Latest Posts by kasuminasai-blog - Page 8
sorry guys this blog is officially run by my rabbit, he claimed it as his own along with my computer. goodbye.
lord the peasants are so loud today
DOGE is an obvious scam to give Elon Musk access to the 32 INVESTIGATIONS.
11 Federal Agencies were working just fine. No fraud, no waste.
Elon Musk is providing zero evidence. He is sharing nothing with oversight committees.
In essence, Trump created an illegal and unconstitutional fourth branch of government.
End Musk. Save America.
I’m all for fucking around and finding out but in this situation (trump & the billionaires trying to drag america into tech bro fascist hell) too many people are being hurt and too many more WILL die if things do not change. you do not need to forgive those who voted for him, you do not need to find the sympathy to feel bad for them now that they’re being affected by his policies. but we cannot turn them away once they turn on trump— and they are. too little too late, maybe. studying for the test after they failed, sure. but I’m so serious when I say this is not the time for perfectionism. this is the time to push a dictator & his cronies out with any hands that are willing to shove
I'd love to say that this is the dumbest thing I've ever made, but we both know that's a lie
NASA just dropped the closest image ever taken of Jupiter.
I made this, please feel free to use
using "what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament" to mean "yeah i made an embarrassing reference but you understood it which is also embarrassing" is very funny to me
A woman's place is on the battlefield
This is the only day you can reblog this
Messaging people for the first time is so hard. What am I supposed to say? Like, "You seem really odd and your blog intrigues me. Do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters?" What! Whatever. I will just follow you back and stare at your blog with my big beautiful brown eyes.
had a dream last night where I took a uquiz called “what do you serve?” and at first the questions were standard but as the quiz progressed they became more and more highly specific to me personally and the answers became more and more similar and I realised the quiz Knew me and was forcing me into being honest by giving me no other option so I tried to click out but it just went to the next question which was “are you the spider? or are you the web?” and it had an option for each but I didn’t click either so it then turned to a text box and I typed “I think I’m the fly” and the quiz paused for a while and then took me to a results page that said “you serve truth” and the description just read “what you know will kill you but you will die laughing” so like. good morning everyone I guess :/
Make the most of the next two months
Get all your vaccines
Travel while we have a functioning DOT
Read and buy books on feminism, anti-racism, pro-lgbt
Attend drag shows
Don't skip any of your classes
Read and buy history books
Find your out-of-state networks
Learn to carry cash
Get birth control solutions
Support the Biden/Harris administration
Postpone large purchases and save money
Be careful of what you say online, like un-ambiguous attacks against the incoming administration, especially in spaces that contain your full name or personal information
Feel free to add on.
hey, can my cat stay on your blog for a little while?
i'm going out of town for the night and could use someone to watch her
Started out researching what being raised in a cult is like then came across stuff about narcissistic parents, and I was blown away by how that fits the Fire Nation royal family dynamics (talk about intergenerational trauma!). To what degree do you think that Ozai is a narcissistic parent, and how would that impact the maladaptive traits both Azula and Zuko develop?
I would say he shows signs of that, yeah. I’ve drawn the comparison before when talking about the golden child and scapegoat dynamic, which is commonly seen with narcissistic parents. Ozai himself is actually incredibly hard to analyze though, because he’s less a character and more an archetype (and an excuse for mark hamill to be…mark hamill.) But let’s try a little haha.
The defining trait of a narcissistic parent, in my view, is that they see the child not as an independent, autonomous person, but as an extension of themselves. The child exists to serve whatever needs the parent has, and deviations from this are not tolerated. The narcissistic parent can be manipulative, lack empathy for their child, and controlling. They may be possessive of their child or even obsessed with whatever it is they want their child to be for them. They can be self-absorbed and grandiose, as is the telltale sign of narcissism. This is going to vary by each individual, but there examples of this kind of parent all over fiction. Shadow Weaver from She Ra, Cora Mills from OUAT (when her heart’s removed, anyways), Mama Rose from Gypsy, Mother Gothel in Tangled (and if you’re noticing a trend, yep, the Evil Mom trope is usually a narcissistic parent…)
Children of narcissists, as I think I’ve mentioned before when talking about complex trauma, don’t develop a fully authentic sense of self. Instead they form what can be called a “false self”, which is a more defensive persona. They learn that manipulation is way to get your needs met. They conflate aggression with love and may become aggressive themselves, if that’s the narcissistic parent’s style. They likely aren’t able to develop healthy or appropriate boundaries as they’ve never had that modeled for them. Healthy relationships may feel threatening or even empty, because that’s not what love looks like to these children. They may also go the opposite way, and become sensitive, guilt-ridden, full of shame. They become prone to future victimization.
As for Ozai, I think he ticks most of the boxes for the narcissistic parent type. He clearly sees his children as extensions of himself and of the Fire Nation more broadly. Azula is his weapon to mold and shape into the perfect tool of war. Zuko is his heir whom he feels he should be able to break and bend however he wants in order to make him the kind of Fire Lord that Ozai wants him to be (this of course is unsuccessful). He is of course possessive of them in his own way, not because his children are fulfilling some attachment role for him but because he needs them to become a specific thing for him to use in order to win the war, and if they can’t, he tosses them aside. Even Azula, his golden child, he’s perfectly willing to throw away when she’s worn out her usefulness to him. He certainly lacks empathy and is highly controlling, though to be honest I’m not sure how manipulative I’d call Ozai. He’s pretty straightforward with his threats and with his desires- and those who don’t bend to his will get burned. But he’s definitely grandiose, Mr. “I am the Phoenix King.” You don’t have to psychoanalyze him too deeply to see he shows plenty of narcissistic traits.
