13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
I have had no issues with the link.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Arsonist's Lullaby: An Azula Timeloop Quest
- Thread starter Magery
- Start date
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Epsilon Rose
The King of Unrest
Huh. It worked fine on my other laptop, so that's extra weird.
Thank you for link that. It covers a lot of the ideas I was thinking of when I originally proposed that scenario and I enjoyed reading most of it. With that said, I'm less fond of the end.
One of the through lines of the fic is Kuei getting along with, and supporting, Azula and how that contrasts with how her actual family, and Ozai in particular, treated her. This is all well and good and I was hoping he'd become a father figure to her. Instead they get married. The story explicitly tells us that he's in his twenties and she just turned 14. She's probably 15 when they get married. He is, hopefully, still in his twenties.
They also have a daughter in the epilogue, which means Azula also probably got pregnant at 15, with someone at least 7 years older than her.
It's almost enough to forget the way Ursula swans in at the end and says she's proud of Azula, which is apparently enough for her sins to be forgiven. Unfortunately, that is literally the last thing that happened, so it's a bit hard to forget.
They also have a daughter in the epilogue, which means Azula also probably got pregnant at 15, with someone at least 7 years older than her.
It's almost enough to forget the way Ursula swans in at the end and says she's proud of Azula, which is apparently enough for her sins to be forgiven. Unfortunately, that is literally the last thing that happened, so it's a bit hard to forget.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Try bypassing your cache - I think it's [CTRL]+[F5] on most keyboards?
Hm. The main problem with that kind of relationship is the massive power differential between a socially-not-a-real-adult and a socially-a-real-adult. So Zuko at least is probably fair game for dating adults, at least in the Fire Nation, since he had a command position in the Fire Nation navy. ...Which means Azula is probably socially-an-adult, if an obnoxious-upstart-though-personally-terrifying-junior-officer sort of way ...in the Fire Nation. The Earth Kingdom does not seem to work that way.
JIMI94
Birdman with a cauldron on it's head
- Location
- The Garden of Earthly Delights
Thoughts:
0. Mad props to Magery for this quest! I really enjoyed everything so far, and I'll be stoked as heck whenever they decide to update.
1. Toph detects lies via tremor sense. Learning of this in character (if Azula doesn't already) and leveraging it for things more believable than time travel could be helpful when negotiating with the Avatar party.
2. Mai and TyLee may never believe the loops, but I think the right approaches would get them to agree to/believe a lot of stuff that Azula can only think of doing/would only know about because of the loops because of their friendship, and belief in Azula's intelligence/determination. This is already covered to some extent, but I think there's more to do here. (If nothing else my shipper brain demands Azula realize she might 'like' like TyLee, and have that be relevant!1)
3. 5/5 fire bending could be a requirement for beating Ozai. He's such an all encompassing force in Azula's mind that she doesn't even imagine questioning him, much less beating him. Her bending reaching a level at which she can no longer imagine something she can't use it against could be a step in realizing she could use it against him. Edit: apparently we're only 3/5, 3 for breadth of applicability, 5 for intensity of helpfulness in its niche. I suggest in a later post that it could go to 4 for breadth if she realizes she could beat Ozai (since I suspect she might not realize it despite killing the person who beat him several times in unmentioned previous loops), or if she already knows that, if she realizes a way to use Firebending that would let her fight nonlethally without sacrificing effectiveness.
4. Energy Bending is cool, and could make it easier to consider beating her dad if she doesn't have to kill him. Either looking up Energy Bending and sleuthing from there, Getting Aang to spill who taught him (since the identity could be as important as the location, which he may refuse to divulge), or just a montage of her looping while forcing him to use it on her until she reverse engineers it could be ideas. Since it's psychic, the Lion Turtle would be one of the few beings who'd believe her.
0. Mad props to Magery for this quest! I really enjoyed everything so far, and I'll be stoked as heck whenever they decide to update.
1. Toph detects lies via tremor sense. Learning of this in character (if Azula doesn't already) and leveraging it for things more believable than time travel could be helpful when negotiating with the Avatar party.
