Poem of Words

Broken Promises.

Art for @zkbigbang.

i know a lot of buddhists have been rightfully shitting on daily cloud family recently, but i just want to laugh at this old conversation they had with another twitter user.

daily cloud family said that she doesn't believe that sanjomaz could have had access to the atla series bible when basically anyone who worked at nick studios could get a copy of certain editions. they are not exactly top secret information.

the series bible that was "released publicly" was the revised edition consisting of 32 pages which is easy for anyone working at nick studios to access. it was published after the first batch of episodes of atla were already in production, and season 1 follows the outline in the bible almost exactly. bibles are constantly updated by the creators and writers as the series is produced. all the writers will constantly refer to the bible (including those hired to write supplemental material like novelizations that are created as a series is airing), so they can look up details and maintain consistency across the fictional universe. bibles include so much extra information such as explanations for things that do not get put to screen and outlines for possible future events depending on where the story goes. atla's final series bible by the end of the show ended up being 65 pages long according to bryke (more than double the revised edition from season 1).

daily cloud family is bullshitting when she says the bible "says nothing about the way katara feels about aang" and "there is no mention of romance" when there is a a whole page describing the aang-katara relationship (which i have posted on my blog already). i believe sanjomaz when she says she was a nicktern with access to the bible (the revised edition, at least) because the intended dynamic for the aang-katara relationship is exactly as she describes; aang has a crush on katara but she has zero romantic interest in him and nurtures him like a babysitter. their relationship was originally meant to remain a platonic one (similar to relationships like dipper and wendy from gravity falls, or finn and princess bubblegum from adventure time).

I spared Shimura because Shimura is once again expecting Jin to solve Shimura's problems without any regard of what that will do to Jin himself.

Jin is the one who saved him from Castle Kaneda, Jin is the one who got Yarikawa on their side. Jin does all the work and suffers the losses, while Shimura reaps the rewards and complains about Jin's methods.

In that final fight, it is Shimura who can't face the dishonour of Jin standing up to him. And so naturally, he expects Jin to solve that problem by giving him a warrior's death, without once thinking about what that would do to Jin.

And Shimura has the gall to make the fight all about himself. He is the one being punished. He is the one who is sad. Don't we feel sorry for him? But it is HIS stubbornness that led to the fight in the first place. Like, dude, this is YOUR fault. Shimura is trying to KILL Jin to save his own honour/family's legacy, and then he acts like he is the injured one.

someday we’ll have a peaceful ride

AU where Katara finds unknown man on the shore, not far from the Northern Water tribe village. No one is speaking truth, bending is forbidden and Katara questions many things that seemed certain.

[pls ignore zuko's scar on the wrong side in the first panel, I'm just stupid and forgot to flip back the image, as always]

It was so much fun coloring these absolutely gorgeous lines by @demaparbat-hp . Very therapeutic to not have to worry about all the hard parts for once shdfisd. I can't wait to color in more :3

So this was originally supposed to be a response to an ask I had gotten about this ATLA theory, but because Read More links on Tumblr asks seem to break once you edit them, I’m reposting so that people can actually see the post lol 

For anyone who wasn’t a part of the Toph x Aang LiveJournal fandom in the early 2000s, buckle up, because this bugged me out as a 13 year old. 

Remember the end of “The Swamp” (Book 2, Episode 4)? We find out the swamp isn’t haunted, Huu was just protecting it the whole time, and then he explains to Katara, Sokka, and Aang why the swamp is so mystical and sacred.

The swamp is just one big banyan grove tree that’s grown out over miles and miles. All the branches and trees they see are connected because they’re one big breathing organism. And that extends to life as well. We’re all living beings. We all share the same roots. We all are from the same tree, even if we don’t act like it. Everything is connected! Cool stuff.

But when Katara asks what her seeing her mother and what Sokka seeing Yue meant, Huu explains that “in the swamp, we see visions of people we lost, people we’ve loved, folks we think are gone, but the swamp tells us they’re not. We’re still connected to them. Time is an illusion, and so is death.” So Katara never really lost her mother and Sokka never really lost Yue because the connections we make in life transcend death and time. They’re not gone. They’re still a part of us. The swamp reminds us of this.

Now, to keep in theme with this, we probably would’ve expected Aang to also see visions of people he’s lost and loved before (Gyatso, the other Airbenders, his culture, etc.)

But for some reason, Aang sees…Toph. Someone he doesn’t know.

Huu doesn’t really give Aang an explanation for this, he sort of just lets Aang figure it out for himself. And what we’re left is “okay well if time is an illusion and this isn’t someone I’ve made a connection with yet, it’s someone I will make a connection with.” We’re made to accept that as viewers, but why was Aang’s vision so different? Was it really just to lead him in the direction of his Earthbending Master so that he can continue on with his destiny?

Or was it because, unbeknownst to Aang, Toph actually was someone that he had loved and lost before? Just not in this life. In another life. A past life. When he wasn’t Aang, but rather Avatar Kuruk, the Southern Water Tribe Avatar that came before Avatar Kyoshi.

