#and i think a lot of that comes from their skewed sense of purpose and what is right and wrong or even a bad upbringing etc

[scarysanctuary]

im not sure if it says something about me, but i find it pretty rare to find a villain that is just mindlessly evil, that gets a thrill out of being cruel, and hurts others just because they can. of course youve got characters that are actually diagnosable as psychopaths, and cant feel empathy, but i dont think most villains are like that, well, not the good ones at least. they may do bad things, but most of the time they have reasons that they think justifies their actions, which ends up being a mirror to the ugliest things humanity has to offer.

[shaylogic]

Queer Experience Watching Barbie - AFAB Masculinity

I started to go into this in tags on another post but I wanted to type this up separately and try to develop my thoughts a little more. . .

Ryan!Ken’s arc in Barbie (2023) has been buzzing in my head for days.

I got fixated on it for a couple of major reasons:

1) We rarely have seen a feminist movie take time to address men with compassion in how patriarchy harms them too.

2) As a trans masc person, I think it hits a specific part of my identity that I don’t consciously let myself think about for too long. Something about being raised in a female world with sisterhood and community. Then being isolated in adult manhood without the tools to prepare you for that. Conscientious of respecting women and being unbothered by feminimity around you, but not knowing your place in the world.

How do I put it?

I know it’s not the direct intention of the film itself, but I’ve seen other trans folks (especially transmasc), reacting similarly to the feeling we get from it.

Ken’s arc feels pretty reminicent of the struggle afab lgbt folks go through when considering masculinity in their identity (butch lesbians, afab nbs, trans men, etc.)

How to make peace with masculine aspects of yourself without losing the women in your life? (One can argue Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie has aspects of this as well.)

Of course, then Ken goes off on the adopting patriarchy ride, which IS the point of the movie, and may skew a bit from the transmasc read on it--though I have known a trans guy here and there who avoids being misgendered so hard that they can become somewhat sexist. To which I say: “You don’t need to have a dick to be a man, and you don’t need to BE a dick to be a man.” But I digress.

Something about Ken being comfortable in a woman’s world but not understanding why he’s being shut out from socially bonding with them (in any sense! Romantic, Familial, Platonic Friendship. . .)

The overall theme of the movie for both Barbie and Ken--in an allegory of heavy gender roles harming all--leading them each to have to figure out who they are in themselves, regardless of others. . . 

Trans masc folx can relate to both Barbie and Ken’s arcs.

I don’t want to detract from Barbie’s arc being the main point of the movie.

I think the reason why we get hung up on Ryan!Ken’s character is because. . . we’ve related to the Barbie plot in other movies and shows before, thinking back to our “girlhoods” as children.

I have never seen the arc Ken has in this in any other story!!!!

There are some Man Movies that have attempted to discuss the struggle of Being a Man--but they often come off as too dismissive of feminine experiences, and are therefore as offputting to transmasc people as women.

Because of the nature of the two worlds exhibited in this movie, and Ken’s backround in his setting, personality, and purpose in relation to the Barbies, he’s a Man living with Female Socialization, in a Woman’s World; he’s a male character that inherently admires and respects women in his nature (until the real world influence distorts it).

This isn’t a perfect example of a transmasc experience either, but it’s a lot closer than most of us generally get to see! That’s why so many of us are getting caught up in this.

Please, other trans folx (transfems, too!), I really need us to have a discussion about this. What were your experiences and thoughts around this movie?

P.S. Yeah, we kinda get that nonbinary allegory from Allan (not a Ken, not a Barbie, siding with Feminism in the Gender War), but he wasn’t in significant focus of the plot the way Ryan!Ken was. If I try to read into Allan, I don’t have much to work with.

[maxwell-grant]

What do you think of Vega/Balrog/Claw and where do you think his story should go if they brought him back for SF6?

Vega is a perfect fighting game villain because he is as frustrating to challenge as he is satisfying to defeat, and I do think he's a lot more compelling as an antagonistic force towards the likes of Chun-Li or Ken or Cammy than he is as a character unto himself. There's some reasons why the fights with Vega, in the animated movie or in II V or in the Udon comic, tend to be seen as the high points of Street Fighter adaptations.

Largely because as an antagonist to them, he is uniquely vicious and horrifying and murderous to an extent no other SF character is, he escalates any situation into a fight for survival just by walking into the room, while still occasionally allowing strange moments of poignancy due to his skewed honor and priorities, at least when Cammy is involved, and also being by design extremely satisfying to beat and watch get beaten. He is not just a punchable goon and smug champion like Balrog, he is also a creep and a serial killer, and an extremely privileged one at that, which makes beating and humiliating him a moral imperative on top of everything else. That, along with the fact that he's blatantly cheating with that claw and protecting his face with a mask, not just because he is desperate to preserve his good looks but because he doesn't even want to touch you as he kills you, is part of what makes him arguably the most punchable character in the series, or at least, the best designed for that purpose. That is, of course, if the player can catch him, which his whole playstyle is designed to avoid. Vega can and will fly circles around you as he wears you down, and like any nobleman, he will attack you from distances and positions you can't strike him back from, and it will wear on your patience, making it all the more satisfying if you do catch and smash him, which is still a big If.

And as a character onto himself, he's someone who's pretty much got his life figured out and as a result only truly wants what he can't have. He is a nobleman who's been gifted with wealth, power, skill, charm, intellect, beauty, and everything he could possibly desire, including the ability to kill people with impunity on a regular basis. He is a guy who lives his perfect life, but who still takes it upon himself to put on a mask and go out at night and viciously murder people he deems ugly, not just because their existence makes his world less perfect for it, but because championing the superiority of beauty by subjugating the ugly is the only form of meaning Vega can find in life. He lives reveling in his own futility and only comes alive when faced with a challenge he can take pleasure in vanquishing, which is right around the time when he either loses and vanishes to preserve his pride, or gets his face smashed or even just touched and flies into a searing rage, because of course deep down he will not accept being bested on the only battlefield that matters to him. He is a disgusting and violent hypocrite who has little need for nuance, and so far being this has worked out pretty great for him.

But he isn't just a violent horrible sadist, there is a specificity to him that makes him scarier than if he was just that. He's an intelligent, cultured and traveled man who has an extremely strong sense of justice guided by his thinking in extremely binary good-evil terms, it's just that he's traded his moral core with his aesthetic judgement. He's replaced the concept of good and evil with beauty and ugliness, which is not even that far off from the way the upper class treats those to begin with. He throws parties for the wealthiest and most powerful of society, but he resents the attendants, because he finds worship of money and power to be ugly. He throws his lot with Shadaloo because they enable his tendencies and afford to let him keep living his lifestyle, but he resents everyone he works with inside of it because they are ugly and crude (and he's frequently paired with Balrog, a guy who embodies everything he hates). He fights to save the Dolls and saves Cammy's life, but he is disgusted by the existence of the Dolls not because of the, everything involving their creation, but because he thinks it's a waste of beauty and is offended at the idea of turning those he deems beautiful into puppets. It is in fact pretty funny that he's appalled at Bison for what almost consist moral grievances but really are just aesthetic ones, while Bison himself, a guy who is literally made of evil, has frequently expressed annoyance and even a little bit of disgust at Vega's obsession, in a "I kill people too, you don't see me being such a weirdo about it" way.

And something I find interesting about Vega, and part of why I do think they miss the mark sometimes in making him a tad too much of a sadist or pervert (like his win quotes in V about bathing in blood, when the whole reason for the claw and mask used to be that he dislikes blood and touching the opponent directly) is that he isn't a vile murderous bastard just because, or just because of the trauma regarding his mother's murder, but because he is a nobleman who was raised to see the world the way a nobleman does. They've gone back and forth over the years on whether his mom's murder was at the hands of his birth father or stepfather, but a detail that tends to be glossed over is the fact that Vega gets his entire moral outlook from her and his environment:

He gains his looks and personality from his mother, with the addition of corrupted feelings planted in the back of his mind during his upbringing. Vega lost sight to the meaning of life at a tender age and started to cling to his mother's beauty, which grew into strong extremism. Those who were not deemed beautiful were not of value, and only the beautiful were worthy of survival. This is why in order to prove his strength Vega enters the arena as a prerequisite of beauty. - SF2 profile

He was born the only child of a beautiful noblewoman from a fallen house, and an ugly but wealthy man. His twisted thoughts, obsessions and value system regarding beauty were all handed down to him by his mother. Her twisted thoughts went unrewarded, as she was murdered by her own husband. Vega was profoundly affected by this, and this trauma is said to be the reason Vega insists on maiming his opponents. - 30th Anniversary Collection

He is a guy driven by the same standards of self-improvement and excellence through combat that drive most of the other characters, except in his case, he believes that beauty is the truest form of strength, that it is the only thing that matters, that the order of the world dictates that beautiful people must never lose, and the worst thing that ever happened to him was a triumph of uglyness so world-shattering that every imperfect-looking person in the world must pay for it. Like a ninja, he is true to his code, offering second chances to fighters he deems beautiful (if only so he may savor the honor of beautifully killing them at the right time), and he is true to his high society upbringing, in that he lives to uphold and enforce a disgusting prejudiced worldview that just so conveniently puts himself at the top of everyone else, a worldview he lubricates with the blood of his opponents and a worldview that crumbles as soon as the mask comes off. He is profoundly disgusting in a way that does a lot to reinforce how evil Shadaloo is for not just enabling him but directing him, and he remains the absolute worst person inside of it no matter how much he may think of himself as above Shadaloo.

And as for him in SF6? I could honestly do without seeing any major Shadaloo players show up for 6, or even much of any of the old characters period. I wouldn't be upset if he returned, given the wonderful job they've done so far on all the returning characters and new ones, I'm sure there would be room for them to do something interesting involving him and the Neo Shadaloo goobers trying to get away from the evil past of Shadaloo that Vega embodied, but I kinda don't want to see him again unless it's to see Chun-Li throw a couch at him again or lightning kick his face through a wall and off of a building, which is not just a high point of the series, but the most beautiful thing that ever involved Vega.

[troutfur]

New book binge complete! I'll spare you the thousands screenshots of Tigerclaw I took to share on the live-reading channel of my friend group Discord server and get straight to the review here:

I think the graphic novel was a fantastic adaptation. The graphic novel medium conveyed much better than Erin Hunter's prose all those little details of cat mannerisms and expressions that I think really aided in conveying the story so much better. It really helps that the artists are clearly incredibly well-versed in the visual language of comics and are masterful in packing as much information as possible in every panel.

It also helped a lot to give it all a sense of geography and environment which, admittedly, is more of a me problem because I have a lot of trouble parsing out environmental descriptions from text. I really liked that one panel showing a bird's-eye view of ThunderClan camp and the full page spread that served as a dual purpose ThunderClan territory map and as a way to montage through Firepaw's tour of the territory. They're my absolute favorite panels.

