AZULA
Let me tell you about my mother...

-Merc
Keep Rat

AZULA
Ah, Ty Lee! How wonderful to see you again!

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I like to think Azula is thinking, Oh look, another hallucination! They could probably hang, though. They've got a lot in common.

--G.
I doubt that if Azula is ever kissed, she'll melt a path to the core of the planet and destroy it? But you never know.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>I like to think Azula is thinking, Oh look, another
>hallucination! They could probably hang, though. They've got a
>lot in common.

AZULA
So what was it like in baby jail?

FLAME PRINCESS
Pretty boring, really. Oh! But on my tenth birthday, Dad made a couple guys fight to the death for me! That was kind of interesting.

AZULA
Really? My father did the same thing for my tenth birthday.

FLAME PRINCESS
It was pretty neat, but I think I like being the one doing the fighting myself.

AZULA
As do I. I can't believe we haven't hung out before.

FLAME PRINCESS
I know, right? Want to go run a dungeon?

-Merc
Keep Rat

KATARA
Someone must have wanted Sokka's wolftail pretty bad to pull a twisted stunt like that.

AZULA
Actually, as incompetent haircuts go, it's not that bad. Besides, it'll grow back.

KATARA
(annoyed)
Yeah? And how do you explain that to these kids here, who have never seen a Water Tribe warrior before, and now probably won't ever have the desire to see one again?

AZULA
(raising voice slightly)
Children, it'll grow back.

KIDS
Yaaaay!

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Brian

In this case I am under certain collaborative constraints.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

As someone said here a while back, I'm still waiting for Korra to do something legendary.

>As Kristy McNichol once said, in a movie perhaps only I remember,
>"It's my dream! I want a happy ending!"

"The Pirate Movie". Kristy McNichol played Mabel opposite Christopher "The Blue Lagoon" Atkins as Frederick. Oddly enough, there were *2* movies based on Pirates of Penzance released around that time. The other was "The Pirates of Penzance" with Linda Ronstadt as Mable, I. Don't Remember as Frederick, and Kevin Kline as the Pirate King.

Jeanne

	Jeanne Hedge http://www.jhedge.com
"Never give up, never surrender!"

Yes, this was the oddly clever (some of the time) ripoffadaptation made because of the success of the show on Broadway at the time.

>The
>other was "The Pirates of Penzance" with Linda Ronstadt as Mable, I.
>Don't Remember as Frederick, and Kevin Kline as the Pirate King.

And this was the Broadway show brought to film. Right down to looking like it was filmed on a stage.

Don't forget Angela Lansbury as Ruth. Frederick was some Tiger Beat coverboy of the time, IIRC... Rex Smith, thank you, IMDB. I still have no idea who he is/was, but he's been working almost continously these past 30+ years... <blinks, studies IMDB page> He played Daredevil in a 1989 Incredible Hulk TV movie. Dear god.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

Mm. Well, positively legendary, anyway. If the race ended right now (as motorsport commentators are forever saying), she would go down in history as a hopelessly poor judge of character, a serial failure, and easier to play than an autoharp. It's hard to credit the notion that this was the actual creative intent.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

And then she matched two pirates up with each other instead of two of her sisters...

-- Bob (who remembers, too)
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

Goddammit, I don't have time for their leisurely-ass production schedules! I've already bent a couple of internal stanchions waiting as long as I have for part 3 of this goddam thing. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

I'M KIDDING I'M KIDDING PLEASE DON'T TURN ME INTO DOG FOOD AGAIN IT WAS DEEPLY UNPLEASANT AND I AM NOT A FAN

The hell of it is, I'm not sure if you're talking about Azula, or about Ursa. :(

Try imagining being one of those of us who have been waiting since 2008 to find out what became of Azula and her crazy antics.

>You know what, I've figured it out. I'm the Mike Holmes of character
>arcs. People screw shit up, then I come in, look at what they did,
>and wander around muttering to myself in a vaguely hopeless tone of
>voice as I examine it, because I know in my heart that I'll never be
>able to just leave it that way; I gotta tear it all down and put it
>back up.

