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goblins-riddles-or-frocks · 5 months

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What would he have made his priorities after being the king? I mean politically? If he had worked at all that is.

GREAT QUESTION it frankly drives me kind of insane that we never get any hint whatsoever about how he’s running the country while he does briefly take over from S&S through R&R. Like what are his POLICIES!! What is he DOING??

But also, realistically, he is not going to cancel wars with the Shadow Fold threat lol. Like that is only the beginning of a really long and drawn out foreign relations catastrophe. I talked about this a little bit in a different context awhile ago but he doesn’t strike me as a character with a firm end goal… ever. There’s always going to be more to do.

But like a civil war is going to fuck up the country no matter what. So I’d assume, regardless, there’s going to be a fair bit of immediate picking up the pieces economically. He doesn’t at all seem like he cares about public opinion, beyond being scary enough so people know not to fuck with him. So he’d probably have no qualms with making drastic and highly unpopular reforms lol.

We really don’t know enough about his stances but he seems to be primarily: a nationalist, an autocrat, prioritizing military strength, distinctly favoring Grisha interests, and also shdhfgfd against industrialization and technological advancement. He also favors the perceived good of the many over the interests and well being of any individual, and is very happy to make sacrifices of many, many lives to achieve fairly petty goals. He's a fantasy fascist basically.

The books somewhat superficially equate him with Russian revolutionary figures. But I don't think there's enough... actual ideology to back that up very much. And rapid industrialization and transitioning the Soviet Union from a primarily agrarian based economy was itself a key part of it? So... he's not much of a Stalin. If we're trying to sus out his policies I could see him being something of an anti Peter the Great, where instead of forced Westernization, you have an incredibly set in his ways immortal autocrat trying to drag everyone back to the values and traditions of his youth. (Which would also make narrative sense, considering Nikolai, as the Darkling-lite foil, seems to have def been based on some aspects of Peter the Great's youth and interest in innovation, if not his personality)

So for example, he seems like he'd favor isolationism. His idea of "peace" is "don't fuck with me or I'll make my monster filled interdimensional rift eat you." And we know Ravka is in intense debt! I could easily see him seizing the nobility's wealth and using it to pay off any debts owed to foreign countries. And then if anything's left over to stockpile resources towards making Ravka more self sufficient. Maybe even melt the gold and silver out of churches to that purpose.

(I forget which historical figure literally melted down church crosses dfghj but that was a thing! iirc incidentally he also stripped the silver from the currency, absolutely destroying its value...)

By RoW he seems to have embraced the entire like religious propaganda side of things. But in the trilogy proper he seems to hate the church. So resources going to it in any way will probs be diverted. And I could even see him gradually trying to repurpose the buildings for other things. They're on the tail end of a civil war, there's probs a lot of displaced people that could be put there for a start.

S&B meanwhile establishes that he has some pretty distinct opinions about how all the Grisha need to pretend to live like peasants so as not to forget their roots or whatever. I think he *would* enact really harsh regulations and reforms on court life just because he hates it so bad lol. Taxes on parties, insane sumptuary laws for everyone but his favored Grisha soldiers. He's had centuries and centuries to hate changing social norms. I think he'd go nuts if given the opportunity to dictate everything. Generally I think there would be a mix of skyrocketing taxes and reforms to an actual purpose (bolstering the economy and stripping material power from the nobility) but also just to be a petty, temperamental autocrat.

Def also criminalizing dissent and making examples of any opposition immediately. Can't have another revolution threatening his revolution. Again, here I'm annoyed by how little the world is fleshed out, because we get nothing about the nobility. Noble families with any sort of longstanding ties or known friendship with the Lantsovs would probs get executed day one. Stripped of titles and lands etc and then taking those and giving them to his own supporters. (Who are they? Good fucking question! He has one Ivan and then even he fucking dies. But realistically... he would have... supporters?)

He'd probs want to get a firmer grip on West Ravka stat, and maybe invest in some military expansion to control more ports. An issue I forever have with the Grishaverse worldbuilding is that it's just so small? There are only like five countries? Trade and foreign policy just aren't going to Look Like That or mimic a nineteenth/twentieth century vibe if there are only five fucking countries dfghjkl but whatever. Whatever.

I could also see him favoring exports over imports. Stopping all trade seems destabilizing af so I doubt he’d go there but seems likely he'd try to decrease any dependency Ravka has on other countries in favor of self sufficiency and isolationism. Maybe taxing imports so bad that it's just not worth it. Regulating the exact details of what can be imported, when, why, etc.

Speaking of the earlier impending foreign relations catastrophe. I think if he’s scary enough he might manage to avoid an all out war on all fronts? Might. Because there’s also a really good case to be made for attacking Ravka while its still weak and reeling from the civil war. But if he’s lucky, the surrounding countries will take a “wait and see” stance. But like there will be consequences eventually. Consider the Shadow Fold an in-universe fantasy nuke in the hands of a power hungry ruler who has zero qualms with any scale of loss of life or just murdering civilians for the lols. He’s proven himself to be unstable and unreasonable so even if there isn’t an immediate declaration of war there is going to be a response to that. No one’s going to be chill!! And like SoC and KoS context tells us that there is parem on the horizon, along with the Grisha super soldiers in Shu Han, the druskelle getting wayyyy more sophisticated and a general trajectory of rapid military industrialization and advancement through out the world. Those are playing pieces that would be on the board regardless, but it’s just going to get so much uglier under those circumstances. And especially with the knowledge and context that the Darkling is completely fucking unreasonable and ready to war crime anyone who looks at him funny.

I guess siding with Fjerda in S&S could hypothetically be advantageous to him here actually? Like we do not know the terms of that alliance at all, and I doubt it would hold for long. But it breaks up the framing of everyone vs Ravka. And opens things up for anyone else to respond by trying to get on his good side against their own enemies. And once again. There are only five countries lmao. So a tense balance of powers situation might be feasible, but I think it would hinge on him not looking like he’s completely insane. Possibly ironic, but the fact that he seems to have only war crimed his own damn country is likely also useful here. Other governments typically don’t care/won’t get involved to a degree of outright declaring war over that. And it leaves some room for arguing that he’s capable of some restraint. So how quickly things go to hell probably depends on whether he goes back on any alliances or makes good on/is cornered into making good on his Shadow Fold threat.

So I don't know, basically I think there's a ton you could extrapolate from his personality, actual world history, and like fascist takeover 101 sdfghj but it's also somewhat unsatisfying to speculate about because it's impossible not to constantly run into thin points in the worldbuilding. But basically I think he would probably rule with an eye for sweeping, harsh reforms, consolidating power, and chipping away at any opposition or potential adversary, with a general decided disinterest in the popularity or lack thereof of any of his policies. And I also think unless someone got him to take a deep breath and chill out for five minutes and relearn the value of diplomacy things would get. how you say. really fucking bad.

This was incredibly unorganized I hope it answered your question at all sdfghj

#every day I am annoyed with myself for having this many opinions #but russian history specifically and general discussions of politics and governance and worldbuilding are unfortunately interests of mine #so.#grishaverse #shadow and bone #grisha trilogy #meta #aleksander morozova #the darkling #I ramble sometimes #all the bendy punctuations #a mysterious stranger has appeared #one day I’ll get better ask tags #I decided on these like ten years ago and have been too lazy to change them since #long post

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femciolente · 9 months

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Tiqqun cursed me to Intellectual Depression...

By : Santiago "Weebu" Pemo

As a French reader, I am much more impacted and attached to French philosophy and its theorists than most people. I feel a deep connection to the language I grew up with and these theories that so deeply resonate with my being, some ideas and vague concepts I have had since the dawn of my political consciousness, that also appear to be fundamental for these intellectuals, way before my time. There is something truly eye opening about finding deeply avant-garde theory in your language, that has also pretty directly impacted the politics of your own country, to a certain degree. Tiqqun for me is the representation of the search for ideals, the insatiable pursuit of knowledge that I experience, and will experience. Dense and complicated, pretentious and critical, Tiqqun's works have everything to be categorized a million times by fruitless adjectives, but the only one truly fitting for such a titan of theory is "impressive".

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Tiqqun was a French philosophical journal, even if i would categorize it more as a periodic publication and recollection of intellectual texts. It was actively published between 1999 and 2001, supposedly dissolving after the 9/11 attacks for fear of repression and a needed break from the political world, as some claim. Why would they do that? Well, Tiqqun was THE most radical publication France ever got a hold of, but specially because the tradition it subscribed into was not a typical one. Insurectionary Anarchism, Situationism and Communization (In both a general and specific manner, we will go over that later), as well as the large French school of Post-Structuralism and Post-Modernism, Tiqqun is a beacon of modern French radical philosophy. And for how complex what the journal propositions can be, It is no surprise that this lovely piece of theory has gone severely unnoticed for the average "leftist". It's a literary piece at heart, a several hundred pages long poem, it's a work of passion to the world of philosophy and theoretical politics. And that is what makes the publication one of the most beautiful yet disheartening concepts to read, as well as being absolutely groundbreaking, and a read that will challenge anyone's unprepared views about many topics, since it introduces complex notions of the "Invisible Party", "Metaphysical Critique Exercices", "The Theory Of Bloom" and of course, their own spin on "Communization Theory".

"Communization" is a complicated topic, a theory not for the weak minded, something pretty much existent in the own confines of our exhausted and depressed intellectual capacities, but it still manages to be fresh enough to be adaptable to everyone. The lack of dogmatism in the writing, the synthesis of concepts and the post-post modernity of its analysis is unlike anything you can currently get your hands on. But the core concepts are understandable, and can make you rethink your own base ideology from the ground up. At least that is what happened to me. Communization, as the theory that rejects the DOTP from a marxist understanding of revolutionary action and procedures, is not a common piece of thought even in online discourse. Im not here to explain in depth this concept (as it is the case for another article of mine), but what Is important here is how Tiqqun took this theory, very marginal Left Communist piece of theory, and built it, almost single-handedly, from the ground up once again. The revolution that Tiqqun brought by explicitly importing Insurrectionary Anarchist ideas, as well as a general anarchist ethos too, to a concept that wouldn't necessarily hold it, was the stepping stone towards the erasure of "Anarchist"and "Statist" labels in the ultra left, leading to a much more fluid interaction and development of ideas, breaking the dogmas that can follow the Meta-Narratives of certain strains of "left wing" ideology. Meta-Narratives that still hold a lot of theorists back when it comes to the full liberation of their brain, towards a greater understanding of the world, even if that might come with far greater consequences, like absolutely breaking your hope and desire for the world, but not in a very Nihilist way, but a purely emotional sense. Tiqqun is very emotional, and more than anything, it appeals to the individual's understanding of them, and what that said individual wants to take for their own personal benefit. It's what I would call some kind of very well executed decentralized communal thought process.

