#TLOK rewatch

[myhonorremains]

TLOK rewatch thoughts:

I think it is so interesting how this show portrays Aang as a father. I am so excited for the new content to come, but the idea that Aang was subject to the same inadequacies that plague our world is quite a humbling thought. ATLA is truly one of my favorite series and to have to swallow the portrayal of Aang in a different light is a tough pill. But being older now, I appreciate the bold move that TLOK made in making Aang, essentially the greatest avatar ever, a dad who made mistakes.

[lesbianjamies]

rushed korrasami endgame, my beloved, you will always be famous…

[zeno-zero]

TLOK RE-WRITE : WAN/JAYA

Jaya lives in this re-write by the way, while Wan canonically has his animal companion, Mula The Deercat - It be really nice not only he has an animal companion but also a partner in crime as well. Helping with the fact that the entire conflict is about having the spirits and humans to get along with each other.

Emotional baggage, like, lots of them. Jaya hasn't seen Wan for over 2 years, and he pondered that if he didn't make it in a way. Wan's banishment broke his heart, and he believed he would die within a day. His grief and regret was choking him. So hearing that he managed to make it out alive, he decided to also even placed himself in the wilds because If Wan survived, there's a chance he could run into him again.

Upon reunion, Jaya literally run towards to him and tackle Wan with a hug - sending each other flying to the ground, and laugh with a heart. They both saw each other again, and this time, they saw each other changed. Wan used to be reckless, and quick to anger person. Jaya used to be hesitant, and always expressing uncertainty - Wan is now compassionate, optimistic, and courageous, even preferred to settle disputes through diplomacy. Jaya developed a sense of courage, along with a deep hatred of all spirits, and has an agressive nature.

Those 2 years of not seeing each other, Jaya gets a little clingy to Wan sometimes.  They would have each other's hands being held most of the time, Jaya wraps his arms around Wan's neck in an affectionate way, and you would never see Jaya being a part away from Wan unless crisis averted. I guess, losing Yao following after Wan's banishment made him viscid to Wan. [ Which, Wan doesn't really mind ]

It wasn't quick or slow for Jaya to eventually be friends with the spirits, but in the middle ground - when Wan is all friendly, and nice towards the creatures.. Maybe, just maybe, he should've at least try. Just for him.

"Did you ever think about me, Wan? Did you ever miss me.." there was pause. "And Yao?"

".. I do, Jaya." Wan place his hand on top of Jaya's - slowly having their hands interlocked. "I do miss you and Yao."

Years after the harmonic comvergance, they never find the right time to talk about their feelings but there has always been romantic, and sexual tension between them both. Most of the time, they were pretty chill and casually talk because they're  simply "friends" and never thought they could be more. However, they also have little moments where they are nervous around with each other. Their heart beats even sync because its drumming fast and loud. When Jaya grabbed Wan around the waist and lift him off the ground because they were both victorious - Wan couldn't help but flush profusely and blossomed into belly laugh. When Wan holds Jaya close, having his hand on top of his head while the the other his back pulling him closer. He just.. Stiffened. He reciprocated back but the warm on Jaya's face? Never left.

When he lost Wan at that night, he kept fighting for him. Peace will be restored, and his name won't be in vain. He carved a statue of wood just for him, to honor his name. It depicts Wan being embraced by an image of Raava. [ <- Go to contents, and click "Legacy" ]

Man ,, wish they have more time. 💔

I would love to show my re-write about TLOK but this is all you can get from me ^-^ I'll plan to share more about them. This is absolutely not meant to hate on the actual writing in the show - its a nice sequel to ATLA. My brain just can be quite imaginative.

[saiintofawe]

korra suffered more than jesus christ

[likeadragonfruit]

Oh, Suyin…

Our first introduction to her is as the metal clan’s matriarch and her introducing herself as woman of many hats, a renaissance woman, even.

(And Zaofu is amazing and shiny and all about allowing people to discover potential, but it’s also a fortress with a living lie detector on staff.)

All the while Lin insists nothing about Suyin has changed since in almost 30 years. For her part, it somehow never crosses Suyin’s mind to try an apologizing to Lin. She only tries that after fighting Lin on the front yard until Opal stepped in and Lin passed out. (Also she’s pretty blasé about her past; wait what was that about being a pirate?)

