One Of My Favorite Fucking Feelings In The World Is When Youre Having A Discussion With Somebody About

one of my favorite fucking feelings in the world is when you’re having a discussion with somebody about literature and themes and storytelling and etc or even just like, your feelings, and as you’re rambling on about the interpretation of something-or-the-other you have this lightbulb moment where two ideas connect in your head all of a sudden and you couldn’t have done it without the context of another person there and you both get so excited about this new theory you’re developing

like. collaboration. trust. complexity. awakenings. this shit isn’t just analysis, it’s art.

Decided to make a political post, but honestly? Feel free to ignore it if this is not your space for politics or you're too tired to pay attention right now or whatever. Let's be real - the world will not live or die on how many people reblog my tumblr post about politics. (Also I'm from the US, so my perspective is pretty US-centric.)

Now that's out of the way!

There's a few things that I think a lot of people need to accept if we want to stop the right wing from dragging us further down. Things that are uncomfortable, that don't always make people feel good in the moment.

First, your anger is only useful up to a point. If your anger motivates you to learn things, to get more involved in the political process or community activism in whatever ways you are able to, if it motivates you to donate to reputable sources fighting to provide aid to the most marginalized communities? Then that's great! Your anger has been useful!

When it only motivates you to get mad that everyone else hasn't fixed your problems, so why should you care about theirs? When your anger is telling you that other people haven't listened to you, so why should you listen to anyone else? When you have heard the same well-meaning platitude for the 900th time and all you want to do is scream at the person who said it that if they aren't fixing the problem then they're part of the problem? That is when your anger is unhelpful. It is also when it probably feels best to be angry. When it is hardest to let go of that anger, because it feels like a protection against a world that has gone out of its way to demonstrate how little it cares for you.

Deciding that you won't care about anyone who hasn't cared about you first, though, is a great way to ensure that no one will care about anyone. And then we really aren't going to fix anything.

Second, people really do need to work on finding tools and resources to educate themselves. And by that, I don't mean listen to everyone who screams the loudest on the internet about their personal marginalization. I mean seek out actual verified, factual resources on politics, history, and the state of the world at large. Seek out resources on critical thinking and how to spot people who are lying to you. This isn't something I can teach anyone over a tumblr post. I can't spoon feed anyone a list of links that will teach you How To Think. Partly because following a list of steps that were fed to you by yet another tumblr post from a total stranger is the opposite of critical thinking. Partly because I don't know the background of anyone who might read this post, so I don't know what your level of education is, what resources you might or might not have access to already, what you already know and what you might need to unlearn before you get started.

I can tell you that you should look into your local community, and find out what resources are available to help you get started - your local library is probably a really great place to start, here. Librarians love helping people learn new things/find the resources to learn new things, in my experience.

I can tell you that taking classes in statistics is probably really helpful. I see a lot of issues with people conflating statistical trends with individual examples from a diverse set.

I can tell you that a lot of it might be difficult, and uncomfortable, and boring, and require you to maybe work at things you aren't naturally good at. It might occasionally make you feel kinda stupid, and slow, and frustrated. (I can tell you that you aren't alone in that feeling, and that it doesn't actually mean that you're stupid or incapable of learning if you have trouble at the start. I can tell you that just because something takes a while to click, that doesn't mean it isn't worth learning. I can tell you from experience, my own and experiences that students have shared with me over the years, that even if you struggle due to a learning difficulty like ADHD, that doesn't mean you can't learn things that are difficult or uncomfortable or boring.) If you give up because learning is hard and boring and asks things of you that you don't always want to give, or if you decide that learning is bad if it makes you uncomfortable, then you have given up on one of the single strongest tools that you can use to empower yourself in this world.

The right wing loves when people scorn education, because lack of education and lack of resources people can use to educate themselves makes them easier targets to manipulate.

