#mostly because such generalizations annoy me
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canisalbus · 2 days ago
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Wait, holdup. Are you telling me that modern AU Machete used to smoke? Can we have more information on this, please?
Although a cigarette between his fingers might fit his silhouette, I can't imagine Machete smoking. Isn't he a health and hygiene freak?
He started smoking as a sad and disillusioned teen, mostly because some of his mature and edgy friends smoked and he wanted to seem mature and edgy as well.
First and foremost it was a way to manage stress, it gave him an impression that he was at least somewhat in control of his nerves. He does have a lot of health/hygiene anxiety, but he tried to justify it to himself by claiming that since he's so diligent and careful about everything else, surely he can afford to have this one bad habit that he's already familiar with. He wasn't proud of it, he knew perfectly well how smoking was objectively harmful, but he's fairly skilled in keeping himself in denial about things he's unwilling to contemplate. Also he's an extremely routine oriented person and it really rustles his jimmies when his daily rituals and personal coping mechanisms are tampered with.
I think he finally managed to quit for good some time after getting together with Vasco. Mostly because he had to start thinking about himself and his life in a new light and it made him painfully self-conscious about the whole thing. He was worried about smelling off-putting, tired of not being able to keep up with him physically and just generally guilty and embarrassed about being potentially annoying and unpleasant to be around.
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anna-mellgren · 23 hours ago
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I have been asked about my different experiences living in different countries a lot so I will share my thoughts here.
America: I partially grew up in the USA so I never experienced a proper culture shock in the USA because I was so young when we lived there the first time.  I just noticed the differences from Sweden instead. Americans are so friendly so any homesickness was always cushioned by that. I just accepted America for what it was but it is obviously a lot more conservative & religious than Sweden. Americans can be super friendly but sometimes that friendliness can be a little superficial… swedes are more reserved but more loyal instead when you get to know them well. Female athletics is more developed in the USA which I liked. I had a good school experience and probably had a more chill time than most people had in high school.
France: I only lived in Paris for 6 months and I mostly hung out with international students who were studying french so I am not sure I can give a super accurate opinion of france. I got to know a few french people through a friend and they were similar to swedes in a way… they are very liberal, they ride their mopeds, they like soccer, they have a healthy aversion towards religion, they are not huge fans of loud people etc. Parisians are very cosmopolitan people and I got on really well with the ones I got to know.  I know parisians have a reputation for being rude and they are rude to tourists lol but honestly, the amount of tourists in Paris is insane. Even I, as a foreigner, could get annoyed with them at times. I liked to run by the Seine river and tourists would try to stop me mid-run in order to take their pictures? Why couldn’t you find another tourist to do that for you when I am clearly running? I think the french are similar to swedes with being reserved but very kind and loyal once you get to know them. I think being reserved can sometimes come off as being rude if you don’t understand the culture.
Ireland: I think I suffered a big culture shock in Ireland. Before then I had a slightly naive/american view that european countries are more similar than they actually are? I think Ireland has to be one of the most extrovert countries in Europe while Sweden is probably the most reserved… so that is a clear cultural difference. I used to think americans could be chatty & loud but some irish people are like americans on steroids. Sweden is one of the most atheist countries while Ireland is one of the most religious countries in Europe. Sweden is probably the most liberal and Ireland is one of the most ~historically~ conservative countries in Europe. Ireland has become a lot more liberal recently but I think Sweden is farther ahead on certain things… especially when it comes to sexism & behavior between the sexes.
Ireland had a certain lad culture when I was there which was honestly a bit unhinged. I know there are bad apples in Sweden but I don’t think their bad behaviour is accepted in Sweden as it is in Ireland.  I think the lad culture at university is exacerbated by a lot of people going to catholic girls & boys schools while growing up so they don’t interact with each other as much as they do in mixed schools in sweden & the USA. It was like they didn’t know how to behave towards each other? The emotional intelligence just wasn’t there at times. The banter sometimes went too far and became bullying in my opinion. The way guys talked about girls really got on my nerves too…not about me specifically but just girls in general. I remember there was a girl in my course who slept with a guy and the stuff I saw written on social media and what was said in real life really shocked me. My one irish friend said it was just “banter” and I would say no… it was stone-cold misogyny/sexism. I would then be labeled as “someone who didn’t understand banter” but Ireland legalized divorce & decriminalized marital rape in the 1990s (which is actually insane) so to be honest I don’t think they have the upper hand when it comes to defining misogyny? Their humor is based on slagging each other off which is fine but I sometimes think people took it too far... I prefer swedish humor which is more based on self deprecation & is a bit similar to british humor.  I think I was not willing to adjust and that caused me problems but I think the school culture as a whole was more toxic compared to where I had lived before. I think I got a bit unlucky with a few people to be brutally honest and I don’t think my experience resembles Ireland as a whole but the culture was a bit harsh. I remember girls rating each other on social media with bitchy comments on their friends' pictures by writing “6/10”… people who were friends with each other? None of us look like Adriana Lima but why put each other down? Or make someone feel mediocre? Some girls were seriously vain and judgemental & I missed the strong feminist sisterhood I felt in Sweden or the sisterhood I felt in sports in America. To be clear, many irish girls were genuinely nice & perfectly fine human beings but a few definitely gave off the vibe that I belonged with my fellow foreigners in the course. Every time I kissed a guy there would be random guys taking pictures of me and post it god knows where? Guys I didn’t even know? Just to gossip or slutshame me for kissing someone? They did this to everyone, not just me.
