felt a little low on drawing motivation so I decided to do a little re draw of an OC from middle school :)
It's been so long since I last used color pencils lol
Anyway, here's my attempt at drawing Nova from the Renegades series
welp I tried to draw Cress in her blue dress from the third book
He looks like a vengeful god of creation
Podcast started Two Towers! So here’s the first three chapters ✨
This!!! This hits so close to home for me especially as an Indian person. It's honestly so hypocritical when this happens too, because the same people that mocked our culture, or food, or way of life pull a 180 and suddenly feel like they can appropriate it because apparently it's cool now.
(OP said it better and I also apologize for cutting in, but this is so important)
you know what? i’m gonna say it. atla was a huge part of my childhood. it was definitely a step forward in regards to cartoons.
but the racial insensitivity is staggering. and i wanna talk about the amount of exploiting there is of south asian culture specifically. i’m south asian, indian specifically, and i grew up watching this show that was supposed to be “different” and “inspiring” for people of colour.
except there were little to no characters with dark skin who had importance and were explicitly made out to be south asian. that was fine. i was used to not seeing characters on television who looked like i did. except this show used my culture. they used my culture and they couldn’t even bother putting in good characters who looked like they remotely belonged to that culture, even if they were minor and not part of the gaang.
first of all, the show has a lot of influence from Hinduism—the word avatar (avatāra) itself means “descent” in Sanskrit, referring to the incarnation of a deity in human form. where did Hinduism originate?
indus valley, or what we now call pakistan, a south asian country. the entire concept of chi or prana, as it is referred to as in Hinduism, is a reoccurring theme in atla; your vital energy, your spiritual energy. this is another one of the religion’s influences on the show.
atla also talks about the seven chakras. this is another concept from Hinduism, and in the religion, they must always be unblocked for your prana (the term from Hinduism) or chi (the Chinese term which is used the show) to flow smoothly. chi is your life energy.
so. guess who helps aang out with his chakras?
right. this guy. the only blatantly south asian character we’ve gotten so far, and you wanna know why it’s so blatant? because he’s literally an indian stereotype. he’s the only obviously south asian character so far in the show and he’s a racist portrayal of enlightened practitioners of Hinduism. great.
oh, and before i forget—
do their foreheads look familiar? oh yeah, that’s because it’s literally copied off of this:
this is Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. they used a religious symbol in Hinduism to make a couple characters look cool. well, combustion man and p’li both have these third eyes, so we can assume they are at least south asian coded—but what are their characters like?
villains. unhinged. insane. we don’t even know combustion man’s name—we just know he’s a contract killer who would murder a child for the right price. p’li wants to dismantle all forms of government and let the world reign free in chaos, and finally she is given a horribly grotesque death: she gets her head blown off.
for all of the culture references that are important pieces of this show, you’d think there’d be an area that has south asian people. there isn’t one. i’m not going to speak about the other loads of racism in atla because i don’t belong to those cultures, but here’s my two cents.
this show was written by white men who did the bare minimum. it’s nothing worth praising.
I’ve seen a lot of posts on my dash tonight about users who are threatening suicide, with other Tumblr members posting in effort to try to get ahold of them. I think you all should see this:
IF THERE IS EVER A TUMBLR USER WHO HAS POSTED A GOOD-BYE MESSAGE, SUICIDE NOTE, VIDEO, OR ANYTHING OF THE SORT, PLEASE FOLLOW THIS POST.
1. Scroll to the top of your dashboard.
2. See the circular question mark icon at the top? It’s the third one over from your home symbol. Click on that, and a screen similar to the one in the picture will come up.
3. Where you can type in questions, the box with the magnifying glass at the top, type in the word “suicide.”
4. Click on the first link that shows up. It should say, “Pass the URL of the blog on to us.”
5. Type in the user’s URL and tell Tumblr admin that the user is contemplating suicide and has posted a message indicating that they are going through with it or will be attempting. Hit send! Tumblr administration will perform a number of actions to contact the user and take the necessary steps to prevent the suicide.
TUMBLR: THIS COULD SAVE A USER’S LIFE. PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE SUICIDE THREATS.
Reblog this to keep other users aware. Suicide isn’t a joke, and neither is someone’s life. If you didn’t know this, someone else may not, either. Pass it on.
Hey guys, it's me again. I won't be as active on here in the weeks to come because I'm starting my first year of university and things are gonna be crazy for a while. This isn't goodbye, I'll try to post as often as I can!! Love y'all 💜💜
any time you need someone to talk to, I'm here :)
Please.
one is sad, one is stupid, and the one just sings Hamilton 24/7 II rach II she/her, 21 II asks are open :3 II
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