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Bronies Against BullShit

@broniesagainstbullshit-blog / broniesagainstbullshit-blog.tumblr.com

Bronies Against BullShit is a platform for the brony fandom to call out, critique, support, and analyze itself in a constructive and mature manner. This is NOT an "Anti-brony" blog. Opinions posted here do not speak for everyone and can only speak for those who wrote a given post and liked, reblogged, or otherwise clearly stated agreement with said post. Submissions and Asks sent also do not necessarily represent the views of the blog admin. Reblogged posts posted here also do not mean the blog admin agrees with everything that person says. May contain trace amounts of snark, sarcasm, and inactivity.
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Charity Album – Seeds of Kindness : A Change of Heart

Calling all musicians!  Bronies for Good is pleased to announce its sixth Seeds of Kindness charity album, A Change of Heart.

Since our conception, Bronies for Good has raised over $200,000 for various impactful charity projects.  We could not have accomplished this without the creative contributions of the fandom’s many talented musicians and artists, and the generosity of thousands of fans who want to make the world a better place.  Thank you.

Our new fundraiser will launch in February, along with the album, and funds will benefit the highly effective prevention program of the Against Malaria Foundation.  

The Music

The Seeds of Kindness albums showcase the work of producers who have contributed their time and skills towards creating music for the pony community.  These albums encompass genres from dance, to orchestral, to ska, to rock, to 80s metal, to hip-hop, and include contributions from musicians such as EileMonty, Feather, Forest Rain, So Great and Powerful, Cyril the Wolf, Rhyme Flow, and Carbon Maestro. You can download our previous releases from our fundraiser page.

The Theme

Our new album continues to promote the timeless theme of last year’s album: global empathy.  The concept of global empathy is oft misunderstood because it is a very dry term for a profoundly personal and emotional process. Humans are instinctively compassionate; upon witnessing the suffering of sentient beings, we are motivated with a desire to help alleviate said suffering.  Regardless of race, background, or country, we care and seek to do our best to help those in need.

However, everyone’s awareness has limitations.  The modern world is fast-paced, and the suffering of others can all too often seem abstract, especially when it is very far away.  It takes work to both remain aware, and to keep one’s heart from becoming jaded.

A Change of Heart is all about overcoming those obstacles, as individuals, and as a people.

  The Charity

Over 200 million people contract malaria every year, the death toll is equivalent to half a dozen plane crashes every day, and many who survive are locked in poverty due to expensive treatments.  It is a permanent catastrophe.

It is also easily preventable.

The Against Malaria Foundation stands out in particular because of its strong track record and commitment to efficiency, program monitoring, and transparency.  As malaria-infected mosquitoes mostly bite at night, it can be prevented with cheap, long-lasting insecticidal nets.  As little as $3 buys a net that will protect two people for three to four years and contribute to the permanent elimination of the disease.  The efficiency of this form of intervention has been thoroughly proven.

Instructions for Musicians

The Timeline

Soft deadline: 15th December 2016

Hard deadline: 15th January 2017

Release date: 11th February 2017

What to Submit

  1. Pony and non-pony songs are equally welcome.
  2. No copyrighted material can be used, and we cannot accept entries that remix, sample, or cover the show, either.  (Sorry!)
  3. Submitting a remix requires the permission of whomever owns the rights to the original material.
  4. Collabs are encouraged!
  5. Tone.  There is no genre restriction besides common sense.  Don’t make anything angry, creepy, or overly depressing, (but emotional is fine), and your song should have no problem fitting in.
  6. Length.  There is no set length restriction.  Long songs are just as welcome as shorter pieces are.  However, the length of the song must be appropriate to what your song is seeking to accomplish.  Don’t stretch or loop your song solely to fit a given length.  This was perhaps the most common issue with submissions to previous albums.
  7. Number of Submissions.  You can submit as many songs as you want (within reason).  Two songs from the same artist can get in without any problem, but over that number (not counting collabs), we might only take the best two of them.

