#and i just generally have a lot to say about this piece but

[naamahdarling]

This makes me livid.

I'm not going to assume this family wasn't knowledgeable or doing their utmost. I'm assuming they were doing everything they could.

But I need you to know.

This is not how it has to be, and there are things you can do to prevent this. Please do them so that you aren't stuck hoping to die or hoping your loved one will die.

If you or a loved one has a lot of medical debt or you know they will incur it, check laws in your state. Know your rights. We should not have to do this, but WE DO.

A person's will and how it is laid out has an effect on how and in what order debts are deducted from the estate, which can sometimes affect how much money beneficiaries get. If you have beneficiaries, get your wills in order! Get things set up to benefit debtors as little as possible. There are things that might be able to be done. If someone involved is disabled, find an estate lawyer experienced in their specific form of disability benefits (company, government/SSI/SSDI, etc.).

Spouses are NOT necessarily responsible for their partner's medical debt. The estate of the deceased IS, but individual debt collectors from clinics or care facilities are severely limited in what they are allowed to collect on from the actual survivors. DO NOT TRUST THEM IF THEY SAY THEY CAN. There are laws about them not being allowed to lie to you but they will still try. My ex worked in the industry for YEARS and was extremely aware of the predatory shit shady companies or even just shitty individual agents would pull. Never trust a debt collector. Ever. Know your rights, understand debt collection, record all calls.

In some cases, especially involving state funding of end of life care, and situations involving disabled folks (deceased or beneficiaries), the state may not legally be able to evict a survivor to collect that debt from the liquidated estate (i.e. selling the house after kicking you out).

Children are almost NEVER liable for ANY FORM OF parental debt.

Never ever ever pay a single penny on a debt you did not cosign or take on yourself. Do not even verbally acknowledge the debt on the phone. Claim to be unaware of it and state that it is not yours until they show proof. In general, unless it's trivial, and you do intend to pay right away or make arrangements right away, don't acknowledge even debts that are yours, not even verbally, until they have proven to you that you owe them, and force collectors to communicate leaving a paper trail and send you documentation of everything. Record calls using Talker ACR and Talker ACR Helper. If they say you have 90 days to dispute, wait 89 days and then dispute it, even if it is accurate and you know it. If the collector isn't the original place that owned the debt, insist the collection company show proof they own the debt. Contact the original place and see if you can still settle the debt there for less. Delay, deny, defend yourself. Draw things out as long as you can by their rules and seek legal advice. Fight. ACT LIKE THEY DO. BE A HORRIBLE PIECE OF OBSTRUCTIVE NITPICKING SHIT.

If you marry, get a pre-nup that lays out your debt arrangements, do it in a way that keeps your finances and debt as separate as possible. Pre-nups are not just for people who don't trust each other. They are a powerful tool to protect yourselves from predatory practices outside the marriage as well.

YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES. YOU CAN PROTECT YOUR ASSETS. DO NOT LET THIS HORRIBLE SHIT HAPPEN UNOPPOSED, AND NEVER ASSUME THAT THE SYSTEM IS TOTALLY UNSTOPPABLE.

YOU PROBABLY CAN'T KEEP EVERYTHING BUT THEY DEFINITELY CAN'T TAKE EVERYTHING EITHER.

FUCKING FIGHT.

[metanarrates]

Hello. Sorry if this a stupid question u can ignore if u want.

How can someone get better at media analysis? Besides obviously reading a lot.

Im asking this bc im in a point where im aware of my own lack of tools to analyze stories, but i don't know where to get them or how to get better in general. How did you learn to analyze media? There's any specific book, essay, author, etc that you recommend? Somewhere to start?

I'm asking you because you are genuinely the person who has the best takes on this site. Thank you for you work!

it sounds like a cop-out answer but it's always felt like a skill I acquired mostly thru reading a ton, and by paying a lot of attention in high school literature classes. because of that I can't promise that I'm necessarily equipped to be a good teacher or that i know good resources. HOWEVER! let me run some potential advice to you based on the shit i get a lot of mileage out of

first off, a lot of literary analysis is about pattern recognition! not just pattern recognition in-text, but out-of-text as well. how does this work relate to its genre? real-world history? does it have parallels between real-life situations? that kind of thing.

which is a big concept to just describe off the bat, so let me break it down further!

in literature, there is the concept of something called literary devices - they are some of the basic building blocks in how a story is delivered mechanically and via subtext. have you ever heard of a motif? that is a literary device. it's a pattern established in the text in order to further the storytelling! and here is a list of a ton of common literary devices - I'd recommend reading the article. it breaks down a lot of commonly used ones in prose and poetry and explains their usage.

personally, I don't find all the literary devices I've learned about in school to be the most useful to my analytical hobbies online. motifs, themes, and metaphors are useful and dissecting them can bring a lot to the table, but a lot of other devices are mostly like fun bonus trivia for me to notice when reading. however, memorizing those terms and trying to notice them in the things you read does have a distinct benefit - it encourages you to start noticing patterns, and to start thinking of the mechanical way a story is built. sure, thinking about how the prose is constructed might not help you understand the story much more, but it does make you start thinking about how things like prose contribute to the greater feeling of a piece, or how the formatting of a piece contributes to its overall narrative. you'll start developing this habit of picking out little things about a text, which is useful.

other forms of in-text pattern recognition can be about things like characterization! how does a character react to a certain situation? is it consistent with how they usually behave? what might that tell you about how they think? do they have tells that show when they're not being trustworthy? does their viewpoint always match what is happening on screen? what ideas do they have about how the world works? how are they influenced by other people in their lives? by social contexts that might exist? by situations that have affected them? (on that note, how do situations affect other situations?)

another one is just straight-up noticing themes in a work. is there a certain idea that keeps getting brought up? what is the work trying to say about that idea? if it's being brought up often, it's probably worth paying attention to!

that goes for any pattern, actually. if you notice something, it's worth thinking about why it might be there. try considering things like potential subtext, or what a technique might be trying to convey to a reader. even if you can't explain why every element of a text is there, you'll often gain something by trying to think about why something exists in a story.

^ sometimes the answer to that question is not always "because it's intentional" or even "because it was a good choice for the storytelling." authors frequently make choices that suck shit (I am a known complainer about choices that suck shit.) that's also worth thinking about. english classes won't encourage this line of thinking, because they're trying to get you to approach texts with intentional thought instead of writing them off. I appreciate that goal, genuinely, but I do think it hampers people's enthusiasm for analysis if they're not also being encouraged to analyze why they think something doesn't work well in a story. sometimes something sucks and it makes new students mad if they're not allowed to talk about it sucking! I'll get into that later - knowing how and why something doesn't work is also a valuable skill. being an informed and analytical hater will get you far in life.

so that's in-work literary analysis. id also recommend annotating your pages/pdfs or keeping a notebook if you want to close-read a work. keeping track of your thoughts while reading even if they're not "clever" or whatever encourages you to pay attention to a text and to draw patterns. it's very useful!

now, for out-of-work literary analysis! it's worth synthesizing something within its context. what social settings did this work come from? was it commenting on something in real life? is it responding to some aspects of history or current events? how does it relate to its genre? does it deviate from genre trends, commentate on them, or overall conform to its genre? where did the literary techniques it's using come from - does it have any big stylistic influences? is it referencing any other texts?

and if you don't know the answer to a bunch of these questions and want to know, RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND! look up historical events and social movements if you're reading a work from a place or time you're not familiar with. if you don't know much about a genre, look into what are considered common genre elements! see if you can find anyone talking about artistic movements, or read the texts that a work might be referencing! all of these things will give you a far more holistic view of a work.

as for your own personal reaction to & understanding of a work... so I've given the advice before that it's good to think about your own personal reactions to a story, and what you enjoy or dislike about it. while this is true that a lot of this is a baseline jumping-off point on how I personally conduct analysis, it's incomplete advice. you should not just be thinking about what you enjoy or dislike - you should also be thinking about why it works or doesn't work for you. if you've gotten a better grasp on story mechanics by practicing the types of pattern recognition i recognized above, you can start digging into how those storytelling techniques have affected you. did you enjoy this part of a story? what made it work well? what techniques built tension, or delivered well on conflict? what about if you thought it sucked? what aspects of storytelling might have failed?