The book skews heavily towards Into the Wild over Fire and Ice. About 70% of the book is Into the Wild. I personally feel it's completely fine to truncate Fire and Ice like that because it's a forgettable book TBH. The Prophecies Begin doesn't get good until Forest of Secrets anyway. But the artists did say here on Tumblr that they have plans to add the cut content back in for the second graphic novel, so that's something to look out for.

There's also the little signs this adaptation may be being approached more as a reboot/alternate continuity. Most significantly is how Swiftpaw and Lynxkit seem to have been turned into Frostfur's kits in place of Brightheart and Thornclaw. Presumably this is a way to clean up the family tree and it leaves me intrigued as to what happens to those two in future.

Also there's a scene that's apparently an addition but I don't remember TPB well enough to really tell: Sandpaw apologizing to Fireheart for her bullying of him. I only know this is presumably an addition because of a friend who mentioned it being one of the changes they always want to see in fanworks in order to sell the FireSand relationship better. Once again, encouraging sign that if this moves forward this may result in more significant rewrites later on.

Also, although it's only a few panels, the early introduction of Princess alongside Smudge and the shuffling of her further appearances into the Into the Wild section are also very welcome changes. It really helps sell these two as having a close sibling bond and it will really help sell Cloudkit's hand-off once we get to that part. I think Princess's part in this whole plot is part of what was cut in Fire and Ice, but I think we will for sure revisit it considering Cloudkit is coming and with what we already got in the TPB section it makes up for it.

Overall, I really liked it! Glowing recommendation from me.

[sokkastyles]

I saw this post and some reblogs of it, and I wanted to know what you thought.

This is the post.

And these are the reblogs.

This reminds me of people who try to argue that enemies to lovers is abuse by ignoring the difference between opponents fighting on a battlefield in a fantasy setting and someone hitting on their spouse. The latter involves a power dynamic that is not present in the former. The difference between Zuko fighting Azula to end the war (and Aang fighting Ozai to end the war), and Ozai manipulating Zuko inro a fight he could not win for the purpose of terrorizing, publicly humiliating, and mutilating him should be obvious. Zuko's age is emphasized because Ozai is his father and because Ozai used that relationship and the power he had because of it against his son. He deliberately let his son believe he would be fighting someone else, and used Zuko's loyalty to him against him while his son was surrendering. It's not just Zuko's age that is important here, although his age informs the other things about it.

Azula was a child at fourteen during her agni kai with Zuko, but so was Zuko at sixteen, just two years older, and age has never given Zuko power over Azula anyway. Zuko also faces Azula openly in battle and even agrees to the terms she sets to even the playing field. She also is the antagonist in rhe situation

If there's a parallel to be made, it's that Azula becomes the same crying child on the ground after she is defeated, but only after she realizes she can't win, not out of love or loyalty to a family member. This was a fight she wanted and was eager for, and literally says was "meant to be."

Comparing that to Zuko's father deliberately harming a child under his power who has already surrendered shows a gross lack of understanding of the context. OP says they aren't belittling the awfulness of what Ozai did, but they absolutely %100 are and their argument is so ugly and tone deaf I don'/ even know what to say.

I've also talked about the ridiculousness of the argument that Iroh must have imagined Azula in the flashback because it just makes no sense as an argument, narratively. If Iroh were biased against Azula, that would have to be shown or revisited somehow. Otherwise there is no reason to question that it didn't happen exactly the way we are shown.

Also, the claims that Azula would not look like that at 11 seem shaky to me and also rest on claims about how adolescent girls look at that age that are just not true. Girls, especially, certainly can and do change a lot in the tween years, often moreso than boys, who tend to have their growthspurts a little later.

Which actually does fit with what we are shown of their character designs. Let's look at the sceeenshots.

Here is Azula at 8(ish), her child design remaining pretty consistently the same on the show:

And here she is at 11 in Iroh's flashback:

Btw I feel it necessary to mention that the picture with the child design is from Zuko's flashback, so if we're going by the argument that Iroh is imagining Azula looking more mature because he's biased, and we're also arguing that Zuko is biased against Azula, how come that bias doesn't seem to show in his flashback, huh? You would think that Zuko would picture Azula looking even more mature, since she was closer to his own age and more of a peer (whom the power dynamic was skewed in favor of). But, again, there's no reason to think that these flashbacks are biased. They are not framed as imperfect memories and the show never gives us a reason to question that they didn't happen exactly as they are shown. And trying to read them that way is actively misreading what we're shown.

If you're going to assume bias where none is shown, what is stopping you from questioning literally everything the narrative establishes? But if you do that, you're breaking the contract of the narrative. Fictional stories require that unspoken contract, that necessary buy in, otherwise there is no story. There has to be some baseline established, otherwise it's just the show presenting things and the audience going "nuh-uh!" A bias has to be established to give the audience a reason to question the narrative contract. That's why in stories with unreliable narrators or stories that play with or otherwise deconstruct the narrative contract, there are techniques used to establish that we're supposed to question things. None of those are present here.

There is an obvious difference between Azula's design in the second flashback compared to the first. She looks more like the Azula we see in the present timeline in the show.

But does she look the same?

Here's Azula at fourteen. Yes, if you compare it to the picture from Iroh's flashback, they look closer to each other than Azula's child design, but they do not, in fact, look the same. In Iroh's flashback she's wearing the makeup she is almost never seen without in the present timeline, and that's the biggest difference. But that's not unusual for a child entering their tween years to be experimenting with make up. Azula at 11 is wearing makeup, but her lipstick appears to be lighter, more girlish shade. She might be wearing eyeliner, which would explain why her eyes look narrower than her child design, but that also is just the natural progression of depicting a character's age in animation. Notice that Azula in the present timeline has even smaller eyes, darker lipstick, and a more defined face shape than in Zuiko's agni kai, where she still has a somewhat rounded baby face.

I've also argued before that it makes sense for the character for Azula to wear makeup. 11-14 is young to wear makeup but not uncommon, and for Azula, it makes sense that a character obsessed with appearance of perfection would wear it. It also makes sense for Zuko's agni kai to be the time when this transition happens in Azula, after her mother leaves and her father gains complete control over his children's lives, and Azula realizes even more that she needs to maintain that mask of perfection. I've also talked before about how Azula at fourteen seems very familiar with war meeting whereas Zuko at thirteen had to argue his way into one. This is unusual, it is a sign that something is not right, but we already know this. We know how Ozai is treating his kids. We know how he puts pressure on Azula to be his golden child, we know that he actively sabotages Zuko so he can fulfill his role as the scapegoat. Something is absolutely rotten in Denmark, but it's not narrative bias. Pay attention to the story actually being told.

I also want to compare Azula's character designs in the show to Zuko's as a child and an older teen. Let's look at Zuko's design from "Zuko Alone," where he is roughly 10ish when Azula is 8ish.

One of the reblogs made the argument that Zuko looks the same when he's ten vs when he's thirteen. Let's take a look.

Pretty similar, although I would argue there are differences. He's a little taller, his face is less round and babyish in the second picture. (He's also got a cute little forelock, hi!)

But yeah, he still has his "child" design for the most part. He hasn't yet bridged the gap to his present timeline appearance.

However, in season three we get a flashback to Zuko at the same age, thirteen, but shortly after his banishment, and he looks like this:

Here, his character design is similar to his familiar character design from the beginning of book one. It's a pretty stark change, but just like with Azula at the agni kai, this character design is meant to tell us something about the character and the changes he has gone through. Azula may go through those changes earlier because girls do tend to have their growth spurts earlier than boys, but if you actually look at the timeline, both Zuko and Azula changed at roughly the same time, surrounding the singular event of Zuko's banishment. But like with Azula, we could also go back even before that. An interesting detail is that Zuko after Ursa's banishment (as seen in "The Storm,") is wearing the more militaristic uniform that is part of his book one design, the high collar and armored shoulder pads as opposed to the looser clothing he wears in childhood (which is actually similar to what redeemed Zuko wears). This, like Azula's makeup, is reflective of the loss of vulnerability, of innocence, the need for armor, for protection. It makes them look more mature but also highlights how they're not, and are traumatized children desperately trying to protect themselves.

Btw, anyone who thinks makeup can't change your appearance that much clearly doesn't know very much about makeup.

Also, stop calling child heroes in fantasy shows child soldiers, I am begging you. It's not just the age difference between Ozai and Zuko that makes what he did abuse, there's also a purposeful abuse of a power dynamic that is absent from your standard child-hero of an adventure series fighting the evil adults. Even taking into account Aang's trauma over being the chosen one or Jet and his group of orphans, it's not the same thing as real children being forced to be child soldiers, and will never be. These children, as action heroes in a fantasy series meant for children, have more power and agency than even most adults in the real world will ever have, and even as interested as ATLA is in exploring trauma, it will never be able to address the real trauma and horror of child soldiers, and wasn't meant to.

[cherrynojutsu]

Title: Like Gold

Summary: Sasuke grapples with love and intimacy regarding his developing relationship with Sakura after returning to the village from his journey of redemption. Kind of a character study on Sasuke handling an intimate relationship after dealing with PTSD and survivor’s guilt in solitude for so long. Blank period, canon-compliant, Sasuke-centric, lots of fluff and pining, slowly becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M

AO3 Link - includes author's notes

______________________________________________________________

It feels as though the earth has ceased its tireless turning for a smear of seconds as Sakura returns to awareness slowly, lashes sparking. Her eyes catch gold, too, once they open; there’s just enough light streaming in through the thin curtains to skew her irises warm, though her pupils are unfocused as of yet. 

He tries to resist the urge to snort when she immediately squints as if said light has personally offended her, expression the utter picture of someone who is being assailed by a hangover; she must have been out pretty good. Her hand in his twitches as if to rise to her head in reflex, not remembering that their fingers remain intertwined between them.

That prompts her to open her eyes fully in clear befuddlement, though her brows are still sort of furrowing. Jade eyes then widen, rapidly shifting to his to make contact. 

Her cheeks redden. It’s fascinating to watch, he finds. He barely manages to catch the stupid smile threatening the curvature of his mouth when she raises her left hand to her head instead, choosing to keep her dominant hand right where it is, intertwined with his in an orphic edict for hereafter. It’s as real and as tangible as gravity exacts its will on rock and crag, or perhaps as five calloused digits re-crease years-old letters, the reaffirmed slide of pell against parchment laden with meaning on sleepless nights.

“...Hi,” Sakura breaks the hush by saying, voice cracking a little from disuse and possibly dehydration as her fingers begin to glow green and the earth resumes its revolutions.

