why don't you like pema?

I don't like homewreckers who encourage others to be homewreckers. Also, she's boring. Aside from give Korra really, REALLY bad advice and be Tenzin's perfect breed mare, what did she really add to the show?

I'm not letting Tenzin off for his part in what happened, btw. But Pema was just so smug about it. I have no respect.

Tenzin is How Old!?

I recently discovered that Tenzin got together with Pema in his thirties while scrolling through the Lin Beifong and Tenzin tags. And there is a 16-year age gap between him and Pema. I was like, this must be a mistake. Tenzin and Lin dated and broke up as teenagers right? Tenzin is in his thirties, going on to his forties right???!

Never knew LOK could make me feel even more nauseous than it already does. I have some issues:

If Lin and Tenzin broke up as adults, then Lin destroying Air Temple Island on her way out makes her look even worse. I know female violent behavior is supposed to be funny but I don't find it funny. A grown-ass woman acting like a hormonal teenager. Get a grip, Lin!

Pemzin is now icky. The age gap is not a total dealbreaker...but wasn't Pema an air acolyte? Considering Tenzin was basically deemed the saviour of the air nomads and the only kid recognized by the acolytes, I am not liking this dynamic. Especially when you remember how those first-gen acolyte girls worshipped Aang in the comics. I am sure any acolyte would be honoured to mother the next airbender generation. A similar sentiment to Mary accepting to get pregnant with Jesus. Just eww. And when you factor in Pema's homewrecker advice to Korra...ugh. It's the same kind of vibe as the CEO divorcing his nagging wife to get frisky with the young, adoring, just-out-of-college secretary :(

I swear LOK gets worse and worse every day. Tenzin is still one of my favourite characters from the series (not that the bar is very high) but I am reconsidering my view of this guy. And of his wife.

The gossip reporter here, sources allege you know a juicy fact about acolyte pema that she has tried to bury for years. Its so embarassing she wishes to keep it hidden. Care to spill. Of course your name will be protected in case she scrambles to find two cents for legal action. (Roast the bitch :D)-🧐🔎

Reporting live from behind a bush at Air Temple Island. Speaking of bushes, this just in: Pema uses Master Tenzin's hair to weave a wig for herself. You could say this is one area where Tenzin has been copying the Mrs instead of the other way 'round.

They say airbenders prefer a clean shaven head, however, baldness prefers Pema.

The Universe really works in funny ways.

@obsessedwithlinzin

Pema from legend of Korra is disgusting!

She's a homewrecker AND SHE'S PROUD OF IT!

She encourages Korra to do the same thing and sets a horrible example to her.

I'm not saying Lin & Tenzin were a good couple, Lin is WAY TOO GOOD for that ugly bald elitist prick, but Pema ACTIVLY TRYING TO BREAK THEM UP IS SO WRONG!!!

Ever noticed how Lin stans (even the ones who don't woobify her) treat other characters?

Toph suddenly isn't an ex child soldier who never got to grow up in a healthy manner her entire life.

Suyin suddenly isn't her own sister (who based on canon) was never cared for properly by her sister AND mother.

Tenzin suddenly isn't the son of two genocide survivors with a weight on his shoulders can't understand.

I don't know much about Kya or Bumi but from what I know from rants from a Bumi fan I follow, they don't treat them well either.

And don't even get me started on Pema.

See, on one hand, I can perfectly understand people seeing the other characters through the lens of your fave. I can get focuscing on one character you enjoy.

But I will say, from outside of thst bubble, it can be gruelling to see people come up with the most abhorrent takes on a character, simply to prop up another character. There's also just. A startling lack of compassion and understanding towards any character other than Lin. Lin's actions are always perceived in the best light possible, while those of the "antagonists" i her life are interepreted as poorly as possible.

I think a lot of the characters are seen less as their own, and more as accessories to whatever you see Lin as. Like. If you want this Cinderella esque tale, Suyin and Toph are the perfect villains if you tweak them just right. You wanna have a shitty ex storyline? Tenzin's right there.

