#anyway whatever! if i ever write that thing. IF I EVER... just wanted people to know that eg if a danny is mentioned

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

bestie you’ve mentioned novelising NTTF (aka my fav fic ever). how’s it going? will there be major plot changes? new characters? give us some crumbs 😩

Awww bestie you are so sweet to ask!!!

So it's going well, I'm actually mostly done and just need to do one last editing read-through and work on a few formatting things (ex. dividers between sections) 😍

I actually planned to get NTTF self-published over winter break and that was delulu, I seriously underestimated how long it would take me to edit 90,000 words 😂 I was also pretty freaked out by the whole self-publishing process in general because it's super unfamiliar to me, but I set up an account and figured out how to navigate things and I'm excited to start building my library...and maybe making some money so I have more time to write?? Do we dare to hope??

Plot-wise, novel NTTF is largely the same as fic NTTF, as I have no new ideas (I never do after a story is finished 😂) and I don't want to mess with it too much and thereby accidentally ruin whatever people liked about it to begin with. Some small changes:

It's now 1st person, not 2nd person, but still present-tense

New first and last names for all the Targ characters (and Daeron mention deleted); these names are super Greek

Appletini is still only ever referred to as ladybug or appletini

New Targs all have naturally dark curly hair (novel Aegon uses box dye to bleach it, a la Kurt Cobain)

No sapphire for novel Aemond, he has multiple scars on his face and his left eye is ruined by corneal scarring

On one occasion, Heather refers to Aemond as "PTSD Tommy Lee"

Oh, and Sunfyre needed a new name too! His legal name is "Break Stuff By Limp Bizkit" (everyone calls him Bizkit 🥰)

I was also stressed about the cover art. At first I was like "I can just take a picture of a snowy scene and use that!" (stupid), then I planned to buy the rights to a photo of the Northern Lights over Juneau (doable, but not especially eye-catching or original). Then @bearwithegg made me this gorgeous NTTF Aegon fanart:

And I was like "these are the vibes I want for the cover!!!!!!!!!" so she's cooking up something special as we speak, and I am so excited about that and very grateful to her 💜

Anyway, when the novelized version of NTTF is at last available you will be alerted and maybe some of my amazing Tumblr friends will even leave it a 5-star review and help me get noticed by the algorithm so it gets recommended to other readers and is eventually made into a hit Netflix series starring Tom Glynn-Carney??? Just a thought 🥹🥰

[1whore1gang]

it’s the little things 🤍

Hi guys!! This is considered part 10B!

I’m hoping to get some questions answered within this chapter and the next and throw in a couple surprises hehe

Thank you all very dearly for your continued support after my hiatus. Love you all so so so much! :)

this is so short and i’m so sorry

Without further ado:

Warnings: Cussing, Mentions of violence, some sexual mentions but no smut

Taglist: @gaymistakeboi @batw3nch @thedevillovesflowers @almightywdm @ghostslittlegf @sketchyfandomgirl @under-the-dirt @clear-your-mind-and-dream @darkangel4121 @vreselia @llemessii @stargaliz @rockcollector3000 @nottrosaxx @azu21 @kaoyamamegami @vicktorfan @ghost-is-my-bbg @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore @salsasvault @itr-00

“Sure, why not?” You lazily wave your hand as you move aside to let her in. There’s nothing she can say to make your situation any worse anyways. You don’t sleep, you don’t eat and you’re in a constant state of disrepair. Anything that comes out of her mouth couldn’t possibly hurt you when you’re so numb.

She stands awkwardly fiddling with her fingers, nervous. “I just wanted to talk to you, but first, are you okay?”

“I’m here.” You shrug. “What did you wanna talk about?” You slink onto your bed, putting your elbows on your knees.

Tia takes in a big breath before letting it out all in one gust. “I know what you saw, and I know what you must be thinking. If I was in your shoes, I’d probably so furious I’d cut the man’s balls off.” She chuckles softly, “But making you wait this long for an explanation, let alone leaving you without one in the first place is simply cruel on my part and I cannot apologize enough.”

You don’t say anything, whatever explanation she’s trying to offer you, you don’t want it. Nothing can let what happened between her and Price be a write off.

“When I was hired, I kept in contact with John most of the time, and so when a problem arose, I had kind of a lapse of judgement. He was the only person I could think of that would help me.” You raise an eyebrow at this.

“Are you really trying to justify your affair with Price just because of a momentary lapse of judgement?” Your voice, albeit it quiet was cold with venom. “You’re kidding me right? If this is all you’re here for then you’re more than welcome to leave.” You go to stand but her hands shoot out in front of her.”