✨Basically the theory is that Toph is one of the reincarnations of Ummi, the southern water tribe woman that fell in love with Avatar Kuruk and had her face tragically stolen by Koh, the Face Stealer.✨

Stay with me, because it gets way deeper.

I want to start this off by saying that when it comes to media analysis, I personally don’t tend to give authorial intent a significant amount of weight – at least, not by default. I understand why authorial intent is so often debated among media analysts, and why so many metas and critiques often hinge their arguments on paratextual information that serves to provide potential insight on what the authors were thinking or planning. But I myself tend to follow more of a “Death of the Author” framework. There are some exceptions, such as when I believe the author’s stated intent – or even details such as their background, life experiences, advocacy etc – has bled through their work so heavily that it becomes impossible to ignore its impact on the final product. (E.g., reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky compare murder to state-ordered execution, it is hard not to contextualise the passage with the knowledge that Dostoyevsky himself faced a firing squad and was given a pardon at the very last minute). Even then, I tend to treat paratextual information like – Understanding the context behind x scene or y narrative choice potentially adds a layer of meaning to it, particularly why some scenes may have been framed the way they were, or why the author chose to tell/expand/conclude the story like this instead of like that. I use paratextual information to deepen my understanding of the author’s reasonings behind their choices. I don’t use paratextual information to form my opinion on whether their choices were good.

(I prefer to form my own opinion on that, based on what I think of the text itself.)

That being said, like most of you readers I too had heard the many rumours surrounding the writing/production process behind ATLA, especially when it came to the ships. Which ship, if any, was planned for, when were the romance arcs finally decided, were there conflicts/disagreements between writers, were there script changes and animation edits to strengthen one pairing while weakening other, and so on and so on. I’d heard the rumour that The Southern Raiders went through multiple rewrites/changes, because it was originally “too shippy”. I’d heard the rumours that Aaron and Elizabeth were pro-Zutara, Bryan and Mike were pro-Kataang, and that their respective positions/opinions on these two pairings seep through their writing in an acutely perceptible way.

I’d also heard the counter-argument, the official narrative endorsed by the creators that any chemistry or subtext between Zuko and Katara was always intended to be platonic, and that readers who saw anything romantic between these two characters were simply setting themselves up for disappointment by projecting their own expectations or preferences onto the show, nothing more.

Over the past 15 years or so, these debates shaped much of the ATLA “shipping discourse”, sometimes even dominating discussion on the subject. I myself have gotten many a variant of “Zutara was never going to happen, get over it” – even when I’ve made a deliberate effort to omit any mention of authorial intent in my analyses, because, as I’ve said, I still don’t consider that kind of paratextual information relevant to my own opinions on why I think Zutara just works better. But given the intensity of the arguments surrounding behind-the-scenes shenanigans, their impact on the final product, and even their supposed significance in determining shipping validity, it was impossible not to wonder at the truth behind all these conflicting rumours.

So when I set foot in the WGF, it was admittedly difficult to contain my bubbling excitement and anticipation. Even still, I resolved to keep my expectations low. Rumours are rumours, after all. Secondary sources must always be taken with a healthy grain of salt, and some of the rumours weren’t even second-hand information at that. And I already knew that no matter what I found, my own opinion that Zutara is the best love story almost written, would not change.

All that said and done, let’s just say that I found the discovery… highly rewarding, and for those of you who have spent years refusing to accept that you were just “reading into things”, I hope my findings bring you some long-awaited vindication.

“Toph fixing her own issues” - Toph learns to heal from the emotional abuse she endured from her parents and repairs their relationship. She needed some character development when it came to mellowing out her harsh personality. Katara’s motherly influence helped her but Toph needed to deal with the direct cause. Ehasz loves Toph (he basically created her) and was upset that she remained so static throughout the series. 

I had the chonies to ask him what he thought about LoK and the ATLA comics. He was very kind in his criticisms, and pretty much said the same exact things you have mentioned above about ATLA. Its funny too how his honesty keeps dispelling all of the claims Bryke have made about various things. 

Zutura is definitely a ship that invokes a lot of passion on both sides, but I honestly think if Ehasz were in charge of developing it further, it would have been executed quite nicely and really brought forth some interesting topics and themes during the hypothetical fourth season. 

Something I noticed about this fandom is that when people disagree with you, they tend to pounce on you and shriek that their ship/character is better and that you are wrong. Problem is, instead of having a healthy debate that could be constructive, it involves name calling and no evidence. I’m a firm believer that you should ship what you want and like the characters you want to like, and not be ridiculed for it. Disagree, but don’t put others down.

Ehasz and I mostly talked (and when I say talked, like 5 minutes max) about the comics and ATLA, but he did talk a little about LoK. The thing he stressed was about his vision being ‘different than Bryke’s,’ and stated what he would have done differently. His approach to criticism is clearly different than Bryke’s, and it actually mirrors the way they write. Bryke is more in your face and telling, whereas Ehasz is more subtle and showing. Bryke gets defensive over criticism and makes excuses, Ehasz accepts criticism and says what he could have done differently; its a fixed versus a growth mindset. 

