Darling ˖°.ೃ࿔*:･

So, why do people hate on Pema?

Like i feel like it is better that Tenzin broke up with Lin to get with Pema, instead of forcing Lin to get married and have kids she didn't want. Like putting Lin in Pema's spot like the stay-at-home-mom thing probably would have made her miserable. And not to mention how many kids she had (like bro 😭), I say Lin would have like two kids (like Toph, but i feel she would be better).

And don't get me wrong I can see it being Pema stole Tenzin but I personally haven't seen any Tenzin hate. Why just Pema? It isn't just her fault, Tenzin could have just rejected her.

I feel like Tenzin saw their lives going two different ways like Lin was probably super focused on her career and didn't want kids at the time (Tenzin probably felt the need to carry on his father's legacy as the last airbender (get it?). I also saw somewhere that Pema and Tenzin were friends and she had a crush on him (I think?). So he broke up with Lin to get with Pema? I personally find that better than cheating (especially with how much they all had to see each other).

(Also, like Pema and Lin teaming up to make fun of Tenzin???)

Overall, I can see why people hate Pema but if you're going to hate on her, you should also maybe be hating on Tenzin too. But I lowkey like their family rn and can't hate Pema, but I also really like Lin.

So take this with a grain of salt (Also, if your going to make comments, be respectful or I'll probably just delete it. But I do want other people's opinions).

Also like what if Lin and Pema had a talk about it... Mhmmnmmmmmmmmmmm.....

They fully believe their own version of canon that never happened where Lin was uwu betrayed, and have such raging internalized misogyny that Pema becomes a target because their blorbo (Lin) made extremely bad decisions during the breakup situation.

Canon events these people like to ignore: Lin dating a man who needed children and then having the audacity to get enraged with him when he broke up with her. Lin destroying a man's home. Lin abusing her authority trying to arrest an innocent person.

People who hate Pema are so terminally online and addicted to their ship being "the best" and most "morally correct" that they feel the need to brush Lin's abuse and legitimate canonical crimes under the rug and prop her up on a pedestal by trying to make Pema look like a monster.

And in choosing this line of logic, they can't make Tenzin look like the bad guy either, because they've spent so much time and energy doing mental backflips to paint Pema in a bad light that if they acknowledge that Tenzin was a grown-ass man making his own decisions in this situation, their fragile view of their ship "making the most sense" begins to fall apart because then they would have to acknowledge that Tenzin chose Pema over Lin. It is easier for them to say Pema is a snake with a magic man-stealing coochie than it is for these people to admit to their misogyny.

These people have literally trapped themselves in thought-crime hell and run in circles with everyone else who has their head in the sand.

I'm a redeemed ex-Pema hater (kind of like an ex-alcoholic)And my dislike for her at the beginning did not exist, Pema meant absolutely nothing to me, she seemed flat and boring (There was only one season and due to various circumstances I couldn't watch the others until much later) Then I developed a general annoyance with the series because I felt like Lin was like a punching bag for the writers, so I took this stance of praising her virtues, and to my surprise, many others in the fandom were doing the same... albeit in a questionable way.

Supporting Linzin was a personal preference, because it seemed to me that Lin still had feelings for him and the whole tragic lovers thing, who were friends, enemies and all that, really resonated with me. I never gave Pema much thought in the equation because I didn't like her; she was a mother and a wife, End. And yes, it's probably a very misogynistic way of measuring the value of characters. But I've always been indifferent to happily traditional women in the media; I came for some cool fantasy.

Once I was inside the Linzin fandom, I caught this toxic view of the character because what does Pema do in the first season other than be a mother and wife? Advising Korra to get into a relationship, and, I love Asami very much, thinking that someone should have stopped Korra, and obviously it wasn't going to be Ikki and Jinora. I'll always have this nagging feeling that Pema seemed comfortable pushing Korra on this advice, BUT IT'S VERY REALISTIC. Why would Pema care about the short-lived relationship between two strangers? Then come the other seasons and she... Well, does she do things? How to support her husband and children... You know, mother and wife stuff.

