#nocturneblot

[rainydelusionalpeanut]

Cr. Nocturneblot

two idiots in love whenever they find a fountain

[loopy777]

Do you think in The Beach, Zuko was just being mean because he was angry at himself and taking it out on Mai—or that his complaints had a basis and Mai was an emotionally unavailable girlfriend because she had trouble expressing herself?

I have seen it being done very well in fanfics, that a combination of Mai being quiet in general and trying to keep her feelings for him hidden from Azula leads to Zuko feeling unwanted. And I can get behind that! It makes sense for Mai's characterisation and situation!

Except, that's not what we saw in canon. I can see Zuko having trouble accepting that Mai wants to be with him—despite evidence to the contrary—because he's struggling with low self-esteem.

But objectively? As the audience, at no point did I feel like Mai was not expressing enough affection for him.

So it really confuses me when I hear that both Zuko and Mai were at fault in The Beach and Mai needed to put in more effort and be more open with him. Maybe I'm missing something. I've always thought that it was Zuko being angry at himself and lashing out at Mai (he gets like that with Iroh too). That it was misplaced anger due to self-loathing and not him having a problem with her personality or the kind of girlfriend she was.

While I can understand where this interpretation is coming from, I don't see actual evidence for it in canon 🤔

Or maybe I put too much stock into her being the more proactive partner between the two of them...

What do you think?

I think you're spot on. Zuko is supposed to be at his most emotionally unhealthy point in this episode, and while there is room for Mai to try to be more reassuring about her devotion to him, I don't think going max power ZUKO I LOVE YOU AND THINK YOU CAN DO NO WRONG would actually reassure him at this point.

To illustrate, the critiques of Mai in this episode most often call out something like the following list of opportunities:

She could act like Ty Lee when being given the seashell

She could reassure Zuko that she likes having ice cream dropped on her and maybe lick it up

She could murder Ruon Jian when asked her opinion of the guy and present his head to Zuko as a gift

She could throw herself at Zuko the second he decides he isn't mad at her anymore

And I'm sure there are few more I'm forgetting or haven't seen. But would any of that have really helped Zuko? Some people say yes, but how often do they go over what Mai did do in just the first half of this episode:

I'm seeing a girlfriend who is sticking to the guy she likes like a shadow, maintaining reassuring physical contact with him at all times, never leaving him behind if he's being shy or lagging behind the rest of the group, moping with him when he doesn't want to be somewhere, and even protecting him from his misogynistic ageist tendencies so that he doesn't have to make throwing-up noises at the sight of old ladies again. Sure, she's not doting on him and saying, "Baby, what's wrong, baby?" but I think Zuko would find that even more annoying than her staying calm and quiet and present while he's in A Mood.

After all, we all saw how Zuko reacts when Iroh tries to be doting and friendly and responsive:

And this is in the context of all the cuddling and happier times they had back in the Capital. Why would he think her interest in him had changed? She certainly isn't showing that level of affection -- or any level of interest, really -- towards Ruon Jian. Again, yes, she could be more open and constantly saying, "Zuko, baby, I love you. Baby, Zuko, I love. Zuko, Zuko baby, baby Zuko, I still love you. Imma kill that Ruon Jian guy for you. Baby baby baby." But would it help? If Zuko is the kind of guy who starts doubting his girlfriend just because she hasn't stuck her tongue down his throat yet today, I don't think love-bombing him would work, either.

But, honestly, I think even getting into this level of detail is missing the point. When people say that Mai is also at fault and could be more expressive and reassuring to her emotionally damaged boyfriend, there is only one proper response:

"How would that have been funny? This episode is a comedy, lemur-for-brains."

Granted, I don't actually find it helps to remind people that AtLA is a work of fiction made by people who did not prioritize the romantic storylines -- there's no arguing with fanatics, after all -- but it's certainly a hit with the smart onlookers. ;)

[loopy777]

Do you think Sokka can go back to being sexist and underestimating women the way he was in season 1 under the right circumstances?

It might seem like I'm cutting him some slack on this, but I don't think so.