At that, he can’t help but exhale a tired, breathy wisp of a laugh, humor and something else warming his chest.

“...Hi.”

A long pause fills the air, and her expression relaxes as the minute passes, as whatever headache she must be experiencing fades with the aid of chakra. It’s rather impressive how little time it takes. He wonders absent-mindedly if it requires similar focus as ocular healing does; he imagines threading chakra into one’s own head must take a lot of practice, yet her ease indicates that she’s done this hundreds of times. 

“The power’s back on,” she remarks, likely in reaction to hearing the vent currently pushing air in the otherwise soundless room. It started back up a couple of hours ago.

Not too inebriated to remember, then, he thinks to himself, recollecting their conversation before she drifted to sleep. Somehow it still doesn’t feel like an overly enormous admission, now that all’s said and done. Conceivably it’s the mutuality of it that’s granting him enough repose to be okay with it.

“Came back on a couple of hours ago,” he offers quietly. His own voice comes out a bit hoarse from disuse, too, and he realizes that his own throat is slightly parched. 

Must be the alcohol. Duly noted, though he’s going to avoid losing to Naruto in the ensuing months at all costs. He has little desire to give himself additional headaches; his lack of a coherent sleeping schedule forces him to contend with the affliction fairly often.

Sakura nods after a moment as if this makes sense, gaze dropping momentarily to their intertwined fingers.

“...The storm kept you up?” She asks tentatively, gaze rising to his steadily.

Sasuke blinks, then nods, as it’s an easy excuse for the reality of his disturbed sleep patterns and a good way to proceed. He probably will need to sleep at some point today, which means he won’t make the best company for part of it. Best to be honest about that, at least.

Sakura examines their hands once more, as if his response has prompted some variance of study there. Sleep is edging at the corner of her eyes, he sees now that the light appears to be bothering her less. Eventually her green chakra dissipates, and her left hand drifts back to her side, the action seeming almost… listless.

She then says the most severely nonsensical thing she could ever come up with, jade eyes still cast downward at the space between them. There’s something in her expression that screams of disquiet, lips pursed sideways.

“I’m sorry.”

His brows knit together in puzzlement, mouth contorting into a hard frown.

“For what?” He asks in bewilderment, because she’s done absolutely nothing wrong. He could write pages upon pages of all of the reasons why she never needs to apologize to him. She’s never-

“For pushing you,” Sakura’s voice cuts through the speculatives invading his brain at a mile a minute. Her mouth is pulling to the other side at present, as if in dismay. “I didn’t mean to… Or, well… I just would have worried, is all-”

“You didn’t push me,” he cuts in, clearly enunciating every syllable. His issues have nothing to do with her. If he was just normal, it wouldn’t have been a question if he wanted to stay at all. He would have greedily jumped at any chance to get closer to her, to be invited into her bed, as innocent as it was.

It’s his own stupid issues that cause all the problems, without exception; she has nothing to do with his sins. He’ll tell her again if he needs to.

Green eyes stewing with guilt meet his and pink brows jump closer together.

“I think I did,” she insists. “I mean,” her gaze pitter patters to the side again, as if she’s suddenly very interested in studying the exact hue of her pillowcases. “Or, well… I know it hasn’t been very long, and I… Well, it was maybe moving too fast, and I really didn’t mean to… to…”

Her vocal train of thought comes to a screeching halt when he very gently squeezes her hand, fingers still interlocked with his. 

“Sakura,” he says quietly, insistently, because he urgently needs to squash this line of thinking. While he appreciates the unending evidence that she cares deeply for him, Sakura has also always had a way of somehow interpreting that his exigencies are her problem, that some sort of fault lies with her, when that has never been the case. His choices are his causatum to bear, as are all of the rest of his shortcomings. 

Doesn’t she know that she’s the paramount jewel of his life?

“You didn’t push me.”

Her mouth stubbornly stays set in a solid line, worry evident as she searches his gaze. He stares right back, unusually so, as his left eye remains uninhibited by the shield of his hair as it typically is, still positioned such as to capture her sleeping form with both Sharingan eyes; he didn’t move much throughout the night in the hopes of not waking her.

She exhales slowly, face relaxing; it’s calmness he finds there now, as if she’s satisfied that he's told her the truth. The eaves above their heads settle with it, the maxim that follows a squall.

“Okay,” she says finally, pupils flashing from him to the pillowcase again. She then flushes darker for some reason, and her gaze drops to their hands once more.

“Um,” she says, shifting her shoulder slightly. Her cheekbone catches the sunbeam cradled through the parting of her curtains, freckled cheek on perfect display. She really is beet red; he wonders what she’s thinking about, a lone dark eyebrow raising in curiosity. 

“Well. Should I…”

She seems to struggle for words, as if the same gravity afflicting him earlier has snatched them out of her lungs. Maybe she can heal the headache itself but not the scattered thought processes that he’s heard tend to accompany a hangover; it’s hard for him to gauge, considering he himself has never had one.

“Well, do you want… breakfast, maybe? Before you go back to your place, I mean. I assume you need to sleep? Um. We could have okonomiyaki, ochazuke, or… Or, maybe just tea? Decaf, of course, so you can… Or, you don’t need to stay for breakfast, if you’re too tired or if you don’t want to-”

He squeezes her hand once further, as gentle as he is capable, because there is little he wants more.

“...I would. I’ll help.” 

It takes a handful of minutes to plan out the morning and rest of the day from there, plans made for evening tea and a sweet smile that he will never tire of being the cause of. Despite his fatigue, he is loath to untwine his fingers from hers, and he thinks she is perhaps of the same mind. He’s not sure if she notices - he doubts she’s doing it on purpose - but her thumb twitches slightly against his at irregular intervals, as if she’s checking to ensure he’s still there, and it feels eerily like she’s pressing a sort of poem into his skin, alliterated by the soft cadence of her voice.

When they finally do rise, he helps make his side of the bed as she makes hers, adjusting the pillow at its conclusion; it was off kilter from lying on his side the majority of the night.

For some reason, Sakura stares at him openly as he reshapes it to a typical pillow shape, and her cheeks stain incarnadine nearly immediately as he catches her gaze questioningly, wondering what about the action is odd. Sporadically he wishes he was capable of reading her mind, uncovering what she’s thinking; he often wishes to know just what exactly she’s preventing herself from saying, as most of it is probably for his benefit when it needn’t be.

Give it time, he thinks as she metaphorically curls in on herself again, green eyes gradually realizing that he’s looking at her inquisitively.

“Right. Um, I’m going to, uh. Use the bathroom. But if you want to start the water to boil, you can!” She squeaks the tail end of the words more than she speaks them, turning rather abruptly in pursuit of said bathroom. 

He reasons it is a little strange to see an ex-rogue ninja doing something as inane as making the bed; presumably it’s that, he thinks as the bathroom door creaks slightly: open, then closed.

His focus wanders to the ornamental fan displayed atop her vanity, where it lingers. He watches as the iridescent thread catches the light, twinkling atop aged wood unaffected, as if eagerly soaking up every last drop of metaphorical adage.

It fills him with an odd feeling. Something numinous and presaging, but also… complicated.

He shakes it off in favor of proceeding to the kitchen to start the water to boil, resolving to reflect on the why of it later on. He has better things to focus on at present than the drowned memories of the past.

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Following an hour of tossing and turning in his own bed, Sasuke manages to find rest; it seems his brain has seen fit to reward him with a break, which is good, because there are other things that it’s decidedly not offering respite from: namely, the fact that his own bed does not smell like Sakura, and also the cavillous sense that he is metaphorically standing atop the precipice of a rather important realization, obscured by the mist of morning much like fogged or frosted glass.

Later, he urges his brain resolutely, banishing the thought of freshly-watered soil and drenched paper boats, giving in to sleep.

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The mission summons arrives just as he’s finishing up the preparation of a simple dinner: onigiri with plain broiled salmon, making use of leftover rice. He covers the pan for the time being, removing it from the burner to temporarily cool before making his way to the Hokage’s Office. He’ll eat it later.

“Sasuke,” Kakashi greets as he pushes the door open, greeted by an otherwise empty room. Naruto’s not there, and Sasuke supposes that makes sense; this is likely to be an assignment for guard duty in anticipated absences for the Chunin Exams. Security coverage is the foremost concern for Shinobi villages during such events.

“...Kakashi,” he acknowledges quietly, shutting the aged wood door behind him.

“How are you feeling?” The copy ninja asks, smiling jovially in a manner that is entirely too knowing. “A little birdy told me you were forced out to the bar last night.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes, exhaling a quiet sigh through his nostrils.

“...Two drinks.”

His old sensei’s smile only grows more exponential.

“Ah. Had fun?”

Sasuke holds his sensei’s gaze disparagingly, frowning and refusing to give in to the twitch. While it wasn’t really so bad, he has short regard for a repeat situation in which he’s forced to consume more than the two drinks. He doesn’t intend to lose to the dobe again anytime soon; he’ll drag it out for months if he has his way of things.

“So, you don’t intend to lose to him again anytime soon,” Kakashi beats him to the punch by saying, Cheshire grin wrinkling the edges of his mask. Sasuke, in turn, betrays nothing, deeming the frown encapsulating his iwn mouth confutation enough.

“At least you have Sakura,” Kakashi continues, at which Sasuke’s neck warms and his brows furrow. “Word on the street is she can heal a hangover like nobody’s business.”

“...I’m not hung over,” he concedes after a moment of pause. Best to pummel that implication into the ground, truth of it set aside.

The Hokage waits a beat to respond, as if he’s carefully assessing him. But no, that’s not right; Sasuke’s pretty sure he is assessing him. He has the faintest sense of sharing commonality with an artifact being looked over, like sand slipping through one’s fingers on the beach, falling away to reveal tiny nacreous slivers of shell and rocks weathered smooth.

“...I know,” the copy ninja finally says, dark mask twitching in the manner that suggests additional ribbing is imminent. “But…” 

His voice trails off, dark eyes evaluating him as if waiting for him to speak, and Sasuke knows that his sensei isn’t actually spying on him now that he’s been back for the better part of two or three months, but the manner in which he can read Sasuke like an open book is eerie, so he chooses to not be baited in the slightest.

Apparently gathering that Sasuke isn’t going to gift him any supplemental information, Kakashi looks to his desk, rifling through a stack of papers and looking entirely too pleased with himself despite the fact that he provoked no rejoinder.

“Well... Maybe next time, yeah?” 

Sasuke’s ears redden and his left eye twitches in annoyance, but Kakashi doesn’t look up once. 

Damn copy ninja. He supposes he wasn’t exactly subtle, all things considered, but he finds himself wishing now that he had said that goodbye privately; it may have earned him less importunateness in the long run.

