Meme, because I didn't have a drunk Purim experience

[attackfish]

Stealing from all kinds of people on the white_lotus members page.

Tell me about stories you think I should write. I mean, if you could sit me down for a day or whatever and say, "Ok, I want you to write this story for me," what would that story be?

I'm not actually promising to *write* any of these, mind you, but it's fun anyway. And who knows if I'll be inspired!

Comments

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Go ahead and write your own idea! And while you're at it, you have my full permission to play around with the Toph-finds-Aang AU.

I didn't write CoD for that meme because I figured it would be rotten to make you wait for me to fill it. That's a several thousand word project and I don't like to do those for reward memes. In the memes I do for fun, I'm more willing to do that kind of thing.

Nothing happy or good ever happens in the Holding This Breath verse. Once you understand this, all the secrets of the world will be open to you. Aang doesn't learn firebending until after the war. He and the gaang are hanging out incognito in the conquered Earth Kingdom after Azula chased them out of the Western Air Temple, and when Ozai starts burning down the whole Earth Kingdom with the power of the comet, all four of them take him on. Aang goes into the avatar state, Ozai dies, Aang angsts, somehow they all deal with Azula, and then later, Aang and puppet Firelord Zuko bond over their shared lessons with their harsh and very reluctant firebending teacher. In an effort to connect with his uncle's memory, Zuko takes Aang on an adventure to the "ruins" of the Sun Warriors, and they dance with the dragons. Aang and the Southern Water Tribe help Zuko disentangle himself from the Northern Water Tribe, and Zuko becomes a full monarch.

The universe notes for Zenith and Nadir are here: http://attackfish.livejournal.com/65620.html?thread=735316#t735316 and the Zenith and Nadir tag with its one and only drabble is here: http://attackfish.livejournal.com/tag/zenith%20and%20nadir I'll get cracking on Z&N once I've wraped up Kindle the Wind.

I love that fic, as much for the idea of Zuko working For Toph for years as for the hell I get to put everybody else through.

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

I see; that makes sense, and I will ask for it again at some point.

That sounds like a lovely happy ending and I would love to see it.

Thanks for the link!

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Please do.

Keep in mind, this is all after I break Zuko's heart into little tiny pieces over and over and over again, finally things level out.

You're welcome!

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

My happy ending prompt will involve cPTSD.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Mind, I'm pretty sure canon Zuko has PTSD. (Plus Mai and Ty Lee and Aang, and... That universe is a giant trauma generator.) Also, Zuko has massive problemss with Aang to start with because this is the guy who killed his father, who in this verse, Zuko hasn't gotten all the way through his head is an irredeemable monster who can't love anyone and was ruining the world for kicks. Yeah.

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

What prompts you to believe that they have PTSD in canon? I don't really see that. Aang does have the cliche PTSD dream, but for him it's about what happened yesterday.

Additionally, cPTSD is its own thing. Zuko had something awful happen, but it was over fast. Same with Aang. I might buy long-term trauma for Mai and Ty Lee butTL would have to care about right and wrong first.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying Zuko has PTSD from the scaring (though he might) I'm saying he has it from being raised by Ozai and living with Azula. When he's ten, his grandfather calls for his death. This might be an unusal experience (and signs point to yes) but it still points to a tremendous amount of insecurity Zuko must have endured. His younger childhood was probably mostly okay. He has glowing memories of his mother, after all, but then he is threatened with death, his mother disappears, his domineering father becomes his sole parent, and his sister is almost certainly given free reign to do whatever she wants to her brother. We know that Azula was already very cruel to her brother, and I'm sure she moved right in on the psychological torture. Three years of that before Zuko's exile would certainly cause PTSD. He has some pretty nasty flashbacks in Zuko Alone, and his horrific temper in seasons one and two remind me of my first stalker's older brother, who, trapped in an abusive situation, channeled his trauma through his hair trigger temper.

Aang I'm less sure about, but Mai and Ty Lee both read to me as people who are dealing with long term trauma. Mai's blankness is one way to deal with someone like Azula who thrives on emotional manipulation. It was a coping mechanism that came naturally to her perhaps because of her parents, but Azula probably did a lot so cement it. In their first meeting, we see Azula threaten Mai's little brother, and other than Mai's flat affect, we have no reason to think she doesn't care. Mai shows Azula no emotion. She gives her no break in her facade. And when she does show emotion, I bet she feels weak. She gave anyone she saw the tools to hurt her. Several of my first stalker's victims exhibited this behavior. Ty Lee exhibits the same behavior I did. Like Mai, she masks her emotions, but she masks them behind a smile. She is always smiling, and when Azula asks, she always complements her to the nth degree. She easily gives Azula her unhappiness and the bounces back. If Azula enjoys her unhappiness the way my stalker did mine, giving it to her easily prevents her from doing worse, and then bouncing back to "happy" ensures she'll ignore you until she wants something from you.