People in my course made facebook groups and wrote mean things about people who were not in the groups… just things like that. I came from a super laid-back enviornment with very opened-minded people so I had a hard time adjusting to this harsher, sometimes hostile, environment. I don’t think I was a specific target but I didn’t feel comfortable there. One day I was walking down the street and a passing car threw eggs at me?  I have pretty good eyesight so I saw the ex-girlfriend of a guy I knew in the car…I think I got hit because I had kissed him a few months before. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in Sweden. I lived in a smaller city and maybe I would've been happier in a more cosmopolitan place like Dublin. I think there are many great people in Ireland but I found the university culture to be very gossipy, mean, judgemental & cliquey. They all thought it was normal but it rubbed me the wrong way. Looking back I think some people were just immature and have probably changed a lot. To be fair, I never gave it a real shot because I was unhappy and struggling with autoimmune issues. Not all people were like this but when you find yourself in a place where you don’t know anyone and a few people treat you in a very bad way then it can have a big impact. I think people matured with the years and chilled out a bit to be fair but I never experienced it because I left. I have met many great irish people so in a way I just think I was unlucky and perhaps would’ve had a different experience if I stuck it out. Not all people were bad in my course either, the majority were perfectly fine people but I think initially the people who had lived in this city their entire life were unbothered with making friends or being friendly. I think they branched out later on. I think I had lived in a bubble before then and I had just never experienced anyone mean before? Which is probably a bit bizarre too, to be honest. My school experience before then was people being either nice to me or neutral… like I was just another human on planet earth.  In my honest opinion, I think some irish people are like Conor Mcgregor and truly embrace lad culture but there are also plenty of irish people who are salt of the earth and have the same aura as Cillian Murphy. From day one I never understood how anyone could fancy a huge twat like Conor Mcregor when there are men like Cillian Murphy, Francesco Totti & Henrik Lundqvist roaming the earth.... people need to get more cultured. I feel quite bad for the irish people who were embarrassed by Conor waiving the irish flag around the globe. I would even say the majority of irish people are like Cillian Murphy. I think Ireland has a unique culture, people are generally friendly despite my experience & the nature is beautiful. My mental health suffered that year and I moved home which was definitely the right decision for me. I should’ve been more social but I didn’t have the mental or physical strength with my anemia. I knew a norwegian girl in ireland who seemed to love everything about it and I always compared myself to her. I felt like a bit of a failure for feeling like I did until I met a danish girl who had a far worse experience than me in Ireland and it was a bit comforting to know I was not alone in how I felt. I think experiences are subjective & overall I learned a lot. I don’t dislike Ireland or irish people at all, to the contrary actually… I just didn’t have a great experience. In a way, I think moving home to Sweden was a long-time coming. I have irish family these days and will probably visit Ireland from time to time for the rest of my life & generally I do think it is a nice country. No place is perfect.
Argentina: I think south americans in general are very welcoming and warm people. However- Argentina, like many other South American countries, have problems with corruption & crime etc but people are very loving. You will hopefully be fine if you just take some extra precautions but I think you have to be very mindful as a woman and be careful. Don’t get into taxis alone. Watch your drink on nights out. Don’t drink too much and always be in full control. Never leave a friend behind. Just stuff like that. I came to Argentina with limited spanish & lived with an argentine host family. All of my argentine classmates spoke terrible english which was great for me because I was forced to learn spanish. I was put in a class and the girls in this class took me in as one of their own. They brought me everywhere and I was their swedish mascot who just tagged along everywhere lol. I was treated really well and still keep in touch with them today. They said I was less shy after 5 months but it was not until then that I could understand what they were saying lol. Argentine families sometimes have limited means but they truly taught me the value of making the most of what you are given and making the best of what you have. I volunteered with handicapped children during my time there and these kids would correct my spanish non-stop which was great. My Argentine friends were too lazy to correct my grammar lol. I went running with a blind 14-year-old boy who had developed an eye disease just years earlier and I think this volunteer work really put life in perspective for me. Overall I had a great time in Argentina and I hit the jackpot because I spent my exchange year in patagonia. I had the classic experience of falling in love, traveling, going to school & just being fully immersed in argentine culture. My entire high school class came to wave me goodbye at the airport when I flew back to the USA <3 I will always look back at that year as one of the best years of my life. I think being an exchange student in high school is very different compared to being an exchange student at university. You’re still so young when you’re in high school and people are not as independent yet. You really get to experience family life, school life & the youth culture when you go as an exchange student in high school. I later lived in Buenos Aires for 6 months and studied at university during my gap year after living in Paris. I had a great time in Buenos Aires but I think my high school experience was more unique. I loved Buenos Aires though & the girls in my course would invite me to BBQs etc and I had a great time.
These are my experiences of my adventures living abroad. I would urge everyone to travel because nothing makes you appreciate home quite like living abroad. Or perhaps you will find a new home if the home you grew up in made you unhappy.
one thing about me……..i am hyperaware of the Vibes
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tossawary · 13 hours ago
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Recent "Star Trek" reboot universes have really tried to sell me on three different romances for Spock with other TOS characters whom he did not have romantic relationships (at least not positive ones) with in TOS, which makes it particularly annoying when some fans try to squirm away from the idea of ST ever doing a future reboot or remake in which Spock/Kirk are explicitly queer.
Like, "But it's not in the original! They want to be faithful to the original!" really, REALLY does not pass the "I think you might just be discomforted by queerness and you should work on that, rather than making appeals to the authority of textual accuracy to avoid being called a homophobe or transphobe" check here. Because it's not as though these reboots care about perfect faithfulness on pretty much any other front. We'll accept that the costumes and special effects get updated to move with the times, we'll accept wildly different characterization choices that essentially give these characters new personalities, we'll accept new timelines that change the entire political map of the galaxy, but you as a fan draw the line at "What if this character was bisexual this time?" Really???
To be clear, I am not trying to dunk on Spock/Uhura, Spock/Chapel, or Spock/T'Pring here, I am merely trying to illustrate a frustrating double-standard. TOS Uhura does notably flirt with Spock several times! I see it! I remember TOS Chapel's feelings for Spock being one-sided, but I also don't think it's a bad thing to try to update TOS's more misogynistic writing choices regarding female characters. TOS T'Pring did... kind of try to kill Spock because she didn't want to marry him, but again, I don't necessarily think it's immediately a bad thing to try to explore her as a character and her betrothal to Spock. It's fine! It's fine by me to explore new takes in new AUs.
It's just that none of that evidence from TOS for those relationships holds much of a candle to whatever the fuck Kirk and Spock had going on to inspire The Premise. "Amok Time" is an Experience. There's only so many times that Kirk can say something like, "The cost [of abandoning Spock] would have been my soul," before you want to put your face in your hands. They are taking shiny pebbles from TOS and trying their very best to sell them to me as the basis for romantic relationships in reboots, sure, while they are standing in the shadow of Spirk Evidence Mountain (TOS).
(Yes, I have seen the recent "Unification" short film. Yes, I enjoyed it. No, I will not consider Spirk "officially canon" until all plausible deniability for the squirmy folks has been completely, explicitly destroyed by a HUMAN kiss onscreen.)