I’m guessing your sources mentioned the intergenerational nature of narcissism, because it’s true that narcissistic parents tend to produce children that grow up to be narcissistic parents. It’s not predetermined, and oftentimes I think the child that is favored is more likely to emulate the narcissistic parent and in terms become more like them. There are so many real life examples of this, but the Fire Nation Royals seem to fit the bill too. I think we can infer that Azulon may have treated Iroh and Ozai similarly to how Ozai treats Zuko and Azula. He seems to favor Iroh, though it’s not totally clear, but he definitely dismisses Ozai’s desire to become Fire Lord after Lu Ten dies and has no difficulty ordering Ozai to kill Zuko. As fucked up as it is that Ozai was willing to do it, it’s equally if not more fucked up that Azulon even demanded it in the first place. We don’t get much characterization from him besides this one scene in the show, but it’s…pretty damning. So you can probably connect the dots and trace the trauma.
Which leads us back to Sozin, who is a real mystery. We never see nor hear any inkling of who mothered Azulon. In the entire flashback episode we never see Sozin marry or have a wife. We never see a child Azulon, which means either he was born after the war began, at which point Sozin was hella old and already obsessed with imperialist expansion, or he was born before and would have seen his father change over time.
I’m actually inclined to believe it’s the former, as Sozin seems to be the rare person who grows into a more narcissistic personality. Sozin starts off all right, essentially decent, but becomes more power hungry over time, more obsessed with colonizing and “sharing his prosperity with the world”, and escalates it to the point of outright leaving his best friend to die and committing genocide in order to eliminate the one enemy that could stop him. It makes more sense to me that Azulon would have grown up in that atmosphere in order to become the kind of person who would expand the war effort and order his son to kill his son.
And the thing with this kind of trauma is that it literally changes our genetic coding. It is literally inherited.
So this is what Azula and Zuko are born into. They’re the third generation, not counting Sozin, to inherit this trauma. And because I think Azula personally bore the brunt of it, as she was the child into which Ozai injects all of his narcissistic ideals, all his father’s ideals, all his grandfather’s ideals- she’s the one who snaps. Zuko was lucky enough to get away (though not to minimize the cruelty and abuse he was subjected to), but Azula didn’t. And she and Zuko both show signs of being children who grew up in the home of a narcissist- and frankly, they both grow into bullies for a while. Zuko was just as angry and aggressive as Azula for a time, and likely would have stayed that way without Iroh’s (or someone else’s) positive influence.
For the record while ATLA is an excellent show and Zukos redemption arc was perfectly paced, I would kill to have had Zuko join the Gaang at the end of book two, because the first half of book three would have been the funniest thing on the planet. Like. Just picture it. A bunch of unsupervised teenagers travelling undercover through enemy territory, trying to blend in… and the only people who have even been there before are 1. A guy who hasnt been there in a century, and 2. The former crown prince who has literally never spoken to a fire nation citizen who wasnt nobility, military, or one of his servants.
Like. Neither of them have any idea what they’re doing, or how normal fire nation citizens act, but they’re pretty sure the other one is wrong. Rest of the gaang knows even less. No adults. Zuko and Aang getting into a shouting debate over the finer points of fire nation culture is a nightly event. They are both so wrong, and so, so awkward
Things cats were right about all along:
Fuck staying hydrated by drinking enough water - eat! more! wet! food! (watermelon, cucumbers, SOUP!)
Feels great to be really high up in your house where you can see the whole place (loft bed loft bed loft bed loft bed!)
Express yourself as clearly as possible when people are touching you and you don't want them to.
Optional, but you can also express yourself clearly when your people are not touching you and you want them to.
Sometimes it's important to just go "hmm. actually, I don't care" and wander off.
You don't have to be the strongest or toughest to defend yourself, it's enough to just be difficult enough to not be worth the trouble.
Ghosts will eventually leave if you stare at them for long enough.
I don't fuck w nerds, the moment I can smell lore correction coming I'm like "Oh Neptune" and I gotta call my mom and ask her to pick me up
If I'm like "I really liked the scene where Gandalf learns the truth about the Ring in the first movie" and someone's like "Oh you mean when he was in Minas Tirith, originally known as Minas Anor when it was first built in the Third Age?" I am pulling the nearest fire alarm
A porcupine’s Halloween present (+ original sound effects)
I don’t think you’re ready to have an adult conversation about politics until you’re able to admit that there are things you love and enjoy that would not and should not exist in a just world. $8 billion dollar budget movies every other month don’t exist in a just world. New 900 GB AAA video games every year don’t exist in a just world. Next day delivery doesn’t exist in a just world. 80 different soda brands don’t exist in a just world.
All of those things come from exploitation on some level, and if you wouldn’t trade those for a world where everyone can eat and have a home no matter who they are or what they do, I don’t know what to tell you.
This is a big thing that I continue to work on unlearning/relearning