#i may be... how you say... overidentifying with this character

[echthr0s]

↖ plagued by visions (vividly experiencing, on a constant loop, my Durge seducing and then eviscerating Alfira in a paroxysm of ecstasy) (they'd put a bubble of silence around them both so no one else in camp can hear her -- moaning or screaming) (Wyll is awake. he sees it all. his attraction to Durge is a nauseating gnashing in his core)

[sokkastyles]

Iroh is likely to hold a selfish grudge against Azula forever, he absentmindedly gave her gift from imperial conquest, abandoned her to an abusive household, shows angry and contempt to her before she does anything wrong, repeatedly tells Zuko to hate her and beat her up, says she’s crazy, puts Zuko and Azula against each other, gets angry that he got burned when he backed her into a corner, tells Zuko she doesn’t love him, even after she makes a speech about how much she loves him and wants him by her side, and treats Azula like the devil, while treating Ozai with much more compassion than he deserves

he’d probably want he to be executed, have her bending taken away, etc.

He also abandoned his traumatized 16 year old nephew to rule over a country all by himself for one of the most selfish reasons ever, so he can open a damn tea shop in a city he wanted to commit genocide in, which is in another continent, he also doesn’t show up to his coronation, what a dick

he also decides not to stop the airships and instead gives that job to 3 children, so he and his cult members can selfishly “liberate” Ba Sing Se because it was his “Destiny” what an asshole

I may be harsh on Ursa, but at least she TRIED

This is why the Azula fandom can't have nice things.

He's not "likely" to hold a selfish grudge, and doesn't in canon, so that argument is moot, anyway. Iroh is actually the one who says in the comics that going with Zuko to find Ursa might be good for her, because he clearly cares about her and wants her to have that closure.

He "absentmindedly" gave her a gift? What the fuck does that even mean? Azula also very purposefully burned that gift, though, while calling her uncle a lazy fatso. Azula stans trying to downplay or justify that by saying Iroh's gift wasn't good enough is really, really ugly behavior, and not an argument I am interested in.

He doesn't show contempt for her "before she does anything wrong", he is actually polite when she shows up lying to his and Zuko's faces, but he doesn't walk into her trap because he sees straight through her. Pretending that she did nothing wrong, when she absolutely has malicious intent there, is stupid and dishonest.

Same with pretending Azula was just defending herself in the Chase, because the reason she was there is because she had mercilessly tracked down the gaang, Zuko, and Iroh. Them teaming up against her is what we call Karma.

Even then, though, Iroh isn't actually angry at Azula. Even when he says "she's crazy and needs to go down," it's delivered in a deadpan and humorous way, not an angry way, and he says it for Zuko's benefit, to tell Zuko that he is allowed to defend himself. It is not about his feelings at all.

He doesn't pit Zuko against her, or tell Zuko to beat her up. He also doesn't treat Ozai with any compassion whatsoever. That's all complete nonsense that actually hurts your argument because it's transparent that you have no actual argument.

I'm also not going to entertain any argument about Iroh opening a tea shop in Ba Sing Se because he also was instrumental in saving that city, which actually changes the whole situation, which is why you left it out. He also did not abandon Zuko. I don't agree with everything in the comics but what they actually show is Zuko not wanting to bother Iroh, but when Aang takes him to Iroh at the end, he says Zuko is always welcome there.

And lol, Ursa "tried" according to you when she's not the current target of your nonsensical rant, but I don't think for a minute that you won't try to turn your "criticisms" towards her if you think it might absolve Azula of responsibility. That's all this is, just the completely ridiculous ramblings of someone who overidentifies with a selfish and cruel character because it feeds your own victim complex. You don't want Iroh or Ursa to try to help Azula, because that won't feed said victim complex.

Again, this is why the Azula fandom can't have nice things.

[animanightmate]

Milady?

