to speak across the years.
One day, I'm going to start posting more often again; but probably not this month, because I feel like all the spare time I have to write things needs to go STRAIGHT TO LttE, not ~frivolous things like Dreamwidth posts. To that one person who commented on the pacing last chapter: you were so right. This chapter is (unbelievably, ridiculously, ludicrously) 25k already, and I'm only somewhat more than halfway through the outline, so I'm guessing I'm going to have to cut it into two parts; but I want to post both parts at the same time, because it really was always supposed to be one chapter. (I know, I know, I'm turning into freaking Robert Jordan over here.) By the time I get to Book Four, each chapter is going to be its own goddamn novel, at this rate. /o\
But! Major Crimes has started back up again. I've only watched last week's, not this week's, but I'm just SO HAPPY to see everyone again. SHARON. AMY. RUSTY. TEEEEEEEEAM. So many hearts.
And then, of course, there's the Korra Book Three official trailer on Youtube (with accompanying discussion post on
white_lotus)! Oh, show, I wish I knew how to quit you, except I sort of don't because look! Women! Korra Airbending with a girl! PLEASE. PLEASE LET KORRA MAKE FRIENDS WITH MORE GIRLS. And Asami! Who is a) obviously going to be around more this season (THANK GOD), and b) appears to be rescuing unconscious Korra with Naga. oh man i still ship it so bad /o\
And of course checking for new information about Book Three led me to the news that four complete Spanish-dubbed episodes were accidentally leaked online the other week. Because I'm a giant spoilerphile, I immediately found them and watched them.
ALL THE SPOILERS AFTER THIS, SERIOUSLY. Maybe this is paranoid, but I've made this whole thing highlight-to-read, just in case, and if there's anything else I should do to make sure I don't ruin things for anyone, tell me! (Since I love spoilers, I'm never sure how much is enough to help people who hate them.)
It looks like Book Three opens, in the two episodes that weren't leaked, with the discovery that some people who seemingly couldn't previously bend are spontaneously starting to Airbend - possibly as a consequence of opening the spirit portal? It doesn't seem to be something Korra did on purpose with Energybending, unless she did it in a very generalized way, since she spends all four leaked episodes searching for new Airbenders in various locations. Also she gets booted out of Republic City by the president, apparently - this was shown only in a really short "Previously" clip, so I have no idea what happened there.
3.03 and 3.04 are almost a two-parter: Team Korra takes a giant zeppelin to Ba Sing Se. They already collected an Airbender in Republic City, apparently; the kid's name is Kai (possibly his last name is Fang, unless he lied to the servant who addresses him as such), he's a thief, and he has a totally adorable mutual thing with Jinora. <3
The Lower Ring is still awful, the Middle Ring is still pretty nice, and the Upper Ring is still blindingly opulent - and I'm still a real sucker for the modernization, the shots of electrical wiring and neon signage in the Lower Ring. (There doesn't seem to be nearly as much use of electricity in and around the palace, intriguingly.) I don't think we're supposed to like the Earth Queen at all, but I actually do - she's clearly supposed to be petty, mean, and overly status-conscious (her Grand Secretary takes Korra to see her while listing off the rules: bow before even trying to approach her, don't speak first, don't eat first ...). But of course I'm actually really interested in the political perspective she offers on Republic City - she's pissed about it, it's on Earth Kingdom land that's supposed to be hers, and she considers Kuei weak for having given it up. (She also clearly is in charge of her Grand Secretary, as opposed to her Grand Secretary being in charge of her, which is awesome.)
Anyway, she tells Korra that if Korra wants her help finding Airbenders in Ba Sing Se, Korra has to go collect a bunch of tax money for her - it's sitting in a vault, it just needs to be brought to the city, but bandits have hit the last two shipments. As I said to my sister while we were watching, I feel like in A:tLA this would have been the whole ep: the Gaang would have gone to get the tax money, gotten the impression that something wasn't right, stopped the bandits, and then talked to the villagers and maybe even a bandit or two and figured out what was up - and possibly would have ended up giving the money back, depending on what the backstory was. In 3.03, though, it's crushed off to one side: Korra and Asami go, beat up the motorcycle gang that attacks them, and take the tax money back to Ba Sing Se, with a single line of dialogue (gang dude, in retreat: "This money belongs to the people, not the queen!" Korra: "Why do I feel like he's right?") as lip service to the idea that there's something to investigate.