And this is key In my personal development, as I originally came from a much more orthodox Anarcho-Communist conception of ideology, with its own dogmatism and ingrained fallacies that even back then bothered me, this fluidity and lack of strict structure that the ideas of Tiqqun have allowed me to break down the walls I imposed on myself. And that is what makes their version of Communization so specific. Not only they detail and talk about the general concept that an author like Dauvé could have, but they go further than him. They always do. That is the magic of the journal, going as far as it is possible to think. Their analysis is clean, including some fairly (and sadly) forgotten theories like Situationism at the heart of their vision, specially when they mention anything to do with the "invisible party". Avant-Gardism is the core ethos of what Tiqqun wanted. They did not want to be comprehended by the general population, they didn't write for us to use our texts as proof of the subjective validity of our ideology, but a job. They had a specific vision of the world, a ruthless one, one that did not spare any badmouthing of any concept as long as it fit their worldview, one that is marvelously constructed. A worldview Guy Debord would have been proud to read.

But you simply cannot just read Tiqqun for enjoyment, as that would be too complicated for anyone with less than 50 degrees on philosophy. You read Tiqqun to experience the whole thought of the "Invisible Party", and you do so with an aim : to criticize your ideas. Tiqqun, for the more well read and fundamentally built reader is primarily an exercise for contrasting metaphysics. The variety of the texts, and the diversity of what they are able to deal with in those gives a complexity to their thought I have barely seen anywhere else. Tiqqun is not a manifesto, Tiqqun is a collection of the greatest thoughts of the french ultra-left of the 90's, one very much involved with all the social movements of its time but retaining its "armchair" critique typical of other strains of Left Communism. But why would anyone listen to them? Why care for Tiqqun? Because the modernity of their ideas is something that will put you in a state of "intellectual depression".

No, this is not a Deleuze reference (even if it might as well be). It is simply a statement to the greatness of Tiqqun's writings, ones that challenges you so much, you stay in a state of perplexity that is hard to achieve with most theory collections. Tiqqun made me depressed, because it challenged my traditional views so much, that I could never conceive traditional modern theory the same way. It radically affected my relationship with not only political and philosophical texts, but also with the politics that affect my day to day life : parliamentary politics, for example. I no longer trust what I used to, I no longer want what I wanted, and I no longer seek what I tried to find when i first embarked on the world of politics. Nothing feels enough, I want more. Satisfaction became a secondary need, but reflection and constant upgrading of my own ideas is what I aspired to, like I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Even my actions, at the scale of my fairly boring small town changed, the discourse I have with people interested or not on politics has changed so much, to the point that I feel as my ideas are exclusive to me. Exactly what Tiqqun is all about, but that does not mean it's a concept full of positives, specially living In a world where our action is necessary and important, even if at times fully pointless.

Holding radical positions in pretty much any aspect of thought is exhausting in the stage of deceiving and worse than before social democratic compromise reformist policies of the present day, one that does not even serve the petty bourgeois it sought to protect to begin with. Repeating the same things, same concepts, theories and ideas over and over again to people oblivious to them is the greatest challenge an active militant or passionate anti-capitalist can face. But the breath of fresh air Tiqqun's expression and interpretation of the classics, as well as an introduction to the newer theories that SHOULD take a larger part in our new theoretical and practical developments is very much needed in the modern day landscape. It's the best of both worlds, In a style you can hardly dislike. Why? Because of the variety of it.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Tiqqun is a collection of texts, but it didn't exactly end in 2001. The publication of several and very complex, pretty much full scale books around 2004-2010 revitalized the scene, specially taking into account how un-finished their work can seem to some. It is not a fully developed program, a truly new political ideology or thought model, but simply good theory, and these newer additions completed an already rich project. But what was important about Tiqqun's post-mortem publications is not anything published under their name, but more so an associate group that can very much be the same people that conformed the original secret council of the Tiqqun redaction, that being "The Invisible Committee". As many of you know, this neo-Tiqqunist collective made one of the most important works out of the modern french scene, named "The Insurrection To Come", a book so popular, it was the object of all the far right moral panics on an international scale, doing ravages to the brain of Fox News redactors. But what really mattered there was how it affected my perspective, as it was one of the first texts of the sort that i ever had the opportunity to read, and is considered a cornerstone of the insurrectionary movement as a whole, revered globally and by a large variety of individuals, on and outside of internet discourse. Yes, it is not Tiqqun, but its closeness with the original intellectual group makes it a product of the original thought of the Invisible Party.

Game changing, In every aspect, even on terms of rights and politics, on domains of repression of radical thought, even. In November 2008, Julien Copat, one of the known members of Tiqqun's redaction was arrested by french authorities under pretext of "Participating on a terrorist action that derailed a train" In a small locality in the rural center of the nation (Tarnac, hence giving its name to the "Tarnac Affair"). And this case, that lasted until around 4-5 years ago, caught enough traction for my young and impressionable brain to know about it, years later when the case resumed after a long break. And this was the first case I ever saw where radical thought leaders were attacked falsely based purely on the radicality of their writings, something pretty much without precedent at that time. And it was the reason why I even know about the publication to begin with, and so was the case for a large amount of young teenagers, who got a newly ignited passion towards these ideas, brewing ever since the intellectual rebellion of May 68, bringing more air to the scene than any other project before. It has been one of the few judicial cases I went deep in, and that exposed more clearly than any other case in modern times, how the punishment great thinkers receive under the rule of the bourgeoisie. It was an event that radicalized me indirectly.

The reason why I consider Tiqqun to be so heavy on my brain is because of how real it is. Never had I seen a fusion of extremely theoretical and technical philosophical theory mixed with a focus on praxis without precedents, specially in a time where political actions from the proletariat are ramping up in power, intensity and frequency once again, like a clock. Tiqqun represents the non-nihilistic view of revolutionary action, with the sadness that comes with knowing the truths behind the movements and the ideas that power them. That is what brings sadness to my soul. It was a necessary step in my development, and I feel as if it's just a reflection of what the general population can feel about the exploding liberal status quo, but the people on our side of theory know the reasons why. Tiqqun gave me the keys to understand better the world but also the revolutionary thought that i wholeheartedly stick to, and at the same time, Tiqqun amplified my Capitalist Realism to levels I had barely ever seen before. Tiqqun, In all its greatness, doomed me to intellectual depression, and I will not recover this time.

Thank you Tiqqun, really.

#marxism #post-left #communism #philosophy #politics #Tiqqun #Art #anarchism

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underestimated-heroine · 1 month

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In the 1990s, I was the field organizer for the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, a six-state coalition working to reduce hate crimes and violence in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain States region. We did a lot of primary research, often undercover. A cardinal rule of organizing is that you can’t ask people to do anything you haven’t done yourself; so I spent that weekend as I spent many—among people plotting to remove me from their ethnostate. It helped that, despite its blood-curdling anti-Black racism, at least some factions of the White nationalist movement saw me as a potential ally against their true archenemy. At the expo that year, a guy warily asked me about myself. I told him that I had come on behalf of a few brothers in the city. We needed to resist the federal government and we were there to get educated. I said I hoped he wouldn’t take it personally, but I didn’t shake hands with White people. He smiled; he totally understood. “Brother McLamb,” he concurred, “says we have to start building broad coalitions.” Together we went to hear Jack McLamb, a retired Phoenix cop who ran an organization called Police Against the New World Order, make a case for temporary alliances with “the Blacks, the Mexicans, the Orientals” against the real enemy, the federal government controlled by an international conspiracy. He didn’t have to say who ran this conspiracy because it was obvious to all in attendance. And despite the widespread tendency to dismiss antisemitism, notwithstanding its daily presence across the country and the world, it is obvious to you, too.

[...]

To recognize that antisemitism is not a sideshow to racism within White nationalist thought is important for at least two reasons. First, it allows us to identify the fuel that White nationalist ideology uses to power its anti-Black racism, its contempt for other people of color, and its xenophobia—as well as the misogyny and other forms of hatred it holds dear. White nationalists in the United States perceive the country as having plunged into unending crisis since the social ruptures of the 1960s supposedly dispossessed White people of their very nation. The successes of the civil rights movement created a terrible problem for White supremacist ideology. White supremacism—inscribed de jure by the Jim Crow regime and upheld de facto outside the South—had been the law of the land, and a Black-led social movement had toppled the political regime that supported it. How could a race of inferiors have unseated this power structure through organizing alone? For that matter, how could feminists and LGBTQ people have upended traditional gender relations, leftists mounted a challenge to global capitalism, Muslims won billions of converts to Islam? How do you explain the boundary-crossing allure of hip hop? The election of a Black president? Some secret cabal, some mythological power, must be manipulating the social order behind the scenes. This diabolical evil must control television, banking, entertainment, education, and even Washington, D.C. It must be brainwashing White people, rendering them racially unconscious.

What is this arch-nemesis of the White race, whose machinations have prevented the natural and inevitable imposition of white supremacy? It is, of course, the Jews.

[...]

The White nationalist movement that evolved from it in the 1970s was a revolutionary movement that saw itself as the vanguard of a new, whites-only state. This latter movement, then and now, positions Jews as the absolute other, the driving force of white dispossession—which means the other channels of its hatred cannot be intercepted without directly taking on antisemitism.

This brings me to the second reason that White nationalist antisemitism must not be dismissed: at the bedrock of the movement is an explicit claim that Jews are a race of their own, and that their ostensible position as White folks in the U.S. represents the greatest trick the devil ever played. [...] Contemporary antisemitism, then, does not just enable racism, it also is racism, for in the White nationalist imaginary Jews are a race—the race—that presents an existential threat to Whiteness. Moreover, if antisemitism exists in glaring form at the extreme edge of political discourse, it does not exist in a vacuum; as with every form of hateful ideology, what is explicit on the margins is implicit in the center, in ways we have not yet begun to unpack. This means the notion that Jews long ago and uncontestably became White folks in the U.S.—became, in effect, post-racial—is a myth that we must dispel.

