in-progress meme
Feb. 16th, 2011 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bebootsIn a continuing effort to procrastinate on my homework (my thesis draft is staring as balefully as a pile of papers can at me from the corner of my desk), and, encouraged by the AWESOMENESS of everyone who seems to read this journal and their participation in that let-me-tell-you-a-history-story meme I held a few days ago... (People can still post prompts, by the way! It is by no means closed! You may even post a second prompt if you wish!) I've decided to participate in another meme that's been making the rounds of my f-list...
Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.
Upon request, I will post a random line or two from any of these you choose. Assuming that the file adds up to a full line, that is.
I'm not sure if very many people know, but I do write quite a bit of random bits and pieces of fanfic. My problem is that they're generally just snippets of scenes and dialogue at best... although I have a LOT of sometimes incredibly long outlines. So my WIP folder is actually quite large. My problem is that they always seem to STAY as WIPs, and never, well, progress to completion. In any case, I will post bits (or even more than bits!) for those curious.
On a completely separate note, I'm also planning on making a picture post to go with all of the responses to the history meme, possibly tomorrow or maybe later today. You shall get a historical image to go along with the story, so that you can put names to faces! :)
Anyway, here is the list of documents in my bulky "My fanfic" folder... Some of the titles you may recognize from pieces I have posted before, but others, not so much... I also tend to have rather descriptive titles (some with fandoms, some mysteriously without!), so hopefully some will strike your fancy! Feel free to request up to three at a time. :)
A Night Fury in the King's Service - Temeraire HTTYD cross
A Traitor Redeemed - Avatar(2009)
Against Thy Own Kind
An Extension of Trust
Avatar(2009) - Time travel
Aziraphale & the Werewolf - Crossover GO & HP
Azula's Revenge - timetravel
Blue Spirit Joins the Gaang, more or less
Carlisle & House
Chid on the Dragon Throne
Childhood Friends - Toph in the Fire Nation
Chinese Formation - Temeraire
Crowley the Familiar
Dr. Horrible, turning on the League
Draco Timetravel actual fic
Dragon!Zuko fic idea
Fangs and Flamethrowers
Far Removed - hetalia idea
Fire Lord Iroh AU
For the Greater Good - Good Omens
Forgotten
Genderswitch Temeraire idea
Good Omens - HP crossover Idea
Good Omens X House crossover idea
Guillaume Laurent - Temeraire idea
Hallucination - a temeraire fic
Hikago - ghost busters
In a Land Without Technology
Invader Dib
Language barrier - hetalia idea
Laurence's privateers - Temeraire AU
Left for Dead - temeraire fic idea
Lieutenant Laurence - Temeraire idea
Meeting Fire Lord Zuko - timetravel
Nunavut Ascendancy - hetalia fanfic
Phenix!Zuko
Possession - Hikago
Professor Fell crossover idea
Reincarnation - Temeraire idea
Sasori Sensei of Suna
Star Command Zim idea
Strange, Norrell and Potter
Tea Cart Zuko & Iroh
The Betrothed - Mulan
The Tides of War - Temeraire
Tumnus in Spare Oom - Narnia HP crossover
Um... yeah. I get distracted easily...? Some of these fic bits have been sitting there untouched for several years...
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 12:00 am (UTC)The Betrothed - Mulan
Date: 2011-02-17 12:16 am (UTC)(Sorry for the long intro - it's a long document. The following is now an excerpt from the outline as it's written now. Apologies for the tense confusion.)
She does not get much chance to recuperate from the birth, though – barely two days – before Huns attack once more. They’ve been trying to get all of the stragglers. Mulan has no choice (do or die) but to put on her father’s armour and take up the sword to defend her family – both old and young. She is fiercely determined to get them all out of this situation alive.
