me: yeah whatever. i dont feel shit

5 minutes later: dude i swear i just saw tuunbaq out on the ice

this took WAY too long but i really wanted to draw something mcr for the first time!

i have to give it to atla's fandom: their yuri game is insane. i'm fairly certain that i've seen every woman shipped with every other woman at least once, and it never feels random or ill-fitted. you have codependency issues in a childhood friendship group (tyzula, maizula, and all the variations between them), you have knightly courtship with a dash of longing for the lady's forbidden beloved (suki and yue, but i've also seen this with toph/yue as well as yue and azula...), you have legendary enemies-to-lovers with a healthy dose of hurt/comfort (azutara), you have sweet and touching friends-to-lovers (most commonly found in katoph, but suki and toph are lovely too). anything you could imagine. they have it. there's honestly not one combination you could make up with atla's ladies which wouldn't open up delectable possibilities for character exploration. it's good.

as for tlok... i wouldn't say that having mako be a woman would fix the issues i have with the romance in it, but consider this: korra, fresh out of the compound, no idea of how proper relationships work, no concept of what a romance could be (the kyoshi memoirs she got for compulsory reading had all the best parts edited out); mako, generally aware of having a predominantly gay fanbase, somewhat conscious of the ways she'd like to spend her time with the ladies fangirling over her, but over all way too busy with keeping herself and bolin off the streets to give it any proper thought; and asami, gay. openly gay, openly into mako.

cue korra struggling to identify what exactly it is that's nagging her about asami clinging to mako like that at the gala, arriving to a conclusion that she's simply mad her teammate is getting dragged off for some stupid lady bonding time (she's not. that's not what mako is getting dragged off to.), and growing increasingly frustrated with both mako and asami until the air siblings, privy to her pissed off rambling, conclude for her that she has a cruuuush (←to be read in ikki's voice), which results in korra attempting to navigate her first relationship (and failing miserably), mako attempting to choose between the two beautiful women who are suddenly really into her (and ending up with neither, since she has a subconscious unwillingness to build a relationship with somebody equally competent and independent), and asami slowly, slowly coming to a realisation that, while mako is great, what she feels when mako leaves her to get together with korra isn't quite jealousy over mako.