And okay, I must admit, at the moment, I don't actually want Spirk to eventually happen in "Strange New Worlds" now that they've finally met. I'm mostly indifferent to their Spock and Kirk actors, personally, and the writing for every canonical romantic relationship in both SNW and "Discovery" so far has gotten a solid "well, they certainly are standing next to each other" from me. (Yes, even the gay marriage in "Discovery". I just haven't been into it so far.) I think the writers would fumble Spirk if they tried it in this specific show and then annoying fans would use the fumble as "evidence" never to try to do Spirk or queer retakes on other TOS characters ever again, or as "proof" against other queer ST in other shows characters generally.
I'm mostly just mildly annoyed that I have to keep watching Spock specifically, famously read by many people as a queer man, be straight and messy about it, especially when there has not really been a significant queer relationship onscreen in SNW yet, unless you count M'Benga's daughter Rukiya and her glow cloud friend named Debra, which I personally don't, honestly. I'd like an onscreen relationship with a main character with zero plausible deniability. There's definitely nothing yet that comes remotely close to the screentime that Spock/Chapel, Spock/T'Pring, and Kirk/La'an have all been given so far, unfortunately. (Sulu is not here yet. Scotty has just shown up. If Scotty gets to make out with a guy next season, or Uhura or Ortegas gets to make out with a lady, without it being part of some god-like-being's fantasy world, then I may be satisfied.) (Also, yes, I am aware of queer characters and relationships in other "Star Trek" shows, thanks. I very much enjoyed Mariner having her incredibly silly breakup with her girlfriend in "Lower Decks".)
"Star Trek" is one of those properties where some people's double-standards regarding romantic interpretations of the original series really jump out. "They can't do Kirk/Spock because they want to be faithful to the original!" Get real.
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yelenasdiary · 23 hours ago
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I usually stay up late (right now is 3 am and I still have things to do) programming and doing stuff.
I thought about this fic idea and you popped into my mind.
How about we mostly work in IT for SHIELD/the avengers so we mostly stay with computers or we are in workshops. The thing is we are with yelena and in general we get along with everyone. Lately yelena has noticed that we are more tired than usual, because us being a workaholic person can’t just stop working. One night yelena finds us sleeping on our computer while we were programming/hacking, she tries to gets us to sleep and we try to deny it. Next day yelena has some words with nick fury.
This is probably bad written but right now my brain is not braining sorry
Workaholic
Pairing: Yelena Belova x GN! Reader
Summary: You’re a workaholic that doesn’t realise how drained you can get. 
Fluff & Tiny Angst
Warnings: None, if there is any, please let me know. | 1.7K
Translations: Detka (baby)
AC: Thank you for sending this! I know it has taken me FOREVER & I do apologise for that. I hope you enjoy this! x
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She watched in silence every morning when you would drag yourself out of bed to the kitchen for breakfast before leaving for work and she would watch again when you would finally come home late at night, hair slightly a mess before you’d take a shower and crash almost instantly the minute you sat down on the bed. She didn’t know what was going on at work, but she knew it was draining any energy you had left. 
Anytime she would meet you for lunch or when she would see you for the short period of time before and after work, you were just tired. Conversations were flat and short; you began to work later than usual which led to you going to work earlier than normal.
At first, Yelena just assumed it was something really important that Nick Fury, your boss, needed you to get done but when she found you one night, asleep at your desk, it raised more concern and worry for you.
Yelena sighed lightly to herself as she leant against the doorframe of your office, her brows frowning with concern at the sight of you slumped over your desk, the blue light from the monitors didn’t seem to wake you, your fingers still lightly pressed on the last letters you had pressed before resting your head. Lines of coding ran across the multiple screen system surrounding you, these were things she knew she would never truly understand how they worked. 
“Detka” she said softly, attempting to wake you. You stirred slightly, giving her a light groan but no real signs of opening your tired eyes. “Let me take you home so you can get some real sleep” you heard her Russian accent ever so softly speak. Unintentionally, you groaned once more, this time your eyes flickering open, the brightness of your screen making them sting. 
“I..I’m fine” you mumbled, sitting up straight, trying to rub the sleep from your eyes.
“Detka, you can’t keep doing this. What is so important to Fury that has you falling asleep at your desk?” Yelena asked, her brows frowned with worry. 
“I just need like 5 more minutes, I promise” you replied in your groggy state.
“More like another 5 hours” Your girlfriend muttered before she reached for your computer mouse before you could even string together where things were. “I’m not letting you make yourself sick for whatever this is” Yelena added, her voice low but firm, “you need sleep. No more hacking for tonight” she said as you watched the little arrow on your screen close down your opened tabs. 
“Yelena!” You spat, “I can’t! I have too much do to and you just shut it down?!” You added, annoyed by your girlfriends actions as you looked up at her. Yelena shook her head, “if you write another line of coding, you’re going to become the damn coding!” 
“You don’t get it, I need to get this done!” You frowned. 
“And you get do it tomorrow” Your girlfriend said, crossing her arms over her chest. Your eyes dropped slightly, there was no fighting her one this, not even you felt your eyes grow heavy once more. 
“Fine” you sighed, tiredly, “just let me close everything down properly before we go home” you added. 
----
The next morning, you woke up in a panic. The sun light creeping in through the crack of the curtains, you reached for your phone to find out your alarm had been switched off. You sighed before throwing your head back down on the pillow before covering your face with both of your hands. 
Yelena was giving her daggers a sharpen when you asked her why she had turned your alarm off. 
“Because, detka, you needed a real sleep” she said, not batting and eye at you. 
“Yelena, you made me late for work! I don’t even know what to tell Nick when I get there” you argued. 
“I already told him you’d be running late today” Your loving girlfriend replied, looking up at you, “I’m worried about you” she added. One look into her green eyes and you were reminded of the worried look she had on her face late last night when she found you at your desk, asleep. 
“You’re working yourself too hard, you come home and have a re-heated meal then shower and go to bed for a few short hours. Natasha and Wanda both said that you don’t even leave the compound for lunch, not even to get some fresh air. You are consistently at that desk working until early hours of the morning” Yelena said in a soft but firm tone. 
“Baby, it’s my job” you said, leaning against the doorframe. 
“Yes, it is but your job isn’t 16 hours a day” 
Your eyes dropped to your feet, “I know, I just….i just want to make sure I’m doing the best I can for Fury. All the coding and hacking I do, it’s not easy. It’s time consuming and I need ot be on top of my game all the time” you explained in hopes it would help Yelena understand. 
