I am a fan fiction writer. That means that I write for myself. I don't write off of scripts of TV shows, movies or books. I take from TV shows, movies and books ... and I write the characters in a way that I think and feel they can actually go. I try my best to broaden their horizons ... and I try to flesh out their character a little more in a directions that the writers of TV shows, movies or authors of books don't have time to go. I try to bring uniqueness to my writings. I do my best to remain in character when I do ... but in doing so I try to flesh that characterization out.

(Found the below from TheXtremeFangirl)

Fanfiction. Because 87 percent of all original endings SUCK.
Fanfiction. Because 95 percent of all plot twists are either predictable or stupid.
Fanfiction. Because my favorite characters ALWAYS die.
Fanfiction. Because sometimes evil deserves to win.
Fanfiction. Because some (most) authors just have no clue which of their own characters go together best.
Fanfiction. Because most authors aren't willing to write multiple versions of their stories just so we can see every possibility that arises.

"Be a free thinker and don't accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in." ~ Aristotle

If any Star Wars fans love to discuss the EU then drop on by my forum which I have named Star Wars EU. Have fun discussing the old EU and the new EU. Just remember that it is still Star Wars ... no matter what the Disney top heads had stated.

There is now an official A Thousand Years {Korrasami} tumblr ...

I'm finding that I'm quite enjoying writing where I leave people guessing. In first person ... leaving people guessing whom the point of view actually is. Usually I love writing clear cut plot points. But since I started writing LOK and for Korrasami ... I love not writing in clearly Korra or Asami's view point in some of these one shots that are coming to mind. I feel so organismic ...

The Price of Salt just gotten onto my must read once a year list. It is also in my top fifty favorite novels of all time. I'm so happy that I decided to buy the novel on my Nook. I read it in one sitting. I'm going to enjoy ravishing my favorite selections as time goes by .

Also now that I have read POS it won't change much of what I had all ready planned for Forgiveness POS or watching Carol ... which I will be doing in perhaps in the next month or so ... I still want to process the wonderful writing that Patricia Highsmith has given us ... and although she written the novel over sixty years ago ... it still holds true in these modern times. .

The events of Carol's guilt in Forgiveness is taken from the movie .

"The ignorant man is not free, because what confronts him is an alien world, something outside him and in the offing, on which he depends, without his having made this foreign world for himself and therefore without being at home in it by himself as in something his own. The impulse of curiosity, the pressure for knowledge, from the lowest level up to the highest rung of philosophical insight arises only from the struggle to cancel this situation of unfreedom and to make the world one's own in one's ideas and thought." ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Riverdale I have created a account over at Achieve your Own and I am posting my and a few other friends Riverdale FanFiction Challenge Forum entries. The penname is PeachesandStrawberriesThroughBlindness.

I have become an moderator for the Betty Deserves Better forum.

The friends that I'm helping posting over at the Achieve you Own are:

Kistmet R.T. Realtin

Xenon Silver Sword

Protection 101

Sorcha Sadhbh

Castle Rouge

Mysterious Showmanship

Just.Call.Me.Girl.Friday

Always Cartinelli

xxxSimplyHookedxxx

Puddin' Pop and his Jacks'

Mama Bear and Her Cubs

Peaches and Strawberries

Spy Network

Marvel is the best

The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars part one: August 8th, 2017. Yes folks you have read the date right. The first Korra comic is going to be released. Three years after the show ended. Two years after word that a comic series is going to happen. Dark Horse is finally coming through.

"Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen." ~ Socrates

"A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something." ~ Plato

Korrasami, Queer Representation and Saying Goodbye to the “Legend of Korra”

Posted by SJ Sindu on December 21, 2014 at 3:00pm UTC

Something monumental happened last Friday. If you aren’t part of the cultish and rabid fandom of the Legend of Korra, you probably didn’t hear about it. The show, which in all fairness for its entire four seasons remained a primarily kids’ animated TV show produced by Nickelodeon, aired its finale for its fourth and final season. At the very very end of the finale (SPOILERS!), the main character Korra, who is an ever-powerful being reincarnated into human form every lifetime, walked off into the sunset with a woman. Holding hands. Like they literally decided to go on holiday (queer code for honeymoon) and in the final shot, they held hands and then gazed into each other’s eyes lovingly while the music crescendoed.