The thing with Sokka's sexism is that it came from the very specific circumstance of being left behind as every single other male in the community left to go to war and to soften the blow his dad told him to protect the women. Sokka built his whole sense of identity as he went through his teens around being the Man Of The House, so the idea of women being able to take care of themselves was threatening to make him completely useless to his entire community- the men didn't want him along and the women don't need him. So it's natural that he'd develop hostility to the idea of women being better at him in the role he was given.

Like Zuko, anger and aggression come from a lack of security.

Sokka grew out of that once he got into a different environment and found a new purpose, but the reason I don't think he'll revert if put into similar circumstances is that he kind of already was: Yue. She's a feminine girl with no fighting skills who needed to rely on male protectors. But Sokka failed to protect her, and we're given hints that he's going to carry that trauma for the rest of his life. But neither before nor after Yue's death does he go back to general sexism; he gets over-protective with Suki when they reunite, but that doesn't extend to Katara at any point and he never makes a big deal of Toph being a girl.

He's been re-tested in the extreme circumstances that would theoretically bring back the sexism and didn't revert, so I think we're safe to say he's grown beyond that. Suki or whoever doesn't have to worry.

[loopy777]

I'm here with something fun.

What kinda high do you think Mai would be? As in, what does she behave like when she's high. Let's go with cactus juice here 😆

First -- and I'm disgusted that I need to say this, especially since you're getting it right -- I have to make a general announcement that cactus juice is not the AtLA equivalent of alcohol and/or does not get people drunk. No one hallucinates like that because of a few beers- and any exceptions are probably the result of severe medical problems. The cactus Sokka drank from contained psychoactive alkaloids. I don't know why so much fanfic treats it as alcohol and has it served in bars. You can't even get weed in bars in the US, never mind hallucinogens. Well, okay, in some bars you can, but not from the official staff. Well, not from the official staff unless they're running a side-gig. Well, also unless the bar is some kind of front. Listen, what I'm saying is that no one is going to offer you LSD at an office happy hour. Unless you work in Silicon Valley, of course.

Also, don't do drugs, kids.

Okay, now with that tedium our of the way, let's have some fun.

I've actually written a Mai high on the equivalent of weed. I've never reused whatever "Blue" is, and now just refer to "mistweed" when I need a smoky recreational psychoactive substance.

But that's not as much fun as a Mai who thinks her knives are talking to her. Actually, I just typed that to be funny, but now I really like the idea. I can see Mai hallucinating different sensations from her blades, like they feel heavier than usual or she can hear them in their silk pouches. And since Mai probably knows every single one of her blades by heart, that evolves into thinking they're talking to her. She gives them all names she can't make herself forget later. And she starts giggling because she thinks they're ticklish when she polishes them and it's too funny not to join in on the laughter. She imagines them jumping into her clothes at her command when she arms herself, and when she throws them, she thinks they can follow her directions and change vector in midair. Basically, she believes she has Eddie's toon-gun.

It would also be hilarious if Mai started to think she can see auras. She's really just reading the room and her brain is turning that into colors, but afterward she never makes fun of Ty Lee again. (At least, not for the aura-reading.) This extends in a unique way to Zuko: she seems him in live shoujo vision. However, unlike Ty Lee, Mai has no desire to get attention, so she's not going around talking about the auras she sees to everyone. Rather, she gets quiet because now she thinks she can broadcast her thoughts and feelings in the form of colors. So she sits there for hours, thinking she's participating in a conversation, while staring dead-eyed with a visibly sweaty brow at everyone. Zuko is a little creeped out by the stare at the same time he thinks it's weirdly cute.

But of course Mai isn't really one for colors, so she also explores the opposite end of that strange magic and begins telling people that she can merge with shadows and travel through them. No one believes this, but for as long as she's high she shows a startling ability to just disappear when no one is looking and pop up in a dark corner on the opposite side of the room. Azula insists Mai is just blending in with the shadows and then sneaking around, and she is taking no questions about how Mai managed this in a courtyard in broad daylight.