2. Mai and TyLee may never believe the loops, but I think the right approaches would get them to agree to/believe a lot of stuff that Azula can only think of doing/would only know about because of the loops because of their friendship, and belief in Azula's intelligence/determination. This is already covered to some extent, but I think there's more to do here. (If nothing else my shipper brain demands Azula realize she might 'like' like TyLee, and have that be relevant!1)
3. 5/5 fire bending could be a requirement for beating Ozai. He's such an all encompassing force in Azula's mind that she doesn't even imagine questioning him, much less beating him. Her bending reaching a level at which she can no longer imagine something she can't use it against could be a step in realizing she could use it against him. Edit: apparently we're only 3/5, 3 for breadth of applicability, 5 for intensity of helpfulness in its niche. I suggest in a later post that it could go to 4 for breadth if she realizes she could beat Ozai (since I suspect she might not realize it despite killing the person who beat him several times in unmentioned previous loops), or if she already knows that, if she realizes a way to use Firebending that would let her fight nonlethally without sacrificing effectiveness.
4. Energy Bending is cool, and could make it easier to consider beating her dad if she doesn't have to kill him. Either looking up Energy Bending and sleuthing from there, Getting Aang to spill who taught him (since the identity could be as important as the location, which he may refuse to divulge), or just a montage of her looping while forcing him to use it on her until she reverse engineers it could be ideas. Since it's psychic, the Lion Turtle would be one of the few beings who'd believe her.
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere
this is post-Black Sun Invasion, so Azula knows Toph can usually detect lies, but Azula proved that Toph can't detect her lies (purple platypus bear)
Epsilon Rose
The King of Unrest
Speaking of Ty Lee, depending on how her ability to see auras is being taken in this fic (i.e. can she actually see auras or is it just her having fun/contextualizing other observations), I feel like it should start impacting the start of loops. If she can see auras, and Azula's aura suddenly looks completely different from both how it looked a moment ago and what it normally looks like, then at a minimum it should raise some questions and, maybe, cause her some concern. It might even lead to her figuring out something is up with Azula and approaching her about it, even if she doesn't jump straight to time loops, on her own. (Though, maybe with some additional time to stew and a few instances of Azula knowing things she shouldn't or being ready for things that should have been a surprise ...) By the same token, if Azula does decide to tell them about the time loops, then it might help convince Ty Lee that she's telling the truth much more easily than Azula would expect.
Energy bending is a completely different style of bending. There's no more reason to think Azula could learn it than she could learn earth bending. Similarly, we've seen holding more than one type of bending is extremely taxing on humans (without a spirit like Rava helping them), so even if a Lionturtle could be convinced to give it to her, it probably wouldn't be a good idea.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
More precisely, Toph can detect when people are stressed. If someone can lie without being stressed or genuinely believes what they're saying, then she won't be able to get anything out of them.
(conversely if someone is stressed for some other reason - eg being interrogated by the Gaang - she'll get a false positive)
JIMI94
Birdman with a cauldron on it's head
- Location
- The Garden of Earthly Delights
Firstly, thank you all for the swift replies! The only thing I like more than gushing about my favorite quests on these forums is conversing with people about them!
With regards to the Lie detection, I did not know that. In that case, someone who's not as unflappable as Azula, TyLee for example, could be important to corroborate in such situations. Either way, I figure it's definitely known by Azula then. I often can miss things at times, like how I forgot to check what Azula's Firebending stat was [3,5], and thinking [5,5] was achievable. Perhaps instead it may become [4,5] if she learns the secrets of the dragons and makes them her own.
Related to that, my impression is that Azula's bending is so strong now, due to her own refinements and from what she's learned from everyone she's fought in her loops (which as far as I know have involved her killing just about everyone in the opposing side more than once, including Aang himself), that she could actually defeat her father in pitched combat. But her every action in front of Ozai speaks of someone who doesn't believe she could in a million years, even if she did it only to then conquer the world in his name and hand it over to him once she was sure it would stick. The only two things I can think of that would lead her to a conclusion like that, are that she doesn't think she can do it without killing him in the process, or that she doesn't even recognize that she could out-bend him. By learning non-anger based Firebending from the dragons/reverse engineering it from Zuko, and honing it with her genius, she could expand her understanding of Firebending such that she could either realize a way to defeat Ozai without unacceptably injuring or killing him, or indeed realize from what she's learned that there's no way Ozai could win against her in battle so long as he doesn't understand what she does. I feel that either of these would be worthy enough revelations to warrant expanding the breadth of what she can solve with Firebending from 3, to four out of five.