Kya and Bumi feel extremely interchangeable in how they're portrayed as love interests for Lin. Basically bubbly sunshine to brighten Lin's grumpy dark life. Nothing wrong with the ship dynamic, but there's a lot more to do with these characters i think.

Again there's nothing really wrong with these actions. These people are simply enjoying fandom in their own way. But it can get annoying, especially when it leads to unwarranted hate sent towards characters who certainly don't deserve it like Suyin, Toph and Pema. It does also clutter the space of people who actually wanna discuss the canon relationships with headcanons and assumptions.

It's also not the best thing for Lin's character, since the huge draw of her character, for me is that she's so incredibly painfully flawed and that a lot of it comes from her own fear of change.

Taking away Lin's agency in a lot of the storylines she's in doesn't really make her a better character in my opinion? Maybe it makes her a morally superior one? But is that really what we want for chief milf?

For the brutal honesty game, Pemzin and Sokaang!

Pemzin

This is a Good Ship, Actually. The hate Pema gets is insane (Pema has never done anything wrong in her life ever), and Tenzin is an adult responsible for his own choices. Their dynamic is great, and they've built a beautiful family. Probably my favorite canonical LOK ship.

Sokaang

TBQH, this ship kind of grosses me out. It's a personal preference thing-- aside from a handful of very specific exceptions, I usually don't like shipping the same character with siblings (or with an ex's sibling). (It just feels a little icky to me.)

Send me a ship for my (brutally) honest opinions on it.

More on mindfulness and meditation

I feel like perhaps I came across as anti-meditation in that last post I did on it, and there were some folks who were a bit vocal about not liking meditation in the notes, but the notes also had some great and interesting discussion of what can count as mindfulness that isn't traditional meditation and what some alternatives might be, so I wanted to do a follow-up. Especially since I don't think I'm going to get to respond to everyone individually.

The post was not meant to be anti-meditation, but to express frustration with the way meditation frequently is, or rather fails to be, taught. I can understand why people would struggle with "mindfulness" (vastly overused term) and meditation, so I'm not here to argue with or shame anyone, and I really appreciate the alternative suggestions. But because mindfulness can mean so many things, and people can meditate for many different reasons, I wanted to talk a little about why I'm being asked to do it.

It's easy to lose track of why one might try meditation for mental health, because the cause and effect are so temporally dislocated from each other. I try to keep in mind that my specific goal is emotional regulation deriving from increased present-moment attention. Some of the stuff that was suggested is great for a goal other than this, like puzzle games that allow people to empty their racing minds or activity that brings someone back into their body when dissociating -- both extremely laudable functions! -- but that's not why I'm here. Meditation is meant, for me, to be a maintenance medication, not a rescue inhaler.

There is science that suggest that mindfulness practice, under a specific definition of the term, can help to manage emotional dysregulation, ameliorate Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and reduce depression and anxiety. I discuss the science in a slideshow here but essentially this specific form trains the attention into the present moment, which improves executive function -- and as we know, emotional regulation is a facet of executive function, so this leads to better emotional regulation.

There is not a lot of science on it yet so there is room here for yoursamplesizeissmall.jpg, but it's all we've got so I'm running with it. There is one foundational practice and three practices that build on it which effected this change in subjects of the study:

Breathing Meditation doesn't really confer any benefit the others don't, but the others all employ it as a basic practice. We know this can calm the parasympathetic nervous system, although to be honest I have not found that to be the case personally. As soon as I stop the deep breathing I'm right back where I was, likely because my issue is ruminational, not situational. But everything else wants you to breathe first, so I still have to do it.

Body Scan focuses attention on the body and as others have pointed out is good for people prone to dissociation. As I said in the other post, I live here; paying extra attention to my body isn't something I need. I was asked to try it anyway as part of a practice in keeping an open mind about stuff I think is dumb, and clearly I do need practice in that. Still, it's likely I'll be able to let this one go pretty soon.