Which is necessary for time, because the other half of the episode is about Kai running off to use his Airbending to steal stuff, and Mako and Bolin trying to follow him. They accidentally end up in the Lower Ring and meet none other than their entire extended family (including their grandmother, who is named Yin). While they're there, they learn that in fact the queen has had the Dai Li out rounding up everybody who's spontaneously developed the ability to Airbend, and is trying to form a secret Airbender army! Cue some Dai Li catching Kai Airbending and dragging him off to Secret Airbender Army Boot Camp.
3.04 is thus all about finding and breaking everybody out of Secret Airbender Army Boot Camp. Korra comes back with the tax money and the queen is all kthxbai; the gold in this episode for me was the cut to Korra and Asami training afterward, which they may even do on a regular basis! YES PLEASE. Ahem. Mako and Bolin get back and explain about SAABC, and then the queen comes along wanting them to leave as soon as possible; Asami buys them time by lying about how she has to finish some repairs to the zeppelin before they can leave. UGH ASAMI YOU'RE SO GREAT. Ahem. Long story short, Jinora uses her spiritual connection to Kai to spirit-project to where he is (which is in solitary, having gotten in trouble with the Dai Li for being too nice to his fellow boot camp members and for trying to hit the Dai Li in the face). Turns out SAABC is within the palace grounds - they break everybody out successfully, despite the best efforts of the queen and the Dai Li, and run like hell. On zeppelins.
3.05 and 3.06 are also kind of a pair, and actually I think I kind of like this two-parter pacing - it really is hard to tell whole stories in 22 minutes sometimes. Anyway, both of these were basically SOLID GOLD, because they're all about Lin and her incredibly awesome half-sister, who founded her own metalbending city, with bonus Toph flashbacks! YES TO ALL OF THAT. And the girl Korra was bending with in the trailer turns out to be Lin's absolutely marvelous niece, Opal, who's adorable and great and I hope she's on Team Korra for the whole rest of the season.
Team Korra gets radioed about an Airbender living in Sao Fu, which turns out to be a metalbending utopia; Lin stays on the zeppelin and tells Korra not to tell anyone she's there, which turns out to be because her half-sister Su Jin founded the city and still lives there. There's some transcendently awesome metalbending, Su Jin and Lin have emotionally complicated arguments, and Opal has kind of a crush on Bolin but doesn't put up with him acting all weird and hitting on her. SOLD. And then: SO MUCH LIN BACKSTORY. Su Jin had iffy friends when she was younger, and Lin catches her in the middle of acting as wheelman for them while they rob someplace and tries to arrest her - their fight is where Lin got the scars along her jaw. SO FEELINGS. MUCH SISTERS. VERY ANGST. And then they have a fantastic bending fight in the present day. YES.
Anyway! It ends with Su Jin agreeing that Team Korra can take Opal to train at one of the new Air Temples, where previously she'd wanted Opal to stay in Sao Fu and train there.
Sprinkled throughout all four of these episodes is a C-plot: apparently when Korra was a child, a team of bad guys tried to kidnap her - or, well, three bad guys and two bad ladies. (This is cited as the reason she was cooped up in the south for so long.) They were caught, obvs., and imprisoned separately, in prisons designed to hold them despite their bending; Zuko helped with this process, as did Korra's dad. Apparently somewhere in the first two episodes, three or four of these guys broke out, and Zuko (who is now rocking very Iroh-y facial hair) and Korra's dad are running around trying to stop them/catch them. These four episodes contain what seems to be the last escape - if you watched the trailer, it's the escape of Combustion Woman from a secret ice prison up north somewhere - plus the group as a whole getting back together. Their leader is a guy named Zaheer or Sahir (it's hard to be sure when you're phonetically transcribing a Spanish dub) who can Airbend; he passes himself off as a new Airbender looking for training, and then gets found out, and he and Kya have a pretty awesome knock-down drag-out fight before he gets away. By the fourth ep, he's joined back up with the rest of the group, and they're headed for Korra.
So! Bottom line: I still have quibbles with some of the writing decisions being made, especially in the first two episodes up there, but then there are women everywhere and there's so much more Asami and LIN and SU JIN and KORRA LEARNING TO METALBEND and OPAL. I can still love you, show, if you let me! (Of course, I loved the first half of the first season and felt like it basically fell apart in the second half, and I have no idea where they're going with this gang-of-kidnappers thing, so who knows. BUT.)