So, basically, Mai's not as friendly as when she's on some mistweed (unless you're one of her knives), but at least she's not causing trouble for anyone unless they try to kidnap one of her little knife babies.

[loopy777]

I saw that ask you got about Azula and Zuko reconciling (the one where Azula might do something to hurt Mai to be specific 😂 because wow, there's one anon that doesn't know when to back off) anyways!

I thought I'd also join in on the trend of Azula asks (no, this is actually going to be more maiko than anything because I'm too ship-brained)

You wrote this:

The fun thing about 'redemptions' is that the worse the sins you're dealing with, the more powerful a successful implementation would be!

And my reaction to that was:

Because, where's the fun in it otherwise?

I mean, Zuko did pretty horrible things to the Gaang and was forgiven for it. But he also worked to make amends. And you also replied to a different ask about Azula having to make amends if her and Mai are gonna have any sort of friendship.

And I'm someone who can't not turn everything into maiko and now I'm thinking about Zuko being willing to forgive Azula for everything she's done to him—but he wouldn't be as forgiving for whatever she might do to hurt Mai. At least, I think so. That seems to be good fodder for conflict in a Zuko-Azula reconciliation NGL.

I don't know, the thought just made me giddy because Zuko prioritising Mai is very close to my heart ❤️

And the way only way Zuko and Azula would reconcile in that kind of situation would be if Mai forgives Azula and oof!—I don't think Mai's the forgiving kind. (I know a lot of people didn't like maizula not being besties in Ashes but I personally think it made sense? Azula wouldn't forgive a betrayal like that easily and Mai's not "let's all get along and drink kombucha, it's water under the bridge" either. It just makes sense they have this bitter exes thing going on.

But idk. I think it ties the three of them really well? Where everyone's decision is dependent on how the other person reacts?

So yeah, if Azula does something to hurt Mai, Zuko's not gonna forgive her until Mai does/Mai has overcome her trauma with regards to Azula and Mai would only try to get along with Azula if external circumstances force Zuko to rely on her.

Sheesh, these characters are like an amorphous blob!

It's kinda funny to imagine maiko being stuck in an endless loop of "for you ❤️" though 😂

Anyways, external circumstances for the win! There's only so much drama the characters can generate without one wanting to strangle them.

This is why, all these recent Asks aside, I'm not usually big on the idea of Azula and Maiko being friends and loving family. XD As I like to say, "redemption" is a weird word that people (and religions) like to argue about, but the characters achieving peace is much more interesting, is achievable for the characters in a variety of ways, and offers more interesting possibilities for future storytelling.

This way, Mai doesn't have to forgive Azula- just let go of her fear that Azula can still hurt her or Zuko. Zuko doesn't have to be friends with his sister- he can acknowledge that they were both abused, let go of conflict with her, and hold a love for her that doesn't require him to actually like her. Azula can let go of all the trappings of her past and make a new life for herself that doesn't require her to hold or exercise power to keep safe.

And if there's a little tension when circumstances force them to work together, that's even better! XD

But yes, I agree that Zuko would be more forgiving of hurts to himself than the people he loves. I mean, Aang would probably forgive her for that time she killed him, but most people usually have more trouble letting go of past hurts than that, especially with such a deceptive person as Azula.

[loopy777]

I came across this and my first thought was "maiko!" And then I remembered Mai being blunt in Samsara and scaring away the guy she was flirting with and I had a whole scenario in my head about modern AU maiko (this is kinda vintage though) that Mai is trying to hit on Zuko and everyone and their grandma gets it except him. And she's not even subtle about it. Her attempts grow more and more blunt until finally she's like "fuck this" and kisses him and he's like "ooohhhh! That's why you were acting that way. I didn't want to assume :D"

Just, overall "other guys" normally thinking Mai is too forward or domineering but Zuko's oblivious self loves her for being direct. No mental gymnastics for him lol.

Anyways, that's a lot of words for I saw that drawing and it reminded me of Mai in Samsara. Always love to see them both being misfits, but they match each other's freaks.