For most of the fandom, this was a clear sign of the moment they’d been hoping and praying for since the show reached the end of its second season — the confirmation of a femslash pairing that had been the most popular ship for years: Korrasami.

Korra, the avatar, and Asami Sato, the woman she “ends up with” in the end, started as rivals in Book One of the series. Korra and Asami both dated Mako, and for a while there, Makorra seemed like it would happen. But they broke up, and in the Book Four finale, the two shared a brofist moment when Mako told Korra that he would “follow her into battle” anyday, anyhow. Mako’s brother Bolin was also a possible romantic interest for Korra, until he found the airbender Opal. In the end, most fans didn’t dare hope for Korrasami to actually happen, even though Korra and Asami’s close relationship had been built over the course of three books. This was a kids’ show on Nickelodeon that had been taken off the air and made online for showing a murder on screen.

But in the end, it’s Asami that Korra holds hands with, Asami that Korra decides to vacation with, Asami who’s there for her in the end, Asami with whom Korra shares lingering glances and momentary intimacies. For a kids’ show to go this far in confirming a canon romantic relationship between two women — this is groundbreaking in the U.S.

For a long time, Korrasami shippers assumed that the creators of the Legend of Korra were queerbaiting, the concept of introducing a character using well-known codes of queerness in order to appeal to a queer audience. The character will often have interactions with a same-sex partner or friend that seem to hint at a queer romance. The character exists purely as a way for the writers to grab a queer audience, who they know will latch onto any seemingly coded characters because of the absolute lack of queer representation in mainstream media. Eventually, though, the writers will unequivocally show us just how straight the character is, often by pairing them off in a good straight coupling.

When the Legend of Korra started teasing the Korrasami ship by showing significant glances between the two characters, by having an increasing closeness between them, and later by showing moments of physical intimacy, I assumed that they were queer baiting. After all, this was a kids’ show on Nickelodeon. Why would they do what all these other shows hadn’t done? But they did. They did the thing. They went there. They pushed it further than I ever expected them to go. They gave us hugs, hand holding, walking off into the sunset, and that final moment when the two women face each other. Creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have always given us amazing moments, like letting their female characters go bald and get tattoos. And now, they gave us Korrasami.

Some people are happy to see the Legend of Korra mirror the final scenes ofAvatar: The Last Airbender with the Avatar in a romantic relationship. But others are complaining because they say the relationship wasn’t built up, they wanted Korra to end up alone as a statement, and they wanted the series to focus on a non-romantic close friendship between two females as a feminist statement. Here is my response:

1. The relationship WAS built up as much as it could be with a children’s TV show on a kid’s network. There were significant glances, an increasing closeness, hand holding at the end of Book 3, etc. In Book 4, Asami is the only one Korra writes to. She blushes when Asami complements her hair. They have been each other’s person for two books by the time the Book 4 finale happens.The reason many people didn’t notice is because we are primed to assume that everyone is straight until told explicitly otherwise. This is heterosexism, and straight privilege. If Korra and Asami were an opposite-sex friendship, and nothing else about their interaction changed, no one would have said they were blindsided by the ending.

2. Yes, it’s a feminist statement to show Korra alone, or to have Asami and Korra be best female friends because it’s so rare. But you know what’s even more rare? Queer representation. Part of straight privilege is seeing straight couples everywhere. Everywhere you look, there is validation of your sexuality. For queer people, this is not the case. It is a RADICAL feminist statement to have a representation of queer female sexuality in a kid’s TV show in America. This is far more of a radical statement than it would’ve been to not allow a romantic interpretation to the relationship.

