Fellow Prisoner Li, Part 5: Zuko, Ruiner of Speeches
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“We can’t leave without Li,” Katara said, and Aang said, and Hama and the other ex-Fire-Nation-prisoners were largely neutral on, but Sokka wasn’t actually arguing that.
“We’ve been here too long,” was what Sokka was arguing. “We are in the middle of the Fire Nation. After breaking into a prison, with our giant recognizable sky bison and our glowing recognizable Avatar. The whole point of coming here was to not be recognized, which now that I think about it, was a planned doomed to fail the second it started with ‘break into a prison’—”
Not that he’d voted for that plan, either. Honestly, that plan seemed custom-built to out themselves immediately. While in a prison designed to hold benders. Which just went to show that Li was not a Plan Guy. And yes, Sokka was just as worried as the rest of them that the firebender had apparently wandered off with no supplies into a forest and not come out in any of the neighboring towns, but—
“Would you leave me behind?” his little sister said. “Or Aang? Or Hama? Li’s one of us.”
“Yes,” Sokka said. “I mean no. I mean—ugh. He knows where we are. So either he doesn’t want to come back, or someone is stopping him, and the fact he’s held out for days means it would probably be pretty terrible of us to waste his—”
“If you say sacrifice—” Katara said, while Aang was turning a distinct shade of hadn’t-previously-contemplated-torture white.
Which was, of course, when the Fire Nation troops announced themselves. The inn was surrounded. Appa was groaning under the sudden weight of an iron net. Faceless skull masks stood poised to bend in a double-ring all around them, with… a teenage girl as their leader?
Good evil smirk. 10/10. Sokka really felt the unflappable confidence.
“What have you done to him?” Katara shouted, interrupting a very dramatic monologue about the inevitability of their defeat.
“Rude,” the girl said. “And unspecific.”
“With Li. Where is he?”
The girl’s eyes skimmed over their little group again. Three children and one elder out front, other elders huddled inside, watching through the upstairs windows. Her eyes narrowed.
“You misplaced your firebender?”
“Well,” Aang said, clutching his staff in front of himself. “He might have been upset, and… left?”
“Li,” she said, drawing the name out in a very particular way. “Left. Left you. The Avatar.”
“Or,” Katara growled, her glare firmly on the girl, her hand firmly on her waterskin. “He was captured.”
“If he was captured, I would know,” the girl said.
“Because… you are…?” Sokka asked.
10/10 on the I don’t disappoint me, you disappoint me look, too. Which was on her, really, because what had been the point of her whole speech if there was no one here who even knew who she was? And it wasn’t like they should know—
“Princess Azula,” she said. “Daughter of Fire Lord Ozai. Heir to the Dragon Throne.”
And then she snapped her fingers, and started giving orders. Search pattern orders.
“Find him,” she said.
“Um,” said Aang, holding his staff a little less tightly. “Are you… capturing me?”
The Fire Princess had quite a repertoire of looks. Sokka… did not recognize this one.
“What’s even the point if he’s not here to watch?” she said, and turned her back on them.
She still left the nets on Appa, and enough soldiers to burn the inn if they so much as twitched. Given all the elders inside who could barely walk, much less run…
Team Avatar sat tight. Or, as Sokka preferred to think of it: outsourced their Li-tracking to someone with superior manpower.
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damn son I'm literally a transandrophobia poster and I routinely rail against TIRFism and even I think your takes are wack. "AMAB privilege" GTFO with that man. we can lift up transmasc voices and promote trans unity and talk about radfem ingression into trans spaces without making this another AMAB/AFAB oppression olympics thing - that was the whole problem, we should be doing the opposite. stop taking words like TIRF and pretending to be against radfems when you're eating their talking points for breakfast
tirf means trans inclusive radfem, so tirfs actually are radfems! i am one myself. terfs aren't actually a thing - there are definitely transphobic radfems, but radfeminism includes ALL afab people, transmascs included. i'm still veryyy critical of how many handle trans issues. i reblog as much material as i can for my book, which very often includes not-so-kind terms/phrasing, but i do try to use language as respectful as i can in my own posts so i can have actual conversations with trans folks and trans activists, including saying amab/afab and agab instead of male/female.
i do believe that transfem people face unique oppression on the complicated axis of what ppl call transmisogyny. which imo is mostly a mix of sexism and homophobia if someone knows that person's sex/agab, mixed with conditional misogyny if they pass and live their life as afab. if they're outed as amab, they're seen as a gnc man again and with all the violent sexism that comes with that. it's a very complex form of oppression. i know they go through a lot of unique trauma, i'm not denying it.
