Personal rant...

Comments, man...

I don't complain much, but I gotta get this off my chest. If a fic you like hasn't updated and you're hoping for a new chapter, DO NOT go to the writer's other stories and ask for an update or status of a different fic.

Guess what, on AO3 all comments go to the same inbox. So comment on the fic that you're hoping to update. And even then, don't say "Hey is this abandoned?" "Update?" "When are you going to update?" etc. Be encouraging, say what you like about the story and that you're excited for the next chapter no matter how long it may take. Wish the writer well. Generally be nice about it. Put yourself in the writer's shoes and think about what you may want as a comment if you were working on a story of your own. Even keep it simple to "Really loved this and can't wait for it to continue." It's that easy.

As much as I appreciate the enthusiasm and the love for a story, I seriously recommend keeping comments related to the fic you're commenting on. It's pretty off putting getting a comment on a fic that you worked hard on and seeing that it's completely unrelated and about a different ongoing fic you have.

PS: This may sound crazy, but just receiving a positive emoji ❤️ 🥰 or "loved this!" would be more encouraging than being asked over and over the status of ongoing fics.

PPS: Think of it this way. If you have a task you have to do, if someone kept asking you when you're going to get said thing done over and over and over. Does that motivate you to do it more? Or would it just be grating at a point? You know you're going to get it done in your own time, yet instead you're being pushed to do it. And say you do, would that task be done to it's full potential or would being forced to do it result in the end outcome not being as good? But say someone is cheering you on and uplifting you while you're doing the task. That's much more motivating, right? It's not a one to one, but it's something to keep in mind.

Avatar Universe Language Theory

Something that has often been ignored or not discussed much is language within the Avatar Universe. Today, @xaibaugrove and I would like to discuss this in depth and share our theories and opinions on the matter.

There’s a construct of universal language within television and movie media, this means that all of the characters understand one another through a specific language, English in this case. This obviously is the case due to Avatar being an American animated series. But if we truly broke this down, English would not be the canonical universal language in the Avatar Universe. So what would be?

To tackle this question, we need to first figure out what languages would be spoken in specific nations and areas. So let’s do that.

There are some easy assumptions, such as Japanese for the Fire Nation and Tibetan for the Air Nomads. For the Southern Water Tribe, they would both be speaking a form of Inuktitut. Within each of these nations, there would be dialects and unique subsets of languages depending on the area they’re from.

The area that would have the most diverse language differences within their own nation would be the Earth Kingdom. Due to its size and diverse subsets of people, we believe there would be a large variety of dialects/languages within, but all would be forms of Chinese. In Ba Sing Se the predominant language would be Mandarin. For the large majority of the other areas, the language would be Cantonese. But then we have to break down that other areas such as the Si Wong Desert and Foggy Swamp would also have their own language/dialect. Something that is interesting and present in real world China is that there are over 200 different dialects/languages and it’s not just Chinese and/or Mandarin/Cantonese as many would assume. So we can easily apply this same idea and concept to the Earth Kingdom.

So this brings us back to our original question, what would the Universal Language in the Avatar Universe be? We believe that it would be a form of Chinese, mainly leaning towards spoken Mandarin due to the superiority and monarchy of Ba Sing Se. The next most predominant language would be Japanese due to the colonization during the Hundred Year War. People may ask, then why isn’t Japanese the most predominant? And the answer is this, the war was only 100 years. It would have taken much longer to spread their language to the extent that Chinese has already been spread due to the size of the Earth Kingdom. On top of this, Chinese is the language that is most seen canonically in writing. But we also have to break down that even within the series we see the Fire Nation making posters with Chinese, but again, this show is an American animated series, so it was easiest to have all of the writing done in Chinese.

The thing that supports different languages the most within the Avatar Universe is naming. We can look at the names of each character and where they are from and from this we can see patterns related to language. Names stem from specific languages, thus being more supporting evidence for the specific languages for each nation.

So technically every character within Republic City (from TLOK) and throughout the majority of the Earth Kingdom would be speaking Mandarin Chinese. But on top of this, many characters would be bilingual. Korra’s native language would be Inuktitut. Asami’s native language would be Japanese. Tenzin’s native language would be Tibetan. And an interesting case would be Mako and Bolin only knowing one language, Mandarin Chinese and not Japanese due to their parents being killed at an early age.

