and later gains the ability to airbend, so the popular theory is that he and Ty Lee may be the descendants of airbenders who survived the initial attack and hid amongst the four nations.
Indeed, different eye color is used to show people with mixed heritage, a notable example being Asami, who has green eyes but is descended from Fire Nationals who settled in the colonies in the Earth Kingdom.
And there you have it! Those are the surface-level uses of color in ATLA. Next time we'll talk more about color theory and narrative usage of color symbolism.
hey fellow poll runners, do yall wanna make a discord server :O? im just gonna tag @colortournamenttournament cuz that seems like the quickest way to reach everyone ^v^
