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

[mistresscitrusslice]

Thank you so much for going through the effort to even get screenshots! It’s seriously appreciated.

You make a good point, not least of which because this circle looks like a blast zone that came from within. It even pushed other bodies away. I’ve never seen Kindred gameplay, idk what their protective powers look like, but generally spells that are cast on you by someone else use the caster as the center of the spell, not the target. (Basically, the blast circle wouldn’t have been centered on Ambessa, but on the Wolf.)

The protected area around Mel and Jayce when they wake up doesn’t look like a blast zone the way it did with Ambessa (other than, you know, the Actual Bomb), so I’m not sure what to make of that.

I did not know that Ambessa had a bio already, let alone that included stuff from her music video! I thought she just had her blurb. It’s great that they clarified who she was pregnant with eventually. Uh, where’s Kino while she’s out at war then??? I imagine that Kino’s father was probably also a soldier and in the army too. Hopefully Kino was with relatives or family friends.

Also, Rokrund! It’s nice to get a name for the specific region Ambessa is from other than just the wider nation of Noxus. Is this a new name we’re hearing or has it appeared in any other League lore/media before?

“Visions that she would speak of to few others.” I wonder who those few are. Given how she treats her children, I cannot trust that even her kids are among these few. Their dad, maybe? I hesitate to say “Ambessa’s husband” because she definitely does not act like she has a husband, or maybe he’s deceased.

I plead the fifth on the Solari stuff because I know jack shit about the Solari, and if it turns out that Mel does have Solari magic, I do want to be surprised by their lore.

It still puzzles me why, if she does have magic, she wouldn’t use it to defend herself. You mentioned it being linked to situations with certain death. I’m iffy on this because it feels convoluted and kind of like a cop-out if that really is the reason can’t use it at will. If it is the case, though, then maybe Viktor wasn’t hurt because his magic clashed with hers, but because his death wasn’t guaranteed. I rewatched the opening scene, and he was still moving a little when Jayce performed Hexcore magic on him. If his death wasn’t certain, then the magic had no need to save him.

More likely, Mel’s magic has a cooldown and a long period where she needs to build enough magic back up to be able to use, but most likely, Mel doesn’t even know she has magic. There’s no sense in concealing her magic now, especially not after it saved herself and Jayce. Sure, it’d be a bad idea to come out about it to the world even after Piltover accepted Hextech since it would’ve been a secret for so long. However, I do believe she would’ve told Jayce. If not before, then definitely after it saved the two of them and Viktor still almost died.

Jayce needs as much information as he can get to figure out what’s going on with Viktor. Mel cares a lot about Jayce and seems to also care for Viktor even if she disagreed with him last season. She also has the same innate curiosity that Jayce and Viktor do. She’d want him to be able to solve this puzzle with all the information at his disposal and has been able to open up to him in the past with the trust that he would not share her secrets. She’d tell him so that they could figure out why her magic didn’t work as it was supposed to.

Unless there’s a reason we haven’t been told for why she needs to keep this hidden? If you squint your ears real hard, her line of “There’s no sense to these things, Jayce” in response to “How does the explosion do that to him and I just walk out without a scratch” sounds a bit like she’s trying to get him to drop the subject. After all, there is sense to these things for a scientist. There’s physics and calculations that go into why every single piece of debris falls in the way that it does. Which direction it flies in, how much heat is dispersed, the shock absorption in everything and every person in the blast radius, how far each person gets pushed across the room. To Jayce, “there’s no sense” might not be a comforting thing to hear. So was Mel just trying and failing to comfort him or was she attempting to change the subject? Or am I just reading too much into it?

Lmao imagine tho if Jayce found out she has magic, whether she already knew or not. He’d want to study her! And honestly she’d probably be down for it to find out even more ways to use her powers, maybe a way to replicate it with Hextech so more people can have a way to stay safe! That would actually be a good way to use Hextech to help people. And maybe Mel just has a scientist kink, who knows

Mel's protection should have saved Viktor too, and she's trying to figure out why it didn't

S2 ep1 shows a circle of protected stone where Mel and Jayce were during the explosion. My theory is that Mel's magic armor activated and saved them both. It seems like it casts a sphere of protection around wherever Mel is.

The center of this circle is not Mel's seat - it's Jayce's. She ran to Jayce to save him.

No other Councilors were in range of Mel's protection, so they all got hurt or killed.

But Viktor was, Jayce's words, "right next to" him. He was easily within Mel's circle of protection.

1) Viktor tried to run and mistakenly left the circle of protection. But are we meant to believe that Viktor, close to dying already and using a crutch, would have outrun Mel?

2) Viktor's augmented body clashes with Mel's

Why does Mel try to touch Viktor in episode 1? It seems like a throwaway moment, but not even Jayce touches him in this scene. So why Mel?

She's curious. And possibly, feeling responsible. She's wondering why her protection didn't work.

Is this Hexcore brand of the Arcane trying to reach out to Mel? Or trying to defend itself from her?

Mel was trying to protect both Jayce and Viktor, which is reflected in how she holds Jayce as well as Viktor's cane when she promises to protect Hextech:

But if, for example, Mel's magic is Solari in origin, and Viktor's is from the Void - or the Arcane equivalent of similar opposing forces - then it's possible that their magic rejects or hurts one another. So Mel's circle of protection either rejected Viktor, or was what hurt Viktor, and not the explosion.