There's her scene helping in Kuvira's attack, and well, we must acknowledge her skills as a leader and 😴😴😴😴😴

BORING, PEMA IS VERY BORING TO ME IN THE CANON

SHE DOES NOTHING 🫩

So the version that a large part of the Linzin fandom has, where Pema is a man-stealing bitch, was... well, sort of, and I didn't mind reading it; the comical nature of her evil was even funny 🤣 But I have always preferred that Linzin not exist in the imaginary, my content is proof of it, it is a zero on the left.

And I'm very good at hating characters, I don't need reasons, I just hate them, that's it. But when I started getting involved with people outside the Linzin circle, I found Pema fans and it was like (???) And of course, these people had a whole character built from the crumbs the series gave them; they had very interesting things to say and made me rethink some things.

(This is entirely @btheleaf 's fault, we're not going to be mysterious, I don't know any other Pema fan in the first place)

And to elaborate, one reason why I'm not entirely comfortable in the Linzin fandom is because I do villainize Tenzin. I think he is entirely to blame, and he was the one I had problems with when I started the series. Why did this idiot think it was a good idea to date a woman who obviously didn't want children? Why did this man decide to start a family with such a young woman? I can't describe how much that detail in the canon bothered me when I discovered the character sheets; I thought Pema was around forty, and NO.

But people are calmly playing at the girlfriend war between Lin and Pema when, in truth, he is the enemy.

People were crossing over LOK and the 70s so That’s 70s show seemed kinda appropriate. I never knew how much I was gonna I love the interaction between Lin and Mako as Red and Eric.

(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)

So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,

and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing

but i also think:

“i write for myself, but i post for others.”

because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.

people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,

and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:

“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”

especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,

and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.

And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,

and then it’s like,

I want to hear if you have a theory, if you understood the thing I referenced in a dialogue, if you didn't think of that possibility for the character, if you were disappointed. I want to talk for hours and hours about all these ideas I have about my favorite characters; a fic that doesn't generate any conversation is sad for me.I'll probably abandon it because if it's just for me, my drafts are enough, or it's enough that it stays in my head.

If someone else is there talking to me about it, they'll have my full effort to finish it, because if you gave me your time, I'll give you mine.

(I should be finishing my homework, god, I want to sleep)

Ancient Sea Creature Diorama - Anomalocaris (Cambrian Period).

古代海洋生物ジオラマ - アノマロカリス (カンブリア紀)。

The print is available on my Etsy shop.

this moment is one of the most insightful ones for both characters and its honestly so satisfying to get a scene that strips away the exaggerated personas they both rely on (sokka’s performative confidence and toph’s cultivated toughness) and shows us two children who are still shaped by parental loss and neglect.

sokka canonically represses his trauma and internal struggles by constantly running away from them. he constantly refuses to confront the inevitable, choosing instead to focus on the present and going to great lengths either to forget or to ignore anything that makes him uncomfortable. the death of his mother is one of the things he probably actively AVOIDS thinking about. which means that the admission that he can no longer remember his mother’s face must have felt devastating, even humiliating, to him. because memory is proof that love has once existed and if he cannot remember her clearly, then some part of him fears he has moved on too easily, or worse, hadn’t loved her enough. the guilt he feels because of this makes him think he’s undeserving of grieving her at all.

and yet ☝️ he shares that information, something he has never told anyone before, with toph. he chooses to sit beside her and willingly share a piece of his past, a glimpse into the most traumatic experience of his life, completely unprompted. he trusted her enough to do that because he believed it could help toph’s situation and understand his and katara’s behaviour better, because his care for those he loves is everlasting and unconditional.

toph, in return, decides to let her walls down and open up. and i don’t know about you guys, but that’s a pretty big DEAL. toph’s entire identity is built around resisting pity and proving her strength, largely because her parents reduced her to fragility for most of her life. so when she admits that katara has cared for her more gently than her own mother ever did, she is essentially exposing one of her deepest insecurities; the fact that beneath all her posturing and independence, she desperately craves tenderness and emotional recognition. all that plus tearing up in front of someone, especially while discussing her parents’ neglect is therefore an enormous act of trust for her.