On the other hand, she passes a parenting test with Opal that Lao and Poppy failed with Toph. Eventually.

But then the Red Lotus infiltration of Zaofu happens. And you can hear angry she is over the betrayal of the Zaofu. (Of the Metal Clan. Of her.) 

And Aiwei is revealed to be the traitor after his escape. And she pretends to support Lin’s idea of Korra staying put, only to undermine a second later. She asks Korra to have Naga track Aiwei down and bring him back to her. And the thing is, this moment leans heavily on the storytelling conventions of a narrative: the cool authority figure who breaks the rules to help the heroes go out and save the day. And Korra is so grateful for the help.

Except that’s not what’s actually happened. What actually happened is Suyin sent out the one person the Red Lotus wanted to capture and kill after them for her own reasons. And while this incident leads to Korra’s capture by the Earth Kingdom instead, it also leads to the Red Lotus capturing Mako and Bolin. Which in turn grants the Red Lotus access to the palace, which allows Zaheer to assassinate the Earth Queen.

And while the assassination was still Zaheer’s action as well as something the Red Lotus always planned, and the Krew ultimately decided they wanted to pursue Aiwei, Suyin’s choices enabled that pursuit. That enabling is still part of a chain of events that resulted in the Earth Kingdom’s slide into chaos. But that’s never brought up since the priorities for the rest of the season are saving the airbenders (plus Kya), and then Korra when she’s also taken.

Hope that doesn’t become a pattern…

[flynniganrider]

LAST EPISODE LETS GOOO

[persnickety-doodles]

Girls Night Out! Avatar Korra is Accompanied By Her Best Friend, Asami Sato, at the Presidential Ball

It has been said they’re really ✨good friends✨

[krekee]

Eepy

[lukewarmpretzel]

why he kinda…

[afsosville]

More PIDW/SVSSS crossover stuff!

This time it's an Avatar the Last Airbender AU :D

The seemingly obvious choice for Luo Binghe (or Bingge) would be for him to be a firebender, but. Consider the alternative, Luo Binghe as a waterbender!

It's the fact that waterbending has both healing and bloodbending as sub-bending disciplines, and Luo Binghe's blood parasites also both heal and torture.

I'm drawing SJ next, if you can guess what bending I'm going to give him, you get a cookie 🍪

More on the AU story wise>

LBG gets reincarnated into the ALTA universe after his death in PIDW, during Yangchen's or Kyoshi's era. (Either one of the two since I need the airbenders to be, yknow, around.) He picks up on bloodbending way too easily, and learns how to take away bending too, coz you can do that with bloodbending apparently! (Freakin Amon over here) And the moment he gets 'reacquainted' with SJ, LBG's gonna give him more shit to have nightmares over.

And he will take away SJ's bending too. SJ can't catch a break :/

Typical SJ stuff, yknow. Ntg new.

LBG totally painted on his Zuiyin like a Huadian btw. He's not over the fact that he's not an all powerful demon lord now. If he was reborn as a non-bender, it would drive him insane. Me too tbh.

Shen Jiu version!

[soggystyrofoam]

[myhonorremains]

Got to see the spirit portals open during harmonic convergence today and no I wasn’t at the North Pole.

[lesbianjamies]

ugh im finally in s3 of my tlok rewatch and im sooo happy to have survived going through the makorrasami era all over again and im also excited to experience the korrasami development this season all the while not realizing until the end of the 1st episode that this is zaheer's season?? and oh my god here we fucking go again

[moon-axolotl]

Credit: @moon-axolotl

[likeadragonfruit]

I’m surprised that I don’t have as much to go over in separate posts this time. So it’s roundup/brain dump time for book 3. Also yeah it’s been a few months haha 😅

Big Picture

Overall flow

This is the best season so far. I’ve even seen people say this is better than ATLA, and I don’t know that I’d go that far, but this is probably the most watchable it’s been so far. (And watchability isn’t damning with faint praise, Law and Order built an empire on being watchable.)

It does a decent job picking things up from the previous season and moving forward from there, especially considering how much book 2 looked like it was setting up a series finale.