“Well, not particularly exciting, again,” the Hokage elucidates further, pulling out two sheets stapled together, one of which clearly has Sasuke’s name inscribed at the top. “Given we’re taking a large number of our ranks to the Chunin Exams, I want to play our remaining forces rather close to the vest. I didn’t have any bigger tickets come in, so…”

As expected.  

“Guard duty?” He questions, already perceiving the answer and still internally fighting down the warmth licking at his neck. In confirmation, Kakashi nods, not looking up from the array of papers littering his desk.

“Yes. We’re spreading the shifts out a bit more; two instead of three like usual. Kotetsu and Izumo are coming with to help with staff and security. Shino, too. I’m afraid you’ll be pretty busy; six to six, day shift indefinitely beginning tomorrow, though you’ll still be able to make our team dinner on Tuesday, of course. Length of assignment pends on how long the first round of exams take; obviously once that’s concluded, we’ll be back for a month, so you’ll get some time off then, should nothing bigger come up.”

Sasuke’s brow furrows, briefly wondering why Shino’s presence would be necessary at the exams prior to realizing he’s likely going to watch past students and also that his insects would be an excellent safeguard for all involved. He’s caught off guard once again at the different roles everyone he attended the Academy with are playing now. He anticipates, then, that both Kiba and his sister will be rounding out the night duties; if Aburame's insects are absent from the village, canines are the logical next best defense. 

His brow furrows further, wondering who will be assigned with him, as the dobe will be out of the village. Shikamaru is out, too, as the coordinator of the Shinobi Union. He still isn’t sure if Sai or Choji are attending the exams, come to think of it.

As if on cue, heavy footsteps resound from down the hall.

Ah. Not so bad, then; at least it’s someone he’s familiar with. The shifts will be free from any sort of disdain. They might even be… enjoyable. Free from teasing, most notably.

“Hokage-sama,” Choji greets genially, laughing as he pushes the door open, then closes it behind him. “Just when I thought I might’ve escaped guard duty…” 

Kakashi simply smiles through the mask. “Sorry to disappoint, Choji… though I’m told you bring quite the spread for lunches while on duty. I’ll make sure to say hi to Karui for you while we’re away, anyways.”

A hearty laugh escapes the ninja’s chest as he grins, coming to stand within a few feet of Sasuke to accept the paperwork Kakashi’s offering him.

“Well,” Choji begins at the tail end of a chuckle. “Karui’s not likely to focus on anything but work during all this Exams stuff, but you can attempt it if you want.”

A ninja, then, and likely high-ranking. A Chunin or Jonin, he expects, based on the comment he recalls about her right hook. He briefly finds himself wondering if she’s instrumental to inter-village politics, given she’s attending the exams.

“And anyways, it’s hard to beat fresh roast duck, but I’ll always give it the ol’ Akimichi try!” 

Sasuke exhales something near a snort in response to that. It meanwhile earns a chuckle out of Kakashi that implies he understands exactly what an Akimichi try entails, at which point Sasuke realizes that his old sensei gives orders to the elder ninja in addition to the younger, inclusive of Choji’s father. 

How strange that must be. He rarely remembers that most people have living parents, and also that, in the grand scheme of things, Kakashi is still fairly young: only a few years into his thirties. Yet he is charged with the difficulty of governing an entire village, giving orders to ninja who are decades his senior, an instrumental piece of the puzzle that is the Shinobi state.

It’s a monumental task. He doesn't always consider that Kakashi is holed up in this office more than Naruto is.

“I’m pretty sure I read a report from the Fourth once, actually, that heralded that as a family tradition,” Kakashi says as he passes Choji his paperwork of assignment. “Perhaps I’ll have to stop by sometime. When the exams break, maybe… I have it on good authority that your family makes incredible barbecue.”

It also must be difficult, Sasuke reasons on the walk home to his apartment, to read through old reports of your former sensei who is now deceased, let alone the huge ask it is to train his son to become Hokage in his stead nearly every day.

He supposes he can take the teasing. It’s not much, in the grand scheme of things, especially given what Kakashi has done on his behalf. Their sensei deserves a bit of happiness, too.

He carefully avoids any further thoughts of family and the dead much like he avoids the small collection of puddles percolating in the street, back in his kitchen at a flash of residual gray and green from what must have been a midday rain. He resumes quick preparation of his dinner, fastidiously examining the salmon as it sizzles in the pan. It’s the perfect distraction for thoughts he is unwilling to reckon with at this particular hour, bland unseasoned sight and smell and taste cajoling him to a more docile state of mind. He counts the grooves he’s managed to carve into the specialized cutting board, too; they add up over the weeks. Maybe he’ll examine the one at Sakura’s the next time they cook together at her apartment. There are bound to be many more shared meals in the coming month or two.

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Sakura is kind.

There is no avoiding that thought, no running away like a coward; it washes over him suddenly, remnant spring raindrops in the thick of summer as he calls her name, slipping off his sandals in a threshold he entered without knocking. He finds her submerged in a sea of paperwork, ebbing tides of documents surrounding her every which way on the couch.

She works on her day off, tireless in pursuit of goals that he’s sure, whatever they are, will help others far more than they will help herself. She's altruistic, affable, caring, and far too intelligent for him. She may well be developing a cure for cancer for all he knows.

Yet she also piles it up without so much as a second thought, beaming at him with jade eyes refulgent as if she's delighted to see him, even though he’s here far earlier than the agreed-upon time. He dragged out the process of doing the dishes, trying to ditch the melancholy in an exsiccate of clarifying lemon-scented dish soap that he definitely didn’t buy just because it’s the same scent she uses, but even that wasn’t lengthy enough. There’s only so much one can scrub away one-handed. Clean and shining to the eye, certainly, but to the other senses…

“Tea?” Her voice is soft. It shimmers in a way no other sound does, glitters like sea glass in a lamp-lit apartment with shoal floors, a kind budding breeze afore a hard evening.

He can only nod, struck dumb and voice ensnared in his throat at the disarming dichotomy of what he’s just realized, the last intenerating puzzle piece of the past twenty-four hours sliding into place.

He doesn’t say much the rest of the evening - thankfully, he doesn’t have to, with her - but he does choose to sit serried by her side on the couch, his thigh a scant inch from hers. His bad shoulder bumps hers once, twice, thrice, and the contact helps him feel less emotionally numb, less like he’s going into shock after a grievous injury.

It helps even more when Sakura returns from her trip to the kitchen, alone at her insistence: “No, it’s okay, Sasuke-kun; I’ve got it.” She shatters their routine completely, taking up residence on his other side, just as close as they were previously whilst interlocking her clement fingers with his.

She doesn’t say much then either, but she rests her head against his good shoulder after they’re halfway through another movie that he’s barely processing. He basks in it, the way the weight feels against his bicep, the way her digits smooth patterns against his.

It’s nice to have her closer than ever. That helps the most, really, but he still tries not to stay too late, to put it off for too long. 

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He spends the better portion of an hour, then two, sitting at the memorial stone, gazing at lily sprouts and trying to determine if they've drowned, reaching for childhood optimism and failing in the attempt to reconcile what the storm has stirred up.

It is freshly-watered anger, and it is directed at his brother.

He is angry with his brother. 

It’s not necessarily a new emotion. He was angry with his brother for years, prior to learning the truth; he’s no stranger to it. 

He has not, however, been quite this enraged in the after , since learning the provocation. But no, that’s not quite honest, either. He was angry afterwards. He directed that anger many times, fought for it, killed for it. He's the textbook epitome of a quick study in it, for all he stewed, not knowing how to put it down as weaponry needs to be put aside in exchange for a meaningful life.

But seldom directly consolidated at Itachi. 

Until now.

Sasuke is aware that his feelings in regards to his family are complicated. He is also cognizant of the fact that everything Itachi did, everything he gave up, was out of love for him.

So why is he livid ? 

How can he be so infuriated? 

He wants to scream, overwhelmed with the feral urge to dig up all he’s planted, blotted with rain, and throw it to the wind in some misguided attempt at gaining his brother’s attention, at having his ire recognized in some way. 

It still never feels like Itachi’s here, no spirit from beyond touching stone or soil. And Sasuke supposes that makes sense, because his brother died later, separately from the others, but…

Didn’t a part of him die when he murdered their family, too? 

How could one emerge from that unscathed? 

Sasuke's earliest memories are hazy, half-recollected minutiae pleasantries stained with the positivity of jejune childhood. Most of what he recalls of his clan, his family, are the few short years prior to the massacre. Sure, his father’s favoritism for Itachi over him colored it less sunny, but he had his mother and his brother and all the rest. There were shared sweets at the bakery, shuriken practice in the backwoods behind the clan compound, evening treks back from the pond through grove and brushwood, clutching freshly caught flowers or a pail of perch as he learned a new distant cousin’s name and how they were related.

But when he was twelve or thirteen? His memories were well developed by then, which means Itachi's were, too; double the recollections that Sasuke had at the point of the massacre, at least. Itachi would have known what he was about to give up, what he was about to rip away from Sasuke, that it would scar him for life and leave him alone in their family home to cook dinner in the dark, because the kitchen light had a string pull system on the ceiling and their mother used to scold him when he climbed up furniture to reach things-

"You could fall and hit your head, Sasuke. Just ask me or your brother to get it for you; you'll be taller in a few years-”

-and Itachi did it anyway.

Complicated as their past is, Sakura is willing to set aside her work for him in a heartbeat, to choose kindness over and over and over when he deserves anything but, when he's not good at words or explanation or conversation, when he left her on a fucking bench , when he tried to kill her. She didn’t give up on him, even when she wanted to, even though by all divine rights in existence she should have; he's certain that he's been the cause of her tears countless times. 

But Itachi? Itachi was thirteen when he killed their family, a prodigy with devastating outside influence, sure, but capable of at least some level of higher reasoning. Sasuke had memories at thirteen. He loved his team at thirteen, he loved Sakura at thirteen, messy and scattered and covert as that love was.

Itachi saw the effects wrought and continued the charade that got their family killed with barely so much as a glance back at him. 

Did I make it that easy? He questions inwardly, bitterly, heirloom frown overtaking his being, lone remaining fist tightening at his side as he realizes he's never going to fully move beyond this feeling: the unalloyed abandonment , the feeling that his soul has been sliced by the gilt of a razor. It's just as fresh as it was on that night, years ago, exposed to the light and raw . 

Was I that easy to walk away from?

Maybe that's why he loves his team so much. No matter what he did, they didn't abandon him like his kin did. Even Sakura couldn’t. She tried, but couldn’t, burst into tears, and he-

And maybe that's part of it, too: his attempts to be alone. If he chooses to be alone, it stands to reason that he won't lose anyone. No one can leave you alone in the dark if you leave them first.

