I took this picture almost 2 years ago. It was a gift from my husband. It seems fitting (again as we had a question about it in the last test) that Chapter 67 talks about The Last Airbender series. The sequel was The Legend of Korra. As much as I understand the problems that come with the appropriating of various cultures to make the fictional nationalities in the original and in this one, I can’t help but admit that I absolutely love both series. (I immediately thought about this guilty pleasure when we watched the Bad Feminist Ted Talk). As chapter 67 mentioned, this show itself had some problems with the building of the characters through deconstructing various native cultures. However, the real storm came when the motion picture movie was released and the cast was 99% white. Needless to say the movie tanked and the expectations for this sequel where almost non-existent. The series was most definitely structured a bit differently as it was set a several decades into the future from where The Last Airbender took off. It still had various native elements but it primarily focused on a more industrial world. They had cities, cars and a much more advanced infrastructure. They even depicted the cultures mixed and focused more on the way they had integrated into “modern” life. But beyond that, there was obviously still a big fandom behind it. Like me, there were many that still stayed on The Avatar boat despite the issues left from the last series. And this one gave hope right off the bat by having a female avatar. Korra, was portrayed as strong and flawed. She had depth to her beyond a perfect heroine. Which there were strong female characters in the original series but having a leading female, really pushed the fans to excitement. Needles to say, the fans were involved across all platforms. There was fan art generated, fan fiction, fan blogs and in some opinions, they shaped the shows ending. Korra starts off in a Hetero romance triangle but as the show passed fans voiced their preference that they wanted her to end up with another main female character, romantically. The show made wishes come true, in a sense, during the finale (sorry spoilers) when they alluded to a relationship between the two as they run off together into the spirit world. The show had alluded to them in some sort of relationship prior to that as well by writing words of care and love for one another in later seasons. The voice of the fans was a catalyst for this representation. As a kid show, anything beyond hetero-normativity is a tad rare. Or at least up until recent it has been. Although they weren’t necessarily aiming for a bi-sexual representation, the voice and trans-media content produced by the fandom, shaped the show to represent a gender fluid character that normally isn’t seen on prime time. Korra does show interest in males in the show as well, which puts in question the idea that sexuality is more on a spectrum as opposed to the binary model pushed to be true.