But that cast size problem? Getting worse. We’re now up to Korra and the rest of Krew, Tenzin and his family (including his siblings still), Lin, Korra’s family (minus Unalaq), and adding in Lin’s family, airbenders (most prominently Kai) and the Red Lotus members

Also, the trend of breaking Korra in some way at the end of each season  continues, expect this is the one without a hasty recovery

Korra and the airbenders

It’s the event that shapes the whole season: new airbenders emerging post-harmonic convergence

And it’s ambiguous exactly what happened but Tenzin (acting as an authorial mouthpiece) attributes it to Korra

So the point is consequences? She (supposedly) created a bunch of airbenders but also kickstarted the Red Lotus plot via Zaheer’s escape

Which later almost kills her, except for the other airbenders who prevent Zaheer from escaping

Anyway, the way this plot is introduced initially bothered me a lot, but since it’s what the season revolves around, I kind of had to deal with it regardless.

Politics:

The politics of moderation reign once more

“(Bad) monarchs are bad, but so is anarchy” is a take I suppose

It’s kind of weak with the Red Lotus being more straw man anarchists than anything

Character opinions

Korra: I’m actually a little bothered by how little I have to say about her currently.

Mako: as said previously, I didn’t hate him and he’s even better now that they’ve freed him from the love triangle. But they’ve also been quarantining him with Bolin.

Bolin: oh Bolin, you’d be so good if you were good. He’s more tolerable this season at moments, and so obnoxious at others still. (Yes I’m ignoring last season.) Ultimately I still landed on not liking him.

Asami: she still isn’t getting storylines, but she’s basically the best supporting player there is. She works well with any character you pair her off with.

Tenzin: pass

Jinora: pass

Kya: oh you get to do so little this season, but I still love you.

Bumi: was alright this season.

Kai: a pretty classic jerk with heart of gold, but the classics are classics because they work.

Hou Ting: pass

Lin: I was actually a bit conflicted because the whole “being forced to interact with Suyin” thing during her mini arc was not a good look on her.

Suyin: so for her all her faults, I actually kinda like her, and it’s hard to explain. The best way I can think of is she scratches the part of my brain that’s a fan of Gon Freeces. And put in a way comprehensible to non-HxH fans, it’s that her selfish and hypocrisy reminds me of other characters where those flaws were critical to their arcs, even though I already know this series will never call Suyin on it, really.

Opal: the only of Suyin’s kids worth mentioning this season. 

Zaheer: he gets talks up a lot as he franchise’s best villain but meh. 

Ghazan: I want to come up with more, but basically I like him, for the little we get

Ming-Hua: see Ghazan

P’li: better than the last combustion bender we got. But most of the positive things I could say are either design or action related. She just got so little to do character wise compared to the rest. 

Shipping

yeah, still keeping this section

Korrasami: well they’ve spent more time together this season. As far as build up, umm…

Jinora/Kai: they’re cute, puppy love

Zaheer/P’li: meh

Bopal: love/hate relationship here. Sometimes I’m just like, “ugh, no, run Opal.” Others, it scratches that “aww dorks in love” part of my brain. But ultimately “girl, run” is winning. (You can do better, Opal!)

Stray observations

This season, having been ordered at the same time as season 4 is clearly setting up things that will come back in the next season. Are they the best use of these connections? Umm…

It’s odd seeing Kuvira this season as a dancer in her (background) introduction and for the rest of the season as the guard captain Lin and Suyin bark orders at, save her saving Tonraq’s life. It’s also a shame since so much more could be done with her and better set up the next season

Why is spirit projection an airbender technique? Because Jinora is an airbender, therefore it must be a form of airbending somehow?

You know, I actually really like the Mako detective moments. While I wouldn’t say I’d like a spin off, an au fic would work

If I had a nickel for every time a villain threatened to or tried to wipe out the airbenders/airbending, I’d have three nickels…

In the “Enter the Void,” Grey’s Ming-Hua starts slipping more into her Azula voice

Okay fuck Bolin for this moment

8 years later and I still vibe with Ghazan’s death over prison attitude

It’s been a very different experience watching book 3 like this, even more so than book 1 and 2. 8 years ago, I was watching books 3 and 4 during a stressful time in my life and didn’t necessarily mind all the details then

And with that, we’re in the homestretch. Just book 4 left now…

[flynniganrider]

MAKO IS A WHOREEEEEEEE