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ekebolou · 3 months

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So I did start watching the live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and I will probably keep watching it because I want to see what these actors do, but I also think it's a pretty good indication of How Not To Make a Good Adaptation, not because anyone is doing a bad job but because somebody with a financial spreadsheet and no spine was making all the final calls.

If you're looking at this show, I think it's important to understand its parameters to understand the creative decisions being made. There are a few that are great - it is the dreaded live-action adaptation of a beloved franchise. That it's a beloved franchise, however, means that meaty roles can be filled with underrepresented or underappreciated actors, so rather than being mad that it's a live-action adaptation, you can be excited that you're getting to see new talent or overshadowed talent in big, extended, emotionally varied roles. That it's live-action means we see these people get to do what they do best, so at least it's not CGI cats voiced by big-name celebrities instead of talented voice actors.

However, because it's Netflix, whose whole business model circles the drain of 'how to not pay or pay the absolute least amount of residuals or really any money to any creative or technical person or really any person not in the c-suite', it is an 8-episode season. It's an 8-episode season because they've cut 'filler', or as many would see it, 'character development', because 'filler' costs money. They want to make it cheaply and quickly, and finish it cheaply and quickly, on the back of its existent fame, so that any chance any of the people involved might conceivably develop favorable bargaining conditions, or even time to bargain, is headed off at the pass. For the guy with the financial spreadsheet, they can put out a lot of money to make it 'good' (avoid the 'mistakes' of previous adaptations) but only if they cut off any chance of anyone else making money off whatever favorable reception it gets. [This is my own belief. I don't believe anything anyone else has said about this, because all of these media companies and indeed many companies are run by cultural vandals, who understand nothing but how to lie to make money. Cut them and they wouldn't bleed, lies would pour out of the wound. Not to be dramatic about it or anything.]

That means you've got a 20-episode season shoved into an 8 episode season. But otherwise, the creative (not the c-suite, or spreadsheet guy) forces behind the show are working hard to make that a rewarding 8-episode season. So taking that as a starting point, they have made some interesting creative decisions, some of which work better than others. I don't really know why I'm writing this, except that I think it's actually a really great opportunity to learn what works and what does and why as a way of improving your own work.

{I guess I should say there's probably some variety of spoilers coming up? If that's even a thing that can happen at this point?}

If you've ever seen writing advice go by that says stuff like 'no prologues' or 'no dreams or flashbacks as exposition', this show gives you a good example of why that's shit advice.

The animated series (OG) starts, for the most part, in media res (not totally, that's for later). Sokka and Katara have a fight over fishing and waterbending, establishing a shitload of worldbuilding as well as solid relationship dynamics (siblings!), and they stumble on Aang, who is genuinely like a goddamn alien to them almost, which establishes significant change in the setting as well.

The live-action series (LA) starts by introducing Aang as exceptionally talented, and the Airbenders, and the concept of the Avatar (all through dialogue, except for the talent bit, where instead we get an audience 'ooh-ing' and 'ahh-ing' at what comes across, thanks to the dialogue, as arrogant high-jinks in perhaps one of the most annoying introductory scenes I've seen lately).

Actually, wait, I've already fucked up, because in fact the annoying scene was so annoying I forgot the show actually starts with some really good in media res dynamic action as a spy is chased through the streets of the fire nation trying to smuggle out plans to invade the earth kingdom- he's captured, though he manages to get the plans out, and we see it was really a clever ploy by the fire lord to distract everyone from his true intention, eradicating the airbenders, and then he absolutely gruesomely murders the spy by literally burning him to a blackened and charred husk on the spot.

So that's actually great.

But then things proceed chronologically. Aang is informed he is the Avatar and is also informed, verbally, of all of his virtues and the fact that this means he will be the best possible avatar, all of which is annoying. Aang leaves to think about his future in the place where things always make more sense, the sky, which is honestly impressive in its invocation of cliche in such a wholly fantastical world. The airbenders are wiped out viciously, which is a cool scene and it's honestly nice to see some of their resistance because they get undersold as combatants, but at a wholly vague distance Aang is somehow embroiled in a storm, part of a weather system so entirely separate from what's going on back at the temple it's nuts because we have no sense of where or how far he went to 'clear his head, in the only place where things make sense' because that's up, and it seems like it would be mostly just going straight up and not to a wholly separate environment, and also then there's an ocean and whoops, iceberg time.

It would be laborious to take account of the show don't tell violations - we're giving leeway to this because of a compressed timeline, really, and such critique is in itself a little annoying, even if it's true. You're going to have to tell some things. And I think they deserve some kudos for working in a few of the important worldbuilding concepts in kind of interesting ways, even if they're a little 'tell'-ish, like the firelord saying that if it were any other night than that of the comet (which also we don't fuckin' see? Like, we're literally in the realm of the sky and there is absolutely no one going, look at that comet, even coincidentally, as in like the camera just shows it when pointed up at the goddamn sky?) - like it if were any other night, the airbenders might have stood a chance against the invasion. Before he roasts the shit out of the last ones. Proud warrior bullshit - it's good.

