meeja I have watched

[lotesse]

Because that is a thing I do sometimes!



I mainlined AtLA when I was freaking out about exams last week; somehow it seemed the thing to do. Unsurprisingly, this show completely charmed the pants off me. I love the worldbuilding, the weird animal hybrids, the sense of history and depth and strangeness that it achieves. I love the variety in the characters. I love Katara and her need to make the world a better place, Sokka and his moments of startling badassitude, Toph and her swagger and her oft-discarded manners and the fact that she likes it that in the stage show she's played by a buff dude. I can see why so many people stan so hard for Zuko - he's total fangirl catnip, between the scars and the abandonment issues and the surprising sweetness underneath all his anger. He didn't catch me as hard as he might've, though, because I've totally fallen head over heels over head for Aang. In part it's that I'm so utterly charmed that the spiritualist, pacifist boy with the heavy destiny is a cheery little dork, in part it's that my Gemini parts approve of air people and their patterns, but I - just - Aang.

(I reaaaaaally want some juicy Aang-centric fic - I don't really ship him with anyone in particular, but I want alllll the stories about Aang and his family and the way they love and care for what's human rather than divine in him. Recs pls?)

And, also unsurprisingly, I didn't like LoK nearly as much. Part of it is the loss of innocence tone-wise, but I think a lot of my problem stems from the show's portrayal of the Equalists as having far too much of a legitimate point. I could be down with a story about a hero in a time when heroism is a hindrance rather than a help, but in that story I would expect the story to be about how the hero changes away from their heroing ways and becomes a functional part of their community. I had a really, really hard time being on the side of the police rather than on the side of the protesters. But Korra herself is badass, and she and Mako and Asami need to get with the threesomes now.



This is How To Train Your Dragon: The TV Show, and it is twenty minutes of happiness and love and rainbows delivered once a month for your viewing pleasure. It's stories about what happens in the ending, which I adore - now that peace has been made, how do we live? How must we change? And it's so stupidly sweet and wonderful that I can't even. <3.



I ... don't believe in marriage as an institution and so have somewhat mixed feelings about the one where my otp gets married? But I'm glad it's over and done with, so that hopefully Mary can get some less marital storylines going on. I really enjoyed the split between she and Matthew over family loyalty - she seemed very Barrayaran there for a moment, and I'm a total sucker for that sort of semi-feudal house loyalty. I love that Mary loves her people, and I love that they love her back - Carson's face about her wedding dress was the only part of the wedding-related hoopla I enjoyed.

I'm miffed that Sybil's storyline only lets her talk about her husband. I want to know what's going on with Sybil, what she's feeling and thinking, if she's happy about the baby, if she's found what she wanted away from Downton. But instead it's just Branson Branson Branson all the time. Not that he wasn't vastly improved from last series visually. But mainly I just want some 20s feminism up in here. Get with it, sister suffragette!

Comments

[autumnia]

I'm miffed that Sybil's storyline only lets her talk about her husband.

Sybil was barely a footnote in the entire episode. The only time she didn't seem to talk about Branson was when all three sisters were together in Mary's room just before the wedding. I was wondering about the baby too; no one seemed to have mentioned the baby at all! But I did enjoy the bits of Branson/Matthew bonding as future brothers-in-law. :-)

At least the Bates/Anna storyline is moving along at a good pace, unlike last season where it dragged for far too long.

[lotesse]

It's one of the reasons (apart from the nastily coercive you need a man to tell you what you want stuff) why I've been sulky about the Sybil/Branson storyline all the way through - because it channeled all of Sybil's "rebellious" characterization toward sexual rebellion, an affair with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. But before that she was wearing pants and going to political rallies and I miss that. Urgh stupid soap opera why are you so soapy?

[oursin]

some 20s feminism up in here

Starts hanging with Marie Stopes and running birth control clinics?

[lotesse]

yessssss. How cool would that be?

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

Avatar! Love it so much. There are so many great things in TLA, especially.