sometimes the answer to this is highly subjective and personal. I'm slightly romance-averse because I am aromantic, so a lot of romance plots will simply bore me or actively annoy me. I try not to let that personal taste factor too much into serious critiques, though of course I will talk about why I find something boring and lament it wasn't done better lol. we're only human. just be aware of those personal taste quirks and factor them into analysis because it will help you be a bit more objective lol

but if it's not fully influenced by personal taste, you should get in the habit of building little theses about why a story affected you in a certain way. for example, "I felt bored and tired at this point in a plot, which may be due to poor pacing & handling of conflict." or "I felt excited at this point in the plot, because established tensions continued to get more complex and captured my interest." or "I liked this plot point because it iterated on an established theme in a way that brought interesting angles to how the story handled the theme." again, it's just a good way to think about how and why storytelling functions.

uh let's see what else. analysis is a collaborative activity! you can learn a lot from seeing how other people analyze! if you enjoy something a lot, try looking into scholarly articles on it, or youtube videos, or essays online! develop opinions also about how THOSE articles and essays etc conduct analysis, and why you might think those analyses are correct or incorrect! sometimes analyses suck shit and developing a counterargument will help you think harder about the topic in question! think about audience reactions and how those are created by the text! talk to friends! send asks to meta blogs you really like maybe sometimes

find angles of analysis that interest and excite you! if you're interested in feminist lenses on a work, or racial lenses, or philosophical lenses, look into how people conduct those sort of analyses on other works. (eg. search feminist analysis of hamlet, or something similar so you can learn how that style of analysis generally functions) and then try applying those lenses to the story you're looking at. a lot of analysts have a toolkit of lenses they tend to cycle through when approaching a new text - it might not be a bad idea to acquire a few favored lenses of your own.

also, most of my advice is literary advice, since you can broadly apply many skills you learn in literary analysis to any other form of storytelling, but if you're looking at another medium, like a game or cartoon, maybe look up some stuff about things like ludonarrative storytelling or visual storytelling! familiarizing yourself with the specific techniques common to a certain medium will only help you get better at understanding what you're seeing.

above all else, approach everything with intellectual curiosity and sincerity. even if you're sincerely curious about why something sucks, letting yourself gain information and potentially learning something new or being humbled in the process will help you grow. it's okay to not have all the answers, or to just be flat-out wrong sometimes. continuing to practice is a valuable intellectual pursuit even if it can mean feeling a tad stupid sometimes. don't be scared to ask questions. get comfortable sometimes with the fact that the answer you'll arrive at after a lot of thought and effort will be "I don't fully know." sometimes you don't know and that can be valuable in its own right!

thank you for the ask, and I hope you find this helpful!

[flutterbyoz]

It always surprises me, or maybe it doesn't given what the general TWD fandom can be like, that people are using the fact that The Ones Who Live is a love story as a reason to criticise the show.

The fact it is a love story was never hidden, it was never a secret or kept as a surprise, it's what the show was repeatedly promoted and advertised as. Andy, Danai and Scott never misled anyone into thinking it was going to be anything else, they were quite clear and pointed out that TOWL would be a love story every chance they got. So if someone saw any of the promo, interviews etc whether online or on TV and were going into this show expecting something else then I don't really know what to say other than they probably should have paid more attention.

The show was not aimed at or made for people who hate Richonne. I get that not everyone is a Richonne fan, to each their own for the most part, but when you watch their spin off, what else are you expecting other than a love story? Especially with Andy and Danai at the helm, it seems some people really don't understand the characters at all.

I know some people tuned in just to see what happened to Rick and that's great, the show isn't solely for Richonners but if the love story with his wife and love of his life annoys you so much that you can't continue watching your fave in their spin off and the feel the need to announce that you quit half way through then not only do I have to wonder why you hate their relationship so much but also say that you're purposefully ignoring a huge part of who Rick is and why he does what he does. I don't think you can fully understand and know Rick without his relationship with Michonne and how his love for her and hers for him shapes him into the man he is today. Without Michonne, Rick is a shell of himself, she is his entire world, she and their kids are his reason for everything so you're not going to get a Rick story without Michonne, because without Michonne there isn't really a Rick.

Had this been Rick and Daryl instead of Rick and Michonne, had they been the ones with the emotional scenes I can pretty much guarantee a large majority of the people who complained about Rick and Michonne would have no problem with Rick and Daryl. It's what a lot of them have been calling for since Rick was taken not to mention the people who are bitter that Richonne gets everything they have wanted for their ship for years.

Attacking a show because it is what it was promoted as and did exactly what it set out to do is more than a little bizarre to me but I suppose it's just another way to criticise and disregard Rick and Michonne's relationship and diminish Michonne's importance.

I know, if we see Richonne again, it's going to be another love story and those who complained before will most likely complain again but only one spin off has been the most successful, a hit for the franchise and for AMC, included on numerous best of lists, gained Emmy buzz, received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and fans alike, has multiple Saturn award nominations and given this franchise a new lease of life. I find it strange to watch a show knowing full well you're only doing so to find something to complain about and though those viewers are just a small percentage of TOWLs overall viewers they did the exact opposite of what they wanted to do. Instead of bringing the show down they're just raising it up even higher!

Nothing will stop this ship, everyone wants a piece of them, they draw everyone in even those who say they don't care or even like them together and that's the power or Richonne!

[hrnngsoup]

Oh maaan. Oh man this is anti-honey vegan levels of ignorant. Look yeah it's gonna be unpopular opinions, and I am NOT saying there are no abusive-towards-dogs cops out there, but no, k9 forces are not generally abusive.

Here's some facts:

K9 units serve much more jobs than just take-downs. Ever had a recently missing kid? A good police force will call on a k9 unit, which you can give them a piece of fabric or toy to sniff, and then that good doggo will track that kid down. Many, MANY children, seniors, and other people who are lost with mental disabilities have been sucessfully found this way.

Another job they do? Drug sniffing. And yes, I know there have been nasty rumours about cops just training a dog to Mark on a person's bag on command, but besides the trash cops that exist, the drug sniffing training is ACTUALLY very specific and fun for the dogs. I've seen a lot of people over at twitter say they are good at fact checking, feel free to fact check what I just said with unbiased sources.

Most K9's are not just murked when they are retired. This was another rumour. A lot of them are retire with their owners, who form deep personal bonds with them, or are adopted out, in the case of the officer not being able to take care of them... like when the officer has died. The only exceptions are when k9's unfortunately develop the common health problems that german shepherds as a breed are privy to, and their quality of life massively decreases.

K9's are not just "stored" at a precinct in crates or something. They go home with their officers most of the time with only a few job-related exceptions.

It's not actually true that every person who gets taken down by a canine are maimed. Most of the time, it's "hold/release", which still needs stitches, but not even near a maim. but I guess these very common events aren't really covered in media much because they are less sensational....

Calling k9 units on anyone who is not actively fleeing a crime and/or armed is not a thing that happens often. That's a huge waste of money, time, and what, do you think they start off arrests with a k9 unit? No! (Exceptions: when someone has felonies on their record, has been known to be aggressive in past arrests/chases, or have commited grand theft auto)

While this one is only anecdotal, I have never with my own two eyes seen a unit abuse their dog. I have seen many of them baby talk the shit out of their doggos or give them probably too many treats, and well, if you want to see that, I recommend police cam vids. One of my relatives which was a k9 unit absolutely adored her k9, Duke, and she had him for many years after they retired- and Duke was happy and healthy until he passed naturally. A lot of people don't realize that if a k9 unit abused or hurt their dogs, and the other cops saw.... they would be considered the shit under their shoe for the whole precinct.

Now let's talk about why they're necessary in a healthy police force

Ever hear of the terms meth heads, crackheads, etc? These groups of people, if they decide to do crime, are INCREDIBLY dangerous. Drugs of a certain hardcore variety LITERALLY change your brain composition. These are the kind of people that can, and will, run out naked with two steak knives and try to stab anyone around them "because they looked at me funny"... if they are even capable of reason and clear speech in a drug-induced rage. Many do not even feel pain at this stage. There are two ways to stop someone in this state. Gunfire. Or a k9 unit. The good thing about using a k9 is that they are fast, much faster than humans- and that helps reduce the amount of injuries and deaths that occur when something goes wrong.

Humans are instinctually wired to be afraid of dogs. A lot of violence from... really, anyone, is severely diminished when even the threat of a k9 unit being called happens, and when you're facing someone who's weilding a machete, that fricking means something.

