seeing how excited everyone is for francesca and michaela - a leading wlw romance on a major netflix production - makes me so, so happy. especially in the wake of ultraconservativism and traditional values pushed by governments and society; it’s so monumental that this story is getting to be told by a queer showrunner at the forefront.
the positive reception towards franchaela reminds me a lot of how the internet reacted to korrasami back in 2014, prior to the legalization of gay marriage in the united states. the dozens and dozens of videos from queer people - especially sapphics - screaming at the top of their lungs and crying tears of happiness because we finally got to win for once. we finally got to see ourselves represented in media that we typically wouldn’t be. no longer would we have to be content in the background, or content with seeing the beloved characters that we connected to buried six feet under because stories of our tragedy and suffering brought the most profit. showrunners could pat themselves on the back and still line up to receive tokens for representation without actually doing the work to give good meaningful representation. much like korrasami, franchaela is a story not just about sapphic (specifically lesbian) romance, but also interracial romance. franchaela is a huge step forward, especially because it’s in a genre that heavily relies on the self-insertion desires of heterosexual women.
at the same time, i can’t help but compare the dedication and full support of franchaela by shondaland/netflix to the lacklustre ways that avatar studios is approaching korrasami’s story nowadays. bryan konietzko - who used to be one of their biggest advocates - hasn’t posted or talked about them since 2022, with one of his last comments being that he wished he could do more for korrasami “back then.” like??? bryan, you have a WHOLE studio. you have the power to do as much as you can with them now!! and yeah, avatar studios falls under paramount’s MAGA corporation, but the sudden disinterest in korrasami was apparent as early as 2023, before the ellisons took ownership of paramount (if bryan’s ig stories are any indication, it’s not like he cares about what the head of his parent company actually thinks). you can’t seriously look me in the eyes and tell me that the people who came up with avatar pavi’s design are suddenly so afraid of queer representation because of the higher-ups. it’s a matter of them not wanting to add more to korrasami’s story, whether it’s because of avatar seven havens or something else behind the scenes.
if korra and asami’s story is truly complete like certain people at darkhorse comics are claiming, even though avatar studios is portraying more queer characters across the franchise than ever before, even though their straight counterparts (like katara and aang) have ongoing stories, then i think that that’s extremely disappointing and a huge blow to the audience that continued to engage in the franchise after korra ended, purely for korrasami.
I just want to make myself very clear - i’m not at all advocating for only korra and asami’s story to be told. i think all of the queer representation that we received from the franchise, especially in the world of avatar publishing, are big steps forward. i’m glad that the studio is introducing new characters. however, at the same time, the publishing queer characters would not exist had korrasami not paved the way. unfortunately, every thing that i’ve seen from bryke and the studio suggests that they are ready to move on from korra and asami’s story, which could potentially end in tragedy. and if it WERE to end in tragedy in avatar: seven havens, i would be exceptionally critical of this choice, as not only does korra go through an extreme amount of onscreen violence and suffering to “humble” her, but that bryke are literally regressing back to the 2010s with this potential narrative decision.
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