Antisemitism, I discovered, is a particular and potent form of racism so central to White supremacy that Black people would not win our freedom without tearing it down.

[...]

The resistance I have encountered when I address antisemitism has primarily come since I moved to the Northeast seven years ago, and from the most established progressive antiracist leaders, organizations, coalitions, and foundations around the country. It is here that a well-meaning but counterproductive thicket of discourse has grown up insisting that Jews—of Ashkenazi descent, at least—are uncontestably White, and that to challenge this is to deny the workings of White privilege. In other words, when I’m asked, “Where is the antisemitism?,” what I am often really being asked is, “Why should we be talking about antisemitism?”

And indeed—why? Why, when the president of the United States appears bent on removing as many dark-skinned immigrants from the U.S. as he can, and when men who look like me are shot in the street or tortured to death in prison with impunity? Why, when the leadership of some mainstream Jewish communal organizations level false charges of antisemitism in order to silence critique—whether by Jews or non-Jews—of Israeli government policies? Why, after decades of soul-searching by Jewish antiracists has established a seeming consensus that Jews—with Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews posited as an exception—should regard themselves as White allies of people of color, eschewing any identity as a racialized people with their own skins at risk in the fight against White supremacy? Why, when Jews are safe and claims to the contrary serve to justify rather than to challenge racial and other oppressions, like conservative commentator Alan Dershowitz’s cynical recent attempt to discredit antiracist and anticolonial struggles by declaring intersectionality an antisemitic concept? Why, when Jews of European descent are supposedly “White,” have long been, will ever be?

I can answer this question as I have been doing and will continue to do: antisemitism fuels White nationalism, a genocidal movement now enthroned in the highest seats of American power, and fighting antisemitism cuts off that fuel for the sake of all marginalized communities under siege from the Trump regime and the social movement that helped raise it up. To refuse to deal with any ideology of domination, moreover, is to abet it. Contemporary social justice movements are quite clear that to refuse antiracism is an act of racism; to refuse feminism is an act of sexism. To refuse opposition to antisemitism, likewise, is an act of antisemitism. Arguably, not much more should need to be said than that. But I suspect that much more does need to be said. To the hovering question, why should we be talking about antisemitism, I reply, what is it we are afraid we will find out if we do? What historic and contemporary conflicts will be laid bare? And if we recognize that White privilege really is privilege, what will it mean for Jewish antiracists to give up the fantasy that they ever really had it to begin with?

[...]

Likewise, as much as I draw inspiration from the Jewish community, and as much as I adore my Jewish partner and friends, it was my organizing against antisemitism as a Black antiracist that first pulled me to the Jewish community, not the other way around. I developed an analysis of antisemitism because I wanted to smash White supremacy; because I wanted to be free. If we acknowledge that White nationalism clearly and forcefully names Jews as non-white, and did so in the very fiber of its emergence as a post-civil rights right-wing revolutionary movement, then we are forced to recognize our own ignorance about the country we thought we lived in. It is time to have that conversation.

-from Eric K. Ward's essay Skin In The Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism

#long post #racism #antisemitism #posts i actually wrote #(not the article of course)#eric k. ward #white nationalism #history

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kittycatpopprincess · 6 months

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One thing I've noticed, generally speaking, when witnessing, or even participating in, discussions about trans narratives in media where cis people are involved is the willful refusal of any possible trans perspective in media

This is something that obviously happens a lot in discussions about anime, which has a rich history of gender non-conforming and straight up canonically LGBT characters. While I will not pretend to be an expert on Japanese culture and politics regarding LGBT topics and representation, it's clear that there is a genealogy to be made, dating back from Osamu Tezuka's Princess Knight to the character of Hideri in Blend S or Astolfo in the Fate series, while including a number of works like The Rose of Versailles and its protagonist Oscar or Utena Tenjou from Revolutionary Girl Utena, or even Ryuunosuke Fujinami from Urusei Yatsura.

Ryuunosuke particularly came as a surprise to me. Watching the 2022 version of the Urusei Yatsura series, I went in blind, not knowing much about the series, and was struck by how her entire arc and narrative, despite her being a cis woman, is overwhelmingly transgender. Her longing to be understood and recognised by her father as who she is rather than who the father in question perceives her to be, the maladroit yet sympathetic way she experiences her first moments of feeling affirmed in her gender identity; Ryuunosuke is a trans women in every way shy of birth and name.

There's the rub however. It's difficult to say what defines a character, and this is something that probably shifts from case to case. It also depends heavily on the type of story being told. There is something to be said, however, about good characters being more than their words. Essentially, what will often define a character is not just what they say/do, and what is said of them, but it's how they do it, how they interact with the world around them, how they fit into this world or how they sometimes don't. In this sense, Ryuunosuke is a transgender woman, because the way she interacts with the world is an overtly trans one.

This is something that becomes more complicated when narratives become open to interpretation. Yume Nikki, an independent video game which has, over time, become a cult classic, is often noted as being a very disarming and confusing experience. Some themes seem clear and reoccuring throughout the game, where the purpose it to walk through the main character's dreams. Of course, many people have since then tried to draw meaning from the game, and to piece together a meanng from the dreams of this woman named Madotsuki. Particularly, a lot of those themes have to do with bodies, both yonic and phallic imagery seeming present throughout the game, and at times being an apparent source of detress for Madotsuki. From there, one of the theories that has emerged from the game is that Madotsuki might be transgender. It should be noted that, due to the open ended nature of the game, nothing has ever been confirmed as far as I'm aware, and though this theory is not necessarily the most popular one, it's not without arguments or pertinence. Sadly, as I have witnessed myself, it seems to be often met with absolute vitriol, with claims that the people recognising themselves in Madotsuki and their dreams are inserting themes of gender identity where there's none, and citing the lack of explicit references to a potential trans identity in a game where any kind of explicit reference to anything is almost non-existant.

Another work in which I have seen the trans narratives be rejected is The Matrix. Written and directed by two trans women, this is a movie that has, over the years, been subject to many analyses and theories regarding its meaning. From Plato to New Age spiritualities, the many interpretations are a testament to the richness and depth of the themes developped in the movie hereas well. The trans interpretation, one of many in this instance, (And one that Lana Wachowski has admitted was, though unintended at first, very true and related to her own experiences as a then-closeted trans woman) is one that deserves just as much regard as any other, and yet I've seen shut down immediately for lack of literal proof. Essentially, The Matrix can never be a trans allegory because Neo doesn't come into the Neb's kitchen one morning to announce he is coming out as trans to the whole crew.

So we end up with a question that seems, to me, important. What makes a transgender character trans? Ironically enough, trans characters in media are finding themselves with the burden to prove their transness. Declared cis until otherwise proven, the question remains of how to prove a character is trans. The answer, I think, lies in the function of coming out in many works of fiction. It is, on the one hand, didactic. It reassures the cis viewer that this trans character is not hostile, that they are willing to take the time and be patient enough to explain their identity as well as answer any question the cis characters, and through them the viewer, might have. On the other hand, it is othering. The character's transness becomes a thing they explain, rather than something they live. They are trans, yes, but not in the way cis characters are cis. They stop being who they are and become who they say they are, which is to say that their character is no longer defined through their themes and narratives, but has to apologetically present themselves as trans so the cis viewer might not accidentally perceive them as deeply human as any other cisgender character. For many people, what makes a character trans is how to offer themselves to the voyeuristic cis gaze.

#thoughts of stuff

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theoreticallysensible · 10 months

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Analysis paralysis hits hard for millennials and gen z, I think. Everything seems so complex, especially when we’re all so *aware* of it all the time, that any small thing we have to do day to day seems pointless, and anything bigger seems impossible to do well enough. “But I worry and I give money and I feel useless behind this computer, and that’s just barely scratched the surface of my mind” - as the great sage of our times, Hayley Williams, tells us.

This is especially bad if we have memories of doing wrong in the past. Whether real or imagined, this can be traumatic, and make being absolutely perfect or else doing nothing at all seem like the only option.

But perfection is impossible. We all know this on some level - there’s simply too much complexity to any problem for us to even learn about all of it within our lifetime, let alone understand it, especially since everything is always developing along with us. Some forethought is often necessary to avoid negligence, especially when addressing bigger problems, and we must always learn from our mistakes to heal from them (which can take some time), but at some point action is necessary - to be there for people, to make some difference, to try. Sometimes that’s the really important thing, even if it doesn’t achieve any of what you tried to achieve - you showed that you cared, and you may inspire others to try too, and together you can achieve more than either could alone.

Accepting imperfection is more than just practically useful though. It means also being more compassionate, accepting that just as you can’t achieve perfection, neither can others - and they may even disagree with you! Just like you might sometimes not even be sure what perfection means to you, and it may be that you need to try something to work it out. You can learn from your failures, sometimes you can learn about past failures through making more, and you can learn from other people’s efforts. Thinking that you could know the answers perfectly, that you need to in order to act, makes it hard to learn from action happening right in front of you.

You don’t need a perfect knowledge of psychology or first aid to comfort and care for someone. You don’t need a perfect knowledge of a subject to write and share some ideas about it (to get meta). You don’t need to perfect knowledge of politics, society, and economics to advocate for or act on behalf of a conviction about how the world should be. Thinking that you ever could is pretty arrogant anyway, and it seems silly when confronted head on, but I do think that so much of despair comes from an implicit belief that we should have perfect knowledge before acting.

There was the beginnings of a revolution in France in 1968, and it failed. The Marxist leadership refused to believe that students could be revolutionary. They failed to see the productive effect they were having, that they were already reaching out to others, and so they refused to support them. They thought that conditions had to be perfect for any change to happen, and so they couldn’t learn from the creativity of the students who were already making a better world. If they had, they may have achieved something like what they said they wanted.