[unhelpfultarot]

Hi, hello. I’m a long-time follower, first-time asker. I remember you saying you don’t really believe that divination works? I don’t know if that is still the case but, anyway, I respect it and just want to say that you, your efforts and time dedicated to this page are all valued here. The fact is you reach and help lots of people, not even just in (I’m assuming) your country. And it’s absolutely understandable if you need to take a break. But it’s also ok to change the “vibe” of the posts for however long. Yes, it is a funny page, and everyone appreciates that — but we’re all grieving and you can grieve here too. I hope this makes sense, I just woke up. Take care <3

My thinking is that there's nothing magical or supernatural about Tarot cards; they're just pictures on little pieces of paper. What they are is strong archetypal symbols, universal enough to apply to everybody, broad and general enough to have many possible meanings. Putting them together in combinations can spark ideas about all sorts of familiar situations. And human beings are very good at pattern recognition and storytelling, so when you put all that together, you can make connections that you otherwise might not think of. Or maybe acknowledge something that's been on your mind but you've been trying not to think about.

Or you can write silly descriptions of the normal ups and down of life, and then lots of people say "Whoa, that happened to you? That happened to me, too!" And then we all feel a little less alone.

I'm sure I will be back to posting, probably fairly soon. I'm unusually busy with some offline stuff lately (mostly positive, but time-consuming) but I miss being able to sit down quietly and shuffle my cards every day. And I miss feeling like I'm connected to my vast and faceless crowd of readers. I'm very fond of all of you out there, and hope you're doing well.

❤️

[trauma-report]

TRAUMA-REPORT: a selective & independent portrayal of a russian special forces soldier named JAKOW CHERNYKH

❝ You have a talent, Jakow. One, not even your own teammates in your unit can possess. You don't ask questions, instead you're doing what's necessary and that makes you a good soldier. A highly skilled spetsnaz for the russian federation, for your motherland. If I blink I expect you to follow, if I say "kill" you will do so. You will serve your country at all costs, even if you'll lose your soul while doing it. ❞   ⸻ STANISLAV NAZAROV, GENERAL-MAYOR OF THE RUSSIAN GRU

( . . . ) born in kazakhstan Jakow (mostly called Jascha by his friends and comrades) moved back to his fathers motherland russia when he was about 8 years old. Due to recent events that happened in his hometown Atyrau he wanted to be a soldier since the day he left. But he learned soon enough that being a spetsnaz for the russian military secret service GRU [Главное разведывательное управление] doesn't necessarily mean to just protect the ones you love, but also to become a monster every enemy fears. While being in the field he's got the will to kill without any hestitation, but back in civil life he tries to calm down his inner monster with partying and a lot of alcohol, so he's able to sleep at night.

⠀      ⠀     ❝carrd.     ❝ pinterest.    ❝writing.    

highly affiliated to: @ertraeumte

info: selective, independent; 21+, activity varies; multiship friendly; currently open for plotting + I do not under any circumstances sympathize with current political events and actions of the real-world-russia. This is a roleplay character which disputes critically russian military/military structures in general and its consequences.

edits by @sonnenreich (you little piece of f****ing talent) carrd template by @giantstrength

[ph-cutie]

why is evrart's portrait so weird? a visual and written analysis.

Most of us on this website have warm sentiments towards him, but I feel confident in saying that his portrait art looks, or has looked, somewhat off-putting to a lot of people, and that this fact was intentional. So if you've always felt a little strange looking at him, but couldn't put your finger on why, I've got you! This is a remake of a 1k word, 12 paragraph post I've made on reddit this same day, but tweaked to be in a more tumblr cadence :3

FORENOTE: This post is solely about the portrait art. Not the man portrayed in the model and concept art, or his general features. Just making that clear.

BACK TO BUSINESS: I've made a little diagram circling out and numbering the most jarring parts of this image.

TLDR: this piece draws on mild anatomical distortions and body language discrepancies to catch the viewer offguard. if you want to know more you're a VERY lucky person, because i've got nearly 800 words explaining each point for you, under the readmore.

UNUSUALLY LONG&WIDE LOWER FACE: Probably the thing most people actually notice. Even compared to other images of him, his jaw is quite exaggerated. wouldn't stand out had the rest of him been unremarkable, however he is *very* remarkable.

STRAINED SMILE - MUSCLE TENSION: I'm not super into the "true and genuine good person smile" vs "deceitful scary smile" dichotomy, I myself am cursed with a jimmy donaldson smile. However, his smile does not look restful/easy-going. It's very horizontal. Corner 1 is pushing excessively into his cheek, corner 2 isn't even angled up. Lower lip is stuck out. CONCLUSION: looks forceful and a little painful on his end. Not the weirdest part of the image, but it creates problems later down the line with his other features.

FOGGY GLASSES: They say that eyes are the windows of the souls, and his design messes with that by fogging up his glasses. But even that has another layer to it, so let's peel it! His right eye (to the right of the image) is looking at the viewer, however, the glass obstructs it to such a degree that we do not get any functional information from it beyond the knowledge that it exists. His left eye is drawn much clearer, however, it's not looking at us. It can't tell us anything about what it's owner is feeling, it has nothing to do with us. For people who care about eye contact, this part of the drawing was made to be frustrating. The connection is juust out of reach :)

LACK OF VISIBLE EYEBROWS: Eyebrows are one of the most expressive parts of the face, and he's lacking them for whatever reason. Not much more to say on that for now.

