{LOCKED FROM SYLAR AND AKAKO}

[sears]

I will be leaving the Fire Nation very shortly. Call it an extended vacation. Don't bother asking where I am going, because you're certainly not going to get an answer.

Despite my absence, I wouldn't advise anyone using this as an opportunity to attack the Fire Nation- my father will still be there, after all, as will the army. I will be in contact with my country at all times, and will be prepared to return on a moment's notice should the need arise. However, I would be quite unhappy should something like that happen, and when I am angry things tend to be quite a bit worse for the offending party.

{LOCKED TO KAREN}

I need to speak with you about your offer to harbor Ty Lee.

{LOCKED TO MAI}

...

...

Ty Lee and I will be in a city called Paris, just for a couple of days. Once we arrive in our next destination I will decide whether or not you are trustworthy enough to be given that information, as well.

{LOCKED TO KAITOU KID}

... I'm sure you consider yourself quite clever, don't you.

Comments

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

You're not worried that I will tell Akako?


(OCC: glad to know it's not only me >:3)

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

I haven't told you the destination. Besides, Ty Lee is apparently telling everybody.

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

Even if you tell me the destination, I will not tell her. I can respect other's people decisions.

Oh, so you're going to Paris, uh? The city of love. Nice

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

Well, nobody is going to find out our next destination.

... The what?

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

Good for you too. I suggest Italy, Venice is awesome. I took Akako there to our first date.

Is called 'the city of love' or 'the city of lovers'. Do you want to know why?

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

If I'm not going to tell you, do you honestly think that I'm going to take your suggestions?

... No.

OOC: Feel free to tell her anyway, though. ;)

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

You didn't lock the post from me, so yes, why not?

Oh but knowledge must be spread!

Paris is synonymous of love the world round. Ahhhhh, yes... It's time to put the top down, get a haircut, hold the stomach in, bleach your teeth. The hormones are working overtime and anything seems possible - seductions of epic dimensions, successful conquests right out of the Greek myths, peak experiences to rival the Alps. Mating behavior - with its stern accompaniment of catcalls and racy one-liners - is the central rite of the Parisian spring.

But why? Is it because of the city's charm? French tradition? culture? people? history? Latin roots? The amatory spirit coursing through Paris is, like most everything else concerning the heart, not at all simple.

Take the name of the city itself, for example. The celebrated Paris of Greek myth was a favorite of Aphrodite, the voluptuous goddess of love. Paris was one of the most inflamed lovers of all time, willing to risk his title, his fortune and his homeland for the love of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. While traveling through Greece, Paris seduced Helen and whisked her back to his native Troy. Naturally, Helen's husband, Menelaus, King of Sparta, did not approve, and the nine-year-long Trojan War ensued, bringing. Could it be then that the city's namesake invested it with a tremendous will to love, no matter what the cost? No way. The Trojan Paris connection is quite literally poetic, and one dreads disseminating misinformation.

From street to street, quai to quai, bridge to bridge, café to café, seat to seat, Paris architecture, gardens and public art are designed to please the discerning eye. With the French, as with the Italians, culture is sensuous, love a tradition. The names of Famous French Lovers fall like petals from a dogwood tree: Heloïse & Abélard, Chopin & George Sand, Rodin & Camille Claudel, Rimbaud & Verlaine, Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir, Françoise Hardy & Jacques Dutronc, etc. This is, after all, the country that spawned both the boudoir and the mistress. And while I don't have any hard statistics, French has the most highly developed vocabulary of intimacy among the Romance languages.

And no wonder. The French tradition of love can be traced back to the tenth century (if not earlier), when the medieval troubadours composed popular racey poems, sort of the In Bed With Madonna sensation of the day. Because the poems were sung in court as well as at the corner café, the "troubadour ethic" spanned the high/low culture bridge, touching the hearts of queens and peasant girls alike, giving us the Marquise de Pompadour on the one hand and Kiki de Montparnasse on the other.

And the legacy of the troubadour tradition - having found a...fertile soil - is alive and well today. From the Minitel rose to Bizet's "Carmen," the non-repressive stance of the French has led to the greater social good.

But I still have not answered the question. Why, among the cities of love in Western consciousness - Venice, Bruges, Rome, Copenhagen, the islands of Mykonos or Capri, etc. - does Paris cinch the Golden Eros Award? The answer is as natural as the smell of jasmine wafting in the breeze. In addition to all the seminal features mentioned above, it's because the City of Love is also the City of Light.

From Homer and Aristotle through Lucretius, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Wittgenstein et al., love has always been linked to vision - to, that is, light. Think, for example, of our mutual idioms, "love at first sight" and "coup de foudre," lightning entering the heart. Love and light are intermingled from the get-go in the Western tradition. And nowhere is their splendor more conspicuous than in Paris.


OCC: such a long explanation, sorry. Now Azula can kill him...XD)

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

So it's all a metaphor, really. Lovely.

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

Tsh, you have no sensibility.

Ok, It's called the city of love because people make out and get married. Geez.

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to Paris to marry Ty Lee.

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

I didn't say that...but it's not a bad option.

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

... Excuse me?

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

What?

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to marry Ty Lee.

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

Never?

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

Never.

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

How sad.

There's still the 'make out' option.

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

It's not sad.

...

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

You don't want to be with her the rest of your life?

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

...

That wasn't what you were talking about.

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

Actually, it is. Unless you want to discuss the 'make out' option.

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

You can be friends with someone forever without marrying them.

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

But you two are not only friends.

[peoplesprincess.livejournal.com]

... So?

[clockmaster.livejournal.com]

Oh, nothing at all.