Maybe most importantly, though, I can tell you to do the hard and often deeply uncomfortable work of looking inside yourself and identifying where you lie to yourself and where your own biases have done their best to put blinders on your view of things. Here, I'm not just talking about people with privilege, either. Everyone has biases, no matter who you are. It's much more comfortable, when we feel hurt and angry and ignored, to assume that it is everyone else who needs to do that work on themselves and then ignore our own bias goggles. It is also much more comfortable, when we are hurting and angry and ignored, to blame everyone else for not doing "enough," instead of looking at what we are still able to give the people around us even when maybe they don't deserve our help, because they never bothered to look over and help us.

But that goes back to the thing about anger. If you give up on helping other people because no one helped you? Then we are all guaranteed to lose.

Since there are a lot of valid reasons why people might feel uncomfortable answering questions, especially from strangers on the internet (it's an extremely personal issue, and you don't want to talk about it with strangers or in group settings; the question covers something you don't know or a group you aren't actually a part of; you've been asked the same question a thousand times before and don't like answering it; you're just kind of tired and were looking to do something fun that day instead of answer other people's questions; literally whatever), it might also be helpful to keep a mental backlog of polite ways to turn down questions.

Not everyone wants to be a teacher, not everyone wants to be in a position of teaching people about issues relevant to their personal lives, and no one should be expected to be ready to teach other people at any moment. However, you can shut down questions you aren't able/willing/prepared to answer without being an asshole.

"That's a really common question, with a complicated answer! There's a lot that can be said, but you can find some great beginner resources at [link]!"

"That's a really interesting question - a lot of people have put some good work into answering it at [link 1], [link 2], and [link 3]!"

"I'm probably not the best person to answer that, but if you go to [link] that might help you find what you're looking for!"

"I'm not the best person to answer that. Followers are welcome to reblog if they have an answer!"

"That's pretty outside the purview of this blog/group/class/etc. You might have better luck asking someone else!"

thinking about that time I was at some kind of diversity and inclusion thing that involved discussion in small groups and one straight girl said she really wanted to be a good ally but sometimes there were some things she just didn’t know and was too afraid to ask for fear of accidentally being offensive. and as the only queer person in this 4-5 person group I said well go ahead and ask me, I don’t care if you accidentally use the wrong term right now or whatever, it’s better to talk about it and learn something, I love talking about queerness and I’ll answer the best I can. and she just looked so nervous and in the end wound up refusing to ask for fear of causing offense. and it wasn’t just the group setting, I’ve known straight people to act similarly even when it’s just one on one

and just. you guys. this is what purity culture and the “if you don’t know something you were never a real ally in fact you’re a bigot in fact you’re worse than bigots because you pretended not to be one” attitude does. how can our allies be allies if they’re scared to talk to us? to ask questions, to make mistakes, to learn? can we please bring back the idea of “in good faith”? there’s way more to say here about identity politics and virtue signaling and acting like language is more important than action but I’m too tired for that right now

please feel free to add to the discussion (regardless of if you’re queer or not), I would love to hear about people’s experiences with this and if others feel differently about it

I think these are all really accurate points! Katara's word choice is fairly telling. She tells Zuko that, "spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood," because he's "the Fire Lord's son." When he protests that she doesn't know what she's talking about, she tells him what the war has put her, personally, through - "The Fire Nation took my mother away from me."

She has conflated the Fire Lord, Zuko, and the Fire Nation all into one unified, othered Enemy. So when Zuko apologizes and replies with, "That's something we have in common," I don't blame Katara for misreading that confession. She says, "the Fire Nation," rather than, "a soldier," or, "a raiding group," or anything else more specific, because for Katara, her mother's death is tied intrinsically to the war, and in the war the Fire Nation are the aggressors and the clear Bad Guys, with the Fire Lord and his family at the top directing it all.

Zuko doesn't contest her word choice, but I would agree that for him part of it is that he's not yet ready to accept that it was likely Ozai who is primarily responsible for his mother's disappearance, just as he's not yet fully ready to acknowledge that it is Ozai who bears sole blame for his scarring and banishment, rather than his 13-year-old self. So Zuko leaves the blame vague because he hasn't yet reached a point where he feels capable of overtly directing anger at Ozai, while Katara left the blame for her mother's death vague because it is still easier for her at that point in time to blame the whole Fire Nation than to recognize that the Fire Nation is full of individuals who all have their own lives and stories and are not all equally to blame for the atrocities that have happened in the war.

