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It’s the Basic Ball!

A ball for the rest of the LGBT-cuties.

tenderness

yearning

The detective grimaced, but didn't change the subject. "Yep," they muttered into their Pinot and took a swig. "The celebrity criminal."

This was a triumph. This was their third date and the thief had spent the prior two carefully laying the emotional groundwork leading up to this moment. The detective, as a social partner, was affable and considerate - surprisingly funny even, in a dry, deadpan way - but rigidly guarded about their line of work. The thief had asked the normal questions about jobs and had been expertly deflected with self-deprecating jokes about spreadsheets and paperwork. The thief had been content to wait. The detective was a fundamentally honest person, and the thief trusted the truth would work its way to the surface soon enough.

"But that sounds exciting!" the thief prompted brightly. "I mean, daring heists executed by moonlight! It must be such a nice change from your run-of-the-mill crimes."

"Mostly it's just exhausting," sighed the detective, rubbing their temples. "This perp is such an asshole."

The thief blinked. "Excuse me?"

The detective shook their head, tried to force a smile. "I'm sorry. I've had too much wine. You were saying about your invitation to audition for the Bolshoi -?"

"Oh, forget about me," the thief said quickly. "Please, go on. You're clearly stressed about -"

"Do you know," the detective went on as if they'd never stopped, "the morning guy on Channel Seven had the nerve to call this a victimless crime?"

"Well, the insurance will pay for it," the thief started.

The detective slapped the table. The thief jumped. "What about the people?" the detective exclaimed. A few nearby heads turned in their direction. "Are people supposed to walk into museums and look at what, framed checks on the wall from Lloyds? And meanwhile, these masterworks disappear into the vaults of gangsters and petty criminals, never to be seen again. Because you can be sure," they added, jabbing a finger at the thief, "crooks that steal art have no love for it. They'll destroy it, every lick of paint, if there's the slightest risk to their own skins."

The detective took another deep swallow of red wine. They looked close to tears. The thief awkwardly patted their hand across the table. This was not at all what they'd expected on this little reconnaissance side mission. The detective caught their hand and squeezed it with a grateful look that wrenched something in the thief's upper chest area.

"Now those guys," the detective said thoughtfully. "The criminals with the vaults. Now that seems like a worthy target."

"I... huh?" The thief stared across the table. The detective looked back with those guileless, honest eyes. 

"I'm just saying," they said, with the slightest drunken slur on their words. "Walking the art out of some budget-strapped public facility is one thing. But emptying out of one of those vaults, liberating all those works of art and returning them to their rightful place before the public..." The detective sighed dreamily. "Now that actually sounds like a daring, hot shot kind of heist."

There was a moment where neither moved, gazing at each other like the lovers they were pretending to be. Then the detective tugged their hand free, stood up with an apologetic smile. "But I'm definitely tipsy," they said. "Let me go splash some water on my face."

When the detective returned from the restroom, the thief was still at the table, watching the waiter clear the plates. By unspoken agreement, they didn't speak until she was well clear.

"So, hypothetically speaking," the thief said finally, running a finger theough a puddle on the tabletop. "How would one go about this vault heist of yours?"

zuko: exiled son of the fire lord. did these two get you up to speed?

sokka: wait you’re WHAT-?!

katara: what do you mean, YOU’RE THE EXILED SON OF THE-?!

aang: i mean, mostly???

ho boy absolutely nothing positive will come of this ask but ok sure here we go

the first word that comes to mind is “un-empathetic”. Now I need to make this exceedingly clear: i am talking about the american so called left, the guys who vote blue, the guys who, particularly, exist in the same social spaces as I do. Theoretically. I make a point to say this because I say “americans” and people go “oh surely she means the republicans” and like no I don’t I mean the guys who are supposed to be on the same side as I am, because if I was talking about the republicans I’d just say ABSOLUTELY UNHINGED

so, americans. man, americans are self-centered as FUCK. You can see it on the little things. If you’re on a server with like 500 people from all over the world and someone asks what’s your height, not only do americans answer in feet, everyone else does too for the sake of their comfort. “Only I use feet in the planet and yet everyone caters to me.”

If I was ever to start a post about, say, Luciano Huck, who is a guy pretty much every brazilian knows, I’d start it with “So there’s this guy who is a famous TV host…” But an american can and will start a post that goes “WE SHOULD MOBILIZE AGAINST BOB MCJOHNSON” and never once for a fucking second have the courtesy of even explaining who the fucking dude is, because hey, I gotta know, right? A post about Brazil starts with “In brazil…”. A post about the USA starts with “THIS NATION”

I think I only truly realized the extent of this self centeredness when we had a disaster very near me and I posted about it and it got ignored over a trump tweet. Americans will go “well you can’t expect me to have the energy for every disaster in the WORLD” but then fill every single pore of the internet, news and social media with news about their california fire when the pantanal in brazil has been burning so much, we’ve lost nearly 20% of the ecosystem and my dad can’t breathe because of his asthma.