Importantly, when it comes to political questions, we don’t need to be aiming to solve the whole world’s problems at once. That’s too big a problem! No one person can do that, and there’s no group capable of doing it that we could align ourselves with. Start small, solve smaller problems in ways that align with your principles. This does immediate good, but also shows other people (and you) that there are other ways of doing things, and people willing to do them. This builds groups that can address bigger things, and provides a space to learn ways of acting that couldn’t have been imagined before people started trying things. “A theory cannot be developed without encountering a wall, and a praxis is needed to break through.” - Gilles Deleuze

Learning is not a project that can be completed, it’s a frame of mind - being open to a world which will always change and people whose capabilities will always surprise you. Accepting that people, including yourself, will always be different from how you want them to be, and accepting and supporting them in their projects anyway, not when they’re perfect, but when they’re headed in the right direction.

#analysis paralysis #philosophy #politics #anxiety #situationism #may 68 #paramore #jacques rancière #communism #marxism #louis althusser #gilles deleuze #climate anxiety #activism

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specialability · 2 years

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Andor Ep 5: The axe forgets but the tree remembers

I wrote *this* thousand word meta essay when I could barely keep my eyes open and then when I gave up and went to bed I couldn't fall asleep. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A theme of "The axe forgets but the tree remembers" seems to be: how the personal becomes political.

You are meant to be uncomfortable with Syril's overbearing control freak mother because it clearly shows their relationship and why he has grown into an adult incapable of making adult decisions. They are always framed at the kitchen table, encircled by the walls, stuck together in this toxic relationship. He could leave but he doesn't. He could go somewhere else, do anything else, but he doesn't. He is like the teenager who says they want to be treated like an adult but then sulks and acts childish when things don't work out. That is what the space cereal is about. She is infantilizing him throughout their scenes together.

At the same time, she is positioning herself as subordinate to whoever Uncle Harlo is. She prides herself on her understanding of the hierarchies of the world. And it seems to me she has dedicated her life to teaching her son how to navigate being subordinate. She wants him to be absolutely perfect because that's what you have to do to integrate yourself with the powerful. Nagging him about his posture. The way she describes to him how she asked for the favour, the words she used, the attitude she held, is all very intentional. "This is the Correct way to behave because this is how powerful people behave" and "This is how you make powerful people like you". It's about having the appearance of being the 'right kind of person' so you fit in and hide your shameful weak real self.

By the way, this isn't just fascism, it is absolutely classic white supremacy.

It would not be shocking to me if the mother grew up in poverty and bootstrapped her way up to this little apartment that briefly gets sunlight every day. The way she dresses and wears tall heels even when just sitting around the house. The pristine clean kitchen. When you've been taught that you have to be perfect above all others to be worth something you can't possibly ever even admit to yourself that you failed. It has to be someone else's fault.

I would not be shocked if Uncle Harlo turns out to the kind of person who "makes things happen" for Imperial higher-ups, a kind of tacitly accepted mobster, or even a leader of a radical militant wing of Imperialism who act under orders but with plausible deniability. The fact that it is a "family" favour and not a favour owed to the mother herself is also interesting but I don't know where it will lead. It implies the family member in question is dead or gone.

The other awkward family dynamic comes from Mon Mothma's family. Sniping at each other over the breakfast table is very familiar to me and I'm thankfully far enough away from it now to find the similarity funny. The child learns by watching their parents that you don't just have conversations, you have to win every interaction. You have to pick people apart and find their weak points so you can stick the knife in them before they do it to you. You also see how the daughter has probably in the past been forced to choose between her parents. This time, she has chosen her father. Mon Mothma clearly does not understand where he daughter is coming from, only sees the betrayal. The child seems selfish, but she is allowed to be. She is a child. It is the adults in her life who should be acting more maturely.

Putting it simply, Mon Mothma's work as a career politician and revolutionary may be done with an end goal of making the world a better place for many people, but she is making life miserable for her own daughter. How is that righteous? And is it worth it? The mother forgets the damage she has done, but the daughter remembers.

And it's possible that down the line this very personal issue of familial relationships will have an impact on the Rebellion itself. Because as much as everyone wants to believe they chose their political beliefs through reasoning, a lot of it simply comes down to our own secret wounds. Why would the daughter choose to oppose the Empire when it seems quite clear to her that it is the liberal members of the Senate and the Rebellion – in the shape of her mother – that have wronged her? (This question may have already been answered in the lore, but I'm not going to look it up.)

The final reference to family and personal connections is from Skeen. Since we are automatically on Cassian's side Skeen seems irrationally threatened by Cassian. His actions seem overblown and paranoid. But we learn that he was a (probably conscripted) soldier, possibly in the kind of war where he fought against other anti-Empire people. And we learn that his brother was cruelly driven to suicide by a petty official who destroyed his ancestral farm. He is used to mistrusting people as a method of survival and especially outsiders. It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation. Cassian admits he is being motivated by money, and seems quite uncomfortable with the concept of fighting for a cause. He is skeptical of the whole group because of that. But once he learns that someone else is there for a "petty" reason like revenge, he understands better his own relationship to this fight. It doesn't really matter what has brought him here, only that he is here. (Of course by having this emotional reveal Skeen has raised a huge death flag, so good luck Skeen!)

So we arrive at the final theme of the story: the weak and wounded remember what was done to them and that is what motivates them to fight. What side they fight on can really just depend on who they think wielded the axe. But at the end of the day, the the Empire is hurting everyone. It seems extremely likely that no matter how hard Syril tries to redeem himself he will never win a position in the sun. Even those who seem to have more power are struggling in a trap. No one is free.

#i'm sure I had other ideas but can't think of them any more #the brain she is le tired #ruth watches tv #andor #andor spoilers #misc

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boundlessdaisy · 17 days

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Firstprince Candy Jar AU because I cannot be stopped at this point hear me out

Alex and Henry are made co-presidents of their college debate team after bothering literally every administrator on campus. Whatever. It's not like they hate each other. Oh wait. They've been at each other's throats for the last three years. "You two really put the debate in debate," faculty advisor Rafael Luna cannot wait to get them out of his hair. Just one year left!

And the stakes are higher than ever, with both boys trying to get fellowships for their post-college endeavors: political science student Alex has his eye on a fellowship at the UN (WITHOUT his senator parents' meddling), while journalism student Henry is aiming for a fellowship from the Pulitzer Center (WITHOUT the help of his Marquess grandmother).

They absolutely need to be State champions if they want the leg up on their peers for their desired fellowships except both failed to qualify individually, and now they have no choice but to compete... as a pair. What's the worst that could happen?

It's a fucking disaster. Their techniques fully clash: Alex is data-driven, while Henry is primarily anecdotal; and, oh yeah, there's the fact that they just can't get along-- "Maybe y'all should just fuck" June suggests completely seriously to her brother. "You two must resolve all that tension," Bea suggests euphemistically (in a really on the nose way, you know?) to her brother.

They go to a party. Well, they are tricked into going to a party by their conniving bestfriends (who are both just so done with all the whining) Nora and Pez. Drunk out of their minds, they find themselves trapped in a closet for 7 minutes, and they just sit there in silence for the first 5... and then they start making out.

They both pretend like nothing happened and are idiots around each other, but that did, in fact, help them resolve the tension between them and finally, they could study together without screaming at one another. Rafael Luna wants to cry.

For the first time in 3 years, Rafael Luna facilitates a brainstorm session between his top 2 debaters without the two of them taking their heads off. While coming up with arguments on what the state's role should be when LGBT youth are rejected by their caretakers, Alex opens up about how scared he is to come out to his parents even though he knows they'd probably be supportive. He tells Henry about the divorce and how it had always made him feel like if he ever made a single mistake, his whole life would unravel.

Henry reveals to Alex that when he came out to his grandmother, she threatened to cut him off if he was ever photographed with another man. "I tell myself that I'm free to do anything here, it's a liberal campus, but I think the knowledge that every time I hold another man's hand in public I am literally putting everything I have on the line is the reason I've never done it. I always try to hide whenever possible, even though I'm technically free to be whoever I want. You don't want to end up this way, Alex. Not if you can help it."

Rafael Luna comforts both boys with his own story. Gay man in the worst possible time - that is the midst of the AIDS crisis. "You know, all we had were each other," he explained. "The state wasn't gonna help us, the media thought we were the plague, people stayed away from us. We had to be there for each other, we cared for each other, took each other to hospital, sat with each other at funerals. We had... a community that we truly belonged to when the whole world was trying to pick us off and cast us away. It was almost revolutionary... Point is, Alex, Henry, take the leap of faith. Someone will be there to catch you if you fall."

Alex comes out to his parents. Nobody dies. Love wins.

The day before the competition, Alex and Henry are both crawling out of their skin and, well, they do something about it. ("Something" meaning sex!) For pragmatic reasons of course. It's just so, you know, they get to focus tomorrow. Except Alex tells Henry not only that he's out now but that he likes him and they should go to dinner some time, and Henry... declines. "Alex, don't you get it? This is our last year of college. We've got, what, five months left of term, we each get our fellowship, and we never see each other again." "Why the hell should we not see each other again?" "It's inevitable, do you really think we'd have time, the energy for... whatever this is gonna be? We've got our whole lives ahead of us. We cannot get distracted now."

As much as Alex wants to argue that, Henry's got a point. He'd been too busy being... freaking bisexual, I guess, that he completely lost track of what was ahead of him. State championships. His Peace Fellowship. Congress. How could he get so derailed?

Competition day. It's awkward but they've practiced enough to nail this, they know they will. They search the crowd for their supporters, there's Nora, June, Pez, and Bea, but where the hell is Rafael Luna? He can't miss this. He's been helping them refine their arguments for weeks. It's not until after the competition where, by the way, they do very well, that Alex and Henry get the text. Rafael Luna has passed away from an accident on the freeway. He was dead on arrival.

So they're state champions, just like they wanted, but it all feels so hollow now. They add the achievement as the final bow on their fellowship applications and send it off with about as much excitement as you'd have when doing the laundry.

The thing is, despite everything, they don't get their dream fellowships.

They both go to Luna's funeral where they talk about why they're doing all of it in the first place. Henry rethinks his Pulitzer Center fellowship, wondering if maybe he needed more life experience in order to write better; and Alex rethinks his UN fellowship, thinking maybe his talents would be more suited to domestic affairs first...