NONSENSICAL PLACEMENT OF HEAD ON BODY: Compared to the concept art, where his shoulder is a little below his earlobe, the portrait's shoulder is portrayed as above THE ear. Basically, there is no neck/separation between his head and body. The rest of the drawing doesn't give a clear explanation on why this is (such as if he were clearly portrayed as sticking his head forward), so I deem this to be a genuine anatomic perversion. (AFTERNOTE: APPROXIMATELY 20 PEOPLE ON REDDIT HAVE TOLD ME "no that's actually the back of his chair you can tell from this slight hue shift" MAYBE IT IS. BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT ANYONE REALLY NOTICED THAT LITTLE PIXEL LINE, AT THE SIZE OF THE PORTRAIT WHICH IS PORTRAYED INGAME. THE PAINTER KNEW WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE. SO DONT BOTHER ME ABOUT IT )

ARCHED CURVATURE OF THE SHOULDER- MUSCLE TENSION AGAIN: But I'm not done with his shoulders! His shoulder have an arched shape, which means he's hiking them up. Much like with his smile, it's a forceful posture, associated typically with some kind of discomfort. (SAME AFTERNOTE AS POINT 5)

LACK OF DETAIL IN THE CLOTHES: While we can choose what we look at, the human eye will always be drawn to the most striking or detailed parts of images. Artists know this. Often-times, we wish for the viewer to look at the face of a character- hence the popularity of anime girls with glossy, candy-colored eyes. Claire's zone of maximum detail density starts at his nose and ends at the bottom of his double chin. His clothes, meanwhile, are basically just flat shapes. His background is very simple too. SO basically, the remainder of the image is a graphical desert, and his jowls are the oasis your eyes will always wander back to :D.

THESIS: Claire's anatomy is mildly distorted in points 1 and 5, which immediately throws off the audience. His body language is strained, borderline convulsive in points 2 and 6, while his features at 3 and 4, which we look at for information (is he happy? angry? in pain?), are left blank. This discrepancy leaves us emotionally confused and unsatisfied. Thus, the vague sense of something being wrong with no further information. Point 7 is just a little garnish to maximize the above effects. Tada! that's it.

WHY DID I WRITE THIS?: People usually focus on beautiful art and what makes it as such- I've seen many brilliant analyses of Lieutenant Kitsuragi's portrait and why it comforts us. But I find it equally interesting to break apart pieces that just don't emotionally click with us, that feel off, and I also love Evrart Claire, and find him to be a good example of this that nobody seems to have previously discussed. So I took on the challenge! I find his portrait art actually really cute now so this is mostly drawn on from the feelings of Ghost of ph-cutie Past. I genuinely doubt anyone will read all of this so if u have, I thank u from the bottom of my heart <3.

[elaine19day]

Hey guys~ Sorry for my late post, I was super busy today and just came home and only now was able to take a closer look at the new merch and the post that OldXian made. So, first things first - I stand corrected, lol The leaked merch turned out to be real after all. For me personally, quite surprising because it's a LOT at once. (I mean, 58[!!] different cards/buttons/tickets/plates plus 4 special extras……. WOW!!) Also what I mentioned in my last post already - it's quite a bold move to release merch with those old motifs from early manga chapters and calling it "time mosaic" lmao.

Who knows what went on when these decisions were made at mosspaca headquarters, lol

It's safe to say the images definitely got leaked by either a hacker or a person working there. And a lot of people on xiaohongshu were able to produce replicas quickly and sell them to unsuspecting fans. Which brings me to my next point:

The quality of the merch and the quality of the drawings itself. I promised you to address this 'issue' should there ever be an official announcement about these new items and that happened today.

So. First of all - if you saw the posts on taobao or XHS yourself, where people sold fakes, or even if you saw only screenshots from it, you can tell the image quality definitely seemed off. This will most likely be attributed to two things - producing merch from a small, low quality image will make it look blurry and distorted, sometimes pixel-y. And the other reason could be upscaling. If you use shitty programs to make images bigger, it'll look blurry and unfocused. You can go back to my previous post and take a close look at the parts that I circled and highlighted to point out these issues.

Now. About the thing I initially didn't wanna address because I know some people won't like it. If you look closely at the images posted by OldXian herself today, even there some things still seem a little bit 'off' or 'rushed'. There has been speculation in the past that OX uses an AI model (probably fed/trained with her own works) to generate new images quickly and then she'd just draw over them to fix minor issues etc. Please keep in mind, this is just speculation and rumors. I am NOT saying that this is the case. But it might be a possibility. Personally, I can see quite a few artists using these methods to save time, especially when they're under high pressure. (And if they use their own models, trained with their own works only, there's nothing immoral about it, if you ask me. But that's just my personal opinion.)

So there. This might be an explanation for some of her illustrations or panels looking a bit funky sometimes. The other possibility is simply that she's rushing it when working on these things and heavy time pressure makes it a bit messy. Once again - NOT saying she definitely uses AI, just telling you about the rumors that sometimes surface on the net. That's all.

Anyway. About the merch itself. It drops in about 12h from the time I'm posting this blog. (8pm Hangzhou time)

The taobao link for the items is this for now: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?ft=t&id=792490172782 

There are 4 different options and all of them are blind boxes, meaning you'll receive totally random motifs, unless you order a whole box, which will guarantee you 1 of each regular motif. However, all 4 lots have 1-3 limited pictures, which you might be lucky enough to receive, the chance is small though. (In case you order a complete box and there's 1 or more of the limited motifs inside, it'll lack a regular motif in its place. Example: if you order a full box of 8 buttons and one of them is a limited edition button, one of the regular 8 motifs will be missing in its place. There won't be 9 buttons in the box. It will always be 8 for a full box!)

