ATLA: I find Hama a more complex and sympathetic villain than any of the Fire Nation characters, including Azula. I have absolutely know problem with the way Katara treated Zuko in season 3; she had every reason to suspect that he'd waver again like he did at the end of season 2. I think Katara is a better example of a feminist character than Azula or even Toph, who, as great as she is, does have a Special Girl thing going on. I like that some characters had canon ships confirmed at the end of the series and others didn't.
ATLOK: I was profoundly disappointed with the series as a whole, not just the romance and the finale (although those were awful too). I think the main conflict that formed the backbone of the series was poorly thought out. I don't think it's at all plausible that "benders vs. non-benders" would be a huge issue a mere 70 years after the war-- you remember, the world-wide war that started with the Fire Nation, firebenders and non-benders alike, exterminating the airbenders and continuing with the Fire Nation, firebenders and non-benders alike, establishing colonies in the Earth Kingdom where they persecuted earthbenders and attacking the Water Tribes and coming close to exterminating waterbenders in the south, and ended when the literal last airbender stopped the Firelord from exterminating most of the Earth Kingdom population? That happened within living memory, so non-benders of Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe descent are much more likely to think of Fire Nation non-benders as the enemy along with firebenders and to think of earthbenders and waterbenders as their allies. I find it downright disturbing how easily people on the more critical side of the fandom sided with the Equalists in scapegoating all benders and talking about "bending privilege" and citing Tenzin's family and the apparent special treatment they received as an example of "bending privilege" when AANG WAS THE LAST FULL-BLOOD OF HIS TRIBE. Seriously, their ancestral culture was systematically slaughtered by the Fire Nation, to the point that THERE ARE NO FULL-BLOODS LEFT AND ONLY FOUR PART-BLOODS WHO CAN CARRY ON THE AIRBENDING TRADITION. I don't want to make this about my family and my issues, but for family history reasons I really, really find that horrifying. I could go on-- gender issues, Water Tribe issues, basic storytelling issues-- but I'll try not to rant too long about it.
Hunger Games: Caesar Flickerman is one of my most hated characters in the series. With some of the other people from the Capitol, like the prep team, you can argue that they're just silly and shallow and privilege-blinkered and don't really understand what they're doing to the tributes. But I truly believe that Flickerman couldn't do his job as well as he did for as long as he did unless he were genuinely sociopathic.
I find Hama a more complex and sympathetic villain than any of the Fire Nation characters, including Azula.
Agreed.
I think Katara is a better example of a feminist character than Azula or even Toph, who, as great as she is, does have a Special Girl thing going on. I like that some characters had canon ships confirmed at the end of the series and others didn't.
These are unpopular?!
I guess I ought to read Hunger Games so I know who that is. :-P
Yeah-- As you know, all female characters must be divided into rigid categories of Tomboys or Girly-Girls/Princess Types, and all Girly-Girls/Princess Types are anti-feminist. Katara heals, used to play with dolls as a child, and was closer to her mother than to her father. That makes her a Girly-Girl and therefore unfit to be a Strong/Feminist Female Character despite her very first appearance being a scene in which she tells her own older brother off for saying something sexist, unlike Azula who hated dolls and Toph whose first appearance was a scene in which she used "little girl" as an insult.
And there both people who argue that having any couples paired up at the end sends children the message that they have to marry their first loves AND people who argue that any characters left unpaired are being insulted because this sends the message that these characters are unworthy of love. Freakin' fandom.
In spite of it all, ATLA fandom was still not as bad as Harry Potter fandom, where you could get called a misogynist for NOT hating a female character enough.
Yes, that is a diatom, and it was still alive when that picture was taken! It is surprisingly hard to find live diatom shots online. It seems like everybody wants only scanning electron microscope images and diatom mosaics. I want both of those things too, don't get me wrong, but I also want images of living diatoms. The empty frustules aren't the only cool thing about diatoms.