And then we proceed to Sokka, Katara, etc etc.

But they've dramatically weakened the narrative impact of learning Aang's past, and paired it with a very dramatic weakening of his character development. There is a horrific punch in the OG as the water tribe folks come to realize what's happened, and try to introduce gently the idea that Aang is unaware of a significantly changed world, one change of which is that his people were brutally eradicated, something he doesn't even believe until he sees the temple for himself, triggering an emotional meltdown (avatar state). This meltdown is not mere grief, but the realization that he wasn't there not because he was 'clearing his head' before taking up his responsibilities, but because he was fleeing their onset entirely, denying his new role and the responsibilities that came with it. He is, in fact, very much part of the reason the airbenders were successfully eradicated if only because of this 'refusal of the call' and thus, as becomes clear over the course of the show, very much responsible for the 100 years of bloodshed that followed (ironically because of his evasion, a very airbender thing to do - flow and evasion are a big part of how that discipline works).

This Aang, however, went out for a stroll and missed some shit, through, really, no fault of his own. Arguably, it's Gyatso's fault, because if he had followed directions and sent Aang away to start training immediately, either when they became aware he was the Avatar or when he was given the final warning to deliver the news, he would have been nowhere near the temple during the invasion and on his way to being capable of combating the fire nation. It's not even really fucking clear why Aang was so far away or his head-clearing mission, as there is no strong emotional impetus for him to flee, because he's just been given the news of his role of Avatar couched within the utmost comfort and without any real indication of the time pressure on him to take up the role except 'you're supposed to leave now, but by now I guess I mean tomorrow because even though I said now we instead show you going to bed at the temple like normal'.

This means we're trying desperately to take seriously a 12-year-old saying 'he should have been there' for the monks who 'were there for him', which is like, sure, believable a child would think that, I guess, eventually, but like, in this world your ass would just have been roasted like everyone else's. Aang didn't refuse the call, he went for a walk. Which is like, totally normal reaction to heavy news. He didn't evade shit. Unlike a kid in the middle of a runaway plot getting stuck in a storm he's now just an idiot who went for a walk in the rain for some reason rather than going 'hmm, looks like bad weather, which I can see clearly and understand because I am literally in the fucking sky, my natural element, I think I shall take my pensive walk through that shit'.

Kids make dumb choices, though, so this isn't really a huge fault of characterization as much as a huge fault of narration. Failure to equip dramatic irony. Because imagine if you got the first scene, dramatic spy escape, but it just ended with an incredibly cliche 'that's just what I wanted to happen' before crisping instead of a full plot reveal, and then we cut to Aang's annoying introduction as is, skip the eradication, straight to iceberg, then Sokka and Katara... All of the sudden there's a lot of tension for the audience in seeing Aang come to grips with having woken up 100 years later. If you know the series already, you know why, but if you don't, you've preserved that mystery of 'what did that seemingly unconnected scene of intrigue and terror mean?' at the start of the show. Even though the characterization of Aang remains weak, the narrative buoys it by maintaining some tension while not necessarily altering the material as shot.

The problem is that then, the revelation of the eradication comes as a flashback, if it comes at all. But then, it was effective in the show to never show it, because it increased the sense of Aang's displacement, his strangeness, as he walks through what are essentially the ruins of the world he knew - ruined because he evaded his responsibilities. Now, that clause wouldn't occur in the LA, instead it would be 'ruined because I took a minute to reflect on life-changing news and have a bad sense of the weather' but then his switch to driving himself towards perhaps mistaken ideas of what he can do to make up for it, an increasingly desperate search for the right way to make things right again, will add a good sense of tension anyway. I mean, you could compare it to something like Demon Slayer, where ultimately it wasn't anything but the normal, day-to-day decision making - and maybe a mistake of staying out a bit too late - that led to the main character being the only survivor of the slaughter of his family, which leads to his quest and provides plenty of raison d'etre on its own.

Instead, LA Aang clings to the comforting words of his mentor that told him he would be a slap-bang Avatar from the get-go, and the audience (or over-twelves at least) understand he bore no real responsibility for being absent for the massacre, and while he continues to misunderstand the state of the world as-is as different from the world he knew, it becomes creepily apparent that his representation of a nostalgic period of 'peace' is being presented as superior to and the appropriate goal of the jaded, traumatized, and abused understanding of those who have lived through war. Instead of being alien, or irresponsible, he's just pure and untouched.