Option 1: (18 Yuan | ca. 2,70 USD each) Button badges. There are 8 regular badges and 2 limited edition badges. If you order a total of 8 pieces you will not only receive the display box, but also an acrylic standee with Tianshan riding a scooter as a special extra.

Option 2: (10 Yuan | ca. 1,50 USD each) Laser Tickets. There are 17 regular tickets and 2 limited edition tickets. If you order a total of 17 pieces you will not only receive the display box, but also a Shishiki board with Mo from the metamorphosis series as a special extra.

Option 3: (18 Yuan | ca. 2,70 USD each) Tinplates. There are 10 regular plates and 1 limited edition plate. If you order a total of 10 pieces you will not only receive the display box, but also an acrylic standee with Zhanyi cooking/cleaning as a special extra.

Option 4: (15 Yuan | ca. 2,25 USD each) Acrylic Cards. There are 16 regular cards and 3 limited edition cards. If you order a total of 16 pieces you will not only receive the display box, but also an acrylic standee with all 4 boys as chibis as a special extra. [Note about the acrylic cards: The Mo Guanshan card will be the same that was already given as a limited extra during the last round of blind box button badges!]

If you live in the US or Asia, you will most likely be able to use taobao and order directly from the mosspaca shop via the app with the link I gave you above. If you live in a country that's not covered on taobao's shipping list, you can use an agent to order the new merch. Please refer to THIS POST here where I previously explained how to use superbuy and similar shopping agents for buying things from taobao. In case you use superbuy, please keep in mind: They don't offer paypal anymore, so you'll need a credit card or bank transfer or apple pay/google pay.

Also, think carefully if you really want ALL of the merch, even if you're a die-hard fan. You saw I have put the rough amount of US Dollar with each item, so if you buy all 4 boxes, you'll have to pay over 110 USD for the merch alone, plus domestic shipping from mosspaca to the warehouse and then international shipping, which can be as high as 40 USD, depending on where you live. (And perhaps even customs fees on top of it.)

If you have any questions, please drop them below and I'll try my best to answer them~

[canidbld]

Dear Wolf Therians...

(Aka, a domestic dog rambles about packs)

Content warnings: none

Word count: 2k

— Day 3 of Sol's Writing Challange

I want to start off this post by saying that I'm pretty confident I'm not a wolf therian. During my awakening, I automatically assumed a potential wolf theriotype (which seems to not be an uncommon experience) I actually tried to think and picture myself as a wolf, just to try out the identity but there was something that didn't feel right and it was sort of difficult to understand why. Maybe it was the large size of a wolf not matching with how I felt my canineness should look like, or maybe it was more of a personality/mental thing.

Either way, I kept trying to work it out in my brain and read the works and experiences of wolf therians. When wolf therians spoke about being a wolf, there was a lot of mention of feeling wild and untamed with an instinctual yearning to be free. They spoke commonly about how disconnected they felt from humans and that they were actually pretty wary of them and felt uncomfortable in humam focused environments, and that's when it clicked and why I was not a full wolf because I felt pretty comfortable with humans and I didn't feel this inner call for the wilds. I was actually pretty chill hanging out and around man-made settlements and cities (which were a wolf therians' worst nightmare, according to a few essays). Basically, I felt pretty domestic.

So then I just assumed I might have been a wolfdog. I went from thinking I could have been a high content wolfdog to a mid content to a low content, but even then, that didn't feel right. I read an article that discussed the differences in wolves and stray dogs that actually really illuminated my perspective on canines as a whole. Wolves were monogamous, primarily carnivorous, and apex predators and functioned under a family hierarchy. The stray dogs in the article were scavengers, eating what they could find on the outskirts of human settlements and didn't have to abide by strict seasons to have pups nor did they feel the need to form packs unless they thought it was necessary. All in all, dogs had a lot more variety in expression and were more loose on the "rules" of being a canine compared to wolves.

Eventually I just realized and came to terms that I was just a domestic German Shepherd (and a proud one at that!) with an emotional and aesthetic attachment to wolves that had no impact on my identity and how I identified no matter how cool I thought wolves and wolf therians were.

So, yeah, I'm pretty confident that I'm not a wolf therian.

But I loved reading about the experiences of wolf therians and what being a wolf meant to them and how they expressed that but I was mostly invested in how their wolfness interacted within themselves and other aspects of themselves. What was the culture of wolf therians? How did they describe wolfhood? What facets of themselves did they relate with other wolf therians?

The writings of wolf therians helped me create a foundation of how I understood caninehood so I could build up my own understanding using their experiences as a framework.

But one of the things I really was interested in is how a wolf therian felt about packs.

A wolf therian I follow (@words-of-wolf) wrote a piece about their experience with wolfhood (and how they felt it was different to the way other wolf therians talked about their wolfness), and it actually inspired this whole tangent about packs in general. One of my favorite quotes from the post was:

"But I will say that all of my deepest, most vivid, and most impactful memories... they're not of the hunt. They're not about territory or conflict or hunger. What I remember most richly is the love I felt for my pack. It's a feeling I can't quite find it in me to explain; sometimes I wonder if the reason I identify as loveless in this life, is simply because no love I've ever felt as a human could compare to what I felt as a wolf."

