She/her - Writer (ao3 @AgraAFTERdark), yapper, bottom feeder. Sometimes i serious but mostly i shitpost.
258 posts
Latest Posts by agra-can-u-not - Page 2
you don't "hate kids," you hate being forced into a caretaking role.
you don't "hate kids," you hate censorship passed off as family values.
you don't "hate kids," you hate the constrictiveness of the nuclear family.
you don't "hate kids," you're just not used to occupying fully age diverse spaces so you're not used to the noise or the many different kinds of needs.
you don't "hate kids," most public spaces just aren't built for kids, and so the few kids you see are always uncomfortable and distressed.
you don't "hate kids," you hate the intense social rules assigned to kids and anyone who interacts with kids.
You don't "hate kids," you hate how society reproduces its most restrictive elements and how kids are powerless to resist it.
Had the shittiest day but instead of skating that shit off im sick and stuck in my dorm with my passive agresdive ass roommates and two final projects looming over my head. AND my savings just went from 4 digits to 3 cuz my bitchass brother broke his friends switch snd didnt want our dad know so guess who had to swoop in and save the day spoiler alert its ya girl fml
One thing I’ve noticed is that most people in the atla fandom aren’t invested in discussing any trauma experienced directly by war and tend to value “more commonly known trauma”.
Zuko getting burned? Being unloved? Having anger issues due to it? Desperately wanting his father’s love?
Everyone understands this in the fandom and explains all his behavior through these lenses.
Iroh losing his son. Sokka wanting to prove himself to his father and be a leader is relatable to many kids trying to grow up and fill shoes expected of them. Toph wanting her parents to understand her.
These are all things many people relate to in some way. Without having to have lived through war.
It’s why most Mai haters don’t even hate her for supporting the Fire Nation. Many don’t recognize that’s a problem. They hate her for how she acts around Zuko. Another relationship issue that can exist outside of a war situation.
Sometimes I get the vibe that people hate Mai for supposedly NOT being loyal to the Fire Nation (apparently calling her selfish and uncaring for her own people).
It’s why people have difficulty understanding Ty Lee also participated in taking down Ba Sing Se and harming many people in the process. And why it’s severely problematic that she just joined Suki.
It’s why Zuko’s racist and sexist lines throughout the show get tossed aside because he had a “redemption arc”. You don’t unlearn things you were taught to believe your whole life that quickly. Even the most sincere person would stumble and say something harmful or unwittingly carry harmful and racist beliefs.
It’s why his pathetic apology to Suki for burning her village is glossed over, like actual people couldn’t have died then. Like it’s so easy to forgive losing your home like that.
It’s why Iroh losing his son is so important and connects to his relationship with Zuko, which apparently makes Iroh good. Yeah, Iroh did bad things whatever those were, but it’s all good now. Anyone who is angry at him just lost their way and needs some tea and wisdom. Anger is not the answer.
His actions in the war are an afterthought. Other characters will get headcanons stretching any action in the most negative light:
Azula burning a doll
Aang kissing Katara without permission
Mai not giving in to Zuko’s every whim
Jet wanting Zuko to join the Freedom Fighters
Notice again, none of these things are exclusive to war. Even when people write Iroh negatively, it’s more on how he doesn’t help Zuko or doesn’t offer any help to Azula.
No one questions why he met dragons and still continued to conquer land. Few people discuss how very not wise it was of him to finally stop supporting the fn after his son died.
Even when people say he was indoctrinated and that’s hard to get out of—-
then why do you hate on Azula? Why is it not hard for her?
Because she lied to Zuko. Because she worked for Ozai who abused Zuko. This is why Azula is at times more hated than Ozai. It’s not because of her actions in war. It’s because Zuko views her as this big obstacle that he agonizes trying to beat.
Again, not fully related to war.
Zuko and Azula and Ty Lee and Mai worked to conqueror BSS? Azula is the evil one.
This seems less like the suffering of the victims are being prioritized and more like a character who’s already hated is facing even more hate.
Jet floods a village. People still hate him more for manipulating Katara. To them he’s not horrible because he flooded a village. He’s horrible because he used Katara first and then he flooded a village.
Jet is seen as the abusive and manipulative boyfriend. Or an out of control angered teenager “whose prejudice killed him”.
There’s little discussion on why he would flood Gaipan. The most common is that he was angry. Or he wanted to spread pain. Nothing about facing actual danger or who was living there or that maybe the Fire Nation could decide to burn the forest if they got fed up.
His trauma is vaguely acknowledged and only to further show how dangerous he is to others. Being suspicious of Zuko is deemed as stalking. Stealing from the ferry is labelled as evil and proof he didn’t change from Book 1 despite being given to other refugees. In fact Jet is the only one seen giving out food.
