Ozai: Sometimes I Feel Like I Failed As A Father.

Ozai: Sometimes I feel like I failed as a father.

Zuko: Sometimes?

obsessed with the guy who just won gold in windsurfing

— Arthur Miller, The Crucible

I do wonder if abuse is a strong word, and I think that’s what I keep coming back to. Idk if it’s abuse, and I don’t believe Ursa did it intentionally. The word abuse gets thrown around so flagrantly that anything and everything is abusive behavior. It’s a larger conversation of the dynamics in a family run by a narcissist.

What bothers me more is that the narrative doesn’t call out Ursa for failing her daughter. Or she doesn’t recognize how she wronged Azula and instead places the blame on the child and not the adults who failed her.

I do think Ursa has her own issues that caused her to coddle Zuko and ignore Azula (at least that’s how I write her). In all honesty, the comics with Ursa are a mess and I take them with a grain of salt.

Please reblog for larger sample size, I'd particularly like to see what people outside my circle think. Also @atla-polls if you'd be kind enough to reblog, I'd appreciate it.

ON the subject of undernegotiated kink in fanfiction. i think we should talk more about how the concept of "not talking about it" is just as much wish fulfillment for some people as "in-depth, therapy-speak conversations where everyone is clear and understood" is for others

like yes, in reality the antidote to shame is open honest conversation with someone who will validate your feelings and wants blah blah blah but SOMETIMES what i want out of my fanfic is characters being understood without having to expose themselves in that way. SOMETIMES it's fun to not dismantle the shame and repression all the way and to instead treat that understanding-despite-not-being-clear as the fantasy