>>I would submit that Korra's original arrest in the Republic is
>>probably still part of her record, if for no other reason than that
>>Lin seems like the type of person to make sure it was. :)
>
>As far as is ever indicated, she was never charged with anything, just
>harassed and released. Which is par for the course with the
>Beifong Staatspolizei.

Hmm, fair point. I imagine Tenzin swung a big bat with the DA.

Despite the flaws of the RCPD, I do kinda feel like when it comes to Korra's debut, they weren't really being overly fascist. Korra caused a lot of property damage and fucked up a whole street in an ill-advised attempt at vigilante justice, and when the cops quite reasonably tried to detain her for that, she led them in a high-speed chase.

Lin sort of earned the right to yell at her a bit that day.

>>Fair points on all the others. I didn't know that psion meant
>>specifically telepathic; I'd assumed it was a catch-all term for
>>anyone psionically active, which I think bending might qualify as?
>
>The Psi Corps classification system has no idea what the hell bending
>is. They've never been allowed to study it. Officially it doesn't
>even exist. That's kind of part of why the sonsofbitches aren't lined
>up 45 deep at the Crescent Island Veil nexus.

Oh, it's a Psi Corps classification?

I also did not know that. I thought it was a generic 'yeah, this person is psionically active in some way; Customs and Immigration guy looking at this, you may want to advise them on what the local laws are like with regard to that sort of thing, so that both the person and polity in question can come to a comfortable understanding' thing.

>>They're intended more in the vein of "this seems stylistically off to
>>my eyes, and this is why." It's like critiquing brushstroke work on a
>>painting; right and wrong don't enter into it as much as aesthetics
>>do.
>
>... who the fuck does that?

... a lot of people?

You seem to think that it's weird in some way. How so?

Painting is tricky. I've never worked on canvas, but I've done a fair bit of miniature building in my day, and am friends with people who do it very, very seriously. I've listened to long, involved conversations about the merits of one brush size and technique over another, and seem people critique each others work. Lots of conversations along the lines of "That color is great, but you shouldn't have tried to use it to do detail work like you did; it isn't popping the way you want. Have you considered drybrushing?"

I'm not sure how looking at a painting and saying "I see what they were trying to do, I think, but the brushwork on the background is rubbish for that; they should have done it different" is meaningfully different from watching, say, an episode of Legend of Korra and saying "I get what the writers were aiming for but they fucked it up."

>>>There is no winning in this place.)
>>
>>Well, when it comes to critiques, it's not about winning and losing.
>
>... Do you genuinely not know that variations on "you can't win around
>here" are a common figure of speech (akin to "damned if you do, damned
>if you don't"), or are you just fucking with me now? I... can no
>longer tell. :)

Honest answer?

Sometimes you seem to use "I just can't win" and equivalents in a fun, tongue-in-cheek way, and sometimes you seem to use it in a legitimate what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you-people way. And I legit have a hard time telling them apart on occasion.

>>Most works I can think of that'd fall into the
>>category are either deconstructions of classic silver age narratives
>>or nostalgic celebrations of the same.
>
>Well, deconstruction gives me a sharp pain,

You've said this before, and I still consider it to be ironic considering that one of the major bedrock pillars of the setting is Revolutionary Girl Utena with a side of Magic Knights Rayearth. :)

The former is less a deconstruction than it is completely rendering the conventions and assumption of shoujo anime down to their component atoms, and the latter pulls some Evangelion-style "this starts off highly conventional and then takes some weird left turns" action.

-Merc
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