Look. I can understand being incensed at anyone who does treat their dogs badly. I am too. But you have to inform yourself on what the facts are, and everything I have said is factual unless someone can prove me wrong which, okay, then i will retract what someone proved me wrong about.

Banning a very important, very life-saving part of a healthy police force is a BAD idea. Note i said healthy police force... there are a lot of UNHEALTHY, CORRUPT police forces that needs from the bottom up reform.

All banning k9 units will do is increase crime and the collateral damage from it, make us lose non-take down services they provide which is VERY important to missing persons cases... and probably increase the amount of german shepherds put down in shelters, ultimately doing much more harm than good.

All k9 dogs are abused hands down if you post any pro k9 stuff on my dash you’re unfollowed I don’t care if we’ve been mutuals for years, you can claim to be anti-cop or a leftist or whatever but if you post k9 dogs with like “a good doggo! A good boy!” fuck off, if I lose followers over this then good riddance

[blitz0hno]

Let's be real. Realistically, every time we see Mikoto it might as well be a different alter.

Does that make for an easy-to-follow narrative? No. Is it what the authors intended? Not likely, but also this is a game all based around perception and life experiences.

"Mikoto" and "John" as we know them are functionally made up by the audience (and thus Es) for narrative flow. Just like how ppl w DID irl are generally assumed to be "themselves," as in their body's name/main identity. Whether you're singlet or plural, the "you" in someone else's mind is a tiny piece even to your closest people. They see you through a special lens all their own, and these interpretations reveal more about the viewer than anything (not that that is a "bad" thing; it just is). Every individual consciousness is a different lens. You really can't know shit about any system unless you ask within the system, even w alters in your own brain. Mikoto hasn't had enough time to process his different parts yet, so it's wholly ambiguous.

Oblivious as we are, we've noticed a bit of friction surrounding how people view Kayanosys and tbh it makes us kinda sad; but the subject matter is touchy, so it's understandable. In my humble opinion, while they give us many clues as to "who's who," it's all still purely hypothetical. And it's fun to guess and theorize and even make shit up! You wouldn't do it to a real system but Milgram is not real; all respectful interpretations of 09 are valid in my book.

Personally I like the idea that he has more alters than just who we see, and I like interpretations of Mikoto/John/Kataboku as their own people. I also like completely ambiguous interpretations, and everything in-between bc if we wanna be Really Realistic, there's no end to the possibilities whatsoever, especially with as little info as we have so far.

This makes writing him So Difficult for me, but it only adds all the more layers to why I love these characters so much. I am so so sick of being a system sometimes, but it's a complex worldview that few experience and even fewer fully grasp. Plurality deserves to be talked about openly and with patience, and I couldn't be happier that Milgram even dares talk about them to such a large audience.

The reasons to talk about these things, after all, won't go away even if we do stop talking about them. I'm not gonna say "it all happens for a reason," but we certainly have words to describe such experiences for many reasons. I feel like we all need to stop being afraid of not fully understanding things. I certainly don't understand a lot, but I understand a small handful of things that many do not. Sharing helps us understand more, even if we miss the mark sometimes.

Idk. I love Mikoto and I love our little mikotoverse on tumblr dot com, that is all.

[novashelby]

I went to reblog a post, but couldn't and found out I was blocked(never interacted with them a day in my life). Sometimes Tumblr glitches, so I went on my Evie blog to see if I had the same issues. Yes, blocked-which is fine. We curate our own experiences and if that means blocking me, okay!

But anyway, they are a total John hater anyway.

I wanted to respond to this post that said John was essentially the most like Arthur Sr. and that 90% of his issues in regards to needing a mother for his kids was because of his drinking....okay, yes. I understand what you are saying, but disagree to a point.

Here is my opinion:

I am going to hand out some hard pills. I have to write my words carefully because I don't want to seem as if I am coming up with excuses for him, but more so explanations. As a woman of the 21st century, I agree. John could have been a better father. So couldn't Arthur and Tommy. However, comparing him to Arthur Sr. is a little far. Arthur senior wasn't only a drunk, but absent, abusive, manipulative, and so on.

I think sometimes when people watch historical pieces, they implement a modern lens. You can't bring your modern thought process to a historical drama and be like...why did you do this?! Why didn't you do that?! Why? Because times were different. John wanting a wife for his kids goes deeper than 'oh, I just don't parent them'. Traditionally, parents were generally more off hands and distant. It was a parenting technique, actually. But more so, fathers. John wants a mother for his kids because that is who traditionally does most of the nurturing, raising, care giving, and domestic work. Kids need a mother for a healthier upbringing and John needs a wife to take care of the home front. Because to him, he's the one that goes to work and brings home money to support the household. Mothers and fathers have two separate, important roles. Men went to work, sometimes until very late. And sometimes(a lot) they went to the pub after work.... I understand with the overall point, and I would 100% agree if we were talking about a more modern man. But we aren't, we are talking about John Shelby who is a man from the 1920's. Would his problems be solved if he just went home and took care of his kids? Of course. But watching PB, a lot of their problems would have been solved if they just did that or this.

This is just my two cents. Feel free to disagree.

[jewlist]

“And if I do touch them,” he hisses. “If I say use this sword” — In one swift motion he scoops Time’s sword off of the ground, holding it up so that the blade gleams — “to slit their necks what will you do? Will you don the Deity mask that sits in the pouch at your hip? Will you follow me across time? Hunt me down?”

A piece I drew inspired by this fic by @adrift-in-thyme.

bonus close-up under the cut:

[jheselbraum]

Birth of a Nation revitalized the KKK in America and is perhaps the only piece of "irredeemable media" I can think of that's actually like. You know, a story, and I don't know of anything else off the top of my head that had that kind of lasting, palpably harmful impact that isn't like, direct state mandated propaganda like Mein Kampf. In 1915 the KKK was effectively dead, they'd slowly dissolved around the 1870s (particularly after the introduction of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871) and Birth of a Nation led to the most notorious American terrorist group reforming. As far as I'm concerned, DW Griffith has actual blood on his hands, for murders committed at the very least through the 40s (they disbanded temporarily in 1944 after America's most effective violent crime task force, the IRS, got involved, though it could be argued he's only responsible for murders committed by the KKK through the 20s, as membership declined rapidly after that once people saw that being part of a terrorist organization wasn't like how it was in the movie).

And like, look I generally don't think the word "irredeemable" can really be applied to art in any form, but there is something viscerally reprehensible about Birth of a Nation that makes us not want to watch it. Like it (arguably) pioneered a lot of film techniques but that's more of the science side of film than the art side, I'm completely certain that people would have figured out that contrasting long shots with close-ups made movies more interesting if Birth of a Nation was left on the cutting room floor. (In fact, several of the techniques 'pioneered' by Birth of a Nation were actually from earlier films, it's just that DW Griffith was more popular and his films are the ones that were remembered). But like we don't screen this movie publicly, we don't like it, we don't like the what DW Griffith had to say. Birth of a Nation just... repels people away from it. Its in person screenings are relegated to a few film classes and maybe some klan meetings, though I'm certain there are some racists on 4chan who've downloaded a copy. If you ask normal people to pick one movie to stop existing, there's no way out of it you have to pick one, chances are they'll pick Birth of a Nation, assuming they've even heard of it (my first exposure to it was in high school, some people might not get to it until college, or even later, that's just kind of what happens with something like this. It's not like you can learn about something through cultural osmosis when the culture is trying like hell to osmosis that thing out of itself). It's an acceptable loss.

Meanwhile, from what I've read, I'd say the decision to use A Serbian Film alongside Birth of a Nation is actually a reasonable one, not because of the graphic nature of it's content, but rather its themes and message and how flat it can feel because of who's saying it (DISCLAIMER: I haven't watched it, I'm not going to watch it, take this with a grain of salt). It's about a man who's forced to commit horrific crimes to survive (economically, though he may be directly threatened with death I'm not sure, he's doing it as a job basically). If you'll recall, Serbia committed genocide during the Bosnian War in the 90s, the targets being primarily Bosniaks but also including anyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina that wasn't Serbian.

The director of the film, Srđan Spasojević, had this to say when asked if the acts depicted in the film were related in any way to crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars:

A Serbian Film does not touch upon war themes, but in a metaphorical way deals with the consequences of post-war society and a man that is exploited to the extreme in the name of securing the survival of his family.

Additionally, he described the film as "a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government ... It's about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don't want to do. You have to feel the violence to know what it's about."