Jet grew up an orphan in a forest with other orphans under him and a very common take is that he’s like a cult leader trying to get more people to brainwash. He can’t let go of the war because of anger and extremism. His trauma makes him dangerous and not uwu and in need of help and love like Zuko’s.
People think Katara could forgive Zuko easily but not Jet. Because Jet manipulated her. And Zuko just tried to kill her and her brother and capture the Avatar thus taking away hope for winning the war…
These are on entirely different levels. There is also the fact that Zuko invaded her home and made her experience what happened when her mother died all over again.
But that’s okay because Zuko apologized and he was traumatized, and Katara has a big heart. But bring Jet into the equation and it’s not even whether he apologizes or not; most decide Katara would never forgive him.
Again, trauma and consequences of war are devalued. None of Jet’s trauma beyond anger is acknowledged and still it’s only to condemn him for hating the fn. Which would be entirely understandable if people looked at it through the context of war.
The same way Azula hate would lessen if people were to recognize everything she did was because her nation expected soldiers to. She wasn’t a singular evil, reveling in Zuko’s suffering. She was following orders from her leader and serving her nation.
Which people could recognize if they think “Zuko got his scar from being disobedient” and “maybe the same could happen to Azula”.
“Azula is horrible to her friends” and not she’s the freaking princess they have to obey her by law she completely outranks them she is in fact showing a human side by allowing them room to treat her like a friend.
“Jet needs to let go of his anger” and not witnessing your family and home killed for no reason and seeing dozens of other children face the same thing and then having to fend for yourself in a forest because not even your own people want to care for you and no matter how much anger and grief you feel nothing happens and no one is coming to help you and now it’s your job to protect other children and you never asked for any of this and why won’t this stop and you have every right to be angry
I could go on, but this is also why many don’t relate to Aang. Yeah he lost his people but–
I’m sorry what?
Genocide is something plenty of people can understand and plenty of people don’t and unfortunately the people who don’t tend to make it hard for survivors to speak about it or be angry and want justice.
Aang should have all the justification to be angry. He should have all the justification to run away from his responsibilities. He is a child meant to save the world and everyone he loves is gone. His nightmares of finally facing Ozai are made into a joke about school to be more relatable to kids. Personally I think that even if many kids wouldn’t understand the genocide aspect, they could understand why Aang would be anxious.
Almost all of the fandom loves Toph because she’s always right and rough and amazing and again very few question her line of “not my problem” to helping in the war. Most don’t discuss how her wealthy life would have shielded her entirely from the war, making it difficult for her to understand any of the Gaang’s trauma.
One might say “it’s a kid show so they couldn’t show too much of war”.
They had Zuko burned and screaming. They had Katara about to kill someone in cold blood. They had Toph almost fall to her death. They had Hama in chains in a cell for years. They had animal abuse. They had brainwashing and women with no other role than to be puppets.
Even if they couldn’t show too much of war, they should have toned down the amount of humanization the Fire Nation got.
Basically I feel like this stems from how people experience trauma outside of war and how it’s become more acceptable to speak about it, but people who have suffering from war and colonization still aren’t welcomed enough and aren’t heard in online spaces and it really shows in this fandom sometimes.
Dang
zuko's redemption arc actually kind of sucks, and you should stop heralding it as the greatest in fiction.
there are three main reasons i say this.
one) zuko is never actually challenged by the narrative and made to question his imperialistic, racist, and xenophobic beliefs about the alleged inferiority of other nations, people, and bending.
you can say, "but he realizes he sucks during zuko alone!"
but i have to ask you: does he ever actually question the fire nation's values? or does he just realize he's been mean and scary?
his redemption arc is largely made into a personal issue of kindness instead of a social issue of him needing to make amends for both enforcing and benefitting from the fire nation's imperialism.
furthermore, zuko's redemption is boiled down to a moment in which he chooses a family member who is not abusive to him over a family member who is abusive.
two) zuko's redemption arc relies on audience bias. you like zuko because of how sympathetic the narrative is to him even when he's being a racist imperialist, and thus you want zuko to redeem himself. you root for him to be part of the gaang because of all of these moments of sympathy given to him by the narrative and these little moments he has with them that tease at his potential goodness.
zuko absolutely gets to the point where he starts to make better choices in the narrative and wants to do better. i'm not saying he doesn't.
but does he ever textually earn the gaang's trust and make amends with them? you might say, "well, yeah, he goes on life-changing field trips!"
think about it, though. how quickly does the gaang decide they like zuko fully now in book 3, despite him having hunted them and tried to kill them repeatedly throughout books 1 and 2? what does zuko actually do besides take a few of them on "life-changing field trips?" how does the gaang trust zuko so much after a few weeks of him being one of them and months of him being their enemy that they don't even think it's suspicious or weird or scary when he starts firebending aggressively at aang?
the answer is that bryke took too long getting to zuko actually starting his redemption arc and relied so much on audience bias that they decided the gaang had to forgive zuko and trust him that easily, regardless of it made sense.
three) zuko's choice of his uncle over his father is a matter of filial piety: should he abide by it by paying respect and obedience to his father or break it by choosing to go against his father? however, it is never portrayed through this lens. the choice is whitewashed and westernized for the consumption of a white, western audience. it gives no nuance to what it means to be raised with filial piety as an unquestionable staple of your culture and go against it.
this last one is racist, if you were wondering. because atla is racist.
