(no subject)

[esmenet]

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would still speak it for a while after it was made un-official, at home if nothing else, but even if Aang's slang was outdated it was still understandable.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than a hundred years ago, or that people in the Fire Nation still understand a fair amount of it even if it sounds outdated and awkward.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

Comments

[annotated_em]

*settles down at your feet* *looks hopeful* Academic!Zuko, please?

[pseudo_tsuga]

How about Aang?

[fulselden]

Oh, man, I am so glad to see your expanded thoughts on academic!Zuko (also, um, hi!). Because although I really like the little snippet you've already posted, oh dear god does the very notion of academic!Zuko bring cognitive dissonance crashing down on me like nobody's business.

I've been trying to figure out why, exactly, since I'm reluctant to pin it down to !Zuko is dumb, lol! Because clearly that isn't exactly true in canon - he's hardly brilliant (that would be Azula), but he's bright and omg focused. And although he's crashingly unimaginative for most of the series, it's apparent by the close that at least some of that (the bit that isn't due to him being a boy scout who is too noble and straight-arrow at heart to be tricksy and smart like Aang) is a result of him tamping himself down so very tightly post childhood trauma and exile - I love the little glimpse we get in Ember Island Players of drama nerd!Zuko.

So ... it's not as if canon!Zuko, as I read him (of course ymmv), couldn't be extrapolated out into a Ba Sing Se student who keeps tripping over echoes of Old Fire Nation. And I myself have spent far too much time deliberating over canon!Zuko's likely proficiency in court poetry (conclusion: inept. profoundly inept).

Not to mention, I'm also fascinated by the historical and cultural implications of the Avatar world's apparently global common language - though I think I'd like to have my cake and eat it wrt Old Fire or whatever you'd call it, with it being perhaps a little like Latin in early modern Europe, where educated people or those in particular professions would know it and highly educated people would speak some version of it - with perhaps even an equivalent of medieval Church Latin, legalese!Latin, etc, omg so fun.

But ... I am so totally not a linguist, and so haven't thought particularly deeply about this! And if I did I would obv feel obliged to ground it fairly securely in Asian literary and linguistic history, as you say, and these are things I'm deeply ignorant about.

Which is to say, I'm fascinated by all this world building-y stuff. But academic!Zuko, man... I guess that even allowing for the Zuko who disapproves of inferior versions of Love Amongst the Dragons being much more to the fore than in canon ... I just can't see the kind of historical consciousness and willingness to riffle through options in the researchy way that you describe above - 'crap, wrong language' - coming that easily to him? Or, at least, not without radically changing the way he reacted to stuff long before reaching Ba Sing Se? Which is to say, yeah, AU and a half before you even get to the culture building.

And ... I'm still not entirely sure why aca!Zuko pings my O__O radar more than other crazy ATLA AUs I've come across. Personal taste, I guess? *throws up hands.* (Though, talking of personal taste, I do totally share your reaction to Jet, as per one of your ealier ATLA posts - yeeech).

Oh, man, sorry! I feel as though I've popped up on your journal and been a spigot of negativity. I would love to see you do aca!Zuko - it just hurts my brain! And this has been incubating since I first saw your atla stuff (um, somehow?) a while ago, so this whole tl;dr isn't as spur of the moment as it may appear.

Um. If you can face it after wading through all of the above, Azula would totally be my meme character. From whatever universe!

[tohellwithromeo.livejournal.com]

I WANT SOMETHING WITH JET :D ♥

dunno why, I just. do.

[quadruplify.livejournal.com]

I'm just gonna ask for the obvious and say academic!Zuko -- I'm particularly interested in where, when, and how you see him diverge from canon!Zuko. ^_^;