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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would still speak it for a while after it was made un-official, at home if nothing else, but even if Aang's slang was outdated it was still understandable.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more than a hundred years ago, or that people in the Fire Nation still understand a fair amount of it even if it sounds outdated and awkward.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

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OK, so I've been reading your comments here and over at DW, and I'm still trying to sort my thoughts on what you've described of your AU. The best I can come up with is that I hadn't thought about how everyone speaks the same (or pretty much the same) language in the show and how this could've been different in the past, but now that I have it makes total sense, especially considering the different cultures that exist in the Earth Kingdom. Though I'm still wondering how anyone could understand Aang, given that he wasn't part of the linguistic unification that apparently happened in the hundred years he was gone, not to mention the rest of his people were wiped out. Sorry I can't engage your ideas any deeper. :<

And now after reading your thoughts, it's inspired a tea-shop owner!Zuko AU idea that's been kicking around for a while. And that Mai/Ozai fic you linked over at DW certainly helped (it was lovely, thanks for sharing!). :D

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the unified language originated from the Air Nomads. Like, we know they have magic flying bison, and they're nomads, so it would make sense that their language got around quite a bit, and if anyone decided to impose a worldwide language it would make sense for it to be that one. Or it could well have started more than a hundred years ago, I suppose -- if it did, Old Fire could quite reasonably have stuck around at least a little bit, as an influence and in old poems if nothing else. (cf. things like . . . idk, Scottish Gaelic.) Same for all the various languages in the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes, although I don't know enough to correlate them directly with any real-world languages the way Old Fire = Japanese. (This fic is totally going to drive me into Asian Literature Studies as a major, isn't it?)

. . . It wouldn't help if I told you that this was originally intended to be a fic about Zuko and Iroh continuing to run their tea-shop, would it. |D

Yeah, that makes sense; then again, you have to wonder about the processes in which one language dominates another. Reading Guns, Germs, and Steel this summer has made me think about that -- in what ways would the Air Nomad language unify the other languages (this is where you'd have to go into historical examples of language domination -- the Austronesian expansion might be a good place to start, even though that's not technically East Asia)? What if there's something inherent in the language that makes people gravitate toward it? And why would MEK dominate? After all, you've only explained elsewhere that it would, but it sort of presumes that the Earth Kingdom would be the big superpower, and I'm not so sure that's the case. And would such a language unification be decided, as opposed to something naturally occurring? (Of course, I think I might be reading something different in what you said for that last question, but it still stands.)

(And now you're really making me regret not taking linguistics this semester. Oops. :/)

It wouldn't help if I told you that this was originally intended to be a fic about Zuko and Iroh continuing to run their tea-shop, would it.

No, but if it helps it plays out differently in my head. As in, when Iroh dies, Zuko inherits the business and becomes supremely good at the art of tea, surpassing Iroh's skills and even inventing some of his own types. And he pursues a relationship with the girl he met in "Tales of Ba Sing Se," and he has to deal with the political upheaval of the Fire Nation's invasion and eventual defeat (now that he's on the receiving end), and he has to deal with growing older in a world becoming more technologically advanced and like the steampunk-esque place in Legend of Korra, and he has an encounter or series of encounters with world-traveler!Kuei (because I have to throw him in somewhere) that finally convince him that yes, living a mundane life as the humble owner of the best tea shop in Ba Sing Se is okay, that giving up his destiny was his destiny so to speak, etc. And lots of angst, identity stuff, philosophy, Kuei's bear, and young whippersnappers causing a ruckus in Zuko's shop thrown in for good measure.

.......Compared to your idea, though, it's not nearly as awesome. IT'S LESS SAPPY AND OUT-IN-LEFT-FIELD IN MY HEAD, I ASSURE YOU. XD I think reading "Reign Within" had a lot to do with it, though. On the plus side, I get to research teas and teamaking, which is both infinitely easier and more delicious! 8D

I imagined MEK as being the dominant language, because Earth Kingdom seems to = China, usually, although that comparison doesn't really work language-wise because written Chinese was what dominated, and people generally spoke however they wanted to. There are really only two or so ways in which I could see the unified language of A:TLA coming about: a) fast communications world-wide, which they don't quite have yet though they might have had something like it in the past -- messenger hawks are expensive although we don't know what happened to the air bison, we don't know if the dragons were similarly used to traveling long distances quickly, and we don't know if the Earth Kingdom had anything like that at all -- or b) something imposed, which itself would not be sustainable without fast, reliable communications between all points. Either messenger hawks are a lot cheaper than I thought they were (which isn't too unlikely, though that brings up the problem of written language =/= spoken) or they still have very fast transport. Which, thinking about it -- they do. Remember Azula's mongoose-dragons, and Jun's shirshu?

Mmm, teas and tea-making! :D Your fic sounds a lot less ouch-my-brain-too-much-research than mine, and absolutely fabulous.

Also, that is a fabulous icon. :D

Thank you; I plan on using it everywhere!! :D Feel free to gank it; just credit

dharmavati.