but i also believe that afab people are uniquely oppressed as well.
if not, then what do you call this if not unique oppression? forced impregnation, abortion/pregnancy issues, period tax, lack of menstruation/uterus research & resources, afab bodies being under-represented in medicine which causes horrific things to happen, afab babies being aborted or killed at birth for being born with a vagina (afab) bc they're seen as lesser, afab upbringing coming with very unique experiences that amab ppl for better or worse will never understand (it is NOT a fucking privilege fuck you), being born with a body type that is very obviously vulnerable against people with penises sexually due to people with bio dicks feeling genital pleasure when they stick it in something, and god knows they will not give a shit about the person below them (look at fucking nature documentaries!!!). they will take off the condom. they will pressure ppl to do anal or give painful blowjobs. they will be creeps or jerks about pregnancy. they will generally put penises above vaginas and amab rights over afab rights, and this shit is DEEPLY ingrained in society. transfems being able to transition is very new, meaning that although they had many struggles before, they were not treated as female and had that (perhaps painful) privilege for MOST of human history. this meant being allowed to open a bank, go places without a husband, not being forced to be impregnated like cattle, not being forced to be a mother stuck in a kitchen, and having SOOO much more generational wealth at their disposal. afab ppl reading abt historical afab oppression is upsetting in a way that transfems will never fully be able to relate to. afab people have a deep, rich, unique culture and faced trauma for thousands of years and us being afab is not a privilege!! we have the privilege of not understanding transfem issues, sure, like a woman not being a lesbian won't face lesbophobia. but then again male-attracted women face violence from men in a unique way!! it's complex af when you're already marginalized
most ppl have an agab-based sexuality too, cis men included, meaning afab ppl are the ONLY *INTENDED* target of cis men's lust and sexual violence and whatever misogynistic bs they say about women, since most cis men are heterosexual. amab ppl face it, and it fucking sucks for them too, but they also only face it conditionally - the very second the cis guy realizes the person is amab, the usual trope is them throwing up thinking back on how they kissed and wanting to punch the "crossdressing pervert" EVEN if the transfem had every surgery possible and looked totally afab. they lose attraction, usually anyway, and physical violence linked to homophobia and gncphobia is the danger transfems then risk. which ofc is absolutely horrible, it can be life-ruining. but not an afabmisogyny experience. they aren't unconditionally sexualized. they are mistaken for afab due to all the surgeries and hormones they took. it's misdirected afabmisogyny due to ppl assuming they were born with a vagina and went thru afab puberty. and then harming them bc they see afab ppl as sex objects and dumb bitches, they see us being born and raised afab as a weakness. they hate us and want us for our sex/agab. most misogyny is about specifically afab people! and yes transmisogyny sucks, it should be called out too for sure. but when fem transmascs pass as transfem post-transition they always are open about experiencing misdirected transmisogyny and talking abt transfem rights etc etc. why can't transfems do the same with cis women and transmascs?? why can't they talk abt how transmisogyny & misogyny against cis women are both bad in different ways? it's always them being victims vs those evil privileged bitches!!
and not just quickly mention it but ACTUALLY speak up about it, uplift afab voices, and be genuinely good afab allies? where are the posts from transfems calling out transfems' afabmisogyny? why can't transmascs or cis women write posts abt it without being met by death threats and terf accusations? i know you think you can only further transandrophobia discussions by tiptoing around the existence of afab-exclusive misogyny. i know talking abt transmasc-unique issues already leads to insane amounts of bullying from afab & transfem folks. but i'm tired of transfems getting away with shitty behavior. i'm tired of cis women being only seen as oppressors against transfems. something needs to change. i truly believe that radfeminism isn't a lost cause, and in fact there are more and more transmasc radfems, and even transfems who are strong radfem allies. people are finally waking up to the realities of afab oppression!! they're finally embracing nuance!
misogynistic behavior from transfems gets brushed under the rug and them being amab is seen as completely irrelevant, anyone bringing it up is a bigot, while afab folks are more than open to their agab being a factor in conflict... it's unfair. as you've shown, transfems and the ppl speaking for them refuse to have nuanced talks abt afab oppression, they view it as "omg we're all oppressed!! shut the fuck up theyfab go bootlick those privileged cis cunts! no one wants to hear about your issues for longer than a minute, only listen to MINE!! being afab is a PRIVILEGE i didn't get to grow up afab stop rubbing it in my face!!!" what sucks is that transfems and transfem allies used to be soooo much more respectful of cis women and transmasc people's rights too. literally NO ONE used to say that being afab genuinely meant you got benefits in society. no one. like holy fucking shit. the past 20 years has been a fever dream!!!