And that’s just the thing - they take and they take and they TAKE but when the time comes you realize they won’t as much as throw a look your way. Hey true, no one has the energy to carry the world on their back. But you know what? When I turn on the TV and I see there was a quake in mexico, the first thing I think about is “hey, some people I know live there. Even if we haven’t talked in a while, I should check on them.” Because I care. It doesn’t have to be a huge tumblr SOS post. Just one fucking text - “I heard there was a quake. Are you okay?”

americans, save for very few exceptional people I’ve met, will make you feel like you’re fucking invisible. And that’s the worst feeling in the world. You know how many USA people have asked me whether I’m safe from the pantanal fires? Maybe two or three. You know how many americans I exchange regular conversation with, people who I, in turn, would ask whether they are safe in face of disaster? Yeah. More than two or three.

meanwhile my friends from other places don’t always get the news - third world only makes headlines when someone is profiting from it - but when they do, they IMMEDIATELY go “Brazil was on the news, how are you??”

like seriously I don’t think I’ll ever get over the heartbreak of publicly talking about a huge problem so close to me that it directly involved me on a server, with people I cared for, and having it be completed ignored except for a couple europeans and latinos who actually took the time to go “sorry for your loss”. that’s it. that’s all I needed.

americans are also immensely unsafe to be around. there’s a paulo freire quote that applies well here, and you know what, I’m not gonna fucking explain who paulo freire is either. The quote is “When education is not freeing, the oppressed dreams of becoming the oppressor.”

and that’s how social movement spaces that are USA-majority feel. Americans feel, and I’m gonna get heat for this, but americans feel like fucking cops. I’ll talk about the LGBT spaces because those are the ones I’m most inserted into, but this generally applies everywhere - they’ll assume their experiences are universal and you have to fall in line and will jump at any chance to tear you down.

Like. We are not socially at the same situation. Not all concepts apply equally. I do not UNDERSTAND all concepts. I have my own struggles with abstraction. And mistakes are human and everyone makes them.

But when faced upon a mistake, you can choose to take the role of the educator or the role of the enforcer, and by god do americans choose the latter most of the time. And you know, you don’t have to fucking be an educator all the time, but combing though people’s words in the search of minimal mistakes so you can take the satisfaction sending them a violent, cruel message because you feel like you have a moral high ground? That’s. That’s not fighting the enemy. That’s… a cop. That’s a cop searching your car for a broken taillight so they can escalate this into an arrest, not because they want to make the world a safer place, but because they wanna fuck you up, because they feel entitled to this power. Except you and the cop come from the same place, and the big bad guys are looking at you two fight and laughing.

And that’s what it all boils down to - the entitlement. I don’t post the hate I get. But dude. I’m a gay ass latina living in a messed up country struggling with my mental health. I have been through Some Shit. And it fucking hurts to get people going “I think you’re a shit doctor and I hope you lose your license” because you know what? People like me aren’t usually doctors to start with. I struggle with that thought every single fucking day. People will go “I wish law/healthcare/etc was more diverse” and then immediately, upon meeting a minimally diverse person, feel entitled to treat them not as actual human beings, but as entities from which you demand unachievable moral perfection based on USA standards, giving no space to learn either.

Americans feel entitled to my life story, and if I don’t promptly give it to prove whatever the fuck, then they feel entitled to be brutally emotionally violent towards me. I would never fucking address another human being with the tone, the cruelty, the sheer entitlement, the desire to harm in the most personal, hurtful way the way I’ve been addressed here. American centered movements do not include me. There’s no space in the USA-LGBT movement for me at all, I’m not represented by it, my friends from the third world are not represented by it, we don’t feel safe sharing our experiences, we don’t feel included, we feel POLICED far more often than included, we don’t feel like we MATTER. We are. Invisible. And silenced. Again.

And calling a movement global is nothing short of a hypocritical way of going “I hope the whole planet cares about this thing in the United States, but I sure as hell won’t acknowledge the role of the USA in putting the most violently cruel people in power - people that will cause this exact same problem, but elsewhere, so none of my business and I’ll ignore it over a trump tweet.”

I don’t really know exactly what you thought you could achieve with this, but this reminds me something i was taught in debate club: bait-and-switch. The condescending tone, playing “devil’s advocate” and after saying things so infuriating I literally had to stand up and brew a pot of coffee, say that this is just for a genuine discussion. 