How to Submit

Please use this submission form  to submit your song.  If you have any trouble, please email us at smile.bfg@gmail.com, and we will help you out (Please don’t include attachments in the email, thanks).  

Things You Should Know

  1. For the sake of musicians who submit their songs early, there is a set release date.
  2. We recommend that you submit before the “soft deadline” so we can still give feedback on tracks that are close to making the cut.
  3. You may release your song as soon as the album is out, but please link the fundraiser instead of a direct MP3 download.
  4. We will continue to trust our fans to donate to download the album.
  5. You can upload your song on YouTube when the album is released, but please do not make your song public until the release date, (thank you).  However, feel free to upload previews or ask for feedback!
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Anonymous asked:

I'm a little bit disappointed, to be honest, that more people aren't calling out AnimatedJames on his behavior. Leekfish posted a screencap of a Facebook conversation they had where James told her that if she keeps getting harassed, it's her own fault for making the issue public to begin with. He's done absolutely everything to deny having had any responsibility, up to and including blaming her for being the victim.

I don’t know much about that… I’d have to see the original screen caps and know the story… I’m not saying AJ is a saint, I don’t know much about him, certainly not enough to formulate my own opinion.

However, this does serve as a message that we need to avoid placing notable fandom people on pedestals.

Just because someone makes decent content that we like, doesn’t immediately bestow them with master social skills, and yet they’re placed in situations that can require it.

Real celebrities are trained to deal with this stuff. Fandom famous people are not.

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I made a whole post on what happened and everything wrong with what he did. But I’ll let it sit in drafts until/unless Leekfish finds it necessary to post it, because I don’t want to stir the pot. Anyway James is wayyy in the wrong. Theres also a number of his fans victim blaming Leekfish. I got into it with some people on twitter.

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pony-palace
  My Little Pony fan, Sean Rey from Alabama, was struck by two moving vehiles recently and, subsequently, is struggling for his life due to various skeletal fractures among other injuries.  Pony Palace would like to request that our followers help Sean in any way you can via his GoFundMe page and charity auction.  Links after the break.

So yeah, guys. If nothing else, send some love and friendship to somepony in need, even if you can not support them financially. There is no finite supply of kindness. Every little bit counts!

GoFundMe Page WARNING Contains graphic photos of the accident.

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abbystarling

A Guide to Convention Volunteering for Artists

So someone suggested I write up a post for people who are currently, or want to, volunteer for a convention’s art department. As someone who’s worked for a number of conventions, I’d like to consider myself at least something of a veteran- and as someone jokingly put it, I’ve also gotten to be a veteran of being kicked around. So here’s a post with advice so that hopefully at least some of you can avoid that! Yay!

Don’t get me wrong- being a convention artist can be totally fun, but it’s a lot of work- much like any other convention volunteer job. It can be totally worth it and you could gain some decent experience and connections! It can be an amazing experience to see your artwork being enjoyed by a lot of attendees.

So, let’s begin!

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mizkit

My son, who is 4, and I were walking along the street today and saw a man with his left leg amputated beneath the knee. My son spun around and looked at him, then said to me, “That man lost his leg! What happened?”

I said I didn’t know exactly, but sometimes people lost arms or legs through accidents or didn’t have them for other reasons.

My son instantly said, “Gobber (from How to Train Your Dragon) lost his arm AND his leg and now he has to use tools in their places!”

I kind of collected my jaw and said, “That’s right, and that man is just like Gobber. There’s a special word we use for those kinds of tools. It’s ‘prosthetics’.”

"Prosthetics," said my son, with satisfaction, and on we went without any further discussion about it.

But then we got on the bus, and there was a young black woman with her hair pulled back in a big floofy afro ponytail, and my son, who has seen the trailers for the new Annie movie, said, in delight, “She has hair like Annie’s!”

Representation matters.

Reblogging because, yes it does. And because this post is a great example of why representation matters not only to the people seeing themselves represented in movies books etc. but also for everyone else.

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For some reason, I can't see this blog... Any idea why?

