2022 has been a very busy year. I'm actually going to be uploading my full artwork on here, instead of deviant art due to their stance on AI images.

Does anyone know if this site has tech to protect artwork from being stole by AI image generators?

I'm at least happy the founder of this site is against AI images being put on this site.

My new video is out

How to fix the Legend of Korra the worst character

I adapted some of my essays on Korra into a video series. Here's the intro and main cast videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7oCWKaLd1s&t=7s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV_yKZnDG9E

I'll be having a total of four videos with a possible fifth.

I didn't expect to be writing this many parts to this series.

I will link the first 3 parts in the comments below.

I have made several suggestions on what should be cut from the plot entirely, but here's what could be added to prop up the series more.

Have the moon cycle play a role in season one's plot

Given Amon turned out to be a self hating water-bender, have the moon cycle play a bigger role. There are rare events in the moon cycle outside of just an eclipse: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/full-moons/en/#:~:text=There%20are%20a%20few%20different,Moon's%20many%20phases%20and%20types.

Have it so Amon has control over Republic City longer, have Korra and Mako find out Amon's secret and realize he plans to use one of the rare moon cycles in his final blow.

This would add needed tension and remind the audience of the bigger world of the avatar world.

Make Dreams Much More Important To The Plot

Dreams were shown to be important in Avatar, but played a minor role.

Dreams in the first series were shown to have connections with the spirit world.

Fixing what was broken

If you have to keep in the infamous kiss scene with Mako and Korra, have it be in a dream.

Dreams tend to be extreme exaggerations of what people desire or fears, making the kiss scene a dream would show that Korra fears her feelings towards Mako would ruin her friendships.

Korra's dream would warn her not to be impulsive, so to avoid this being a cop out show her actually learning from this dream hense why if she does still date Bolin she tells him she doesn't know what she wants and just wants to friends as I stated in part 2 of this series.

Making the horrible kiss scene a dream instead would also allow animation to be reused, have Bolin's reactions to rejection be the same in the dream and in person when Korra actually does the right thing showing parallels.

World building

Along with animals, music and sports, dreams are universal to all cultures and time periods.

All cultures in real life have different interpretations of dreams and mythologies surrounding them, using them to explain things before science was fully established.

Aang had dreams were he communicated with Avatar Roku and other spirits, repeat this with Korra.

Tarrlok and Amon's backstory was important at the end of season one.

While Tarrlok told it well, spilling out his whole backstory to Korra all at once seems a bit much.

Reuse half the backstory animation and set it up in Korra's dream, given the avatar has been shown in the past to connect with people threw dreams. Have Tarrlok finish explaining and give more context to these dreams.

Have the big relieve not only be Tarrlok and Amon are brothers, but Korra and Tarrlok have shared the same dreams.

That would be incredible! <- have the three share my reaction XD

Dreams can get away with a lot

Given a re-cut of this series likely won't be cheap without a lot creativity, dreams are a good way to also keep the budget low.

Given dreams are abstract this would allow for different art styles and could allow a low budget or even no budget.

The creators of Avatar are big fans of EVA Genesis, one character could have a dream referencing the end of EVA were the studio ran out of money and had to resort to using Crayola markers, (I'm not joking, that actually happened! Thankfully free drawing programs exist now if worse comes to worse for the re-cut!).

The only thing dreams can't get away with are cop outs!

I have to stress that each dream needs to be plot relevant. Use all dreams for character development, have dreams warn characters about danger and most importantly teach the characters something.

don't use them just as a "get out of jail card" for mistakes that were made originally.

See the video blow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epsRdajaM2k&feature=emb_title

Humans and even animals have dreams and for good reason, being able to reflect on your day and emulate experiences you haven't had yet is linked to species intelligence.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/09/150905-animals-sleep-science-dreaming-cats-brains/

If it weren't from dreams, humanity wouldn't have made it as far as it has. That's why even in stories dreams need to be taken seriously.

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I don't think the over all plot of Korra was bad, the execution really needed a lot of work, however most can be fixed with small changes.