They are outnumbered, and things do look hopeless. But then, the sound of pounding hooves – Chinese soldiers! They push the Huns back. Exhausted but grateful, Mulan sits down right where she is. She was about ready to stammer out a thank-you when their commanders bursts in on the scene: Shang. He doesn’t look as calm and collected as he normally is. His eyes meet hers, and for a moment, Mulan forgets that she’s wearing her father’s armour, and that the relief she sees in his eyes is all for her sake…
And then he barks out: “Ping! What are you doing here?”
She can’t reveal herself now. “Pr-protecting my family.” She says, pointedly, between pants.
Understanding then dawns in Shang’s eyes as he spots Fa Zu. “Then… Mulan?”
Now she was stuck. She couldn’t claim that they left Mulan elsewhere – that would be the height of negligence, especially for Ping, a trained soldier. She has no other option but to impulsively say: “Dead, in the Hun attack. We burned the body yesterday.” Her voice was oddly flat, and she averted her gaze and hoped that the ruse worked.
Besides, Shang always respected Ping more than Mulan anyway. She could do more good now as Ping than as a woman.
The only reaction she gets out of Shang at this moment is a sharp intake of breath. His facial expression remains stern. Something inside Mulan dies a little at this lack of reaction. Had he ever loved her? (But Shang can’t show his emotions in front of his men – Mulan doesn’t quite understand that.)
----
“She had a son. She did her duty as a wife. There can be no higher honour, for a woman,” Ping – Mulan – said bitterly.
Later on, after they’ve escorted the Fa family back with them to the main bulk of the army (as well as a couple other straggling refugees), Ping is let in to the tactical talks – he has much information about the current whereabouts and actions of the Huns than the Chinese army have now.
----
“Mulan told you this.”
Shang doesn’t deny it.
Ping held his gaze. “You would have listened to her.”
Shang cannot deny this either.
----
Shang thinks that the reason why Ping is being so belligerent and distant is because he blamed Shang for his sister’s death… which is party true. She still blames him for not listening to her – then maybe things would have turned out better for the village, if he had left a few soldiers behind to help protect it. But Mulan also doesn’t want Shang to notice more similarities between the “twins”, now that he’s spent time with both.
Re: The Betrothed - Mulan
Date: 2011-02-17 12:19 am (UTC)Re: The Betrothed - Mulan
Date: 2011-02-17 12:23 am (UTC)Re: The Betrothed - Mulan
Date: 2011-02-17 12:27 am (UTC)Re: The Betrothed - Mulan
Date: 2011-02-17 12:47 am (UTC)Re: The Betrothed - Mulan
Date: 2011-02-17 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 12:18 am (UTC)In the meantime.... AHHHHHH.... so many of these look interesting! I'm a sucker for time travel, though. Tell me about Meeting Fire Lord Zuko - timetravel. :D
Meeting Fire Lord Zuko - timetravel
Date: 2011-02-17 12:39 am (UTC)This fic's main timeline would have been about ten years after the war's end, and many of the Gaang now have children. Iroh is recently deceased, and so Zuko is still wearing mourning white. (I think I wanted it this way so that he would be more brutally honest with the Iroh from the past). Anyway, this is a snippet of the outline for you:
It often falls to Sokka to babysit all of the kids (he has babysitting experience from his youth at the south pole). Nobody really wants to give them to nannies that they may not be able to trust, and the Gaang members have a lot to handle, job-wise, and it’s not as if Zuko can drag toddlers to conferences and trade talks, Aang and Katara still fly all over the world, and Suki still runs security with her Kyoshi warriors… and so Sokka is a man-mom, essentially. The kids spend lots of time with their parents and all, but during the day, when everyone’s busy, Sokka’s often the one the kids hang out with. He’s the “cool” uncle/dad anyway. Katara and Aang do bring their kids with them, oftentimes, especially on the longer trips, but for short ones, they like to give the kids the stability… so it’s not rare to see Water Tribe/Earth Kingdom/Fire Nation kids running and playing in the Fire Nation palace gardens.