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I have no idea, its the first I heard of it. IF you have xkit, maybe you blacklisted a word or something? I’ll post this publicly in case someone else happens to have ran into a similar problem before

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(Spread the word and get searching! It may even be a good idea to put this in your Queue to be posted every 6/7th and 19/20th as a reminder!)

#SafeSearchWrapUp is heavily community driven effort to help make the SafeSearch features on image-search engines such as GoogleImages, Bing, or Youtube be free of NSFW content. Every cartoon from “Avatar: The Last Airbender” to “Young Justice” contains fan made pornographic works referred to as Rule-34. Rule-34 is a catch all term denoting porn of ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, cartoon or not. However searching up images of any animated series will likely turn up these images, even on the first few pages.

As the teen and adult fans of the show, we have to be considerate of the younger target audience. A lot of parents and their children may be looking up images of their favorite characters to print out and put on their wall or such. As a community we can make image searching safer for the young ones and their parents. No shutting down or deleting things from existence, simply keeping it off SafeSearch as a courtesy for others.

The Game Plan:

Everyone should pick at least one search term they think would commonly used by kids and their parents, such as “My little pony twilight sparkle”. You can search at your leisure through a few pages… say 5-10 at least? However, on the 7th and 20th of every month we can all do it in large droves. If the call is sent out all at the same time, like a tradition then more people are likely to participate. Additionally, if Google or Bing gets a lot of flags for the same image from a lot of people- we can assume they will be more likely to remove it.

What to look for? Gore, blood, penises, vaginas, and perhaps lingerie. Just use your best judgement. Honestly if its something you wouldn’t look at while at work or show to a kid, then its probably not something we want showing up in a safe-search! If you think it should be done out of safe search as well, then thats your call to make.

image

How To Flag:

On Google, simply enlarge an image and go to Send Feedback circled here and enter comment notifying them the image is “not suitable for children” or something along those lines. If you would like a video tutorial, courtesy of jackrahbit, then click here.:

On Bing, simply click the flag image in the lower left corner when you hover over an image. Then check the “Adult” checkbox. If you would like, jackrahbit made a YouTube video showing how.  Quick and easy! Lets do this! RECENTLY ADDED (July 02, 2014) : If you have questions, in need of a second opinion or suggestions for things pics that need some attention you can message me. If I am not available, poniesforparents, pony-palace, askasanebrony, equestria-faily, or needs-less-bullshit would probably be happy to help if they are available.

Suggestions on things to be tagged can be found at: http://broniesagainstbullshit.tumblr.com/tagged/SSWU-suggestions I’m also reaching out to other fandom’s blogs for those of you who SSWU series other than MLP. If you know of major blogs in your fandom that would be interested in hosting a more specialized SSWU and spreading the word for their fandom, let them and I know! We may be able to work together! Other: Also see #SafeSearchWrapUp’s sister projects: http://broniesagainstbullshit.tumblr.com/Campaigns

 September 20th, 2014

Going to copy paste the ones The Smiling Pony found last time because majority are still there. Though I did find some TS ones (here, here, and here). Of course I could have easily missed some through out her or the others I searched through.

M6:

As usual any new suggestions will be tagged # SSWU suggestions

Don’t start easing up after the progress we’ve made! You’ve even got direct links here.

October 7th, 2014. some of these old ones are still appearing. And we also already got some Rainbow Rocks stuff now. Adagio Dazzle: 1, 2,

Sonata Dusk: 1, 2, 3(yeah she was in there),

Aria Blaze: 1,

Also I’m so backlogged on general asks I think I’m just going to start fresh.

October 20th, 2014

I’m busy haven’t gotten to check up on these myself but I’m sure some are still there.

Funny story: I spent more time looking for this post than for the “porn”

Okay so here I did everyone a favor:

Pinkie Pie:

Applejack:

and in the better safe than sorry category:

Rarity:

Fluttershy:

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zedrin-maybe

Y’know, the recent Steven Universe / MLP drama kinda made me think a bit about something I’ve been putting up with / witnessing for a while. Sorry if this gets dry, it’s relevant to how me and my team reach out to audiences with what we do, so my interest in the topic might be a bit inflated. (Also long post warning)

First things first—anyone should be allowed to like what they want, that’s a no-shit statement. If an MLP fan wants to watch Steven Universe, I don’t see why that’s a problem, but it’s also not 100% what I’m discussing.

