#congrats on unlocking my oldest special interest

[mostly-mundane-atla]

@gayfertilitygoddess i've thought about it pretty extensively. Before I got popular-ish for being a real life eskimo in the fandom, i made a passing coment about the headcanon and it was my most requested topic until people started asking more cultural questions (names and language-related questions seem to be more popular now).

Funnily enough, and I do try to keep this blog otherwise drama free, this was springboarding off of discussions about headcanons with Jin in sex work, which got an absolute brat calling me a "pathetic, sexist loser" in a reblog of the post. I kept it off the main tag and tagged it "sex work mention" (as I do with all of these posts) so I have no idea how she found it to make gross accusations at me. I reblogged to say that her insisting that objective discussions of sex work were inherently slut-shaming was really hurtful as someone who had to consider it from a young age (home isn't always safe and favors/cash are useful at -30°F, we'll just leave it at that). She sent me asks to say that she "didn't mean to be hurtful" but also wouldn't apologize for what she said. She didn't have a damn thing to say about headcanon'ing Jet resorting to sex work, despite it having much more to do with his personality and the way he presents himself than with Jin, where it was entirely about her circumstances as someone in the poor side of a big city. She's since been blocked.

But yeah, Jet's most marketable asset to civilians who just want to escape violence is his charisma. His own comments and Smellerbee's suggest he promised that he'd stop fighting and stealing for the time being. He tells Zuko-as-Lee that "We [outcasts] have to watch each other's backs. Because no one else will." Zuko had his uncle to be his rock and managed to rely on the kindness of strangers when he went on his own. Jet had two friends whom he felt responsible for as their leader. We don't even get canon confirmation that he's fully literate. All of these things combined make finding any kind of employment very difficult, and that doesn't even take into consideration that he can't set down roots. He's trying to get to safety. He can't be obligated to stay in any one place that isn't his destination. There aren't a lot of options.

I feel like this would add to him needing to get out of territory that could be occupied by thee Fire Nation, given the comics explained that Firelord Sozin was a homophobe and worked that into the law. "You know what they've done to boys like me this past century," Jet would probably say. "And those were the ones on their own side." I can't imagine it wouldn't add to the amatanormative mess I write between him and Smellerbee. He shouldn't have to do this at all let alone by himself, and she tries to offer to help, to pitch in, but he scolds her for it so harshly that she cries. He apologizes later and and tells her she needs to just let him worry about it. Girls are supposed to like it when boys are fiercely protective and self-sacrificing, right?

Another thing about this headcanon is sex workers do and historically have done a lot more than most people tend to think. It's one of the reasons phrases like "selling their body" are grossly inaccurate. There is a lot of emotional labor involved. Some people who hire sex workers do so mostly for the company. Not in an "ahem [*eyebrow wiggle*] company, if you catch my meaning [*wink*]" way, like just actually having another human being in the room. Talking, smiling, laughing at their jokes. People get lonely, so it's only natural to pay someone for intimacy. Sometimes, more often than you might assume, they end up using that time more for emotional intimacy than physical intimacy. Sometimes that's the intention.

I wrote a scene with a situation like that. Jet is hired by an old widow because she claims he looks just like her husband did when they were that young. She holds his hand and kisses his cheek, laughing about how that was the farthest the old man had let her get before they were married, and asks him to help her make dinner. She sings and talks about how they used to walk by the river and how handsome he was, how very shy. At some point she stops saying "he" and starts saying "you," addressing Jet as if he was the man she married all those years ago.

"Am I still pretty?" she asks absentmindedly. "Am I as pretty as you'd say I'd be with lines on my face, a hunched back, and hair like clouds?"

"Of course," Jet says. "You're beautiful."

And she looks at him, but that seems to shatter the illusion. She mentions something about making too much food. That she hadn't had to cook that much since.... Silence. The sad kind that seems to suggest another tragedy. She tells him he should take some for his friends and thanks him for all he's done.

(There was also an OC concept I had who was a gay sex worker sharing his home with queer artist friends at the tail end of Firelord Sozin's reign, but this post is already long enough)

#sex work mention #keeping this off the main tag so i don't corrupt anyone #congrats on unlocking my oldest special interest #i could talk about this for hours #and will given half the chance