Korra One Year Later (Why Representation Matters)

Typically I don’t get this personal on my blog, but here it goes. I’ve been out to my friends and family for quite some time now, but even still, I’ve never been the type of person who has felt the need to announce my sexuality over a loudspeaker. Granted, my twitter is pretty rainbow-tastic.

Regardless of the setting, I speak my mind, I say how I feel, and I am unapologetically me with everyone I know. However, I have felt for years that I’m sort of…invisible. Not literally, I’m not that awesome. Just that a very important part of who I am gets erased all the time. With my straight friends, I’m straight. With my gay friends, I’m gay. Moreover, somehow people believe my sexuality changes depending on who I’m in a relationship with. But that’s not how it works and it can be very frustrating to feel I don’t fit or that I’m not seen. I honestly blame this on the excruciating lack of bi representation in any and all media.

Growing up I was a voracious consumer of all things–books, tv, movies, comics, fanart, fanfic, etc. But I just never honestly saw myself in those places. Yes, I identified with bookish girls, the x-men, kids with anxiety, tomboys, suburban misfits, wizards, etc., but it wasn’t until last year, when I was 25 that I actually saw ME! It took a quarter century to see all of myself in something and that’s a damn shame.

Enter Korra.

I have been a HUGE fan of the Avatar World since it came out ten years ago. I watched Aang with adoration and awe (honestly the greatest MG fantasy of all time, bar none. If you haven’t watch it, watch it now. I’ll wait…), so when they announced a sequel series featuring a female lead I pretty much lost my ever-lovin’ mind. Korra was just like me in a lot of ways, so I stuck with her story over the three years it aired, viewing every episode with my brother or little cousins the day it showed. Korra’s story was the YA version to Aang’s adventure so on top of darker themes, there was a lot of romantic drama between Korra and her friend Mako as well as her other friends, Asami and Mako. Triangle of death basically.

When the finale hit, I completely expected Korra and Mako to reunite after being split for a couple seasons. I had much preferred she stay super bamfy by herself, but it would be fine. Mako had grown and I was cool with him by the last season so it was no big deal. After all, my fanship of Korra and Asami wouldn’t ever be happening in a million years. That was all for funsy. Imagine my utter shock when this happened:

And this:

I literally was lost for words. And I basically never shut up so this was a BFD! As I watched the finale with my cousins, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There had been some hints for Korra/Asami but I thought I had been reading into them given my person bias. I stared at the TV totally flummoxed by the fact that my fanship was actually the canon endgame couple. Two girls were the final couple in my favorite series in the world! The series with the female lead that I saw myself in!! They were both like ME!!! (Check this out for similar reactions to mine aka ALL DA FEELS) I let it all sink in until I literally exploded from squees that night. Happy cried my little eyes out because it had taken so long to finally see all of myself in something.

From that moment on, I decided I was on a mission to find as much other material where I could see myself. I read a bunch of books and found Far From You, I watched a new series and found The 100. I was actually starting to see myself in more places and that’s when it hit me about how fracking important representation in stories actually is. Think about how many stories are about straight, white, able-bodied cis-males! Countless amounts. More diverse representation is desperately needed. It can be life saving. It can be life changing. It can remind people that they’re not alone even when they feel like they are.

So a year out from watching that episode, I find myself in a very different place from then. Korra gave me something I didn’t know I was looking for: Hope. Hope that I could see myself in more places, hope that other people could see themselves, too. Hope that one day it wouldn’t be ground-breaking to have a character like Korra. The hope that people who felt different or like they didn’t fit wouldn’t feel invisible any more. If I can have even a small part in making someone or some people feel seen/heard, then I’ll write as many stories as I possibly can.