A Serbian Film is an exploitation film that's apparently considered one of the most disturbing of all time, but the film is not a snuff film as many people have claimed. A snuff film is the filming of actual gruesome crimes like murder, torture, and rape, committed for the purpose of selling the resulting film and making money. It's not "a movie that depicts gruesome crimes like murder, torture, and rape through the use of special or practical effects."

Based on the quick read-through of the Wikipedia article I did, it seems like most of what the film is trying to say is through the lens of the aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars, or at least that's how the audience largely interpreted it. The script writer, Aleksandar Radivojević, said this about the process of securing funding for the film and the state of the Serbian film industry in general.

you had this EU arts council funded production using Serbia for EU's political agitprop agenda of 'promoting tolerance and reconciliation in the post-war Balkans' by boosting sappy local projects of no aesthetic value whose sole reason for receiving EU financing was their respective authors' willingness to amplify the EU-approved message, i.e. to express 'Serb contrition over what happened in the Yugoslav Wars' via essentially making victim porn, showing small miserable Serb people who are struggling mightily while nevertheless simultaneously 'doing their part in search of collective redemption' by being extremely remorseful

Now, I'm a white American who does not experience racism of any kind, let alone the violently dehumanizing prejudice necessary to convince a group of people to commit an ethnic cleansing, but if my people had been the victims of a genocide, and I heard someone from the group of people that committed that genocide complain about media depicting his people's remorse, and saw that that guy also wrote a movie where the plot is a man is forced to commit gruesome rapes, and again, my people were gruesomely raped as a part of that guy's country's plan to wipe my people from existence, I'd be fucking pissed. Like again, I haven't seen A Serbian Film, and Radivojević wasn't the only person in the writer's room, so maybe in practice it reads less as "our government was controlling us we did nothing wrong" and more "our government is controlling us and we're monsters for listening." And we can argue the merits of the latter another time, but at least the latter acknowledges that genocide doesn't happen in a vacuum because some schmucks at the top said so, that the people bear as much responsibility as their government.

Now, is A Serbian Film actually trying to say anything about the Yugoslav Wars at all? I don't know. I haven't seen it. Maybe it isn't about the Bosnian genocide at all. But then what is it saying about Serbia? Serbian actor Dragan Bjelogrlić said this about the film and its director, a year after its release:

I have a problem with A Serbian Film. Its director in particular. I've got a serious problem with this boy whose father got wealthy during the 1990s—nothing against making money, but I know how money was made [in Serbia] during the '90s—and then pays for his son's education abroad and eventually the kid comes back to Serbia to film his view of the country using his dad's money and even calls the whole thing A Serbian Film. To me that's a metaphor for something unacceptable. The second generation comes back to the country and using the money that had been robbed from the people of Serbia, smears the very same people by portraying them as the worst scum of the earth.

OP was right, it's fucking insane that this site only uses words like irredeemable media to talk about cartoons for children. Like, no, Steven Universe or The Owl House or My Hero Academia or whatever TV-Y7 cartoon you're hyper focused on that week isn't irredeemable media. Your bar for even discussing it as a possibility is "did this story's public existence revitalize a terrorist organization and lead to several murders," a qualification which A Serbian Film, despite its content, themes, and possible interpretations, does not meet. It's offensive, and disturbing, it possibly excuses genocide, but as far as I've read, no one has gotten physically hurt because it exists.

A Serbian Film is more violently graphic than Birth of a Nation. Birth of a Nation did more to physically harm real people than A Serbian Film ever could.

It's fucking wild that the above reaction to A Serbian Film mentions next to nothing about what it's trying to say, how well it works, who's saying it and in what context, but focuses purely on the graphic and violent scenes depicted in the film. It's probably why they slapped Salo on at the end even though a cursory glance through Wikipedia (I don't care enough to read thoroughly on the plot and themes you get the point graphic exploitation films aren't inherently evil for depicting murder or rape or whatever I don't want to read about more graphic shit it's not something I personally enjoy doing) reveals that that film is strictly antifascist, though several actors were actually injured during filming. Notably, the director of Salo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, was gruesomely abducted, tortured, and murdered in 1975 shortly before Salo's release at the Paris Film Festival. He was openly gay, and a Marxist, and while his death was initially contributed to one Giuseppe Pelosi (17 at the time of the murder) after he confessed, he later retracted his confession claiming that he made it under the threat of violence to his family (which unfortunately tracks, Americans may recall the more recent case of Amanda Knox, who was arrested in 2007 for the murder of her friend and forced by Italian police to confess to a crime she didn't commit and was later exonerated from). The case was reopened after Giuseppe's retraction in 2005 and other evidence that had come to light, and as of 2023 the Italian authorities are looking at the far right group Banda della Magliana as possible suspects. While I agree that "I hear it's kind of. nasty" is frankly an understatement when attempting to discuss the graphic content of Salo, and really fucking hilarious in the context of trying to argue that Salo shouldn't exist at all, I don't know that that's really a fair criticism to make, considering the other two examples are if not directly far right (using the term because of the changing political landscape between 1915 and 2010, like I can't really call Birth of a Nation fascist because it was made before fascism was a fully congealed political ideology, even if it upholds the ideology of fascism) then at least debatably so. As previously established, the actual content of the film, as in, the acts depicted, don't immediately make a work reprehensible. Remember, A Serbian Film is more graphic and disturbing to watch than Birth of a Nation, but Birth of a Nation is worse than A Serbian Film.

Tldr; op is right, and the person whose tags have been drowned is exactly the kind of person op was talking about

'Irredeemable media' is such a funny concept to me because it's never used for stuff like Birth of a Nation or A Serbian Film. It's always The Owl House or My Hero Academia because these people only watch things for children and can't stand any conflict more complex than Super Mario Brothers.

[katabay]

”—ah. seems like mother goose has been playing around in your egg salad. if you won’t dance to that tune, I got others.”

honestly, the would you kindly scene is whatever to me*, code yellow is the more interesting violation/betrayal of the body because of how beautifully it escalates the Fontaine reveal/betrayal and shows how ugly some of those ‘locks and keys’ that Tenenbaum mentions are. not only have you been a tool in another man’s hand this entire time, it goes deeper. your body is not your own.

*there used to be a meandering thought here about the would you kindly scene, but it was really just talking around the fact that I spent way too many years seeing people discuss it in the most insufferable and reductive ways possible when it’s a combination of three or four other things that make that moment compelling lmao

collage credits: heart one/heart two

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

[sysig]

How much of me is me? (Patreon)

[skrunksthatwunk]

actually i'm still thinking about the moral orel finale.

he has a cross on his wall. do you know how much i think about that bc it's a lot.

a lot of stories ((auto)biographical or fictional) centering escape from abusive/fundamentalist christianity result in the lead characters leaving behind christianity entirely. and that makes complete sense! people often grow disillusioned with the associated systems and beliefs, and when it was something used to hurt them or something so inseparable from their abuse that they can't engage with it without hurting, it makes total sense that they would disengage entirely. and sometimes they just figure out that they don't really believe in god/a christian god/etc. a healthy deconstruction process can sometimes look like becoming an atheist or converting to another religion. it's all case by case. (note: i'm sure this happens with other religions as well, i'm just most familiar with christian versions of this phenomenon).

but in orel's case, his faith was one of the few things that actually brought him comfort and joy. he loved god, y'know? genuinely. and he felt loved by god and supported by him when he had no one else. and the abuses he faced were in how the people in his life twisted religion to control others, to run away from themselves, to shield them from others, etc. and often, orel's conflicts with how they acted out christianity come as a direct result of his purer understanding of god/jesus/whatever ("aren't we supposed to be like this/do that?" met with an adult's excuse for their own behavior or the fastest way they could think of to get orel to leave them alone (i.e. orel saying i thought we weren't supposed to lie? and clay saying uhhh it doesn't count if you're lying to yourself)). the little guy played catch with god instead of his dad, like.. his faith was real, and his love was real. and i think it's a good choice to have orel maintain something that was so important to him and such a grounding, comforting force in the midst of. All That Stuff Moralton Was Up To/Put Him Through. being all about jesus was not the problem, in orel's case.