People get concerned over stereotypical aspects from the brony community. And there’s no bullshitting: the brony community has quite a few bad apples who fit the whole entitled, gross stereotypes, but I really don’t think they’ll ever be a problem in other communities.

I help run Silly Filly Studios, and to give people a rundown of our history: we originally started with MLP videos, but we now make a wide variety of cartoons despite our name. Hell, we don’t have ANY plans or in-progress projects within our group at the moment for any pony related stuff. (I personally don’t even like MLP anymore, having lost interest in it with season 3 (and lost interest in the fandom for completely different reasons.))

We announced a while back that we were going to gradually release more diverse content—Pokemon, Smash Bros., even League of Legends parodies as some examples. Despite the gradual shift that most fans have been chill with, we still get comments from people who are dumbstruck when we release something non-MLP related and essentially demand that we make more MLP fan videos. (This is why I often use the word ‘entitled’ to describe a certain breed of brony.)

These individuals have a one track mindset and singular interests: if it’s not ponies, they don’t care (and they obnoxiously make it known). The funny thing is, the negative behavior that people associate with bronies seems to normally come from these people and these people alone (just some examples: some will even talk crap about any interests that aren’t MLP, others complain via an RP account used for smutty horse roleplay, etc. Trust me when I say they exemplify the bad apples—I’ve been reading their comments for years now.)

We’ll call fans that are interested in one thing and one thing only ‘diehards.’ While not all diehards are stereotypically bad, typically someone who is stereotypically problematic is going to be a diehard.

Diehards clearly tend to have NO interest in integrating with other fandoms. But of fans that do? We’ll call them ‘migrators.’ From what I’ve seen they’re often more intelligent with their comments. While they may have a preferred fandom, they typically don’t mind occasional videos that don’t appeal to their fandoms, and when they do comment, they rarely if not never exemplify the negative stereotypes that come with the name ‘brony’. For them, it’s more of a collection of interests.

Conversely there are also still immature migratory fans, but usually their bad behaviors are more centralized and personal, not terribly consistent with the stereotypes in their preferred fandom. (Don’t get me wrong, they’re still annoying and gross, but they’re literally everywhere.)

The bad stereotypes of a fandom tend to root themselves in their diehards. So, to summarize my point above: diehards are where the problems usually are. Diehards however do not usually spread. Migrators usually do not have problematic behavior, but if they do it’s usually kinda inconsistent with their ‘primary’ fandom’s stereotypes.

And this is probably true for almost every fandom, even if I’m picking on MLP (because that’s where I have most of my observations from).

So where do obnoxious fan stereotypes come from, then? Fandoms tend to produce their own (and even Steven Universe is no exception—I saw some gross individuals crawling up out of the woodwork in retaliation to the manufacturered drama.) But that’s another story.

Again this is all just based upon me reading Youtube comments on my team’s channel for the past few years, and seeing how they’ve evolved and reacted to our content. Sorry if this was kinda boring and irrelevant to most folk. :Y

Thought this was a pretty interesting read and different point of view on things.

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What's your view on the whole Steven universe fandom bashing on brownies for wanting to be a part of the fandom, and even naming it like many other fandom's have named themselves before?

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First and foremost I think we should acknowledge that the SU fandom as a whole isn’t doing the bashing. Much like how many bronies say not to generalize our fandom, we should do the same and not generalize others.