Loving-Kindness asks you to think positively about others, expanding compassion from a single point outward to the world. I've encountered this before in reading Pema Chodron; I don't do it as meditation, but I do try to practice it in life because I am not naturally a patient or compassionate person, and that has been helpful in the sense that it keeps me from getting punched in the face a bunch. For me there's no real "train the attention to be in the present" aspect on account of that, however.

Observing-Thought is where you just sit with your thoughts, let them arise, sometimes label them in some way, and let them go. I was most interested in this purely because it's the only one I hadn't already encountered. I haven't found it useful so far, but I don't have enough data about it to be definitive, and if it is training executive function I would expect that to take time.

Now, I know that all four of these have science backing them, so I know that we're not just dealing in new-age woo here. The problem is functional, not theoretical. The issue overall is not "meditation is boring" -> "find a way to make it interesting", although I do appreciate that it may be an issue for others and I like that people were offering solutions. The issue for me is that the boredom derives from the fact that the meditation isn't being taught. There's no progressional learning -- there's no step-progress-reward-step-progress-reward like with most difficult skills.

Any task is boring if you aren't deriving any reward from it or you are being expected to execute it without skills or training, and in this case I'm facing down both. Long silences from a meditation leader are fine if you're there to engage with a practice you already have familiarity with, but if you're trying to learn, they are the opposite of helpful, and they are actively punishing to someone with ADHD.

I don't want to be entertained (I mean, generally I do, but in this case I don't expect it). What I want is a pedagogical approach that steps up to the practice rather than beginning with it, so that I know I'm doing it right, I experience rewards along the way similar to how I currently do learning Italian, and I have more confidence that what seems dull and fruitless actually will produce results.

Uh, so yeah thanks for coming to my TEDtalk; the fact that a practice that's especially hard for people with ADHD helps with almost every problem ADHD presents really sucks, and I wish we approached teaching meditation as if it were something you actually did have to learn rather than something you're supposed to Do Until You Get It. In the meantime I guess bumping the speed on the recording isn't the worst thing I could be doing.

By Pema Levy

Mother Jones

May 21, 2022

Florida textbooks may no longer teach “social justice,” according to new state guidance, part of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ongoing attack on pluralistic democracy. 

The guidance, which was recently updated but is undated, states that “social justice” is now one of the topics that are prohibited in state-approved textbooks for K-12 social studies classes. According to Politico, which reported on the new criteria, textbook publishers have until June 10 to submit social studies proposals. The DeSantis administration recently rejected math textbooks for including “impermissible” topics—a warning shot to publishers that the state will make political hay by rejecting textbooks with even a hint at the fact that America is not a perfectly fair, racism-free country.

Social justice generally refers to the movement for equality in American society and against unfair treatment and unequal opportunities, and is often associated with movements against racism, sexism, and anti-LBGTQ rights. Clearly, Florida Republicans want to keep such movements out of Florida classrooms. The new rules do not actually define social justice but merely include three prohibited ideas: 

Potential Social Justice components include:

Seeking to eliminate undeserved disadvantages for selected groups.

Undeserved disadvantages are from mere chance of birth and are factors beyond anyone’s control, thereby landing different groups in different conditions.

Equality of treatment under the law is not a sufficient condition to achieve justice.

Under this definition of social justice, Florida textbooks cannot actually explain or acknowledge that some people in society receive better treatment and advantages than others. Because the guidance leaves the scope of social justice open-ended, publishers will likely go beyond this definition in order to meet the state’s new criteria.

The guidance also bans inclusion of critical race theory, social and emotional learning, and “any other unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination”—using a broad approach to suppress any attempt to acknowledge the ongoing presence of discrimination. 

The list of topics included under the CRT prohibition makes clear that Florida classrooms must not acknowledge that there is any lasting effect from slavery, Jim Crow, or other forms of oppression in American life. Complying textbooks would have to convey that any pesky problems like racism and segregation have been solved. In this way, the textbooks will reflect the restrictions placed on teachers by the “Stop WOKE Act,” which DeSantis signed last month. That law restricts how teachers, college professors, and employee trainings discuss race, oppression, and the country’s founding, with language that’s identical to that of the textbook restrictions.

