LAST EDITED ON Jul-01-14 AT 11:31 PM (EDT)
 
>This one just didn't seem to move
>the plot, provide any depth to the story, or keep the aforementioned
>momentum.

Hmmmm. I'll grant you the first and possibly the third, but that second one? If that's what you think, that's troubling, because I thought this whole thing was largely an exercise in what we used to call "deep background" in the journo biz. There are lots of little details in there about Korra and the great span of time that has led her to this gathering, and about the people and places that have shaped her life and are no longer around for her present-day "big universe" friends to have experienced directly. (And more than one allusion to the fact that in some cases, Corwin has anyway, which is leading somewhere over in the main DS story arc.)

>Compared against all that, parts of Avatar Storytime feel like
>filler.

Well, in that sense it is - it's an expanded version of a scene that wasn't, in itself, critical enough to leave in the main story. I therefore realize that it's not exactly one of the poles holding up the tent... but we've done stories like that before, collections of character moments and little background details, and I've never once seen nearly two whole days go by with no reaction at all. It was startling, and disheartening. And speaking of disheartening,

>The sequence with Naga just didn't capture my
>interest, it reads well but it gives little to care about.

This breaks my heart, because to me there's so much in there. It's a glimpse into a part of Korra's life that even the canon has all but completely ignored. It's the first moment at which she and Naga go from "girl with awesome pet" to "adventurer and faithful steed", which is an important moment in any paladin's career. Heck, it's the first time Korra ever managed to break out of South Pole State Penitentiary, even if she didn't really mean to and only made it about a hundred yards. :)

There's a lot going on there, is what I'm once again getting at, and it makes me sad that I conveyed that so poorly that it was easily overlooked. If I had started with Korra already on the ground, the entire background of it having been her first test ride, and the transcendent moments when she a) got into sync with Naga and b) experienced her first taste of proper liberation would've been omitted altogether, and, wow, that I didn't bring across how important those are? That's a serious fail for me. They're the whole point of the scene, not the How to Train Your Dragon 2 reference-slash-cuddly moment at the end (fond of that thought I am).

>Conversely, the reaction to the last picture (Corwin and Len two days
>old, Kate on Korra's lap, Nall being Nall) is just perfect. Korra
>mussing Corwin's hair as his ladies (and Minami, who'd like to be one,
>or vamps really well) tease him is great, as is his reaction.

Well, thank you. That, too, is one of my favorite moments, albeit even I acknowledge that it's not too hugely significant. (Well, Minami might disagree. :)

>It was just
>akin to being psyched-up for a bowl of mint ice cream and getting
>vanilla.

Ideally, it would have come out closer to Goodbye and Hello - it's set before Fire Hazards, even, within that movement - but the way things ended up shaking down, maintaining that sequence would have meant delaying Familiar Spirits until, well, now-ish, and that didn't seem ideal.

For the record, we are also working on Chapter 2 of Book 6 (The Great Ziggurat Zeppelin Raid of 2391) and the foundational materials for Taken by Storm - as well as another project that I'm not quite ready to tell you about yet, but which a number of people have been expressing an interest in. It's just that this is the order the bits happened to get finished in. It's a bit of a tying up of loose ends, and yes, in a sense it's extraneous, but at the same time, it's not complete fluff and even if it were, past precedent suggested that someone should have said something by now.

The Forum pop in general seems to be trending toward lurking lately, and that's every user's prerogative, but at the risk of coming off as a bit needy, I have to say, from the standpoint of the person handling the content, lurkers just aren't much fun. One tends to start feeling as if one has either displeased everyone, or there's nobody there in the first place. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.