And that's both creepy and a shitty way to set up a story. And I think it isn't intentional, because the characteristics Aang brings to the war-torn world around him are genuinely praised and seen as desirable in the OG show, too, and him losing those, even temporarily, is a terrific point of conflict in that show. Changing the order of events to be less chronological (or, as in the show, demonstrating a change in the state of the world by, in fact, changing the story outline given as prologue before each show [remember them doing that? I had to re-watch before I noticed but they did] talk about show don't tell violations that fuckin' work). would at least increase the sense of Aang's alienation by disassociating his experience from the main timeline, and the perspective of our main characters, thus preserving more of sense of dramatic tension, upping the stakes, emphasizing important moments of growth, etc.

And, I mean, honestly, fucking about with story structure is like the easiest and cheapest way to do this, so it really struck me that the adaptation wasn't using it despite being otherwise forced to cheap condensations of events and storylines. I mean, that's why you're supposed to avoid it, because it's cheap and easy and often done ham-fistedly. So this was a good example of why use of prologue and flashback could honestly improve a story without significant changes to the material or characterization.

They should change those things. It would make it better. But, like, there's just some editing of the storyline that could also make it better. They should also teach the actor playing Aang how to cry on command, but, like, that's a child actor, a little guy, he's improving as he goes and doesn't really deserve to be chided. Maybe they didn't want him to cry, so the director should really be talked to about that because you think there'd be some really snotty tears at incinerated husk of your former friend and mentor and the destruction of your whole culture, but yeah.

Tears wouldn't help if there's no support in the narrative for the drama anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter.

#senseless ramblings

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rwdestuffs · 10 months

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So some WB animation & CN staffers are trying to unionize now. No clue whether this means anything for Chicken Dentures, but at this point I'm waaay more hopeful about that & other Texan 'pay us already' animation developments than this hashtagnewvolumelaborwhatlabor? sewage. Lately fndm/rwde wank seems to get very lost in the weeds of in-show character crit, but the former clique's nonresponse to so many disclosures remains fucking awful.

I'm hoping it means that the animators, writers, voice actors, and everyone involved in the show gets decent pay. I get why fans want to see the show continue. For a lot of people, this is how they met online friends, made connections with other artists or writers, and found a community where they belong. But I think that that community can survive even if the show gets delayed like hell.

If fans can keep shouting at Sony to delay Beyond the Spider-Verse so that the animators, writers, VAs, etc. can be paid properly and have the time they need to make a good movie, then so can the fans of RWBY. The main issue is that greenlighting the show is very much out of their hands, so while Spider-Verse is pretty much greenlit, RWBY isn't, so fans need to show enough support to prove that there is enough demand for the show in order for it to continue.

Fans can wait a few years for RWBY so that the animation is good, the writing is good, and so that the people working on it aren't worked to death. And while I'm somewhat curious as to what the show will bring us (good and bad), there needs to be an understanding that a good story is one that takes time.

Legend of Korra once had a filler episode just so they could keep their animators and other such personal on the show, I don't see why RT can't have some delays to make sure their show would be of both quality, and of humane production.

I admittedly, haven't been around the rwde/crtq tag as much lately, so I don't know what's going on. And that's mainly because I've come to the conclusion that any flaw in RWBY is also a flaw in other shows. Say what you want about Emerald, at least they didn't take a doll off the corpse of a girl and send it as a halfhearted idea of a gift to a family member while giving another family member something that was actually had thought put into it, like Iroh. Say what you want about Ilia, at least she didn't hire an assassin to go after the main heroes because she was unsure of her place in the place that rejected her, like Zuko. Say what you want about Ruby, at least she didn't claim to be a non-killing pacifist while also burying people in an avalanche, like Aang did.- Basically, any flaw within RWBY is also a flaw within other shows that are also critically acclaimed, like AtLA.

The main point I'm trying to make here is that the story does deserve to be told. It does deserve to have its ending. But that shouldn't come at the expense of animators, writers, voice actors, or anyone really. If RT can't make the show in a humane way, then they should hand it off to a company that will. If that means they go down, well… They brought that on themselves. And maybe if these guys can get unionized, the show can be made without the expense of people around them. And I'd like to think that the show itself would improve if it were made humanely.

So while I have no idea what the future will hold, I'm hoping that it'll be at least somewhat better than what we have right now. If we fail to make the world better for the next generation, then we've failed as a generation. And the same can be said about previous generations. And future generations too.

#anonymous #rwde #fndm criticism #fndm crit #does this count as rwby #does this count as rwde?#rwby

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stonesparrow · 3 years

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For the dr.stone x atla crossover I feel that even if Hyoga is or was a soldier in the fire army he wouldn’t have liked the idea of a nations worth of centuries of knowledge pasted down through generations being wiped of the face of the earth.

I just had a thought Hyoga could be a soldier in the fire army but he could also be a master instructor at his own dojo he inherited from his master kinda like master Piandao. He’s still a fire bender though.