I started doing a Musketeers rewatch tonight. No particular reason for it except wanting to do it for ages and everyone else was out of the house, it’s been a long week of poetry grafting and I’ve ordered a pizza, kids, so I’m starting again from 1.01. [cracks knuckles]

And it occurs to me, halfway through second-screening looking at “depictions of The Musketeers in media” that, while I’ve looked up many of the characters and their origins in history (and St. Isidore knows how much I also know about the period’s clothes, food, geography, and social structure), well, all my research has been on the men (The Inseparables, The Cardinal, Rochefort, Tréville, the King, and some of the Marshalls of the Franco-Spanish War) and those real life ladies of the royal court. And never, for some reason, Milady. Surely she’s a fictional character, fashioned out of whole cloth by M. Dumas, yes?

Hmm. Perhaps not. Dumas borrowed her nearly as thoroughly from other sources as he any of the rest of them, including two of the novels of Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras from the turn of the 18th Century which provided such mete material for some of the rest of them. In this instance, combining English Queen Henrietta Maria’s lady-in-waiting in one with a branded woman from another. And a couple of other people cite her, or someone with one of her many aliases, in their memoirs as having an antagonistic role in the plot to rob the Queen’s diamonds. You know: the famous Musketeer story they totally flagged then subverted for Bonnaire’s second appearance? Maybe that was just me.

And then the next section of the Wikipedia article appears before my eyes, and I somehow skip the heading (because that’s how my brain works when I’m in this mode – all tiny details) and move on to read how some dude in the 50s, name of Sudley (Lord Sudley, in his introduction to that edition), posits that there’s a reason that discovery of the trefoil mark on Milady by men who are her intimates, witting or otherwise, causes them to recoil in disgust and her to lose her shit and kill ’em. It’s not a real brand, he says: it’s a metaphor. Uh-huh? The fleur-de-lis is a symbol. Of what? Come on, Sudley, stop hinting. Why is this unusually tall woman who apparently looks gorgeous in repose but hideous when enraged such a figure of “terror and horror”?

Oh. Oh, right. He’s full-out conjecturing with his ripe and nod-wink language that Milady is a trans woman. Terror and horror, huh? Nice.

He goes on further to suggest that she’s based on real-life trans spy the Chevalier d’ Éon. What’s interesting to me about that is that a) the Chevalier was just brilliant, and for convoluted reasons I already knew a fair amount about them, and b) some of the older depictions of Milady on screen took a very similar line to the Chevalier’s re: style. See:

By unknown (RKO Pictures) - http://www.doctormacro.com/movie%20star%20pages/Grahame,%20Margot-NRFPT.htm, Public Domain, Link

By After Jean-Laurent Mosnier - Philip Mould, Public Domain, Link

Me? I’m not sure what to make of this (apart from Sudley clearly being one of those classic obsessed-with-genitalia transphobes, unless I’ve missed my mark here), especially in light of one of the theories about the Chevalier being that they were intersex. I’m torn between: yay! Trans/ GNC People In History And Popular Culture! and FFS! non-cishet folk are not just there to be mainstream media’s horrifying baddies. (One of my issues with s3, for example, is how they played up the homoeroticism... but only between the villains. [sigh] – again: just me?)

In short: I really want to play with the idea (partly because I see a lot of trans!Porthos, one very memorable trans!Aramis, the occasional cross-dressing Constance, and one fabulous canon era genderqueer Flea – yes, I may have overidentified with the depiction; what?! – but I’m yet to see a trans!Milady), but I’m feeling cautious about doing this with someone many Musketeers fanfic writers seem to brand as irredeemably evil. I’ve not dealt particularly kindly with her myself – mostly having her turn up as a prop/ strop for Constance’s assertiveness – and I’ve been meaning to do something about that, but this? Hmm. Unsure.

Thoughts?

[echthr0s]

#i may be... how you say... overidentifying with this character

lol, and I cannot overstate this, lmao

↖ plagued by visions (vividly experiencing, on a constant loop, my Durge seducing and then eviscerating Alfira in a paroxysm of ecstasy) (they'd put a bubble of silence around them both so no one else in camp can hear her -- moaning or screaming) (Wyll is awake. he sees it all. his attraction to Durge is a nauseating gnashing in his core)