(Side note: Toph is that crazy aunt with no kids who shows up and causes earthquakes. No-one ever suggests she babysit, though.)
Sokka likes to take the kids out flying with Appa when he can, because it’s something more interesting to do. They had been flying through a cloud, and Sokka had been trying to encourage Aang’s one airbending kid to come back into the saddle where he could keep an eye on her, but she was giggling and playing with him, swooping in and out of the mist with the glider her father had made for her… She was attempting to sneak up behind him and scare them all, but instead snuck up on… the second Appa with the time travellers! (The other Appa’s passengers are a younger version of Sokka, Aang, Katara… and Iroh, who never saw his nephew find his way/destiny again.) Cue shrieks from the airbending girl and the startled Gaang. Aang almost automatically tried to airblast whatever was coming straight for Appa’s face, leaving a girl tumbling down through the sky… and older!Sokka, of course, swoops down and saves her and gives her a scolding… (Sokka has mad Appa-driving skills)
(Yeah, this was mostly just a random idea for a scene. When the two Appas finally fly out of the cloud so everything could be clearly seen, older!Sokka clearly recognizes the others for what they are. I think that he pretty much just decides to let his Aang deal with trying to figure all of this out. Sokka hates dealing with things like this, which quite obviously must be spirit-world shenanigans.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 12:37 am (UTC)Reading through your history meme, too, and I'll come up with something to ask! (Studying? What is this studying thing of which you speak?)
Edited because I can't type.
Tumnus in Spare Oom
Date: 2011-02-17 12:45 am (UTC)Or, at least, Mr. Tumnus was fairly certain that this place was called “Spare Oom”. Lucy Pevensie had never been entirely clear about the name of the place that she had come from, and had thrown around names like “War Droab,” “Spare Oom”, “Aarth” and “Ingle-land” almost interchangeably.
Still, one thing was for sure: he definitely wasn’t in Narnia anymore.
---- (When he cheerfully went to a small nearby town to ask for directions, Tumnus ends up freaking out the muggles and eventually being captured by the Magical Creatures Department of the Ministry For Magic. Eventually, he somehow ends up either in the Burrow or in Grimmauld Place, I'm not sure which (or why).) All Tumnus now wants is to make some tea. ----
Mrs. Weasley, with the intent of helping him at the stove, drew her wand.
Mr. Tumnus started violently sideways with the sound of hooves skittering on linoleum, nearly dropping the pot that he was holding.
“Please put that away,” he asked her, not looking in her direction, even going so far as to hold a hand over his closest eye like a horse blinder.
“Why? It’s just a wand-“
“The last time someone pointed one at me, I woke up in a cell. And- and the time before that, I got turned into a statue, and the time before that, I –“
The faun sounded so distressed that Mrs. Weasley couldn’t not put her wand away.
Re: Tumnus in Spare Oom
Date: 2011-02-17 01:39 am (UTC)Haha, I'm actually not all that familiar with Narnia. I've seen the movie (2005? Or something??) of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but that's more or less the extent of my knowledge. XD Thus, my short comment.
Re: Tumnus in Spare Oom
Date: 2011-02-17 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 01:43 am (UTC)Dr. Horrible, turning on the League
For the Greater Good - Good Omens
Possession - Hikago
Dr Horrible, turning on the League
Date: 2011-02-17 02:48 am (UTC)Penny actually ends up joining a new task force bent on taking down supervillains. She hears that Dr. Horrible joined the League on the strength of her murder. The League itself was very quiet that year, likely because they were planning something big. Penny’s group is trying to find out what. Unfortunately, very little is known about the members of the League besides their names and their fabricated backstories. They don’t even have a good photograph of Dr. Horrible’s face, and he’s the newest member. The only shots they have are of him with his goggles obscuring half of his face.