3. Many people live out their lives believing they’re liberal and open minded. It’s only when confronted with queerness in a place they weren’t expecting, like a show that they love, that their subtle homophobia and anti-queer microaggression comes to light. It’s not your fault. We live in a society that privileges straightness, and we are socialized to be selfish. What I think is happening is that straight people had thought of Korra as their own, and suddenly this makes her other. With the absolute dearth of queer representation out there, this ending is a boon. Let the queer community have this.

Update: the show’s creators have officially confirmed that the ending sequence was meant to say that Korrasami is canon, and that hand holding was as far as the network was willing to let them go with it. Unfortunately, reading between the lines, this could also mean this is why the show was taken off the air halfway through the third season. Now that Nicktoons is re-airing Korra Book 4, we will have to wait to find out if they air the full season finale. Not everyone will agree about whether or not the show pushed the envelope far enough, but having official confirmation at least lays to rest questions of queer baiting, where by definition the characters end up straight in the end through a straight coupling. Both Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have written statements confirming Korrasami, with Bryan acknowledging that it’s not a “slam-dunk victory” for queer representation, but that it’s hopefully a “significant inching forward.” I hope we continue to talk about this show, and about queer representation in the media.

{The below is taken from a this http:///post/105606009782/final-bows-or-korrasami-is-canon-because tumblr post. This is the bottom half of the post}.

Mako and Korra get about 20 seconds alone onscreen to talk about their relationship before we switch over to a shot of Korra outside the party. Then Tenzin enters at 40:53 for his final bow – and, because he’s Korra’s mentor, this is also when we get the end of Korra’s personal arc where she talks about everything she’s learned, and takes stock of how her life has changed.

This is Korra being finished. She started one place, she ended another, her onscreen journey is basically over. She’s grown out of her fatal flaws and has adopted a great sense of empathy. Korra’s always been an intensely personal show, probably moreso than Airbender, and her compassion toward Kuvira is this series’ version of the Lionturtle teaching Aang to spirit bend. Korra’s personal arc also illustrates how Bryke have grown as writers; the build up to her kindness toward Kuvira is much better foreshadowed and structured than the Lionturtle. Bravo, guys.

Asami enters at 41:53, signalling the end of Korra’s personal moment (or minute, to be precise) with her arc. What happens after this has to do with Korra’s future. Her past is dealt with, her present is acknowledged and wrapped up, and Tenzin’s purpose as a mentor is fulfilled. This is why love interests tend to be the last thing you see: once characters start looking to their future, their romantic partner tends to be a significant factor in that. Having a romance that lasts beyond the final battle is a reward for the main character, because the story no longer demands that their relationship have conflict. It’s why a LOT of fiction has a kiss or a hug or a romantic gesture as part of the final scene; it’s over, so it’s safe to be together, both for them and for the audience.

So, Asami cutting in on Korra’s personal realization? Super important. If they’d wanted to end with Makorra, they would have wrapped Asami’s personal arc just after Wu’s, and Mako would have stepped in on Tenzin and Korra instead.

But he didn’t. Asami did.

Asami’s a character with a pretty important arc, too, so HER stuff also needed to be wrapped up in order for her to consider her future. We get this beautiful moment where Korra invites Asami to sit with her (unprompted, instead of in response to Asami inviting her back to the party):

Korra apologizes for disappearing at the end of season 3:

Asami says she’s just happy she’s alive and has nothing to apologize for:

Thereby wrapping up any potential conflict or insecurity left in their past relationship. Remember that Asami was the only person Korra wanted any contact with while she was back in the Water Tribe recuperating. Bringing that up again does a good job of reminding us that Asami was her support, as much as Korra was willing to accept, and before writing to her was also the one to help Korra dress and hold her hand when she was anxious.

Asami says she doesn’t know how she could handle losing Korra AND her father in the same day, and we get the most touching hug to ever hug oh my god look at them:

-cough- Sorry. Serious analysis here. Promise.