However, for the sake of people who are curious, I want to engage in this debate because i know that no matter how much this hellhole of a website is, there are still young people here that can learn and are willing to learn. 

It is actually downright offensive that you’d assume our resentment exists because cm and celsius and whatever the fuck not. Most of us, even us poor people in a third world country, can use google well enough - if i can google what’s the currency in India, I can google another type of measurement. If the only thing the US did was to use different measurements, you can be sure we weren’t be having this conversation right now. 

I can’t speak for Europe in here, because I am not european, but as a latin american woman of color, my resentment comes because the US backed a series of coups in my country. the US taught torture to military officials by kidnapping the homeless and torturing them until they died, then carrying on autopsies on the bodies to better demonstrate how the torture techniques worked. My resentment comes because the US funded a military police during the military dictatorship that still exists to this day, and it is the same poorly-paid police made of black and brown people (except for the officials bc of course they are all white) who go up in the favelas to kill and torture black and brown people for a war on drugs finance by the US and that serves absolutely no purpose other than drenching our soil whith blood. 

My resentment comes because I know about American politics and american culture and American history not because I am curious, but because it is a NECESSITY. Did you think when Trump got elected in 2016 only you special snowflakes were affected? The Trump election kickstarted a wave of authoritarianism that culminated with the 2018 election of Bolsonaro, and the moment I saw Trump had been elected, I knew it was a matter of time until we got fucked over too. 

And I see americans being like “oh we must vote him out!!! otherwise it’s just going to be authoritarianism!!!” and like, how nice it must be, to actually be able to elect someone for real. because the last time a president stood up against american interests, she was impeached in the most disgraceful process i’ve ever had to witness live. she had difficulties speaking because the torture she went through - the same one taught by the americans - shifted her entire jaw out of place. 

so when you say “why don’t you stand up” it’s a fucking slap on the face. it shows you have no curiosity to understand beyond your comfort zone. it means that you are blinded by the idea that the US has seldom, if ever, been wrong. Dilma stood up, and she got tortured and impeached. I worked for the National Truth Comission and I’ll never forget learning about a woman who was tortured until she died, and she was pregnant, and her mother found her body in a barrel with the baby swimming in blood at the bottom. I remember going home and vomiting until I passed out. And this was because Brazil had it “easy” - since our elites had been in bed with the us for a long time, Brazil didn’t use as much brute force as, for instance, argentina, but the Operation Condor still killed 60k people all over south america for daring to contradict american interests. 

Do you know about Operation Condor?

This is the reach of your legacy. Every step my country takes is monitored, evalued, weighted. American companies lobby for the privatization of natural resources, American officers pave the way for coups so the same companies can get a better deal when things are sold for dirt chip. 

Clear example: Vale do Rio Doce is a mining company that used to be state owned, until it was sold in the 90′s, after severe pressure by american companies, by 5% of its actual worth. The company was then turned into a mining mogul that - and there is no other word for this - raped my state for iron and steel, destroyed most of the original nature, and has such a deep disgregard for their worker’s lives that last year, a dam broke and people were disemboweled and dismembered by a wave of toxic mud that destroyed an entire city. If you go close to the site, the stench of decomposition is awful. 300 people dead in 20 seconds. There are still bodies under the mud. 

So if you don’t know any better, a good exercise is to shut the fuck up and listen. Really listen to what people are saying. Google what you don’t understand. And then come to people like “hey, so I read about this thing and I couldn’t get it, what’s your opinion on that?”. because when you, from the height of your american privilege, wants to get a fucking cookie for “trying”, i remember Dilma’s disaligned jaw, I remember a baby soaked in blood at the bottom of a barrel, and I remember the smell of death and despair of a mining dam built so poorly just so investors could get an inch more of money, and we latin americans we’re very good at bottling things up. 

but sometimes when you go and say “i wish we could be more understanding” i think. dilma’s jaw, a baby in blood, a colleague so severely dismembered that the firefighters could only identify them by a leftover piece of brain. and yet, after all this trauma, after dealing with all this grief, after wandering around not sure where to go, after crying, after vomiting, after the panic attacks, after being born in a place that kills you when you stay but aches when you leave, after so many names of black boys murdered in the favelas i’ve lost count, after the death threats, after the nightmares- 

when we finally scream- 

you come to us and ask us to be quiet, because your ears hurt. 

do you have any idea how that feels? after all of this, you’re asking me to be kind? how can i be kind? how can i be understanding? it’s not emotional labor, it’s not annoyance, it’s a knowledge that the problem here isn’t this spear through my chest, this pain that knows no limits, the blood coming out of my mouth. the problem isn’t what’s making us scream.