I'm unsure what you meant about the last sentence. Ty Lee was threatened into going back to Azula in the first scene they're in, and specifically, Azula threatens others. She threatens the circus and circus patrons to force Ty Lee's compliance. Speaking as someone with a lot of experience with an Azula type girl, you become very quickly accustomed to doing morally questionable, hurtful things to gain the approval of your tormentor to keep yourself safe. My first stalker used her current "favorite" to help her in torturing any "friend" of hers who was on the outs. This helped her foster intense competition between her small inner circle, and also left her victims with a great deal of guilt after they broke away. While you're doing something for a girl like Azula, you might have a perfectly well developed sense of conscience, and you might even know as you're doing it that it's wrong, but it stops mattering to you, because you do it to survive. Keep in mind, we don't meet Mai and Ty Lee until after Azula has had the chance to work on them for years. To me, the fact that Ty Lee ran from her before canon began and Azula yanked her back says it all.

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

Huh, I seem to have misremembered Ty Lee's history. Yes, that makes sense; I can see that for Mai and Ty Lee. I still maintain that Aang only displays an acute stress response (which is basically PTSD symptoms that happen immediately and don't last long).

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

See, I was under the impression that the gaang hung around the North Pole for a month or so after the battle for Aang and Katara to learn more waterbending before they journeyed on to the Earth Kingdom. That's why I wasn't as sure about Aang as the other three. How far from the initial event do the symptoms have to continue for it to stop being acute?

Mai, Ty Lee, and Azula are kind of a touchy subject for me, because I see so much of my first stalker in Azula and Mai and Ty Lee act so much like my first stalker's real life victims, that when I first saw the show, I was like "They get it, they get it! Somebody finally gets it!" (Try telling somebody you're in therapy because you were stalked by a ten-year-old girl and see how well that goes over. Seriously. Well, ten to fourteen year old, she kept it up for four years.) And then there are huge swaths of fandom who want to woobify Azula, and are under the impression that if Mai and Ty Lee were just better friends to Azula, she never would have started hallucinating, and would have become magically nice, and it's like NOOOOO! Why fandom, why?

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

Three months to be diagnosed with PTSD, according to the DSM-IV, but, from what I've seen in real life, ASR shades into PTSD without any particular dividing line. (Then the PTSD can also be acute or chronic, but the dividing line is again arbitrary.) However, what signs of PTSD are you thinking of subsequent to the Siege of the North? I thought we were talking about Aang's nightmare and reaction to the genocide early in the first book. I saw those scenes and thought, "PTSD! Wait, no, that happened yesterday for Aang; of course he's still freaked out and hasn't dealt with it yet."

Ten-year-olds can be monsters. I was never in that dynamic, though, so I didn't recognize it in Azula and her friends. As far as Mai and Ty Lee being at fault for everything,
1. I don't think they could have caused psychosis.
2. I used to blame myself for not having made my "friend" a nicer person. I couldn't have done anything.
3. Even if they could have, why should they have been obliged to take care of Azula while she wrought havoc upon the world?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Well, a hundred years definitely counts as long term... No, actually, I wasn't even thinking about that dream. I was thinking about the one in "The Avatar State" where he dreams about destroying the Fire Nation fleet as Koizilla. Still pretty safely within the acute zone, I think, but not the day after.

Unfortunately, the whole "If you were just a better friend" thing hits a little too close to what in my darkest moments used to run through my mind. People like Azula and my first stalker convince you to blame yourself and that you're a coward for leaving, and that you're the real bad guy, and then fandom goes with that same logic, and it's like, wow, way to miss the point, folks.

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

I don't remember that part. Maybe I should rewatch.

If I were you-- and if I were very strong-- I would show that last part through a story about how this has affected Mai and Ty Lee. Of course, it's up to you how you use your energy and sanity.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Children’s Stories is one of the first stories I wrote in A:tLA fandom, Mai after the war thinks about Azula: http://attackfish.livejournal.com/46047.html

Ty Lee and Suki - Sake was written for lalunatique on a meme, Ty Lee in the Kyoshi Warriors hides her scars: http://attackfish.livejournal.com/113196.html?thread=1384492#t1384492

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

That last one... just, that last one. Wow.

(Would Suki really do that? I'm having a hard time believing the leader of the Kyoshi warriors would do that, especially after having gone off to war.)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I imagine it's not a habitual thing, more like she misjudged her alcohol tolerance at some kind of annual Kyoshi island equivalent of a Christmas party. *shrug*

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

That makes sense.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Looking up cPTSD on google, it looks pretty close to what I have. the trust issues, the issues I have with depression and suicidal ideation, that waiting for the other shoe to fall when someone is nice to me, my fear of becoming close to someone, the sense of hopelessness, of being trapped this way, my inability to express anger, and then when I do, it's fast, hot, and leaves me panicked afterwards, (my difficulty trusting my perfectly wonderful therapist) that, along with more typical PTSD symptoms is me, and closer to what I was getting at with Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee. The person traumatizing you doesn't have to be a parent or caregiver. It can be a little sister or a "best friend."

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

Sorry you have to deal with that.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

It's okay. I recently started working with a therapist who specializes in treating PTSD and childhood trauma, and I'm ten years and two thirds of a continent away from my first stalker, and my second stalker's in prison for a long, long time for reasons totally unrelated to me. So things are looking up.