and i know i'm mostly assuming that orel ended up in a healthier, less rigid version of christianity, but i feel like that's something that was hinted at a lot through the series, that that's the direction he'd go. when he meditates during the prayer bee and accepts stephanie's different way to communicate, incorporating elements of buddhism into his faith; when he has his I AM A CHURCH breakdown (removing himself from the institution and realizing he can be like,, the center of his own faith? taking a more individualistic approach? but Truly Going Through It at the same time), his acceptance (...sometimes) of those who are different from him and condemned by the adults of moralton (stephanie (lesbian icon stephanie my beloved), christina (who's like. just a slightly different form of fundie protestant from him), dr chosenberg (the jewish doctor from otherton in holy visage)). his track record on this isn't perfect, but it gets better as orel starts maturing and picking up on what an absolute shitfest moralton is. it's all ways of questioning the things he's been taught, and it makes sense that it would lead to a bigger questioning as he puts those pieces together more. anyway i think part of his growth is weeding out all the lost commandments of his upbringing and focusing on what faith means to him, and what he thinks it should mean. how he wants to see the world and how he wants to treat people and what he thinks is okay and right, and looking to religion for guidance in that, not as like. a way to justify hurting those he's afraid or resentful of, as his role models did.

he's coming to his own conclusions rather than obediently, unquestioningly taking in what others say. but he's still listening to pick out the parts that make sense to him. (edit/note: and it's his compassion and his faith that are the primary motivations for this questioning and revisal process, both of individual cases and, eventually, the final boss that is christianity.) it makes perfect sense as the conclusion to his character arc and it fits the overall approach of the show far better. it's good is what i'm saying.

and i think it's important to show that kind of ending, because that's a pretty common and equally valid result of deconstruction. and i think it cements the show's treatment of christianity as something that's often (and maybe even easily) exploited, but not something inherently bad. something that can be very positive, even. guys he even has a dog he's not afraid of loving anymore. he's not afraid of loving anyone more than jesus and i don't think it's because he loves this dog less than bartholomew (though he was probably far more desperate for healthy affection and companionship when he was younger). i think it's because he figures god would want him to love that dog. he's choosing to believe that god would want him to love and to be happy and to be kind. he's not afraid of loving in the wrong way do you know how cool that is he's taking back control he's taking back something he loves from his abusers im so normal

[ladyofwasps]

Tracked down her review and

This shit drives me up a wall. No one is saying you have to like Metamorphosis. No one will throw you in jail for not liking Kafka’s prose. No one will think you’re a bigot or lack media literacy for just not enjoying a book. The issue is the blatant dismissal of why the book is how it is, why its actions are so abstract and its atmosphere is so dark.

I think of when my friend showed me Eraserhead. I didn’t enjoy the film very much, I don’t like Lynch in general if I’m honest he just isn’t for me, but I could understand and engage with the film’s themes of parental and sexual anxiety. Had I blown off the film entirely and said it was made “for the hell of it” I’d be insulting not just Lynch but everyone who worked on it, everyone who found meaning in it, I’d shit on the entire world of surrealist film in one blow by decreeing that if I can’t piece together its meaning it must be meaningless and everyone who likes it only does so because their teacher said it was cool.

This is a trend you see in a lot of Harry Potter and honestly fantasy readers in general; they don’t want new ideas, they don’t want their views or perceptions challenged, they want the same story with the same themes that reaffirms their same worldview over and over until they die. It’s an attitude I could go on about for decades but one 4chan Anon really put it best and I’ll just attach what he had to say:

It’s shit that drives me crazy. This is how we got Marvel movie dominance. This is how we got Taylor Swift’s world conquest. This is how we kill art. By not just lowering our expectations but being fucking thrilled to do so.

goodreads reviewers aren't human

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[panharmonium]

Hi! I love your Naruto thoughts and meta posts with all my heart and I want to ask your thoughts on something that has been on my mind literally since I was 13: what do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura? I went from being a hardcore shipper when I was a teenager, to being against any romantic relationship in Naruto after finishing the anime when I was in my early twenties. Nowadays I'm very into platonic love and depictions of friendship and I think the anime's obsession with forcing the "romantic interest" curse upon the main female character robbed us of... so much. There are a few wonderful moments in the anime where Sasuke and Sakura acknowledge each other, but because she's always "the girl with the crush", her actions are so often interpret as irrational or selfish by the fandom.

Hi @riemmetric!  It's great to talk to you again! Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this; RL has been making demands of me lately and it took me way longer to finish writing this up than I wanted it to (then again, I knew from the minute I read your original ask that my reply was going to get long, so I suppose I should have predicted a delay XD)

It's funny, my sister once asked me to choose between Sasuke or Sakura for an “unpopular opinion” meme, and I ended up doing Sasuke solely because I think the negative fandom opinions about Sakura are so unhinged and divorced from the actual text that I wouldn’t even know where to start.  People are entitled to dislike whatever characters they want, obviously, but there are some fandom takes that are, for me, so obviously rooted in bad faith viewings/readings that there’s no urge in me to discuss them.  That said, since you asked, I’m happy to go into my own thoughts on this a bit, with the disclaimer for other potential readers that I only write about fandom things for my own personal enjoyment, not as a contribution to The Discourse. If you don’t like Sakura, great!  I have no interest in changing your mind. Please consider this a sincere invitation to scroll on by and go enjoy whatever parts of the fandom appeal to you.

In general terms: I love Sasuke and Sakura’s relationship as much as I love all of the relationships in Team 7.  If we’re talking about them specifically as a romantic couple, then I probably fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, because I do like them together in a post-canon (to be clear: non-Boruto) setting, after time has passed and they’ve continued to develop individually and reconnect with each other, but I also wouldn’t exactly call myself an intense “shipper,” in the sense that I have no interest in pulling things out from the text and incorrectly citing them as evidence that Sasuke has hidden romantic feelings for her during the canon period. He cares about her in the canon period, just like he cares about Naruto and Kakashi.  That’s not up for interpretation; it’s the text.  But Sasuke during the canon time period does not demonstrate specifically romantic interest in anyone.  

[A note before people who might ship Sasuke with Someone Else emerge to rail against this statement - please just scroll past and continue enjoying fandom in whatever way is most fun for you. It is cool to ship whatever fanon thing you want; I think that’s great!  But earnestly citing any loving or emotional thing Sasuke does re: various characters in this story (yes, Sakura included) as indicative of specifically romantic love isn’t supported by the text. I know there are always going to be enormous subsets of any fandom who insist that it is, and I'm certainly not going to barge into anyone else's space to complain about that (because other people having fun together is harmless and none of my business), but I'm not obligated to indulge it on my own blog, either.]

Anyway, that said - the reason why I love Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship (from here on out I’ll use “relationship” in a general, non-romantic sense) is precisely because Sakura isn’t just “the girl with the crush.” Sakura has an arc when it comes to Sasuke, and its trajectory moves in the exact opposite direction of “irrational” or “selfish.”  She specifically goes from “the girl with the crush” to “the girl who steels herself and tries to put her personal feelings for Sasuke aside for the greater good” to “the girl who knows she can’t put her feelings aside, but who also knows full well that Sasuke doesn’t reciprocate them, and who still wants to save him regardless, because he matters to her as a person and a friend.”

[I'm putting the rest of this under a cut to save everyone's dash, and also to emphasize once again that this is a personal post on my personal blog which I wrote in response to a question from a personal acquaintance, the full content of which no one is obligated to read. I am not sending this post to random strangers and forcing them to look at it. I'm not even putting it in the character tags. I'm typing it up on my own blog and putting it under a cut. If you already know that you don't like Sakura, but you still click the link/read the post and then feel an urge to comment and complain, I am going to copy-paste this disclaimer and remind you that I specifically recommended that you scroll past and go have fun with fandom in your own way. Thanks in advance for responsibly curating your own fandom experience!]

So, from the top:

1. the girl with the crush

Sakura is, obviously, completely obsessed with Sasuke at the beginning of Part 1.  She’s also deeply clueless about him and his history (bizarre though it is, the story seems to indicate that she initially doesn’t know what happened with his family, the same way young!Obito is initially clueless about Kakashi’s father).  But what I like about Sakura and Sasuke’s Part 1 relationship is how this changes over time.