Then Luna's friends arrive. His community from all the way back. They shared impressive, funny, and downright embarrassing stories about their late friend, making everyone smile and chime in, celebrating Rafael Luna's life instead of mourning his death. Alex and Henry were moved by them. Take a leap of faith...

One year later, Henry dials Alex from the car taking him back to UN headquarters and Alex answers from his desk at the Pulitzer Center. Henry's been a fellow for nearly half a year now, organizing international efforts towards LGBT youth housing, meanwhile Alex got a fellowship to do data journalism on LGBT policies across the country, keeping the most up to date database thus far, and the most nuanced.

They've been dating for a year now, and they never miss a Facetime. They see each other about once a month and you bet they make the most out of it. It's hard, but it works, and anyway, there're June helping to make sure Alex takes breaks and not too much coffee, there's Bea making sure Henry's eating well, no junk food. There's Nora snapchatting pics of Alex at work almost everyday, and there's Pez sending Alex shaky videos of Henry everytime there's a UN event. Everyone is rooting for them, they've got each other, and that's all they need for now.

#if you MUST need context it's because im very sick and ONLY watching dumb romcoms #alex clairmont diaz #acd #henry fox #henry fox mountchristen windsor #firstprince #red white and royal blue #rwrb #au #au ideas

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ihavebeesinmybrain · 7 months

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im so fucking sick of seeing posts of people trying to assert their moral superiority by talking about how they’re so appalled by people continuing to post normal content given what’s happening in gaza right now and how it’s so dystopian that folks are going to halloween parties while civilians are being bombed. like????? YEAH babes, we LIVE IN A DYSTOPIA. is this news to you???

this pressure for everyone to have something to say about every human rights issue, every political topic, every current event, every injustice is absurd. not every voice should be a part of these conversations. not everyone has the information and perspective to speak constructively on these issues and platforming their voices is only going to cause harm.

who does it serve when you sit around feeling guilty all day that you’re not the one being bombed? who does it serve for you to get on tiktok and post about how sad this is for *you*?

yes, we should never bury our heads in the sand and turn a blind eye. but it’s also unrealistic to expect everyone around the globe to stop their entire lives and spend every waking moment just ruminating on the tragedy of human suffering. there are absolutely actions we all can and should take. contacting representatives, donating if and when we’re able, educating the people in our lives who are falling victim to zionist propaganda, attending protests, building community in our own areas, sharing information and action items from the activists who have been doing this work since way before all of you self-righteous white guilt ridden motherfuckers showed up here. but doing those things doesn’t mean that we can’t do anything else.

real people’s death and suffering, a literal ethnic cleansing that is occurring in real time, is not your chance to prove to everyone online what a good person you are. like it’s actually disgusting the way people are using this crisis as an opportunity to virtue signal and posture as a hashtag ally.

and anyone who has actually been involved in activism and organizing will tell you that you CAN’T let these things consume you. you MUST take care of yourself. you can NOT wallow in secondhand suffering. because when you burn yourself out you can’t help anybody. that path leads straight to nihilism. the only purpose that serves is to waste your energy and feed your ego.

yes, we live in a dystopia. and if we sit around all day feeling sad about that, then the oppressive dystopic institutions responsible for atrocities like the genocide of palestinians are the only ones benefiting. it is revolutionary to love ourselves, to care for ourselves, to carve out joy for ourselves in a world that has been designed so that the ruling class and the powers that be can sit back and relax while they pick us off and profit off of our pain and oppression the entire time.

nothing i am saying here is new. it’s been said far more eloquently by so many people who came before me. but this just makes me so fucking mad. because when you hop on tiktok or twitter or what the fuck ever and rage post about how other people aren’t as empathetic as you?? all that tells me is that you’re someone who shows up when there’s a big injustice or crisis that everyone’s talking about and the rest of the time, *you* are burying your head in the sand. *you* are turning a blind eye. *you* are not consistently doing the work and fighting for collective liberation. because shit like this happens every fucking day. what is happening in gaza is not new. but it’s new to you, isn’t it? and you need everyone to see what a good person you are for caring so much? absolutely fuck off.

TAKE ACTION AND THEN TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND THEN TAKE ACTION AGAIN.

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spectaculardistractions · 1 year

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From Salvador Dalí New York [April 1939] WRITE TO ME, for God’s sake, don SIMÓN! Señor don Simón, life is fleeting… What greater pleasure can there be than to tell one’s dying FATHER he’s an arsehole. QUEVEDO (Spanish classic) My dear little son, Delighted with the songs you sang in your letter, I shall reply in an orderly fashion. First, no divorce from Gala; on the contrary, our mutual understanding is absolute, and we’ve never been as happy together as we are together now, but as I’ve just spent four months at Chanel’s (with Gala) in Monte Carlo, the inevitable potins mondains rituals have arisen. You know I don’t believe in World War. We may well be experiencing some moments of objective danger, but I’m convinced that in under two months we’ll see an abrupt change (already arranged and decided). France and Italy will sort themselves out, and once the Axis is disbanded, Stalin will agree to Hitler consuming the juicy roast rib of the UKRAINE. At that point, Japanese imperialism will automatically feel threatened (Russia-Germany), and conflict will break out in the United States. I have to go and spend two weeks in Monte Carlo working on my spectacle, it will be at the Paris opera in June then, immediately afterwards, in London, so says the sacramental bread of Tristan. Oliwood has always interested me in theory, but as my economic situation improves by the day and I don’t need to go, I’m investing all my prowess in waiting and rejecting all offers until the day (which will inevitably arrive due to the acceleration of my prestige and popularity) when they make me DICTATOR. So many dollars to make whatever fucking film I want in however many days I want is the only contract I shall even consider, and this would be impossible were I to accept anything provisionally. You see the rub now? Your new approach seems far more realistic than your old Marxist idealism. As a piece of friendly advice from Dalí of Toledo, disinfect yourself of every Marxist thought because Marxism, philosophically and from every other perspective, is the most moronic theory of our civilization. It is all wrong, and Marx himself was probably a paragon of abstract stupidity. It would be terrible if you stopped being a political Marxist and carried on thinking like a Marxist in all other ways, because Marxism blinds you to the phenomena of our age. A really wonderful young science: ‘morphology’, the meeting of morphology with psychoanalysis, even older, even more beautiful, with one of the most melancholic smiles the world has ever seen! Good day to you, write to me, and if you do come to New York we shall meet up at once. Love, Dalí St Moritz on the Park 50 Central Park South PS The end of the Negrins and the Pasionarias has turned my stomach a bit. Couldn’t they have got themselves killed? Or made peace two months before the fall of Tarragona? The apotheosis of mediocrity. Never to be forgiven! Another thing, my individualism is now exacerbated, and I work with furious intensity on whatever comes into my tête; so, it would be impossible for me to work with anyone else. Gala is the only person I listen to, for she has mediunique gifts, objective CHANCE, and the paranoid interpretation of fortuitous events needed to follow the thread of my frenetical-critical activities. A good day indeed, one incredible thing after the other is happening here. The reds put my sister in prison in Barcelona for three weeks (!) and martyred her, she’s gone mad, she’s in Cadaqués, they have to force feed her and she shits the bed. Imagine my father’s tragedy; they’ve stolen everything from him and he’s living in a boarding house in Figueres. I am sending him dollars, of course; he’s turned into a fanatical admirer of Franco, sees him as a demi-god, mentions our glorious leader, on every line of his delirious letters (they saved all my things from the Cadaqués house). The revolutionary experiment has been such a disaster that everyone prefers FRANCO. It’s incredible: life-long Catalan loyalists, federal republicans, die-hard anti-clerical activists write to me over the moon with the new regime! At least they can eat, sleep and not worry about being robbed or murdered; it has to be said the left made a real mess of it.

Jo Evans & Breixo Viejo, Luis Buñuel: A Life in Letters

#jo evans #breixo viejo #luis bunuel: a life in letters #luis bunuel #salvador dali #karl marx

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rmpmw · 2 years

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"There is No Illegal Wire Tap, There Are No Ear Pieces"

Tommy's Place, Port Jefferson Village

Wizard of ID & Saw Movie Producer

It’s a pretty safe assumption that if you’re reading this blog, you’ve seen “The Matrix.” And you may or may not remember the scene where a kid explains to Neo that the trick to bending a spoon with your mind is simply to remember that, “There is no spoon.”

So it is with marketing. One thing I learned very early in life, thanks to intentional overuse of psychedelic drugs, is that there is no reality. As a guy at the commune once put it: “The reality is, there is no reality.”

So some guy says his iPhone 4 is having reception issues. I say there is no reception issue. Now it’s his reality against my reality. Which one of us is living in the real reality?

There’s a two-part answer: 1, there is no real reality, and 2, it doesn’t matter.

The only thing that matters is which reality our customers will choose to adopt as their own.

Of course most people would rather live in a reality where everything works and there are no problems. And now, thanks to me, that reality exists. Because I’ve created that reality for them.

Probably the biggest thing I’ve taught the team at Apple is that people never know what they’re supposed to think about anything. This is true in Hollywood, in the book business, in the art world, in politics. And especially in technology.

So we put out a new phone and everyone is sitting there wondering what they should think about it. What I realized many years ago — and honestly, it still amazes me — is that most people are so unsure of themselves that they will think whatever we tell them to think.

So we tell people that this new phone is not just an incremental upgrade, but rather is the biggest breakthrough since the original iPhone in 2007. We say it’s incredible, amazing, awesome, mind-blowing, overwhelming, magical, revolutionary. We use these words over and over.

It’s all patently ridiculous, of course. But people believe it.

We demo FaceTime, and we say that nobody in the world has ever seen anything like this before. Jonny and I act stunned and gob-smacked, as if we ourselves still can’t believe that we’ve just invented video chat.

Again, this is utterly untrue, a total and absolute lie. But people accept it. They hoot and cheer for us.

The other strategy we use comes from Zen Buddhism. You ever study Zen koans? Most of them make no sense at all. You read them and you go away feeling confused and stupid.

We do something similar. We call it “clouding.” Right now, for example, we’ve sent out the following messages about iPhone 4 and the antenna issues:

1. All mobile phones have this problem.

2. Our mobile phone does not have this problem.

You see how this works? These two statements cannot both be true.

Yet we’ve said both of them. And now you don’t know what to believe.