Also I think I would be a cute and funny plot twist if he has a daughter who is still young but old enough to help fight and strong enough to thanks her dad training her. I think he’d be the same tough and cold character he is but he’s surprisingly tender, caring, gental, and kind to her in his own way that would just make the characters in the dr.stone universe jaws hit the floor lol.

Ah, you do have a point with Hyoga likely being disappointed that the knowledge of airbending was lost to genocide - all those ancient techniques would probably be really fascinating to him as a martial artist. Though I can also see him buying into the Fire Nation’s imperialist message of “we are the strongest nation, so we should rule over all the weaker nations.”

I like your idea that Hyoga is a fighting instructor, with his values he’d probably be something like Zuko in skillset - he puts a lot of effort into firebending, but also into spearfighting since he deeply respects the nonbender master who taught it to him. At the same time he has no time for people who either don’t take it seriously or are too weak to make a difference.

(More under the cut because this got long)

Him having a kid is an interesting plot twist and while it’s more twisty than I’d expect, I’m kind of intrigued by the potential it has. Though that also brings up the question of who the kid’s mom is, and when the kid was born (I estimate Hyoga’s age in DCST to be around 20-22). Homura maybe? Like...perhaps Hyoga and Homura were both fairly high class and had an arranged marriage, but while Homura fell in love with him as they grew up together Hyoga only respected her as a friend and fellow fighter.

And then if they had a daughter (maybe pressured by both their parents to produce an heir of some sort) it could make them both more complex characters. If the kid was really strong though I’d lean more towards an Ozai-Azula like dynamic with Hyoga impressing his values of “only the strong and skilled deserve to live,” onto her. Plus if we’re keeping relative canon ages then I’d estimate Homura to be 20, Hyoga to be 22, and their daughter to be 2 by the time Team Avatar shows up in the Fire Nation to do their thing.

However...I can see some potential with the kid turning out physically weak, and that throwing Hyoga’s values into wack.

Let’s say the toddler was born healthy and strong and an assessment by some Fire Sages said that she’d become an extremely powerful bender - this pleases Hyoga, since he can’t imagine having fathered a weak child with him and Homura’s combined firebending ability. And indeed, by the time the kid is two she shows signs of firebending power well beyond her age group, with Hyoga planning to train her into an extraordinarily strong warrior.

Except with such a strong fire at such a young age, the little girl suddenly falls terribly ill, having raging fevers and struggling to breathe. Hyoga’s ideals would tell him that such an ill child will die, and that’s that, the weak and ill perish while the strong survive. But he finds himself insisting that the kid will survive, because she’s strong, she has to survive. She’ll recover and become the strongest firebender this side of the Nation, not die a weakling.

Some time later, the Gaang shows up to Hyoga’s town to resupply. Pre-Zuko joining but maybe somewhere between meeting Piandao and encountering Combustion Man? Aang decides to visit the local firebending dojo (rip Sokka’s nerves) because hey, he wants to see some firebending techniques from actual benders, and he can tooooootally handle staying low key this time, honest! He encounters Hyoga and gets a fair bit intimidated by him, though Hyoga seems to approve of “Kuzon’s” highly adaptive martial arts style.

At some point, a messenger comes and Hyoga slips away. Being nosy, Aang follows them and catches enough of the conversation to determine that there’s a sick kid living in that fancy mansion, and relays his concerns to the Gaang. Katara immediately wants to investigate further - Sokka is again very stressed but understands that he can’t stop his sister once she’s made a decision (plus this is post Painted Lady and Katara is even more determined not to let children suffer if she can do anything about it). But when she tries the front entrance, the guards won’t let her in, even when she says she’s a healer. In fact, they deny that there’s a sick child at all, while Aang insists he didn’t hear wrong.

So Aang and Katara, ever the problem solvers, break into the mansion (airbending is super useful!) and find the kid’s bedroom. Katara assesses the patient - she determines that even with her waterbending, the kid will likely suffer from complications her whole life due to the damage she’s already sustained. Hyoga suddenly appears, asking them how they got into his house (he’s actually very curious, since they seemed to enter silently and without alerting anyone). When Katara excuses herself and says she’s a healer from the colonies (Aang’s explanation for how Katara has “special healing techniques unlike any other”) and just wanted to help, Hyoga says that he doesn’t need a healer, and that the girl will recover soon. Katara starts to argue and Hyoga starts insinuating that he could easily beat her in combat, when Homura shows up, pleading with Katara to save her daughter.

Hyoga and Homura start arguing, with Homura saying this may be their last chance and Hyoga saying that a true daughter of his would be able to fight off the sickness alone. Homura eventually asks if he’d rather have a dead daughter than a weak one, which makes him go quiet (Aang and Katara are standing there awkwardly watching all of this). Hyoga then calmly says that since they seem to be at a standstill, the reasonable course of action is an Agni Kai (Aang goes pale at this, while Katara doesn’t actually know what that is).

