Sarapen's Journal

I revised the prologue because I thought the original was too wordy and kind of purple prose-y in bits. Henceforth follows the new version.

Zuko was thirteen years old when he realized that his father didn't love him.

At the time, this revelation came as a complete surprise to Zuko. Years later, with a clarity afforded by distance, he could admit that his doubts had been growing steadily, like a mountain built up pebble by pebble, or a dam eroding day by day.

Like the cracks in an eroding dam, Zuko tried to shore up his doubts. Perhaps his father favoured his sister, but that was only because of her skill in firebending. Perhaps his father despised Zuko's soft heart, but that was only because his father wanted him to be strong. Surely if Zuko grew stronger and hardened his heart then his father would show his approval. Surely then his father would love him.

But monsters do not love, no matter how much their sons desire otherwise. And so, after inadvertently insulting his father in public, after unknowingly challenging his father’s disregard for the lives of Fire Nation soldiers, after discovering that he was to duel his lord and father, after begging for forgiveness that did not exist, after being mutilated by his own father, after experiencing firsthand the mercy of the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation – in short, after having every cherished belief violently destroyed – Zuko stopped being Zuko.

The Crown Prince entered the dueling grounds, but afterwards he did not spend three days holding back cries of pain. He did not listen to his sister gravely deliver news of his banishment while she mocked him with her eyes. He was not given the impossible task of finding the Avatar, a person who had not been seen in a hundred years. He did not silently listen while Uncle Iroh offered his help, did not stew in bitter rage while his ship crossed the oceans and did not stare with burning eyes at the Earth Kingdom port where they had docked.

The Crown Prince entered the dueling grounds, but it was the Blue Spirit who left. It was the Blue Spirit who looked out upon the Earth Kingdom, who took first one step down the gangplank then another, away from the Fire Lord, away from Uncle Iroh, and away from the Fire Nation. It was the Blue Spirit who stepped off the ship towards the Earth Kingdom, who stepped forward towards the future, towards vengeance, towards destiny.

Despite all appearances, I seriously am writing. Mica and claudiapriscus on AO3 kind of got me doing it all over again for He Said, She Said. Take a look:

 

“So what did you think of the play?” mumbled Toph around the stick of barbecued banana slices that was currently in her mouth.

“Two thumbs up,” said Zuko. “The director’s thumbs, I mean, since I’m going to cut them off and shove them up his ass.” He demonstrated his pique by kicking down a banner pole whose sign read The Life and Death of the Prince of Ill Luck.

Sokka snorted at Zuko’s answer. “Hello, jerkwad, did you not get the memo about not being a bad guy anymore?” Sokka kicked down another banner pole, not because he hated the play but because as a good boyfriend he felt obligated to act on Yue’s behalf when the play was a blatant plagiary of her novel. Also he liked kicking things.

Zuko punched a hole through a backdrop showing some icebergs floating on the sea. “Me, not a bad guy anymore?” he asked. “Says who? I never promised anything to anybody. Anyway, who says good guys can’t cut off the thumbs of people they don’t like? What, are the good guy police going to arrest me for that?”

“Uh, yes, and they’re actually just the regular police,” said Sokka as he tore apart a set of red Fire Sage robes.

“For the love of crap, can you two just make out already?” interrupted Toph. “I swear, you can cut the sexual tension with a knife.”

Sokka turned to Toph in annoyance. “You know, Toph, life isn’t one of the borderline gay romance stories you pay people to read to you. Just because two people argue with each other doesn’t mean they’re secretly in love. Almost one hundred percent of the time it means they genuinely disagree with each other.”

Toph was too busy enjoying her banana slices to give a properly derisive jeer to Sokka’s pronouncement and in fact all she could manage was a sarcastic roll of her eyes.

“Hey, what are you kids doing backstage!” demanded an angry bearded man who Zuko assumed was the stage manager or something. He didn’t bother to find out but instead smashed the chair he was holding over the man’s head instead of smashing it on some Ba Sing Se palace scenery like he originally intended. Taking the man’s intrusion as a cue, he sauntered casually out of the back door whose lock he had bashed open with a rock – this was only after listening to ten minutes of fumbling and cursing from Sokka before the other boy admitted that he couldn’t pick the lock (and only after Zuko had broken the lock did Toph reveal that she could have used her metalbending and saved everyone the trouble).

Much later, on their way out of town and back to their camp site Sokka observed, “You know, for a play that’s supposedly about the ‘Prince of Ill Luck’ the majority of the story revolved around the whole Katara forbidden love angle.”

“Yeah,” agreed Zuko as he walked along swinging a wooden sign that said Colonel Kinjo’s Travelling Players, “It’s like they wanted to make a stage adaptation of Thunderstorm but kept getting forced to make a straight propaganda piece instead.”