Ask any psychologist what happens to people when they get confused. Their heart rate goes up. Their skin temperature rises. Adrenaline starts to flow.

They feel desperate, and scared, as if they’ve fallen out of a boat and now they’re getting tossed by waves and they’re maybe going to drown.

Now all you have to do is reach out with some kind of certainty, and no matter how obviously untrue it might be, people will latch onto it.

Every religion in the world knows this, from the Catholics to the Scientologists. It’s the oldest trick in the book. You create some uncertainty, you put people at risk — you tell them they’re going to hell, or whatever — and then you hold out the answer.

No matter how ridiculous your answer may be — like, the one about the galactic ruler Xenu, or the one where God turns into a bird and flies down to earth and impregnates a virgin — people will accept it.

Not only that, they’ll actually thank you for feeding them this horseshit. Because any certainty, no matter how crazy, is better than uncertainty.

Which brings me back to iPhone 4 and the antenna issue. Right now you’re confused. You’re worried. You don’t know what to believe. You just wish someone would come along and tell you that everything is squared away and there’s nothing to worry about.

Well, stay tuned for that. And remember: There is no spoon.

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zuko-always-lies · 2 years

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Since I read your post about Azula taking anything from Zuko I think it would be great to her on post war to actually take everything from him.

Idk some of this are just ideas, and I think it would be more in a crack fic format...

Anyways, I guess to get where I want to go, first she would have to have someone (as you have pointed out)someone without imperialist ideas.

After some years like she finally comprends the imperialism isn't the best option (also seeing a lot of fire citizens suffering for consecuences of ending the war) she thinks the fire Nation politics needs to be improved.

To shortcut (And also because I'm run of ideas), She ends up making a whole revolution and ending the imperialism and with the monarchy. Taking the example of the Southern water tribe, and making the people decide for the leader.

Sorry if this is confusing and if there is some grammatical or spelling mistakes. English isn't my first language.

I've always liked the idea of socialist revolutionary Azula, since when you have a character questioning everything she's ever known and been taught, why should she stop doing so just when she reaches the level convenient to the heroes(i.e. imperialism is bad, but hierarchy, absolutism, and class oppression are 100% OK).

#Azula

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snarktheater · 2 years

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Iron Widow anon here. oh I absolutely agree I routinely describe it as "the most cathartic book I've ever read" and have rec'd it to a bunch of people. I've just also seen a lot of people describe it as a bit lacking in nuance/over the top, + that we never get explained how Zetian became this feminist in her society, which I feel is also fair, so I was curious what you think

Over the top? Definitely at times. But like…that's a stylistic choice (Xiran really shows their anime inspiration there). They're fighting creatures of the Chinese myth's primordial chaos with giant mechs that turn into gianter forms. I can see it turning people off, but that's not the same thing as it being a flaw in the book. You might as well wonder why Pacific Rim (also cited as an influence/used to comp the book) has giant robots fighting kaiju rather than anything else.

Lacking nuance? I don't think that's a good way to put it. I think part of it is that, well, the book is using a very on the nose metaphor to talk about its themes (the ending twist regarding the Chrysalis piloting setup comes to mind), but I don't think that's necessarily bad either, especially for YA.

But also, maybe this is my growing cynicism, but I think at times we demand more nuance out of our depictions of sexism, racism, classism (all major themes and antagonistic forces in this book) than they really deserve. Real instances absolutely do look cartoonishly evil at times, and I think by demanding more we just end up spending more effort trying to humanize bigots in our fiction than we spend actually supporting their victims. Not to say that morally ambiguous bigots don't have their place, just that they don't have their place everywhere and should be used with caution, rather than treated as the gold standard.

But also, I don't think the book is exactly lacking in nuance so much as Zetian as a narrator sharing a lot of her inner thoughts.

As for Zetian having a proto-feminist outlook on the setting…I have complained in the past about protagonists in dystopian YA feeling like they were dropped from our world, and I didn't get the impression of that here. Her assessment of the world she lived in was one she could make from observation of that world; it never felt to me like she wast judging her world by our standards and values, which is usually what I take offense with.

Revolutionary and political thought can and does occur in marginalized people, because, you know, they are the ones who are the main victim of oppression, making it easier for them to notice institutional injustice. And yes, that does mean among lower class and uneducated people, since the correlation between those things and marginalization is of course high. So I wouldn't say "Zetian is very conscious of institutional sexism" is really a problem. Tons of people can and do notice these things, it's just that by virtue of being marginalized and not protagonists of a book they generally don't have the individual power to challenge or change that.

But like I said, this is just my (very cold) take on the book itself; I haven't sought out more specific criticism nor am I responding to anything in particular. And I'll fully admit that these are things I am partly more willing to disregard because the book was a fun and engaging read, and they might bother me more otherwise. Literary criticism is complicated or something.

#iron widow #xiran jay zhao #st: other posts #ask #anonymous

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patchofsunlight · 4 years

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Back to You | Zuko x Fem!Reader

SUMMARY: Fire Lord Zuko falls in love with one of the Kyoshi Warriors sent to protect him. Thankfully, she falls in love with him too.

WORD COUNT: 5.2k I wanted it to be shorter than Pretty Eyes and succeeded... kind of

WARNINGS: okay so there’s some kissing, some swear words, some obvious mutual pining, some frustration, and that’s it. it’s pure fluff ngl

I hope you all like it! I actually had a lot of fun writing this and I think it came out pretty nice. Also requests are open! Thank you for reading and here we go.

“Hey, Fire Lord, your date is here.”

“Y/N, we’ve talked about this. You can call me Zuko, and it is a diplomatic meeting, not a date.”

“You sure? He’s wearing such nice clothes. I can do your hair real quick if you want, get you ready and cute in like five minutes.”

“No, Y/N, thank you. You can let Ambassador Gamu in.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll be just outside the door if you need me.”

“Of course.”

Zuko tried to ignore the cheeky blink the Kyoshi Warrior sent his way before leaving his office, a teasing grin adorning her painted face. When Suki told him she would bring the most experienced and talented of her warriors alongside her to protect him and serve as his guards, he definitely did not think he would have to deal with someone like Y/N.

He knew she was, for sure, a strong and intelligent fighter, being Suki’s second in command and impressively skillful with every single one of her weapons. He had watched her spar with her companions more than once and seeing Y/N fight never failed to take his breath away until his lungs were filled with only admiration and pride. However, one could call her less than professional, and her treating of the Fire Lord troubled most of the palace’s staff. And yet, to be honest, Zuko found it really hard to pretend he didn’t absolutely adore her.

Y/N felt like a breath of fresh air, like sunshine on a cloudy day, like seabreeze. He loved the way she always teased him and tried to make him laugh, loved the way she seemed to brighten up every room she walked into. Somehow she managed to bring joy to the same place he always associated with sadness and anger — every corner of the palace was happier with her around. That’s why he chose to keep her as his closest guard, even after every single one of his advisors told him time and time again to send the disrespectful Kyoshi Warrior away. Zuko knew he probably should, but he was slowly learning how to accept and cherish the things that made him feel like smiling, and Y/N was undoubtedly on that list.

He refused to admit how in love he was with her. He had convinced himself it was nothing but a crush, some sort of appreciation for her amazing fighting skills, but a small part of him knew that was not true. He had it bad for her and would kill a man to keep a smile on her face any day of the week.

“It is very good to know the Earth Kingdom is so willing to tighten its relationships with the Fire Nation, Ambassador Gamu. I hope I can assist you in every way possible to guarantee a brilliant future for all nations.”

The Earth Kingdom official smiled politely, “thank you very much, Fire Lord Zuko. Nevertheless, it is crucial you are made aware that not all our citizens are happy with the new… Arrangements between our countries. I heard you have had a similar problem here, haven’t you? I truly hope the Kyoshi Warriors have been good servants and protectors, sir.”

Zuko couldn’t help the upwards movement of his lips as he gazed at Y/N’s silhouette through the door crack. “They certainly have,” he watched her look behind her, probably feeling his stare, and grinned when she shot out her tongue at him in an amusing manner, “I am extremely grateful for having them here with me.”

-----

“Hey, Fire Lord, your date is here.”

He glanced up from his desk and furrowed his eyebrows at her, “it’s Zuko, and I don’t have any meetings scheduled for today.”

Y/N beamed and he was sure his heart did a somersault inside his chest, “I know! I was talking about me. I’m your date.”

He lightly blushed, “what?”

“Come on, Fire Lord, you’ve been working for hours on end. You need to take a break,” she scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment and thanked every spirit there was for the white paint hiding her reddened cheeks, “I thought we could take a walk around the palace, y’know? I’ll be beside you doing the whole protecting thing and you can rest a bit from the whole rebuilding the Fire Nation thing.”

Zuko hesitated, “I don’t know, Y/N. I really need to finish this,” he gestured to the awaiting letters and reports in front of him, “I can’t simply leave. I have obligations as Fire Lord and—”

“I’m aware of that,” she bit down on her lower lip teasingly and he couldn’t help but think about the inevitable gasps she would have earned if anyone else heard her interrupt him like that, “but you shouldn’t overwork yourself. Besides, I’m tired of standing around doing nothing. Please? It will be so fast no one will even notice you’re gone!”

He sighed, “Y/N…”

“Please, Zuko?”

It was probably the first time she had ever called him by his name. She knew how much he hated being called Fire Lord, only accepting it during important gatherings, assemblies or introductions, but insisted on calling him by that anyway. Zuko was absolutely sure she only did it to spite him and had to admit it was kind of endearing — he loved the small ways she found of constantly challenging him. However, he quickly learned he loved hearing her say his name a lot more.

He sat up suddenly, “five minutes.”

Y/N grinned so brightly he had to bit back his own smile, “fifteen!”

“This is not a negotiation. Five minutes and then I’ll come back to my duties as a leader.”

“Okay, okay. Ten minutes then.”

“What? No, I didn’t agree to that.”

“Oh? I’m sorry, Fire Lord. Fifteen it is.”

Zuko opened his mouth to oppose when he heard her chuckle in amusement before taking a hold of his arm and pulling him towards the gardens.

“We could feed the turtleducks, but I don’t really think that’s a good idea,” she chattered lightly, somewhat begrudgingly letting him walk arm in arm with her instead of keeping on dragging him around, “I already did that earlier today.”