In the courtyard the Gaang watches anxiously as Hyoga and Homura begin their duel, which results in quite a few impressive displays of firebending. Homura however seems to be holding back slightly, more on the run than attacking. At one point Homura gets thrown on her back and nearly burnt, but Katara calls out to her, saying she has to win for the kid. She gets back up and starts attacking Hyoga with renewed resolve, and even Hyoga is surprised.

Hyoga realizes that as loyal as Homura is to him, she really is doing her best to win, even coming at him with direct shots of flame now. And since this is still Hyoga, he respects that deeply - she’s doing things “properly,” even though she doesn’t want to. He even respects that Katara was so dedicated to her role as a healer that she broke into his house just on the mere mention that there was a sick child there.

And in the very bottom of his heart, despite all the talk of strength and weakness and who deserves to live, he has a hard time realizing that he doesn’t want his daughter to die, even if it means she’ll be weak and reliant on others her whole life. This might be a little OOC for canon Hyoga, but hey, it’s an au and maybe if canon Hyoga did have something small and weak to protect, he’d be less of an ass to Senku and company.

So at a key moment in the battle, Hyoga pauses for a split second instead of dodging a blast from Homura and allows himself to be grazed on the chin, reminiscent of his revival scars in canon. It’s not a bad burn, and those watching closely realize that he let her win. Hyoga turns to leave, only saying that Katara will be compensated for her healing services and that they truly did things “properly.”

Katara heals the girl, saying that the fever is gone but her lungs are damaged and she’ll have breathing problems from now on. She’s paid a small sack of gold by a servant that she initially refuses, but takes in the end since it’d probably be good to have extra Fire Nation currency on hand. The Gaang leaves the mansion feeling...a little conflicted about the experience, honestly.

Meanwhile as Homura sits by the girl’s bedside Hyoga appears in the doorway, having treated his burn from the duel. An awkwardly long silence passes before Hyoga says he’s been thinking about the skills that "Kuzon” and “Sapphire” displayed, and that he’s considering buying a home in the colonies so he can learn about those types of skills (since Aang claimed they were from the colonies). He turns to leave, but not before offhandedly saying that the seaside air in the colonies he’s looked at might be good for their daughter’s lungs.

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awkwardpenguinproductions · 4 years

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Okay I’m sure you’ve gotten asked about this before but how would Zuko interact with Jet assuming he was with the gang in their first meeting with him?

You’re the first one, Nonny! 🎉

So I started writing this at 12:45am my time, and finished at around 1:30pm my time. Total active writing time was probably about 3, 3.5 hours? Honestly, that kind of turnaround is unheard of for me, but IDEK, I saw this ask and this popped nearly fully formed into my head.

Nemesis

The smarmy jerk’s got style, Zuko will give him that. He still rubs Zuko the wrong way––instincts honed over years spent in the company of soldiers recognize bloodlust regardless of how well it disguises itself under smooth charm. He and Sokka exchange irritated glances, but both Aang and Katara are googly-eyed, and if half the squad is dug in, the rest aren’t going anywhere.

The hideout’s pretty cool. Zuko can appreciate the strategic genius of the location; the trees are so tall and the canopy so thick that there’s very little chance of the Freedom Fighters (oh Agni what a stupid name) being discovered––firebenders like to be rooted, and that preference informs almost all of Fire Nation military tactics, so it’ll be a rare Fire Nation soldier that would think to look up for his enemy. That speech, though... Zuko shivers and prays to Agni, Tui, La, and the Four Winds that his new squad has the sense to keep Zuko’s firebending confidential.

The guy’s a nutcase. The elder he’s just assaulted was barely able to stand up without the cane Jet had swiped out from under him, and now he’s on the ground and Zuko has a rappel line ready but for once Sokka beats him to the punch, leaping from the perch like a diving eagle-hawk. The Water Tribe warrior catches Jet’s foot with his club as it swings towards the elder’s face, and Zuko lands behind his squadmate just as Jet snarls “remember why you fight” in Sokka’s face. When they return to the hideout and Sokka tells Katara and Aang what had happened, Jet fucking lies to their faces—if that elder had actually been an assassin, Zuko will snap his bow in half and join the Imperial Firebenders.

Zuko is awake at dawn (he is a firebender after all) so he clearly hears the whispers outside the hut. Sokka hears them as well, and without a word they both slip out and follow Jet and his cronies to a cliff overlooking a nearby village and the dam that protects it. Zuko knew Jet was bloodthirsty, but wiping out an entire village just to get rid of half a garrison’s worth of soldiers? Gaipan, Zuko remembers from reading pilfered reports back at the Stronghold, is barely worth the ink that marks it on the maps. Wiping it out wouldn’t do a single thing to uproot the Fire Nation’s foothold in the Earth Kingdom. And the guy’s bullshit excuse about the demands of war makes Zuko want to either laugh hysterically or breathe fire. This kid has no idea about the demands of war; he’s just lashing out at what he perceives as monsters.