Billy – Dr. Horrible – is trying very hard to enjoy being evil. However, as it turns out, the Evil League of Evil is mostly about murder, money, and fame, and not so much on the social change aspect of the agenda. Still, Billy is in too deep. He’s also subtly and not so subtly insulted when many of the League members insist that he focus on the mad scientist side of things – coming up with evil weapons – instead of doing battle with superheroes. Billy knows where his strengths and weaknesses are, but doesn’t like to be told his weaknesses to his face.
(Mostly this fic idea came out of the "nooo Penny... ;_; " reaction I've always had to the ending of Dr. Horrible. I also love the idea of Billy helping to take down the Evil League of Evil from the inside. He's not all that bad, really... )
Re: Dr Horrible, turning on the League
Date: 2011-02-17 04:07 am (UTC)He's a sweetie, really. His villainous aspirations always struck me as more idealistic than villainous.
(Didn't Penny find out right near the end that Dr. Horrible was Billy, i.e. she knows who he is?)
Re: Dr Horrible, turning on the League
Date: 2011-02-17 04:08 am (UTC)Re: Dr Horrible, turning on the League
Date: 2011-02-17 11:56 pm (UTC)I always thought she has a little moment of recognition, in "Slipping," where he sings "no sigh of penny good / I would give anything not to have her see / it’s gonna be bloody head up Billy buddy."
Buit it has been a while since I watched it and this is another thing I can add to my list of Things I Need to Watch over Reading Week.
For the Greater Good
Date: 2011-02-17 02:52 am (UTC)Anyway, they’re about mid-way through their meeting/discussion/interrogation, when suddenly a cellphone starts ringing. It actually belongs to Aziraphale, who has had it for less than a year.
(He was given it by a frustrated Crowley, who really needed to be in contact with Aziraphale right away at some point, but couldn’t, so as soon as he saw him again, he gave the angel a phone – he mostly uses it to annoy the angel, and has installed a plethora of annoying ringtones and calls him very often. Aziraphale still doesn’t understand how to read texts).
Only one person knows that number, so Aziraphale quietly excuses himself and answers (after half a minute of fumbling, because he’s still not used to the idea of cell phones).
It is, of course, Crowley. “Angel, you need to get out of there now.”
“Hello, my dear.” Aziraphale said, mildly. “I’m sure it can wait. You know that I’m meeting with, well...”
“Yes, yes, I know.” Crowley’s voice was impatient. “You didn’t think that Hell would pass up the opportunity to take down Michael when he’s in a mortal corporation?”
“What are you saying?”
“You heard me. Look, I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there soon. Just get OUT of that building.”
“...All right.” Aziraphale affirmed, dazed.
Aziraphale re-enters the room, looking worried. He barely gets a word out of his mouth before the window explodes behind him and he’s grabbed by a very pissed off, menacing Duke of Hell: Hastur.
Michael, of course, draws his flaming sword immediately, but he’s an angel, and wouldn’t cut through one of his own, even if it would mean that he could kill a duke of hell.
They trade insults, and feints, but Aziraphale’s still choking and bleeding, and it looks like a stalemate until... A Bentley crashes through the wall, knocking down both Hastur and Aziraphale.
The driver yells “Get in!” and the car’s doors pop open of their own accord. Not seeing what else they can do, the angels grab their wounded and hop in. Crowley accelerates in reverse, and they leave Hastur behind, howling in rage.
Michael and the others don’t immediately realize that Crowley is a demon. Especially compared to Hastur, he doesn’t radiate much demonic energy, and he is helping them – he’s very concerned for Aziraphale. They only realize when they get to their destination that Crowley is The Serpent.
When, about halfway through the trip, Michael realizes just who – and what – Crowley is, and as a knee-jerk reaction tries to smite him.
“Not while I’m driving!” Crowley didn’t shriek. “For Go- He- for-for goodness sake wait till I park first. Do you want us all discorperated?”
Re: For the Greater Good
Date: 2011-02-17 04:04 am (UTC)Re: For the Greater Good
Date: 2011-02-17 04:12 am (UTC)I also love the idea of Aziraphale and Crowley working together as an excellent team... and their immediate superiors SEEING this.
