I’m gonna be real with you, Anon… probably not. Maybe in select scenarios but for me, much of the appeal wears off if they’re anything but father and daughter.

For starters, something I really like about Ozula is Azula calling Ozai “Daddy” which obviously wouldn’t make much sense if he’s a woman. Now of course in one scenario (where Ozai is still a man) that would work but if I’m being honest? I’m just not that into m/m, plus I have a lot of trouble imagining Ozai having sex with another male.

Another thing I love about this ship is the size/strength difference. Granted it would still be there in other scenarios but it just wouldn’t be as pronounced. The power imbalance is also very important to me and same applies there. It doesn’t get more unequal than father/daughter.

Thirdly, the risk of pregnancy in the context of Ozula bigs my metaphorical dick. Ozai breeding his little girl is insanely fucking hot to me. All the wild pregnancy sex they’d have because of Azula’s raging hormones (and Ozai’s pregnancy fetish). Ozai being all over Azula’s lactating tits. The two of them toting around their perfect little incest babies all proudly. You know. And again for obvious reasons, this doesn’t work if Ozai is the only one who is able to get pregnant and/or they are both male or both female (unless one of them is trans, maybe I could maybe get on board with that).

So yeah, that’s pretty much where I’m at.

I feel like I’m obligated to write a fic of this now…

Short answer:

It’s complicated.

Long answer:

I don’t think Ozai is truly capable of loving anyone unconditionally. I am sure Ozai cared about Ursa in his own weird, toxic, possessive way. Canon also seems to indicate that he tried in the beginning, and I’d be willing to believe that.

Regardless of his own feelings though, I do think he wanted her to love him. I imagine in those early years, he was always buying Ursa expensive gifts and jewelry, taking her on lavish vacations, like essentially trying to “buy” her love because that’s all he knows how to do. Of course that didn’t work on her, which would frustrate him to no end. And eventually, they reached the point of no return with Ursa writing that letter claiming that Zuko was Ikem’s son.

There’s just no going back from there. She admitted she wished it were true that Ozai wasn’t Zuko’s father and that she’d written that letter purely to hurt him. Like…. ouch. The thing is, I think she did hurt him. She succeeded. Whatever affection he may have had for her dissipated away into nothing. He realized she resented him and always would. He became angry and spiteful, and ramped up the abuse.

By the end, there was nothing there except that resentment on both sides.

At least that’s my interpretation.

(Thank you for the ask, I love psychoanalyzing Ozai!)

Because ironically they are racist as fuck despite accusing everyone who doesn’t ship Zutara of racism. The worst part is they don’t even see it as racist to mock Aang’s real-life inspired cultural practices. It’s fine if you don’t ship Kataang, but it’s honestly just really gross to say that Aang can’t be manly/attractive to Katara because he shaves his head and is a vegetarian.