“Affair?! No! Wait! Just- please let me finish.” When you don’t respond, she takes it as permission. “Did John ever tell you how he found me?”

“No. I guess he never did.” The realization hits you like a brick. “Why?”

“He got me as a recommendation from Commander Frederick in Infantry. I’m his full time nanny in the summers. Therefore, I knew the 141 and who John and you were.” Your eyes widened as you sat up a bit straighter. “So when the job came up, I figured it was a good chance to ask John for some help. Boy, help.” She separated the last two words, as if she was almost ashamed.

“Boy help?” You quizzed her.

“Yeah, there’s a guy on this squad that I’ve always admired and I thought John would be able to help me with figuring out how to talk to him. I just never actually told him who the guy was. I figured he’d never let one of his men be distracted by a relationship.” She smiled a bit.

“So I saw you two almost kiss because he was ‘helping’ you learn how to talk to a guy?” You sounded almost sarcastic when you said it.

“It sounds stupid but you were 19 once, so maybe you’ll understand. I’ve never been in a relationship, never kissed anyone, let alone slept with anyone. The most I’ve got is holding hands with a boy on the playground in grade school. I needed all the advice I could get. I didn’t wanna look like a novice if I ever got a chance with this guy.”

“Who is this guy?” Forget everything else she said, you needed to know if the name she’d say was really someone on this team.

“I don’t know him really, I’ve just seen him about. I hear people call him Johnny?” You can’t help but let out a snort as she says his name.

“Mohawk? Staulky and tall? Scottish accent?” You giggled through the words, which was also the brightest you’ve felt in weeks.

“Yes!! You know him?!” Hope lights in her eyes.

“I do, but I’m sorry to say he’s not open to relationships anytime soon. He got burned by someone a while back and he’s still dealing with it.” Leaving out the part where he’s currently a baby, everything else you said was entirely true. You also left out the part where you were that someone.

“Oh, well that’s okay. At least I have an answer. Can you ever forgive me? I know I kinda blew up your entire thing with John.” She fiddles with her fingers again.

“I can forgive but I don’t know if I can forget. I’ve been to hell and back in the matter of 2 months and the one person I had left walked away from me.” You sigh and that crushing weight comes back again.

“Hey, don’t do that.” She squats down in front of you. “If there’s anything I know about John, it’s that you were the only thing he ever talked about. I know more about you than you would think. He loved you with his entire being. He didn’t walk away because he wanted to, it was because he thought he had to.” She smiles and grabs your hands. “I know my opinion means nothing, but I would talk to him. Just let him explain it to you.” You nod as she stands up.

“I’m really glad I got to talk this out though, it’s a weight lifted from my shoulders. I have to go catch a bus back home though, I hope things get better for you.” She smiles softly before heading out the door to your room.

What just happened? Price wasn’t having an affair? Tia wasn’t trying to seduce him?

You picked up your bag and didn’t even care about how you were dressed. Laswell had the boys, and you had a mission.

You were gonna get John back.

The car ride to his base was quiet, the first time in months your head has truly been calm. The radio was off and the sounds of the traffic around you was the only sound that reached your ears.

Your senses only came back to you when you pulled up to the gate and flashed your ID. You remembered the building Laswell told you John was staying in.

Pulling up, you froze. Both hands were still on the steering wheel, the AC still blowing cold air as it hit you. You’d been on auto pilot for so long, it was almost as if your body brought you here without your consent or control.

Reorientating yourself, you took in your surroundings and filled your lungs with air, taking the moment to regain your control. Then, you shut the car door, walked into the building and found John’s room.

You said a silent prayer that Laswell told you the right one as you knocked. Footsteps sounded on the other side after a minute, and when the door finally opened, there he was.

“Y/N?” You felt tears building behind your eyes, but you pushed them back as you stared at the man you loved. The man that you had so little trust in, that you’d assumed he had an affair with a 19 year old. John, the man who had shown you so much undying love in recent months, was right within your reach. “Are you okay?”

“We need to talk.”

“Come on in.”

————

After hours spent explaining what happened to you after he left the mission site, your talk with Tia and where you’ve been mentally, tears were streaming down your face. It felt good to finally let it all out to John, to clear the air after so much miscommunication.

“Why didn’t you talk to me sooner?” He reached over to grab your hand, giving it a squeeze. “I would’ve explained everything. I’m so sorry you’ve been going through this alone. I should’ve come to you instead of running away from the problem.”