But no, that's… not quite true either. He isn't making any sense. He seldom does, not when he's like this. He's briefly overcome by the desperate urge to visit the pond - to do what he's not sure; to scream at abandoned air, perhaps, for all the good that will do, toss excess confessionals to the wind that have already been thought a million times over - but he doesn't, because he's pretty sure that would break him on this particular day. 

In lieu of ripping the buds from the soused soil, he shoves his lone hand into his pocket and begins to turn a pair of keys, soft onomatopoeia gambit clinking over and over and over.

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Ultimately he lets them be, angry as he is, for his mother and his aunt and the woman in the alley with her newborn and all the rest who might like them. 

For his past self, too, maybe. If the green grows tall enough, it might grasp the mnesic stardust that slipped through his fingers.

He returns to his apartment, examining empty walls and thinking about the photos that would have lined their houses were they all given the chance to age instead of ash. They would surely be more formal pictures than Hanako’s are, given clan traditions: formally posed for major events and wrapped in traditional garb for weddings and Shogatsu and Kodomo no Hi and Tanabata. He tries to imagine what their yukatas would look like, Uchiha emblems blazed upon their backs. All of his own family’s pictures, he recalls, were old-fashioned, solely black and white or sepia toned, so it’s difficult to place what colors they were wearing in retrospect. Their relatives’ pictures were much the same, he’d seen on any occasion he was taken elsewhere for dinner as a child, kept under foot and at his mother’s watchful side. 

Mikoto Uchiha had a navy blue kimono she reserved for such occasions, emblazoned with finely stitched shooting stars. It just looked plain in the pictures, washed out from multidimensional blue to a dark swath of gray; he was just a baby in her arms in the most recent one of her wearing it he can recall, long lost to time and neglect. But he remembers it, the fabric of her sleeve billowing at eye level as she led him through Konoha’s streets by hand during festivals so he wouldn’t get lost in the crowd, his father and brother nowhere in sight. Cataclysmic lantern glow arched across Konoha’s streets, seeping between each booth and crowd intermingled with the rich aroma of roasting nuts and the warm spice of fried rice.

He realizes, sitting at the kitchen table and staring and thinking, that his father disliked festivals; he was not present in a single one he can remember. He must have disliked having his picture taken, too. He appeared enormously unhappy in all of them he can recollect, even in the last one Sasuke has left.

That is another thing Sasuke inherited from his father, he realizes as he finally reaches out to swipe his sole thumb across the aged photo, dug from its grave beneath Sakura’s stack of letters; he also dislikes having his picture taken, though he recognizes now that such things are… rather important, in retrospect. He’s clutched onto their team photo from years ago on countless nights.

He is like his father, though he doesn’t wish to be.

He then stares at the eyes that are encased currently in his own sockets, frowning at his brother. And this has consistently been Sasuke's problem: setting down his anger, abiding injustice. There are stages to grief, he's been told dozens of times, though he's rarely experienced them in any sort of coherent order. 

His gaze inches away, frown tugging at his mouth, until he's looking at the lamp. 

The details of the picture aren't as clear after he's shut off the overhead, an echo of a perpetually dark kitchen an age ago. He can barely see his father at the edge of the aged paper if he holds it just right, his face a shifting shadow in the mirk. 

But he looks at the four of them, studies them catalyzed in the subtleties of lamplight, easier to bear when the colors are less saturated. He looks at himself and his brother a lifetime ago. He stares even as it feels like his insides are being scraped clean with a rusted kunai.

Take notice of what light does, to everything. 

It still doesn't feel like he’s found what he’s truly searching for, but he manages to endure the elegy for nearly ten minutes before deciding he's not yet ready to confront this particular demon. He buries it beneath Sakura's letters with the rest of his good sense, anger to be confronted another day.

Because did he really need to toss him into Infinite Tsukuyomi again when he was thirteen? A simple genjutsu would have been plenty to stoke his hatred. He didn't need to make him relive the entire ordeal, to drag him back to hell as if he hadn't relived it hundreds of times by then in his own nightmares.

He's remembering the names again, a salient group autopsy carved in concrete and lost to history. 

He's also remembering that he put Sakura in a similar genjutsu in a misguided attempt to protect her, too, so perhaps he and his brother aren't that dissimilar, because he didn't have to do that, yet he did. He always hurts her, loving her from afar without telling her a damn thing about it, while his lost hand burns with the phantom pain effort of pushing her away, of holding her forever at arm’s length, of aiming his Chidori at the blurred pink of her head where he knows it will wreak the most drastic damage, at- 

He is like his brother, cruelly, horrifically so, just as he wished to be when he was little, though now he-

His arm hurts-

He doesn’t know a thing about love, really. He never has, has he? That part of him is stunted, twisted, cleaved off, cut from the same bark as the rest of his ilk. He always-

His arm hurts, the pain radiating up nerve endings that are no longer there, and he always-

Sasuke chooses to do what he unfailingly does when it feels a bit like he’s losing it, like he’s forgotten how to breathe or exist.

He trains and trains and trains in the grounds at the furthest edge of the village, far from anyone’s home. He repeats sword formations until they feel like a second skin, as if that will protect him, swiping at imaginary foes and endlessly wondering if he’s made one fucking bit of headway in the years since the war.

He then gulps caffeinated sencha, barely tasting it before reporting to guard duty at six, plain onigiri shoved half-assed into a container for lunch. He’ll eat dinner with Sakura after as they planned, so it’s not like he needs anything more than that to make it until six. He’ll endure his arm’s surging pains, too, until she can look at it. If he spends a day contributing to a greater good, perhaps it will feel more like he earned it.

They take over for both Inuzukas, as he expected. Hana Inuzuka says little, still studying him warily and maintaining a healthy distance, to which Sasuke can take no offense. Kiba acknowledges them both, at least, though he seems tired. It makes sense; guard duty is invariably an uninspired endeavor, and less so when the shifts are lengthened.

They’re two hours into duty when Sasuke arrives at the conclusion that Choji talks less than he remembers he did in their youth.

It’s not that Sasuke isn’t aware of this. People change. He’s been on two missions with the man now; obviously people develop beyond the time that they were school children. Gods know he has, to everyone’s unfortunate detriment.

But, it still surprises him. He’s not sure if it’s out of politeness for the fact that Sasuke has always been lackluster at best as a conversationalist or if it’s out of simple contentedness, as guard duty in an era of peace is uniquely suited to allow a snack here and there. Missions in the field don’t frequently allow such a privilege; Choji is as cheerful as he’s always been, chomping away at a bag of chips and for all intents and purposes seeming as if he’s enjoying this assignment, even without the aid of any conversation to help the time pass.

What doesn’t surprise him one bit is when his partner for the day creates a shadow clone prior to pulling out a miniature iron griddle, kindling, another container of signature spices, and all of the fixings needed to make teppanyaki in the umbra of the gates, save a lighter.

“Say, could you…?” 

Serpent, ram, monkey, boar, horse, tiger.

The real Choji continues his rounds opposite Sasuke as the clone prepares what he gathers must be the standard Akimichi lunch. The fire is small, but it doesn’t take long for the pan to begin its sizzling.

Another surprise arrives in the form of the clone handing him a fair clutching of neat kebabs. Sasuke stares at them in absolute fucking bewilderment.

“You can eat first,” his old classmate of a lifetime ago tells him cheerfully. “It’s tradition.”

The clone then sidles back to the grill to rotate a mass of remaining skewers in the shade, as if the kindness cost him absolutely nothing.

It’s significantly more substance than onigiri, that’s for sure; it basically melts off the stick and into his mouth, fragrant and filling and way higher quality meat than he typically buys for himself. It helps with his tiredness at the very least. It makes the light of day bearable, too; less grating on the eyes and his arm’s phantom pain.

“...Thanks.”

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If you could only keep one sense, which would you choose?  

Sasuke finds himself reflective on past conversations following an evening well-spent with Sakura, throbbing phantom pain freshly healed in his bad arm and eyelids drooping with the didactic endeavors of the past day and then some.

Perhaps losing his sight wouldn't be the worst option after all. Like any Uchiha, he relies on it far too much, has worn it thin. He thinks of revolving keys passing between his remaining fingers. He thinks of Sakura’s hand intertwined with his, of the sound of a storm roaring overhead and the poetry of her berry scent and soft breaths beside him, the pumping of her heart akin to the ticking of a clock, concatenation all within his grasp.

He walks, tethered to a shaky impetus and contemplating the nature of smell as he tries to avoid peeling back his own skin in his urgency to get to the fucking point. Did his own kin smell like fire, smoky yet with enough bite to sear sustenance? He must have been so used to it that he never noticed. 

And he needs groceries, anyway. Not that he remembers that once he’s there. 

Taste is a good sense, as Choji said. Maybe Sasuke hasn't fully appreciated it. It seems a safer alternative than shaking down the sky.

There are many varieties of jasmine tea at the market, he learns, even at the handful of places that linger open after the pitch has swallowed the last trace of the sun, stars twinkling into existence stretched across a lacquered navy sky. He picks the one that seems the most traditional, because of course he does.

Sasuke then reaps the smell of summer, the twinkling of green grass and azaleas and fresh drizzle saturating everything once more, intermingling in the street as he wanders at a snail’s pace back to his apartment, trying to summon an appetite or further mettle for what he’s about to do. 

It's easier, he finds, if he doesn't look at the puddles for too long, if he passes beneath the cherry blossom tree across the street on his way home, ramified branches flourishing emerald and juniper.

His eyes prick at the smell alone, steeped in wistful memory contained within a steaming cup anew. It's been years since he cried at the simple smell of it - you’re fucking hopeless, it’s just tea - and that's a shame, because he was really hoping that his journey had helped him get somewhere, broached common ground in the form of miles marked and exchanged endearments. Instead he’s still blistering with the same old wounds, scarred and bruised black, smearing the metaphorical ink before it’s even dried.

Sasuke manages two assiduous sips. Corrosion, he reflects.

The first is alchemic, transcendental, synodic threaded memories hooking scattered stars across a navy blue kimono sleeve that was once the scope of his entire world, come alive from where they reside trapped in his every neuron, tucked away for safekeeping.

The second sears his insides with demise, croons down his capillaries and trickles into every cell like the sweetest poison, violently dissolving brittle bones and haunted flesh and reminding him of things that are no longer his. Things that will never be his. And he is lacking, lacking-

The taste is good: fragrant and salt of the earth. 

The memory is not: always bitter, always biting, exposing his turpitude for all to see.

The problem is him, always him. He is not like his mother, but he wants to be. He wants to be worthy of it, all of the love and smeared sacrifice and the chronic weight of expectation.

Instead he is himself.

