Cold Beboots was cold

[beboots]

The final evening at Christmas Reflections at Fort Edmonton! It ended up being like -27C in the river valley... The poor draft horses had frost all over their coats, and were brought into the stables (switched out for tractors AKA "mechanical horses" ;) ) halfway through the evening. I took a shower right before I left for work, and I put my hair in braids while wet. So after I lit the bonfires, and I realized about an hour into my shift that my braids had frozen. SOLID. Like, icicle cores. D: 

CHECK IT OUT



PIPI LONGSTOCKING COSPLAYS = NOW RIDICULOUSLY EASY. 

And for comparison purposes, here is what it looks like defrosted. SO FLOPPY



Here is a shot of the glorious bonfire I made yesterday, to warm you up wherever you are. :)

Comments

[feral-shrew.livejournal.com]

That scene especially might need a beta. I'm probably going to give my muse free rein on that one, and write it whenever the mood strikes. I yawn at gore unless it's medically accurate, so this is going to be messy.

The worst part is that I can do nearly anything I want, and I can have Katara in the wings with Spirit Oasis water to save the day. That means that Zhao can get creative, and that I get to have hyper-sadistic-bloodlusting Zhao in my head. It might be a bit darker than the series, but imagine that canon-Zhao had Zuko in custody, and discovers that Zuko=Blue Spirit. Ozai has progressed to "you know what? I don't care if you bring me his head or bring him to me in chains, but if you give me his head I won't have to execute him," so there's no aftermath/accountability. Zhao can do whatever he wants, maybe with the caveat that he should leave the face clean except for the scar that's already there.

This is also when Katara finds out that Zuko = Fire Lord's son / prince / exile, just for added dramatic tension (and some plot that doesn't revolve around blood and fleshy bits). As a bonus, the random crazy chick they picked up that's intimidated by some clouds is the Fire Lord's daughter. (The mindbenders tried to use her for a project of theirs, and Azula is on nearly-permanent crazytime. Just like in Firefly, she's at her sanest when telling her big brother that he's an idiot.)

I get a little leeway in "I completely and totally didn't make this nasty stuff up" because I'm mirroring a television series. I finally finished casting (it only took weeks), I have most of my plotline figured out, and I finally figured out just what I need to do with Azula.

Most of the skiing hills around my area are little commercial things where the big hill is maybe three times the size of the bunny hill. I'm in mid-Michigan, where you can get better action sledding sometimes. (We sled like crazy fuckers, if you go with the right people. You haven't gone sledding until you're trying to run up the hill with people sledding down at you-- we had nearly all of my biology class there trying to murder each other, essentially, but somehow it was amazingly fun. We all were so hyped about it the next morning that we spent the first half-hour of class talking about it. We were sledding until at least 1:30 and our class started at 6:55.)

[beboots.livejournal.com]

"That means that Zhao can get creative, and that I get to have hyper-sadistic-bloodlusting Zhao in my head. It might be a bit darker than the series, but imagine that canon-Zhao had Zuko in custody, and discovers that Zuko=Blue Spirit. Ozai has progressed to "you know what? I don't care if you bring me his head or bring him to me in chains, but if you give me his head I won't have to execute him," so there's no aftermath/accountability." THIS. THIS I can definitely see happening. D: (And I still second my motion to be a beta-reader.)

"This is also when Katara finds out that Zuko = Fire Lord's son / prince / exile, just for added dramatic tension" Also YES! :D

I'm also quite intrigued by them picking up Azula... and I'm interested to see how you'll portray her relationship with her brother. I have a soft spot for fics in which she shows some modicum of affection for Zuzu, even if it's in a "hey, only I'M allowed to hurt him" kind of way. ;)

Also, I totally just watched the first episode of Firefly last night at a friend's party. Must... watch... more...

The ski hills near the city are the same way... Edmonton has a rather steep river valley, but again, it's not that tall: not compared to the mountains, at least. Also, sledding is awesome! I haven't been since I was much younger, but we used to own several crazy carpets and, of course, those old GT Racers... (These things: http://www.bobandandrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/sno-racer.jpg )

[feral-shrew.livejournal.com]

"I'm also quite intrigued by them picking up Azula... and I'm interested to see how you'll portray her relationship with her brother. I have a soft spot for fics in which she shows some modicum of affection for Zuzu, even if it's in a "hey, only I'M allowed to hurt him" kind of way. ;)"

SO much yes. Azula never acts affectionate (except the one time when he's unconscious and still bloody and she curls up next to him to reduce any further threats to ashes), or if she does it's with some cutting comment after so nobody starts having thoughts, but she spends most of her time insulting him. Zuko starts out worrying that she's going to leave the instant she's sane enough to realize what's been going on, but then the two of them grow into something approaching a good relationship.

When Azula grows into her badassery, she's extremely protective of him. She whomps on him in sparring matches (and the same goes for Iroh and Toph--I have my reasons for why that happens), but in actual fights nobody goes near him. "Only I get to hurt him" is probably very accurate.