It might also be worth noting that Zuko was clearly feeling sullen and angry up until that point. He's been curled up, hunched over with his back to Katara, scowling and trying to ignore all of her barbed words, until he realizes that her anger is really coming from a place of pain and grief - something that he would have a lot of experience with and had been starting to work on accepting prior to his capture by Azula. So when her anger breaks and he recognizes the grief underneath, his face softens, he turns towards her, and his whole body language opens up with his apology. So Zuko both doesn't contest Katara's word choice and visibly aligns himself with her while claiming shared trauma at the hands of, "the Fire Nation."

All that to say, I agree that Katara likely took Zuko's words as an indication that he, too, was starting to see the Fire Nation as the Enemy, just like she did.

I would still disagree that Zuko thinks he betrayed her, or comes to agree with that view later on. When he asks her in The Southern Raiders why she hasn't forgiven him yet, it's true that he doesn't contest her claim that she was the first person to give him a chance and he betrayed her. I would also agree that he is remorseful, by then, for having caused her pain, regardless of his own reasons. However, he doesn't try to apologize for "betraying" her. Instead, he recognizes that once again, Katara is likely holding onto anger as a mask for grief (and a defense against further grief, given how the last time she let that mask slip in Zuko's presence, Aang nearly died at Azula's hands not long after).

Not only is Zuko able to recognize that Katara is once again using misdirected anger to mask grief from a traumatic past event which can never be undone, he has also fairly recently gained the courage and opportunity to stand up to Ozai, the source of much of his own past anger that he had frequently directed at other people when he didn't feel capable of directing it at Ozai. That's why he goes to Sokka to ask about what happened to their mother, and why he offers up to Katara the chance to face the actual person who killed Kya. He wants to give her the chance that he got during the eclipse, the chance to face the person who caused her unforgivable harm, so that she can move forward and start healing - something that Zuko is also trying very hard to do.

When it comes to betrayal, though, Iroh is the only one Zuko acknowledges betraying, because Iroh is the only one that had enough of a genuine bond with Zuko to be specifically betrayed. Zuko knows he made the wrong choice (a lot of wrong choices throughout his time chasing Aang, in fact), he regrets hurting Katara, and he doesn't want to minimize the reality of her pain and anger, regardless of their source. But I don't think he ever feels like he really did betray Katara with that choice.

I also think that when Zuko told Katara that the Fire Nation took his mother away too, she thought that that meant that he was just as angry at the Fire Nation as she was. But she doesn't know the story behind Zuko's mother, she doesn't know that he can't direct that anger at the person responsible, she's not confused aout her feelings over her mother's loss the way Zuko is. I think on some level she does understand having to compartmentalize those emotions to function, and Zuko and Katara are similar in that way in how they process that trauma, although it's for very different reasons. They both share feeling responsible for their mother's loss, but for Katara, it's still less personal because the Fire Nation is an impersonal enemy. For Zuko, they're his family, and however badly they treat him, it's all he's ever known.

When Katara tells people about her mother, usually it's to emphasize how bad the Fire Nation is. That wasn't what Zuko was saying, but I think Katara thought it was, so that's another reason why she might have thought he was saying he was no longer loyal to them.

But for Zuko it's more like a thing that happened that he's carried around with him that he's had to accept in order to cope with his father's abuse. Katara doesn't know what's it's like to have the person responsible for that pain also be your parent. It's not a pain that he can escape, and it's the reason why he couldn't truly empathize with Song or Jet when they tried to empathize with him. Zuko can't hate the Fire Nation for taking his mother because he also loves his father. He has to reconcile that within himself, has to choose to leave his father before he can actually make a choice about which side he wants to be on.

Post canon Toph who doesn’t want to go back to her shitty parents so she just decides to stay in the Fire Nation and bum off Zuko’s hospitality.

Zuko’s like no, yeah, I totally get it, and just makes her one of his advisors. At first it’s just so she has a good excuse to stay but after the first meeting Toph storms out shouting about how EVERYONE was lying why would you even need to lie about what kind of tea you want??