For Energy Bending, my impression was that it was sort of a higher order thing than the elemental bending styles, and that technically anyone could learn it (besides maybe non-benders), with the main barrier being the difficulty of finding someone to teach it, the difficulty of learning it from them, and the dire consequences for failing to do so. If so, I believe Azula, in this quest of all versions of her, could learn it. She is uniquely positioned with the ability to search for it, the intelligence to handle all aspects that are limited by talent, and the ability to use trial and error while learning it while no one else could. If the author says it would be like trying to learn other elements*, or if it never comes up in the scope of the quest, I'll accept that. Until then, I believe she's got what it takes if it does, even if the state of mind needed would be an even harder thing to get than everything else.
*: a different topic, but if I recall the idea was Lightning Redirection borrows concepts from Waterbenders to do what it does. I liked that, because I always felt that while only the Avatar could learn multiple elements, that benders who were open to the ideas of the other styles were stronger for it. I feel like in some ways, Azula has also done this without even knowing.
Epsilon Rose
The King of Unrest
Or he's her father and the Fire Lord and she's never really sat down and logically worked through whether or not she could beat him. He just occupies a larger than life space in her head. Getting better at bending wouldn't really change that. Instead she needs to realize that she A) can fight him and B) needs to, which will likely involve challenging her world view in more meaningful ways than precisely how amazing she is at fire bending.
I don't think we ever see any indication of that in the show and IIRC Aang gets fire bending the same way we see Wan getting the other bending styles.
IIRC, Iroh developed the technique after studying with water benders, so it very explicitly comes from water bending, though it is not actually water bending.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's a reason the character sheet is all Truths about how Azula sees the world instead of Martial/Stewardship/Etc. Raising Born Lucky didn't involve her becoming luckier, and I don't see any reason to expect Firebending to work differently. Azula can already do anything she sets her mind to, the tricky part is setting her mind to it.
Learning from the dragons could still help, because there's a whole alternate philosophy of firebending bundled up in there. The effect on Azula's character is what's important, not the breadth of what she can solve with Firebending.
- Location
- The Holiest of Cities
Finished reading this late at night, then instead of going to sleep ranted about it to my friends... decided to edit my rant into something a bit more coherent and post it here:
This is an amazing quest. I cannot get over my admiration for it, for all its aspects, from prose to character work to understanding what a quest it to mechanism.
The prose is amazing, it's like a mosaic, every word fits and is perfectly crafted and placed. But then the sentences, the paragraphs, the chapters... they all fit together, the smaller piece, though individually beautiful, each forming a perfect whole that is even more beautiful for it.
The character are beautifully crafted, each feeling like a full, complete person, even in the most minimal of interactions. I could go on and on, but I'm sure that's already been done, and honestly, words would not do enough.
Where I can wax eloquent, though is how this quest really gets what a Quest is. I'm going to say something that sounds weird - but Monty Python got it right. When seeking the holy grail, at the bridge, the bridgekeeper asks the knights 3 questions:
"What is your name?"
"What is your quest?"
"What [hard or easy question]?"
The first question - that's about you. Who were you, where did you start from? That's the basis for any quest - you have someone who left to go on a quest, and this quest is ultimately caused by him going on it.
The second question - that's about your goal. Where are you going? What do you want to accomplish? That is about the quest - what is the quest? What is its purpose?
But the third question, ohhh, that's the hard one. Even the easy ones in the skit were reflective of it. They asked not who you had been or what you sought, but who you were - what had you become, by being you, going on this quest, seeking your goal. That's a question of inner knowledge, of inner truth. Because that's what a grail quest (and indeed, in a sense, any true quest) is: A quest to reveal not the physical location and presence of the grail, but to reveal the inner truth of yourself, the best version of yourself.
So many quests are more like video games - they involve 'leveling up', getting the strongest gear, the best stats, the coolest attire, all so you can beat the 'big boss' and 'win'. But this quest knows it's not about. The only enemy to defeat is yourself - the worst version of you, so as to reveal and become the best version of yourself. And yeah, sometimes that involves gaining magic powers and becoming really good at it, or receiving an ancient artifact. But the 'grail' isn't the objective, really. It's not even a reward for being the best, in the truest sense. It is a natural consequence of being the best version of yourself - of being worthy. It's not found - it reveals itself to those who are worthy, even as they reveal themselves
And I think that for that, you've chosen the perfect mechanism - every loop is not about becoming 'stronger' or 'beating Zuko' in the conventional sense. It's about discovering more of Azula's truths, more of the way that Azula could achieve the best version of herself. Once she does, I truly believe she'll exit the loops - not because she's 'won', but because the best version of herself would know the truth of the world that would allow her to leave.