“You’re not going to be on top of your game if you’re falling asleep at your desk and barely function outside of work. Detka, I hate to say it, but you’re a workaholic” Yelena replied. You cocked a brow at the blonde, “I am not” you said, making Yelena chuckle. 
“You are detka, a hard, smart working workaholic” she teased, causing you to playful roll your eyes. “Think whatever you want Lena, I’m going to go get ready for work”
“I’m taking you today” Yelena said just before you pushed yourself off the doorframe, “and I’m picking you up at 5pm” she added. 
“Lena, you can trust me to come home at the end of my shift today” 
“I know, but Nat is dragging me in to help her with some training thing so why not carpool?” She replied with a rather proud grin on her lips. You playfully shook your head at her before making your way to the bathroom to get ready for work. 
----
You and Yelena walked into the compound, hand in hand before Yelena placed a soft kiss on your cheek and wished you a good day as you both parted ways, she waited until you were inside the elevator before she turned on her heels and headed towards Nick’s office. 
Nick, busy as usual was sitting at his desk with a stack of paperwork beside him. His focus so deep on the document in front of him he didn’t even hear the knock on his door. 
“Fury” Yelena said lightly, her accent coming in thick. 
Nick looked up before leaning back in his chair, “Belova” he acknowledged with a raised eyebrow. 
“I need to talk to you, it’s important” Yelena began, “it’s about Y/n” she added. Fury nodded, “come on, take a seat” he replied. Yelena closed the large wooden door behind her before she took a head on the typical office style chair. “What can I help you with?” The head of S.H.I.E.L.D asked. 
“They’re pushing themselves too hard for whatever it is you have them working on. This is shield, right? Not some tech startup company. They need a break” Yelena said firmly. 
“Right” Nick nodded, “and you think that I’ve been keeping them prisoner to their desk?” He added as he stood up from behind his desk and wandered over to Yelena, taking a the empty chair next to her, “Y/n is one of my hardest working IT employees, they are dedicated to their job, I admire it, I will all my IT employees would put in half the effort Y/n does. This job isn’t easy, there isn’t a real shift time start or end. We may need them at 4am if a mission goes south and they know that” he explains. 
“But they are here early every day, and they leave later than anybody else. You can’t tell me that every mission over the last month has gone to shit” Yelena argued.
“No, but, like I said they are dedicated to their job. Look, I’ll have a look at the clock ins and outs. If Y/n is doing too much unneeded overtime, I will have a word to them but if they aren’t, I’m not going to get in the way of somebody who has a drive to work” 
Yelena sighed lightly, “have you even seen them lately? They are exhausted, last night when they didn’t come home, I came here and found them asleep! At their desk! I’m not asking you to check their clock ins and outs, I am asking you to give them the break they deserve and need” Yelena said firmly, not backing down. “You can go a few days without them here. A few days is worth it then not having them at all” she added. 
Fury remained silent for a moment, contemplating Yelena’s request. He knew Yelena was right; losing a little of something is better than not having it at all. “Okay” he said, finally breaking the silence, “I will speak to them on their lunch break” he added. 
“Thank you” Yelena said, giving him a polite nod. 
“You’re just like your sister, stubborn” Nick muttered with a cocked brow. 
“I am when I need to be” Yelena teasingly grinned. 
----
When 5pm came, you didn’t want to keep Yelena waiting, you shut down your computer and made sure your desk was tidy for tomorrow morning before you wandered the main hall of the compound. You smiled softly when you locked eyes on her leaning against her blue pick-up truck talking to Natasha, Bucky and Sam. 
“What’s the gossip today guys?” You asked with a light chuckle. 
Natasha was the first to turn and smile at you, “hold on a moment, are you unwell?” She asked, jokingly. 
“Ha, Ha, very funny” you replied, playfully rolling your eyes as you stood next to Yelena, leaning your head on her shoulder. “Somebody couldn’t help themselves and spoke to Fury today” you added. 
“Ohhh! Yelena went to the big dogs!” Sam laughed. 
“She did and honestly, thank you” you said, looking up at Yelena. 
“You’re welcome” she smiled softly.
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multifandom-nerds-blog · 2 days ago
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Collection of Soren HCs/concepts/ideas mostly based on him having dark magic used on him in a, well, very permanent way (twice!). Cause I just feel like having dark magic inside of you like that must have some side effects.
I have more general HCs about Soren in another draft that I will post later.
He's constantly running cold. Like super cold, it wouldn't be healthy for anyone else but it's "just" a side effect from having dark magic inside him. This man is a block of ice. Most people don't notice though, even with how much physical affection he likes to show, because he walks around with full armor most of the time annyway, with only his head and fingers being uncovered. So no one really knows his body temperaturis so low. Especially since it doesn't physically affect him, it's just that it would definitely raise some questions if someone would take his temperature.
-> Claudia healing him from the full body paralysis made it more extreme. The low body temperature technically still doesn't affect him, but it definitely weirded him out (still does) when he noticed it after all the stress from the first arc wore off. He was used to it before, where he could still believably tell people he's just running cold, probably thought so himself, now his skin was really freezing cold. So he started wearing his fingerless gloves too so people don't freak out at his cold hands. (and pjs under his armor to maybe get the temperature up with some extra layers, because I'm looking at his new armor and he's wearing so many layers already wtf.)
-> The way he did notice was because someone did freak out. Ezran probably tried to drag him somewhere, not that he had to since Soren probably kept guard 24/7 of Ezran the first few weeks after the stormspire. (With the army and crownguard being still messed up and the whole political mess that first few few weeks must have been.) Anyhow, Ezran tried to drag Soren, probably to the kitchen, by taking his hands only to freak out by the icecubes his hands were. The next day Soren started wearing his gloves.
His sense of temperatures is also slightly messed up sometimes. Eats or drinks stuff often that is still way to hot and burns his mouth before noticing, while also taking the coldest showers known to mankind (he just says cold showers are healthy)
Unless he does his skin/hair routine obviously. He's high maintanence, cause lavender oils y'know.
It is extremly hard for him to get sick/catch a cold. This is a combination of having magical lungs basically/probably having had any possible bad sickness as a child you can get (me lmao)/and his general healthy lifestyle. When he does catch something it's mostly just like an annoying allergy. Or a stomach bug, cause those are nasty and get to everyone.