From what I understand most of the fall out has been because some EQD staff was planning on doing a new site based on SU and a lot of the more rabid SU fans don’t want anyone who is also a brony in the SU fandom. However, anyone who already liked it, already liked it. Just because a site is going to be made, doesn’t mean its going to be successful and that a million people are going to become SU fans overnight. If anything, the drama has probably made more people curious about SU because of how much is being posted… so that kind of backfired. (Keep in mind, not everyone has cable or lives somewhere where it airs)

As for the naming thing, theres nothing inherently wrong with it. It creates a sense of solidarity and is often less of a mouthful than saying/writing/typing “Franchise-123 Fan” all the time. However if one were to do it with gender specific terms, that would be highly unnecessary. Brony was something a little self-deprecating and was unique in its circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it needs to happen with every fandom there is. Anyway, everyones only been jokingly about it anyway, but if there may be a small handful actually attempting to use it… which there no doubt probably are, theres some reasoning against it.

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“i’m not a brony imma Franchise-123 Fan” brb saying this from now on

*in generic nerd voice used in media like cartoons* Actually the correct designation number for My Little Pony : Friendship is Magic is 04.0.06. For your information 123 is a generic fake designation number like “555-” phone numbers in movies. Clearly you’re not a REAL Franchise-04.0.06 fan.

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When Fandoms and Outside Heroes Clash: An autobiographical essay of sorts.

Leaforator writes:

Intro: An idea to an essay

I’ve wanted to submit an essay to this blog for a while now, but I’ve never had a good topic to talk about, or at least, nothing new to bring to the table. However, the recent MLP/SU fan war has brought me back to an idea that I had a few months back, but didn’t feel strong enough to write about.

A lot of the original idea came about when I noticed that a few of my personal internet heroes were not particularly fond of a certain fandom of a show that I like. A certain show that featured pastel equines. I wasn’t upset, but I was a little confused. This was 2 and a half years ago.

Basically, this piece is part autobiographical, part essay, part just me trying get some things straight. So here is a 3 part (relatively) short piece on the MLP fandom and my personal observations of its clashes with people I look up to.

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I think the SU fandom is afraid of the gross side of bronies taking over the discourse and flooding the tags and search results with porn and harassment. If you're not that kind of person, all's good and they're happy to have more fans! A lot of people who aren't MLP fans only see the bad side, unfortunately, and it's understandable to be afraid of that if it's the only thing you know.

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Yeah and unfortunately bad news, in general, spreads around faster then good news. Theres also that juxtaposition as well. Theres definitely bad parts, its what gets all the views and gossip- especially if it highlights or worse, exaggerates upon someone’s concerns.

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What's your view on the whole Steven universe fandom bashing on brownies for wanting to be a part of the fandom, and even naming it like many other fandom's have named themselves before?

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First and foremost I think we should acknowledge that the SU fandom as a whole isn’t doing the bashing. Much like how many bronies say not to generalize our fandom, we should do the same and not generalize others.

From what I understand most of the fall out has been because some EQD staff was planning on doing a new site based on SU and a lot of the more rabid SU fans don’t want anyone who is also a brony in the SU fandom. However, anyone who already liked it, already liked it. Just because a site is going to be made, doesn’t mean its going to be successful and that a million people are going to become SU fans overnight. If anything, the drama has probably made more people curious about SU because of how much is being posted... so that kind of backfired. (Keep in mind, not everyone has cable or lives somewhere where it airs)

As for the naming thing, theres nothing inherently wrong with it. It creates a sense of solidarity and is often less of a mouthful than saying/writing/typing “Franchise-123 Fan” all the time. However if one were to do it with gender specific terms, that would be highly unnecessary. Brony was something a little self-deprecating and was unique in its circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it needs to happen with every fandom there is. Anyway, everyones only been jokingly about it anyway, but if there may be a small handful actually attempting to use it... which there no doubt probably are, theres some reasoning against it.

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My new pony bathroom is complete! 

(tagging mlp-merch)

TYPICAL BRONY

woahhhh

This is badass

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mandopony

No.

No, this is not a typical brony.

I like the show and all, but… yeah. Just a tad excessive, don’t you think…?

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askpredetor

I don’t see a difference between this and my Portal/Star Wars themed bathroom he likes the show so he hunted down and bought enough merchandise to stylize his bathroom. So to each his own. (The problem pops up if he shares a bathroom with people that don’t agree with this or when he dislikes the show and posts the inevitable 50,000+ note brony bonfire)

I don’t see any difference either, between an MLP bathroom and a Portal or Star Wars bathroom … they’re both excessive, in my opinion.