Lastly, I will add something about what I perceive as the 'failure state' of the quest - both failures so far occurred when Azula directed violence against a member of her family in an intentional way. I'm not sure if that's true for any family member - would the same happen for Ozai? - or whether it applies to any main cast member - would it happen it directed solely at Katara? - but in both cases it was a result of breakdown in communication. Of being able to only partially convey what Azula felt and wanted. I'm not sure what could achieve that kind of communication, but I think that's really what we have to try and achieve if we want to advance.
Thank you once more for such an amazing story, can't wait to keep searching
This is an amazing quest. I cannot get over my admiration for it, for all its aspects, from prose to character work to understanding what a quest it to mechanism.
The prose is amazing, it's like a mosaic, every word fits and is perfectly crafted and placed. But then the sentences, the paragraphs, the chapters... they all fit together, the smaller piece, though individually beautiful, each forming a perfect whole that is even more beautiful for it.
The character are beautifully crafted, each feeling like a full, complete person, even in the most minimal of interactions. I could go on and on, but I'm sure that's already been done, and honestly, words would not do enough.
Where I can wax eloquent, though is how this quest really gets what a Quest is. I'm going to say something that sounds weird - but Monty Python got it right. When seeking the holy grail, at the bridge, the bridgekeeper asks the knights 3 questions:
"What is your name?"
"What is your quest?"
"What [hard or easy question]?"
The first question - that's about you. Who were you, where did you start from? That's the basis for any quest - you have someone who left to go on a quest, and this quest is ultimately caused by him going on it.
The second question - that's about your goal. Where are you going? What do you want to accomplish? That is about the quest - what is the quest? What is its purpose?
But the third question, ohhh, that's the hard one. Even the easy ones in the skit were reflective of it. They asked not who you had been or what you sought, but who you were - what had you become, by being you, going on this quest, seeking your goal. That's a question of inner knowledge, of inner truth. Because that's what a grail quest (and indeed, in a sense, any true quest) is: A quest to reveal not the physical location and presence of the grail, but to reveal the inner truth of yourself, the best version of yourself.
So many quests are more like video games - they involve 'leveling up', getting the strongest gear, the best stats, the coolest attire, all so you can beat the 'big boss' and 'win'. But this quest knows it's not about. The only enemy to defeat is yourself - the worst version of you, so as to reveal and become the best version of yourself. And yeah, sometimes that involves gaining magic powers and becoming really good at it, or receiving an ancient artifact. But the 'grail' isn't the objective, really. It's not even a reward for being the best, in the truest sense. It is a natural consequence of being the best version of yourself - of being worthy. It's not found - it reveals itself to those who are worthy, even as they reveal themselves
And I think that for that, you've chosen the perfect mechanism - every loop is not about becoming 'stronger' or 'beating Zuko' in the conventional sense. It's about discovering more of Azula's truths, more of the way that Azula could achieve the best version of herself. Once she does, I truly believe she'll exit the loops - not because she's 'won', but because the best version of herself would know the truth of the world that would allow her to leave.
Lastly, I will add something about what I perceive as the 'failure state' of the quest - both failures so far occurred when Azula directed violence against a member of her family in an intentional way. I'm not sure if that's true for any family member - would the same happen for Ozai? - or whether it applies to any main cast member - would it happen it directed solely at Katara? - but in both cases it was a result of breakdown in communication. Of being able to only partially convey what Azula felt and wanted. I'm not sure what could achieve that kind of communication, but I think that's really what we have to try and achieve if we want to advance.
Thank you once more for such an amazing story, can't wait to keep searching
Dantalion
Insight: 367
- Location
- A Guest Room at the Brass Embassy, dying of Frenzy
- Pronouns
- Any
Only case in which it might not be a fail state for the loop is if it were Ozai - if done to any other main cast member, it'll end up getting back to Zuko, and then it's family v family again - or at least, Us v Zuko / Iroh. Even if we don't fight them at that point, that's a loss. Fighting Ozai... well, we might get away with it if we win and manage to side with Zuko.
Epsilon Rose
The King of Unrest
Azula mentioned loops where she went and killed Zuko before the day of the comet, resulting in someone else coming to fight her.