You took a deep breath, steadying your voice. “I didn’t know at the time. My brain never let me think of that as a solution. I was grappling from Snyder did, what I saw with you and Tia, Soap being in the hospital-“ A shuddering breath left you as you continued. “I was so in over my head that my judgement was fogged. I felt so alone. Simon was the only one who halfway understood what I was going through.” You laughed softly, “If you count grunting and sleeping on my chest as understanding.” You shook your head as tears fell harder.

John closed his eyes as he sighed. “I’m stuck here for a few more months until I can request a transfer back. How about you let me take one of them. I can take Gaz, split the load? I talked to Laswell about it, it was her idea.”

Your eyes shot up to him. “Really? You’d do that?”

“Are you serious? We’ve been in this together from the start. I’ve left you drowning for months, it’s about time I start helping again. With limited room here, I can only help so much though.” Looking around, you cringed at how truly small the room was. It made you thankful for your suite back at the compound.

“I can have Laswell bring Gaz tomorrow morning. I have some paperwork that needs to be filed. Laswell wants me to sign a few things and give a full written report on the deployment start to finish.” John nodded.

“That’s fine, I’ll call her later this afternoon. Are you going to be okay driving back? I can follow you there?”

“It’s okay. I could use the alone time actually.” You smiled to reassure him.

He squeezed your hand again to return the sentiment. “Don’t ever be afraid to call. I know it’ll take some time for us to return to what we had, but I’m hoping we can start with baby steps.” You tried to hide your smile at that.

“No pun intended?” You laughed as he shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’m happy to see you smile.” John brought you in for a hug. “I’m serious though Y/N. I want you to ask for my help if you need it.”

“I will John. Thank you.” You backed up a little, looking at him. “I’m willing to take small steps towards healing us.”

“We’ll do it together. I’ve got to go do firewatch. I wish you could stay longer.” John ran his hand down your arm. “Please get back safely.”

“I will. I’ll let Laswell know you’ll be calling her about Gaz.” With that, you both bid your goodbyes.

Driving back to the compound was quieter than the drive to John. Something in you felt off, like something was wrong.

Your internal instincts were churning in your gut, but you couldn’t put your finger on it, so you brushed it off as left over adrenaline from working up the nerve to talk to John.

Arriving back at the compound, Laswell was nowhere to be found. All that was left of her was a note taped to your door saying ‘Left to run Gaz to Price early. The other two are down for a nap. They’ve only been alone 10 minutes by the time you arrive back.’

You go to open the door, but hear a crash like someone knocked over furniture. You reach for your concealed weapon in your boot, ready to kill whoever is in there with Soap and Simon. Quietly and slowly, you opened the door, getting into the mindset that you need to clear this room.

Looking around, you see Simon asleep in the playpen, which meant whoever this asshole was had Soap. “Whoever you are, you better come out and surrender that baby back or you’ll be dead on sight.” You called out into the room with authority.

“Y/N? Is that you?” You almost dropped your gun at the sound.

“Come out with your hands up!” Your voice was shaky as it came out. You kept telling yourself your mind was playing tricks on you.

“Please tell me what’s happening?” Your gun fell out of your hands and onto your mattress, luckily somehow not going off.

“You’re not real.” You shook your head, running to grab Simon and get the hell out of there.

“Out of everything going on, I’m- Y/N…what happened to you?” You felt like you were gonna be sick. “You look like you’ve been through hell.” The figure stepped closer, and as a hand came to rest on your face, you finally let their name slip out of your mouth.

“Johnny?”

[feketeribizli]

no one cares but i got excited about it so heres the grid for kendalls time loop bubble

[bunnieswithknives]

sorry if idk this but what do you think about Wordgirl now in 2024 do you still like it do you still want to make art or talk about it or are you just done with all of it forever and plus i seen that you haven't made art of it since 2022 so you just done with all of it oh yeah and what about The Magnus Archives + Wordgirl ao3 fic too like is that just going to be and i know that your working on 2 au's now just wanting to know that's all

My interests tend to come in intense bursts and then fade. Unless something like, big happens like it gets a reboot its unlikely I'll be coming back to it anytime soon. As for the fic I don't have any current plans to finish it unfortunately.

[prismbearer]

Idk why there's disbelief over Mark S/Helly in terms of motivation. Helly is just as capable of cruelty and selfishness as Helena. They are at the core of it, the same person with different memories/experiences. They can be two perspectives worthy of indulging their own dreams and desires and also be the same person. Narratively here especially, this isn't about morality, it's about human nature.

Helly was never cruel, sure, of course. Helly felt like she was the same as the other people in MDR. But Helly has something right now that she never even achieved as Helena. Someone who loves her. Someone who is choosing her. Helly is Winning over Helena here.