Back when I was active in HP fandom, a lot of other people in it believed that the way to fight back against the limitations placed on women is to wish death and other horrible things on any women who occupy traditionally feminine roles (housewives, pretty and popular teenage girls, girls who cry too much, Hufflepuffs--which is not a necessarily a majority-female group in canon but somehow became associated with housewives and girly-girls and super-effeminate gay men in fanon). HP fandom was MESSED. UP.
I like diatom mosaics for the same reasons I like regular mosaics, enhanced by my love for diatoms and diatom-related stuff and by knowing how incredibly challenging it is to manipulate anything so small. While I was working on my MS project, I made several unsuccessful attempts to isolate diatoms-- not to arrange the diatoms in any pattern, just to get a section of the slide to contain only one species. Making a diatom mosaic is definitely a skill I respect, even when the pattern isn't most creative.
No, diatoms aren't necessarily alive just because they still have tissue in the frustule, but I'd bet one in the icon is, and if it's not, I don't think it was dead for very long before the picture. It looks more like the still-moving raphid diatoms I've studied than like the ones that are dead or dormant.
But I am not sure snagging images from scientists is the best plan.
The best plan for what? I didn't mean that I take non-public domain images without permission. I just like to look at diatoms. The person who made the icon image is fine with it being free to use for non-profit purposes. If she changes her mind, I'll replace it.
they feel very Victorian to me in aesthetic, I guess. Which obviously is probably part of their appeal for some people.
Hmm . . . I hadn't thought of it like that before. I mean, I knew that making diatom mosaics was a trend among Victorian-era microscopists, and I assumed that was because of the technical advances that were new at the time, but I hadn't thought of the aesthetic as being specifically Victorian. Now I'm wondering why I haven't seen the diatom mosaic concept referred to in steampunk/weird Victoriana works.
I am not exactly surprised that you knew a diatomist who was a huge jerk. That field doesn't seem to have an abnormally large number of jerks, but the ones who are jerks do, IME, take it to fairly high levels.
And now I am thinking about deleting comments, because it's not THAT hard to connect this journal with me. *facepalm*
Yeah, I feel like diatom mosaics kind of fit with things like...beetle-wing embroidery, and cabinets of curiosity--artificially elaborate displays of the natural world arranged in as un-naturalistic a style as possible. IDK. My steampunk-inclined friends seem to think dragonflies are intrinsically steampunk, so I expect it's only a matter of time before diatom mosaics end up in the mix somewhere. (I wonder if that's enough of a seed for a story?)
I do. We've talked about it before, and my main unpopular opinion about it is pretty much the same as yours: I don't think the series is as girl/woman-positive as it's supposed to be, largely because it often conflates "female character who is a worthy person and not asking for nor deserving of abuse" with "female character who is able to perpetrate and comfortable with perpetrating physical violence."
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sarken
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 06:50 pm (UTC)ALOK!
Hunger Games!
*is greedy* Or just pick one.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 08:48 pm (UTC)ATLOK: I was profoundly disappointed with the series as a whole, not just the romance and the finale (although those were awful too). I think the main conflict that formed the backbone of the series was poorly thought out. I don't think it's at all plausible that "benders vs. non-benders" would be a huge issue a mere 70 years after the war-- you remember, the world-wide war that started with the Fire Nation, firebenders and non-benders alike, exterminating the airbenders and continuing with the Fire Nation, firebenders and non-benders alike, establishing colonies in the Earth Kingdom where they persecuted earthbenders and attacking the Water Tribes and coming close to exterminating waterbenders in the south, and ended when the literal last airbender stopped the Firelord from exterminating most of the Earth Kingdom population? That happened within living memory, so non-benders of Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe descent are much more likely to think of Fire Nation non-benders as the enemy along with firebenders and to think of earthbenders and waterbenders as their allies. I find it downright disturbing how easily people on the more critical side of the fandom sided with the Equalists in scapegoating all benders and talking about "bending privilege" and citing Tenzin's family and the apparent special treatment they received as an example of "bending privilege" when AANG WAS THE LAST FULL-BLOOD OF HIS TRIBE. Seriously, their ancestral culture was systematically slaughtered by the Fire Nation, to the point that THERE ARE NO FULL-BLOODS LEFT AND ONLY FOUR PART-BLOODS WHO CAN CARRY ON THE AIRBENDING TRADITION. I don't want to make this about my family and my issues, but for family history reasons I really, really find that horrifying. I could go on-- gender issues, Water Tribe issues, basic storytelling issues-- but I'll try not to rant too long about it.