Zuko: I mean they’re politicians.....but also who, and when, and in what way

They make a subtle Morse code system so Toph can warn him when someone is lying to him without tipping anyone off that she can sense lies.

Zuko gets a reputation for somehow being both extremely socially inept and yet somehow disgustingly perceptive?? You can’t get ANYTHING by him???

Zuko POV - Of Tea and Turtle Ducks (and the Turtle Duck Guy)

Should I be working? Yes! Did I instead write two Zuko POV scenes from Of Tea and Turtle Ducks (and the Turtle Duck Guy) in response to @spacecasehobbit wanting to give Zuko a hug but tragically not being a fictional character? Yes!

Guess what, you're a fictional character now!

Zuko isn’t even bothering to pretend anymore that the anxious laps he’s pacing around the barely-dawn courtyard are a cool down from his run, or a shortcut—kind of—back toward the apartment above the Jasmine Dragon, or anything other than him stressing. It’s been nearly a week since the ducklings have hatched and Zuko is pretty sure he through any pretense of chill out the window long before then.

He thinks about texting Sokka again, thinks about how he’s almost positive that Sokka would answer, and almost positive that he would come running. That his hair would still be messy, his normally animated face slow with sleep, that he’d come with a bag full of snacks and juggling tea and spilling out determination to fix something, anything, and Zuko doesn’t know if he could bear right now being the thing Sokka tries to fix, because Zuko’s been that before and just—

No. There’s no reason to text, not really. And Zuko’s already bothering him too much, anyway.

Still, he’s anxious and jittery watching Mochi sleep, seeing him even at rest so much smaller than Pocky and Cupcake. Anxious and jittery and full of a need that’s clawing and urgent and desperate, that seeps into all the little corners of him the way his anger and helpless fury used to.

Zuko isn’t an idiot. He’s gone to therapy. He knows he’s overly invested in the ducklings. He knows he’s projecting. He knows he’s taking an impersonal thing personally, he knows. It just—is matters.

It matters a lot to him, right now.  

It’s early, so early dawn is just creeping over the turtle’s grassy back, so Zuko doesn’t expect anyone else to be in the courtyard, not when no one ever is.

So he isn’t exactly prepared for human interaction when someone walks out of the SLAW toward him, isn’t prepared to stop the instinctive bolt of wariness and suspicion that blooms in his chest from showing on his face, and he can feel it turning into a glare as they set a case onto the ground, opening it to reveal some kind of contraption, looking at the ducks like they’re going to use it on—

“Have you seen the ducks get fed yet?” They ask, words mild, casual, and Zuko forces himself to take a step back and give space and dial back whatever is happening on his face. “Usually the engineering department handles it, the post docs love it. But today’s helper caught a cold, and when in doubt apparently a doctorate in theoretical astrophysicist can be trusted with the task, too.”

Zuko blinks, and forces himself to process all the information he was just given. The machine that’s supposed to be here—Sokka did mention something in one of his rambles about drones, but Zuko had lost the thread by that point, wasn’t entirely sure if he was still talking about the ducks—and the person who is supposed to be here too.

“You’re a professor?” Zuko finally asks, trying to bite back the suspicion still lingering in his voice and reminding himself that learned reactions don’t have to dictate his behavior.

“I am,” they say, lifting the machine—the drone, Zuko supposes—out of its box and beginning to fiddle with a control panel. “Though usually not of anything quite like this,” they add, lips quirking, inviting Zuko into the joke.

Zuko is pretty sure he manages to muster a grimace back.

“Does it scare them?” he asks, nodding toward the drone as the professor flips a switch and it powers to life, quite and whirring.

“We took that into account,” they say, smiling. “Or rather, the engineering department did. A cohort of very dedicated students conducted extensive research on shapes, frequencies, approach angles—that’s why we come in like this instead of just dropping down, see?”

Zuko nods, watching the drone glide in a gentle, slow arc down, something in his chest easing at the reassurance. Because that’s what it was, a reassurance, and Zuko normally doesn’t like it when strangers try to offer him pity or when their voices go all gentle and sad the minute they see his scar. But this person hasn’t given him scar a second glance, and, well—Zuko knows he isn’t exactly being subtle over here about his anxiety.