no one:

really, absolutely no one:

me: ultimate prisoner!Zuko fic where he is (and, please, bear with me here), a) imprisoned on Hakoda’s ship like @muffinlance ‘s Salvage until he is b) handed over to the Earth Kingdom, possibly held by General Fong until the Gaang arrives. Perhaps they have the brilliant idea to bring Zuko with them to Ba Sing Se because they now distrust General Fong, and Ba Sing Se’s pretty secure, right? So c) prisoner of the Avatar and his friends until Ba Sing Se. There we get the d) Dai Li until Azula brings him home, the eclipse happens, and Zuko leaves. To round off the saga, we have e) the Boiling Rock. All four elements (technically) babey.

Or, we fix all of the above by removing the Dai Li altogether; Zuko escapes the Gaang as they arrive in Ba Sing Se, and ends up Blue Spirit-ing around to survive. This (somehow) leads to setting Appa free, and a bastardized version of the Crossroads of Destiny still occurs. 

But have you considered: Zuko goes straight from Dai Li custody to the Boiling Rock?

Sweet sweet Suki bonding before Sokka shows up for a breakout, is all I’m saying.

Also: continuous imprisonment from the initial capture onwards, do not pass go, do not collect an Ember Island vacation.

He could get his requisite character development by interacting with fellow prisoners (Jet, Suki) and his captors (Hakoda, Fong, Long Feng, Ozai and Azula).

Plus the moment when Sokka shows up with him at the Western Air Temple and Zuko is just like, hello, your once and future prisoner Zuko here, where is my cell this time, and the Avatar better be up at sunrise for firebending because that’s when the daily training session/breakout is going to occur, thanks in advance, sleep now.

Aang: …You’re going to be my firebending teacher?

The temptation of Suki bonding is… a powerful, powerful force. I like how you think. I imagine their first conversation would go something like this:

Suki: You burned my village down. 

Zuko: If it helps, I’ve literally been a prisoner of war for the past four months.

Suki: 

I actually love the idea of, (and this sounds terrible), “do not pass go” ie, Zuko being a perpetual prisoner from Hakoda’s ship to the Boiling Rock. It’s a tour of the world’s cultures from the inside out that’s also, y’know, traumatizing. That’s tourism, babey. And I think interactions with Jet and other characters would be extremely interesting. It’s all about being faced with new perspectives that cause introspection. 

But all that being said, how does Sokka know about the Boiling Rock? Wang Fire does have his sources, or it could have something to do with the White Lotus. But I want my sweet, sweet Iroh reunion, so hmm… Master Piandao, somehow? Another thing to consider.

Re: Sokka showing up to the Western Air Temple with Suki, Zuko, Hakoda, and Chit Sang (because if you think I’m not going to add dimension to a minor character, you’re wrong.) I love the idea of like:

Zuko: hello, your once and future prisoner Zuko here

Sokka: bro, I just broke you out of prison

Zuko, while looking around for handcuffs: yeah

Sokka: I broke you out of prison

Zuko: yeah…?

I imagine several long, painful, and confusing conversations. Plus, everyone’s favorite: Toph bonding!

And ofc I’m adding linguistics/languages of the four nations to this. I love the idea of Zuko letting loose a few curses in Southern Imaqtitut, and just:

Hakoda, wincing: You remember that?

Sokka: H-

Yesssss.

Re finding out about the Boiling Rock: just have someone mention it. Anyone. Probably on the beach before they head out for the day of Black Sun, people telling each other horror stories of what the Fire Nation could do to them. Which doesn’t even need to be a real scene; it could just be referenced in an off-handed “heard about this from since if dad’s guys…” manner right before Boiling Rock.

Now consider this: Iroh takes the role of og-Zuko as a constant threat in pursuit of his nephew.

In book one, rather than falling overboard and being salvaged like in Salvage, Zuko simply disappears from the Wani without a trace. He could be caught snooping around on a water-tribe ship or something like that; the more hair-brained and silly the reason, the better.

Iroh is going into a panic looking for his miising nephew, so when Zaoh comes gloating he jumps to the obvious wrong conclusion. Zaoh has captured Zuko and is going to send him to Ozai! He must be stopped!

Iroh proceeds to storm Pohuai stronghold, unknowingly releasing Aang, and beeing mighty confused when he can’t find his nephew.

He spends the rest of the time leading up to the north pole hunting the Gaang. Because “Where you can find smoke, you are sure to find hot headed firebreathing nephews.”