Mainly re-dubs should do the trick, mainly in the revised version of "Spirit of the competition" Tarrlok, Amon and Beifong could get into spates on the radio, cutting down on the animation budget.

Given what is going on right now, the voice actors don't even need to be brought into the recording studio. Avatar: the last bender had some of the child actors record their lines at home in some cases given they had to go to school still.

Small animation changes

Most of the action scenes were done well just like in Avatar, but some non-action scenes really need fixing.

The scene were the air bender family first sees the bunny dragon fly spirits was the worst animation in the whole franchise, it looked like someone glued pictures of them onto Popsicle sticks and waved them around on a background.

Korra’s overall arc

At the beginning, instead of Korra being discovered by the White Lotus it should start out with Korra's parents and Sokka having stopped the Red Lotus from kidnapping Korra

Make it that Korra was old enough to actually barely remember what happened (say 4 or 5 years old), this way she would traumatized by it.

This would not only give a better framing to the series but explain why growing up with this experience would be why she is aggressive, despite having loving parents.

There doesn't even need to be a ton of extra animation: there could be a news broadcast on the radio say what happened

Mako meeting Asaami

Instead of her running Mako over with her bike, she would be driving around a bad part of town without realizing and someone tries to scam her and he warns her.

This could also be a good comedic scene.

To thank Mako for this she takes him out for dinner.

Korra meeing Mako and Asaami

Given Asaami is the daughter of a well known person, Korra could have contacted her for whatever reason in the past and they could write back and forth for years.

When Korra meets Asaami in person, the two don't know if they can hit it off still at first, this would be a good parallel with internet friends

Korra said she only had Naga as a friend, this would give her even more motivation to go to Republic City, too see a friend she never actually met.

Korra could have also been shown to listening to Mako on the radio back at the South Pole and followed updates on him in the newspaper. Mako along with Asaami would also be the only contact with people Korra's age while stuck at the North Pole, this would better devolp why she ends up having crushes on both of them. (Just a thought...).

(Speaking of which reduce Korra and Asaami’s relationship to a subplot in the comics, just like all the other romances in the series like I suggested in part 2).

Korra should bump into Mako in the first episode and they fight off the thugs together

Korra asks for his autograph after the fight, but is interrupted from getting arrested

Mako shouts to her that they can meet up later after a match at the pro-bending arena.

Then the next episode would be Korra meeting Bolin, Mako wouldn't tell him Korra was the avatar at first as he gets overly excited

Korra maybe didn't even realize Mako had a brother.

That perfectly Segways into:

Mako and Bolin's development

Mako is more of the star and Bolin lives in his shadow or isn't noticed as much.

Bolin should still be happy-go-lucky, but be shown to be more sensitive

In my revision of the worst episode, Korra would tell Bolin she doesn't know what she wants and he takes rejection poorly.

Keep the scene with Bolin getting drunk from eating, where he accuses Mako of "stealing" Korra from him, showing this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened

While Bolin appreciates what Mako does for him, he could also secretly be a bit resentful of him and has to overcome this at the end of the first season. Bolin's hidden resentment would also be a good parallel with Amon and Tarrlok and also Korra's father and uncle.

Season 2 Bolin would have to gain more confidence

Women treat Bolin like crap in season 2, if they have to keep this make it part of his arc.

The actress that treated Bolin badly on set, when he asked her out saying "you're confusing Ginger the actress with Ginger the character, Ginger loves Nuctuck not Bolin"

Bolin should work to gain more confidence in himself. Ginger liked Bolin after he saves the arena, but instead of him accepting her kiss he should throw her words back in her face telling her "you’re confusing Bolin the actor for Nucktuck the character, its Nucktuck that loves Ginger not Bolin''

Bolin got involved with Korra's Yandere cosine, Eska. It was made obvious that Eska was abusive at first, that's not how toxic relationships start out

While there may be red flags the abused might not have realized, but abuse gets worse over time.

Go back and make it seem at first that Eska is just really shy/socially awkward , then becomes more controlling as the relationship goes on. Keep the scene where Bolin and Eska make amends, but expand on it and have her realize and explain to Bolin why she treated him horribly.