The critical scene that kicks this off happens right at the beginning of the manga, when she and Sasuke are talking by that bench - she complains about Naruto and blames his behavior on him being all alone/having no family to scold him; and even says she’s jealous that he doesn’t have parents to nag him all the time.  This obviously triggers an outburst from Sasuke, who tells her she has no idea what loneliness means and that she “makes him sick”/she’s “annoying” (importantly, the exact same thing Sakura said to Naruto in anger earlier that day), which in turn prompts Sakura to reassess herself and wonder whether she’s been making Naruto feel this terrible all the time, too:

From that point on, it’s a process of her putting little pieces together.  She still has a MAJOR crush, and she still acts like a twelve year-old, but as we approach the end of Part I, Sakura actually has a more accurate grasp on Sasuke’s current state of mind than Naruto does.  Naruto is initially excited to fight Sasuke on top of the hospital, because he feels like Sasuke’s finally acknowledging him, whereas Sakura is the one who immediately recognizes that something is wrong about this situation.  She is also the one who, after this fight, is concerned that Sasuke is really unwell and might do something drastic like run off in pursuit of the power Orochimaru promised him, but when she communicates this to Naruto, he assures her that this would NEVER happen:

(Sakura isn't convinced, though, because she goes to monitor the exit out of the village anyway.)

I’m not criticizing Naruto for his response here.  I ADORE hearing him say that Sasuke is too strong to need Orochimaru, with such perfect confidence - I love seeing how much respect and admiration he has for Sasuke underneath all their fighting, because that’s the whole reason he’s always baiting Sasuke and yelling at him and claiming “you're not so great!” He looks up to Sasuke; he wants to be like Sasuke; he thinks Sasuke is awesome! (It’s that Obito @ Kakashi behavior, you know?) But the fact remains that he is clueless about what’s actually going on with Sasuke in Part 1, and he remains clueless(ly optimistic) for a long time.  

(Eg, when he catches up to Sasuke during the retrieval arc and Sasuke climbs out of that cursed seal coffin, Naruto waves at him and calls "Come on, let's go!" as if Sasuke has been successfully rescued and is now going to come running home.  Even in Part II, when Naruto hears that Sasuke killed Orochimaru, he beams and immediately says, “So he must be on his way back to the Leaf Village!”  And everyone else in the room is like, “....,” because they know better.  Naruto doesn’t yet fully understand [or doesn't want to accept] the extent to which Sasuke has willingly chosen this path, and it’s not until after Jiraiya’s death/the Pain attack/the Five Kage Summit that Naruto really starts to understand Sasuke more clearly, which is something he himself admits.)

Sakura, in Part 1, has access to more information about Sasuke - she’s there for his first dissociative monologue during the bells test, she’s there for the curse mark’s placement, she’s there for his first violent transformation in the Forest of Death - she is, in fact, the unwitting catalyst for it (“Sakura…who did this to you?”), and her compassion is the reason Sasuke is later able to overcome the curse mark’s influence - so she has a more accurate/complete picture of “how he’s doing,” for lack of a better phrase, whereas Naruto, who doesn’t know about the curse mark in the first place, is still in the dark.  This means that Sakura is able to accurately discern that Sasuke is struggling more than Naruto realizes, and specifically to predict that he’s going to run away.  

(This dynamic is then interestingly flipped in the back half of Part II, since at any point after the Five Kage Summit, Sakura doesn’t have access to extremely relevant [if currently questionable and unproven] details that would in any other circumstance inform her behavior).

Of course, just because she has more info in Part 1 doesn’t mean she has some kind of miraculous insight into Sasuke’s every thought and feeling.  There are parts of her attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village that are as clueless as any of Naruto’s assumptions, and they showcase the kind of magical thinking common to childhood - like when she says that if he stayed with her, she could give him happiness, she’d do anything for him, even help him get his revenge - this idea that she herself can do something to make him feel better, that she can love him powerfully enough to defeat his pain - obviously none of that is rooted in realism.

Is this part of her approach irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered?  Of course it is!  But it’s no more irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered than Naruto’s stated plan to drag Sasuke back to the village even if he has to “break every bone in [his] body!” 

Hating on Sakura for her Part 1 attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village while simultaneously lauding Naruto for his feels like a bad faith misread of what is, to me, pretty clear narrative intention.  The story doesn’t at any point intend for us to see her begging him to stay as a selfish or conniving attempt to get something she wants.  She’s begging him to stay for the same underlying reason that Naruto is: she cares about him.  She thinks he’s making a mistake that will only cause him more pain in the end (she’s right) and she wants to make it so he feels less pain right now (she can’t.  But she doesn’t understand that/isn’t able to admit that, and she’s willing to try ANYTHING that might help).  

It’s critical that this farewell scene is set in front of that same bench from their first important confrontation - she references that day and how angry he got at her, and this time she tells him that she understands his reaction.  She’s learned things and she recognizes how insensitive she was being back then (“I know what happened to your clan, Sasuke”), even though she still can’t fully grasp all the complexities of the situation. She tells him that him blowing up at her back then helped her understand what loneliness actually meant (as opposed to her previous shallow understanding of it), and she challenges him about his choice right now: "So that's it, you're choosing the lonely path?" And when she tells him that she'll be very lonely if he leaves, we're immediately shown a panel of Sasuke thinking of both his friends, with the very clear implication that if he goes through with this, he will be lonely without them, too - that he's still struggling with the idea of leaving them, no matter how hard he tries to pretend:

Sakura at this point knows that Sasuke isn’t interested in her the way she is in him, but she still wants to give him happiness, however fantastical and immature her ideas sound to us (and, I’m sure, to him).  “I’ll do anything, even help you get your revenge/we'll have fun every day, and...and you'll be happy! I'll make sure of it!” - of course, it’s completely childish.  It’s irrational.  It’s ridiculous to think that any of this would ever be effective, but no more ridiculous than Naruto’s belief that he can simply break every bone in Sasuke’s body and keep him in the Leaf by force.

Both Naruto and Sakura are children who have a deeply oversimplified understanding of Sasuke’s situation.  They both still think they can fix him themselves.  They both think they can save him themselves.  They both think they can convince (or force) him to do what they want, what they think is in his best interests.  Both of them don’t yet understand that he has to want to come back, if it’s ever going to mean anything.  Their attempts to keep him in the village are immature and unrealistic, yes.  What they aren’t, however, is selfish, because neither Sakura nor Naruto are doing any of this with the intention of advancing their own interests.  They’re only thinking about Sasuke - how to keep Sasuke safe, how to make Sasuke happy - even when neither of them are taking an approach that will actually work.

Naruto and Sakura are children.  They’re afraid of losing somebody they care about.  Their attempts to prevent that from happening are desperate and messy and ultimately ineffective, but they are also genuinely felt and rooted in a true desire to rescue Sasuke from his pain, which - and this is the single most important thing that should impact our viewing of Part 1 - is something that Sasuke RECOGNIZES.  He doesn’t spend that agonizingly long moment bowed over Naruto’s defeated body so we can pretend he doesn’t understand that Naruto was just trying to help him.  He doesn’t take the time to murmur, “Sakura…thank you,” before laying her out carefully on a bench, just so we can discount it and pretend that he doesn’t recognize and appreciate her genuine intention to make things better for him, however clumsy that attempt might have been.

2. the greater good

If Stage 1 Sakura is "the girl with the crush," then Stage 2 Sakura is a progression to “the girl who decides to put her feelings for Sasuke aside in order to protect innocent people, including (but certainly not limited to) Naruto.”  She’s driven to this decision by interactions with Shikamaru, who all too recently had to grow up fast himself (“We're not kids anymore...we can't allow a war to break out between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud because of Sasuke") and Sai, who risks his new friendship with Sakura and Team 7 in order to speak some hard truths and deliver one of my favorite lines in the whole story: “I don’t know what promise Naruto made to you, but it’s really no different than what was done to me.  It’s like a curse mark.”

