Dumb confession time: I lowkey use Nya as a litmus test for whether I should interact with someone in the fandom or not. If they're being oddly hateful towards her or are undermining her or ignoring her role in the team, it's usually a sign for me to just block and move on.
The funniest thing is that it actually works, said people end up later being outed as problematic/racist/homophobic/etc. So yeah, everyone say thank you to Nya 😍😍
Request for you to create a follow up post/reblog;
What criticisms of Nya would you see as not rooted in problematic views?
For example I dislike aspects of Nya's design. I do not like that she has black hair and black eyes. I do not like the headband look or at least how she wears it. And I could easily tell you why I have a problem with her hair and eye color without sexism.
I dislike her having black hair because the team has too many characters with black hair. Cole and Arin don't really have another hair color that could fit them or been changed with plot explainations.
But Nya on the other hand could have dark, navy blue hair, or have cyan streaks or a black to cyan gradient, and it could've simply been explained as the merge amplifying the dormant power she gained from fusing with the ocean. I also wish she got cyan eyes as a consequence of seabound because if Lloyd got green eyes from a big dramatic moment revolving around powers then Nya's sacrifice certainly should've held enough weight for Nya to have her eyes change color.
Thats pretty much it!! Criticisms about her design/writing/story are fine as long they dont lean into problematic territories. What I'm talking about is when people cross the line of criticism and go into unnecessary hate. I've seen way too many people in the fandom who casually call her "an annoying bitch" or refuse to understand the story from her perspective while constantly praising the guys. Nya is not a perfect character by any means but that doesn't give us the right to be bigots!!