He dumps the remainder of the cup unceremoniously down the sink. The remaining box of tea is shoved to the very back corner of the lower cupboard in short order, hidden behind his meager collection of pots and pans to be forgotten before heading to his bedroom and slamming the door shut to lie in the dark alone. He plummets beneath the weight of dark bedding and the dispiritingly neutral aroma of clean laundry.

And memories. Memories burning at the windows, memories snarling and tugging at his eyes in saturnine demand, colossal bleeding mazarine blue just waiting to be let in with the summer air and the distant susurrus of night herons and crickets counting time against their fresh wings and swishing grass. One small step, then another. It takes a century on little legs, wisps of the past haunting the present: wildflowers clutched in both tiny hands, utterly oblivious to the damage it would cause, far worse than a stray thorn or the tender sting of a bee. And how could he emerge unscathed, when he was plucking away their sustenance?

He can’t hear anything currently, save his own heart, beating incessantly on. 

He shuts his eyes. He relies on seeing far too much, apotheosizes it beyond everything else. His sight and his propinquity for anger and running and beating something bloody never got him anywhere. He needs to feel.

He can imagine it: natant sunshine atop tide rolling in, how it would feel to trace the lineament of her face with touch rather than his brother’s vision. He could leave something tangible behind, something that doesn’t hurt, a careful but purposeful fingerprint or ten across the caress of her cheek instead of simply stealing his mementoes while she’s asleep like a coward.

The empty spaces between his fingers ache like loss, like liminal longing, like the border between land and seafoam, palpable with resolved desire to close the distance.

[heartfils]

transferring some old but still important qi rong thoughts from his old blog to here:

˚ʚ ⁀➷ㅤ𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐗𝐈𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐍:

HE REALLY, REALLY LOVED HIM!!!! pretty sure he still has affection lingering but at this point it’s so mixed with years of hatred and resentment it’s impossible to break it apart... honestly xie lian was always like a savior to him, so he held him up in the highest pedestal and thus the fall was painful for them both... like, he grew up with his dad abusing him and his mom, then with the shame of knowing he ruined his mother’s life simply by existing, therefore inciting the mockery and contempt of the people around him —before he officially became royalty or not—, so obviously he wasn’t in a good mental state. being taken in by his aunt was a type of salvation, but being acknowledged by xie lian (someone whom he admires so much, the one person qi rong didn’t believe weak, someone who would never be pushed down and ridiculed — hah!), becoming like xie lian, that, too, was salvation to him but................ his anger and his pain got the better of him and he went waaaaaayyy off into the wrong path. to me it seemed like his family just kinda gave up disciplining him, and i understand his aunt’s position: he’s her late sister’s child, not her own, she didn’t want to disrespect her memory by disciplining her son too strictly, so all she could do was give him a metaphorical slap on the wrist while he got away with worse and worse each time. xie lian was also very young himself, it wasn’t his job to control him, but it also made me really :’( to see how qi rong was always so excited to be with him and xie lian kinda brushed him off (sometimes with good reason, others...) taking a child’s toy away is just gonna make them throw a tantrum and get more aggressive; this happens every time qi rong gets reprimanded and “punished”. he got worse because no one really taught him any better, and if they did, they dubbed him a lost cause, but it really comes down to "a lot of things could’ve been avoided if his family had known how to treat him more appropriately" because back then he was just a child who dealt with his trauma in all the wrong ways until there was no turning back, and now he's just like this. me thinking abt how xie lian wanted to save everyone but qi rong wanted him to save him too and he Didn't: guess i'll die!

  ˚ʚ ⁀➷ㅤ𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐋𝐄, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆/𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍:

personally i really like the sound of night drifting as opposed to night touring [green lantern] beccause drifting implies a lack of direction, gives a sense of wandering without real purpose, not knowing where you’re going but still walking, maybe because you’re being carried or pushed by an outer force, usually unseen. all of these really resonate with how qi rong refuses to see himself but are ultimately the way he is — he’s constantly drifting between who he is, who he thinks he is, and who he wants to be, which causes him to be all of those and yet none at all at the same time.  he has a very skewed view of himself, he gives off the vibe that he doesn’t even know who he is, so he imitates other people and to us spectators it makes him feel like he has a very fragile identity. who is he without the help or influence of others, directly or indirectly? who is he aside from his blood relation to xie lian, who is he without the tactless imitations of hua cheng and hei shui?  touring has somewhat different connotations than drifting, but touring does give off an air of not belonging to the places you’re visiting, which also fit qi rong really well!! he doesn’t belong with any of his family, not with the common people, not with the ghosts, obviously not the heavens either. no matter where he goes, he just does not belong anywhere.

˚ʚ ⁀➷ㅤ𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐘:

him imitating the other calamities is the same shitty behaviour he used to have as a kid imitating xie lian because back then, to him, his cousin was the paragon of strength. he thought if he were to be more like xie lian he’d never be pushed down and mocked again, thus he desperately wanted to be like him (with all the wrong methods). qi rong hates feeling weak, it throws him back to the times he was a defenseless child who was beaten or ridiculed by everyone, so xie lian, who was strong and respected, was literally a god to him. of course, coupled with qi rong’s temper and lack of empathy and morals, that was just a recipe for disaster, and it carried over to him seeking strength via imitation of those whom he deems the strongest, because he never really learned how to do it himself.

˚ʚ ⁀➷ㅤ𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐆𝐔 𝐙𝐈:

he doesn't fully realize it himself, but he's definitely attached to that kid. i joke about him loving his new son, but it IS the closest thing he's felt to loving someone and being loved back since he was a human child... and it is the first time he has family who loves him unconditionally. family who actually cares about him. i can't help but think that part of qi rong sees his old self in gu zi, because they both came from nothing and had abusive fathers. hell, gu zi's dad was so terrible that compared to him, gu zi thinks qi rong is kind. this definitely rattles qi rong in a way he's not used to, so while he's still an awful influence on the poor kid, he does canonically watch his behavior around him as to not cross the line and upset him. really does goes to show that all qi rong needed was a family who could both love him and be firm with him.

[summonhouse]

ok ermm questions about lawrie, 1. why did he decide to become a substitute teacher and 2. what does it do in its free time

this is a good question bc i realize i said "sweetheart is an au of lawrie" as if anyone knows Who lawrie is UHHH lawrie spotlight moment before answering;

art by slugwiki on here commission her 1 million times

hes for a roleplay i run which you can read a summary of here in a toyhouse advertisement or in a different format here on a tumblr blog in which ive written a few posts from lawries perspective actually

lawrence percival octavius ramsey sylvester sterling bartholomew jr ii is a wooden puppet/clock magically enchanted to come alive by his terrible terrible parents- however he has been lied to all his life and is entirely unaware that being made of wood is unusual and he believes hes a normal organic human and all that. his parents, clock and watch manufacturers, were killed by an angry mob after they used their magic to force people to work themselves to death, leaving lawrie extremely extremely depressed because he has been neglected so thoroughly he convinced himself his parents were very good loving people

WHY HE BECAME A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER:

one; after his parents death he spent a good year just in a dissociative coma before eventually attempting to return to acting like a human with meaningless minor motions, he wants to be a respectable man but has nothing to do so he begins to look for any job that will accept him so he doesnt continue just rotting in his home- if he has no job he has no purpose, two; the school he signs up to work at is evolution academy, an up and coming very well respected establishment advertising "unorthodox" teaching methods specifically trying to teach students practical things instead of what the headmaster mx dream deems as "useless" core curriculum stuff. lawries obsesssedddd with good image and what he sees as "respectable work" and real actual effort so he thinks the schools different approach is nice and he wishes to be a part of that, three; he has no qualifications, he never went to school and his parents hardly homeschooled him, despite this hed done a lot of reading up so hes not HELPLESS, but he certainly does not have any degree that would allow him to teach anything specialized, four; substitute teacher at ea means "mx dreams henchman" basically and hes forced to do all of the loose busywork around the school more than hes supposed to watch or teach students- mx dream specifically hires him because hes a fucking rube, major stunted attention whore who slurps up all the attention she gives him like a sponge and mx dream is intend to manipulate him, So despite his, to be frank, absolute fucking stupidity (hes terrible with interacting with people from, you know, the years of neglect) he is accepted into his position because due to that hes really, really easy to take advantage of (THE SCHOOL IS NOT GOOD), five; he really desperately wants to help everyone, he has an insanely strong sense of justice and right and wrong which is INSANELY SKEWED such that he believes capitalism and a strong economy will assist everyone- he wants everyone to have a good life and to get what theyre worth, genuinely, despite his idiocy approaching it, and he hopes working with younger people will allow him to help them- and he really, really hopes no one ends up like him or his parents. six; if he gets a job his coworkers are forced to interact with him Tee Hee hee attention whore moments

FREE TIME:

lawrie loooves reading, both nonfiction scientific diagram filled drivel, philosophy (especially if it fuels his own beliefs), and hes a BIG fan of artsy fiction (though he hates to admit that and is vocally against "frivolous pursuits" such as fictional story tales)... he also loves repairing broken timepieces (still doesnt know hes a clock but he deeply identifies with clocks, it reminds him of home and his parents).... ATM in the span of the rp he will not admit that he adores art and would love to create himself (his parents used to punish him for doing so) in the future whenever he gets over himself and is encouraged to act more like a person he will surely spend his time painting dramatic abstract paintings of himself and his friends, and working on plays with his (planned) boyfriend(s?)

sorry this is long LMAO im obsessed w lawrie ive said this b4 but he is my character of the year fr. i used him in a different rp at the start of the year from like jan-marchish and it died out in summer and eas been active sinceee like the end of september? and every time hes active he is All i can think about. SO theres a lot to say because i am Constantly thinking about his .. brain

[kuunibal]

The way u write.. Is like a popular/socially well-smart dude. She probably thinks you're after others, not her. U know girls can also think he's way utta my league? I mean.. Obviously unless you've confessed to her. Idk I'm just assuming.. Maybe I'm being too specific.

I'm just trying to think now w/her being good in this story, not an ungrateful dreamy oblivious girl. Cuz your page & the convos u have w anons, sorta portray her like that & YOU being the perfect-good lover.. I mean come on u know, u sorta look like a victim of one-sided love here [not saying u r portraying this purposely, it just comes off like tht] + mostly, u do try your best to tell both sides of the story n how she isn't actually 'bad' (ungrateful) but still since your whole page is from your pov.. We're not witnessing HER as a protagonist so we're automatically bound to judge her thru all of YOUR opinions of her. I mean😅here ppl r gonna sympathise w u obv but for once I'm trying to sympathise with her, so being open to the fact that we still only know.. What he thinks of what she thinks.. Not what she actually thinks!