(INCREDIBLE.  How can anybody be complaining about a season where Sai gets to say something that goes THIS HARD and Sakura LISTENS and takes DRAMATIC ACTION that actually propels the story forward in a meaningful way - )

[Okay, yeah, brief personal opinion interlude - it is just bonkers wild to me that there are people who complain about Sakura in the Five Kage Summit arc. That entire season is the greatest character arc she ever has.  Literally she has never been more interesting and dynamic than in Season 10; it’s the first time she ever gets to be as deep and fascinating as the boys; what is everybody so worked up about?  Oh, “she lied to Naruto that one time” - Sasuke joined infant-kidnapping baby-murdering human experimentation machine Orochimaru when he was twelve years old in order to (dare I say it????) selfishly pursue his personal goals and yet, somehow, we are still able to root for him.  He abandoned his friends/allies to imprisonment and death (Suigetsu and Jūgo) or outright stabbed them in the chest himself (Karin) in order to (SELFISHLY) get what he wanted, and yet, somehow, we are still able to love him, understand him, and be on his side.  Naruto is canonically not upset with Sakura about her lie after receiving context for the situation and I think we can probably take our cues from him without feeling the need to bring her up on war crimes; please calm down]

[Sorry, I just really love most of Season 10 and think it’s one of the best examples of how good this story can be when every single character gets to do something that matters (as opposed to things being all Naruto, all the time) so I get a little bit worked up over people complaining about some of the best writing Sakura ever gets.  I don’t understand what certain elements of fandom want from her. People complain about her being “useless” and not doing anything that contributes to the story, but then they complain just as much when she does finally get to act decisively and have just as complex/dynamic an inner world as the boys.  She’s “weak” for being unreasonably in love with Sasuke, but when she tries to be “strong” and put her love for him aside and eliminate him in order to protect Naruto and the rest of the world, she’s evil, because she should have been more understanding of his situation (despite the fact that she doesn’t KNOW anything about his situation).  But then when she can’t go through with killing him after all because she cares about him too much despite the things he’s done, she’s not "compassionate" or "kind" or "a good friend," she’s “weak” again. Nothing Sakura does in S10 is more wrongheaded or rash than any of the batshit, buckwild things Naruto and Sasuke have done in the past (and will continue to do in the future), but when Naruto and Sasuke have big feelings or take bold action, it makes them interesting characters, whereas Sakura can’t breathe in anyone’s direction without being minutely scrutinized for moral impurities.]  

Anyway. Back to a more measured response.  

Every single piece of development Sakura has with regard to Sasuke in this season satisfies me so much.  Her initial shock and disbelief at hearing that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki?  Good, appropriate.  The fact that she starts to acknowledge the reality of what Sasuke’s done sooner than Naruto does?  Also extremely appropriate, very in-character for both of them.  Her taking Sai’s words to heart and deciding that the promise she asked Naruto to make when they were children is causing him to suffer and she has to relieve him of that burden?  Juicy!  AND thematically significant (promises!!!!  the burden that a promise places on a person, especially when it can't be kept - we've seen that before in this story and we'll see it again).  Her anguished pivot from wanting to protect Sasuke to realizing that she has a responsibility to protect the countless innocents who will die because of the war he’s trying to start?  HELLO THIS IS INCREDIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.  Her knocking out the classmates who agreed to help her so they don’t have to share in her burden (and so the only person Naruto will hate when it’s over is her)?  BRUH.  Her being so committed and focused on her goal of saving innocents and protecting Naruto (not just from being harmed by Sasuke/the Akatsuki, but by the possibility that Naruto will someday have to hurt Sasuke himself) that she tries to take everything on by herself and walks into a confrontation that she absolutely cannot win??  INCREDIBLE.  (Literally the first time I watched this, I said, “Finally!!!  It’s Sakura’s turn to go off the rails!”  I laughed with my sister about how Kakashi isn’t even mad, because Naruto and Sasuke have been pulling stunts like this for years and Sakura was way overdue for her own meltdown.)  And then, after Kakashi intervenes in the fight - Sakura barreling back into the battle when she realizes he’s going to take on the burden of killing Sasuke himself in order to spare her and Naruto the horror - “I can’t let Kakashi-sensei bear this burden!”  I love her for that.  

And then, of course, in the end - her not being able to do hurt Sasuke after all.  Despite committing herself to the act, despite forcing herself to put her feelings for him aside, despite resolving to stop him from starting a war and killing innocent people, she can’t harm him.  She cares about him too much.  This, too, is thematically significant - think about Itachi’s “you don’t have enough hatred” - she doesn’t have enough hatred to kill someone she cares about, even if it seems like he deserves it, even if would be the right thing to do to protect others.  She can’t do it, and Sasuke almost kills her for her compassion.  

I love the dynamic this sets up between her and Sasuke, for a few reasons:

1) Personally, I think Sasuke respects Sakura much more for trying to kill him than he would have if she’d just tried to talk him out of his behavior or beg him to come home (a la their original confrontation in Part 1).  This is the first significant interaction he’s had with Sakura in years, and the fact that she does something SO contrary to his memory of her is an important demonstration of the fact that she’s not the same girl she used to be.  Sasuke spends a lot of time after his defection declaring to his old team “I’ve changed; I’m not that person anymore,” but this is one of the moments where he’s forced to acknowledge that his teammates have changed, too.  Time didn’t just stop for them when he left.  While he was turning into someone new, so were they.  They grew up without him, and his old memories of them can’t encompass the whole picture of who they are now.  

(This is a little tangential, but in general, I love the spectrum of reactions that Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi have in this sequence, and the way that all of them are ultimately messages Sasuke needs to hear.  Sasuke - who we know textually regrets what he did here, who apologizes to Sakura for it later - for “everything,” in fact - needs Naruto’s aggressively optimistic open-arms policy, yes, needs that potential, that unconditional possibility of return.  He also needs Sakura’s refusal to let him hurt her friends and start a war that will kill thousands of people, needs her surprisingly ruthless attempt to take him down; needs just as much her failure to do so, because it shows him that she still loves him too much to kill him even as she condemns him.  And he needs Kakashi’s grim line in the sand, needs someone who very possibly won't hesitate like Sakura (despite the horrifying personal cost), someone who will try to reach him but also won't let him escape and become the next generation’s Orochimaru, who won't let him cause untold suffering to untold numbers of people just because a teacher loved him too much to stop him when he had the chance. 

(And then even Kakashi chooses not to deliver a killing blow when he has the opportunity -)

(I know that in fandom people are more likely to be all, “oh, Naruto Good, everybody else Bad,” but I don’t think the narrative frames Sakura or Kakashi as “worse” than Naruto in any way.  The story goes out of its way to make it clear how desperately they don’t want to hurt Sasuke and how much they care about him.  And [this is just my interpretation, so obviously I won’t claim it as fact], I personally think that Sasuke - Sasuke, who, looking back, can see how lost he was then and how tortured he would have been if he’d gone through with many of his plans - would be grateful to Sakura and Kakashi for making an attempt to stop him when he couldn’t stop himself.)

2) On the other side of this, the fact that Sakura wasn’t able to deliver the killing blow means a lot. Sasuke was incapacitated under that bridge; he was completely at her mercy - but she stopped with the kunai an inch from his back.  She couldn’t kill him, even though she knew that he was completely willing to kill her (because he'd attempted to Chidori-assassinate her from behind just a few minutes ago).  That’s huge!  Sasuke is too out of his head right now to process this or understand it, but later, it's going to matter.  She stayed her hand.  She spared his life.  She loved him too much to hurt him, even when he’d given her every reason to take him down.  She hesitated, and he almost killed her for it, but her inability to strike him ultimately gave him yet another chance to come home, another chance to get better, another chance to have a life outside of his pain.  Despite everything, some part of her still hadn’t really given up on him, and that knowledge will matter later, when he’s finally able to acknowledge it.  

The point of all this is to say that I really have no complaints about Sakura and Sasuke’s dynamic in their S10 confrontation.  This season is the point where Sakura fully grows past her “girl with a crush” stage and into her “shinobi must make very harsh decisions” adulthood, but it never means that she doesn’t care about the person she’s trying to take down.  Her ultimate inability to deliver the killing blow remains a dangling lifeline for her relationship with Sasuke, an open door that Sasuke is able to walk through at the end of the story (literally, in fact, when Sakura opens that portal for him and saves him from Kaguya’s desert prison, and figuratively, too, when Sasuke apologizes to her).

3. she only wants to save you

The last stage in their relationship is what Sakura settles into during the war arc.  She started off Part 1 being just a girl with a crush, then tried to harden her heart and put her feelings for Sasuke aside in service of the greater good, but she was unable to actually follow through and kill him, and because of that, what she’s come to accept by the war arc is actually two things: that 1) Sasuke truly is willing to let her die if it furthers his goals, and 2) she wants to save him anyway.  

She has no intention of pursuing Sasuke romantically.  She knows full well that Sasuke isn’t interested in her.  She even knows that Sasuke isn’t really on their side (there’s a great scene where Sai questions Sakura about Sasuke’s return, and she reassures him that everything is fine, and Sai sadly thinks to himself “even I can tell your smile is fake”).  She’s well-aware that Sasuke didn’t try to help her when Madara stabbed her.  She’s well-aware that he left her to die in the lava pit.  She’s also well-aware that none of this is enough to make her stop loving him.  He doesn’t have to care about her - she still cares about him.  She still wants to help him.  She still wants to save him.