The feeling I got reading this was profund and sobering. I didn't relate to it on a deep level, but I was enamored by how they described what being in a pack really felt like and how the pack is what defined their wolfness and not so much being perceived or perceiving specific behaviors as violent.

I watched a documentary about a therian pack just recently actually and it carried a similar level of awe within me when I watched how close these therians were with others. They cuddled and played together, exhibited both dominant and submissive behaviors in a playful manner and had sleepovers and bonded with each other over a bonfire and it was nice to watch the way they loved being a pack together.

Wolves in the wild need packs. It's something that is so important to their survival and evolution and identity as a whole. They are social animals. The bond between wolves in a wolf pack is so solid and intertwinied with being a wolf that its pretty much what defines a wolf in pop media (for the most part) The wolf pack structure and culture also has been studied intensely for years. It's been observed and analyzed, hypothesized, and debunked.

What was thought to be the truth of how a wolf pack worked was actually revealed to be an inaccurate representation by the same man who created the now debunked alpha/beta/omega theory since the old study was done on captive wolves. Said man, named David Mech, corrected himself and said that wolf packs in the wild functioned very much as family units, with the father and mother at the head of the pack and then their first litter as their subordinates and their latest litter as the bottom of the pack. Makes sense. That's how families work mostly in human society.

But then what does this study say about wolf therians (and therians in general) and the way they feel about packs?

When reading about their experiences, some share this sentiment of feeling utterly alone. This loneliness was, for the most part, super intense, almost depressing sometimes when I read certain posts. Especially when the wolf therians I was reading about didn't seem to know any other therian in general, let alone a wolf one plus they had an almost instinctual aversion to humans. It was something I sympathized with. These were essays that read like lonely howls calling for non-existent pack mates in my head.

But those were specifically wolf therians who didn't have a pack, I did also read posts and essays of wolf therians who were and have been in packs (in their current lives) before, relaying their experiences that ranged from enjoyment and curiosity to horror and abuse mostly, from what I've read, due to these packs adopting the alpha/beta/omega model and trying to mimic this with other therians. Now there has been tons of discussion on how the alpha/omega model in packs leads often to power abuse and there has been valid criticism against the use of it in therian packs but there's also been equal amounts of therians who actually like the alpha system implemented in their own packs due to the euphoria it gives them as a wolf.

Keep in mind, the study that first introduced the alpha theory about wolf packs, while inaccurate to wolves in the wild, was still something captive wolves (essentially strangers) exhibited and I think that's important to note. I remember reading (or maybe watched a video) that mentioned how human society naturally has a hierarchical structure bringing up examples like work environments (bosses, managers, employers) and even schools (teachers, principals, students) and so packs that use the alpha model weren't necessarily a bad thing and actually made sense under these contexts.

I think the problem was because some of these therian packs were created haphazardly and were open to therians who were mostly strangers to each other and the alpha model didn't really give the neccesery room for these packs to bond with each other that much, something that had also been pointed out by other therians. Their solution was to be more picky on who you make a pack with. They said that packs should ideally be created with close friends and loved ones or even family.

It was interesting to read the different pack experiences, especially from a domestic dog point of view. Just as a canine, I also do sympathize with pack culture in general and while some domestic dogs don't really have a connection to the pack concept as much as wolves (save for specific breeds like the husky), I still think a lot about packs and how I'd function in one when I realized that I have been apart of packs, that I am currently in two packs; one with my boyfriend and one with my blood family.

And I do actually see them as my packmates, especially my boyfriend. I feel a loyalty to him and my family, I feel the need to defend them, protect them, and support them, not from a human perspective but entirely as a canine. My family pack can be dysfunctional sometimes, but my dogged loyalty means I'll always be there to support them despite the dominance problems. And it's funny to think about how I was "technically" born into a family unit and then when I grew older, I dispersed and found a mate to make my own pack with just like wolves do in the wild.

Therian packs, I feel like, have been a staple in the therian community probably since the first howl (not fact checked) due to how much the community traditionally has had such a heavy canine/wolf lean and focus (which is something modern therianthropy is improving on by being more inclusive to a variety of species) but I wish there were more resources that talk about packs and pack safety and what others thought of them, what their dream pack is and if they would abide by a heirachy or if they'd go off vibes or if they wanted a big pack that was friendly or something smaller thats a little more exclusive. What type of beings would they want in the pack? What type of behaviors would they exhibit in a pack? What name would your pack have? Would you consider your family or friends as a pack even if they're not therians themselves?

I wish even more for resources and essays about packs that aren't just canine centered like herds and flocks. How would therians run one? Would they be a leader or something more passive?

I know that this sort of veers on the edges of roleplay just a little but it geniuenly is a fun mental exercise for me. I like thinking about these questions because it does make me feel like a canine.

For me, I'm already pretty much living with my ideal pack with my boyfriend, even if it's just the two of us (plus our cats), which is what I prefer. I like how small and exclusive it is, and there's not really problems with dominance, considering we feel both pretty equal in terms of power in our pack. There's no name yet. It's just pure vibes right now, but that's okay, i feel loved and protected in this pack, and I love and protect my pack back. I have so much time to consider what a pack means to me as a dog.

And while I may not feel this deep connection to pack culture the way a wolf therian would, I still hold a similar essence of loyalty and love towards those who I cherish as a canine.