“Do you want to try?” they ask, offering over the remote control. “It’s just like a video game, very intuitive.”

Zuko shakes his head, resisting the urge to hide his hands behind his back, compromising by curling them into fists in the fabric of his gym shorts instead. He can feel his adrenaline all over the place, he knows from years of competitive martial arts that his hands wouldn’t be still like he would need them to be right now.

The professor accepts that without question—something unwinds in him even more, which just leaves the trench of anxiety and frustration and pent up something that he’s been trying to sort out ever since he got that letter months ago—and quietly goes about feeding the ducks.

They stand with Zuko after it’s done, watching the ducklings eat in silence. Their presence is a quiet one, at-ease, and Zuko wants to soak that in the way he soaks in Uncle’s calm when he’s feeling off balance, but fuck, Mochi keeps getting bumped away and pushed out and—

“Want a hug?”

Zuko startles so hard he nearly drops his phone.

“It seems like you might be having a tough time about something,” they continue, eyes still on the ducks, which might be all that keeps Zuko from giving in to the urge to sidle away. “You don’t have to tell me about it,” they add, and something about the way they say it makes Zuko think it’s actually true. “But I’ve learned over years of office hours that a lot of things can be helped by feeling like you’ve got someone there for you.” Zuko’s thoughts flick to cups of tea and neat packets of duck facts and a voice worn hoarse from talking. “Usually I talk things out with my students, help them see things a different way. But I am never opposed to offering hugs to those who need them.”

Zuko hesitates, eyeing them. He doesn’t get weird vibes, but he doesn’t think he’s in a place right now where he can accept calm, either. He isn’t ready to be soothed off the intensity of his emotions. So he shakes his head, and eventually leaves to shower before his morning shift. And later, he asks Sokka if he knows the astro professor who sometimes helps with the drone, and watches the way Sokka perks  up and gushes about their glass, and their office hours specifically.

And later, when Mochi is gone but safe, and Zuko is trying to breathe through the dual grief of loss and relief that Michi is in a better place, a safer place—a familiar thing to breathe through, too familiar, fuck. Is it even projecting, when it all lines up so well?—while watching dawn creep across the turtle’s grassy back—he remembers how it felt under his feet, how the grass felt prickling at his skin. He remembers the weight of barely-there bodies pattering over him as his already-overwhelmed brain finally processed that Sokka and the flirty guy were exes, and what something like ‘activity’ could mean—the professor comes back with the drone again.

And this time, Zuko does accept that hug.

--

Zuko nearly bowls the astro professor over as he swings down an aisle of stacks, skidding and tripping to keep both of them upright and the tea in his hands unspilled, aware that he can’t blame a single bit of his clumsiness on the cold still lingering on his cheeks.

“Sorry!” Zuko exclaims, even as he starts edging toward the reason for his clumsiness. “Sorry, I didn’t see—I was just—no one’s usually back here—”

The professor follows Zuko’s attention to the little corner table where Sokka hasn’t moved since Zuko set him up there except to somehow transfer snacks from their bag into his mouth without pausing in his typing. He’s been wholly focused on his essay since he managed to start writing it again, and the tea at his elbow is nearly empty, and Zuko had to go to three campus cages before he found the one with the brand Sokka usually drinks, and—

“Ah,” the professor says, lips quirking. “Finals approaching.” They eye Zuko a moment, eyes amused, before adding, “This is usually when my students most frequently find themselves needing a hug.”

“Oh,” Zuko blinks, pausing, words tumbling out automatic. “Oh, I—thanks, but I’m good.” And he thinks of Sokka following where Zuko led even though Sokka didn’t know where they were going, of Sokka giving Zuko so much and letting Zuko give him something back. Of a haiku written on a cup on his bedside table. Of being bold, and stepping into the wide unknown, and not being alone doing it. “I’m good,” Zuko repeats, realizing that he means it.

The professor smiles, eyes crinkling. “Good.”