But he’s too dangerous to be pitied, and too steeped in fear and rage to be reasoned with. When Sokka refuses to go along with their plan, and Zuko makes his opinion clear by spitting in the nutcase’s face with all of the precision trained into him by the Yuyan, Jet orders Pipsqueak and Smellerbee to take them on a “long walk”. Their hands are tied behind their backs, and Smellerbee jolts them into motion with the poke of a dagger.

As they walk, Zuko is itching to fight; the odds are much better now that it’s two on two, even accounting for Pipsqueak’s size. But a single look from Sokka banks his fire. The Water Tribe warrior is subtly leading them in a specific direction, so sublty that even Zuko hadn’t noticed until just that moment.

Sokka suddenly speaks, it’s a signal, and Zuko watches carefully for signs of what to do. He knows that Sokka is going to break left the second the other boy shifts his weight, and they turn and run in unison, so suddenly that their captors are left behind to shout and give chase. Zuko immediately sees where Sokka is going with this—the same traps they had discovered yesterday are primed and waiting. The two Freedom Fighters bumble into the traps and get snapped up like hog-monkeys, and Zuko smirks as he easily snaps the shoddy vine-rope with a flex of his arms. Even spitting mad, a blush spreads across Smellerbee’s face, and Sokka laughs as he easily undoes his own bindings.

“While you’re up there and daydreaming about how ripped Zuko is, you might want to practice your knotwork,” he quips, and Zuko cuffs him under his stupid wolf-tail.

As they sprint back towards the hideout, Sokka breathlessly outlines his plan. There’s no time to argue, and Sokka isn’t yet advanced enough in Yuyan hand-language to understand him anyway, so Zuko agrees, and they pack up Appa’s saddle and race to the village. Zuko and Appa drop Sokka off to get the villagers evacuated, and then return to the hideout to pick up Aang and Katara.

Who aren’t in the hideout.

Shit.

It’s hard for Appa to punch his way through the forest’s dense canopy, and by the time they find a hole big enough for him to get through without scraping the saddle and half the fur off his back, they’re much farther from the resevoir than Zuko wants to be. They fly back as fast as Appa can manage, but the resevoir’s full, the blasting jelly is in place, and Zuko can hear a birdcall whistling through the air. Another call answers it.

A burning arrow arcs through the sky, too far away for Zuko to shoot it down. All he can do is watch.

The dam explodes.

The village floods.

Agni, please let Sokka have gotten them out in time. Please let Sokka have gotten out in time.

Heartsick, burning with fury, he directs Appa over the flooded remains of the village, following the flow of the water. There are no bodies, but that means nothing. Until they round a bend, and then it means everything.

Sokka is waving his arms and jumping around like a maniac, grinning from ear to ear, jubilant in his plan’s success. Behind him stand the entirety of the village’s residents, Earth Kingdom natives and Fire Nation colonists and soldiers. Zuko returns Sokka’s grin, and holds out an arm for the other boy to hoist himself up on Appa’s head. Sokka waves to the people, and everyone but a few shell-shocked soldiers cheer. Zuko spots the elder from the day before, tears in his eyes as he bows shakily to the two boys.

They find Katara, Aang, and Jet just inside the treeline atop the cliff. Jet is frozen to a tree, and Katara is shouting at him furiously, tears flowing down her cheeks. Aang is sitting on the forest floor with his big, stormy gray eyes staring at Jet like the asshole had broken his heart. Zuko’s fury reignites at Aang’s expression, and he glares at Jet and wishes that he could roast the bastard to ash with the strength of his gaze alone. The flinch Jet can’t supress at the sight of Zuko is satisfying enough, he supposes.

Aang and Katara climb into Appa’s saddle, Momo flutters down to wrap around Aang’s shoulders, and Sokka flicks the reins. The bison roars and lifts off, drowning out the furious, insane screams of the would-be terrorist of Gaipan. Looking at the faces of his squad, Zuko knows that this was a lesson that needed to be learned, but it was a cruel one, and he’s not looking forward to the debrief. For now, though, he’s content to act as comfort for shellshocked Aang and miserable Katara, and smirk when Aang points out to Sokka that they’re flying the wrong way.

And I wasn’t even planning on writing a Jet redux. “Jet” comes before “The Blue Spirit” in the series continuity, which, spoilers, is when I’m planning for Zuko to join Team Avatar, so in my outline (really more of a list with a one sentence summary/prompt, some of which I look back at and go “????” because I can’t really remember what sparked each one in the corresponding ep) Zuko and Jet don’t meet until Ba Sing Se. But to be perfectly frank— “Jet” was a filler episode. It introduced the character and his motivations, but it could’ve appeared anywhere in Book 1 and been perfectly effective. So, this takes place a week or two after “The Blue Spirit”, or at least the Dragon ‘verse version thereof.