My fascination with pack society and culture is probably something I got from my German Shepherd theriotype. The concept of loyalty, protection, love, and family definitely appeals to it. Regardless, I just love reading and learning about it from academic studies to introspective essays, really, just all kinds of records that talk about packs. It truly feels like I'm searching for a meaning here and even writing this entire post barely scrapes the surface of what I truly want to say about packs, mostly due to me getting tired and my lack of vocabulary and ability to explain things better.

Just think packs are cool and see wolf therians as cool older siblings.

Kind regards,

Sol, a German Shepherd.

@/words-of-wolfs post about wolfhood

The study of the differences between wolves and dogs

[revscarecrow]

hi rev i just wanted to come here and rant for a second because i feel like you'll understand. i hope you dont mind.

i'm really, REALLY frustrated that a lot of the current culture around artists complaining about ai is people being like "ugh artists are so sensitive, this use case isnt even that bad, its just funny, its just a meme, etc etc"

as an artist myself i feel like i cant even complain about it in my current online social circles because i will be met with people being like "its not that serious when its used to make memes"

i fucking hate seeing ai. period. it doesnt matter if its google gemini, or chat gpt, or some rancid ai meme, or an ai voice. i hate ALL of it because it reminds me that the ONE THING i thought couldn't be taken from me by robots (my ability to make art/video) is being taken from me in front of my eyes.

even my other artist friends partake in this culture. i seriously dont understand it. it is DEEPLY upsetting and makes me feel so hopeless and powerless.

maybe it's an "if i dont laugh, i'll cry" situation. i dont know. i want to hear your thoughts on it. much love

I talk about AI "art" on my art youtube channel. Suffice to say that generative AI and neural nets can be used for good things like mapping the human brain to help better understand the systems at work and how to help with dementia (this is a real thing that's being done and it's rad btw). While this tech does a lot of energy I think it's worth it to learn how to cure horrible diseases. The tasks that this can do helps solve problems that are either too complex or time intensive for humans to do. Art is about expression to some degree. Some people are just about the aesthics but for me personally I think that the process of coming to and finishing the idea is the art and the canvas is the record of the process happening. As such the spirit behind the creation of an object is core to the aesthic of the piece. If I make a painting out of shit or blood it's going to have a very different vibe than one done with paint. Why was that choice made? Artists make these choices at every step. Some just pick things as a default but that is in itself a choice. I use acrylic when I paint canvases because of the drying time and because I fear my cats will attempt to eat the sugary smelling liquin medium used with oil. The nature of my work area I have means the canvases I paint are smaller. These are choices that change how my work looks but also speak to who I am as a person. AI art does not consider this because how could it? It does not think. It's a disgusting similacrum of the human experience. Memes still gross me out I'll be honest.

[boy-gender]

How do you deal with guilt around being a man, and like generally feeling like you're "betraying women" or choosing to be something bad by transitioning? It's something I've really been struggling with..

I sort of have two answers for you.

The first is a bit glib, but I think you've got some bioessentialism to unlearn, anon. I know that it's probably not a belief you arrived at yourself- rather, a bunch of hateful radfem douschebags have so often repeatedly said shit like that, that you're a traitor, you're failing feminism, youre just trying to escape the patriarchy, you're mocking what women are, men are evil and youll become evil especially with testosterone. That kind of crap.

Genuinely I do not give it any thought. It's ridiculous on the surface, so I write it off as misguided and inane. There is no logical way to justify grouping an entire half of the population together, deciding that the one thing they have in common (being men) is somehow the defining trait about them (because nothing else is being taken into account, like their sexuality, ethnicity, trans or intersex status, poverty level, where they live, whatever) and then also deciding that one common trait is the root of all evil. I've personally had a lot of experience with people doing this with certain mental illnesses- particularly cluster B personality disorders- and deciding like "yes this one thing about you makes you evil. You have Evil Person Disorder," and seeing how stupid that was, I just applied it elsewhere. Humans are far too diverse, nuanced, and contradictory for any flat rule like "all X people are bad" to ever be accurate. If it's not accurate, it's not useful, so I don't judge myself by it. I literally just block the people spewing that shit and let it slide off like water on a duck. I have enough warped internalized beliefs from my upbringing- I'm not adding more when I can immediately and obviously see their flaws.

So my advice is to block anyone you see saying that shit. You might be beginning to internalize it because of just how often you see it- so you need to cut that off at the source. Radfems are not and never will be allies; they do not have "some good points." Their movement was specifically designed by conservatives to uphold white supremacist capitalism, and nothing that comes from that is ethically correct. I'd suggest picking up Mothers of Conservatism by Michelle Nickerson. A lot about the origins of the radfem/female separatism movements are detailed there, created by fundamentally conservative women. With this new 4B movement shit on the rise, it's helpful to understand how fucked up and wrong they've always been from the beginning. My second answer to you is to look at what manhood means to you. If you don't think you can be objective about this, ask a friend to help. List the traits you associate with what *you* personally want to be as a man, what you hope you transition towards. Do you want to be a financial provider? Do you want to defend your community? Do you want to be generous? Brave? Do you want to be an expert in a special interest? Do you want to make lots of friends?

Make a list of those traits. Then look at them, divorced from the idea of gender. Is being a financial provider "bad?" Is being generous bad? Or brave? Or having lots of friends? Are any of these things bad in isolation, or does your guilt about them come from their association with manhood? Is that /your/ association, or did other people cause you to think there is an association?

For me, I had two formative male relationships as a child. My father, and my maternal grandfather. My father was an abusive piece of shit who liked to pick me up by the throat and slam me into walls, threaten our pet cats, scream at me until I dissociated, called me slurs, hated my opinions on anything, belittled me, believed only in capitalism, is a social darwinist capitalist schill, hates my mom, treated me like a servant and punching bag, and is a miserable fuck with no friends.