Due to the array of languages, the Avatar, master of all four elements, would also need to be a master of languages. This means that as the Avatar their training would include language classes. This also means that Aang actually would have struggled to communicate with Sokka and Katara, honestly everyone that he met due to having a short period of formal language training. This could even be seen when Aang would use certain terms such as “Flameo Hotman” and Sokka/Fire Nation People being confused by this outdated term.

In the case of Korra, she would be able to speak fluently in at least Inuktitut and Mandarin. Korra could also have a cute accent when speaking Mandarin. But we also assume that she would know the basics of multiple other languages. It’s fun to imagine that Korra would go back to her roots when highly agitated or when extremely happy due to not being able to express herself properly in a second language. This is even more interesting when you break down the issues of communication between her and Mako. Mako would have been monolingual and not completely understand the nuances of being multilingual, which could then lead to even more misunderstanding and frustration. In the case of Asami, the idea of going in and out of two or more languages would be more easily understandable.

From a viewer standpoint, the idea of multiple languages tied to each nation adds depth to the Avatar Universe. It also brings together the overall influence and inspiration of the surroundings/environment that the creators had put together. It adds nuance to character relationships and the society that they live in. Finally, it’s a different perspective that widens the lens of viewers that Chinese would be the universal language along with their native languages and it’s just been translated to English so that WE can understand what is occurring.

As much as I love Seychelle Gabriel for bringing Asami to life with her voice. As much as I like her as a person in her progressive thoughts and vocalizations of injustice presently. How do people keep wanting to cast her as Asami if there was a live action Legend of Korra? She already took a role, playing Yue in the Avatar live action movie, and you know what? That was whitewashing.

Heads up, Spoilers for Bohemian Rhapsody will be in this rant.

Saw Bohemian Rhapsody tonight and let me start off that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing one of the most influential singers and band portrayed on the big screen by an amazing cast. I enjoyed seeing the amount of screen time Freddie’s cats got. I enjoyed the music, the concerts, the making of the music.

BUT I did not enjoy how the queer community and being queer was portrayed. Freddie Mercury was bisexual. He had a history of being with men and women his whole life. But that was not represented well in the film. Yes, he looked at women and men. Yes, he was in relationships with a woman and multiple men in the movie. 

The issue with the movie is that there is bi-erasure. The issue with the movie is that they portray heterosexual relationships as being ideal, pure, positive; and portray homosexual relationships as toxic, damaging, unhealthy, detrimental. 

Freddie’s life is going positively, uphill with no issues... that is until he starts looking at men. When he finally accepts that he’s bisexual, he tells his long-term girlfriend to be greeted with this line, “Freddie, you’re gay.” Dismissing that he is bisexual, removing his own identity. They never backtrack, prove that this statement is wrong. And then they further support that Freddie is gay by never having him look at another woman, but ogling men all around him. By never implying that he had sexual relationships with women after his relationship ended with Mary. The only time I can think of that he did anything with another woman was when he slapped a woman’s ass at one of his parties. 

They created a gay character. And with that, they created a story arc that implied that Freddie’s demise came about because he was ‘gay’. His demise came about because he was sleeping with men. His demise came about because he had a relationship with a man that was manipulative and toxic. His demise came about because he started doing drugs and drinking to excess due to these men and parties. And never in these later scenes do we see Freddie with a woman, who historically he had relationships throughout his whole life. 

So overall, we see a positive heterosexual relationship connected with Freddie and Queen’s rise. And then we see a negative, toxic homosexual relationship become the cause of Freddie’s destruction.

Yes, we do see Freddie grow as a person and soon find Jim Hutton. But that isn’t portrayed in the film much. Maybe ten minutes at most. That’s not enough because it’s all overshadowed by the more detrimental actions of Paul Prenter.

Bi-erasure is not okay. 

Portraying homosexual relationships as toxic and unhealthy is not okay. 

I wasn’t going to write about this, but it’s just kind of been dwelling in the back of my mind for a while...

Spoiler Alert

So I’m going to talk more about The Last Jedi cause I was in the tag and it just kind of was off putting. And I need to write about it. So fair warning, spoilers are under the cut. This is to address people talking about character assassination.

Why TLJ is a great film to me:

Spoiler Alert for The Last Jedi!

This is just me ranting about the bigger picture and why I like TLJ.

Why I think Canto Bight was needed in The Last Jedi

Spoiler Alert for The Last Jedi!

idk...