I’ll post a more polished version of this to AO3 this weekend, but I hope this answered your question, Anon!

#atla #atla fandom #atla fanfic #dragon of the yuyan #awkpenproductions presents #oops my hand slipped

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loopy777 · 4 years

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following up on your wastly superios republic city, how would you rewrite asami's role in this new city, the city related plot, and her relationship with korra?(i cannot imagine you'dd want to keep the terrible love trialngle for this story). do you think opening their relationship on a romantic note with clear attraction from the start or have it develop more slowly over the course of the first book would better?

I don’t usually talk much about Asami here on Tumblr because I have lots of criticisms of her character and Korrasami, and this site enables such things to be passed along out of context and co-opted for agenda-driven bashing. I don’t think Asami or Korrasami are any worse than any of LoK’s other failures, and at least it’s bad writing for a good cause. Unlike Iroh II, who's just bad writing. Heyo!

Also, I’ve mainly been thinking about Book Air with all my talk of Republic City, but discussing the development of the dynamic between Korra and Asami is going to take us beyond that, and so outside of Republic City.

So let’s see how much I can answer this question without stepping over my self-imposed line.

First of all, I would introduce Asami independently of Mako, and you’re right, I wouldn’t bother with a love triangle. I don’t like that LoK ended on a romantic moment for either Book Air's climax or the finale finale, because the whole first episode is completely devoid of romantic matters or potential suitors. It’s one thing for AtLA, where Katara provides the opening narration and Aang’s crush on her is established at their first meeting; their getting together is the culmination of their respective coming-of-age arcs, which is why Book Fire stretches Kataang out so much and so nonsensically.

Korra's journey is never really about romance. It’s about seeing the world and making connections; Tenzin, her guide into the wider world, is the one who narrates the opening to her story. So I’d expect her final scene to be about all the friends she’d made and her place in the world, not a single romance and a vacation to the Spirit World. But Korra’s main character arc is over by the end of Book Spirits, anyway, so I can understand just ripping off AtLA for something feel-good. Also, considering the limitations in what could be shown, I guess they wanted as many parallels to AtLA as possible to make sure everyone got that Korra and Asami are romantic.

So, with the benefit of hindsight and the goal of endgame Korrasami, we can introduce Asami earlier to give her proper prominence. In the first episode, while careening through the city, Korra encounters Asami. There is no blushing or giggling or anything when Korra and Asami meet, because that's not how Korra or Asami react to attraction. I'm thinking we can replace the whole thing with the hobo and the illegal fishing, since that material can be covered later; perhaps Asami buys Korra food when she sees Korra has no money? But before they can exchange names, something happens that sends them off on a short adventure, and then they get separated.

In episode 2, instead of encountering Mako and Bolin while trying to break out of Air Island to see Probending, Korra encounters Asami again. Asami is likewise sneaking out to see Probending, and she’s a parallel to Korra in that she’s a victim of social isolation. Asami recognized Korra, gives a shout, and they exchange names and bond as fellow probender-geeks. Once that’s done, the girls somehow wind up meeting Mako and Bolin, Korra gets the chance to join the team, etc. Asami would help convince Mako to let Korra play. The end result is Korra with a big group of friends, no romantic hints about anyone (other than maybe Bolin having the hots for her, a situation that will be temporary), and an explicit connection between Korra starting to ‘get’ Airbending and the perspectives offered by her new friends. Perhaps Mako or Bolin shout some advice that gets the circle-walking to click for her, or it could be another thing for Asami to do.

This would be explicit foreshadowing for the Book Air finale, where Korra uses Airbending for the first time to defeat Amon. But instead of Mako being the one in danger, it’s all Korra’s friends, and the scene would be set up as an explicit parallel to the one in the second episode. Korra achieves freedom through her connections, people who show her new sides of herself and the world.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. For most of Book Air, I think Asami and Korra can be partners in discovering Republic City. The Bending Brothers can introduce them to some new element, and the girls react to it in similar but disparate ways. Asami can sometimes be a bit of a snob, while Korra can be more into getting dirty or eating nasty food or belching or whatever. But they still do get moments of going to a dance hall together, getting pulled into street racing together, helping each other chase the corruption out of Probending, etc. Still, a little distance comes between the two, as Korra starts to see herself connecting better with the boys, especially Bolin. If we want to deal with Bolin trying to woo Korra and it not working out, this is the place to do it.

However, rather than romance and a love triangle, the main conflict between Korra’s Krew is Asami being courted by the Equalists. As I said in my other post, rather than the Equalists kicking things off with criminal activity and a direct confrontation with Korra, I’d like them to be a running subplot that only explodes at the end of the season. I think Asami could be a good viewpoint character into that, as she starts to learn and hear about the Equalists- and it will eventually be revealed that Hiroshi has been setting this up for her, to manipulate her. Remember, in my vision, he’s the one who got Amon to adopt the rhetoric of saving the oppressed by eliminating Benders.