Asami says she’s glad she was able to forgive, and then changes the subject. So there’s her character arc, there’s her final bow, and she has higher “billing” than Tenzin. This is the story telling us that Asami’s relationship with Korra is more important than the one Korra has with politics, Mako, or her mentor. It’s a big fucking deal.

Now Korra has to take her bow, and for the main character to bow out of the story, we need to get a sense of what happens afterward (even if the conclusion we get is “I’ll make it up as I go” or “shit I have no idea what will happen now”, that counts as looking toward the future, too). So Korra and Asami talk about needing a break, Asami off-handedly mentions a vacation, and Korra jumps on that plan like a puppy on bacon.

She even realizes how strongly she’s coming on and looks bashful about it.

They agree to go to the Spirit World, and we get this beautiful shot:

Intentionally or not, the Spirit Portal is now framed by the colors of the bisexual pride flag. Whoop.

After a timeskip of undetermined length, our final shot of the series is Korra and Asami approaching the Spirit Portal…

Taking each other’s hands…

And then they do this:

Please note that when they turn, they reach for each other with both hands, putting them in the exact same position as Varrick and Zhu Li during their wedding.

After the final shot, the camera pans up for the ending screen and goes to credits. Korra and Asami are offscreen at 43:33, clocking them in at 1 minute and 40 seconds of screentime.

As Legend of Korra ends, Korra walks to her future, but here’s the thing: she’s not looking ahead. You’d expect that a girl without a romantic partner right about now would be looking forward, into the Spirit World.

But she’s not. She’s looking at Asami. This is not platonic. This is a direct visual parallel. If they meant for them to be read as Just Friends, they would have stepped into the portal and kept their backs to the camera, but they didn’t, because they’re queer as shit. This isn’t a couple of ladies on a road trip, this is Korra and Asami practically eloping. Narratively, they may as well have had a double wedding, because this is super fucking queer. Repeating this kind of visual all of five minutes apart is not an accident. We already mentally associate this image with Bolin’s speech about true love. This is basic, basic staging, and Bryke is talented enough and smart enough not to do this by accident.

We didn’t get a kiss, or an explicit declaration of love, but we still have to remember where this airs and to what demographic. LGBT issues are still considered special interests in this industry, especially when you start talking about a “children’s” cartoon that airs overseas. This is Avatar, not Archer, and that makes a huge difference. The show is already struggling, owing mostly to being taken off television, and LGBT characters and storylines are still considered a risk in the industry. In that light, this scene and this relationship is beautifully done, intentionally staged, and canon as fuck. In terms of bows, this is Korra running up to the audience, taking her bow, and laying one on Asami while the crowd cheers and the curtain closes.

Well fucking done, Korra. Well done.

KORRASAMI CONFIRMED

Mike Dimartino & Bryan Konietzko

Now that Korra and Asami’s final moment is out in the world, it seems like an appropriate time to express how I feel about it. I didn’t want to say anything right away so the audience could experience the finale for themselves.

The main themes of the Avatar universe have always revolved around equality, justice, acceptance, tolerance, and balancing differing worldviews. In subtle and maybe not so subtle ways, Avatar and Legend of Korra have dealt with difficult subjects such as genocide, child abuse, deaths of loved ones, and post traumatic stress. I took it as a complement when Joanna Robinson of Vanity Fair called the show subversive. There were times even I was surprised we were able to delve into the really tough stuff on a children’s TV network. While the episodes were never designed to “make a statement”, Bryan and I always strove to treat the more difficult subject matter with the respect and gravity it deserved.

And over the years we’ve heard from numerous fans, in person and online, how Avatar and Korra have influenced their lives for the better or helped them overcome a life struggle or setback. I am always humbled when people share their personal stories with us and I am grateful that my love for telling stories has been able to help people in some small way. So while Avatar and Korra were always meant to be entertaining and engaging tales, this universe and its characters also speak to the deeper humanity in all of us, regardless of age, gender, race, religion, culture, nationality, or sexual orientation.

