Chapter Text
The Yuyuan Archers liked to eviscerate his arguments with quivers of pretentious wordplay and ostentatious flashes of rhetoric. He keyed in his parries and blows: Congratulations on your pidgin Greek. Pretty sure you know Plato more than he ever knew himself.
Zuko cracked his knuckles. Sardonic jabs would not win wide readership. (At this point, he was positive only Iroh pored over every essay). The vast expanse of the internet wanted blood. Blood or roses. Logicians and philosophers at Spirit-World-Dot-Com published their theories: the rabble-rousers lit the proverbial firecracker (oh, how Zuko abhorred their pointless analogies), but the idealists burned "forever in their hearts."
His fingertips ghosted over the keyboard, ready to rebut the fever-dreams of some Painted Lady. How quixotic, how infantile her ideologies were. Charity work in far-off villages. Fund-raisers. Peace. Yet she seemed genuine, and that bothered him. His own impassioned pieces were only meant to provoke.
Somehow, the Blue Spirit persona was of little comfort to him now.