My grandpa was an old man who loved scotland and tartan and scottish terriers even though he never had one, loved each of his cats which he had all the time. He collected coins and read about history, he made model planes. He watched judge judy with me and talked about the cases and if we agreed with her rulings; he watched the news from multiple different outlets a day and taught me to weigh them against one another. He loved sitting on the porch and watching neighborhood kids play, and he drank a lot of lemonade. He was a brilliant chemist, provider, raised 4 kids in near poverty, then raised 8 grandkids after that. He would sneak me chocolate malt balls as a "vitamin" and he would tease my grandma by pretending to pick up and lick his plate after dinner. He taught my uncle to garden who then taught my cousin, so all my life gardening has been "mens work" to me. He was soft spoken, curious, patient, and mischevious. He loved my grandma for 60 years until he died.

These men have nothing in common except that they were men. Being a man didnt make my grandpa evil because he chose not to be. Being a man didnt make my dad evil either; he's an evil fuck because he made that choice. They are both sentient beings, who can use logic and emotions alike. One chose poorly. It never made sense to me as a child to assume all men would be like my dad or like my grandpa, because they were both men and they weren't at all like each other. Some categories are just so broadly diverse that they aren't really helpful- if I ask you to picture a mammal, do I mean a monkey or a mouse? Does "sea creature" mean a giant ass blue whale or a tiny piece of plankton? "Man" as a category is too broad to make assumptions about. I know it sounds circular and reductive, but the only thing that makes someone a man is...being a man. Nothing else.

I find it helps to look at a diverse array of men, to see all that men can be, especially men not like myself or the men I know. What does it mean to be a man in rural Yunnan farm country? What did it mean to be a man in medieval europe? What is it like being a gay black man from california, or a hunter living off the grid in appalachia? What does it mean to be a man in a culture where long hair is masculine, or where harvesting plants is masculine, where being a doctor is masculine? What about cultures where adornment is masculine? Hell, what about animals? What's it like to be a male lion vs a male house cat? What do I think about male cardinals, who are the bright lovely red ones, whose color is meant to draw a predators eye to them and away from the female cardinals and their nests?

To me, gender is an all you can eat buffet. It's customizeable. You can pick up or ignore or throw away any traits you want or don't want. Grab things that are feminine in your culture and incorporate them into your manhood in a subversive, gender nonconforming way. Take things that are masculine that make you happy, that you're reclaiming in a way because you may not have been allowed to do/be them before. Fill your gender with the ideals and aesthetics you like. You are fundamentally changing manhood by being a man, by being a different kind of man than any other man. If there are 4 billion men on the planet, there are 4 billion different 'microgenders' of man.

Seems silly to write off an entire 4 billion people as inherently evil and incapable of either goodness or change. It's just illogical. For me, that's enough to discard the idea wholecloth. If it doesn't make sense, I'm not wasting my time with it. That's not an ability everyone else has easily though, so you take the time you need. Try to look at yourself as objectively as possible, as an outsider. As you transition, have your actions become more evil? Are you committing sexist acts? Have you literally betrayed all the women you know somehow? Do you feel yourself becoming less kind, less patient, less interested in equality or the preservation of life? I'm betting, since you're nervous about it enough to ask, that none of those things are happening to you. Do not let yourself be gaslit into believing you are becoming something you're not. Look at your actions, your words. Look at your values and how you live up to them. If you don't see any sudden discrepancy, then you know anyone who tells you you're becoming evil by becoming a man is straight up lying to you. They're projecting an idea onto you that doesnt fit reality; trying to put a round peg in the square hole. Be curious, be objective. Do not be misled, and for those who try to mislead you, hit them with a chunky block button.

[tiktowafel]

personal lore dump for Shihai Kuroiro!! (where i'm probably a little mean to him but it's out of love guys i swear)

verrry late for his birthday but it's here!! :] love this kid. so many thoughts about him to share

i'll just start with the part that i find the most important - the core of his character, to me, is that he is not what he says he is and not what he desperately tries to convince himself and everyone else that he is.

i'm mostly basing this off of how ultra analysis gives him one of the two lowest wits scores in his class (as shown above) despite the fact that he calls himself "the scheming hero" and spends half his joint training match dramatically talking about trickery and psychological traps - while i like to ignore canon sometimes, this little piece of information is something i could never disregard. it's so endearing to me, plus him apparently trying really hard to seem way cooler than he actually is fits with the chuunibyou archetype he's supposed to represent.

severe headcanon territory & a generally slightly lengthy textpost under the read more lol

now, why do i hc he's that way in the first place? well, basically: his whole life he's admired underground heroes very strongly and ended up developing this very idealized mental picture of the perfect underground hero - a mysterious lonely mastermind who hides in the shadows and avoids the spotlight, quietly pulling all the strings and relying on plans and schemes instead of a powerful quirk and flashy moves. but despite all the dirty tricks they're capable of, their heart is in the right place - in fact in a way their motivations are far more noble than those of all the popular celebrity heroes, because they don't care about fame or recognition, they act out of a genuine want to do good. this is what Kuroiro aspires to be and what he bases his entire persona on, pretty much.

