I thought Korra was 17 so Mike and I have to get our stories

Host:
The studio lights hummed like restless stars above a dim, cavernous animation room. Sheets of storyboards covered the long wooden table, each square filled with graphite sketches of faces, battles, and hearts in conflict. A faint smell of coffee, eraser shavings, and rain hung in the air.

The walls were lined with concept art — flying bison, cityscapes, blue flames, and soft pencil lines tracing the birth of another world. Beneath it all, the faint echo of a pencil scratching across paper whispered like a heartbeat.

Jack sat in a half-lit corner, his hands smudged with charcoal, a rough sketch of two figures in midair before him. His grey eyes stared at them — not as drawings, but as memories that refused to stay still. Across the room, Jeeny leaned over a lightbox, her black hair falling forward, the soft glow outlining her profile in a gentle halo. Her brown eyes, reflective and alive, watched the sketches as though they might start breathing.

Host:
And somewhere between them, the air shimmered with the echo of Bryan Konietzko’s words — words that belonged as much to the artists as to the characters they created:

"I thought Korra was 17 so Mike and I have to get our stories straight. The main characters are in their late teens, we've always loved those kind of teen love triangle type stories and there was plenty of that in the original series."

Jeeny:
(smiling softly)
It’s strange, isn’t it? No matter how many stories we tell, we keep coming back to the same age — that in-between where everything still feels like it could break or bloom at any second.

Jack:
(grinning, without looking up)
Seventeen. The eternal age of fiction. Old enough to fall in love, too young to survive it.

Jeeny:
That’s why those stories work. They’re not about love triangles. They’re about being caught — between who you were and who you’re terrified to become.

Jack:
(snickers)
You make it sound poetic.

Jeeny:
It is. That’s what makes it hurt.

Host:
Her voice floated through the room, low and steady, as if she were narrating the quiet ache of a memory she didn’t want to end. Jack’s pencil began to move again, sketching rough lines — one curved, one sharp — two forces circling each other but never touching.

Jack:
When I was a kid, I thought those “teen love triangle” stories were just cheap drama. You know, easy tension for lazy writers.

Jeeny:
And now?

Jack:
Now I think they were just honest. Nobody knows who they love at seventeen — not really. You just grab onto whatever feels like fire and pray it doesn’t burn too fast.

Jeeny:
(leans back, smiling faintly)
That’s not just seventeen. That’s every version of us that still hasn’t figured it out.

Jack:
Yeah, but back then, the confusion felt sacred. Every look was a revelation, every heartbreak an apocalypse. Now? It’s just— Tuesday.

Jeeny:
(laughs softly)
Maybe that’s why we keep writing about it. To remind ourselves that once, even heartbreak felt holy.

Host:
The rain began to tap against the studio’s wide windows, slow and rhythmic, blending with the sound of pencil and paper — a soundtrack made of quiet creation. The lights flickered slightly, making the sketches come alive for a breath — Korra, bold and uncertain, staring into a world that expected her to already know who she was.

Jack:
You ever wonder why we love writing about teenagers so much?

Jeeny:
Because they’re every version of us that still believes change is possible. Adults get stuck. Teens are all potential — chaos, mistakes, growth.

Jack:
Maybe that’s it. Maybe we write them to relive the parts of ourselves we couldn’t stand to keep.

Jeeny:
Or the parts we wish we hadn’t lost.

Host:
A small silence fell — not heavy, but reflective. The pencil in Jack’s hand stopped moving. His gaze drifted toward Jeeny, the faint glow of the lightbox painting her face like something softly unreal.

Jack:
It’s funny, though. Every story, every drawing — it’s the same emotion in a new disguise. Fear. Desire. Loneliness. They just keep wearing younger faces.

Jeeny:
That’s because youth is the only time those things feel pure. Adults just bury them under irony and bills.

Jack:
(chuckling)
So what you’re saying is — all good storytelling is emotional time travel.

Jeeny:
Exactly. We don’t write about teens. We write about the first time we realized the world could hurt and still be beautiful.

Host:
The lightbulb above them buzzed faintly, then steadied. Outside, the rain turned into a downpour, its rhythm syncing with the pulse of the room — the heartbeat of stories being drawn, erased, and reborn.

Jack leaned forward, adding shadows to his sketches — darker lines, sharper contrasts.

Jack:
You know what always got me about Korra? She was powerful, sure — but the best parts were when she didn’t know how to be. That tension between strength and uncertainty.

Jeeny:
(nods)
That’s the soul of being seventeen — the illusion that you can save the world before you even know how to save yourself.

Jack:
(smirking)
And then, of course, there’s always the love triangle.

Jeeny:
(laughs)
Of course. Because nothing says “hero’s journey” like emotional confusion and bad timing.

Host:
Their laughter filled the room — not loud, but sincere, like the sound of old friends remembering who they used to be. The rain outside softened again, its steady rhythm blurring the line between reality and recollection.

Jeeny:
You know, I think Bryan wasn’t just talking about storylines. He was talking about remembering what it feels like to be young enough to believe that love can fix everything.

Jack:
And old enough to know it can’t.

Jeeny:
(smiles sadly)
Exactly.

Host:
The studio clock ticked softly in the background. The pages on the table fluttered in the breeze from the open window — sketches of faces caught between laughter and longing.

Jack reached for one — a girl in motion, her expression fierce yet uncertain — and pinned it to the board.

Jack:
You think we ever stop writing about that age?

Jeeny:
No. Because that’s where the questions live. After seventeen, we just start pretending we’ve answered them.

Jack:
And the truth?

Jeeny:
The truth is, we never stop being those kids — torn between duty and desire, destiny and doubt. We just get better at hiding it.

Host:
The rain stopped. A sliver of moonlight broke through the clouds, slipping through the tall windows and spilling across the sketches — Korra, Aang, the whole lineage of youth and growth, framed by hands that never stopped believing in them.

The room was quiet now — the pencils still, the artists stiller.

Jeeny:
You know, maybe that’s why stories like this matter. Because even when the world grows up, it still needs reminders of what it felt like to be becoming.

Jack:
(smiles faintly)
Yeah. Seventeen forever — confused, alive, and not nearly ready.

Host:
The lightbox dimmed, the last glow fading across Jeeny’s face. The moon took over, bathing the room in cool, forgiving silver.

And as their sketches rested in the stillness — fragile, unfinished, infinite — Bryan Konietzko’s words seemed to echo one last time, no longer about age or plot, but about the timeless heart of creation itself:

That the stories we return to — the ones filled with love, mistakes, and becoming — are not about teens at all,
but about the eternal part of us
that never stops growing up,
never stops trying,
and never stops believing
that there’s still more to learn,
and more to feel,
before the credits roll.