INT. DAY - AZULA'S CELL

(AZULA sits on the floor in the corner, staring vacantly at the sun. She's a mess. Outside of the cell, peering in, are ZUKO, GRYPHON, and TY LEE. GRYPHON is wearing heavy-duty construction overalls, a hard hat, and a tool belt. He writes intently on a sheet of carbons.)

ZUKO
So do you have an estimate for me?

GRYPHON
I think we've got you covered, Fire Lord. I can have a crew in here by the end of the week to begin the restoration. Her load-bearing structures are completely shot, but that's actually a good thing; it means we can get right in there and start building a new narrative from scratch. If you just want her to be a tolerable human being, my rates start at 20k words.

(GRYPHON rips off a carbon and hands it to ZUKO.)

GRYPHON
That's just for your basic job, though. You want a full redemption arc, all the bells and whistles, we're talking half a million, easy. And that's assuming I don't find more damage in there; previous owner really did a number. It's all there in my quote.

(ZUKO checks the quote. He frowns.)

ZUKO
I'm going to have to say no to the full arc, we don't have the budget. What can you do for me in the vein of a farcical dramedy that ends up with her more "cheerfully crazy" as opposed to "setting me on fire crazy"?

GRYPHON
You want the hardwood floors, or the tile?

ZUKO
(firmly)
Tile.

GRYPHON
Quarter of a million words. Maybe 300k if I can't find the right materials.

TY LEE
(raising a hand and jumping up and down)
Oo! Oo! Can we get-

GRYPHON
Romantic subplot is usually another 15k words, minimum. But I tell you what, kid, I like you. I can do it in 10k if you don't mind her a little rough around the edges.

(TY LEE clasps her hands in front of her and stares at ZUKO with her great big wet grey eyes. She leans into his personal space.)

TY LEE
Pleeeeeeeeease?

ZUKO
(sighing)
... fine.

GRYPHON
Superb! We'll be in touch.

-Merc
Keep Rat

>>... and man, I just, no. Unacceptable.
>
>The hell of it is, I'm not sure if you're talking about Azula, or
>about Ursa. :(

Well, it depends.

(Uh, spoilers again, I guess?)

What happened to Ursa, in itself, has been unacceptable to me since volume one. That shit plays giant double-handful minor-key power chords on a comprehensive selection of my fuck-that buttons.

Her within-story reaction to it? Perfectly understandable, albeit disappointingly weak-wristed. In her position I'd have murdered the sonofabitch in his sleep on my way out, but then, if I were a woman, I expect I would be pretty generally vengeful about being dragged away from my home and family and forced to bear some monstrously evil stranger's children. (Especially if I happened to be an expert poisoner, what was that supposed to be?)

Heck, at the end, she's a lot more upbeat about it than I'd have been. In the above scenario I would, I suspect, feel no particular inclination to ever see the aforementioned children, much less apologize for "not loving them enough". (I'm sorry, what? Consider yourselves lucky you didn't get what your old man got, kiddos. I owe you more than that, I don't think.)

So yeah, I mean, I detest that entire storyline. It makes my flesh crawl in a couple of different directions at once. On the other hand, most of what I hate about it is history before it's even told, which makes doing anything with it - we might as well continue the home renovation theme - a little like remodeling a basement. You can fool around with the interior layout all you want, but the basic shape of the perimeter walls is always going to be the same unless you get out the dynamite. Let's face it, how else are Zuko and Azula going to happen? No woman with even a fragment of a human soul is going to bear Ozai's children willingly, for christsake. So the whole structure is compromised a priori, and correcting it is virtually impossible.

Now. As to Azula...

Well, I mean, on the one hand, where we last see her in volume three could be used as a starting point. This was put to me by my colleague before I'd read it myself, and now that I have, I can see what he means. And I know it's what he would prefer me to do, rather than go straight to DEFCON 1 (outright, wilful defiance of canon). Since, as time passes, I grow ever more concerned that I'm going to have to do that eventually with the followup series anyway, well, I have to pick my battles, you know? :)

On the other hand, I mean... bleah. I find it distasteful to acknowledge this plotline even as tacitly as that. Starting from there is like one of those math problems that have arbitrary complicating preconditions included just to make them harder.

So I don't know what I'm gonna do. Only that, because of the perverse way in which my brain is wired, I'm probably gonna be compelled to do something, because it just... it will not do.