Is she more of the well-maintained-organised-smartish types or messydumb-pyjamas-snort in the nose types? [sry this was too long reply as per ur convenience]

-🌬️

Ah, I see you are new to this page. The situation is a lot more messy, but yes, I have confessed to my darling multiple times, and although she certainly is dreamy, I don't believe her to be ungrateful or oblivious. Like most people, I think she is a good person who sometimes does hurtful things without really meaning to. You are right about perspective and opinion being skewed though, and I respect your sympathy and objectivity.

From the outside, she seems like a messy and impulsive party girl. But she is actually a lot more organised and knowledgeable about the things she is passionate about and artistically inclined rather than academic in the traditional sense (especially because the American school system is shit).

[dukedebut]

new album every day [03.01.23]

Fireworks - Higher Lonely Power

the first 2023 album i've listened to!! Higher Lonely Power is pretty definitively a rock album, but it should be said that a number of tracks skew in a variety of directions - there's a little experimentalism here, a bit of metal, as well as a few tracks that skew more mellow. there's definitely something for everyone here, but the tracks i enjoyed the most were as follows:

I Want to Start a Religion With You

this is probably the most pop-approximate of the songs on the album - the track itself sounds really on-trend for what i think is happening in rock at the moment, and it's fun to bop along to! the lyrics tell a story of someone expressing the struggle that comes with living a life you feel was forced on you, and trying to break free from it. a really strong song very early on, this is the one that got me really into this!

Machines Kept You Alive

quite a standout song here! this one starts off a lot slower, almost ambient, before suddenly swelling into this almost cacophonous explosion of drums and heavy guitar. this song is dynamic, and incredibly polarising stylistically, which i think is captured quite well in its lyrics. the hurting that comes with love, and how good that hurting can feel - staring into the sun, being born anew. the imagery and emotion expressed here really speaks to me.

Estate Sale

this is another song that stands out as quite different from the other tracks on this album. tonally, this song is a bit more gloomy, almost despairing? the lyrics agonise the feeling of just floating in life, without having a sense of purpose or direction. it's a feeling i can identify with, and i think Fireworks do a great job of conveying it in this song.

--

this album, as a whole, is a really great listen! i think there are songs here that could mean a lot to people, and i would wholeheartedly recommend it to any rock fans out there - what an amazing start to 2023!

[kinosternon]

I agree with this argument overall but I think it might be leaving out any discussion of reasons alongside misogyny that fic-lovers might prefer focusing on men. For me, one big one is the (overall lack of) emotional availability of men IRL in our modern society.

I'm certainly biased in that, while I do read and enjoy female characters, both in original and fanfiction (when I can get it), I tend to gravitate towards (queer) men in fanfiction. Surface-level explanations for this include:

I'm biased. (Very fair! We live in a misogynistic society. I'm definitely not immune to it.)

I'm a trans man. I want to read about guys because I am one. (Also true and fair! Though I'm equally happy reading about a woman's perspective on a guy. I do on occasion read romance novels and m/f fic for this reason.)

So far so good, and it's possible that the rest of this post is projection.

But I think some of my reasons for preferring male-focused fic might be true of fic readers and writers more broadly, and well beyond the "most women are straight so they write about men" thing. (Which I find dubious to begin with. For one thing, aren't fic-reading demographics skewing queerer and queerer as the years go on? That's just an impression I get, not backed by hard data, but while I still believe that "fic as a community doesn't have very many cis men in it" is a straightforwardly believable assertion, I'd be hesitant to say that it has a majority of "straight" anything. But anyway.)

Whatever your (broad "you," not OP specifically) gender or sexuality, I'm interested in your answers to these questions, both for yourself and for what answers you would imagine as "typical" for your fan community:

Do you have many close friends and loved ones?

How many of those people are (for the purpose of this argument, cis) men?

For how many of the folks in #1 can you say that you have established a sense of trust and/or vulnerability that allows you to discuss their inner emotional lives?

Assuming both groups are extant, how do your relationships with men (number of people and depth) compare to relationships with folks who aren't?

(My answers, by the way, are: Yes, a few, thankfully many, and…well, it doesn't even compare. Collectively, it's an ocean versus a puddle, or perhaps a thimble.)

One of the main reasons I read fic is to access a sense of emotional closeness to men that I can't get enough of in my daily life, because I have trouble forming bonds with men in the first place—and even when I do, they're usually not intimate enough to allow for much insight into their inner thoughts, feelings, or lives. A lot of societal pressure (including, sadly, some aspects of feminism as well) encouraged me to fear a similar closeness with real men, even as it's discouraged men from opening up to anyone at all.

Meanwhile, I'm fortunate enough to have a lot of women and non-binary friends. If I want to have access to the thoughts and feelings (or, let's be real, sometimes there's a desire to hear about drama too) from a woman/nb person, I have actual people I can go talk to! No, that's not a replacement for fiction, but for me as an individual it's usually a preferable alternative. Many humans are wired to value in-person (and also, in this case, real) relationships over online ones. Moreover, I may have the chance to do actual good for a real, live person, if I choose to talk to them: advice, comfort, a listening ear, my time, space, money, whatever. It's wins all around...except, unfortunately, when it comes to representation.

Also, if we start from the assumption that a similar imbalance in emotional intimacy exists for a lot of the fic-loving community, I want to point out that there are possible knock-on effects in terms of standards:

Is it any wonder that we read female characters as flat, boring, or just off somehow, when we know so many more IRL women in greater depth than we do men? Especially since those women's inner lives are generally so much more complex and nuanced (not to mention cooler) than what many writers come up with?

Is it any wonder that we look at the male characters who are given any inner life whatsoever, and want to take them and run with them? (Or in the cases where we aren't given anything, is it so surprising that we might enjoy the license to go wild imagining our own?)

Like I said above, I don't disagree that most of these discrepancies are ultimately rooted in misogyny. If I'm right about these reasons, they're closer to compounding factors. We're primed to care less about female characters; writers are too, and spend less screen time and effort on them; and then even for those of us who want to read/write more women, it's easier for many of us to see where in-depth deptictions of fictional women fall short than fictional men. There's also not enough widely-known and lauded examples for original fiction writers to emulate or fic-writers to be inspired to build on. Simultaneously, patriarchy doesn't just mean that we're primed to value depictions of men over women; it also causes the limitations in our own lives and relationships that leave us hungry for portrayals of men that have a full emotional range and demonstrate (at least narrated) vulnerability!

I think that it can often be helpful to go looking for what else might be going on alongside (or above, or below, or mixed with) straightforward misogyny. That's no reason to hold on to factually incorrect excuses, or to excuse misogyny in general, but I do think it's a reason to keep looking for potentially legitimate additional factors, because:

Compared to the "people just hate women" answer, some causes are significantly easier to problem-solve about.

Thinking that it all stems from hatred alone can be more discouraging than helpful, and sometimes downright polarizing.

Do many people tend to avoid/ignore female characters because cultural misogyny leads to weird double-standards about women's characterization? Almost certainly, yeah. But might it also be because the literary tradition of writing women is widely underdeveloped? Because people can more easily develop emotional intimacy with IRL women than IRL men, and are seeking to fulfill their desires for the latter? Because many people have greater familiarity with women's inner lives, which would naturally lead to higher standards?

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a slightly different mix of these and other reasons for everyone, and I think that offering a menu of reasons could be helpful in some discussions, especially those with folks who might otherwise feel defensive about this topic.

every year the ao3 stats come out and every year people insist that the lack of women isn’t misogyny but because ‘most fic writers are female and therefore enjoy writing about men more’ and every year they don’t seem to understand that they themselves have just described a version of misogyny

[deathblossomed]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 & 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐒

@askrossiel : "I'll stay as long as you need. No rush."

FOR THE MOST PART, Botan enjoys her job. It's an important part of the cycle of life and she takes pride in it. Knowing that those who die won't have to go through the hardest transition they'll encounter alone gives her a sense of purpose. Death is natural, inevitable, but it can be scary. But it doesn't have to and that's her role.

That doesn't mean it's easy. There are times, especially now, where she feels shaken by the things she sees. Her objectivity is, admittedly, a little skewed now. Before, her only interactions were with other spirits, most of which were ferry girls just like her. But now she has plenty of mortal friends. She's even had to escort one of them, twice. So it makes it harder.

When she is having a rough time, Botan hates to be alone. The comfort of another beside her warms the cooling flow of her energy. And when it comes to comfort and stability, Rossiel is always a soothing balm.

She's kind enough to sit with Botan now, a soft presence, one Botan appreciates endlessly. She smiles at her, soft, eyes a little sad but she's warming.

"Thank you. Really, it means a lot. I'm sorry if I'm keeping you from something," she says, a little sheepish. "I think I feel a bit better just having someone to sit with."

[6-2-aestheticsofhate]

Do you ever think about how V1 is one of the machines with the least amount of personality shown in game to the point that people will say it canonically doesn't feel any emotion or that it doesn't care for people. While I think part of it is people seeing what little bits of personality we get from them (calling a random skeleton they found Hank and coming up with a made up family connection between them and the skeleton on Ferryman's ship) as non-canonical because it doesn't fit their views of V1 I also honestly think another part of it is that MOST machines don't show a lot of personality outside their terminal data entries (which V1 doesn't have) or their boss fight intros (which V1 also doesn't have). You can see V2 being polite and bowing before fight V1 and you can read about its purpose and how it differs from V1 in its terminal entry, but V1 gets none of that because V1 is the player character.

They're also constantly fighting other machines and husks and demons all in an effort to not die from lack of fuel or simply being killed by others. That doesn't leave a lot of time for a personality to develop, especially when you consider V1 was only activated right as the game started. It had no time to be around humans, it had no time to exist and be itself and develop a personality like V2 or the others did. It was immediately thrust into Hell and told to kill.

Just like how some people have a skewed version of Gabriel in their head that is solely a whiny pathetic mess when the only reason he acts like that in canon is because he was defeated for the first time ever (by someone who is so beneath him power wise that Hakita compared it to being beaten by an ant) which resulted in him essentially being sentenced to death by the council. That is not Gabriel's default state, its him after having suffered immense pain and suffering and burdened with the knowledge he is going to die if he doesn't kill V1. We've also never seen V1 in a normal, stable environment. We've only seen V1 struggling for resources and a ticking clock counting down to their demise.

A lot of people see also V1 as not caring about either Gabriel or any of the people around them, but I think considering the circumstances it cares a surprising amount. While it does decide some the text in books is irrelevant and tosses them aside it still picks them up and reads them, all while its slowly getting closer to death every moment its not out fighting. They allow their enemies (Gabriel, Minos, Sisyphus) to talk and explain things before fighting them. It may not speak or react to many things but like Swordsmachines terminal data says most machines got rid of their ability to vocalize to better conserve resources. I think the fact they're wasting precious time and resources on hearing people out or reading about their stories does show an innate sense of curiosity for the place they found themselves in.

