GoddamTurmip

Rules: Bold the themes that appear in your WIP (and italicize those that are loosely covered)

WIP: The Shark in Your Waters

addiction | beauty | betrayal | change vs. tradition | chaos vs. order | circle of life | coming of age | communication | convention vs. rebellion | corruption | courage | crime and law | dangers of ignorance | darkness and light | death | desire to escape | dreams | displacement | empowerment | facing darkness | facing reality | faith vs. doubt | fall from grace | fame and fortune | family | fate | fear | fear of failure | free will | friendship | fulfillment | good vs. bad | government | greed | guilt and forgiveness | hard work | heroism | hierarchy | honesty | hope | identity crisis | immortality | independence | individual vs. society | inner vs. outer strength | innocence | injustice | isolation | knowledge vs. ignorance | life | loneliness | lost love | love | man vs. nature | manipulation | materialism | motherhood | nature | nature vs. nurture | oppression | optimism | peer pressure | poverty | power | power of words | prejudice | pride | progress | quest | racism | rebirth | relationships | religion | responsibility | revenge | sacrifice | secrets | self-awareness | self-preservation | self-reliance | sexuality | social class structure | survival | technology | temptation and destruction | time | totalitarianism | weakness | vanity | war | wealth | wisdom of experience | youth

this was such an interesting one to do. it actually really made me have to sit down and put words to the themes I was trying to explore. very fun exercise that I'd honestly recommend doing for most fics to figure out what you're trying to say.

OH MY GOSH YES GREAT QUESTION CAUSE I HAVE!!!

We start off showing he's an impatient and very angry kid. Reasonable, and the sort of flaw we might expect to see in a villain. Kinda funny that he expects to go up against an adult and fully 4-Element realized Avatar, but the kid is desperate and Iroh clearly expects his nephew to get the banishment-denial kicked out of him.

What's important here, though, is Zuko's introduction to the Southern Water Tribe.

Here, we have a very intimidating entrance where his entire ship just sails through the ice right up to the village's front door. It's quite ominous and this is our first proper introduction to how the Fire Nation interacts with a foreign people.

Sokka charges, I'm assuming fully prepared to die, and Zuko casually knocks him out of the way. Okay, so clearly the Water Tribe are entirely outgunned.

He asks "Where are you hiding him?" and the people of the Water Tribe go silent. I assume they're either just too scared to talk or actually protecting Aang.

Whatever the case, it's important to note that the Southern Water Tribe know the terror the Fire Nation can inflict. We have a whole episode dedicated to tracking down a division of raiders. Sokka was able to not only identify the ash-mixed snow as signs of an incoming attack, but estimate how many ships the amount of ash measures to. These are a people who have experience being terrorized and are probably expecting something terrible to happen.

And then, after they don't answer, Zuko grabs Gran-Gran. There was a horror sting to it, and everything the tribe knows about the Fire Nation suggests that Zuko is about to threaten or straight up hurt her to get answers. Classic "terrorize the elderly" bad guy stuff.

And then...

He goes "He's (the Avatar) be about this age and is a master of all four elements!?" and lets her go.

And all of a sudden, the tension that was built up is shattered as Zuko went "I know, I'll give them a reference for the person I'm looking for because clearly they're confused and I wasn't specific enough."

This went from a show of villainy to a show of Zuko being totally socially awkward and misreading the situation entirely. Not helping is that when he does try to menace them a moment later, his fire is slow and angled quite safely.

It still worked on the Water Tribe because they're understandably scared, but all I could think of is that this was the equivalent of a playground bully trying to make someone flinch with that fake-out lunge thing.

Because the fact-and something we'll come to learn-is that Zuko is TERRIBLE at being a Fire Nation oppressor. He's capable of doing morally dubious things and is a competent fighter. But he's lousy at terrorizing people and cruelty-that's kind of the point of his banishment.

tagged by @sooz-again and @littlegayteaboy

I haven't been able to draw much lately so I'll post some writing instead.