He wrinkled his nose and stared at her with a silent question in his eyes, “why did you feed the turtleducks? We have people here to do that.”

“I know,” Y/N shrugged her shoulders, “but they are cute so I asked to feed them,” she threw him a smile, “I’m pretty sure they liked me.”

Zuko shook his head cheerfully and smiled back almost instantly, “Of course they did. How could they not?”

She turned her head to look at him so quickly he wondered how she didn’t get whiplash. The Kyoshi Warrior smirked, “are you flirting with me, Fire Lord?”

There was a tingling session going through his body as the color red creeped upon his neck, face and ears. Zuko wanted to say something smooth like “yes, I have been for a while, haven’t you noticed?” or “how could I not flirt with such a pretty lady like you?”, but he only managed to stutter, slightly panic, and then answer in a high-pitched voice, “what? No! What?”

Y/N lifted her free arm in surrender, trying not to laugh at his reaction, “alright, sorry for asking,” she smirked again before muttering, “I wouldn’t mind if you were, though.”

The Fire Lord’s eyes widened in surprise at her words, his tone now back to normal, “what do you mean?”

For some reason, his inquiry seemed to make her self-conscious of their conversation topic. Zuko wished for nothing more than to punch himself in the face. “It’s nothing. I was just joking.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Great. Look, it’s been five minutes already!” she stared at her wrist so confidently he almost didn’t notice the lack of anything to actually check the time there. “You must go back to your Fire Lord things, right, Fire Lord?”

“We can still go see the turtleducks if you want?”

“Don’t worry! We can do that another time, when you’re not busy.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am. Hey, that’s Suki! I need to talk to her! Bye!”

“What? Y/N—”

“Bye, Fire Lord!”

Y/N was going absolutely crazy. When Suki first brought her to the Fire Nation to protect the so-called revolutionary and strong new Fire Lord, she had been skeptical. After all her years training and helping people around the nations with the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors, she couldn’t care less about the damn Fire Lord — she had spent a long time locked up after Azula and her stupid gang captured them and no new or old Fire Lord had come to their rescue. In conclusion, the bitch could catch on fire himself and be an On-Fire Lord for all she cared (she had spent too long thinking about that joke but that definitely did not matter), even though Suki had told her she knew the guy and that he was a great person or whatever.

Now she was biting her own tongue and trying to keep from flirting with him. In her defense, though, Zuko was a thousand times more good-looking and a billion times nicer than she expected him to be. She couldn’t help but always look for ways to make him smile, loving all his little quirks and habits, and suddenly found herself by his side a lot more than she needed to. She constantly acted as a personal guard, waiting outside his door during private meetings and accompanying him on walks, assemblies and gatherings in a somewhat intimate manner. She didn’t need to be right beside him the whole time — she could protect him from afar and maintain her distance like the other Kyoshi Warriors had chosen to, but Y/N simply didn’t want that. The stupid feelings she was slowly building towards the Fire Lord were dangerous at worst and annoying at best, constantly distracting her from her duties and responsibilities as Suki’s second in command.

It was infuriating, since love and relationships had never been really the type of stuff Y/N liked to partake in. She was good at fighting and giving witty responses and making jokes, but not at liking someone. Specially not liking Fire Lord Zuko, who was one of the most powerful people in the world and would certainly end up marrying some rich Fire Nation girl to guarantee a great and honorable successor to the throne or something like that.

When she finally went back to her individual palace room after a long day of trying not to embarrass herself in front of Zuko anymore and just all-around avoiding talking with him, she sat down before the mirror and started to take her facepaint off. That part of her routine, alongside putting on the paint in the mornings, had always felt like a ritual of sorts, calming her down and enabling her to let go of any unimportant worries.

Y/N let out a tired sigh, stared at her bare face and grinned. She might have fallen in love with the Fire Lord, but at least living in the palace allowed her to sneak into the kitchens in the middle of the night and steal some fruit tarts. She got up from her spot in front of the mirror and exited the room as quietly as possible, strongly believing that eating something would take her mind off the Fire Lord and his beautiful golden eyes.

-----

After another full hour of fruitlessly waiting for sleep, Zuko decided to put on an old cloak and walk around his palace. Pacing had always made wonders for helping him collect his thoughts and calm down from whatever it was that troubled him that day. It was not the first time he took on that habit and it would not be the last.

He honestly didn’t notice the person creeping up on him until he was pinned to a wall, an arm to his throat not pressing hard enough to hurt him, but enough to quicken his heartbeat. Zuko stared at the one responsible for the assault with confusion shining in his eyes, unable to recognize her without her greasepaint until she blinked and stepped back.

“Fire Lord?”

He widened his eyes, “Y/N? What are you doing here?”

“I was headed for the kitchens. What are you doing here? Did something happen?”

“No. I just couldn’t sleep.”

“I see,” she nodded and yawned, averting her eyes from him, “you shouldn’t be out and about without a guard, tho. You know that.”

“I’m pretty capable of protecting myself, Y/N.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure.”

He crossed his arms in defense, “what is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you want to go grab some snacks with me?”

“I—” he stared at her, for the first time seeing her blush under his gaze, “okay.”

“Great! Let’s go, Fire Lord.”

Zuko stayed quiet while they walked through the palace. He watched Y/N greet every single night servant they met on their way, earning big smiles and excited waves. For some reason, knowing how loved she was by his workers made his heart swell with pride. She would make an excellent Fire Queen someday. Or Fire Lady. Was there an official name for the Fire Lord’s wife? He couldn’t remember.

Zuko felt all the blood in his body drop to his feet when he noticed where his thoughts had wandered to. He shouldn’t think about Y/N as his wife — she was merely a protector, the help. He was not in love with her and therefore should not deliberate such things, not even by accident.

But he had never seen her bare faced before and he couldn’t help but take note of how alluring she was. He had always considered her pretty, but now he could really see her and she was so much more than just pretty.

“Come on, Fire Lord. I’m sure they have fruit tarts.”

He smiled as she sneaked inside the door to the kitchens, following soon after. In a matter of minutes they were sat before each other on the ground, sharing a bunch of fruit tarts Y/N had found hidden inside one of the cabinets. There was a comfortable silence surrounding them and Zuko appreciated how easy it was to be near her, without expectations or curious looks. Whenever he was next to the Kyoshi Warrior, he came close to forgetting his titles and obligations, satisfied with being simply who he was.

It felt nice.

“You look good with your hair down,” she announced suddenly, unaware of the thoughtful look on his face, “I like it.”

He felt his cheeks burn, “thank you, Y/N,” the young Fire Lord inhaled deeply to gather the courage necessary to express the response that came to mind, “you look good all the time.”

She stilled her movements with a fruit tart inches from her mouth, eyes blinking in surprise. After a tense moment, she grinned and lowered her arm, “do you really think so or are you just being nice?”

“I mean it, Y/N. You are… You are absolutely beautiful.”

The pair studied each other for a few instants, eyes sparkling with a breathtaking feeling both easily recognized but were not ready just yet to deal with. Y/N beamed at him, her face pink at the compliment. Zuko could feel his heart twist and turn inside his chest, butterflies flying in his stomach. “Why, thank you, Fire Lord. For the record, I have found you beautiful since I first saw you. I was expecting some rude and cranky old guy and there you were, with your pretty eyes and nervous smile. It was pleasant in a very surprising way.”

The Fire Lord was pretty sure she could hear his heartbeat as she leaned in almost subconsciously, her smile brightening up every small spot his eyes could see of the dark kitchen.

He was, indeed, very much in love with her, and there was no use in denying it, not while she averted her gaze to his lips and seemed to get closer and closer until their noses touched. Zuko’s breath hitched inside his throat as her lips ghosted his, eyes fluttering close before a loud bang sent them jumping in opposite directions, searching the source of the noise.

“Y/N? Is that you?”

The Kyoshi Warrior scratched her neck shyly, adamantly avoiding Zuko’s stare, “yes, Izum. How are you?”

The servant walked up to her with crossed arms, “I told you to stop invading the kitchens at night! You’re gonna put an end to our fruit tart stock, young lady.”

The Fire Lord watched the interaction curiously. Y/N and Izum smirked at each other as if they were old friends. “Well, if you don’t want me to steal your fruit tarts, you should maybe stop making the best fruit tarts in the entire universe.”

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere, honey.”

“You sure?”

“Yes! Fire Lord Zuko will be alerted about this.”

“I think he might already know.”

The young man seemed to finally notice Zuko’s presence, widening his eyes in surprise and bowing respectfully, “I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t see you there, it’s too dark and—”

“It’s fine, Izum, don’t worry. We’ll be off your kitchens in a second. Right, Y/N?”

“Of course,” she brushed the dust off her pants and walked to stand beside the Fire Lord, ignoring her friend’s raised brows, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“You will,” Izum looked from her to Zuko and then back to her, a teasing smile on his face when he greeted them goodbye, “good night, Y/N. Good night, Fire Lord Zuko.”

“How do you know him?” the Fire Lord asked after they left the kitchen, some sort of discomfort growing inside him at the way the Kyoshi Warrior had interacted with the servant.

“Oh, Izum is a good friend. He regrets deeply telling me where they keep the fruit tarts, but it’s too late now. We met during my first week here.”

“I see.”

“Let me take you back to your room, Fire Lord. It is already very late.”

Despite his unacknowledged jealousy, he wasn’t fast enough to bit back his smirk, “shouldn’t I be the one leading you to your room?”

“I am the guard, Zuko. I am the one taking care of you, not the other way around.”

He chuckled, “right.”

“I can put you to bed if you want, I used to do that to my younger sibling sometimes.”

“Shut up, Y/N.”

She threw her had back in laughter and he grinned.

They didn’t ever talk about what happened (or more accurately didn’t happen) during that dark night in the kitchens. Zuko was progressively busier with meetings and peace treaties, slowly putting the Fire Nation back in good rails. Y/N would routinely force him to take a break every once in a while, be it by leading him outside his office or taking his attention away from work and starting conversation.

Spirits, he was so in love with her.

It was during one of those breaks that one of her fellow Kyoshi Warriors knocked on his workroom’s door and entered with a nervous look on her face, nodding at him in respect before turning her attention to her friend, “Y/N?”