But that’s just because I’m an interior design nerd, not because I’m inherently against celebrating pop culture. Like I said, I love the Bruins, but I wouldn’t design my entire bathroom around black and gold hockey memorabilia.

DAT’S JUST MAH OPINION THO

Let’s be real here, the REAL crime is that Hasbro copy and pastes the same vector on everything.

Many of you probably collect something. Especially if you’re into MLP, anime, comics, or sci-fi- you probably have a shitload of figurines that don’t really do more than collect dust or are just there for display. At least this stuff is practical. Plus with the kinda stuff Hasbro pastes their vectors all over I’m fairly certain he didn’t break the bank with this stuff.

Also, when is the last time any of you criticized Caycifish, PinkiePony, or any number of multi-generation collectors for their much much larger collections? Is it different because hes male? Anyway, no one complaining is paying rent there so... hey, props to him for having something other then generic white towel, generic vanilla toothbrush holder, generic soap dispenser X, generic flower shower curtain, and generic bandages 123 (did you Band-Aid is not a generic term, but a specific brand of bandages?).

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Korrasami is canon. You can celebrate it, embrace it, accept it, get over it, or whatever you feel the need to do, but there is no denying it. That is the official story. We received some wonderful press in the wake of the series finale at the end of last week, and just about every piece I read got it right: Korra and Asami fell in love. Were they friends? Yes, and they still are, but they also grew to have romantic feelings for each other. Was Korrasami “endgame,” meaning, did we plan it from the start of the series? No, but nothing other than Korra’s spiritual arc was. Asami was a duplicitous spy when Mike and I first conceived her character. Then we liked her too much so we reworked the story to keep her in the dark regarding her father’s villainous activities. Varrick and Zhu Li weren’t originally planned to end up as a couple either, but that’s where we took the story/where the story took us. That’s how writing works the vast majority of the time. You give these characters life and then they tell you what they want to do. I have bragging rights as the first Korrasami shipper (I win!). As we wrote Book 1, before the audience had ever laid eyes on Korra and Asami, it was an idea I would kick around the writers’ room. At first we didn’t give it much weight, not because we think same-sex relationships are a joke, but because we never assumed it was something we would ever get away with depicting on an animated show for a kids network in this day and age, or at least in 2010. Makorra was only “endgame” as far as the end of Book 1. Once we got into Book 2 we knew we were going to have them break up, and we never planned on getting them back together. Sorry, friends. I like Mako too, and I am sure he will be just fine in the romance department. He grew up and learned about himself through his relationships with Asami and Korra, and he’s a better person for it, and he’ll be a better partner for whomever he ends up with. Once Mako and Korra were through, we focused on developing Korra and Asami’s relationship. Originally, it was primarily intended to be a strong friendship. Frankly, we wanted to set most of the romance business aside for the last two seasons. Personally, at that point I didn’t want Korra to have to end up with someone at the end of series. We obviously did it in Avatar, but even that felt a bit forced to me. I’m usually rolling my eyes when that happens in virtually every action film, “Here we go again…” It was probably around that time that I came across this quote from Hayao Miyazaki: “I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live - if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.” I agree with him wholeheartedly, especially since the majority of the examples in media portray a female character that is little more than a trophy to be won by the male lead for his derring-do. So Mako and Korra break the typical pattern and end up respecting, admiring, and inspiring each other. That is a resolution I am proud of. However, I think there needs to be a counterpart to Miyazaki’s sentiment: Just because two characters of the same sex appear in the same story, it should not preclude the possibility of a romance between them. No, not everyone is queer, but the other side of that coin is that not everyone is straight. The more Korra and Asami’s relationship progressed, the more the idea of a romance between them organically blossomed for us. However, we still operated under this notion, another “unwritten rule,” that we would not be allowed to depict that in our show. So we alluded to it throughout the second half of the series, working in the idea that their trajectory could be heading towards a romance. But as we got close to finishing the finale, the thought struck me: How do I know we can’t openly depict that? No one ever