Our intention with the last scene was to make it as clear as possible that yes, Korra and Asami have romantic feelings for each other. The moment where they enter the spirit portal symbolizes their evolution from being friends to being a couple. Many news outlets, bloggers, and fans picked up on this and didn’t find it ambiguous. For the most part, it seems like the point of the scene was understood and additional commentary wasn’t really needed from Bryan or me. But in case people were still questioning what happened in the last scene, I wanted to make a clear verbal statement to complement the show’s visual one. I get that not everyone will be happy with the way that the show ended. Rarely does a series finale of any show satisfy that show’s fans, so I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the positive articles and posts I’ve seen about Korra’s finale.

I’ve already read some heartwarming and incredible posts about how this moment means so much for the LGBT community. Once again, the incredible outpouring of support for the show humbles me. As Tenzin says, “Life is one big bumpy ride.” And if, by Korra and Asami being a couple, we are able to help smooth out that ride even a tiny bit for some people, I’m proud to do my part, however small it might be. Thanks for reading.

-- Mike

You can celebrate it, embrace it, accept it, get over it, or whatever you feel the need to do, but there is no denying it. That is the official story. We received some wonderful press in the wake of the series finale at the end of last week, and just about every piece I read got it right: Korra and Asami fell in love. Were they friends? Yes, and they still are, but they also grew to have romantic feelings for each other.

Was Korrasami “endgame,” meaning, did we plan it from the start of the series? No, but nothing other than Korra’s spiritual arc was. Asami was a duplicitous spy when Mike and I first conceived her character. Then we liked her too much so we reworked the story to keep her in the dark regarding her father’s villainous activities. Varrick and Zhu Li weren’t originally planned to end up as a couple either, but that’s where we took the story/where the story took us. That’s how writing works the vast majority of the time. You give these characters life and then they tell you what they want to do.

I have bragging rights as the first Korrasami shipper (I win!). As we wrote Book 1, before the audience had ever laid eyes on Korra and Asami, it was an idea I would kick around the writers’ room. At first we didn’t give it much weight, not because we think same-sex relationships are a joke, but because we never assumed it was something we would ever get away with depicting on an animated show for a kids network in this day and age, or at least in 2010.

Makorra was only “endgame” as far as the end of Book 1. Once we got into Book 2 we knew we were going to have them break up, and we never planned on getting them back together. Sorry, friends. I like Mako too, and I am sure he will be just fine in the romance department. He grew up and learned about himself through his relationships with Asami and Korra, and he’s a better person for it, and he’ll be a better partner for whomever he ends up with.

Once Mako and Korra were through, we focused on developing Korra and Asami’s relationship. Originally, it was primarily intended to be a strong friendship. Frankly, we wanted to set most of the romance business aside for the last two seasons. Personally, at that point I didn’t want Korra to have to end up with someone at the end of series. We obviously did it inAvatar, but even that felt a bit forced to me. I’m usually rolling my eyes when that happens in virtually every action film, “Here we go again…” It was probably around that time that I came across this quote from Hayao Miyazaki:

“I’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live - if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.”

I agree with him wholeheartedly, especially since the majority of the examples in media portray a female character that is little more than a trophy to be won by the male lead for his derring-do. So Mako and Korra break the typical pattern and end up respecting, admiring, and inspiring each other. That is a resolution I am proud of.

However, I think there needs to be a counterpart to Miyazaki’s sentiment: Just because two characters of the same sex appear in the same story, it should not preclude the possibility of a romance between them. No, not everyone is queer, but the other side of that coin is that not everyone is straight. The more Korra and Asami’s relationship progressed, the more the idea of a romance between them organically blossomed for us. However, we still operated under this notion, another “unwritten rule,” that we would not be allowed to depict that in our show. So we alluded to it throughout the second half of the series, working in the idea that their trajectory could be heading towards a romance.