“What kind of propaganda piece makes you feel sorry for the bad guys?” asked Toph as she finished her snack and began cleaning her teeth with the barbecue stick she’d been eating from. “Zuko’s supposed to be the traitor but the play ends with Katara crying her eyes out and promising to avenge his death.”

“Good point, it gets kind of weird near the end, doesn’t it?” said Sokka. “But can we agree not to tell Aang that he spends the Battle of Ba Sing Se screaming and hiding under a blanket?”

“No, we can’t, because I’m going to tell him that as soon as we see him,” promised Toph. “I even memorized the lines his character was shouting at Azula: ‘Take Sokka, he’s stupid and ugly and no one likes him.’”

Sokka huffed in annoyance and stuck his hands in his pockets. He should have known Toph would remember that line. “You know, Toph, maybe we really should come clean to Katara about where we’re getting our money from,” he threatened.

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” said Toph as she threw her skewer at Sokka’s head.

“So you’re cheating at crooked dice games,” said Zuko. “You’re just doing the same to those gamblers that they were going to do to you. How can that be wrong?”

“Exactly,” said Sokka.

“For sure,” agreed Toph.

They were both glad that Zuko had been too distracted by seeing the advertisements for the play that he didn’t ask how they’d scored same day tickets for what was obviously an incredibly popular show. If he had known they’d scammed the tickets from some rich jerkoff then he would have probably thrown a hissy fit about them risking the mission or something.

Honestly, for a firebender Zuko could be a complete wet blanket. No wonder he and Katara got along so well. All Toph and Sokka did was trick money out of people who had too much of it. What could possibly go wrong with that?

I thought that finishing off He Said, She Said would be fairly straightforward but I seem to have  come up against a wall. The last two chapters have been going through the Stations of the Canon, as it were, by following the progression of the episodes of Books One and Two. However, Part 2 ended in a way that blasted that sequence apart, meaning that there is no way Part 3 will resemble Book Three in any realistic fashion. I could still force the story to follow Book Three but doing so would lessen the narrative as a whole since the plot would not flow naturally in that direction. Which means that I have to write more original stuff for the story.

Of course, I’m not averse to originality, but the bigger problem is that the ending of Part Two necessitates a change in tone from comedy to drama, at least in the beginning. However, drama is harder for me to write than comedy and thus it will take me much longer to finish the fic. Getting the whole thing back on track to a ridiculous adventure would mean slightly more work as well.

Really, there’s nothing for it but to do it. I find that when I’m stuck on a story that the simple act of writing gets the creative juices flowing and ideas start popping into my head.

Anyway, I have a hankering to add the next part of The Dog who was a Prince, which should probably help with my other projects. Immersing myself in Avatar fics should also help.

So there you go, folks, you heard it here first: A new chapter from moi will appear on the Etherweb soon-ish.

I’ve never done a drabble and yet here’s one now. I was going to put this scene into He Said, She Said, but it didn't work for the story. I thought I might squirrel it away instead and insert it into an appropriate story later since none of my fics are right for it, but that might never happen. I might still find a good spot for it, but for now, here it is as a standalone.


“Zuko?” asked Aang, his voice quavering slightly in nervousness.

“Yeah, Aang, what is it?” answered Zuko as he sharpened his swords.

“Umm, how do you ask a girl out?”

Zuko was so startled by the question that he almost cut off his own thumb. ( Read more... )

According to Chinese cosmology, there are actually five elements, though they are apparently more of a mnemonic device and are more properly referred to as the five phases or the five movements. Anyway, the five elements are:

• Fire (Chinese: 火, pinyin: huǒ)
• Earth (Chinese: 土, pinyin: tǔ)
• Metal (Chinese: 金, pinyin: jīn)
• Water (Chinese: 水, pinyin: shuǐ)
• Wood (Chinese: 木, pinyin: mù)

The number five figures into a lot of Chinese cosmology – the Five Cardinal Points (centre is included) for example, or the Five Relationships of Confucianism.

I thought of applying the Five Relations to Avatar’s bending philosophies. To wit:

1. Air - Friend to friend. Air is the bender's friend, it delights in helping its dear comrade.
2. Water - Parent and child. The bender's power flows from Tui and La, who bestow their power as a parent bestows gifts upon a child.
3. Earth - Elder brother to Younger brother. The bender is the younger brother who can only gain concessions from the elder brother of earth through standing up to him.
4. Fire - Ruler and ruled. Fire is the servant of the bender, to be ordered around and dominated.
5. Which leaves the fifth relation of husband and wife to be carefully ignored.

I’m still not certain if the one for Earth is entirely right. Perhaps the bender should be the Elder Brother, or perhaps husband and wife to Earth? I do like how appropriate the rest of it is.

I just can’t figure out how to put this into a fic. It should probably be a serious one. Maybe for The Quest I can have Katara encounter these philosophies while she travels through the Four Nations. It sure wouldn’t be appropriate for the two jokefics I’m writing.