Re: For the Greater Good
Date: 2011-02-17 11:58 pm (UTC)YES, this. I love the line in the books where it talks about them being closer to/more alike one another than their respective sides.
Re: For the Greater Good
Date: 2011-02-18 12:28 am (UTC)Also, I haven't yet watched Supernatural, but I really want to after seeing this adorable video with Dean speaking with Castiel (an angel) over the phone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYwmpUGHjy8
Re: For the Greater Good
Date: 2011-02-19 02:36 am (UTC)Ahaha, I don't watch SPN either, but that clip is hilarious. (Aziraphale and phones would not mix either.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 02:57 am (UTC)(Hikaru and his family get into a very serious car accident. Sai frets.)
“Hello? Hey, can you hear me? Hello?” Came a voice, above the sounds of the firemen working to free them. “We’re coming to get you out! Can you hear me?”
“Yes!” Sai shouted back, for all that he knew that he wouldn’t be heard. “Yes, Hikaru is here! Please! Be fast!”
There was silence from the other end, like the man who had spoken was listening hard for a response. “Shit. Whoever’s in there, they’ve got to be hurt badly. Unconscious at the very least, dead at the very worst. Work faster.”
Sai felt very small, and very useless.
----Hikaru briefly wakes up ----
“It hurts, Sai.” Hikaru mumbled quietly, so quietly that even Sai had difficulty hearing him.
“I know, I know…” Sai murmured back, trailing cool, insubstantial fingers across the boy’s brow, trying to sooth Hikaru’s trembling. “Shhh… I’m here. They’re coming for you. Don’t worry. You’ll be all right.”
Hikaru huffed quietly in response. Or perhaps it was a sob.
“You’re being very brave, Hikaru,” Sai told him, keeping up his soothing motions, for all that Hikaru couldn’t feel them. Or maybe it just made him feel better, not being so useless. He had to do something.
“No, I’m not,” Hikaru replied, then was silent.
“Hikaru, of course you are – Hikaru? Hikaru?” Sai fell silent, listening hard. Hikaru was far too quiet. There was some missing sound, something important… Then he realized what he wasn’t hearing.
Hikaru wasn’t breathing.
Hikaru wasn't breathing.
Sai panicked.
(The idea was that Sai physically possesses Hikaru to get him breathing again, like spiritual CPR. And then he can't figure out how to stop, and Hikaru won't really wake up and take back the controls.)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 05:41 am (UTC)Phenix!Zuko Yes, I am predictable.
Phoenix!Zuko
Date: 2011-02-17 09:55 pm (UTC)This bit is from some scenes at the Western Air Temple. "Li" decides to teach the Avatar what firebending he knows, because any and all loyalty he felt towards his father and sister were completely extinguished when Azula actually KILLED him. (Also, whenever Prince Zuko comes up Li totally tries to do damage control on his reputation. He can't help it. He doesn't see himself as a bad guy.) This scene follows a training session with Aang that resulted in Li accidentally getting punched in the face:
There was something eerie about the child’s face.
“I’m going to make some ice for you to put on that black eye for now. The bruising could turn nasty. Come here. Sit down.”
Katara told herself she was just being silly. Children got bruises all the time. They were resilient. Katara held Li’s chin and turned his head back and forth, examining his black eye critically before reaching for her waterskin.
She was just being irrational. Still, what was it about this bruise on the left side of Li’s face, making his eye squinted and puffy, that gave her the shivers?
AND THEN THE NEXT DAY IROH TOTALLY SHOWS UP, having escaped the prison in the capital city. (Zuko is off exploring the temple with Teo and Haru)
“So where’s Prince Ponytail?” Asked Sokka, absently. “Didn’t you used to follow him around when he was following us around?”
“My nephew,” Iroh intoned stonily, “Is dead. Azula killed him, and burned his body in the catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se.”