It starts with Asami thinking it’s silly, then she starts to acknowledge that they have some good points even if they’re wrong about being against all Benders. Perhaps Asami explains to Korra about some of the good points, and Korra is skeptical but admits that the Bender gangs are a problem. I think this should come to a head in a similar manner to the cartoon when Hiroshi comes under some kind of suspicion. Instead of getting tangled in the love triangle, Mako and Bolin side with Korra right away, and Asami starts to wonder if the Benders really are oppressing her. She knows she’s sheltered and naive, and Hiroshi puts into her head that Korra and the Bending Brothers have been taking advantage of her sweetness and wealth. Asami's been paying for all their adventures, after all, and the others seem closer to each other than to her.

It still ends with Hiroshi’s villainy being revealed, and Asami siding with good guys over him. But here, it’s about Asami siding with her friends, rather than just Mako. This is all still without romance, but it’s laying the seeds.

Things continue on from there, and the only major change I feel the need to call out is that the team doesn’t split up for the final battle. They’re all together, and as I said, Korra has to save all her friends with Airbending. And there's no Iroh II, because he's just boring pointless fan-service who detracts from the other characters.

For Book Spirits, I’d toss out Asami’s whole subplot. I used to have an epic post on ASN (which I saved) describing how it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, but you can just take my word on it for now. If we do something similar to my Spiritual Eco-Terrorist Unalaq idea, then we can turn Asami’s part of bringing Korra back away from extremism into a parallel of Korra convincing Asami to turn against the Equalists. This book also sees a minimizing of Mako and Bolin, since part of the story is going to take place outside of Republic City. Asami has more reason to leave, so she emerges as Korra’s strongest friend in this book. Bolin could still get mixed up Varrick, if we want to do that subplot, but we’re completely skipping the whole thing of Varrick trying to steal Asami’s company. It's just filler, and the themes of Book Spirits deserve more focus.

Instead, we say that Asami has been steadily rebuilding up Sato Industries in the background of Book Spirits, so she’s in a position to leave it running when she goes with Korra on the Airbender Recruitment Tour. Again, I’m thinking we leave Mako and Bolin behind. Or, if Bolin went off with Varrick at the end of Book Spirits, as I suggested in that Unalaq post, either just Mako is left behind or else he goes with the girls to try to get over his brother being gone. They support him during his loss, and he maybe develops a real bond with Jinora’s future boyfriend, Whatshisname, rather than that subplot being unceremoniously dropped. Eventually, Bolin and Varrick would come back into the story, although maybe not until Book Balance.

Also, Book Change is where we start to have Korra and Asami blushing at each other and making surprising vows of devotion to each other. As Korra explores romance, in parallel to Jinora, we could get some advice from Tenzin and maybe even discussion of how Aang changed the nature of Air Nomad culture by accepting the idea of family units. At the end, when Korra is injured and Asami practically proposes marriage, it won’t come out of left field; it will feel like a culmination. And Korra gives an explicit refusal, our cliffhanger for that subplot.

Hm, perhaps we can also properly introduce Kuvira while we’re here? She can join the Krew as an ally and friend, and part of what has Asami starting to think about Korra as something more than a friend is that Kuvira is explicitly trying to seduce Korra for fun. That might be amusing. Or it could be stupid. It is a love triangle, after all. It's easy enough to cut if we can't make it work, even if the voice actresses have already recorded their lines.

Anyway, as we launch into our final season, Korra starts to recover to find that the Metalbending chick who was (maybe) trying to seduce her is now leading an imperialist conquest of the Earth Kingdom, and also a new Amon is back in Republic City trying to bring down the government. This new Amon is a creation of Kuvira, to give her an excuse to invade the United Republic as a pacifying force. Korra and Asami have to bring down Amon II, and then also Kuvira. It’s very tragic that they have to beat up their former friend, but not too tragic because it turns out that Kuvira is a real jerk.

Timing-wise, as I mentioned in my Hiroshi post, he dies saving Asami from Amon II. This happens before the final battle, so we get to see Asami mourning for a bit as she and Korra go after Kuvira in a new sub-arc. She emerges ready to confess her love to Korra. They get together, and then Korra rallies all her friends and allies across the world to defeat Kuvira and restore freedom to the galaxy. The end sees Korra and Asami together, as romantic partners, amidst all their friends. The End. Huzzah!

Hopefully, that showed how a functional Korrasami arc could be done that makes good use of their characters and frees them from the really janky storytelling that plagues most of LoK. Most of the problem is that LoK seemed intent on giving Asami something separate to do, rather than properly integrating her into things. For all that the storytellers claim to like Asami and Korrasami, it's stunning how little of either -- even in terms of friendship -- there is to the plots and story arcs.

Ah, but there's the line. I shall now back off, rather than crossing it. Yay for me.

#thekingofwinterblog

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