>Try imagining being one of those of us who have been waiting since
>2008 to find out what became of Azula and her crazy antics.

Well, hey, another couple of years for the next series to focus on something else entirely, and then they'll probably get back to her in the one after that, right? Easy!

As to the theoretical metascene, in actual practice Mike Holmes rarely talked about the specific costs of jobs before his most recent series (when they started including an outright cost breakdown in the summary), and almost never to the homeowner; but it's cute, and sometimes not that far off the actual process. Although...

>TY LEE
>(raising a hand and jumping up and down)
>Oo! Oo! Can we get-
>
>GRYPHON
>Romantic subplot is usually another 15k words, minimum. But I tell you
>what, kid, I like you. I can do it in 10k if you don't mind her a
>little rough around the edges.

... I actually don't like Ty Lee very much, so I doubt I would give her such an extravagant discount. :)

--G.
What? She's obnoxious.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Volume 1 is just a giant mess in a lot of ways. I know that they needed a story. I get that, it makes sense! But, I mean... can you guys not be so goddamned messed up about? The Fire Nation Royal Family has already reached its quota for being screwed the fuck up. It does not need additional deliveries backed up to that metaphorical loading dock of family trauma.

The hell of it is... originally, the conception for Ozai and Ursa's marriage is, yeah, arranged and all, but way way back in the day Bryke were on record that in its early days it was a relatively happy and stable union and there were genuine happy times before Ozai took his dark turn and everything went to shit.

And the series actually bears that out. You know? Zuko in Zuko Alone (The Storm is an entirely different beast) doesn't ACT like a kid who has a soulless husk of a father who he fears; he's even comfortable running up to Ozai and making imperious, impolite demands of him. He's scared of his sister, sure, but other than that they have a perfectly serviceable-seeming family life.

Making everything awful and terrible from the beginning in The Search kind of undermines a lot of what the actual series did, which in my view is a bad thing; one, the series generally did everything right, so you want to reinforce that rather than back away from it, and two, it is bad form to come along after the and undermine prior work in that way; it always seems a little insulting to the audience when I see it done.

>Her within-story reaction to it? Perfectly understandable, albeit
>disappointingly weak-wristed. In her position I'd have murdered the
>sonofabitch in his sleep on my way out,

Presumably Ozai was aware of that possibility and taking precautions, but really, the logical thing in Ursa's position is to go after both Azulon and Ozai at the same time rather than cutting a deal with the one, given that with the both of them gone Iroh becomes Fire Lord, and even "sure, lets get thousands of people killed at Ba Sing Ce" flavor of Iroh is a better choice.

Then again, maybe Azulon was protected in ways Ozai could get around that Ursa couldn't.

>but then, if I were a woman, I
>expect I would be pretty generally vengeful about being dragged
>away from my home and family and forced to bear some monstrously evil
>stranger's children. (Especially if I happened to be an expert
>poisoner, what was that supposed to be?)

Classic and overused narrative device. Those Country People with their Natural Herbal Wisdom have access to all kinds of miracle herbs and drugs and poisons that you City Folk just do not.

>Heck, at the end, she's a lot more upbeat about it than I'd have been.
> In the above scenario I would, I suspect, feel no particular
>inclination to ever see the aforementioned children, much less
>apologize for "not loving them enough". (I'm sorry, what? Consider
>yourselves lucky you didn't get what your old man got, kiddos. I owe
>you more than that, I don't think.)

Well, I mean, lets be fair here; Ursa did spend close to ten years raising the children of her body. Attachments form.

> well, I have to pick my battles, you know? :)

No comment. :)

>So I don't know what I'm gonna do. Only that, because of the perverse
>way in which my brain is wired, I'm probably gonna be compelled to do
>something, because it just... it will not do.

I'm sure you've heard this from others, but for the sake of putting it out there... just because you feel compelled to sit down and do something about Azula doesn't mean it has to be in the context of your enormous twenty-year-old Wold Newton shared universe. Plenty of very, very talented people got to the end of Atla, saw their favorite villain chained to a grate having a mental breakdown, and basically went "Wait... what? Her story just ends THERE? Oh I think not. I think NOT." and went from there.