There was a shocked, awkward silence.
“I- I’m sorry,” Sokka muttered. Everyone around the circle murmured their agreement. “I mean… you must have loved him.”
“Yes.” Iroh settled down next to the fire, joints creaking. “Yes, very much so. But he had changed. I believe that… in the end… he would have wanted me to help you.”
Yeah, because his sister and country betrayed him, Toph thought. But that didn’t make what Iroh was saying any less true.
“I will teach you, Avatar. On the condition that you stop this war, so no-one else loses a son – sons – like I have.”
Aang swallowed, and performed a traditional Fire Nation bow. “I will honour your request.”
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 06:52 am (UTC)I keep looking at this meme, thinking it looks like fun, maybe I should do it, and then I look at my file names which are all the actual title of the fic, or something like "Avatar 500 drabbles". Plus, my WIP fics are as follows: Children of Mars, "Mercies" (the next installment of Good People and Death Eaters) "Untimely" (Another installment of Good People and Deatheaters with a thousand word scene I just had to write out right then) "Threshold" (a short companion to "Between") Ice Flows Through, two A:tLA shortfics, That one where Yue and Zuko's roles are flipped, tentatively titled Zenith and Nadir and Xenolith. Other than Xenolith amd Zenith and Nadir, and the two A:tLA shortfics, I'm not hiding anything under my hat.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 09:42 pm (UTC)Ozai tells Iroh to relay the banishment terms to Zuko after the face burning because Zuko is inconveniently unconscious. But when Iroh is told “Zuko can only get his honour back if he captures the Avatar and bring him back to the Fire Nation in chains”, Iroh hears “ZUKO IS BANISHED FOREVER” because the Avatar has been gone for a century, right? And Iroh is probably right about Ozai’s terms for Zuko’s banishment; Ozai clearly doesn’t want his son returning.
So Iroh tells his nephew so.
“Banished… forever?” Zuko repeated, voice raspy, a look of lost confusion on his face.
Iroh winced. “I am paraphrasing. But yes.” Zuko flinched.
And essentially they travel the Earth Kingdom as peasants – earning their way with a tea cart! Iroh makes tea, Zuko makes the cakes. Iroh tries to teach his nephew how to enjoy life. Zuko still sucks at brewing tea for years, but he’s getting better. He can still make it better than the general public, but not by much.
Later on, while selling tea and food to a certain disguised Avatar and his friends… they are attacked by the Rough Rhinos! Iroh and Zuko assume that they’re after THEM, and the Gaang assume that these Fire Nation baddies are after THEM, so they end up teaming up and being awesome, defeating the Rough Rhinos in no time flat. Because they’re awesome. Scalding hot tea being bended into someone’s face is a must, because teabending rules.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 10:37 pm (UTC)This is kind of an adorable idea.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 10:40 pm (UTC)YES OMG. I mean, the first time it happens simply because Katara needed convenient liquid to fight with in a pinch... but then Iroh starts thinking about all of the wonderful possible applications of waterbending and tea making... :3
no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 04:27 pm (UTC)Child on the Dragon Throne
Date: 2011-02-20 05:08 pm (UTC)Summary: Iroh does not take kindly to Ozai humiliating, maiming and banishing a nephew he cares for. Now, with Ozai dead and Iroh himself banished for committing an act of regicide, the newly crowned Fire Lord Zuko does not know who he can trust.
---- (Here's a bit I had planned with regards to what would happen with Azula) ---
Azula is kind of torn by all of this. On the one hand, she was under the impression that SHE was going to become Fire Lord upon her father’s death, because of all of the implications with Zuzu’s general uselessness and then the day-long period after the Agni Kai in which he was to be (permanently) banished. But even if her brother were to conveniently die, she wouldn’t REALLY be in power – she’s twelve. She’d just be another puppet monarch, like Zuzu. And she wants to rule the Fire Nation with an Iron Fist and achieve the ultimate glory for herself.