This pretty much has to be canon for Maiko, right? XD When last we see Zuko in Book Earth, he's acting dazed and detached from reality as he tries to process everything. When we first see him in Book Fire, he's staring into the distance and trapped in his head with all his anxieties- and yet he and Mai are in a relationship and she is already apparently used to interrupting his brooding. And if Mai is that forward with Zuko, surely she has no problem coming on to random dudes when it suits her purposes, right? Actually, considering how she was playing Kei Lo in the S&S comics, I think Mai is canonically far more forward than Ty Lee, who only ever was forward with Sokka.

Also, way to predict a moment I recently wrote in the final chapter of "A Bad Girl's Dream." ;)

[loopy777]

Re-reading Flowers For Mai and I love you so much for writing that fic the way you did! Zuko being insecure despite how much Mai loves him has the potential to come across as him being careless with her and selfish in a "she's done so much for you, what more does she need to do to prove her love?" way. But in writing him understanding Mai beyond the girl he loves, understanding her as her own person—you circumvented that pitfall spectacularly: at no point does it feel like Zuko's complaining about Mai not "putting out."

Zuko's issues in Flowers For Mai don't come across as selfish or disrespectful of Mai. And maybe that's because Mai understands that it's his issues and not any problem with her. She's never made to feel guilty about it. And in the end, it isn't about her having to prove yet again how much she loves him—but him doing the work to accept her love without additional labour from her and I love it so much!!! ❤️

I adore how you always manage to write maiko how it was supposed to be—as opposed to how it actually was.

Reading this comment be like:

Thank you so much!

I do think a lot of the 'secret sauce' of my depiction of Maiko is that I'm writing it primarily for Mai. Approaching it from a desire to write for Zuko will undoubtedly lead to different priorities and perspectives, although I would hope that such writers would be as respectful to Mai as I try to be to Zuko. But, of course, we're all pretty much writing what we want to read, and I want to read about Mai and Zuko growing together into great people. Thankfully, people like you do, too! :)

And also:

I might have made a mistake in the way I used a phrase in my previous ask to you which means quite something else. Sorry about that 😭😭😭

It definitely made me go back and make sure I read it right. XD

[loopy777]

I love drawing Mai in a bob but I just realised I do that in modern AUs only. I think canon Mai loves her hair long and black as it is. What do you think Mai's relationship with her hair is like? Sometimes I wonder if she wants to rock a shorter style but then, maybe not, because Fire Nation values long hair and I think Mai loves her hair too much. But then, Kiyi also has short hair so maybe we put too much stock in FN's attitude towards hair (I'm still bitter that they trimmed Zuko's after The Beach and we still haven't recovered!!! Dude's pushing 20 why's his hair like that!!!)

I was thinking about an AU where Mai and Ty Lee both ran away to Kyoshi Island (lol) while Ty Lee assimilates, Mai still wears red and does her hair Fire Nation style. But when I talked about it people asked me if Mai cuts her hair and... I honestly don't know! Is she too attached? Sometimes I imagine her cutting it to spite her mother, but Mai also doesn't strike me as someone who'd go against what she herself also likes just because her parents seem to like it too. That's doing too much. And for a second I wondered if she'd want to cut her hair short inspired by Suki's. For fashion's sake. But given that Mai likes unconventional things, maybe not. Maybe she wouldn't care if short hair was fashionable if she likes hers long. I mean, Ty Lee calls her makeup depressing, that doesn't mean Mai changes it to make it more conventional even though she is irritated.

It also led me to wonder what Mai's reaction to soft bullying would be like. If girls at school tease her for her hair or clothes something for example. I think she does get irritated but quickly gets over it because other people are stupid and she's only right and correct ong 🙂‍↕️

Yeah, I agree with you on the response to bullying. Mai is clearly an independent thinker, and if someone hates her for who she is, she's going to consider that their loss. Her whole thing is her veneer of apathy, and while I think she developed that attitude in response to other emotional dangers, it's still a form of armor for all kinds of things. I think she would like to be accepted by others, but if she's not, she's certainly not going to expend any effort trying to correct it for the sake of such shallow people. She'll just make other friends, like the princess who will set you on fire if you cross her and who you probably wanted to be friends with but the best showing you could make is picking on another girl for her choice in hair ribbons, loser. ;)

(Side note: This is something I think Zuko really admires about her. His whole thing is proving himself to other people, but Mai just blows her loser enemies off. He's probably like, "Wow, she's so cool. I wish I could be like that when Zhao makes fun of me!" I think he really admires that kind of self-confidence.)