Mai is around, but not love interest-ing. I think it'll be Zuko and Katara, since they keep stealing the main points of the plot and turning them into interaction. Katara gets the epic plot arc of "I hate him" to "I don't trust him" to "Okay, fine, I guess all that torture proves I like him" to "OMG he takes his shirt off to practice?!?!?" to borrowing lines from Kaylee. Zuko's is very simple. "She hates me." "She doesn't hate me anymore, she just likes it when I'm not there." "She doesn't actively dislike me" "She's actually really pretty when she doesn't want to bash my head in" "I like her"

He's not so much of a masochist that "I like her" comes when she is looking for a reason to beat him up. He just acts like it on TV.

Zuko saves her from the mindbenders, after Ozai sent her there. Zuko gave up his crown and his honor and a whole lot of status, he got his face all burned up, and he alienated Uncle while he was insisting that he had to get Azula out of there. He's too much of an idiot to hold all that against her properly, so it's not like she owes him anything, but she needs to look after him so he doesn't repeat any boneheaded stunts. She only has one brother, and doesn't trust Ozai to make any other good ones.

Yay a convert!!! Seriously, Firefly is like that. My friends dragged me to a couch and made me watch the first ep (I very, very rarely watch television), and I was instantly ready for the next episode. (Point of interest, the first ep was never aired, and the second ep was written in about twenty-four hours. Train Job is still awesome).

The series was more famous when it was off the air, and I think all new fans set out to convert other people to watch the show. It's like a cult, but you can find the series for about $20 if you shop at the right place, and instead of brainwashing you get excited conversations where you end up repeating nearly everything that Jayne says, or imitating a very, VERY epic conversation between Zoe and Mal during War Stories.

[beboots.livejournal.com]

"Azula never acts affectionate (except the one time when he's unconscious and still bloody and she curls up next to him to reduce any further threats to ashes), or if she does it's with some cutting comment after so nobody starts having thoughts, but she spends most of her time insulting him. Zuko starts out worrying that she's going to leave the instant she's sane enough to realize what's been going on, but then the two of them grow into something approaching a good relationship." YES YES YES PLZ. Awesome.

"Katara gets the epic plot arc of "I hate him" to "I don't trust him" to "Okay, fine, I guess all that torture proves I like him" to "OMG he takes his shirt off to practice?!?!?"" XD LOVE IT. I also love Zuko's character arc. ;)

"He's too much of an idiot to hold all that against her properly, so it's not like she owes him anything, but she needs to look after him so he doesn't repeat any boneheaded stunts. She only has one brother, and doesn't trust Ozai to make any other good ones." <3 SO TRUE. I'm also intrigued by the detail of alienating Uncle Iroh. When/how will he realize that Zuko was right?

... $20 in the right place? I will definitely keep an eye out! :DD

[feral-shrew.livejournal.com]

Azula is going to be different from the show. I'm keeping the core parts of her personality (damn smart, she can understand what people are going to do and how she can manipulate them to do what she wants, driven, needs to be the best at what she does--and under all that, she's afraid of what will happen if somebody else is better). The surface actions and thoughts, though, are going to be very different. Azula's father sent her to hell. Her mother thought she was a monster (or so Azula believes, so that's all that matters), Iroh didn't care about her, and her father was the one that sent her to the mindbenders. She starts sending Zuko letters, even if he'd be better off if he ignored them, and he comes for her.

Zuko breaks her out of that place, and gave up everything for her, and their dad hurt him, too. That last part might actually be why she decides to trust him, because her mental processes are extremely sporadic.

Azula and Katara are actually very similar, personality-wise. Azula has the sadistic streak, maybe, but they're both confident prodigy benders that were spoiled and always called special for what they could do with their element. They're used to being right, they don't like being questioned, they don't really want to be the younger sibling...

"<3 SO TRUE. I'm also intrigued by the detail of alienating Uncle Iroh. When/how will he realize that Zuko was right?"

Iroh realizes in the first chapter of the Avatar/Firefly mashup. I have the rest of the casting listed out, finally, but Iroh and Zuko meet up almost right away. Iroh still doesn't understand quite what happened at first, so he ignores him at first, but then he sees crazy!Azula and realizes that Zuko was right from the start. Iroh had turned away earlier, so Zuko shuts him out. He doesn't need anybody, he'll just go live out in the middle of nowhere and find a job so that he can take care of Azula.

Then Katara's crew adopts him and he's a criminal for a living. Kind of. But they're stealing from people that steal from people, so maybe it's better?

[beboots.livejournal.com]

"Zuko breaks her out of that place, and gave up everything for her, and their dad hurt him, too. That last part might actually be why she decides to trust him, because her mental processes are extremely sporadic." So Zuko is literally the only family member she can trust? ;_; Also, I have to wonder, then, how she reacts to seeing Iroh on Appa...?

[feral-shrew.livejournal.com]

Zuko is the only person from her family she wants anything to do with. She ignores Iroh, generally. He's not a threat, and never was outright dismissive of her, but he didn't help her and he didn't spend time with her when she was a kid. Ursa is gone somewhere, and she vanished to protect Zuko, and Ozai has an uphill fight if he wants to make Azula stay in the same building.

She eventually starts to get her mind back to herself, and then she and Iroh can have a little bit of a bond. It gets a lot better when Iroh is the first person to figure out what the mindbenders were trying to do. Zuko knew fragments, Iroh knows the history.