Change Desna’s role/relationship to Eska

There was really no point to Eska having a brother, as the two were basically the same character.

Either find a use for Desna or just get rid of him and give whatever lines he had to Eska.

If you bother keeping Desna, he should be a family servant not Eska's brother.

Desna being the family servant would also explain Eska's controlling behavior:

he would have no choice but to follow orders and would be the only person she considered a friend for years.

This in combination with her rotten father would lead to Eska believing all relationships function like this.

Change Desna's design, but keep the color scheme to show his relationship with Eska

Desna as Eska's brother has only made him the butt of jokes:

One joke when we first see Desna and Eska, and Bolin thinking Desna is a girl,

hilarious and original.

The other joke being in season four as the butt of an incest joke, which admittingly was actually kind of funny, but not worth keeping his character for.

The joke was that Desna and Eska were staying at a hotel, but their room only had one be

Eska then says, "That's ok...Desna can sleep in the bath tub"

While I thought this joke was funny for the bait and switch, it reinforces that Eska sees Desna more like a servant than a brother (he could sleep on the floor at least you jerk ).

This joke could still be kept, but with a slightly different context.

Raava and Vatu

Make Vatuu and Raava one in the same character-

In science its explained that there's actually no such thing as darkness, just a lack of light. Generic doomsday villains in of themselves aren't a bad thing, as long as the rest of the writing is strong enough.

The generic doomsday villain doesn't work for Vatuu, him being a big spooky shadow defeats the philosophies of Avatar: there's no such thing as good and evil, someone or something is out of balance.

Have Raava be at constant war with this terrible side for herself and make it be more Lovecraftiaan. Have the spirits "go dark" without Raava even realizing that's what her state is causing.

Regardless if Vatuu is kept or is just a bad part of Raava, make him a silent antagonist, his mere presence should be frighting enough.

I feel this suggestion might be more of a subjective opinion, I would like to hear everyone else's thoughts on this.

I do know people felt that "Beginnings" retconned the origins of the avatar:

The lion turtle saying to Aang that "In the age before the Avatar, people bent the energy within themselves" then in "Beginnings" have the lion turtles give people ability.

However I don't this is an inherent contradiction.

People could have still gotten these energy bending powers from the lion turtles and the "era before" doesn't mean it was immediately before the avatar existed.

Shakespeare was born after the fall of the Roman Empire, that doesn't mean he was born as soon as the Roman Empire fell.

The origins of the avatar could be expanded upon more to clear up any confusions.

What I think everyone could agree on however:

Make the stakes for Vatuu taking over in season 2 actually clear-

Have the "ten thousand years of darkness" be just that, ten thousand years of darkness that destroys all life. That's it, there's no need to make it anymore complicated than that.

Other elements

The detectives from season:

Get rid of them completely, I mean it.

These were the two most useless characters in the whole franchise Avatar franchise.

Just like with Desna and Eska, they’re the same character.

I can understand Mako needing an obstacle, but these two were very poor ones. Mako being inexperienced as a police officer and making mistakes should have been enough on its own.

The detectives were a big part of season 2 being needlessly mean spirited, cut them and give their screen time to Lin instead, Lin needed a lot more development.

Fix Pro-bending

I ripped this next part from part 2, but I'll repeat it because this is the best idea I have.

"Some fans have taken issue with the pro-bending being too controlled of an environment, which took a lot of the tension away in the plot. Funny I'm not a sports fan either, but even I know that lacrosse and Football (American Football to the rest of the world) are dangerous sports even with with safety equipment. Back in the 1920s when Korra lives, these sports were even more brutal with equipment that could break much easier than what players have now. Have this episode (and the others) show equipment being blasted into pieces from the force of the elements during the game, making injures players get more serious. Speaking of which if Korra really had make a stupid move on Mako, maybe she could have admitted she had feelings for him while she had a concussion"

I think this would the best time to get a re-cut, this series isn't as old as other franchises, and Mike and Bryan themselves have often joked about "George Lucusing" things, they should take that idea seriously with The Legend of Korra.