and that's because this is also the only kind of hero he could ever identify with - he was always an odd, withdrawn kid who had trouble making friends. he couldn't see himself in all those shiny charismatic always-in-the-spotlight heroes that everyone else seemed to love. so when he learned about underground heroes, he fell in love instantly and decided this is who he wanted to be, over time forming this perfect underground hero image to set as his goal.

except, again, a lot of traits possessed by this ideal of a hero aren't really in line with what Kuroiro himself actually is. he's nowhere this badass. he's nowhere this smart. he kinda sucks at this whole scheming thing actually! he's sneaky, sure, that's by nature of his quirk - but his schemes are way less elaborate than he likes to make them seem, most of the time they're just ways for himself to catch people off guard. he doesn't have the multi-step coordination-based planning capablity of Kendo or Tokage, the adaptability of Honenuki or the sheer sophistication of Monoma (note that almost all of 1-b's plan during joint training match 2 was invented by Kendo and Kuroiro's only strategic contribution was tricking 1-a into thinking he was gonna target Tokoyami so he could ambush Aoyama instead - which is something yeah but still nothing particularly complicated). and he hates that about himself, because intelligence is something that he values and admires so so much - so he exaggerates his strategic prowess a lot, with his hero title and dramatic speeches and all, and does everything in his power not to be perceived as stupid (often failing miserably). it's out of insecurity.

he's also not that much of a lone wolf, either. he does have a strong tendency to isolate himself from others, which is partially because he's convinced himself that he's destined to walk a lonely path in life & content with it (what's a better way of coping with your childhood loneliness than romanticizing it) and partially because the fact that he's constantly putting up a facade does by itself kinda prevent him from forming proper relationships, BUT he's not really happy this way. he's introverted but ultimately not meant to be alone. he does need friends! and he does wish for a romantic relationship, too! but, of course, he sucks at managing those feelings, as we can judge by his interactions with Kinoko and his general incapability of normally talking to girls mentioned in ultra analysis.

i actually really like that he has a crush on Kinoko specifically because it plays really well into everything that i said earlier in this post! remember that something he admires a lot about underground heroes is that they don't care about fame and recognition, and therefore in his view have the most genuine motivations? i like to believe that odd as it is, he actually has a very strong moral compass and greatly values selflessness. so, imagine how he feels when he learns that Kinoko, whom he already has a crush on because she's cute and she's nice to him and she has a really cool quirk (something something mushrooms like darkness so they must be meant to be), wants to be an idol hero. bro's devastated. those people are the epitome of modern hero society's shallowness and superficiality, and she wants to be one! she apparently wants to spend her precious time doing silly little dance routines and shaking people's hands at conventions instead of dedicating it all to proper hero work! and Kuroiro still has a crush on her! that witch...!

and you see, Kinoko isn't actually a shallow person. what motivates her to become and idol hero isn't selfishness (refer to my old Kinoko headcanon list - some things in there are a tiny bit outdated but my headcanon on why she wants to be an idol is still the same!). except Kuroiro doesn't get to know that at first so he remains bewildered and conflicted for quite some time - and i just think that's funny y'know? he eventually learns more about her (second hand, they don't directly talk to each other much, in canon i think Kinoko doesn't even pay much attention to him in general 😭) and starts to change his mind, probably falling even harder in the process - but still the whole thing is complete disaster on his side. he was always shy around her, now there's also... all this, no wonder he can't talk to her at all!!

so, to sum it up: Kuroiro is intense, he's surprisingly idealistic, he's tragically insecure, and he has some very rigid ideas about himself and the world around him that he probably needs to let go of. he's just a mess of a teenager with a lot of to figure out - and he does figure it out, he does get his happy ending eventually! (a conversation with Kinoko, among other things, is something that definitely would be a crucial part in his,, character arc, i guess? and y'know what, while i do really like them as a couple, i think them just getting to talk things out is a "happy ending" regardless of whether they end up together)

OH and by the way: i'm not saying that he's like, going against himself at all times! he's not an actual master schemer or a complete lone wolf but a lot of things about how he acts are perfectly genuine. his affinity for all things dark is genuine, his interest in taboos is genuine, and his love for theatrics is also genuine! in that matter, it's actually not a phase lol he's just like that :] would be blasphemous to say otherwise, that's what we all love him for..!

aaand this concludes my little essay about one of my favorite 1b kids!! the picture of him that i have in my head is very clear, that's why he's the first character that i chose to write this kind of post about - i'm just pretty confident about the hcs i have for him haha. i'm also thinking about writing a more lighthearted list of hcs to complete the vision (ya know, like the good ol days) because there's STILL so much that i haven't shared since it didn't fit this post - so stay tuned for that if you enjoyed this!! see you next month probably

[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:

[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

[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)

[feralsteddie]

Okay just saw a post that was talking about how Steve would at least have an idea about bisexuality even if he didn’t know the name of it bc of pointing out Vickie could still like boobies thing

And I absolutely agree, I’m a Steve knew he like babes and dudebabes all along truther, BUT

Steve also could’ve known it was something Vickie could do, but not himself.

When I was a kid I knew trans women and drag queens, I spent more than a little time with them, and I still didn’t know you could be trans in the other direction until someone spelled it out for me. Obviously, that’s a bit different, but Steve could have the idea that, yeah, totally, Vickie’s a girl so Vickie could like both, because in his head it could just be different.

He grew up in a small town in Indiana in the 80s, it wouldn’t be that he was stupid, wouldn’t be a hit on his intelligence, it’d just be something he didn’t know and hadn’t had the chance or resources to learn about yet.

[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.