(Thanks @vladeg01 for finding the exact passage when I asked about it before.)
That means that fighting, and even killing, a family member is not an immediate failure, since the loop continued to the Agni Kai regardless. Similarly, the quote implies that there were loops where she fought Aang without having first fighting Zuko, implying that fighting a family member is also not a requirement for resetting the loop.
I think I agree with this assertion from earlier in the topic. Or the Agni-Kai itself isn't the fail state, so much as going through with it--having it declared and a duel happening in the first place.
I actually don't think fighting Ozai is necessarily the success state of the loops either, though. Or at least, it's not the act of fighting Ozai, so much as being able to get out from under his thumb. If that manifests as a fight, so be it, but if Azula ended up in an Agni Kai with him and ended up cooking him right this loop, it's still not going to lead to breaking them.
That being said, looking at the Truths, I wonder if this next conversation will reveal the ??? Community Truth? I imagine it's also important for breaking the loops, and I suspect unveiling it requires having a genuine heart-to-heart, one-on-one conversation with Zuko. Or more than one conversation, for that matter.
I actually have a question for magery about her raynare fic she made a while back. just one or two questions. mainly why did you stop and if you did keep going would raynare get her happy ending? super curious please bless me with an answer
infinityDivided
Prince Of Doom
- Location
- USA
If you wanted to ask the author about a fic that has nothing to do with this one, you should have posted the question on their profile or PMed them directly.
i tried man but they don't have an option for that. why don't you calm down?? so severe.
infinityDivided
Prince Of Doom
- Location
- USA
I don't particularly like seeing people asking "hey when are you getting back to this" in long-dormant threads, and even less so when they're asking about a different fic entirely.
...Also, what the heck do you mean "they don't have an option for that"? It's the "Start Conversation" button. And there's nothing stopping you from posting on their profile page.
- Location
- Canada
They've made exactly 2 posts, so they're just new to the site.
That being said, discussions that are off-topic to a thread generally aren't appreciated.
They can even be rule breaking if they're disruptive enough.
PM's are also not hard to find.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
Meh, up to Magery if they want to respond here or not. No point to be so aggressive about it to a new poster.
thank you. i guess i was to blind to see that button as i am not use to this forum layout anymore. i will do that.They've made exactly 2 posts, so they're just new to the site.
That being said, discussions that are off-topic to a thread generally aren't appreciated.
They can even be rule breaking if they're disruptive enough.
PM's are also not hard to find.
Magery
Life blooms like a flower, far away or by the road
- Location
- Australia
Gaslighting. Gatekeeping. Girlbossing. Girlwarcriming.
Long ago, the four categorical imperatives lived together in harmony.
Then everything changed when the time loops attacked.
Only Princess Azula, master of all four forms of repression, could deny them, but when the forum needed her most, she vanished.
Nearly six months passed and my editors and I discovered the new denial, "Third" Loop - The Southern Raiders. And although her wordcount is great, she still has more to unpack before she's ready to understand herself.
But I believe Azula can escape the loops.
Long ago, the four categorical imperatives lived together in harmony.
Then everything changed when the time loops attacked.
Only Princess Azula, master of all four forms of repression, could deny them, but when the forum needed her most, she vanished.
Nearly six months passed and my editors and I discovered the new denial, "Third" Loop - The Southern Raiders. And although her wordcount is great, she still has more to unpack before she's ready to understand herself.
But I believe Azula can escape the loops.
While it would be extremely personally funny to me to have simply left it at that at that and let chaos reign, that would be a little too callous, so:
Hello, everyone.
I will be posting the next update for Arsonist's Lullaby in three days, at .
If you still remember the quest fondly, you may wish to use this time to sneak in a quick reread—whether the whole thing, or just the last couple of updates—to remind yourself where, when, and who we are. It has been a number of months, after all.
My absence has been for several reasons, but the most prominent you can see in the new colour, and role, I have to my name. I won't bore you with the minutiae of forum administration or how many thousands of words of moderation documentation I've been writing instead of this quest, but suffice it to say between that and some changes in my work and personal life, opportunity and motivation for Azulooping were often lacking.
Thankfully, those days are mostly behind us. So here we are, with a 12,500 word update ready and raring to go.
I'll see you in three days.
(Art courtesy of @Elpis, my indelible friend.)
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Hurray!