I also agree with you that Mai trying to be fashionable doesn't feel like it fits. She's definitely meant to evoke 'goth' fashion and attitudes, and that's counter-culture. (People like to portray Ty Lee as fashionable, but I think that's a mistake, also. She's just as counter-culture in an attempt to stand out, but in a different way.) Mai's not extreme about it -- she's not walking around with spiked boots -- but that just makes me more inclined to think she's balancing her sense of style with real comfort and self-love. Not that some people can't be comfortable and happy in spiked boots, of course, but that's definitely not the feel they're meant to evoke, visually.

The way I usually approach Mai's feelings about her appearance is that she likes being Fancy. Even if she moved away from what her parents want for her appearance (I saw a fanfic years ago that used hair ribbons for that symbolism), I still think she'd go with something more labor intensive and complicated just because she favors that kind of aesthetic. The same drive makes her enjoy dessert with rose petals scattered on it more than a plain dessert! XD More seriously, I like to play up the symbolism of Mai's appearance being about precision; her clothes and weapons need to be layered precisely, her hair is done in a fancy manner even without servants to help her, her overall look makes use of more angles, and so on.

I've never written anything where she cuts her hair, as that's a bit over-used in Avatar as a big Character Moment, but in one story I did have her stop doing anything with her hair besides tying it back to keep it out of the way. The point there was to symbolize a degree of self-loathing, that she's moving away from what defines her appearance because she hates herself and doesn't want to be herself. Cutting her hair would have been another way of doing it, but I also wanted her to recover from that self-loathing and the fic wasn't going to cover enough time for her to grow it long again. Haircuts are better for a permanent change in character, Zuko's famous hairbending notwithstanding. On that note:

Also, I forgot to ask: do you think Mai would ever want to cut her short? For whatever reason.

Yeah, I can see it with the right character work. Your example of her moving to Kyoshi Island can be treated as embracing a simpler life, one more free of politics and the burden of the Fire Nation's legacy, and I can see her shedding her more complicated appearance as a symbol of that. Perhaps she doesn't embrace that right away, and it's only when she fully accepts Kyoshi Island as her home does she cut her hair.

Similarly, I can see her cutting her hair when she gets older. I have a headcanon that when she's old her hands start shaking, forcing her to give up her knives, and perhaps she also cuts her hair because her shaking hands make doing it harder and she doesn't want to rely on servants for that every day. Something can also be made of Mai cutting her hair shorter as she gets old while Izumi allows hers to hang below her shoulder blades as she starts graying, perhaps the idea I've played with that Izumi gets to be more free than her parents thanks to their efforts.

Another option is a Mai who is becoming harsher and more focused, a Mai who cuts her hair because she needs to be more deadly and without distraction. A Mai who cuts her hair for this reason would probably also start wearing her knives openly, visible to her allies and opponents both- if she has any allies in this scenario. This Mai tells herself that she doesn't have time to bother doing anything with her hair.

What I don't see, though, is Mai cutting her hair out of spite. She didn't cut it when she has her big moment at the Boiling Rock, and if there was ever a time to alter her appearance as a way to symbolize cutting herself off from her nation and family, it would be there. It would have been pretty cool, too, to throw in a moment where a guard grabs her hair and she cuts it to free herself, or maybe she could have done a big theatrical slashing of her hair immediately after she says, "Saving the jerk who dumped me." But since it didn't happen, I'm going to say that Mai really doesn't associate her hair and red robes with the Ozai administration or her parents, so she's not going to cut her hair with any thought of them.

On a personal note, I like both aesthetics, the long dark hair and the cute bob. So maybe I'll have to find a way to feature a Mai with a bob in a story at some point.