If the “Stop WOKE Act,” which is being challenged in court, stands, alongside the textbook restrictions, then Florida classrooms will present a distorted image of American history and society today, one where everyone has an equal shot at success and the vestiges of oppression have fallen away. When the students step out into the Florida sunshine, however, they will still live in today’s America, one made even more oppressive and authoritarian by their own schools.

Out of curiosity why are you Anti Pema?

random asks | accepting, i guess ???

uh tbh i wouldn’t call myself anti anything??? i just genuinely dislike her character ( and this has nothing to do with my love for lin !! i don’t really ship ten/lin either ) and gave so from day one, but it only got worse when she gave that shitty ass advice to korra- like, im sorry but if you genuinely thought you and twinkletoes jr over there were soulmates you’d probs wait till he realised that right???? barging into other peoples relationships - let alone a long one at that, mind you - is just plain shitty?? i also dislike how she was essentially his fangirl before all that ( and his student which is…ewwww ) tbh i just dislike all air acolytes??? the portrayal of motherhood too that she represents also rubs me in the wrong way, as she was pretty much an over glorified baby popping machine… its just…. ugh, theres so much to unpack that i rather throw the whole suitcase away lmao all in all tho, i believe both she and tenzin deserve each other and no i wont elaborate on that one

Whoever sent the "I dislike Pema" thing, let's dislike her together. For the past hour I've been reading all Liz's and Cassandra's anti-pema posts and I've never been happier! (lmao so dramatic)

^^^ safety in numbers

I like to think that time Pema commented that she'd like at least one of her kids to be a nonbender like her was the cracks in her Stepford Wife lifestyle starting to appear. Like even she knows her whole marriage to Tenzin is just her being his walking talking baby factory to continue Aang's legacy. She liked to think what they had was true love, but in the end she knows. She knows, and the cracks are slowly appearing.

I still wouldn't feel that bad for her, if that was the case. She jumped in feet first. She got with a man who was already in a relationship. That's exactly what she gets.

To be honest, though, I wish at least one of Tenzin's kids hadn't been an airbender. I want to see if he would treat his non airbending kids better than Aang treated his. I wish Katara had been focused on m more. How did she feel that her daughter in law was able to do what she couldn't? Was she relieved that all of Tenzin's kids were airbenders? Did she resent Aang for how he made her older children feel?

What are your opinions on pema?

Honestly, it's no secret: I don't really like Pema. I feel like she's very entitled, and to make matters worse- she's really cocky about it. Personally, I'd hate that quality in any person. But, in addition, I find that she's quite the opportunist, masking her manipulativeness behind the innocent, devotee wife & acolyte front- which again, doesn't sit right with me. If you are a certain way- own it (Like, Lin: she's unapologetically herself. Or any other character on the show tbh.) Plus, she fully took advantage of Tenzin and Lin's precarious relationship and struck when the iron was hot. Sure, her guts are commendable, but that's not a quality that I feel is admirable or even something that should be promoted in any form of media. Women are so easily depicted as the crazy girlfriend, or the crazy ex and pitted against each other, while men are free of any such titles. I do think it's more Tenzin's fault in hurting Lin through the break-up, (that's a whole other story) than Pema's, but her catalysis can't go unforgiven. If she really was that confident that Tenzin was her soulmate, she should've had faith "in the Universe" or whatever, and waited for him to come to her. It wasn't her place to make or break anything. If Lin and Tenzin ran their course and broke up on their own accord, AND THEN, Pema confessed her feelings, I'd have a lot more respect for her. She had no right to butt into a relationship she wasn't a part of. As a woman, to blindside and perish another woman's relationship for her own selfish gain (love or not), that's the wrong message to put out: and clearly, we all saw how that ended up for Korra, Asami, and Mako at the end of season 1. It's just not the healthy way to handle things. I feel like my qualms have more to do with the writing than Pema herself, but having written Pema a certain way is what makes me despise her as a character. Someone as conniving is not an acceptable maternal role model for kids, the airnation, and the show in general.