From The Shark In Your Waters ch 11:

The hours went by painfully slow and terrifyingly fast all at once. It felt like no time at all before Zuko felt the ship’s speed change- that ephemeral sense that only years at sea could teach. They were nearing… something. Zuko dared to brave the deck and find out what. It was the blockade. Half a dozen ships standing armored guard, iron sentries prowling their boarder’s waters. And there beyond them, just far enough to be out of trebuchet range… That oh-so familiar piece of rusted junk. Zuko could see his personal flag flying just below his nation’s colors. A silly little thing he’d designed when the idea of captaining his own ship still held some shred of childish delight despite the circumstances of why. He’d drawn it on some spare parchment- a crudely drawn dragon circling a sun- then promptly thrown it out when he realized how ridiculous he was being. Uncle had found the drawing. Had commissioned a flag be made in its likeness, gold stitching on red- lighter than the Fire Nation’s flag but just as vivid. It was beautiful. Zuko would never admit it, just like he’d never admit how touched he’d been when Uncle had presented the folded flag to him, his drawing brought to life. He’d pretend to be annoyed when Uncle insisted they celebrate the hoisting of the flag with music and drink. The first of many music nights- and the only one Zuko had ever attended. Zuko’s heart did a weird thump-squeeze in his chest as he stared out at his flag. The Pariah was waiting for them, as close as she could get to Fire Nation waters without stepping a toe over. Hovering on the other side of the border. Waiting for him. Uncle came for him. (Uncle always came for him, even when he really, really shouldn’t.)  The Pariah sent out a flare as soon as the Bleeding Star came into sights. A moment later, Zhao’s flagship replied. Apparently, the vice admiral wanted to talk. Well, it gave Zuko the chance to skulk back to his own ship without having to swim. (He wondered if that was why Zhao sent out the flare- it certainly wasn’t for Uncle's tea. Would this be just another thing he owed the man? Did it count, if Zuko hadn’t even asked? Probably. Zhao would bleed Zuko dry of everything he thought he was owed.)

from the platonic soulmates fic (tw for vomiting and implied incest):

Zuko did not have soulmarks. He had scars. One wrapped around his left wrist. A bracelet in the shape of a palm and four long fingers, warped and stretched from where it had grown with him over the years. It had looked so huge when he’d first gotten it, but an adult's hand would always look huge on a five year old’s skin. He can’t remember what the soulmark looked like, before his father’s fire had burned it away. Something soothing, cool and smooth with the bite of salt.  After his banishment, Zuko remembered going down far enough south to see snow for the first time in his life. Snowflakes had landed on his nose, his cheeks, his eyelashes (the ones that remained, at least.) They’d been a sharp bite of chill before it melted away. Tracks of water down his cheeks, like tears. Whatever the mark had once looked like, it had felt like that snowflake on his nose. He had another scar on the back of his neck. Ghostly hands had tried pulling his hair away from his face to keep him from getting them soiled with his own sick. Zuko had been too busy clutching the bowl to do it for himself. Chunks of vomit had already gotten tangled in his hair, but the phantom hands of his soulmate hadn’t seemed to care. Maybe because they hadn’t really been there. He would have been mortified to realize that the first time this soulmate saw him was puking his guts out, if he weren’t already too carved out to feel anything but ill. The mark had been on the back of his neck. He’d never been able to get a look at it, not before Father found it and held him down to burn it away, but for one blessed night Zuko had been able to run his fingers over the raised lines of it and wonder what shapes they made. There was a scar on Zuko’s knee, where a small hand had once rested while a boy and a ghost had sat side by side next to a turtleduck pond. That one Zuko had been able to look at before it was burned away; silvery swirls of scar tissue that reminded him of leaves on a cool autumn wind, brown beautymarks that almost seemed to form characters for a language he didn’t know. It had taken a few days before Father found that one, but that was back when he only visited Zuko’s bedroom every once in a while instead of nearly every night. He’d spent hours tracing the looping shapes on his knee, trying to memorize them before they disappeared forever.

Zuko Plot 026: Fire Cat-Boy Zuko

After pissing off the spirits when trying to catch the Avatar again, Zuko gets cursed to live the rest of his days as an animal. Aang, while touched the Spirit would do that for him, argues for Zuko to not be dehumanized, please. He'd feel so bad about it! Coming to a compromise, the Spirit only PARTIALLY transforms Zuko and tries to take his mentality leaving him subjected to the Avatar's care.

Now having fluffy ears and tail, Zuko can only retain his mental humanity under the light of the sun when his bending is fully powered. Since the spirit was lesser than Agni.

Zuko joins the gang before the north pole by force. Zuko is a fluffy kitty. Zuko is very cuddly at night and very hissy during the day. Surprisingly his impeccable stealth has actually improved in both mindsets. Can no longer firebend at night, even if he did have the mental capacity for it. Zuko can talk to appa and momo in either mindset. Zuko is only as smart as them at night. Which isn't too awful but he's mostly driven by instincts which sucks for someone as needing of control as he is.