You can actually see traces of the dark magic on his body. On his chest and along his spine on the back, in the way of purple lines, patterns maybe. But their not always visible on first glance. It kinda depends on his physical and mental state on how visible they get. Aside from him only Viren and Claudia know about those, since he never really had a reason to go to people and be like "Hey guys I've got purple traces of dark magic on my body". (Cough Corvus lerans about it at some point cough)
Soren is obviously a bit self conscious about this, since he never really liked dark magic to begin with. But those feelings became worse after the stormspire battle and everything, with Claudia then suddenly gone too.
He usually avoids doctors too, which he doesn't need most of the time luckily, but everyone in Katolis army needs to get a mandatory checkup every 6 months. (Set in place by Sarai at one point) He has very allaborate schemes to get out of those, and succeded every single time so far. Being the head of the crownguard probably helps with it.
Also, sometimes his sense of touch in his lower body is a bit toned down (? I don't know the right word, in either language anymore). Though this is mostly a psychosomatic. Healed with magic or not, such an injury leaves it's marks. (Me? Giving my favs some of my chronical pain to cope? Never.)
He probably smells weird to dragons or other magical creatures with a high sense of smell. Not reeking like a dark mage, but it's physically still in him so it's definitely noticable. Some non-sapient wild magical creatures might avoid him because of it.
-> Zubeia especially noticed this after the timeskip, because they didn't exactly interact 1 to 1 before in S3, but kept it to herself. She likes Soren and clocked that he already has enough issues. She isn't gonna give him one more thing to be self conscious about. To Zym it's just kinda how Soren smells. Pyrrah still finds it a bit uncomfortable at times, but learned to ignore it.
Some more general Soren HCs/ideas are on their way.
Look at this doofus.
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fruvittea · 20 hours ago
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between the lines
💌﹒→﹒ joshua x reader (college au) ﹒ ﹒ ♪
— genre: romance, slice of life, friends to lovers
— word count: 1.2k
— warnings? none
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Joshua Hong had always been the epitome of calm. Even amid the chaos of college, he carried himself like a walking sonnet, effortlessly poetic and endlessly kind. He was the kind of guy professors remembered by name and group project partners fought over because they knew he would carry the team without complaint.
And for some inexplicable reason, he had chosen you as his best friend.
“Let me guess,” he said, sliding into the library seat across from you. His voice was soft and teasing, the kind of tone that made people lean in just to hear him better. “You haven’t started the paper yet.”
You shot him a mock glare, spinning your pen between your fingers. “I don’t need your judgment right now, Hong. I need inspiration.”
His smile grew, dimple flashing as he opened his laptop. “Lucky for you, I’m feeling generous today.”
This was how most of your study sessions went—Joshua helping you focus while you tried (and usually failed) to ignore the way his sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms or how his glasses made him look even more unfairly attractive. He had been your friend since freshman year, when a misplaced coffee cup and a chance meeting in a lecture hall had spiraled into late-night conversations, shared playlists, and countless study sessions.
“You’re staring.”
You blinked, cheeks heating. “What? No, I wasn’t.”
Joshua smirked, leaning back in his chair. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
You scoffed and flipped a page in your notebook to look busy. It wasn’t your fault that he had that annoying habit of running a hand through his hair every time he thought too hard about something. Or that he smiled like he was sharing some secret joke with you, even when he wasn’t saying a word.
“Anyway,” you said, desperate to change the subject. “What’s this ‘generous’ inspiration you’re offering?”
“Depends,” he said, propping his chin on his hand and tilting his head, eyes sparkling in that maddening way of his. “What’s it worth to you?”
You rolled your eyes. “Not much, considering you’re supposed to be my friend. Generosity isn’t supposed to come with a price tag.”
Joshua laughed, a quiet, warm sound that you felt somewhere in your chest. “Fine, fine. How about this? If I help you finish your outline, you buy me coffee after. Deal?”
It was a simple enough offer, but the way his gaze lingered on you, half-hopeful, half-playful, made your stomach flip. You couldn’t tell if he was teasing like usual or if there was something more in the way his smile softened when you finally nodded.
“Deal,” you said, shaking off the strange warmth spreading through you. He was just Joshua. Your best friend. That was all.
The outline took another two hours, mostly because Joshua kept finding ways to distract you.
“You know, you really should stop biting your pen like that,” he said at one point, his tone oddly low.
You looked up, startled. “Why?”
“Just… you’ll ruin your teeth,” he said after a pause, glancing back at his screen. But his ears had turned pink, and you didn’t miss the way his fingers fidgeted with the edge of his notebook.
Later, when you grumbled about a particularly annoying paragraph, he leaned over, closer than necessary, his shoulder brushing yours as he pointed at your laptop.
“Try rephrasing it like this,” he murmured, his voice soft in your ear.
You froze, your thoughts scattering like leaves in the wind. His cologne—subtle and warm—was suddenly all you could focus on, and you had to force yourself to nod like a normal person.
“Right. Yeah. Good idea,” you mumbled, hastily typing.
By the time you finished, your brain felt like it had run a marathon. But Joshua seemed completely unfazed, closing his laptop with a satisfied smile.
“Coffee time,” he said, standing and stretching, his shirt riding up just enough to reveal a sliver of skin.
You looked away so fast you nearly gave yourself whiplash. “Fine. Let’s go.”
The coffee shop was crowded, a low hum of conversation filling the air as you and Joshua slid into a booth. You sipped your latte, trying not to think too hard about the fact that this felt suspiciously like a date.
“You’ve been quiet,” Joshua said, watching you over the rim of his cup.
“Just tired,” you lied, avoiding his gaze.
“Hm.” He didn’t look convinced.
The silence stretched, not uncomfortable but charged in a way you couldn’t quite place. You fiddled with your sleeve, trying to push down the fluttering in your chest.
“You’re terrible at hiding things,” he said suddenly, a small smile tugging at his lips.
You frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Joshua leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “It means I can tell when something’s on your mind. And lately, you’ve been acting… different.”
Your heart skipped. “Different how?”
“Like…” He hesitated, his eyes searching yours. “Like you’re trying to keep your distance from me.”
The words hit harder than they should have. “I’m not,” you said quickly, too quickly.
“Really?” His voice softened, and for a moment, his usual teasing tone was gone. “Because if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were avoiding me.”
You opened your mouth to argue, but the way he was looking at you—gentle, patient, like he was waiting for something—made the words catch in your throat.
“I’m not avoiding you,” you said finally, your voice quieter. “I just… I don’t know. You’ve been acting weird, too.”
“Weird how?”