In book two, Iroh realises his nephew really is the prisoner of the Avatar, and proceeds to carve a path of tea, wisdom and beat-downs through the Earth Kingdom hot on the heels of the gaang. He disappears at some point, only to reappear as Long Feng’s personal tea-server.

And finally in book three, Iroh goes through a list of prisons looking for his nephew; starting with Caldera prison and working outwards. This proceeds until he finds them all at the western air-temple, at which point the gaang needs to do some rather fast-paced explaining.

You have written the line “carve a path of tea, wisdom and beat-downs.” I will never not love you hereafter.

Also, love Iroh trailing the Gaang, being both helpful and wrathful. I can just picture the reunion post-Boiling-Rock…

Does he show up to the Western Air Temple, smiling like a genial old man who knows how to Set Some Stuff On Fire, and the Gaang trips over themselves to shove Zuko at him, here-we-think-this-belongs-to-you?

Or does it happen at the White Lotus camp as in canon, but this time it was Iroh who feels he betrayed Zuko, because he gave up the hunt for his nephew in order to save the world? And here is his nephew, still alive, impossibly alive, but oh his hands… And Zuko hugs him, because he’s only just now realizing that being imprisoned these months, meeting all these people and coming out the other side, has left him freer in his own mind than he’s ever been. And besides, who needs perfectly functioning fingers when you can breathe rainbow dragon fire?

Dragon of the Prison Circuit Zuko has been practicing his breath of fire, and didn’t waste that dragon field trip…

Instead Zuko is rather chill towards him (he was by far one of the nicer captor’s he’d had, and sadly that’s now Zuko’s standard for good treatment), but Hakoda keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Y’all really do be giving me delicious ideas when I’m supposed to be studying Anatomy smh. Let’s dissect this. >:) 

I’m imagining the ultimate prisoner!Zuko: all four elements, babey story is divided into three books; each book begins and ends with an “Iroh interlude.” The “Iroh Interludes” follow Iroh as he chases after bits of information/leads about the Avatar and Zuko and in general kicks ass. Then, throughout the rest of the story, various people the Gaang and Zuko interact with may all describe a certain tea-loving man with a fierce love for his nephew. So we have:

Book One: Water [imprisoned on Hakoda’s ship (and I love the idea of it not being caused by a storm, so Iroh storms the Pohuai Stronghod and sets Aang free inadvertently. Big brain)]

Book Two: Earth [General Fong + Gaang + Dai Li in Ba Sing Se]

Book Three: Fire [Ozai + Boiling Rock]

What follows Iroh in his wake is a subtle awakening of the White Lotus; one of its grandmasters is prepared to rain hell on his enemies, and in a shifting world, the lotus begins to bloom. I also love the idea of some young (or old), Earth Kingdom soldier who’s at General Fong’s base being a member of the White Lotus; Iroh finds out that the Gaang has Zuko and they’re taking him to Ba Sing Se through that soldier.

(Sidenote: I cannot wait to create OCs for each element. Muffin, I love your OCs, and I know you’re generally fine with people using them, but I need to stretch my OC-making legs.)

(Zuko and Aang will absolutely be at first captured by the Sun Warriors. After they meet the firebending masters, and the Chief says they must stay with the Sun Warriors for the rest of their lives, Zuko’s like :) how nice are your prison cells, half-joking.)

The scene where Hakoda and Zuko meet at the Boiling Rock is going to be my favorite scene to write; I can tell. Seeing Zuko’s character growth through Hakoda’s eyes will be excellent. 

EDIT:

“Zuko hugs him, because he’s only just now realizing that being imprisoned these months, meeting all these people and coming out the other side, has left him freer in his own mind than he’s ever been.”

You—

I’m so tired of every single act of love and affection and care between two characters being taken as romantic like please I am Begging you let friends exist. this mindset seeps into the real actual world n has a negative affect in the real actual world n has yall shipping real life people because you don’t understand how friends work and think that two people liking each other and having fun together must mean they’re In Love

n I’ve talked about this before but romanticizing and sexualizing all expressions of love and affection also results in fictional sibling relationships being stripped of their intimacy. no one can portray siblings cuddling or kissing each other on the cheek or sleeping in the same bed because it will Automatically be perceived as romantic or sexual. this also has a negative affect on the real actual world, as proven by the dozens and dozens of people on my last post about this saying that seeing this being done to fictional siblings made them uncomfortable expressing affection and sharing intamacy w their siblings in Real Life which is honestly one of the most heart breaking things I’ve ever heard

In hopes of inspiring younger generations, NASA created this series of gorgeous retro travel posters that encourage you to imagine a future where common space travel is a legitimate possibility. Source