Hunger Games: Caesar Flickerman is one of my most hated characters in the series. With some of the other people from the Capitol, like the prep team, you can argue that they're just silly and shallow and privilege-blinkered and don't really understand what they're doing to the tributes. But I truly believe that Flickerman couldn't do his job as well as he did for as long as he did unless he were genuinely sociopathic.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 08:56 pm (UTC)Agreed.
I think Katara is a better example of a feminist character than Azula or even Toph, who, as great as she is, does have a Special Girl thing going on. I like that some characters had canon ships confirmed at the end of the series and others didn't.
These are unpopular?!
I guess I ought to read Hunger Games so I know who that is. :-P
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 09:13 pm (UTC)And there both people who argue that having any couples paired up at the end sends children the message that they have to marry their first loves AND people who argue that any characters left unpaired are being insulted because this sends the message that these characters are unworthy of love. Freakin' fandom.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 09:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 09:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 09:40 pm (UTC)(ALSO IS THAT A DIATOM IN YOUR ICON?)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 10:12 pm (UTC)Back when I was active in HP fandom, a lot of other people in it believed that the way to fight back against the limitations placed on women is to wish death and other horrible things on any women who occupy traditionally feminine roles (housewives, pretty and popular teenage girls, girls who cry too much, Hufflepuffs--which is not a necessarily a majority-female group in canon but somehow became associated with housewives and girly-girls and super-effeminate gay men in fanon). HP fandom was MESSED. UP.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 11:10 pm (UTC)No, diatoms aren't necessarily alive just because they still have tissue in the frustule, but I'd bet one in the icon is, and if it's not, I don't think it was dead for very long before the picture. It looks more like the still-moving raphid diatoms I've studied than like the ones that are dead or dormant.
But I am not sure snagging images from scientists is the best plan.
The best plan for what? I didn't mean that I take non-public domain images without permission. I just like to look at diatoms. The person who made the icon image is fine with it being free to use for non-profit purposes. If she changes her mind, I'll replace it.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 11:29 pm (UTC)Hmm . . . I hadn't thought of it like that before. I mean, I knew that making diatom mosaics was a trend among Victorian-era microscopists, and I assumed that was because of the technical advances that were new at the time, but I hadn't thought of the aesthetic as being specifically Victorian. Now I'm wondering why I haven't seen the diatom mosaic concept referred to in steampunk/weird Victoriana works.
I am not exactly surprised that you knew a diatomist who was a huge jerk. That field doesn't seem to have an abnormally large number of jerks, but the ones who are jerks do, IME, take it to fairly high levels.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 11:48 pm (UTC)Yeah, I feel like diatom mosaics kind of fit with things like...beetle-wing embroidery, and cabinets of curiosity--artificially elaborate displays of the natural world arranged in as un-naturalistic a style as possible. IDK. My steampunk-inclined friends seem to think dragonflies are intrinsically steampunk, so I expect it's only a matter of time before diatom mosaics end up in the mix somewhere. (I wonder if that's enough of a seed for a story?)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 11:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-20 11:57 pm (UTC)Um . . . back to fandom shenanigans! Can I give you an unpopular opinion on anything else?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-21 12:11 am (UTC)I forget, do you know Tortall?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-21 01:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-21 02:33 am (UTC)