i'm 100% for transfems living their best lives, transition included, and i've heard many horror stories of transfem-specific experiences i'll never truly understand. but it's not a strict oppressor/oppressed dynamic all the time. just because you're not oppressed on every axis of oppression ever doesn't mean you have no struggles. it's fucking insane that i keep needing to explain that to people, like oh my god do y'all not understand that someone can be both privileged and disprivileged in society in different ways, and might need to both have their voices boosted sometimes and ALSO need to take a back seat other times??? this ain't us cis radfems OR transandrophobia activists just playing oppression olympics. this is an oppressed group talking abt their unique struggles and being mocked to hell and back. and it's sad that it's seen as catty and selfish and bitchy. but as an afab woman i'm not surprised lmao.
and yeah you might speak on transmasc issues, but do you speak on afab rights? do you call out misogynistic bullshit that transfems say about cis women too? do you speak on cis women's oppression as well, about how they're oppressed by amab people too and are oppressed in a different way than transmasc or transfem folks, for being afab and ALSO identifying as women? do you mention how afab people are a uniquely oppressed class of people, or are you too scared of stepping on transfem toes bc they're seen as the top of the oppression pyramid and will harass you off the site?? why is saying that amab people as a class have privilege over afab folks on an oppression axis controversial? what about that feels like an attack?
if you're transfem or otherwise are amab and live perceived as afab, and you aren't afraid to recognize that afab oppression is its own thing and deserves its own voice and its own movement, ily bestie. i see you. i see more and more of you lately and it warms my heart. we aren't enemies, we can learn from eachother. thank you for working thru that initial knee-jerk reaction and learning to be a good ally to afab folks. i wish you the best <3 and if you're transmasc you DESERVE to have your voice heard too. you deserve to speak on afab rights and for transfems to want to be good allies to you too!! ALL afab people have unique voices that need to be heard for once!
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OK BRAIN WORM NUMB R ONE. WHAT WAS THE THING WITH NEIL N PIERRE ABOUT DYING AND COMING BACK THE SAVE VS LIVING WRONG
i went through. my entire got damn blog trying to figure out WHAT you were referring to where the hell i had said this. and then realized it was the 3rd most recent reblog. im so smart and organized guys
so in reference to this post
essentially you can read it as either neil or pierre, but the perspective of WHO is saying this definitely changes.
for neil, the dying and coming back refers to the cyborg process and the fact that neil has the very unique situation of... being used for intermittent testing for about a year. And then being shut off and kept in essentially storage for about 6-8 years after that. where he was unconcious and did not age at all. so when he gets out, its still just a teenage boy, but suddenly everyone is so much older and everything is different and not only is eveline older shes also. not her anymore. which is not new ground here ajdjdhfjf
but its also worth noting that neil does not get the near instantaneous reconciliation that he did with cherry in WTTW, because cherry is dead. for at least 10 months. so it spends that time not knowing why cherry came to RR or who they are now or anything of the sort. so like if i had to do a line by line breakdown itd look like:
-"i died but i came back exactly the same" neil has not significantly aged and is around the same age he was when eveline knew it
-"you though, i came back and you were wrong" neil is the same. eveline is very much not. it has been a much shorter time
-"did the fact of my dying really damage you this much?" neil doesnt know WHY evelines so different and wonders if them being ripped apart the way they were had anything to do with it
-"was bringing me back worth what it cost you?" neil thinking the reason any of this happened is because eveline came back for him, and it cost her her life. (also the fact that haha um neil is. Kind of the one who kills cherry. oopsie!)
-"would it have been better to just leave me?" neil sees all the new people in their life that they dont know and feels guilty over the idea that He was (as far as he knows. because no one ever tells the kids anything except for vallen but shhh) the reason eveline went back, died, and left all of her friends to clean up the aftermath of it all. tldr neil blames himself for everything bad that happened to cherry and it fucks him up bc i cannot give that boy a moment of peace
pierre is a lot more straightforward. imagine some visage of eveline saying this shit to him. "bringing me back" is less about being brought from the dead and more about, like. taking someone by force and bringing them back home.
pierre sees the moment "eveline" escaped left as the big turning point of his life, when everything having to do with his future life became a lot less clear and what was left of his morals went down the drain in pursuit of Maybe Having Her Back One Day and as such he DOES wonder what may have happened had he just... let her be. so he lives in guilt over what happened because it went So So Wrong and because shes gone with next to no chance of seeing her again and not. the obvious reason he should feel guilt over eveline.
the more things change etc etc
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