I'm really grateful for the leak, basically, because watching these has made me feel better about the chances I'll enjoy this season than I would have otherwise.
And now I should really get back to work. :D
[crossposted; original at Dreamwidth]
But! Major Crimes has started back up again. I've only watched last week's, not this week's, but I'm just SO HAPPY to see everyone again. SHARON. AMY. RUSTY. TEEEEEEEEAM. So many hearts.
And then, of course, there's the Korra Book Three official trailer on Youtube (with accompanying discussion post on
white_lotus)! Oh, show, I wish I knew how to quit you, except I sort of don't because look! Women! Korra Airbending with a girl! PLEASE. PLEASE LET KORRA MAKE FRIENDS WITH MORE GIRLS. And Asami! Who is a) obviously going to be around more this season (THANK GOD), and b) appears to be rescuing unconscious Korra with Naga. oh man i still ship it so bad /o\
And of course checking for new information about Book Three led me to the news that four complete Spanish-dubbed episodes were accidentally leaked online the other week. Because I'm a giant spoilerphile, I immediately found them and watched them.
ALL THE SPOILERS AFTER THIS, SERIOUSLY. Maybe this is paranoid, but I've made this whole thing highlight-to-read, just in case, and if there's anything else I should do to make sure I don't ruin things for anyone, tell me! (Since I love spoilers, I'm never sure how much is enough to help people who hate them.)
It looks like Book Three opens, in the two episodes that weren't leaked, with the discovery that some people who seemingly couldn't previously bend are spontaneously starting to Airbend - possibly as a consequence of opening the spirit portal? It doesn't seem to be something Korra did on purpose with Energybending, unless she did it in a very generalized way, since she spends all four leaked episodes searching for new Airbenders in various locations. Also she gets booted out of Republic City by the president, apparently - this was shown only in a really short "Previously" clip, so I have no idea what happened there.
3.03 and 3.04 are almost a two-parter: Team Korra takes a giant zeppelin to Ba Sing Se. They already collected an Airbender in Republic City, apparently; the kid's name is Kai (possibly his last name is Fang, unless he lied to the servant who addresses him as such), he's a thief, and he has a totally adorable mutual thing with Jinora. <3
The Lower Ring is still awful, the Middle Ring is still pretty nice, and the Upper Ring is still blindingly opulent - and I'm still a real sucker for the modernization, the shots of electrical wiring and neon signage in the Lower Ring. (There doesn't seem to be nearly as much use of electricity in and around the palace, intriguingly.) I don't think we're supposed to like the Earth Queen at all, but I actually do - she's clearly supposed to be petty, mean, and overly status-conscious (her Grand Secretary takes Korra to see her while listing off the rules: bow before even trying to approach her, don't speak first, don't eat first ...). But of course I'm actually really interested in the political perspective she offers on Republic City - she's pissed about it, it's on Earth Kingdom land that's supposed to be hers, and she considers Kuei weak for having given it up. (She also clearly is in charge of her Grand Secretary, as opposed to her Grand Secretary being in charge of her, which is awesome.)
Anyway, she tells Korra that if Korra wants her help finding Airbenders in Ba Sing Se, Korra has to go collect a bunch of tax money for her - it's sitting in a vault, it just needs to be brought to the city, but bandits have hit the last two shipments. As I said to my sister while we were watching, I feel like in A:tLA this would have been the whole ep: the Gaang would have gone to get the tax money, gotten the impression that something wasn't right, stopped the bandits, and then talked to the villagers and maybe even a bandit or two and figured out what was up - and possibly would have ended up giving the money back, depending on what the backstory was. In 3.03, though, it's crushed off to one side: Korra and Asami go, beat up the motorcycle gang that attacks them, and take the tax money back to Ba Sing Se, with a single line of dialogue (gang dude, in retreat: "This money belongs to the people, not the queen!" Korra: "Why do I feel like he's right?") as lip service to the idea that there's something to investigate.
Which is necessary for time, because the other half of the episode is about Kai running off to use his Airbending to steal stuff, and Mako and Bolin trying to follow him. They accidentally end up in the Lower Ring and meet none other than their entire extended family (including their grandmother, who is named Yin). While they're there, they learn that in fact the queen has had the Dai Li out rounding up everybody who's spontaneously developed the ability to Airbend, and is trying to form a secret Airbender army! Cue some Dai Li catching Kai Airbending and dragging him off to Secret Airbender Army Boot Camp.
