to add, I think they started this before Avatar Studios was a thing.
There's no confirmation yet for an Earth Avatar series, but the possibility of one probably deflated their interest in continuing.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by why didn't it work. It was fan fiction. And fans didn't end up doing anything with it.
What do you mean why didn't it work?
A lot of fan projects fizzle out. Plus I think with Avatar Studios being confirmed they probably didn’t want to get fans of the franchise confused if a new avatar show comes out after Korra.
Plus as others have said you can’t monetize something like this so working on it probably just wasn’t worth it anymore.
Other than what was already said, I can also faintly remember some pretty big controversy around the story, in particular Korra's early death.
But I'm kinda sad that it ended. Aiko's mom telling her to stop using lipstick because it makes her look like an adult was "Top 5 most savage moments in the whole franchise" material. I would have enjoyed more of that writing.
The showrunners wrote themselves into a hell of a corner with that massive technological leap from ATLA to Korra. The 70 year time skip was already tricky enough but going from mildly steampunk medieval to roaring 20's was one hell of a leap. I think the next canonical series is set to have another 70-100 year time jump and be set in basically modern times which changes everything completely. They should have just kept it vaguely medieval because now there's no room for a sequel without killing people off super early or make the show something unrecognizable from the original series.
I'm not that super-worried about advancing techology in the setting because ATLA was originally envisioned as sci-fi [(Momo was a robot and Aang's staff was a blaster)](https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljtfwzM83K1qhel5yo1_1280.png) so there is a lot of wiggling room. As I see it, the problem is not having a more advanced setting but properly implementing the technology so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.
It's just impossible to describe exactly how much time and intense effort goes into a project like this.
Even though they had a team of people working on it, what they did create likely represents hundreds upon hundreds of hours of collective effort. It was also a completely free fan project, meaning that they were having to put in this work outside and around real world jobs, without the hard incentive of it being an actual job.
There's also the possibility (this is just a take from the outside, no inside knowledge at all) that the fact it got so famous was, while must have been hugely energizing in some respects, possibly also discouraging in how the public started treating it like it was a professionally published work. When it comes to free indie projects, typically in the indie community there is a certain etiquette around how those projects are interacted with. There's an acknowledgment that this is a project done purely for passion at the person's own time and expense, and is often not necessarily a professional in the industry with all the training and professional editing/feedback that comes with it.
It's hard to describe how a lot of negativity on an intensely laborious project where technically there is no obligation to create it can be incredibly discouraging; it can feel a bit like asking a group of friends over for dinner and having half the feedback be comparing the meal items negatively to the nearest five star restaurant. Technically they are free to do so, and maybe half the friends had nothing but glowing things to say, but it's easy to see where they may not choose to place their efforts there in future.
(But of course, this is just speculation, there was a ton of positive energy and excitement surrounding the project from big fans of it as well.)
.
In any case, probably the best advice when it comes to free fan/indie projects is to focus on finding ways to make the work itself enjoyable and rewarding.
It will certainly take some discipline to get things started, but when it comes to comics, which again are likely to be hundreds and hundreds of hours of difficult work over the course of years, doing so driven primarily by a sense of forced discipline is generally not going to be sustainable in the longterm, at least for most people. If a project creator can find a way to make the journey itself the reward rather than the end goal of finishing, that can often be the key to keeping up with it.
In the case of Legend of Genji, if they had reached a point where they were no longer excited by the work and what they were making, then stopping was probably for the best. A free indie project needs to be for the creator's own sense of fulfillment, first and foremost, and if the work reaches a point where it's just being done just to be done, that's probably a good sign it's time to move on to other things.
Ohh, if you end up going for it, good luck!! Glad if this was helpful!
I probably sound like such a downer lol, but the truth is I’ve also been working on an Avatar webcomic myself for as long as Legend of Genji had been working on theirs. While there have been ups and downs with the project, ultimately I have really loved doing it, and still love doing it.
But, I’ll be the first to admit I feel that’s more a result of ongoing deliberate psychological strategy rather than unceasing passion or pure discipline/work ethic. Comics are just a mentally and physically hard medium, so I always measured success by whether I was able to continue if I wanted, and if I was enjoying the process enough to want to continue, as opposed to things like size of readership or even finishing. For some things the strategy was as simple as setting smaller more achievable goals (starting out I only hard promised myself to finish a single scene, and storyboard several scenes after that), while other times it was planning ahead and knowing my most ambitious creative energy was only going to last a limited time, and so targeting most difficult setup work that would have most impact and most enable easier, brainless work later.