Jame Eagen wanders down just to be a freak and reinforces the reality of it. Helly is "More" than Helena, hasn't been worn down by the weight of experience and the world (and their cult and corporate bullshit). She still has, in some way, the innocence of youth and lack of experience with the world. She doesn't have the same fears and burdens or triggers as Helena in her conscious experience. She still has the ability to express her passions and outrage and defend herself. And to love and not feel sorry for it.

Severance gave Helena a chance to exist without the learned perspectives and burdens of the Eagens and she is able to be free with herself and her passions and desires-- whereas Helena was likely drained of any dreams for potential beyond a strictly guided future decades ago.

Of course Helly is feeling a rush of joy and satisfaction over Mark loving her. Mark choosing her. She tried to do the "right thing" by being logical with Mark. "I'm her." Even outside of Lumon, if they bring it all down, there's no hope for an Eagen and an ex-severed employee in reality. In the Real World they will never be together. Mark couldn't love Helena, how could anyone love an Eagen? (Poor Helly really with like, the enemy is within etc, but that's kinda the situation framed by Lumon for everyone by setting the stage with your Innie isn't human kinda rhetoric.) (This was also reinforced by Helena trying to get close to Mark to see if he still had feelings or chemistry with her and finding out they were not going to work outside Lumon.)

What if the equator is a building that could be a continent? Can be their whole world? They're choosing to live Now. Together in the present despite knowing that with their half lives, they could be brought to an end at any moment. It's very willful young love of them. And why wouldn't it be? This is their First Love. They haven't even been "alive" that long or have any memory of romance beyond their current infatuation. They don't know the world or it's places, and maybe that's okay, maybe they can exist in this space so long as they have love and the others.

It's completely human for Helly to accept Mark choosing her. To run to him just to see him for maybe the last time. It's human for Mark S to run to Helly. It's human for poor Gemma, who doesn't even know her fucking husband is severed, to be pounding on the door.

But this is their Final Day to Mark and Helly. Maybe the very end of their world. It's Judgement Day. Of course they'd have them holding hands and running back to the unknown to face the end together. To die together.

There is also zero fucking chance Mark Scout would risk his life and brain continuing reintegration once his wife is back. Mark Scout is going to choose his wife. Mark is choosing Love on both sides here.

All of it is reasonable.

[panharmonium]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, from the top:

1. the girl with the crush

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. the greater good

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

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

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

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

Anyway. Back to a more measured response.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. she only wants to save you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. the shadow of my family

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

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

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

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

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

[s-ccaam-era-crepe]

im so infinitely stressed rn i need to get off here

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Ngl it's weird finishing the Knuckles tv show and going to tumblr about it only for people (even who I consider bigger name fans) who also watched the entire show to claim that it "confirmed Knuckles Wachowski"

Like

I'm sorry

Did you somehow miss the part in the last episode where Knuckles had a whole montage of hanging with the Whipple family and Wade and saying "home" or something?

[buildarocketboys]

Man nothing like talking to other writers to make you feel like you're not a proper writer

[sp4ceboo]

rant but im a bit scared im going to get attacked

[icewindandboringhorror]

I'm so heavily anti-advertising that all pitches sound goofy silly to me/I can never take them seriously, so I have no idea how I'll manage to to advertise my game even if I do finally finish it soon-ish lol...

[nabaath-areng]

I've struggled so much with english these past few days and it's so annoying and embarrassing, and what's even more embarrassing is that I'm embarrassed at all in the first place!!! Everytime I make a rushed error with my unmedicated brain, or swap around with word order, or struggle to pronounce things or outright just fail to recall even basic words entirely I get so ashamed and stressed out.

And I hate being told things such as "you're better than some native speakers" because I know that isn't true! And I wish it could just be fine that I'm not! Sure, I've improved immensely ever since I actually tried to learn it properly 10 years ago, but it was such a bumpy and embarrassing road that it's practically a mercy for my self confidence that I was psychotic for a majority of the time, what with all the things I've forgotten or outright never memorized in the first place as a result lmao.

Everytime I have to edit captions and such after hitting 'Post' I always feel this overwhelming sense of dread that people will just pour in to nag and to correct me even over the smallest things, all without anything good to say. Which sucks, cause so many times where I've had people be condescending or outright degrading, the errors in question didn't even impede on the clarity of what I was saying. Just stupid, unimportant things like using 'has'/'have' wrong, using 'were' two times in a sentence, putting words in the wrong order in a sentence etc.