“Like…” You hesitated, heat creeping up your neck. “Like you’re flirting with me or something.”
Joshua blinked, then laughed, a soft, breathless sound that made your stomach flip. “Maybe I am.”
Your head shot up, eyes wide. “What?”
“Maybe I’ve been flirting with you,” he said, his tone casual but his gaze steady. “And maybe I’ve been waiting for you to notice.”
The air between you felt electric, every sound in the coffee shop fading into the background. You searched his face for any sign that he was joking, but there was nothing but quiet sincerity in his eyes.
“You’re kidding,” you said weakly, though your heart was pounding.
“I’m not,” he said, leaning back with a soft smile. “But I get it if you don’t feel the same way.”
Your mind raced, torn between disbelief and the overwhelming urge to say something—anything—that would make him understand just how much you did feel the same way.
“Joshua, I…” You took a deep breath, forcing yourself to meet his gaze. “I thought you were just being nice. I didn’t think you…”
“Liked you?” he finished, his smile growing.
You nodded, your hands gripping your cup tightly.
“Well,” he said, leaning forward again, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “Now you know.”
And as his smile turned just a little shy, just a little hopeful, you felt something inside you shift, the weight of your doubt lifting like a curtain. Maybe he really had been flirting all along.
And maybe—just maybe—you’d been waiting for this moment just as much as he had.
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✴︎🪷𓈒͏ུུ̑̑. ཉ — by @fruvittea
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cripplecharacters · 3 hours ago
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do you or any of your followers have tips for writing a character with tinnitus? like his common experiences. he has cybernetics that help with it but they do fail at times. I've sorta drawn on my experiences with auditory processing issues/spd, but I'd really appreciate knowing what experiences the two disabilities have in common and their differences
Hi!
Tinnitus is a common symptom/side effect of apd and hearing loss. In those cases it is usually triggered by auditory overstimulation, or when moving from a loud area to a very quiet one.
Tinnitus can also occur in people without any hearing problems. This is also generally triggered by sudden silence, but can also be more random.
For me as a HoH person it is mainly triggered by silence and listening to other sounds (like music) can help it go away. It's very distracting and I can't do much else until it stops. If I'm in the middle of doing something and it starts I am startled and suddenly put my hands over my ears (which doesn't help!)
Mod Rock
Hi, I'm not deaf/HoH and my tinnitus is, as Rock said, mostly triggered by silence. I only get it in one ear (always the same one) and for me, it's almost always a very high-pitched, sometimes kinda buzzing sound. In my case it ramps up and when it does start I sometimes think that maybe it's an electronic device making the sound rather than realizing it's the tinnitus (even though I probably should be able to tell it apart by this point, but here we are).
My tinnitus has always been very distracting to me - it's really hard to continue whatever I was doing while it's going on (hard to ignore a loud "eeeee" or static noise playing on one side of your head). I tend to put on some music or even just Loudly Hum to tune it out because it's annoying. It just comes and goes, both rather quickly.
I hope this helps!
mod Sasza
Hello, I have constant tinnitus and sensory processing disorder though am not HoH or deaf. For me, I barely notice my tinnitus until it's silent or if something, such as a headache, causes it to get louder (or at least sound like it gets louder.) I've had it for over a decade so I'm very used to it. Mine mostly takes the form of a high-pitched ringing, similar to ringing ears after a very loud noise, and whenever it is noticeable it annoys me more than anything. Whenever I do notice it, I, similar to what Sasza said, tend to put on headphones and listen to something until I forget about the tinnitus.
If you're going with cybernetics that help his tinnitus, I would recommend using something that lessens his tinnitus if he's got constant tinnitus like I do. There's no real-life way to even temporarily fully stop tinnitus if he has ear damage or a similar issue, but there are things we can do or treatments we can get to make it fade into the background. A cybernetic that helps his tinnitus would be best if it's something that lowers it to easier levels to deal with, not something that entirely erases it. I do like the idea of the cybernetics not always working- sometimes the treatment doesn't work for whatever reason on a particular day and when that happens, we have to deal with it, so I like that this also happens with him.
As for how it interacts with my sensory processing disorder, it really doesn't unless it's being particularly loud for whatever reason. When that happens, because my brain pays equal attention to both the tinnitus and whatever someone is saying, I may have trouble understanding what someone is saying. It might also block out certain sounds, such as light footfalls of someone coming up behind me, but really it's a fifty-fifty chance. It could be either my tinnitus causing me to not register the sound or it could be my sensory processing disorder picking up a different sound and deciding it's more important than whoever is behind me. Most of the time, having the two just feels like having anxiety and attention hyperactive deficit disorder. Both things are happening and it causes certain challenges, but they're two different things that don't usually interact or, if they do, I can't really tell which one is contributing what so now I'm annoyed with both of them.
Mod Aaron
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superemeralds · 2 days ago
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i think about ur piece with shadow captioned “welcome to the promised land” ALOT… with that, i wondered what your thoughts are on the sonic movies (both the ones that came out and the new one thats coming) in regards to their portrayal of the police/military/GUN.
I’m personally really disappointed in whats been done so far (with Tom being a cop, like cmon man what. and with the goofy portrayal of the military, especially that old general guy in the second movie) and im really nervous about whats coming, with team sonic working WITH GUN (and now Tom and Maddie wearing military uniforms) in the trailers. I have a suspicion that Maria’s death will be an “accident”, like a very MCU style “sometimes the military makes mistakes…” bullshit. itd really suck to see this series become another piece of copaganda, especially since like. its so out of character, like sonic is unique in the way its been blatantly anti military (for the most part) in the games. it wasn’t revolutionary by any means but it is arguably a core part of the original story.