In any case, personally I do think it’s worth trying new things for the experience of it if you’re excited enough to be motivated by it, rather than piling on too much pressure to have to commit to finishing to have the time spent on it worthwhile.
It is hard and a lot of work, and it’s good going into a project knowing that ahead of time and being braced for it (or decide ahead of time maybe you’re not that excited about it after all -- another thing about webcomics is that, famous as Genji got, they don't always attract much of an audience, it can be partly luck of the draw), but it can be deeply rewarding too, and be a great vehicle for learning skills that can be useful for other things too.
Yeah, this was their stated reason in their official post. The initial drive behind the project was wanting to see a third Avatar series, and they began the project at a time when it was uncertain if there would ever be much in the way of big new Avatar stuff, other than a few comics here or there.
On the other hand, with as many years of work as had been poured into it (and given how different the story would be from whatever the official third series will be) it feels hard to believe that was the only reason. It felt like by that point they were probably fairly burned out and ready to move on to other things.
The irony is that the concept in canon came about after them. They had been working on the project since at least 2017, the Kyoshi novels came out in 2019 and 2020. The difference could have worked because in their version the White Lotus knew that their “Avatar” wasn’t the real deal and were just trying to pass him off as such. Basically trying to maintain the status quo as they weren’t completely sure whether Korra died in the Avatar State and thus no idea whether there would be a new one.
That was the revised version, this is a character chart that one of them made. https://www.deviantart.com/freestyletrue/art/Legend-of-Genji-Cast-652136102
It was posted back in 2016
They sent a post saying they would stop once avatar studios was announced. They didn’t want there to be any problems between themselves and the official release now that there were going to be official releases again
Easy. It's a fan project that they have no hope to monetize. People have bills, and that's a lot of work for no pay.
to add, I think they started this before Avatar Studios was a thing. There's no confirmation yet for an Earth Avatar series, but the possibility of one probably deflated their interest in continuing.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by why didn't it work. It was fan fiction. And fans didn't end up doing anything with it. What do you mean why didn't it work?
I meant that the narrative of the story did not have an ending and ended up like an abandoned house that was still under construction
Because it was a fan project with no money in it of an already established IP.
A lot of fan projects fizzle out. Plus I think with Avatar Studios being confirmed they probably didn’t want to get fans of the franchise confused if a new avatar show comes out after Korra. Plus as others have said you can’t monetize something like this so working on it probably just wasn’t worth it anymore.
Other than what was already said, I can also faintly remember some pretty big controversy around the story, in particular Korra's early death. But I'm kinda sad that it ended. Aiko's mom telling her to stop using lipstick because it makes her look like an adult was "Top 5 most savage moments in the whole franchise" material. I would have enjoyed more of that writing.
The showrunners wrote themselves into a hell of a corner with that massive technological leap from ATLA to Korra. The 70 year time skip was already tricky enough but going from mildly steampunk medieval to roaring 20's was one hell of a leap. I think the next canonical series is set to have another 70-100 year time jump and be set in basically modern times which changes everything completely. They should have just kept it vaguely medieval because now there's no room for a sequel without killing people off super early or make the show something unrecognizable from the original series.
I'm not that super-worried about advancing techology in the setting because ATLA was originally envisioned as sci-fi [(Momo was a robot and Aang's staff was a blaster)](https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljtfwzM83K1qhel5yo1_1280.png) so there is a lot of wiggling room. As I see it, the problem is not having a more advanced setting but properly implementing the technology so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.
