#a:tla fandom

[waterbenderkat]

When an Avatar post of yours encourages analytical discussion and the tags and notes are filled with people coming together and adding their thoughts and just so much depth to your initial post in a healthy and productive way.

[ragingviolins]

I drew Aang & Momo for my Instagram and TikTok and thought I’d share it here as well!

If you like my style, you can follow my Instagram and/or TikTok for more of my art since I’m rarely on tumblr anymore. Not at all because my stuff doesn’t show in tags. 🙃

[writebecauseyoucannotbreathe]

ATLA meta post: Azula is technically a pacifist second to Aang. She goes out of her way to avoid casualties.

Me: Oooooh interesting.

Person A: NO CASUALTIES?? HELLO??? DID YOU FORGET ABOUT WHEN AZULA KILLED AANG?!

Me: lmao I forgot about that.

Person B: Azula had no choice. He was going to go into the Avatar State. She's not a pacifist pacifist but I'd argue that considering her upbringing and possible choices she does favor peace.

Me: Hmmmmm...would Azula thrive as an airbender?

Person C: What are Azula stans on? She wanted to burn the Earth Kingdom. She tried to kill her Uncle and brother. In what world is Azula a pacifist? Share your drugs.

Me: True, true. That's fair. I gotta take off my rose-tinted glasses.

Person D: Azula wasn't raised as a pacifist she was raised by Ozai and only had him as an authority figure. Given the circumstances and narrative where Azula is never rewarded for avoiding casualties, in fact, her small bouts of kindness hurt her long term as we can see by how she avoided killing Zuko only for him to be the one to constantly challenge her to an Agni Kai. I would argue that yes she is a pacifist maybe even more so to Aang if we consider the wasp and siege at the North Pole. It is easy to be a pacifist when the narrative rewards you for doing so, it is much harder to—

Me: I have stopped reading. This post is too long. Where is my Azulaang content?

[ceruleanwhore]

I’ve noticed that people in the AtLA fandom have a tendency to conflate our world with the world of Avatar and forget that AtLA is still a fantasy story based in a fantasy world. Mainly, this comes out in how people talk about race. One of the main examples is the recent argument of the Southern Water Tribe having been colonized by the Fire Nation. In the canon of the show, this is inherently untrue, which means that people just see that the Water Tribes are based on native people, conflate the two, and also assume the North American native experience that they then paste onto this completely different culture and society in a fantasy world.

The other one I’ve run into is people getting defensive and actually angry about how, yes, there are black people in Avatar and no, it doesn’t matter that they never existed in that world until at least Legend of Korra. Basically, I’ll make the point of how the different nations are based on east Asian and northern native people and then someone jumps in getting really defensive about immigration and emigration in countries like Japan. Essentially, they try to defend half-assed writing around race or argue against a lack of racial diversity by bringing up the fact that not every single person who lives in Japan is ethnically Japanese, as though the world of Avatar actually has all of the external populations that our world does to introduce racial diversity.

Then, there’s the technology in LoK and how some people get all cocky about it like “see? It’s good because it’s exactly how our technological revolution happened, breakneck pace and all.” It pisses me off so fucking much how smug some of these people can be about how they genuinely believe that the quality of fantasy can be determined by how realistic it is. Nobody talks about Tolkien like this, even though it, too, is fantasy that is modeled somewhat after reality, because people who talk about Tolkien know that this shit is just really fucking stupid. Imagine how people would take it if, after the trilogy, there was another book set 100 years later where there’s cars and Minas Tirith has been made into a mirror image of 1920s Chicago. How is Avatar any different? How could you acknowledge how fucking stupid my Tolkien example would be while simultaneously spewing bullshit about how LoK’s worldbuilding is good because it did exactly that bullshit?

And then, idk if it falls under this category or not but it is certainly based in cynicism that is rooted in our world, but there’s also the way that people just ignore redemption arcs and have that dumbass attitude of ‘people never change’ and they think that, once someone does bad things, they are completely irredeemable and that it is like straight up impossible for anyone to change for the better and make up for past mistakes. Also, kind of like my first point about colonization, people will label Iroh as a fucking war criminal for just… laying siege on an enemy city? Which, while kind of shitty, is a perfectly normal and reasonable tactical move in war and is certainly not a fucking war crime. But the idea that any general, by the nature of being a fucking general, is an irredeemable shit human is fucking disgusting. Are you then claiming that every single person who has ever served in the military is as well? These claims against Iroh seem, to me, at least, to be based in people’s views of things like Japan’s involvement in WWII and them then mapping the whole Fire Nation, and Iroh, onto that. Since Japan committed war crimes, then, now, so did Iroh just by being a general.

So, anyway, Avatar is fucking fantasy and some of these new gen fuckasses on twitter and in those cursed facebook groups need to shut the fuck up and remember the absolute most basic, fundamental part of all of this. The Southern Water Tribe was never colonized by the Fire Nation, systematic eradication of water benders ≠ colonization. The gaang traveling the world in AtLA was the fantasy narrative function of using the narrative to show the whole world- meaning that the genre inherently works on a wysiwyg basis and no, there weren’t black people, latinx people, white people, Middle Eastern people, or any races other than variations of east Asian peoples. Our breakneck paced technological revolution does not make for a good narrative or good worldbuilding in a fucking fantasy world that’s based heavily in ideas of mysticism and spirituality and has a very ancient feel to the land and the architecture, even with the technology that exists in AtLA. Zuko got better and so did Jet and Iroh; he’s no longer the fucking villain when he jumps in front of fucking lightning, throwing away his life to save Katara’s without hesitation. Fucking hell, it’s not rocket science you idiots.