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Back in January I made an essay

What Really Hurt The Legend of Korra. I recently realized a few more things that held this series back.

Let's get the bad stuff short and to the point, I want to focus on how the episode could be improved more for everyone's sanity.

Also warning: this part unlike the first has spoilers.

This episode was not just the worst episode of Korra, but the worst of the avatar franchise. At least “The Great Divide” could be completely skipped and didn’t make the characters extremely unlikable to much of the fan-base.

That episode would be “Spirit of the competition”

At first I didn't think this was the worst episode of the franchise, but looking back I've never seen so much hatred come from just one episode.

Hell, I feel like a lot of the decisions made later wouldn't have had such an extreme reaction either if it weren't for the train wreck of this episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae5oovf1CEo&feature=emb_title

watch at the 15:40 mark.

The editor Juleesia explains how shipping wars start.

I knew the ship wars were bad in the avatar fan-base, but the Voltron ship wars were worse!?

While there were no issues with age differences in the main cast, the relationship statues of each weren't developed very well.

Dating someone doesn't make you someone's boyfriend/girlfriend right off the bat. Bolin and Korra were dating, however how serious the relationship was, was not clear.

While you can be ambiguous in other parts of stories, you should never be ambiguous about relationships.

Communication is everything in relationships in real life and it is everything in storytelling, a miss communicated love story is BAD combination.

Korra got the most hate out of all the characters, but this one episode made everyone look horrible:

• Korra and Pema saw no problem with over stepping other people's boundaries. Korra got the hate for forcing Mako to kiss her, this was uncalled for from Korra but a lot of the haters also took there hate a bit too far...
• 
  
• Pema's advice to Korra to ask a guy out in a relationship out was horrible- For several years I didn't understand why everyone got so angry over this, but let's just say a year ago I was on the receiving end of Pema's "advice."
• 
  
• Korra got all the hate for taking bad advice, but she was a dumb teenager who was clearly never in a relationship before. Why didn't all the hate go to Pema for that? Pema is a married women with three kids and was expecting fourth at that time, what was she thinking?!
• Mako being the most mature of the group wasn't stern enough with Korra, he should have told her to take his relationship seriously or be kicked off the team. That should have been the end of that.

Now with that out of the way...

How the episode could be improved

I'm not really a fan of any kind of romance, but let's see if even I can fix this.

Having romance in the plot isn't a problem by itself, but it should have been a subplot in this episode instead.

If you have to have a love triangle have Korra still date Bolin, but instead of Korra kissing Mako, have a scene were Korra tells him she doesn't know what she wants and that they should just be friends for now. Conflict could still happen from this by Bolin being bad with rejection still, that way we can still have the scene with Bolin being drunk after eating

The episode should be clear cut about Bolin and Korra’s relationship: are they serious? or are they just going on casual dates?

In part one, I explained that the biggest problem with Korra's writing was not exploring the political/social issues as well as it could have. If you have Mako dating Assami, do people take issue with their relationship in world because one of them is a non-bender and the other is a bender?

One scene I came up with that could have demonstrated this:

Mako and Asami could be out on a date and a group of Mako's fan girls could sneak up on them. This scene could start out as funny, but then turn into conflict when a fan girl starts to harass Asami for being a non-bender dating a pro-bending player. Maybe Mako not wanting to escalate the conflict in his fans is unsure of what to do.

Korra could have been hanging and seen this and could have scared off the annoying fan girls, this would have also shown Korra as a bit more noble. At this point she doesn't really like Asami, but is still willing to stand up for her.

Most importantly, completely cut scene with Pema talking about relationships with Korra and her daughters. Nothing good came of that scene, cut and make room for other plot points.

Shipping wars in fan bases are to be expected but these above choices would have at least softened the blow.

Maybe I didn't win any new fans with the above, but this next part I think most of us can at least agree on.

The main plot should have built up the tension on the pro bending arena.

Not only did the romance being the main focus hurt the everyone's views of the characters, it also took away tension that should have been built up leading to the attack on the arena. Let's not forget that this episode also was tonal whiplash from the last episod,e when Korra experiences fear for the first time in her life.