So she waits. And plots. And decides to bump her brother off when she’s old enough to seize power.
One day, though, she is walking through the palace, accompanied by her school “friends”, Ty Lee and Mai. They are walking alongside an open courtyard, where Zuko sits serenely, pretending to be reading some letter/petition from his
adoring fansthe public. He looks up, smiles, and lifts a hand to wave (and Azula thinks don’t you dare use your public face on US, Dum-dum as Mai blushes at Azula’s side), and suddenly his eyes widen in shock as a fletched feather arrow blooms from his shoulder.Mai and Ty Lee, true to their training, leap into action. The arrow came from directly above their heads: a hidden archer on the roof. Ty Lee leaps up the wall and disables the would-be assassin as Mai scans the rooftops and courtyard for any other archers, before running to Zuko’s side. Azula is frozen for a moment, then joins Ty Lee on the roof for lack of any other thing to do. It is Azula, in fact, who spots the secondary archer, and takes him out with a well-aimed lightning bolt. A necessary sacrifice. If they came here intending to kill the Fire Lord, they should feel strongly enough about such actions to die for them if need be. (AZULA FEELS NO GUILT.)
Before he was taken away from the turtleduck pond on a stretcher, Zuko did take a moment to sincerely thank Azula and her friends, and that they were, well, awesome and skilled warriors and all that a Fire Lord could ask for. He says something like: “You are the perfect warriors of the Fire Nation.” And Azula could tell that he was totally sincere... and it WEIRDS HER OUT. She’s never gotten sincere praise from any of her family members before. Her brother had never really had much of a kind word for her before this (he could always see through her lies), her mother had thought she was a monster and had avoided speaking with her unless it was to chastise, and Ozai always had “constructive” criticism – never enough, she was never perfect. Never.
And yet – Zuzu had said she was. Well, she knew she was already. She didn’t need anyone to say it. Not really.
Well, maybe.
Re: Child on the Dragon Throne
Date: 2011-02-20 05:09 pm (UTC)She’s not going to turn good overnight or anything. The most immediate effect that this assassination attempt has on Azula is the fact that it strikes her that if SHE were to become Fire Lord, people would probably send assassins after HER too. Especially if she looked like a weak child monarch, like Zuzu. And it occurred to her that she wouldn’t have to worry about such things if she wasn’t the Fire Lord. So essentially, she decides to rule from the shadows, as the perfect princess and sister to the Fire Lord. That way, Zuko would take any flak or criticism for her actions (and be the target of what would otherwise be HER assassination attempts!), while she still had all of the power. Perfect. Her brother was a pushover, anyway, and probably wouldn’t notice, at least not for YEARS, not unless someone told him.
Zuko is treated by the court physician, and he formally thanks the three “Dangerous Ladies” with a feast of some sort a week later, his arm still in an elegant sling.
Another result of this assassination attempt? It makes Mai – and by extension, Ty Lee – extremely protective of Zuko. They become informal bodyguards, of a sort. Azula tags along (as much as Azula can tag along with ANYBODY), mainly because on some level, she likes the praise she gets when she saves her idiot brother’s life once again. The three girls view Zuko in a vaguely condescending but benevolent light – he can’t protect himself, so they have to do it for him. Mai does try to teach Zuko how to use knives properly (Zuko always keeps that Earth Kingdom blade his uncle gave him on his person at all times, even though it clashes with everything else. He needs the reminder, even if it’s tucked away, unseen, up the voluminous sleeves of his formal robes).
---Also, there's this random line that I really liked but I have no idea what to do with. Someone - possibly Aang? - commented on how impractical the Fire Lord's formal robes are ---
“My robes may impede my movement, but there is a practical reason that I wear them. People look at me, in them, and see the Fire Lord. Without them, I’m just a skinny teenager with a big scar.”
Re: Child on the Dragon Throne
Date: 2011-02-20 08:13 pm (UTC)