tophagentofchaos:

tophagentofchaos:

An Inuk woman is getting harassed on twitter for politely asking an artist to take down their fan art of Katara with Inuit facial tattoos because the artist isn’t Inuit and doesn’t understand their significance and like…fucking this is why I’m wary of the ATLA fandom and fandom in general tbh

Someone from the culture the show based the water tribe on says “hey this is cultural appropriation”, and suddenly fans of this “anti-racist” show jump down her throat because she spoke up.

Seriously ATLA’s fanbase can be…such a cesspool bc people are so complacent in the show’s “woke” source material (which is a subject for another day) and so protective of this thing they’ve built their personality around that someone saying “hey what you’re doing is hurtful” is seen as a personal attack.

This is a show made by white men. I promise you it’s not as progressive as you think.

So this is a good time to remind everyone that Inuit tattooing is a closed practice, and that extends to fanart. There were quite a few Inuit on twitter who were talking about this again recently and asking that non-Inuit people respect that the tradition is not open for everyone.