The young warrior smiled, “hey, Naya. Is everything alright?”

“Suki wants to speak with you. Privately.”

Y/N’s expression was instantly filled with worry and concentration. She gripped her katana tightly, walking towards the girl, “I want three warriors guarding the Fire Lord at all times, we are not taking chances regarding his safety. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Y/N.”

“Good,” she turned to Zuko, her stone-cold face easing momentarily. She marched up to him with conviction before planting a kiss on his cheek that made his body burn with surprise and happiness. “Be careful, Fire Lord. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“I—I… I mean… I’m—” he kept on stuttering, unable to form an entire sentence with his feelings all over the place, “You… I—”

She smirked, walking away backwards, “see you, Zuko.”

Naya looked at him with a cheeky smile after Y/N left the room, crossing her arms and staring in a teasing manner. Zuko was still rooted into place, widened eyes and reddened cheeks watching the now closed door. “Are you alright, Fire Lord Zuko?”

“I—yeah. I am. Yes,” his tone was definitely not as certain as he wanted it to be, “of course.”

The girl giggled, “sure.”

The Fire Lord would only see his favorite guard again on the following day. She came to visit him in his office and had a gravity to her eyes that he was unfamiliar with, lips pressed together in determination.

“What happened?” he immediately asked, the letter he was working on quickly forgotten. “Are you okay?”

“There have been attacks to the warriors in Kyoshi Island,” she declared, “not everyone is happy with our new arrangements. People think Earth Kingdom fighters shouldn’t be helping the Fire Nation in any way.”

“Oh,” he managed to answer, anxiety building up inside him at her hardened expression. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Zuko,” she looked away from him, “but we can’t leave our companions to fend for themselves.”

He could feel his heartbeat pick up, “I see.”

“Suki is sending me back to Kyoshi Island,” Y/N confessed, a hint of sadness to her tone, “I’m her second in command and I should be there to help our warriors through this.”

A heavy silence fell upon the room, tension sparkling between the couple. He knew what that piece of information meant, knew what it would cause.

“You’re leaving.”

She softened almost instantly, taking a step closer to him and then hesitating, “no!” he stared and she sighed, “I mean, yes, but I’ll return when it’s over,” she looked at him with some sort of desperation, eagerly searching for something she couldn’t find, “when everything’s done and dealt with, I’ll return.”

Zuko nodded, a disheartening sting running through his chest, “I understand. Leaving is your duty as a leader.”

“I’m not leaving, Zuko,” another step, “I’ll come back. I’ll—” she hesitated, taking a final step towards him and reaching for his hand uncertainly, “I’ll come back to the Fire Nation,” she interlaced their fingers carefully, “I’ll come back to you.”

It was his turn to step closer, bringing his free hand up to her face and sighing when she leaned onto it, hopeful eyes shining at him. When he finally spoke, his voice was a whisper, “will you?”

She chuckled sadly, moving to rest her forehead on his, staining his face with the white paint and rubbing circles alongside the back of his hand with her thumb, “I will. You are not getting rid of me this easily, Fire Lord.”

“Good. I didn’t want to.”

She smiled. On that exact moment, Suki opened the door and studied the scene before her with a bittersweet gaze, “Y/N, it’s time to go.”

His chest clenched in pain and distress, glancing from Suki to Y/N with anguish, “you are going now?”

The Kyoshi Warrior distanced herself from him and Zuko could’ve sworn he felt physical pain at the space between them, “I’ll come back, Zuko. I promise.”

-----

It was like he had a constant sunshine right beside him and now it was gone. He was pretty sure every single person in the palace had noticed the liking he had taken to moping around and staring sadly at the turtleducks, missing the one he had come to love. He thought his feelings for her would subside after her departure, but, oh dear, was he wrong. The deep ache that settled in his chest was enough to constantly remind him of how much he liked her, how much he missed her. Not having her around hurt so much that it became inconvenient, making it difficult to work and complete his responsibilities when he was constantly thinking about her safety and about what could have been if she had stayed just a little longer. Zuko thought they had finally reached the start of something new but she wasn’t here anymore and he would have to wait to find out.

Suki tried to report to him what was going on at Kyoshi Island whenever she could. Y/N was working hard to calm down the conflicts while at the same time training the new and old Kyoshi Warriors as well as possible. Suki told him it would take a while until things were okay enough for Y/N to return to the Fire Nation, but it would happen eventually.

He was so desperately in love it was embarrassing. He craved her presence, her voice, her laugh, her touch. He wondered if she felt the same and concluded that no, probably not. To be honest, however, he would accept anything coming from her, even some second-hand love. He would still be happy if she decided to settle for him after being made aware of his feelings.

The Fire Lord was adamant on telling her everything he felt when she came back — and she would come back, she had promised —, because being away from Y/N made him realize how much happier he was with her and he refused to let her leave again without knowing that he just absolutely adored her.

Meanwhile, Y/N felt incredibly overwhelmed. Between helping train the Kyoshi Warriors and trying to solve any misunderstanding with the Earth Kingdom citizens in a diplomatic way, she found it hard to breathe. It was somehow good, to be honest, because it didn’t leave her with much time to think about him. And, Spirits, did she think about him when she could. She was extremely excited to finally go back to the Fire Nation and just be by his side again.

There was a part of her that worried. Even though they had had multiple moments when she truly believed he felt the same, they never really spoke about it. Zuko didn’t seem the best at communication, and Y/N generally chose to joke around and tease instead of actually voicing her emotions.

“Miss Y/N, you must understand—”

“No, Mung, you and your so-called rebels are the ones who are not understanding. Fire Lord Zuko is trying to rebuild and strengthen the ties with Earth Kingdom in a healthy way for both nations—”

“But Miss Y/N—”

“—and the Kyoshi Warriors are collaborating with that by being a part of the official guard. How, for Spirits’ sake, is you attacking my warriors a good way of achieving anything you might want to achieve?”

The man swallowed harshly while he fidgeted. Y/N had worked hard to get a meeting with the rebels on Kyoshi Island, but was pleasantly surprised to notice how unorganized they were. “The Kyoshi Warriors shouldn’t collaborate with the Fire Nation, Miss Y/N,” a young man guarding the rebel leader��s door interrupted their staring contest, “the Fire Nation has done nothing but cause destruction and suffering. We won’t have our beloved warriors being corrupted by such a horrible mindset as the Fire Nation’s.”

“I appreciate your concern, but Zuko,” she cleared her throat in embarrassment at the verbal slip, “Fire Lord Zuko is different. He cares about people and he seeks redemption for Fire Nation’s wrongdoings. Having a good relationship with him is a great deal for the Earth Kingdom, believe me.”

The two men exchanged a look before returning their gaze to her. She tried to bit back a smile when she noticed the meaningful expression on their faces, signalizing she might finally be able to go home.

She tensed at the thought. Was that what Fire Nation was now? Home?

Or was she ready to admit the real home she had been thinking of was a certain Fire Lord all along?

-----

It was a hot day in the Fire Nation and Zuko was busy with his daily amount of sulking and missing his favorite girl when he heard a commotion going on somewhere near him. He confusedly followed the sound, finding the Kyoshi Warriors gathered around and talking loudly. The Fire Lord furrowed his brows.

“Is everything okay?” his voice quieted them down and he watched while the young fighters exchanged knowing looks. “Did something happen?”

“Yeah, Fire Lord, it did,” his heartbeat picked up immediately and he turned towards the voice he had fallen in love with, finding her dazzling smile. Y/N crossed her arms in a teasing manner, “told you I’d come back.”

Zuko stared at her while the other warriors scrambled towards somewhere else, aiming to leave the couple alone. He smirked, “you did tell me.”

She walked closer to him until they were chest to chest, and he wondered if she could feel his jumping heart against her, “I think I even made a promise.”

“You surely did.”

Y/N grinned, “well, then I guess—”

“I’m in love with you.”

This was not in his plans. He meant to say a lot of things about how he slowly fell for her during the months they spent together, but Zuko simply couldn’t help from blurting a confession out like a dumbass. He had craved being around her so much during these weeks apart and now she was finally there, just within reach. He couldn’t take any more dancing around each other.

She beamed, “that surely makes this less awkward.”

“Wait, what?”

Before he could wrap his head around her words, Y/N took a hold of his collar and pulled him to her, gazing at his lips as their noses touched, just like weeks ago in the kitchens. She smiled softly, eyes fluttering close, “I’m in love with you too, Fire Lord.”

“Oh, thank the fucking Spirits.”

The Kyoshi Warrior laughed against his mouth, sending a tingling sensation down his back. His hands held onto her waist, extinguishing any space between them before he kissed her deeply, relief and happiness flooding his senses all at once. His own personal sunshine was finally next to him again and he revelled from the pure warmth she provided, chasing all insecurities and fears away until only his love remained.

“I missed you,” he mumbled on her lips, so intoxicated by her presence he could have forgotten how to breathe.

He could literally feel her smile between kisses, “I missed you too, Zuko,” she moved slightly away so to be able to stare at his eyes, “but don’t you worry, Fire Lord. I’ll always come back to you.”

Zuko chuckled, “you’re so cheesy.”

“You love it. Can I be even cheesier?”

“Go ahead, pretty girl.”

“Hey, Fire Lord, your new permanent date is here, and she’s not leaving.”

“That was horrible, Y/N. But good to know.”

He attached his lips to hers again and, for the first time, Zuko didn’t have a single worry for the future or for his fate. For better or for worse, he had his favorite guard by his side, and that was enough.

ATLA taglist: @bottledcostcowater @officiallydarkgeek (for some reason I can’t tag you I’m sorry??) and @beifongsss and @azucanela I know you didn’t ask to be tagged but you didn’t seem to mind last time so here I am again?? if you don’t want to be tagged anymore just lmk!!

I hope you liked it!!

#atla #atla x reader #zuko x reader #zuko #zuko imagine #avatar the last airbender #avatar the last airbender x reader #suki #zuko x fem!reader #zuko x f!reader #fire lord zuko #fire lord zuko x reader #suki x reader #kyoshi warriors #kyoshi warrior reader #this was kinda cute wasn't it #i'm lowkey proud of this #ngl

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