I kinda hate that all the anti maiko post are directed towards mai and never acknowledge zukos flaws in the relationship or if they do they try to excuse them when villianizing mai to the max.
More ppl should talk about how weirdly possessive zuko is of mai not just in the comics(which are overall ooc for both mai and zuko) where zuko continously flirts with her and tries to push his feelings on her while she has a new boyfriend. In the show as well like during the beach episode where he pushes a guy across the room for talking to her and tries to accuse mai of liking a guy because he looked at her, she didn't even look at him.
Everyone talks about how mai pushed zukos gift of the seashell aside but never talks about how earlier mai mentions how she doesn't like seashells in front of zuko when the where in li and lo's palace. Showing how zuko didn't listen to her.
And there's more examples but idrc to go all into it.
Anyways I'm not saying that mai doesn't have her own faults but their relationship isn't one sided toxic as many try to make it seem.
Seriously. It also bothers me how so many of zukos colossal mistakes get written off because he felt felt bad and apologized, but god forbid one of the gaang, especially aang or katara, have a slightly unfair reaction and they are suddenly “toxic” or “annoying.”
I think the show itself feeds into this. Zukos arc is great but his join up with the gaang happened way too quickly. Realistically, Aang shouldve had a harder time accepting somebody who assisted in causing his literal clinical death. But the creators saw they only had a few eps til thr finale left by the time Zuko joined the gaang and decided they needed to include as many positive group interactions as possible. Everyones like “Aang is so forgiving tho!” Okay he can be forgiving and still be traumatiEd. Trauma is NOT. A competition but (lmao, the but. Im sorry i gotta say it tho) Aangs culture literally got genocided. Hes the one who lost the most, but because he always gets baxk up, his trauma is cast aside by the fandom. Like idk how many “gaang comforts zuko” or “gaang is protective of zuko” takes/scenarios i can stomach in such large quantity to anything else. First of all as if the rest of the gaang dont have to scale shitty experiences with life on their own. They all experienced tragedy except toph, but its only zuko who gets this immense level of sympathy?? It gets ANNOYING suffice to say.
I kinda get it cuz having absuive parents is far more relatable than everyone you know and love dying, but goddamn so many people in this fandom seem to hyperfocus on traumatized angst projection zuko and it low key pmo sometimes lol.
Obligatory zukos trauma is real and his arc is awesome. I enjoy his character in spite of the critique
I love Zuko but the fandom has a major problem infantilizing him
some of your goofy asses for the past 20 years
Love Gray but this and the ending in general pmo so bad. Also would like to add that “ACME” dropping in and doing the thing Carmen has dedicated years of her life to fighting in one full swoop doesnt get talked about enough…like can u imagine how she mustve felt about that? Nothing ab that ending was happy for Carmen. I mean, she has to sit with the realization that she spent 6 months as a living manifest of everything she hated, is forced to contend with the fact that she probably killed ppl, has to see her life goal fulfilled mostly by someone else, AND feels the need to leave her found family behind because she thinls thats the best thing she can do for them as she doesnt deserve to be arpund them. And then she runs off to Argentina like meeting her mom will magically fix all of these giant bleeding bullet wounds in her mental health and heart.
In spite of being supposedly “women-led” and centered around female empowerment, Carmen Sandiego’s most well written snd complex characters apart from Carmen herself are Chase Devineaux, Gray Calloway, and Shadowsan. Like that is absolutely ridiculous. Your show thats marketed for its brown female lead actually sidelines said lead to prop up 3 male characters, 2 of which are white? (This is not a diss btw - i enjoy all 3 of these characters and i am NOTTT saying white and/or male characters dont deserve to be written well. Just understand that one of this shows selling point was brown female lead soooo the mental gymnastics to ignore that and prop up characters who dont fit that well at all ks low key wild.
tfw a random side character takes down the big bad instead of the mc (mini carmen sandiego rant)
i love gray he is my favorite
never will shut up abt him
BUT i can never get over this show having him being the reason vile is exposed. HOW DO YOU EVEN WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THAT
the show is called carmen sandiego but not even the titular main character, who has devoted EVERYTHING we see of her in the show to taking down vile, takes it down. Not even her found family takes it down in her place, to show that the bonds forged with people outside of your controlling family can leave such an amazing impact. NOT EVEN ACME TAKES VILE DOWN. like i wouldve preferred maybe julia and chase going behind chief's back to use acme resources to do their own investigation, but still, to not even have the organization built on stopping vile get that moment is insane.
