Slightly stalkery internet confession! I’ve only had time to read a few pieces on your wordpress blog (I want to take them in properly), but everything I’ve read, especially your meditations on the condition of lostness in your latest two posts, has just been so eloquent in general and adroit at communicating the everyday dimensions of your disability: very deeply revealing and perspective-broadening for me, as someone who functions relatively ‘normally’. Not to mention moving and thought-provoking.
Oh, thank you! Though now that you are a fan of the lostness series, I'd better...actually write it? Eep! :D
Though – another thought. It’s not as though fire always comes along the ground, right? As Toph found out with Zuko. She actually is pretty vulnerable to Azula in battle.
Indeed--not least of all because Azula can spend a lot of time in the air. Sadly, as much as I love Toph, she is definitely outmatched when it comes to facing Azula in battle. But she does hold her own pretty well, in the underground throne room.
And neither of them react at all well to being vulnerable... MAN.
Oh, MAN, yes.
Because Toph is eating dinner by the blackened corpse of the fire they have made (that she has made), and she is not because assassins are everywhere--poison poison poison--so she watches and waits for her weakness, as she has done since she first saw those empty, empty eyes.
But it is not like that day at all, nor like the Day of Black Sun in the throne room. When she chokes, coughs,(poison poison POISON) her own throat tightens. And even though the fool spits a tangle of noodles and strings of vomit into the dirt, it is too late, too late, because she
(is Uncle and Mother and Mai and Ty Lee and Father worst of all, because she can give and take away)
is watching--studying--someone who's bonds she has broken without any firebending because she is hungry and there are assassins EVERYWHERE and the blind Earthbender can sit and slurp and belch because they are not for her. And there is nothing, nothing, nothing she can do, not shout or cry or scream
(Azula! Silence yourself!)
because a warrior princess does not do these things, does not need a blind little girl. But she does need to do something or she will be chained to the grate again; she blinks away tears that have not fallen and allows herself to shiver, just a little, so that the blind girl will not see.
And what the flying bison FUCK is this trembling that leads her through long tunnels that criss-cross and circle back, back to her parents, and why isn't Sokka here so she can tell him that they all look perfect in his painting? Her blindness is hers and she controls the discourse about it.
And this (trembling) FUCKING person took this control from her in the underground throne room during the eclipse ("Since you can't see, I should tell you I'm rolling my eyes,") and that is not enough, it is never enough for Azula and she's taking it from her again now, and fuck, fuck, fuck what would Katara do? She would tell her to stop thinking "fuck" so much and to get the FUCK away from the person who killed her husband--your student--that one time.
But she can't get away, because there is trembling and she is a rock--a rock MONSTER in a metal suit--and she would never run toward or away; she would only be the rock that she trained the Avatar to be and not a supported lotus and she would pick her feet and walk away and make her earth-tent only when she was ready, as if she had just decided it, and leave her bowl and not know why. Nor does she know that this is the best and the worst thing she could have done.
And they would go around and around like that, and they would know each other's habits and weaknesses and knock into each other's raw places over and over again.
But then Azula will learn that when Toph holds a sheet of paper and waves her other hand in front of her face, it is not only funny ("You can't read--heh"), it is a kind of power. So she will try it on for size ( Silence. "That'll be what it'll sound like when you spot it"), but Toph knows what she's doing there and says: "No. It'll sound like 'oof!'" And Azula will laugh in her short way, but she will not have expected this disarming, and she will wonder more and more at this power that only works when Toph uses it. It's backwards and upside-down.
And THAT. IS. IT.
This power goes up from the bottom, like a kick to the face. A princess doesn't need it, but a crazy woman does, especially when she and her blind enemy could be captured at any time. So she studies it, as she has studied firebending and military strategy and the down-from-the-top power, and doors will open, and the butting up against sore places will be so much less, and they will stop whacking each other over the head with their vast knowledge of each other--each other's dependence-- because this power goes UP, not down.
And here, finally, finally, is where the interdependence happens (they have this knowledge of each other, after all), and the ass-kicking can begin.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-09-24 03:02 am (UTC)Oh, thank you! Though now that you are a fan of the lostness series, I'd better...actually write it? Eep! :D
Though – another thought. It’s not as though fire always comes along the ground, right? As Toph found out with Zuko. She actually is pretty vulnerable to Azula in battle.
Indeed--not least of all because Azula can spend a lot of time in the air. Sadly, as much as I love Toph, she is definitely outmatched when it comes to facing Azula in battle. But she does hold her own pretty well, in the underground throne room.
And neither of them react at all well to being vulnerable... MAN.
Oh, MAN, yes.
Because Toph is eating dinner by the blackened corpse of the fire they have made (that she has made), and she is not because assassins are everywhere--poison poison poison--so she watches and waits for her weakness, as she has done since she first saw those empty, empty eyes.
But it is not like that day at all, nor like the Day of Black Sun in the throne room. When she chokes, coughs,(poison poison POISON) her own throat tightens. And even though the fool spits a tangle of noodles and strings of vomit into the dirt, it is too late, too late, because she
(is Uncle and Mother and Mai and Ty Lee and Father worst of all, because she can give and take away)
is watching--studying--someone who's bonds she has broken without any firebending because she is hungry and there are assassins EVERYWHERE and the blind Earthbender can sit and slurp and belch because they are not for her. And there is nothing, nothing, nothing she can do, not shout or cry or scream
(Azula! Silence yourself!)
because a warrior princess does not do these things, does not need a blind little girl. But she does need to do something or she will be chained to the grate again; she blinks away tears that have not fallen and allows herself to shiver, just a little, so that the blind girl will not see.
And what the flying bison FUCK is this trembling that leads her through long tunnels that criss-cross and circle back, back to her parents, and why isn't Sokka here so she can tell him that they all look perfect in his painting? Her blindness is hers and she controls the discourse about it.
And this (trembling) FUCKING person took this control from her in the underground throne room during the eclipse ("Since you can't see, I should tell you I'm rolling my eyes,") and that is not enough, it is never enough for Azula and she's taking it from her again now, and fuck, fuck, fuck what would Katara do? She would tell her to stop thinking "fuck" so much and to get the FUCK away from the person who killed her husband--your student--that one time.
But she can't get away, because there is trembling and she is a rock--a rock MONSTER in a metal suit--and she would never run toward or away; she would only be the rock that she trained the Avatar to be and not a supported lotus and she would pick her feet and walk away and make her earth-tent only when she was ready, as if she had just decided it, and leave her bowl and not know why. Nor does she know that this is the best and the worst thing she could have done.
And they would go around and around like that, and they would know each other's habits and weaknesses and knock into each other's raw places over and over again.
But then Azula will learn that when Toph holds a sheet of paper and waves her other hand in front of her face, it is not only funny ("You can't read--heh"), it is a kind of power. So she will try it on for size ( Silence. "That'll be what it'll sound like when you spot it"), but Toph knows what she's doing there and says: "No. It'll sound like 'oof!'" And Azula will laugh in her short way, but she will not have expected this disarming, and she will wonder more and more at this power that only works when Toph uses it. It's backwards and upside-down.
And THAT. IS. IT.
This power goes up from the bottom, like a kick to the face. A princess doesn't need it, but a crazy woman does, especially when she and her blind enemy could be captured at any time. So she studies it, as she has studied firebending and military strategy and the down-from-the-top power, and doors will open, and the butting up against sore places will be so much less, and they will stop whacking each other over the head with their vast knowledge of each other--each other's dependence-- because this power goes UP, not down.
And here, finally, finally, is where the interdependence happens (they have this knowledge of each other, after all), and the ass-kicking can begin.