What are your thoughts? sorry for the long ask, I’m a big fan of your writing and thoughts on sonic (huge heart of a monster fan!). Hope youre having a good day!
big same. I've made the comic in question as a response to the first trailer for sonic 3 actually.
the trailer made me feel a LOT of emotions, mostly negative if im honest, and the only thing that I liked from it was the scene of shadow bursting from his tank thing and being sloppin wet that looked like he was standing in the rain. so i went and made a comic of shadow in the rain. and i made it as anti military and anti capitalism as i could.
becasue sonic 3's marketing, in my opinion, especially after the second trailer came out, is a perfect axample of everything wrong with the current western (mostly USA, but the USA influences the entire world so.) society. it exemplifies capitalism, militarism, consumerism, a lack of emotional depth and the infantalization as well as mliking (for a lack of better word; i mean how advertizements are usually heavily marketed at kids because parents will buy anyhting to shut up their crying annoying meat bags and therefore spend money on shit they dont want nor need) of children (that detective pikachu bit was so painful). and let's not forget the fatphobia. it was so painful to go back and watch the first trailer to freshen my memory for this reply oh god.
when sonic 2 came out i was really happy with the movie. i think sonic 2 is miles better than 1 in terms of characters and fun, most obviously because there's more of actual sonic characters in it now then the first. the first felt mostly like a pilot honestly. the second one had much more fantastical details and elements thatreally leaned into sonic's world. Or at least... the environment artists tried with it. I remember being OBSESSED with the fact tehre was a mural of perfect chaos in that labyrinth for like 1 second and theorized about what it could mean. while watching the movie i even speculated it was foreshadowing that perfect chaos was gonna be the secret final boss of the movie as that was only the halfway point of the runtime. having sobered from the hype i understand its a neat detail from the cg department that means absolutely nothing.
the worst thing is that the movie (sonic 3 now) itself might be like. a well made movie with good (enough) writing and good visuals and whatever. sonic might betray the military and go his own way bc here he's a little younger and he's learning (he didnt grow up w military so he might be blissfull yunaware bc hes only been fed propaganda through hollywood movies so far) and him meeting shadow and learning about his fate might change his mind. we don't know yet.
The marketing sometimes is detatched from the movie itself so it'll misrepresent things for the sake of "bait" to get ppl to spend money to watch it (the teenage kraken movie suffered from that bc it was fun imo i liked it). Or even just to get people to make viral reactions to get even MORE news of the movie out and attract more people. Especially when adapting a story that already exists I think it makes them reveal a LOT of the movie (I saw ppl complain they reveal the entire movie in the trailer, i think given the fact we already know all those key moments shown it's fine)
actually. does anyone know if the us army funded this movie? i know it does a lot of movies ever since iron man
idek where im going w this rn im just. eghh.... def not gonna see it in cinema ♥ my money goes towards literally anything else
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cal-daisies-and-briars · 2 days ago
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I'm straight up frothing in the mouth for these
🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲
🧜‍♂️🧜‍♂️🧜‍♂️🧜‍♂️🧜‍♂️
⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️
YAY! That makes me so happy.
36 for 🌲:
---
“That was more about you than me, so…”
“Don’t do this,” Eddie sighs. 
“Do what?” Buck demands. 
“This thing you do, where you only acknowledge other people’s problems, like your own feelings aren’t important,” Eddie says. 
Buck sighs. “Sometimes I make everything about me, sometimes I don’t make enough about me. Can’t win with you.”
Eddie scowls at him. “You’re deflecting.”
Another sigh. 
“Eddie, really. I’m okay. Is the hearing stuff a lot right now? Obviously, yeah. Am I crushed about Tommy? I mean… He already reacted like shit to my hearing loss, so… I don’t know. I think I’m mostly just pissed you were hurt.”
“I’m okay,” Eddie says. It’s a lie. He’s not okay. But that’s not exactly Tommy’s fault, is it? “I mean, I did that to him, right? If your research is right.”
Buck looks torn. 
“Look,” he exhales. “I don’t know how much agency Tommy had in what he did. But I know you had none, right?”
“I mean… I shouldn’t have let him in.”
Buck scoffs. “You should be able to open your door to a friend without worrying about that happening.”
“Except apparently not,” Eddie says. “Because apparently this is what I am.”
---
15 for 🧜‍♂️:
---
So Eddie tries to figure it out. 
“So you’re from Pennsylvania,” Eddie says, when they leave Maddie’s apartment. A fact he didn’t know until the two of them mentioned Hershey in conversation. 
“Yeah,” Buck nods. “We are.”
“Why did you leave?” Eddie asks. 
“Uh…” Buck trails off a little. “Just… Well, I just had to get out. Get away from my parents. Figure out who I am.”
Okay, yeah. All the pieces are fitting together pretty well. 
“That’s hard to do, if you don’t have the right support system,” Eddie nods. 
---
27 for ⚖️:
---
How horrible. To need this. 
“Yeah, this is just a random coupon,” Lawrence says when Buck finds himself back in reality.
“Oh, man. Sorry,” Buck says. “My bad. Guess I should’ve taken a closer look.”
Lawrence looks annoyed. 
“Guess there isn’t much reading involved in putting out fires,” he grumbles. 
Buck forces a smile, resisting the urge to make a comeback about how much time to read he will have once in jail. 
“Guess not,” he replies tightly. “Bye, Larry.”
“It’s Lawrence,” he grits back.
“Right. Right,” Buck shrugs. “See you around.”
Or on the news. Whichever. 
⚖️
Back in his apartment, Buck paces. He has a pretty significant dilemma on his hands. Beyond just the Nemesis thing as a whole. It fucking sucks in general, but more specifically, it sucks because of what he knows it means about Tommy.
He doesn’t have to do anything about it right this minute. The job is not to track down people and distribute justice. That’s Nemesis’ job. To look for the really bad ones. 
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blcssom · 3 days ago
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"i just think it's a little deceptive is all!" she isn't surprised that he sees his actions as altruistic. they came from a good place, after all. but having grown up in a family of smoke and mirrors, the idea that she could bring someone into her circle and have them hide things from her, even if it was for her benefit, makes her stomach churn. "like... how do people know when you're doing something for them or agreeing with them because you really feel that was as opposed to doing it just because you want them to feel good? or because you want them to associate that good feeling with you?" still, this is the most interesting conversation she's had so far the entire trip, and she doesn't intend to back down from his challenge. "mostly, but not always. sometimes i'm snippy with them, because i'm not having a good day or they specifically have annoyed me.... but those are my honest feelings, even if they're uncomfortable. i think if someone would rather me bite my tongue and force a smile to keep the peace than be honest, even if they don't like what i have to say..... then they're not really my friend, are they?" her head tilted as he spoke, listening intently. "look, i don't think you're a bad guy. i think you're generous and kind, and you clearly care about making people happy⸺ but if i can't have radical honesty from the people around me then, frankly, i'm just not interested." but he's not entirely wrong on all counts. "but, you're right. if it were between you and sabrina's soon-to-be convict boyfriend, you would make the much better friend."