3.04 is thus all about finding and breaking everybody out of Secret Airbender Army Boot Camp. Korra comes back with the tax money and the queen is all kthxbai; the gold in this episode for me was the cut to Korra and Asami training afterward, which they may even do on a regular basis! YES PLEASE. Ahem. Mako and Bolin get back and explain about SAABC, and then the queen comes along wanting them to leave as soon as possible; Asami buys them time by lying about how she has to finish some repairs to the zeppelin before they can leave. UGH ASAMI YOU'RE SO GREAT. Ahem. Long story short, Jinora uses her spiritual connection to Kai to spirit-project to where he is (which is in solitary, having gotten in trouble with the Dai Li for being too nice to his fellow boot camp members and for trying to hit the Dai Li in the face). Turns out SAABC is within the palace grounds - they break everybody out successfully, despite the best efforts of the queen and the Dai Li, and run like hell. On zeppelins.
3.05 and 3.06 are also kind of a pair, and actually I think I kind of like this two-parter pacing - it really is hard to tell whole stories in 22 minutes sometimes. Anyway, both of these were basically SOLID GOLD, because they're all about Lin and her incredibly awesome half-sister, who founded her own metalbending city, with bonus Toph flashbacks! YES TO ALL OF THAT. And the girl Korra was bending with in the trailer turns out to be Lin's absolutely marvelous niece, Opal, who's adorable and great and I hope she's on Team Korra for the whole rest of the season.
Team Korra gets radioed about an Airbender living in Sao Fu, which turns out to be a metalbending utopia; Lin stays on the zeppelin and tells Korra not to tell anyone she's there, which turns out to be because her half-sister Su Jin founded the city and still lives there. There's some transcendently awesome metalbending, Su Jin and Lin have emotionally complicated arguments, and Opal has kind of a crush on Bolin but doesn't put up with him acting all weird and hitting on her. SOLD. And then: SO MUCH LIN BACKSTORY. Su Jin had iffy friends when she was younger, and Lin catches her in the middle of acting as wheelman for them while they rob someplace and tries to arrest her - their fight is where Lin got the scars along her jaw. SO FEELINGS. MUCH SISTERS. VERY ANGST. And then they have a fantastic bending fight in the present day. YES.
Anyway! It ends with Su Jin agreeing that Team Korra can take Opal to train at one of the new Air Temples, where previously she'd wanted Opal to stay in Sao Fu and train there.
Sprinkled throughout all four of these episodes is a C-plot: apparently when Korra was a child, a team of bad guys tried to kidnap her - or, well, three bad guys and two bad ladies. (This is cited as the reason she was cooped up in the south for so long.) They were caught, obvs., and imprisoned separately, in prisons designed to hold them despite their bending; Zuko helped with this process, as did Korra's dad. Apparently somewhere in the first two episodes, three or four of these guys broke out, and Zuko (who is now rocking very Iroh-y facial hair) and Korra's dad are running around trying to stop them/catch them. These four episodes contain what seems to be the last escape - if you watched the trailer, it's the escape of Combustion Woman from a secret ice prison up north somewhere - plus the group as a whole getting back together. Their leader is a guy named Zaheer or Sahir (it's hard to be sure when you're phonetically transcribing a Spanish dub) who can Airbend; he passes himself off as a new Airbender looking for training, and then gets found out, and he and Kya have a pretty awesome knock-down drag-out fight before he gets away. By the fourth ep, he's joined back up with the rest of the group, and they're headed for Korra.
So! Bottom line: I still have quibbles with some of the writing decisions being made, especially in the first two episodes up there, but then there are women everywhere and there's so much more Asami and LIN and SU JIN and KORRA LEARNING TO METALBEND and OPAL. I can still love you, show, if you let me! (Of course, I loved the first half of the first season and felt like it basically fell apart in the second half, and I have no idea where they're going with this gang-of-kidnappers thing, so who knows. BUT.)
I'm really grateful for the leak, basically, because watching these has made me feel better about the chances I'll enjoy this season than I would have otherwise.
And now I should really get back to work. :D
[crossposted; original at Dreamwidth]