You'd be in good company, is what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong, per se, with there being twenty thousand words out there by Ben Hutchins that aren't attached in any way, shape, or form to a larger cosmology. Sometimes you just remodel the living room with tasteful pastels rather than excavating the Geo-Front.

>>Try imagining being one of those of us who have been waiting since
>>2008 to find out what became of Azula and her crazy antics.
>
>Well, hey, another couple of years for the next series to focus on
>something else entirely, and then they'll probably get back to her in
>the one after that, right? Easy!

Well now I'm just depressed about the whole situation again.

>As to the theoretical metascene, in actual practice Mike Holmes rarely
>talked about the specific costs of jobs before his most recent series
>(when they started including an outright cost breakdown in the
>summary), and almost never to the homeowner; but it's cute, and
>sometimes not that far off the actual process. Although...

Full disclosure: I have not actually seen any of Mike Holmes shows. Well, I mean, I might have. Like Food Network and History Channel, HGTV is sort of background noise in my home. It's always there, but I'm not necessarily always paying close attention. I do recall a lot of commercials for it, though. And my general experience is that all of the "guy helps people rebuild their fixer-upper/beautiful but run-down Colonial/etc" shows kind of... blend together into a sea of thoughtful middle-aged white guys in overalls with close-cropped hair (tats optional) stroking their chins thoughtfully as they price out marble countertops and stainless steel appliances.

Also, it isn't as funny if Gryphon can't give Zuko quotes for putting in new tile floors and maybe fresh gutters on Azula. :)

>... I actually don't like Ty Lee very much, so I doubt I would
>give her such an extravagant discount. :)

Fair enough. I like Ty Lee quite a lot, but sometimes I wonder if I really like her, or if I like the idea of her I have in my head.

-Merc
Keep Rat

I can see where it might look that way from over there, but I know better by this point. I'll just end up doing it twice if I try to do that. :)

>And my general experience is that all
>of the "guy helps people rebuild their fixer-upper/beautiful but
>run-down Colonial/etc" shows kind of... blend together into a sea of
>thoughtful middle-aged white guys in overalls with close-cropped hair
>(tats optional) stroking their chins thoughtfully as they price out
>marble countertops and stainless steel appliances.

There's some of that, certainly, but the Holmes shows are a bit different from the usual run, in much the same way that Good Eats was not quite the usual cooking show. I think that's probably why I like them when the typical "let's get on the This Old House bandwagon" shows bore or annoy me.

>Also, it isn't as funny if Gryphon can't give Zuko quotes for putting
>in new tile floors and maybe fresh gutters on Azula. :)

True. I think her problems are mainly electrical, though. There's no way any of that wiring is to code.

(Tile, Zuko? Really?)

>Fair enough. I like Ty Lee quite a lot, but sometimes I wonder if I
>really like her, or if I like the idea of her I have in my
>head.

I might've had a lookup failure. It's the other one I mildly-to-moderately dislike. (Although I expect Ty Lee would be pretty hard to take in person. Too chirpy.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I find that I *like* Ty Lee, but that she isn't actually very *likeable* herself, what with the being giggly-happy and then whipping out the Vulcan Nerve Punch. Azula on the other hand, I actually like, because she's a villain who enjoys her job at least. Yes, she's a terrible evil person, and she knows it and loves it, which is much better, for me at least, than your Anakin Skywalker-type morose types.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I might give'em a look then. I did like Good Eats.

>True. I think her problems are mainly electrical, though. There's no
>way any of that wiring is to code.

... of course. A wiring metaphor. Why the hell didn't I think of that? It works on so many levels.

>(Tile, Zuko? Really?)

Well, not that cheapass ceramic or (ugh!) vinyl stuff, certainly. We're talking porcelain here. Maybe granite. Only the best for his little sister! Or something.

Complete and utter tangent: in my own head, Zuko has a mostly-unconscious affection for things that can't burn or be set easily on fire. A big fan of glass, stone, metal, tile... things like that. I just really see him loving things that can't be burned down.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Well, that's more promising than what I'd have imagined:

"What do you think, Gryphon?"

"I think this character should be condemned. There's serious moral fatigue in all her load-bearing members, her wiring is substandard, she's completely inadequate for our power needs, and her attitude is like a demilitarized zone."

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

"Hey! Does this - "

No. Stop.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.