But as we got close to finishing the finale, the thought struck me: How do I know we can’t openly depict that? No one ever explicitly said so. It was just another assumption based on a paradigm that marginalizes non-heterosexual people. If we want to see that paradigm evolve, we need to take a stand against it. And I didn’t want to look back in 20 years and think, “Man, we could have fought harder for that.” Mike and I talked it over and decided it was important to be unambiguous about the intended relationship.

We approached the network and while they were supportive there was a limit to how far we could go with it, as just about every article I read accurately deduced. It was originally written in the script over a year ago that Korra and Asami held hands as they walked into the spirit portal. We went back and forth on it in the storyboards, but later in the retake process I staged a revision where they turned towards each other, clasping both hands in a reverential manner, in a direct reference to Varrick and Zhu Li’s nuptial pose from a few minutes prior. We asked Jeremy Zuckerman to make the music tender and romantic, and he fulfilled the assignment with a sublime score. I think the entire last two-minute sequence with Korra and Asami turned out beautiful, and again, it is a resolution of which I am very proud. I love how their relationship arc took its time, through kindness and caring. If it seems out of the blue to you, I think a second viewing of the last two seasons would show that perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens.

Was it a slam-dunk victory for queer representation? I think it falls short of that, but hopefully it is a somewhat significant inching forward. It has been encouraging how well the media and the bulk of the fans have embraced it. Sadly and unsurprisingly, there are also plenty of people who have lashed out with homophobic vitriol and nonsense. It has been my experience that by and large this kind of mindset is a result of a lack of exposure to people whose lives and struggles are different from one’s own, and due to a deficiency in empathy––the latter being a key theme in Book 4. (Despite what you might have heard, bisexual people are real!) I have held plenty of stupid notions throughout my life that were planted there in any number of ways, or even grown out of my own ignorance and flawed personality. Yet through getting to know people from all walks of life, listening to the stories of their experiences, and employing some empathy to try to imagine what it might be like to walk in their shoes, I have been able to shed many hurtful mindsets. I still have a long way to go, and I still have a lot to learn. It is a humbling process and hard work, but nothing on the scale of what anyone who has been marginalized has experienced. It is a worthwhile, lifelong endeavor to try to understand where people are coming from.

There is the inevitable reaction, “Mike and Bryan just caved in to the fans.” Well, which fans? There were plenty of Makorra shippers out there, so if we had gone back on our decision and gotten those characters back together, would that have meant we caved in to those fans instead? Either direction we went, there would inevitably be a faction that was elated and another that was devastated. Trust me, I remember Kataang vs. Zutara. But one of those directions is going to be the one that feels right to us, and Mike and I have always made both Avatar and Korra for us, first and foremost. We are lucky that so many other people around the world connect with these series as well. Tahno playing trombone––now that was us caving in to the fans!

But this particular decision wasn’t only done for us. We did it for all our queer friends, family, and colleagues. It is long overdue that our media (including children’s media) stops treating non-heterosexual people as nonexistent, or as something merely to be mocked. I’m only sorry it took us so long to have this kind of representation in one of our stories.

I’ll wrap this up with some incredible words that Mike and I received in a message from a former Korra crew member. He is a deeply religious person who devotes much of his time and energy not only to his faith, but also to helping young people. He and I may have starkly different belief systems, but it is heartwarming and encouraging that on this issue we are aligned in a positive, progressive direction:

“I’ve read enough reviews to get a sense of how it affected people. One very well-written article in Vanity Fair called it subversive (in a good way, of course)… I would say a better word might be “healing.” I think your finale was healing for a lot of people who feel outside or on the fringes, or that their love and their journey is somehow less real or valuable than someone else’s… That it’s somehow less valid. I know quite a few people in that position, who have a lifetime of that on their shoulders, and in one episode of television you both relieved and validated them. That’s healing in my book.”

Love,

Bryan

Forums that I'm moderator of:

Legend of Korra FanFiction Challenge Fourm

Choices Fanfiction Challenge Forum