Some fans have taken issue with the pro-bending being too controlled of an environment, which took a lot of the tension away in the plot.

Funny I'm not a sports fan either, but even I know that lacrosse and Football (American Football to the rest of the world) are dangerous sports even with with safety equipment. Back in the 1920s when Korra lives, these sports were even more brutal with equipment that could break much easier than what players have now. Have this episode (and the others) could have show equipment being blasted into pieces from the force of the elements during the game, making injures players get more serious.

Speaking of which if Korra really had make a stupid move on Mako, maybe she could have admitted she had feelings for him while she had a concussion.

Cheating was explained in the next episode, however it showed the Wolf Bats as being the only team to do this.

Had cheating been a common practice in pro-bending in many teams, the equalists would use this as an opportunity to use pro-bending as a viable target, turning non-benders away from the sport and turning pro-benders themselves against each other.

Mike and Bryan have joked about giving the franchise a “George Lucas” treatment, this episode should be the place they start.

This series has its flaws, but its not irredeemable crap like many people claim, just by changing a few scenes this series impact could be greatly improved.

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For years it has been heavily debated amongst both fans and critics of “The Legend of Korra” whether or not it stands up to its predecessor and when coming to its flaws what caused them to begin with. Its been mostly argued that the shorter seasons hurt the writing the most. 

What I believe to be the main problem is what led to many of the other problems, that would be that much of “The Legend of Korra” didn’t utilize politics in the plot, characters and world building properly, in an entertaining way or even at all. This lead to several missed opportunities. 

I’m not a fan of politics at all, what I am a fan of is good writing. Politics in media is rarely used to actually challenge your viewpoints or to develop the story, it is mostly just propaganda.

The one positive thing I can say is that the plots weren’t used as blatant propaganda trying to bully you into agreeing with the writer's view points, however use of politics were still not as compelling as they could have been.

Most of the politics in ATLA were short, to the point and mainly used as a backdrop. Everything the characters did was in self defense against the government or in spite of the government, not because of it. This is also why season 3 and 4 worked so well for LOK.

When politics not just in LOK, but in the comics in between show had become central to the plot the characters in their new positions made things happen far too easily. This made conflict often feel artificially planted in or resolved. The biggest complaint about “The Promise” was that Zuko completely lost all the progress he made throughout the show as soon as he became the Fire Lord.

The biggest problem with Season 1 of LOK is that as far the audience has seen, either everyone in the new team avatar all share the same viewpoints or don’t even have views on the occurring events. That’s not realistic nor is it compelling. The toxic nature of the politics could have been used to develop the characters better and show how they handled disagreements in the group.

Here are some scenarios that could have happened:

Korra’s relationship with Mako and Bolin could have been complicated by politics instead of a love triangle. When Korra joined Tarrlok’s task force, Bolin was shown to be frustrated and disappointed that Korra wasn’t showing up for practice as often as she used to. This is what should have put strain on the team, on a dating subplot. Korra should have been further chastised by her friends for not falling threw on committing to the team.

Speaking of Tarrlok and the cops, I have to address the elephant in the room that LOK awkwardly snuck past, that being police brutality. While there was the scene with Tarrlok arresting a large number of innocent non-benders, season 1 didn’t commentate on this issue past this. 

Given Mako became a police officer in season 2, he could have expressed his desire to become a cop in season 1, but Korra who had a bad run in with the cops could have objected to this. 

Come on admit it, the metal bending police went way overboard when arresting Korra in the first episode, even if she did destroy a part of someone’s property.

Asami could have been sympathetic towards the Equalists at first given her own mother was killed by fire benders, Asami may have argued at first that Amon was only taking away that bending from criminals until she saw that Amon wants to take away everyone’s bending.

Asami also dated Mako who is a fire-bender in spite of what one fire bender did to her family. Why is she this open minded yet her father isn’t? Another topic that could have been explored with nature vs. nurture. 

The biggest complaint of LOK is there isn't as much character development. Had Mike and Bryan had done some research on the topics stated above and weren't afraid to write about them, season 1 could have been a lot stronger.