This is not hidden, hard-to-parse character development.  It’s explicitly articulated on the page:

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers!  She only wants to save you.

I’m not sure if people look at this last confrontation and unquestioningly take Sasuke at his word (as if we haven’t just read 71 volumes/watched 700 episodes showing us how how painfully distorted his thinking is), or if they stop reading/watching before the end of the scene, or if they don’t understand that Sasuke saying something doesn’t make that statement an accurate representation of reality.  The entire point of this scene is to show us how deeply mistaken Sasuke is about Sakura (and, by extension, the rest of Team 7).  He’s locked into a false pattern of thinking.  His single-minded focus on revenge and destruction has blinded him to the unconditional love his friends feel for him; he’s become so accustomed to using others and being used that he can’t understand or accept that someone would care about him without needing a reason, without needing him to love them back, without needing to receive something from him in exchange.

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers!  She only wants to save you.

Sasuke matters to Sakura as more than a love interest.  He always has.  She does love him romantically, yes, but she doesn’t only love him romantically, and her desire to help him is not and has never been contingent on him returning her feelings, romantically or otherwise.  Sasuke isn’t able to acknowledge that in this scene, but that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to just sit back and agree with his warped perspective.  Kakashi is the one who’s explicitly positioned as the voice of the narrative here.  We, as the audience, are supposed to recognize that Kakashi is the one telling us the truth.

[tangential thing 1: You don’t have to love Sakura's last plea to Sasuke here. It’s not my favorite, either - the best part, other than Kakashi’s speech at the end, is the moment after Kakashi collapses when Sakura’s expression changes from pained uncertainty to pure rage, when she grits her teeth together - when I first saw that, I almost leapt out of my seat like “Oh my god.  She’s finally going to let him have it.  It’s finally happening - ”  I wanted that so badly, and I still think it would have been a more effective writing choice for Sakura’s last words to lean more into her anger at the suffering Sasuke is causing all of them (himself included!) and less into yet another of Kishimoto’s “let me have Sakura articulate what a shame it is that she can’t do as much as Naruto despite the fact that I literally just went through a major reveal sequence in the war to show that she’s caught up to the boys; I can’t make up my mind about whether I want her to progress or not” - it’s extremely frustrating (and it's something he does at the very end of the S10 Team 7 reunion, too, which is the ONLY moment of S10 that falls flat for me).  But at the same time, even if there are ways this sequence could be more satisfying, it doesn’t change the fact that her plea to him is not remotely motivated by a desire to be with him romantically and not anything to condemn her for.]

[tangential thing 2: I do like how she remembers that moment when Sasuke says “Thank you.”  That panel precedes her saying “If there’s even a tiny corner of your heart that thinks about me…” (which I’m sure is one of the things that people like to criticize about this scene, aka “oh she’s sooooo self-centered” etc), but that particular line of dialogue is preceded by that particular flashback panel for a reason: Sakura knows that Sasuke DOES think about her.  He thinks about all of them.  Sakura remembers that “thank you,” and it reminds her that despite everything Sasuke has done and said since, despite all evidence to the contrary, she knows in her bones that his expression of gratitude back then was genuine.  He cared about her once.  He cared about all of them.  She’s trying to reach the part of him that still does, if it exists.]

[tangential thing 3: The fact that Kakashi says “she suffers from loving you,” and it triggers Sasuke to remember his own family - thinking about how much he suffered (and still suffers) from loving them - “Perhaps…those are the ties to a failed past” - the idea that it’s not worth it to have bonds if it means you suffer this much…that it’s too difficult, it’s too painful, and if Sakura and the rest of Team 7 were smarter they would just give it up (all Sasuke knows how to do now is sever potential bonds before they can hurt him; so why aren’t Sakura and the rest of his teammates doing that, why can’t they let it go, why are they making this so hard - ) << yeah, he clearly doesn't care about her/them at all.]

4. the shadow of my family

This has all been a really long way to answer the original question, but the short response to “What do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura?” is “I really care about it,” just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto, just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Kakashi. And I don’t think the story ever asks me to choose between them.

I’m not sure whether it’s the impact of Boruto-era “canon” that gets in the way of other people approaching things this way (I don’t consider sequel material when I evaluate the original story), or if it’s Kishimoto’s frequent disinterest in/disrespect towards female characters, which yes, does sometimes make it harder, or if it's a shipping thing (bane of my existence), or some combination of factors, but for me, taking one member of Team 7 out of the equation hobbles the rest of the story.  I can’t read/watch Naruto while hating one of the protagonists and loving the other three.  It doesn’t work like that for me.  The story wasn’t written that way, and there’s nothing in the text that would cause me to receive it that way.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with disliking one of the main foursome (or any character, for that matter) - obviously we're all going to have different preferences, and everyone is free to enjoy or reject whatever parts of a story they want, or to like or dislike whatever characters they want. I know that some people have more fun disregarding canon and doing their own thing, which is fine.  My own personal zone of enjoyment comes from receiving the story as closely to how I think it was intended to be read as I can, and personally, when I look at this particular story, what I see is that all the members of Team 7 clearly demonstrate their love for Sasuke in ways that he himself later recognizes and acknowledges. All of them are driven by their desire to save him and their unwillingness to hurt him. All of them make repeated choices to chase after him when he runs away, to trust him when he hasn't exactly earned it, to give him another chance when he doesn't appear to deserve it. ALL of them, not just Naruto, do these things multiple times throughout the story, and Sasuke owes his life (and thus his eventual recovery) to ALL of them, many times over. Kakashi disobeys Hokage-elect Danzō and breaks the law to negotiate for Sasuke's life with a foreign head of state. Sakura and Kakashi both have opportunities to kill Sasuke in the Land of Iron, and they choose to spare him instead. Kakashi stops Sasuke from killing his only friends at two different points in the story, which would have been a mistake Sasuke couldn't have recovered from. Sasuke would have died in Kaguya's desert dimension if Sakura hadn't saved him (Sakura, who knew that Sasuke wasn't even truly on her side yet, who knew he'd abandoned her for dead multiple times already that day). Kaguya's bone bullet would have killed Sasuke too, if Kakashi, with his intention to die in Sasuke's place, hadn't leapt in front of it (Kakashi, who also knew that Sasuke wasn't fully on their side yet, who also knew that Sasuke had abandoned him for dead earlier that day). Sasuke and Naruto would have BOTH died in the Final Valley if Sakura and a severely injured Kakashi hadn't chased after them to heal their injuries.

Remove any one member of Team 7, and Sasuke never makes it home. Without the combined efforts of all three of his teammates, he doesn't survive.  That’s the way it should be, thematically, for a story whose first and most foundational premise was the importance of teamwork, and since Sakura was just as essential to that framework as everyone else, I’m just as invested in her relationship with Sasuke as I am in his relationship with everyone else.  You can’t remove one leg from a four-legged stool without damaging the integrity of the entire structure, and for me, discounting any single member of Team 7 irreparably damages the integrity of the entire story. 

TL;DR: I love all of the Team 7 relationships, including Sakura and Sasuke's, because despite what some segments of fandom seem to believe, the text of the story never gives me any reason not to.

[aemiron-main]

why is he posed like a dead oblivion npc

[sprousprou]

I was gonna put this in the tags but I ended up having a lot more to say than I realized, so I'll make it a text post instead. I don't hate the act of making art or anything, I do like it well enough. But I definitely mainly do it for the finished work. However. What I like about art is the diversity of how different people create things in different ways. How every artist can create such a unique piece (be it drawings or music or games or film or whatever), even if they largely take inspiration from other pieces. A lot of an artist's perspective and experiences ends up in the work, even if it's not always super visible. Nobody can make the same work as someone else. Art is such a diverse world.

I have my own art I want to create and my own stories I want to tell. Other people could never make those for me, and a machine could never even come close. I think there's a lot of nuance to AI, I'm still kinda figuring out my full stance on it. I think it's currently being used for a lot of bad, but I think it has the potential to be used for good. It's a tool, it's just in the hands of complete idiots who don't know how to use it. But one thing's for sure. Whether or not you believe AI generated stuff is art or not, it could never make the art I want to make. I love creating something that is wholeheartedly the work of myself (and occasionally someone else I care about.)

So a machine could never replace me. A machine could never replace those who are truly passionate about art. Because it can only make things a machine can create, and I want to make the things I can create.

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.