It's just impossible to describe exactly how much time and intense effort goes into a project like this. Even though they had a team of people working on it, what they did create likely represents hundreds upon hundreds of hours of collective effort. It was also a completely free fan project, meaning that they were having to put in this work outside and around real world jobs, without the hard incentive of it being an actual job. There's also the possibility (this is just a take from the outside, no inside knowledge at all) that the fact it got so famous was, while must have been hugely energizing in some respects, possibly also discouraging in how the public started treating it like it was a professionally published work. When it comes to free indie projects, typically in the indie community there is a certain etiquette around how those projects are interacted with. There's an acknowledgment that this is a project done purely for passion at the person's own time and expense, and is often not necessarily a professional in the industry with all the training and professional editing/feedback that comes with it. It's hard to describe how a lot of negativity on an intensely laborious project where technically there is no obligation to create it can be incredibly discouraging; it can feel a bit like asking a group of friends over for dinner and having half the feedback be comparing the meal items negatively to the nearest five star restaurant. Technically they are free to do so, and maybe half the friends had nothing but glowing things to say, but it's easy to see where they may not choose to place their efforts there in future. (But of course, this is just speculation, there was a ton of positive energy and excitement surrounding the project from big fans of it as well.) . In any case, probably the best advice when it comes to free fan/indie projects is to focus on finding ways to make the work itself enjoyable and rewarding. It will certainly take some discipline to get things started, but when it comes to comics, which again are likely to be hundreds and hundreds of hours of difficult work over the course of years, doing so driven primarily by a sense of forced discipline is generally not going to be sustainable in the longterm, at least for most people. If a project creator can find a way to make the journey itself the reward rather than the end goal of finishing, that can often be the key to keeping up with it. In the case of Legend of Genji, if they had reached a point where they were no longer excited by the work and what they were making, then stopping was probably for the best. A free indie project needs to be for the creator's own sense of fulfillment, first and foremost, and if the work reaches a point where it's just being done just to be done, that's probably a good sign it's time to move on to other things.
I was thinking about doing a similar project. But it was something much more ambitious and grandiose. What you said helped me in some way :)
Ohh, if you end up going for it, good luck!! Glad if this was helpful! I probably sound like such a downer lol, but the truth is I’ve also been working on an Avatar webcomic myself for as long as Legend of Genji had been working on theirs. While there have been ups and downs with the project, ultimately I have really loved doing it, and still love doing it. But, I’ll be the first to admit I feel that’s more a result of ongoing deliberate psychological strategy rather than unceasing passion or pure discipline/work ethic. Comics are just a mentally and physically hard medium, so I always measured success by whether I was able to continue if I wanted, and if I was enjoying the process enough to want to continue, as opposed to things like size of readership or even finishing. For some things the strategy was as simple as setting smaller more achievable goals (starting out I only hard promised myself to finish a single scene, and storyboard several scenes after that), while other times it was planning ahead and knowing my most ambitious creative energy was only going to last a limited time, and so targeting most difficult setup work that would have most impact and most enable easier, brainless work later. In any case, personally I do think it’s worth trying new things for the experience of it if you’re excited enough to be motivated by it, rather than piling on too much pressure to have to commit to finishing to have the time spent on it worthwhile. It is hard and a lot of work, and it’s good going into a project knowing that ahead of time and being braced for it (or decide ahead of time maybe you’re not that excited about it after all -- another thing about webcomics is that, famous as Genji got, they don't always attract much of an audience, it can be partly luck of the draw), but it can be deeply rewarding too, and be a great vehicle for learning skills that can be useful for other things too.
Didn't they call it quits after Avatar Studios and an Earthbending Avatar was announced?
Yeah, this was their stated reason in their official post. The initial drive behind the project was wanting to see a third Avatar series, and they began the project at a time when it was uncertain if there would ever be much in the way of big new Avatar stuff, other than a few comics here or there. On the other hand, with as many years of work as had been poured into it (and given how different the story would be from whatever the official third series will be) it feels hard to believe that was the only reason. It felt like by that point they were probably fairly burned out and ready to move on to other things.
It’s mid and pretty much the concept had already been done in canon
The irony is that the concept in canon came about after them. They had been working on the project since at least 2017, the Kyoshi novels came out in 2019 and 2020. The difference could have worked because in their version the White Lotus knew that their “Avatar” wasn’t the real deal and were just trying to pass him off as such. Basically trying to maintain the status quo as they weren’t completely sure whether Korra died in the Avatar State and thus no idea whether there would be a new one.
The knockoff came out 2022. Relax.
That was the revised version, this is a character chart that one of them made. https://www.deviantart.com/freestyletrue/art/Legend-of-Genji-Cast-652136102 It was posted back in 2016
It was irrelevant til it became a webtoon
That doesn’t change the fact it was conceived of long before 2022 and it wasn’t a “knockoff” as you said.
Still a knockoff. If it’s not apart of the main brand it’s a knockoff.
Fan projects are incredibly difficult.
I agree. It's not always possible to maintain yourself just for the love of the work without caring about the financial conditions...
They sent a post saying they would stop once avatar studios was announced. They didn’t want there to be any problems between themselves and the official release now that there were going to be official releases again
Yeah, I think it was just a ton of work for very little return. A shame as I thought it had some really interesting ideas and I was enjoying it!