It's been years now since that was a thing that happened regularly, but that fear is apparently still so deeply imprinted that, even now, I can't read what I'm writing right here and now without this looming fear about how it will serve to make native speakers perceive me as stupid and unintelligent or outright infantilize me. Even though I know that's more than likely irrational of me to feel now. I seriously need to figure out how to overcome this mental roadblock, or at least not let it get to me like this. It's rarer these days, but I still feel it too strongly for my liking whenever my reservations do kick in.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

on that note had also been thinking about the hilarious classic maneuver of taking things i go "smh always doing that weird/wrong" & instead putting it in the context of like oh i dunno my life experiences. like going "smh once again in one millisecond i noticed something was about to fall & just sort of Tensed instead of instantly going to catch it & in the next milliseconds hash out like 'oh but could i catch it. oh but now it's in progress am i too late' etc" but like well hang on. first of all the Tense Up / Brace For Impact approach can have its strengths too. second of all like why just kick myself when Of Course the vastly more frequent & relevant experiences of having to stifle reactions & tense up to Brace For Impact / Weather The Situation means that's the standard approach. sure tends to be the case that like "okay test your reflex time :)" type things when i Know It's Coming, i.e. preemptively Tense Up, i turn out quite slow. throwback to a true classic [my roommate that said my cat was performative while their cat did things out of true emotion] at my doctor's appointment at like age thirteen when the ol Knee Bonk Reflex Test would make me Tense/Seize That Knee Up and Then kick. and then afterwards my "big fan of unprompted criticisms / declarations about your internal experiences or true intentions" mom was like you were faking those reflexes. i'm like well i wasn't. she was like yes you were. consider the camera jimmed

secondly i was also thinking like, always been the case that when Talking, often even if in writing format, i can't really avoid mirroring the characteristics of the other person's Style / Patterns lol. was thinking about it in my Relative ease of adopting pronunciations for different language's phonemes when it's like, i guess i do have experience in Doing Voices not b/c i really often Did Voices (sometimes lol, as like, direct quotes or whatever. echoing....) but b/c like i'll just be picking up all kinds of mannerisms / tendencies / ways of speaking, including accents slightly (my default accent being disney channel) not b/c i'm messing with anyone or trying to do anything, in fact trying Not to do this is generally unsuccessfully & This Is What Happens Naturally & always has & it's like yknow what i think it might have to do with the fact that i don't think Talking in general is oh so "natural" for me / a matter of "just being myself" (things virtually never are lol) like. i think that time i had that friend in second grade where i'm like ummm i'm not sure we spoke the same language b/c i'm not sure we spoke hardly ever? but we had fun & played & amused ourselves etc til the teacher as usual went Biggest Time Sicko Mode on our "not paying attention" like nobody else's got & then didn't give a fuck abt "intervening" again when we didn't feel like we were Allowed(tm) to interact at all. & like i'm pretty sure i'd be "supposed" to feel like omg we don't talk (almost) at all?? that's SO weirrrd i remember that soooo welllll

and when i Do talk most "naturally" / "just being myself" it's all at once, wordy, and Theatrical, and even then. i did it some the other day and was Sweating, literally, less so figuratively but it does still feel demanding, and of course even when it doesn't Feel thusly, doing a Lot a lot of verbalizing can really still be draining to Taxing. and i've noticed better like yeah sometimes i'm markedly struggling to speak when i'm already extra wearied. and another thing i put into context better was like "when i'm being put tf through it why do i tend to cry through interactions. b/c i'm being a PUSSY????" like lol just on principle was like okay well who cares, i'm sure you, by which i mean i, have my reasons b/c so too would i think someone else does, like. and i remember like, i tend to Not "directly" cry of stress or sadness virtually ever. while i Do tend to be simply keeping that shit contained but Exactly When i have to try to speak? is when i happen to start crying. hmm. Hmmmm. talking Always this performance that i may often not be up for. similar to [personal visual style / Look / clothes] like my default is "basic outfit i'd want to wear every day" & my ideal is "i do not want to be perceived" & (this &) everything else is performance / drag to me, Would That that always be on my terms

another banger is my till oh so recently kicking myself like "aah [pathologization time] i'm sooo slow to be at ease / comfortable around people even when they're surely being nice, what a hassle for others" like well it can be viewed as a hassle for me but it's also like, wait, i end up having stayed uncomfortable around people who weren't being That nice by putting in That much [any effort from any Consideration] and often turn out like. ultimately not that Safe. and i look at "oh right yeah and also i sure Can be like instantly quite comfortable / at ease around people, including people i literally just met. so" &/or my not being at ease either is still way less of a deal than having to literally/figuratively sweat it while i'd feel so much more Okay avoiding detection much less interaction

[novelconcepts]

i don't make resolutions, but if i did

it would be to finish this fic

(and to be kind to myself for however long it takes to actually do so)

[seenthisepisode]

~~~