[arcadialedger]

It’s been 24 hours since I watched The Siege of the North and I’m still sobbing over the beauty of this show.

Thank you for the incredible ATLA accounts who inspired me to finally watch the series for the first time: including @kataara, @avatarrs @avatarkataang, @sokkable, @thethiefandtheairbender, and more.

I have lots of fanart, meta, and fandom love coming your way. In the meantime— please reblog/ spread throughout the fandom and comment with some account recomendations.

[waterbenderkat]

Avatar Studios hype post-- comment or reblog with what projects you’d like to see from the studio this upcoming year!

For me it’s an animated series about Yangchen. 

[waterbenderkat]

I hate to do this, but... A:TLA fandom, I need your help!

Some friends have informed me that my tags are not working and my posts are not showing up on the timeline. I’ve had to self reblog to get them onto people’s feeds, and even then it’s a fraction of the notes I had before.

While I don’t care about numbers, I DO care that my posts are seen by those of you who want to see them.

So please, reblog and help spread the word about my blog!

Awareness that this is happening, and maybe turning on notifications, is always helpful.

I also want to get involved with the fandom, so follow me and I’ll give you a follow back from my main! Also drop your discords and group chats— we love to see it!

All reblogs and shares are greatly appreciated— let’s spread this like wildfire. A:TLA fandom, come say hi. I love hearing from you!

[writebecauseyoucannotbreathe]

You’re blog is just generally amazing! Ig the hate comes with being know for shipping a rare pair. I would say ignore it for now because the people who love your incorrect quotes and memes are greater in number. Keep doing what your doing!

This was so sweet ( ꈍᴗꈍ) . I am ignoring the hate, been meaning to transfer stuff to ao3 regardless of drama to have it archived, and the hate is not direct but it's...how do I describe it...straining. The atla fandom is not welcoming imho and that's why you may notice a lot of blogs leaving or decreasing activity. More on that under the cut because it's long and tedious.

Users: If you make a headcanon or post that goes against the grain aka doesn't praise the opinions of a BNF (Big Name Fan: a tumblr blogger with a large amount of followers and a strong media presence in their respective fandoms) then you will be shunned. The BNF may make a post or a blacklist and their followers will blindly obey them without fact checking which can result in you getting banned from blogs you never interacted with, shadow banned, sent anon hate, or trashtalked in a group chat. Yes, really.

This fandom blacklist can be based on the pettiest things and are more often than not completely false. I don't know why tumblr users think popularity = trustworthiness it's an issue especially when the accusations are as heavy as they are false. There's a reason why even the most factual and thoroughly sourced Tumblr post will never be put on a resume & why credentials are never posted (fun fact, everyone can have a phd on the internet) because Tumblr is not the right medium for this sort of stuff.

Artists: Depending on the pairing and the whims of the fandom you can be accused of pedophilia, racism, etc.

**Note: If you are a minor and you truly believe that a sect of the fandom are pedophiles then do not interact with them and loudly declare you are a minor. THAT IS STUPID DANGEROUS. Interacting includes doing anything from venting in tumblr group chats (everyone can see them without joining, group chats are incredibly dangerous for minors, screenshots can be taken, etc.) or making public (if its on your blog its public) blocklists. **

The accusations are usually false or exaggerated. Especially if you draw art of a pairing. Any pairing. Your art will also be reposted to other sites without credit and you'll receive comments like "ewww why does this pairing have such good art" which is really bad for self esteem. Furthermore, because of a fear of backlash from BNFs and their cult followers users will avoid reblogging your art (You may notice certain users only reblog from a small group of friends so much so that their blogs feel like they're run under one account) If your art receives enough backlash you will get shadow banned which results in your blog and art not showing up in search. Sometimes your art won't show up in the tags as a common tumblr bug.

Writers: Oh boy where do I begin. I made a tumblr to get more hits on my fanfics and a BNF accused me of plagiarism and identified my ao3 fic by title and username. On Tumblr. Instead of going into detail about how baseless the claim is I'll point out that AO3 has a report plagiarism feature but they can't do anything about offsite harassment.

Your fanfics can be accused of plagiarism but they can also be accused of racism, sexism, etc. Regardless of the validity of the claims, targeting the users for a free work is terrible especially when it's done offsite and can take many forms (such as anon hate). If you believe a work to be problematic, leave a comment or review on the work instead detailing your misgivings.

On that note, a lot of atla discussion posts receive similar treatment. People have different views and headcanons and interpretations of a work but instead of agreeing to disagree or blocking, users will signal to their friends and followers to blacklist a blog for the following xyz reasons and these reasons are not only incendiary and subject to interpretation, but they're used as a justification for anon hate and death threats.

It's a stressful time all around.