But anyways, here’s a summary of what he told me. Sadly, I met him before the Book 4 premiere, so I couldn’t tell you his thoughts on Korrasami. I would imagine though, given the way he handles relationships, it wouldn’t have been favorable. This is what I recall about Lok:

Thought overall they did a good job, but didn’t agree with all of their choices. Would have preferred a post-ATLA series featuring the Gaang, and if allowed to do both, do the post-ATLA before LoK. This way, it would bridge the gap better and fill in loose gaps (see below).

Was a little surprised by the way Aang’s adulthood was portrayed, and would have changed his characterization a bit. Was also surprised by the lack of Sokka and would have increased his role. Would give readers some information on side characters such as Mai, Suki, etc., and what happened to them. But that’s also due to his ideas for the comics.

Liked Korra’s character, but would have handled the romantic relationships differently. Specifically referenced the love triangle and wouldn’t do that. Wasn’t sure he would permanently keep the Spirit Portals opened. Also liked the equalist movement and would do more with that. Red Lotus was cool but surprised by air bending abilities due to HC. Was interested at the time to see more of Kuvira. 

Mentioned that ship Bryke doesn’t care for, and would have explored this relationship in both post-ATLA and LoK, and potential consequences such as political stuff. We had a good laugh about that one. Giving more info and exploration about post-war Fire Nation was what he hoped Book 4 would do. 

Asked about his thoughts on Toph’s portrayal (I don’t hold back, heh) and said his vision was different. Didn’t outright say he hated or disliked it, but definitely that his vision was different and wanted to touch on her overcoming her issues with parents before LoK and having positive but realistic relationship with own kids. Would have handled Suyin and Lin differently (felt it was the wrong direction).

Similar to his ATLA commentary on Iroh, would have explored more of Iroh’s influence on Zuko and Spirit World. More Gaang interaction during LoK events would have been nice. Katara in regards to healing and bloodbending would be altered- agreed she would be against bloodbending but liked to see her fight still. 

Before ATLA had ended and the possibility of a Book 4 was still up in the air, he said he wanted to explore the political side of their world (and airbenders would have been hiding in the Fire Nation instead of being the result of Harmonic Convergence!). After ATLA ended, Ehasz said Bryke wanted him to make a spin-off focusing on Katara/Aang’s children which would have bridged the gap between ATLA and LoK (instead of releasing comics). The first option would have been the best and the second might have still been better than what we eventually got. 

Glad you mentioned the showing vs. telling thing with Ehasz vs. Bryke because this impacted on how they wrote the Kataang relationship. Sometimes it was a cutesy ship tease thing by Ehasz and sometimes it was a forced mess on near-Makorra levels of bad by Bryke (which the other writers had to tone down). Ehasz is probably mad at the current direction of the Avatar franchise but he has to keep it to himself because he’s not the creator and he’s still a good friend of Bryke’s.

You’ve seriously never seen Bryke being defensive? Let me shed some light on this…

Bryan Konietzko on the Nerdist Writers Panel Podcast

“It’s funny there are people who are so attached to the original series and it’s funny because when they confront us and they write us critical things like they’ll write us a little fan letter like… Mike and I remember during Avatar how people would be like ‘I don’t like this, and kind of whining about every little thing in the show, and really mad about how a season finale would end, and ‘I can’t believe you’d put the characters through that,’ and now that years have been removed from that, the feedback we get now about Avatar is like, ‘It’s perfect, there is nothing wrong with it, and every moment of it is perfect,’ and I don’t think every moment is perfect, I have tons of problems throughout the series, but I love it and I’m proud of it. And then with Korra they’re nitpicking every little thing and there’s a lot of comparing of Korra to, not just the shows, but comparing the character of Korra to Aang like ‘Aang was such a sweet, gentle soul, and Korra is just, she’s awful!’ …I always think back at New York Comic Con, it was at a point early in Book 2 where Korra was kind of going off the rails, and I remember Mike and the writers really wanted this civil war, she’s gonna take it very personally and it’s gonna cloud her judgement, and she’s not making good decisions. And people really didn’t like it, and I remember being interviewed in New York and they were like, ‘People hate Korra… so why did you do it?’ And I was like wow, and like, Aang was like going on a rampage in the middle of the desert beating people up because someone took his bison.”

Bryan Konietzko from the Wall Street Journal 

“It seems to me that people are uninterested in that. They get completely angry when we have fun with the teen romance stuff. I don’t know. I’m going to leave that alone. This is my new theory. Fans are more interested in imagining relationships between a myriad of pairings. But they’re profoundly disinterested in seeing any of those things manifest themselves on the show. So who knows, whatever. Mike and I as writers, we wrote it the way we found it to be entertaining, and that struck a chord with some, but maybe not with some others.”

Bryan Konietzko creates a webcomic which presents all critics of his writing as “crazy fangirls” overreacting

ZKFW Day 1: First Day High

Alam naman natin sikat ang Jollibee commercials dito sa atin. Kaya isingit na natin si Katara at Zuko dyan 🙈