hell maybe even carmen's old classmates defecting slowly could be worth something thematically
yeah no lets have the guy who was literally
a) meant to be the narrative vehicle for carmen to info dump the backstory in the first episode and intended to be written out
b) was bonked in the head with amnesia and only made a brief reappearance in one ep is s1 and an ep in s2 and no speaking lines in "s3"
c) had a focus in the first half of s4 which ended with him picking vile in the end only to have another change of heart the moment he returns as an antag in the final two eps
be the guy responsible for leaking vile to acme. no high stake rescue mission or final heist or deep investigation. nope just some guy tattle tale-ing lol to bring down an entire criminal organization.
yay female empowerment (jk kinda this show is good at writing female characters as just normal characters but it does greatly rub me the wrong way that carmen get side-lined in the finale of her own show by gray and shadowsan and yet the show claims to be empowering. easily could just be a writing issue tho and nothing to do with gender)
Spoilers for chapters one and two of Dear Pirate Across the Sea by jinxedbypow on Ao3. Not bothering with alt text because you can read it much better described in the actual fic :p
Two half sisters who grew up on different hemispheres of the social hierarchy but can bond over sharing the same shitty abusive matricidal women killing dad?????
AND YOURE TELLING ME WE MIGHT NOT SEE THEM INTERACT ON SCREEN???????
THE BATMAN (2022) dir. Matt Reeves THE PENGUIN (2024) 1x02 "Inside Man" dir. Craig Zobel
DC Super Hero Girls has given me many things. But by far my favorite thing is they have the best incarnation of Bruce Wayne. And I say that not as like oh this is 10000% who Batman is.
No. I mean they have the best version of billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. Better than even the movies have gotten for one sole reason;
I want you to take one look at this bougie himbo, one fucking look,
And tell me who in their right mind would believe this man is the goddamned Batman.
He is too pretty. Too well put together. Too big a himbo. Too covered in fucking camera crews and groupies to ever pull it off. No one would ever even fucking consider this gem of a man could do it!
But he does and it works so fucking well.
And, oh my God, it's my new favorite thing.
like this post if u are cringe and free
sorry i never replied. everyday is blending together and im losing sense of time
Realised that I dont have nearly enough atla textposts lol
the last but no the least alta power couple, completing the series ~
love them all 💚💙🧡
somebody: get over the doomed sister show
Me: no
Day 5. Legacy
So for those of us who write or want to write original fiction, do you picture your hypothetical story/book/movie/comic/etc gaining a fandom anf experiencing a ship war or are you normal
oh yeah have i ever told yall of the academic war i have been an unwilling soilder in for the past two years
Thank u for feeding us queen
How I feel giving fanart to the 8 other remaining Carmen Samdiego fans:
Preach
Every time I try to get into the Hunger Games again, I see how the braindead fans treat Gale and remember why I despise this fandom <3
Sorry, but you have the bad take here. You made a public post on a public platform, and people are allowed to disagree with you on it. Plenty of people in this story have irrational moments of anger based on their traumatic situation. Its literally stated in the book by katniss that Gale knows that tesserae is just another tactic by the capitol to divide the districts. But in this moment he is scared because his odds are infinitely more likely. Hes behaving irrationally. Thats a thing human beings do, especially when under duress. Its a mistake on his part, but holding it against him knowing what he went through is just looking for a reason to hate. We dont know if he ever apologized to Madge offscreen, but he could have.
It's the smallest thing maybe but it's funny to me Sunrise on the Reaping has given me another reason to dislike Gale.
Thinking of Madge on reaping day, wearing her nice dress and Gale giving her shit for it. Like she has a choice. Like she has say. Like it's her fault who she was born to. It's such an interesting example of class vs culture wars. This idea that the people up the road who have a nice house are the enemy and not the faceless people thousands of miles away who profit on their poverty.
Thinking of Maysilee who was very conscious of the way she dressed. Who liked looking nice and dressing up. Who is Madge's aunt that she never met. Who Madge heard stories of growing up about her moms twin sister who always loved fashion and knew the importance of masking and the power of how you present to people. Don't let them treat us like animals.
And when Madge lifts her head and says "I want to look my best if I go to the Capitol" and Gale has the audacity to scoff at her.
It also speaks to how quickly history is lost. He probably doesn't even know her aunt died in the games. Doesn't care. You never ever ever know what hurt people are carrying. What their history is. What their familial struggle has been. Don't punch down. Don't punch sideways. Don't even punch up. Break the chain and destroy the person holding the reins.