[thisliminalspacedaydreams]

Hits are not the people who read.

This is very important.

What is a hit?Hits are a counter of how many times a work has been accessed. A hit is registered every time a visitor navigates to a work's page, with the following exceptions:

If two visits in a row come from the same IP address, only the first one is registered.

Moving between chapters in a work will only register one hit in total, not one hit per chapter.

If you're logged in, hits are not counted when you visit your own works.

I've been seeing a lot of people being disheartened by the lack of ratio hit/comments but a hit isn't someone who read. It's someone who opened the page of your fic. Maybe they saw the blurb and thought, nah. Maybe they opened 53919381 works and then narrowed down. It's entirely possible that out of the "hits" you get, only a small, small, baby portion actually reads your fic.

Which isn't like, "good news" for you but it DOES mean that your perception is skewed.

I strongly recommend, for your own peace of mind, if that kind of data matters to you, that you focus on the people who are kudoing.

A kudo is most likely someone who DID read your fic.

And you can be sad that your work got 186 kudos and only 3 people left comments, but it's a lot less crazy in terms of stats than 1800 people reading your fic and 3 people leaving comments.

If I make sense.

Your feeling is 100% valid but you can't focus on the hits as a reference number my dear, it's going to crush you.

And I'm going to go further than this but this is all my own personal opinion and I realise not everyone thinks the way I do, so take it with a grain of salt.

Rare are the hobbies that get you interaction at all.

I never get kudos for finishing a puzzle. For bookbinding a project. For doing anything that I consider a hobby.

But I do get kudos for writing a thing and posting it on the internet, which is kind of wild. And by my estimate, the reward I get from writing it is enough. And finding people who write things that I like. And sometimes making friends with them.

AO3 isn't a website meant for validation. It's great when it happens but that's not its first purpose. It's *becoming* that because people are now deciding that AO3 is a social media website, which it isn't.

I'm actually so saddened that people are comparing hits and kudos and comments to others and I realise that it's the human condition (and when I'm weak, I do it too, I'm not better than anyone) but it's such a harsh thing to impose on yourself.

Writing is one of these mediums where you CANNOT COMPARE. Here's why.

Writing is a common hobby.

As a hobby, it has to remain a pleasure, a challenge, something exciting. And that can't be measured by how much people love your work. It has to be measured by how much YOU LOVE YOUR OWN WORK.

The trap of comparison is real, especially in creative fields like writing. But every writer's journey is unique, and no metric can quantify their value.

The moment creativity becomes a competition (even with yourself), the whole thing implodes.

The moment we start weighing our worth by the number of hits, kudos, or comments, we lose sight of why we started writing in the first place.

Feedback is fantastic, but it shouldn't be the sole reason you write.

Not everyone who appreciates your work will leave a kudo or a comment. Some might not know what to say, and some will simply move on, touched by your work but quiet about it. Their silence doesn't diminish the impact your writing might have had.

So, write because you love to write. Appreciate the kudos & the comments but don't let the lack thereof discourage you.

Your worth as a writer isn't determined by public validation. It's determined by the amount of joy you get from it.

not to be That Person but when people are like “why isn’t there a big fandom culture anymore?” umm…

maybe this is why???? That an author can spend hours (if not days or weeks or months) on something, have 1,800 people read it, and only have THREE people willing to take a few extra seconds out of their day to comment. Not even something as simple as “thanks for sharing” or “second kudos” or “❤️”

I’m not the internet police. You decide what you do with your time. Just don’t be surprised if the result is that creators leave your fandoms. I’m not writing to scream into the void. If that’s what I wanted, I wouldn’t bother posting. Fandom is a community. It’s an exchange of enthusiasm over this thing we all love. And who’s gonna keep showing up at your house with a goodie basket if all you do is take the basket, slam the door, and leave them outside to watch through the window while you eat?

[kelly-danger]

Also I now realize I falsely assumed you were a female person considering detrans, it’s just the usual demographics of this site skew that way + even moreso we consider the group more likely to start realizing radical feminism has a point or two. But you are definitely not alone in living identified as a trans woman, being seen as “feminine”, being attracted to men, feeling surrounded by the sexist pressure for men to be het and “masculine” in whatever way their culture thinks about that, and questioning what path is best for just managing to live and also for having a good impact on society.

Sorry ahead of time if this is unwelcome please delete it. I have a lot of thoughts about this from being a long time gender abolitionist, woman who passes as a man often whether I care or not about it, and friend of someone in what I now think could be a similar or at least comparable situation to yours.

From that experience with my friend who has some of this situation, I want to say the hatred for men by women is a class struggle and a personal one and doesn’t prove you would turn “evil” or “have to be/turn masculine” and sexist and shitty if you accepted you were a man or “lived as a man”. Hell you don’t even have to pass. As i said i for one don’t usually pass as a woman. It’s not how I am comfortable looking, so I dont. And people are so ruled by expectations so my look makes them assume “man”. I just still am a woman anyway because it’s a neutral trait, at the end of the day. Not a sentence to be feminine or have to pass or feel comfortable with how I am seen if seen as a woman.

But really my friend has a deeper issue than just that with it all, he has a problem with a sort of internalized shame about being gay, and an internalized shame and fear of being a man. It is definitely related to him being assaulted by a man but also related to…. Idk how to describe it. Just everything we grow up seeing plus the mindset cultivated by religious ocd where fundamental evil exists and everything points toward it being in you in this infinitely threatening way. That kind of thinking really seems to cook the brain if not changed. Makes life unbearable. At the end of the day he still lives with the het trans woman identity sometimes, gay man identity other times. Partly because it’s unavoidable, having transitioned socially at 9, moved to a different school to pass totally, physically got transition surgeries at 18… and at this point even if it’s not true he’s a woman and even if it connects to this larger issue that is tearing a lot of shit apart for women and gay people… on the whole that all isn’t solved by his personal life just passing on purpose or not. Whatever he’s identifying as or living as, even if it’s a false notion that to pass as a woman is to be a woman. For him there is no way to not be a trans woman in the sense of he can’t physically get away from that status or that past even if he were to socially and psychologically move on from it, which he has been doing (part of why I am calling him, him, also because it is ok unless it’s a rare-r bad ptsd day)

anyway… to me… It does go back to, ok he supports the material on the ground work of women’s liberation and gay liberation. He does his best to speak the truth clearly when it comes right down to it and allow others to speak the truth and act on it. It doesn’t have to be a huge conflict to even just still want to pass as a woman and live that way most days or all days but still want to engage in supporting women’s liberation from a radfem approach and gay liberation from a real (not conservative 2-true-gender-role-believing) gender abolition approach. Lots of people won’t see it that way and they will have some good points sometimes but in the end I think what I am saying here is the closest to true.

Once again good luck with thinking about it, I hope the grip of sexism and homophobia against all of us, all LGB people and all other gnc people, including people identifying as trans, stops being so violent… gets better and eventually finally is abolished.

I dont really feel like my worry is being evil or that all men are bad or anything like that. I think gender is and should be a nutral trait, but I think moving in a society where gender isnt nutral is hard and weird. But true liberation must come from abolition of gender.like you said its just everything we grow up seeing. Especially for me heterosexuality is a concept that ive always found distasteful, not in a male+female way. But sociopolitically. Heterosexuality is where gender roles are most intrenched and where the expectation for me to be a man or masculine has always felt strongest, even now as a trans mtf it still feels i am expected to play the male role. There feels like no escape, and thats scary so rn I'm actually celebate. I was definitely raised religious and youre right about that mindset. Passing as a woman is wild though. Passing as a woman definately shows you what its like to be a woman in some regards, but definately dosnt show what its like to be female. I think thats my struggle at the end of the day is that I would like to look like a woman or maybe pass as one, but in trying to pass you have to subscribe to all these messed up patriarchal expectations. Women who done buy into patriarchy arent rewarded or respected by it, trans women included. And I dont want to be respected by patriarchy anyways. I have never tried to front as not male, and so im continually regarded as male, even if I am regarded as a woman (speaking in considderation of sex gender seperation which in maybe on the fence about). So with that in mind my opression is male, its because im male but perform femininity. I find that way more meaningful then the Judith butler fan gender ideology type rhetoric, or god forbid the heinrich von ulrich esque stuff. Basically dont get me started

[eievuimultimuse]

one of the major things you gotta realize about superfly when it comes to his vision of his father is that he...does not actually seem to remember much about him. which makes perfect sense because he was a BABY when baxter unfortunately died. i think the hint of this being the case that sorta clued me into this is the whole 'sludge vs ooze' exchange he has w/ the turtles when he meets em. he referred to the mutagen as 'sludge' while they said 'ooze' & he's like 'ooh, i like that!' meanwhile baxter himself referred to it as ooze. so, how i see it, it's a sign that like yeah superfly might subconsciously remember some things from the short time he spent with his dad but he otherwise doesn't remember.

i think the biggest thing tho is comparing the prologue scene in MM versus superfly's retelling of it later in the film. notably, there are two major differences about it: first off, in superfly's version of events, baxter's a lot warmer towards him, whereas in the prologue he's not nearly as warm ( btw that isn't to say he's cold, because he isn't !! i mean the guy refers to SF affectionately as 'little one,' calls himself his dad, gives him a crib w/ a lil blankie...the guy clearly adored SF in his own way. i'm just pointing out that all of the more cuddlier moments between the two happen specifically in superfly's version of events ).

secondly, SF's flashback shows the explosion that killed baxter but not the fact that SF landed on the canisters that wound up prompting the TCRI guy to shoot at him, thus causing them to explode. like, we see the part where baxter uses his own body to shield him but that's it. & while this could easily be the film speeding things along, i wouldn't be surprised if superfly just like...simply didnt comprehend that he inadvertently caused that. especially because as far as he's concerned, TCRI maliciously murdered baxter ( & this ofc isn't putting the blame on SF he was a frightened baby trying to defend him & his dad fuckngi of COURSE not jfc nor take the blame off of TCRI bc theyre no less responsible for what happened -- but SF seems to think they did it on purpose. meanwhile, it was more just the result of pure recklessness; they wanted both baxter & SF alive ).

so like basically the point im getting at here is that superfly's perspective is prrreeetty skewed both as a result of being too young to remember it accurately and also being traumatized witnessing such a horrible thing when he was an actual baby. it especially seems like he sugarcoats & hypes up his dad's memory as a result when, truthfully, he barely even got to know the guy. & considering that baxter's sorta the catalyst for SF's eventual violence & hatred, it's honestly really interesting to think that he's doing it based off of a perception skewed by trauma. that the catalyst for his actions isn't even based in objective truth.