Yes. Laura, Rhian, and Mairwen were able to convince her that "Her Celestial Majesty Azula the First, Phoenix Queen of Dìqiú" would probably not fly with the New Snowdonia Department of State's computers when the time came to retrosynthesize her identity documents, so they registered her as Laura's orphaned half-sister (Victor's brother's daughter by a different woman) from Tomodachi instead. "Sarah" is Laura's late mother's name; "Inazuma" is Japanese for "lightning".

--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.

That's only because they hadn't made contact with Diqiu at that point.
I'm sure they have procedures for dealing with foreign royalty.

Polychrome

True, although then they would have had the United Republic Ministry for Interstellar Affairs going, "... Snowdonia says what now?" :)

--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.

Well, seeing as how 'inazuma' translates to 'lightning', I'd give it pretty good odds! Actually, I kinda like this outcome, even if it still has nothing to do with the current Diqiu story. It's internally consistent and puts Azula in a situation where there's no expectations she has to live up to, which is what basically ruined her life before.

>Props to SC 47 for making the right decision, even if it's for the
>wrong reason.
>Also, is "Sarah Inazuma" a new name for Azula?
>
>Polychrome

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu

Well, I don't know as I'd call it an "outcome". I mean, it's high school, that's sort of by definition a transition period.

I considered a couple of different next phases after Blue Harvest that featured Gryphon following up the case himself, including one set very shortly after it in the late Golden Age and another that would have been a sort of prototype/prequel of Weapon of Choice, earlier in the Exile, but neither really worked for me; among other things, they weren't breaking anything that might be called new ground.

In playing around with the concept for the second version, though, I began to realize that the basic idea worked as a sequel to (the flashback parts of) Weapon of Choice. Making Laura the protagonist in a story that mirrors her own puts her in the unique position of having to take point on the salvage of another discarded weapon, recognizing and making an effort to connect with a kindred spirit. Keep in mind, this is less than a year after her escape from the Facility, so she's just barely an actual person herself at this point. So that is a fairly big job for her to be taking on, but I knew she would take it on, because a) she doesn't back away from challenges and b) she recognizes, as she says to Azula in the epilogue, that it's a chance to pay forward what was done for her.

And of course, as so often in this stage of her life, she couldn't have done it without Rhian and Mairwen. Perhaps even more so than Gryphon and Sir Victor, on a day-to-day basis, they are the keys to her - I can't even call it a recovery, technically, because she's not getting any thing back; she never had a childhood or any but the barest vestiges of human connection before.

It helped, also, that The Maiden in the Ice is the kind of title that naturally lends itself to a prepended Laura Kinney and. :)

--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.

It's also very therapeutic. You get to hit things and by the very nature of the position, you're obliged not to be particularly bothered by hairs out of place. (I expect she's still one of the most visually together rock drummers anyone's ever seen, causing people to wonder how she does it, but still.)

--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 don't know why, but suddenly I'm seeing her as the Spinal Tap drummer who spontaneously combusted, only she'd laugh and keep playing through and after...

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

Oddly, this is not the first time someone on these boards has envisioned Azula as a member of Spinal Tap. :)

--G.
"I don't think the problem is that the band was DOWN, the PROBLEM was that there was a Walled City of Ba Sing Se on stage that was in serious danger of being CRUSHED by a DWARF."
-><-
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.

Well, if the final episodes of ATLA are anything to judge by, her crazy definitely goes up to 11.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

In fairness to Azula, everything went up to 11 that day.

--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.

"Look DaveAzula, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

I was just in here looking for something else, and wanted to take a moment and pout that nobody got this. :)

--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.

Knowing Miss Wakeman (and the series from which she comes) only secondhand, I lack sufficient background to detect any but the most obvious jokes here. And there aren't any of those. Closed-captioning for the reference-impaired would be appreciated.

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

Well... XJ-9 joining a band called "Discarded Weapons" (when, as I understand it, blowing stuff up is something she's optimized for but not terribly interested in) is fairly obvious, but I'm slightly surprised that nobody cottoned to why she'd be the keyboard player, specifically. I mean, I know some of you people are as old as I am, and anyway, recorded music is pretty atemporal these days. :)

--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 some of us aren't big enough Yes fans to make the connection. It happens.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

Exactly. All I know about Jenny Wakeman is her appearance and the name of the show she's from -- and the only member of Yes I know by name is the lead singer, and premature senility (and being too lazy to Google) are robbing me of that right now...

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