I like Korra a lot but yeah, I have some problems with it. I can understand the Equalists theoretically but--terrorism! Not useful for getting on my good side. That being said, I'm definitely on the side of the protestors when the police are enforcing that curfew. I do wish they could have had Korra's first season as long as the ones for TLA. I would love a bunch of filler episodes of the new Team Avatar and just their lives and hijinks in Republic City.

[lotesse]

Yeah, I bet that would've worked for me - I don't think my attach to Korra's gang was strong enough to carry me through the endgame plot of that season, but some hijinks could've fixed that.

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

We get hints of possible hijinks that could have happened--like when the gang goes cruising through the city in Asami's car, hunting down criminals, and then hanging out while eating street food afterward. They could easily have at least one whole episode of just that! Or when everybody else moves into the Air Temple, I want awkward-but-hilarious new roommates escapades.

[lotesse]

AGREED on the Air Temple escapades - oh my god how awesome would that be?

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

I think it would be the hardest for Asami to get used to, since my impression is that the only people who lived in her mansion besides her father were the staff. She wants to know why Meelo's always following her around and Jinora and Ikki, get off of my satomobile! The White Lotus guards are asking for Mako and Bolin's autographs, since it's already been established that they're probending fans. Shared bathroom hijinks ensue. Pabu gets into everything. Dinnertime becomes a whole lot less serene (not bad but definitely less meditative than Tenzin would like). Lin visits and laughs her ass off in private.

[musesfool]

Yeah, I think they dropped the ball with the Equalists storyline - there was so much potential there for interesting drama and a great character arc for Korra, whom I love but I don't think they did her any great service with the writing, unlike the Gaang, all of whom got at least some character growth and several of whom had fantastic arcs (Zuko, of course, but also Sokka, Katara, and Aang; I don't think Toph did a lot of growing/changing, but then, I don't think she needed to).

[lotesse]

I mean, Toph kind of has a socialization arc - not manners, she's got those already, but all the stuff about her never having had a friend before/the issues she has with Katara about groupwork and community, culminating in her being the most ready to accept and forgive Zuko. But ita on the lack of development arcs in Korra, which is really frustrating considering how many opportunities for that sort of thing the plot gives them.

my fandom! *flail*

[anghraine]

Eee, I'm so glad you liked ATLA! I pretty much love all the characters (though I think my favourite character may very well be Avatar Kyoshi in her brief appearances), and Zuko is totally fangirl catnip, and Katara and Toph are amazing, and I think Aang is really beautifully characterized in a way that's both like and very unlike many Chosen Ones. Also, I will never get over Ozai = Mark Hamill. Particularly in the burning scene, when Zuko is all "I won't fight you, Father!"

I agree about LOK, too - the Equalists are simultaneously too easily dismissed and too impossible to dismiss. There are two pretty loud contingents in the fandom arguing that (1) the Equalists are completely justified, or (2) the Equalists are making it all up. And while I find both arguments annoying, I blame it more on the show's own lack of clarity - at first it seems like it's going to be interestingly complex, and then it switches to another straightforward defeat-the-baddies thing that seems unlikely to solve any of the underlying problems that created this situation in the first place.

(I do love most of the Amon/Noatak and Tarrlok stuff and their arcs ended up by far my favourite, eleventh hour notwithstanding - I was pretty meh going into the finale and had thoroughly disliked both of them at the point, and then it was like holy child abuse and torture, Batman! Even weird stuff that just seemed like plot-convenient sloppiness made sense - I'd been ridiculously annoyed by Amon personally dealing with unconscious Tarrlok rather than the Avatar, and then it was like "...oh." Really uncomfortable with the resolution, though.)

I don't care for Mako at all, but Korra/Asami is my OTP and I really like Korra/Iroh (like my very first OTP, care of Disney, all over again, but way more badass) and Asami/Iroh, so my OT3 for them has got to be Korra/Asami/Iroh.