esmenet | (no subject)

Okay, this looks like a meme that's fun and something I might actually finish:

Give me a character I'm familiar with and I'll either write you a ficlet (~100 words) or the equivalent amount of personal canon. (Academic!Zuko is totally a separate character from canon!Zuko, btw.)

Maybe this will help with the writer's block? (fma_ladyfest deadline on the eighth. Eep!)

EDIT: An explanation as to why I haven't written the aca!Zuko fic yet, in response to the question when, where and how you see him diverge from canon!Zuko?

I'm actually not sure about that yet! It's probably either a slight difference in him, when he was young, or a difference in the Fire Nation as a whole. Because I have it in my head that the Fire Nation, and parts of the now-Earth Kingdom, used to speak a very different language than the fairly unified one they do in canon, but I haven't figured out how late they would have given that up as the official language. People would still speak it for a while after it was made un-official, at home if nothing else, but even if Aang's slang was outdated it was still understandable. Which would mean either that it was made un-official more than a hundred years ago, or that people in the Fire Nation still understand a fair amount of it even if it sounds outdated and awkward. (Which might mean that Zuko and Azula learned some of it from Ursa? Or maybe Zuko was a tiny child-academic who studied it on his own?)

And of course I've no idea at all when the Earth Kingdom was unified and made to speak a single language, since it was probably a bunch of different ones for a very very long time. ^_^

So pretty much the difference between academic!Zuko and canon!zuko is all wrapped up in regional and linguistic differences in the A:TLA world and the things he learned/was taught before he got banished. Canon!Zuko, for instance, can probably compose some acceptable poems, but academic!Zuko would have learned enough classical court poetry to spot references to it in everyday speech. (Which could lead to all sorts of fun in Ba Sing Se, when he has a moment of thinking "oh, they're referencing that famous poem that compares alcohol to politics -- wait, no, crap. wrong language, wrong country. no, wait again, are they taking International Poetry at the university? Are they the kind of people who would make cross-language references about plotting against the government? Or is there an Earth Kingdom thing they're referencing here that I'm missing entirely? ARGH.")

So basically my writing of academic!Zuko is stalled by my ignorance of Asian literary traditions and linguistic differences, which are the kind of thing that I could easily spend the rest of my life researching. ~~And it would be AWESOME.~~ And this is why I can't really answer your question, because if I knew enough to answer it completely I could start the damn thing. XD

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I wouldn't be surprised if there were female Dai Li! But of course you can't tell unless you already know, because of the uniforms. And I'd bet it's not so much a "women can't become ____" type thing and more social oppression. "I won't have my daughter doing X," or your friends gradually sliding away from you, that kind of thing. But for the Dai Li or the university or the army(probably) if for nothing else, should your parents let you sit the exams and you pass, you're in.

And I can definitely see Mai introducing the concept of 'promotion on merit' to the other areas of Earth Kingdom life.

Hmm, they probably would have somewhere special to keep the uniforms. Maybe they have lockers somewhere in the Palace?

true firebending

Oh man, I forgot about the Sun Warriors! Iroh would probably send them a letter or something, if they didn't already know. The question, then, is if they stay put, lend any direct help at all (would they be okay with people finding out they were still around? Or would they just send a few people with knowledge of the Ancient Ways (tm) to go out and teach firebending at the newly-built shrines/temples?) or try to take over.

I'm very tempted to put Zuko at the South Pole about when he was in canon, looking for Water Tribe sagas and information on the Avatar, but something about that just doesn't feel right. The thing is, I kind of want to skip over most or all of his time with the Gaang between meeting them and being at the North Pole. :[ Because I don't want this fic to be about Aang's story, I want it to be about Mai's and Zuko's, even if Zuko is the sort of person who would enjoy riding to the North Pole on a flying bison. So maybe he and his uncle are at the North Pole when they get there. (Which you already said, sorry.) Probably pretending to be an Earth Kingdom noble with his Uncle. And Aang would totally notice all the Fire Nation poetry he was reflexively referencing.

And I forgot about Zhao, too. >.< I could totally see him going "Spiritual chaos in the homeland? That's gotta be the moon spirit's fault, LET'S GO KILL IT and win unending fame and glory for me!" And while he probably wouldn't have gotten promoted to Admiral with Ozai dead and the homeland in chaos, he might have enough power and charisma to make a bunch of people think that launching an attack on the North Pole and possibly winning lots of military glory for their favourite possible ruler = GREAT IDEA. (It worked for the Romans, okay.) If the intention was to conquer and subjugate rather than destroy, they might not even know or care about Aang. (Then again, if the majority of the fleet was there for Aang, and Aang just grabbed a waterbending teacher and ran, I can see major major embarrassment and loss of authority for Zhao as a good three-fourths of his fleet just turns around and heads home.) And Yue could continue sticking around the North Pole being awesome, or she might decide to go off and see the world. Maybe hang around with Sokka and Katara and Aang, maybe join Zuko and Iroh on their quest to, um, be wandering sages and send useful stuff home to Mai, maybe go to the Fire Nation and use her spiritual influence a bit. (I'd love to write something where she just sneaks in and fights spirits, and Mai runs into her.)

Leaving Azula alive would create so many interesting problems, oh man. Imagine if the royal line's seal on spirits (or whatever) was broken when Ozai was killed, and Azula had to deal with it all? She might have an even worse time of it than Mai and Ty Lee by themselves, since she's never struck me as the type of person who's good at maintaining already running systems. Mai would just fix everything out of annoyance, but I could see Azula forgetting about unimportant things like spirits eating all the common folk.