“Welcome To Republic City”:

Jinora: Gran Gran, I have been reading all about your old adventures. I've been dying to ask you, what happened to Zuko's mom? (Cut back to Katara, who begins to speak before Ikki jumps up in front of her, waving her arms.) Katara: Well, Jinora, it's an incredible tale...

I can’t avoid thinking about how stupid this moment of fandom trolling is from an in-universe perspective, given “The Search” and “Smoke and Shadow” comics. If Ursa, mother of the arguably most important political leader in the world, returned to the Fire Nation palace and resumed her old status, that would be publicly known information which just about everyone(or close to it) would know, and which would be included in books written about the Gaang’s adventures. Moreover, Tenzin and Pema would almost certainly know, so Jinora wouldn’t have to ask Katara.

don’t currently have the brain power to do a full breakdown of this, but I’ve been stewing over the stereotyping of Lin Beifong as a workaholic who doesn’t have time for a family/her family versus Pema as a woman consumed by motherhood (as in she has no serious personality outside of being an airbending baby incubator)

both stereotypes make me incredibly angry for how constraining they are for each character; especially how utterly bland Pema is due to bryke’s view of motherhood as draining seemingly any personality one might have

I should start by clarifying that I love Lin. I also love Tenzin. I think their relationship was an important part of their lives and eventual character development. 

I don’t think they should have ended up together. 

In theory, I have zero problem with people who do ship them. YMMV, ship whoever you want, have fun. 

The problem I have is when people start attacking Tenzin, saying things like “he broke up with Lin for babies” or “he only married Pema for her uterus” or whatever...... as though people don’t break up all the time because one partner wants kids and the other doesn’t. 

(Would we even be having this conversation if the genders were swapped? If it was the woman who was like, “I want kids” and the man was like “but I don’t?” I highly doubt it.) 

It is normal and healthy to have the “do you want children” talk before committing to a long-term relationship. If you don’t, you may find yourself with more than a few problems sometime down the line. 

(I am begging you. Please have this conversation-- along with others of signifcant importance towards your future, such as “where do you want to live” and “what are your long-term plans”-- before signing on the dotted line. You’ll save yourself a world of hurt.) 

I am so sorry that you have been lied to. Love does not conquer all. There are many valid reasons a couple might choose to break up, and this is a big one. If you want kids, great! If you don’t, that’s also fine! But don’t go into a relationship-- or, worse, a marriage-- thinking you’ll be able to change the other person’s mind, or that you’ll settle for what you really don’t want just for the sake of making the other person happy. It’s a very bad idea. 

(Not to mention that none of this is a reason to throw undeserved hate on Pema and what she chose to do with her life. Y’all act like being a housewife/stay-at-home mom/homemaker is either a tragedy or an unpardonable sin, instead of a valid life decision like any other. The fact that LOK gives us such a wide variety of female characters, from Lin to Zhu Li to Kya to Suyin to Pema, is one of its selling points.) 

And this is all aside from the fact that we don’t actually know all of the reasons why Lin and Tenzin broke up. We know the kids issue caused a rift. We know that Pema’s confession didn’t help matters. But odds are, there were probably numerous factors involved. At the end of the day, they wanted different things out of life, and that’s okay.

I feel like Lin’s portrayal is feeding into Bryke’s really limited view of women. I’ve known childless women who I’d never describe as “bitter” or “lonely.” There are people who don’t want kids who aren’t wicked, child haters. Lin being portrayed as so cold she can’t even play with a dog bugs me. Also oddly enough growing up even when things were fraught between my mother and aunts, my aunts were always kind to me. So that scene between Lin and Opal just felt weird. 

It feels like an extension of the madonna/whore complex. You can be eternally pregnant and devoid of personality like Pema, a single-parent who’s emotionally unavailable or a child-hating spinster.