explicitly said so. It was just another assumption based on a paradigm that marginalizes non-heterosexual people. If we want to see that paradigm evolve, we need to take a stand against it. And I didn’t want to look back in 20 years and think, “Man, we could have fought harder for that.” Mike and I talked it over and decided it was important to be unambiguous about the intended relationship. We approached the network and while they were supportive there was a limit to how far we could go with it, as just about every article I read accurately deduced. It was originally written in the script over a year ago that Korra and Asami held hands as they walked into the spirit portal. We went back and forth on it in the storyboards, but later in the retake process I staged a revision where they turned towards each other, clasping both hands in a reverential manner, in a direct reference to Varrick and Zhu Li’s nuptial pose from a few minutes prior. We asked Jeremy Zuckerman to make the music tender and romantic, and he fulfilled the assignment with a sublime score. I think the entire last two-minute sequence with Korra and Asami turned out beautiful, and again, it is a resolution of which I am very proud. I love how their relationship arc took its time, through kindness and caring. If it seems out of the blue to you, I think a second viewing of the last two seasons would show that perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens. Was it a slam-dunk victory for queer representation? I think it falls short of that, but hopefully it is a somewhat significant inching forward. It has been encouraging how well the media and the bulk of the fans have embraced it. Sadly and unsurprisingly, there are also plenty of people who have lashed out with homophobic vitriol and nonsense. It has been my experience that by and large this kind of mindset is a result of a lack of exposure to people whose lives and struggles are different from one’s own, and due to a deficiency in empathy––the latter being a key theme in Book 4. (Despite what you might have heard, bisexual people are real!) I have held plenty of stupid notions throughout my life that were planted there in any number of ways, or even grown out of my own ignorance and flawed personality. Yet through getting to know people from all walks of life, listening to the stories of their experiences, and employing some empathy to try to imagine what it might be like to walk in their shoes, I have been able to shed many hurtful mindsets. I still have a long way to go, and I still have a lot to learn. It is a humbling process and hard work, but nothing on the scale of what anyone who has been marginalized has experienced. It is a worthwhile, lifelong endeavor to try to understand where people are coming from. There is the inevitable reaction, “Mike and Bryan just caved in to the fans.” Well, which fans? There were plenty of Makorra shippers out there, so if we had gone back on our decision and gotten those characters back together, would that have meant we caved in to those fans instead? Either direction we went, there would inevitably be a faction that was elated and another that was devastated. Trust me, I remember Kataang vs. Zutara. But one of those directions is going to be the one that feels right to us, and Mike and I have always made both Avatar and Korra for us, first and foremost. We are lucky that so many other people around the world connect with these series as well. Tahno playing trombone––now that was us caving in to the fans! But this particular decision wasn’t only done for us. We did it for all our queer friends, family, and colleagues. It is long overdue that our media (including children’s media) stops treating non-heterosexual people as nonexistent, or as something merely to be mocked. I’m only sorry it took us so long to have this kind of representation in one of our stories. I’ll wrap this up with some incredible words that Mike and I received in a message from a former Korra crew member. He is a deeply religious person who devotes much of his time and energy not only to his faith, but also to helping young people. He and I may have starkly different belief systems, but it is heartwarming and encouraging that on this issue we are aligned in a positive, progressive direction: “I’ve read enough reviews to get a sense of how it affected people. One very well-written article in Vanity Fair called it subversive (in a good way, of course)… I would say a better word might be “healing.” I think your finale was healing for a lot of people who feel outside or on the fringes, or that their love and their journey is somehow less real or valuable than someone else’s… That it’s somehow less valid. I know quite a few people in that position, who have a lifetime of that on their shoulders, and in one episode of television you both relieved and validated them. That’s healing in my book.” Love, Bryan

and other post by the other head honco: http://bryankonietzko.tumblr.com/post/105920055427/michaeldantedimartino-korrasami-confirmed-now

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