to play the better half of what i might.

[damkianna]

Very brisk out today, where by "brisk" I mean "five degrees below zero while I was driving to work this morning". D: But there'll be snow tomorrow, and probably at a time that will still allow me to get to work, which is nice.

I made a stupid mistake on Friday with the newsletter, but I think I managed to get the correction out okay today, so it should be fine. Aside from that, the only stupid thing I'm doing is torturing myself with The Last Airbender - I need a project for ScriptFrenzy, and clearly the only thing my brain cares about right now is rewriting things, and then this just fell in my lap! But I have to watch it at least a couple more times, because the first time I was so busy hating it I wasn't paying super close attention. Not that paying attention does anything but make the script even more glaringly terrible. D:

Tons and tons of problems with this movie have been discussed all over the place, especially the casting; obviously, I don't think these things are unimportant AT ALL, but I'm going to concentrate my unhappiness on faults that people more articulate than me have not spent posts and posts tearing apart.

One of the things that bothers me most - aside from the faily casting and the elimination of Katara's entire S1 arc and the overall shittiness of the writing - is the sheer random fail of the changes they decided to make. Look, I'm not going to argue that everything in the show was neatly and smoothly done. Does Ozai's motivation - RUN ALL THE THINGS - seem a little simplistic sometimes? Maybe. But how is "The Fire Nation doesn't want to live by the spirits!" an improvement? Is the Avatar's exact role in society a little unclear sometimes? Possibly. But was "With his mastery of the four elements, he will change hearts" really the best explanation you could muster? Was the Earthbender prison ship/coalbending escape a little shaky? Perhaps. But having a prison for Earthbenders be ON LAND, SURROUNDED BY DIRT is ASTRONOMICALLY WORSE. o.@ Seriously, what the crap was that.

And the ladyfail was ridiculous. Even aside from slaughtering Katara's arc, they were seriously just not even trying - I haven't rewatched the whole thing yet, but if there are still women in the Fire Nation army, not a single one has any of the speaking lines granted to random officers/guards/thuggish foot soldiers. And as long as you're randomly altering stuff, you could make Haru's Earthbending parent his mother. Hell, I would have been happy if suicide-by-saving-moon-spirit had just been Yue's own idea, instead of something Iroh had to convince her she was "born to do". (Which, yeah, that's right, Yue: the ENTIRE PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE is to die at the right time. Awesome.) Ugh ugh ugh. And now I am going to cut myself off, because if I keep thinking about this I am going to blow a gasket. D:<

On the upside, I think maybe I can get on track to post the last few chapters of ItO two weeks apart, instead of four weeks apart. \o/ I might have to take a little time off before I start Book Two, but if I can drop down to a two-week posting schedule, I will be VERY HAPPY. :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Also, I am dusting off my old, unused FF.net account and trying to figure out how to post to it - not because I especially want to, but J and Ka both apparently use it, and I figure I should at least give it a try. **dubious** I am probably only saying this because I'm so much more used to it, but: the AO3's interface is so much simpler. :P

Comments

[mercredigirl]

Whee! This to everything you said about AtLA. I love how your AtLA remix has AWESOME AMAZING COMPETENT WONDERFUL COMPLEX female characters in every walk of life.

[damkianna]

I try. :D And I'm sure the amount of time I've spent thinking about it contributes a lot to how much it bugs me in the movie, because I now know how easy it is - well, I mean, not easy, precisely, because of course you should put some thought into it, not just dump some women into a story and call it a day, but. How simple it is to make an effort, and how minimal the effort needs to be before it's discernable. As noted, the show's not perfect - not enough adult women, and so on - but not only did the movie not add any new awesome, it actually ACTIVELY WRECKED what awesome there was. D:< **fist of rage** WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

[mercredigirl]

My favourite is the fact that your Fire Nation soldiers are SOLDIERS. Those halter tops from the canon? NOT MILITARY UNIFORMS. (Funnily enough the first image in my mind becomes Kara Thrace!) And they are amazing at what they do and &c &c and oh your Fire Nation is not monolithic which is. Wonderful, because to so many people, those East Asian countries are a monolithic Borg of sheeple.

[damkianna]

Oh, god, I know, I was SO ANNOYED that they fell victim to the belly rule (the costumes of women who are purportedly in action roles must leave their stomachs bare if at all possible). :P And I'll admit I was dying for even more diversity - I know it's a half-hour show for maybe a slightly younger age bracket, but the worldbuilding just begs for a little more nuance. :D

[mercredigirl]

This is where I go VIETNAMESE PHILOSOPHERS! YAY! again.

[damkianna]

And this is where I helplessly go :DDDDDDDDDDDD again. ♥.