Swear (Not) By The Moon

lieutenant jee, so mysterious.   why his cropped hair in a nation where a topknot is prestigious??  how did he come to take a position on zuko’s warship?? how did he refrain from mutiny for so long?  and where did he learn to play the pippa so well??

i really enjoy his mini-arc with zuko through book one, and how jee goes from challenging zuko’s commands to establishing a mutual respect for each other.  “the storm” sets jee up as a narrative stand-in for ozai, whose outspokenness compels zuko to attempt to reenact the traumatic events that lead to the agni kai with his father and subsequent banishment.  jee and zuko nearly come to blows after zuko insists that the lives of the crew are inconsequential in regards to his search for the avatar.  but iroh intervenes with the tale of zuko’s history, leaving jee with new knowledge and respect for zuko.  and so the cycle of violence that zuko is still stuck in is never completed.  jee goes from complaining about zuko in the boiler room to actively helping him in his search for the avatar.  

there’s an entire category of atla fics where zuko gets adopted by various characters, so where are my “jee reluctantly adopts his traumatized, rage-filled teenage superior officer” fics??  

lieutenant jee is definitely dad-shaped.  he is grumpy, officially Too Old For This, and so completely done dealing with this little shit.  

i mean, are you even a zuko father-figure if he’s not mouthing off to you??

don’t you just hate it when your dad tells you your behavior is atrocious and you know that he’s right??

in fact, he’s SO dad-shaped that after jee chastises zuko for endangering the crew and disrespecting his uncle (a classic dad move by the way; only a Real Dad would scold you for your behavior in front of Literally Everyone You Know), zuko immediately tries to fight him.  because that’s what you do with dads, right??

and the ultimate indicator of a father-son relationship: after antagonizing jee and shouting at iroh and having an absolute meltdown in front of all his men, zuko literally goes and puts himself in time out.  HE GOES TO HIS ROOM AND SITS THERE UNTIL HE’S SORRY.  

i can’t get over how zuko essentially puts himself in time out to think about what he’s done.  

and then zuko goes and rescues the helmsman, which causes jee to make this face:

“maybe this terrible child isn’t quite as terrible as I thought!”

zuko and his two dad-shaped guys.

and in the episodes that follow, jee not only refrains from leading the mutiny he’s clearly been considering, but is shown to have a respectful working relationship with zuko afterwards.

bonus father-son bonding over firebending training!

i like the two of them because it's sometimes about healing and sometimes it's about penance and sometimes it's about making ourselves human again after being turned into monsters and sometimes it's about finding someone to grumble about the bad days with, but also someone who desperately wants to make those bad days better (without having any concrete idea of how to do that).

zuko having someone who pushes him to be the best version of himself, who engages with the ideas at the back of his mind, and says "we should make a change, right now." he doesn't stew in his emotions, he confronts them.

jet having someone who indulges his robinhood fantasies, who is determined and just as scrappy as he is, someone who matches his flair for the dramatic and care for other people (because he does care, jet cares about the freedom fighters and the war refugees, so much).