It could be argued that including any of this would divided the fans as politics inevitably do, have you seen the shipping wars that resulted from “Spirit of the competition”?!

In the past and even in season 1 of LOK, the story ended up successfully covering topics that are relevant today without alienating its audience.

The prison system, which still creates heated debates these days is shown for what it is several times in the franchise. Ozai, Yakone and Zaheer were all imprisoned and clearly didn’t learn their lessons. Yakone and Zaheer escaped prison and enacted revenge. Oazi in “The Promise” is shown to still be manipulative towards Zuko even after losing his power.

Not once in years have I seen or heard of fans flaming each other over this topic, despite its role in the plot.

Ironically the episode “Avatar Day” showed that even small government and democracy can be dangerous. A whole town wanted to punish a small group of children, Aang and his friends for something one of his past lives did. The town is the majority, so that makes them in the right according to democracy. It was only when the town was attacked did the mayor and the townspeople not torture Aang.

Other good examples of politics being used correctly is in both “An American Tail” and “Zootopia” which also used politics as a backdrop and showed politics were the problem to begin with in a subtle way. Quite ironic considering Judy is in law enforcement. 

Judy developed negative views of predators just by being exposed to other people’s prejudice.

The plot twist was that the mayor and his assistant Bellweather were also the reason the predators were going feral the whole time.

Bellweather’s plan showed democracy to be flawed just like all the other systems the government. As she states herself, 90% of Zootopia’s population is prey and together would destroy predators and for something only a few of them did. These politics were supposedly to benefit the prey, but it never turns out that way if you go about trying to help people via politics.

The roadblock in Fievel’s goal to find his family were politics themselves and the entire reason his family even immigrated to America to begin with. 

It could be argued that the shorter seasons were the main problem that contributed to this, but “Zootopia” and “An American Tail” were able to cover political differences in the plot within a few hours, on top of that these two movies were also aimed at an even younger audience than LOK so using the target demographic as an excuse for why the couldn’t cover these issues properly isn’t an excuse either.

Politics in stories can only be done properly in three ways:

1. Be either full on propaganda, like anything in the movies or TV these days (well there’s another dumpster fire I just started).
2. Throw everyone and I mean EVERYONE under the bus!, like in “South Park”
3. My personal favorite- Put politics as a backdrop or as a metaphor and let the audience pick a side, like in “An American Tail” but even this can be botched (Looking at you OK KO “let’s not become skeletons”).

The political themes were done right with the villains, but not with the main cast members. Amon and Tarrlok’s backstory, as I stated before, showed what the problem with the prison system is. Not to mention the Equalists were basically communists. While I absolutely can’t stand Unalaq, his role was at least a well done metaphor for theocracy. Time for an unpopular opinion that is going to start a dumpster fire: my only beef with season 3 of LOK is that Zaheer was a straw man of Anarchism, even then, to give credit where credit is due he at least he perfectly demonstrated why you don’t violently overthrow the government.

   Politics in of themselves are not important in any story. The most powerful moments in both series had nothing to do with politics, that being the moments Korra and Aang faced their fears.

There are fair criticisms of LOK and there have been very unfair criticisms of it, either way the adequate handling of political themes in “The Legend of Korra” only contributed to many of the other problems the first two seasons had. You can’t tiptoe around political subjects, which the main cast of LOK did.

One of my friends found a program similar to IFTTT that is more built for artists.
This journal is a test to make sure the function works on all my social media I connected it to.

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I hope to upload more here this year. Hope everyone is doing well.

Due to COPPA you guys think I should delete my Youtube channel? I'm not happy with all the other problems I've had on YT motive to post there anymore. I'm going to see if I can do streams on my own site or here on Newgrounds.

Are live streams possible on this site? and if not, is there somewhere here I can make it a suggestion to have put in as a feature? I don't believe in rolling over and just taking the censorship placed on me, but I already have a lot of social media and I have mostly negative experiences with Youtube already. I don't think I'm going to delete my Youtube channel, I'll just stop uploading on there.