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"how would me pleasing people be dangerous for you?" he questioned, mildly flirtatiously but almost laughing at the suggestion. never once had someone challenged the fact that he was a good guy, normally doing what was in everyone's best interests. it was sort of a drug for him, to be the man everyone relied on. to be his parents obvious favourite. to swoop in to comfort his little brother's ex girlfriends a little too closely. his good looks got him everything he wanted, except for himself to be intellectually challenged. and charlotte gave him that, each and every time they were together. "from what i know, and what i've been told growing up... a good friend does things for their friends. are you not nice to your friends?" he looked her over a bit more seriously, and then shrugged his shoulders. "you have this preconceived notion of me, which is frankly unfair and extremely judgmental. based on what, lottie? what have i ever done to you or anyone that you know that makes you want to steer clear of me?" he shook his head. "there are thousands of people out there that would be way worse friends to have than me. in fact, i think sabrina's boyfriend josh is one of them."
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lucy-shining-star · 2 years ago
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Why do people don’t like sims 2 pets and why do people think they can just assume everyone has same opinion
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yuridovewing · 5 months ago
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i understand the frustration with “i made this gay pairing cis x trans so they can still have biological babies” with no thought to other methods and how ppl assume thats the case when it comes to mothpool aus where mothwing is also the mother of the three, but also…. idk i kinda dont give a shit if someone wants to do that and i dont really think its inherently transphobic as long as its handled with care and respect.
what really concerns me about this debate is how some people are adamant that you cannot portray trans people having biological children in media or youre being disrespectful. and im gonna say as a nonbinary person who doesnt want children for themself- thats kinda fucking weird? like i understand that for some people, theyre trans themselves and theyre speaking from a place of dysphoria, and i absolutely get that, which is why i think the topic should be handled with nuance and diversity in trans characters, but like…. guys. pregnant trans men exist irl. trans women get people pregnant irl. trans ppl’s ability and right to parent and have biological children are being debated irl. we get denied the opportunity to adopt as well.
in a climate like this, are we SURE we want the stance on rewrites and headcanons in the silly cat books to be “if you portray trans characters having children, especially with a gay couple, youre a transphobic freak no matter what!” does it really matter? especially if its being done by a trans person handling the topic with nuance who has a lot of trans characters with varying perspectives?
obviously yes, remember that thats not the only way certain gay couples can have kids, remember that not every trans person is fully comfortable with it and keep that in mind, remember that surrogacy and adoption are also perfectly valid ways to give fan babies- but remember that there are OPTIONS. not that you need to condemn the idea of transgender parents in the first place unless they fit the very specific criteria of “proper transgender representation” and anything that dares deviate from that is proof the op is a transphobic monster (bonus points if theyre a trans creator bc i mostly see trans people getting shit for this and it kinda pisses me off. although idm if cis people do it either as long as theyre handling it with respect)
#and this isnt getting into how trans mothwing outside of mothpool is a really good way to read her character#sorry. remembered the shit bonefall got despite being trans as well and got annoyed#that especially annoys me bc hes got plenty of surrogacies but the second hed touch a trans pregnancy#‘’no you cant do that!!! you freak!!! obviously you only see trans people as a loophole for gays to have babies!!!’’#also my gf and i were talking and obviously take this with a grain of salt bc this is our experience#but…. i think a lot of the ppl saying this……. havent really talked to trans women?#dude some of the ones i know LOVE the idea of getting people pregnant#did you know trans women have sex? did you know trans people in general have sex?? did you know trans people irl wanna start families?#did you know that? did you? or do you black out at the idea of a trans woman being anything but strictly pure and nonsexual#and OBVIOUSLY this is not every trans woman. some do have dysphoria around the idea#but im genuinely starting to wonder how these people act around irl transgender parents#whether they had kids before or after coming out#bc ngl. the attitude that thinking about this makes you a transphobic pervert?#directed at trans people making content for themselves?#im starting to think you all just dont want us to reproduce. if we reproduce we arent ‘’good’’ trans people#because a ‘’real’’ man wouldnt carry a child. a ‘’real’’ woman would carry the child. and god forbid the gays even THINK about reproducing#and being around children!#if we have children then we’re doing things that might make cishets look at us and declare we’re not perfect#we’ve proved we’re not just identical to cis ppl!! (and therefore deserving of respect!)#idk. i think this was mostly a case of tumblr going ‘’oh someone said no to this so lets push this to an unhealthy extreme!!’’#and i cant help but notice nobody really brings up nonbinary parents at all in this discussion#not that we have it ‘’better’’ or anything for that but yknow. are we supposed to swear it off?#is the idea of us having kids inconcievable? or worse…. does it mean we ‘’picked a side?’’#so its not even worth getting mad at a pregnant nb person bc ‘’well thats a woman so who cares’’b#HMMMMM.#ohhhh i bet they also get mad if you make transfem pregnancy possible too. no winning#idk really think about it when you go ‘’you can NEVER EVER portray a trans person starting a family. bc REAL trans people would never.’’#ohhh you probably get mad when trans ppl dont get surgery for one reason or another dontcha#whether we want to or its not in the cards for us for whatever reason like cost and such#(while also getting mad if we do bc we cannot win in this no matter what)
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panharmonium · 1 year ago
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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:
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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:
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(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.
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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:
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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 -)
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(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:
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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
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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.
#naruto#meta#replies#anyway that's that! hopefully that is a helpful answer#thank you for the question! i honestly don't think i would have ever gotten around to writing about this if i hadn't been directly asked#i love talking about the stories i enjoy (obviously; we all do; that's why we're here)#but i'm usually ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about responding to takes that blatantly misread the narrative to justify hating a particular character or ship#mostly because a) it's whatever. as long as people mind their own business and leave me to enjoy myself they can do what they want#and b) some opinions are so divorced from the actual text that they're not worth discussing#like. what's the point of responding to random internet posts saying that sakura was selfishly pursuing sasuke as a lover the entire time#when that is textually and provably not the case?#if you're that committed to experiencing things in direct contradiction to what the narrative is asking of us then just go ahead#is it mildly annoying to me? sure. but so are lots of things and it's better to just let stuff go#like - i initially planned to take this piece of meta all the way up through sakura and sasuke's last scene together#the one where he tells her 'maybe next time' and finally reclaims and redefines itachi's forehead tap (INCREDIBLE. THIS SCENE.)#but ultimately i changed my mind because everything i wrote for that last section was coming out too harsh#i generally prefer to talk about fandom stuff in a chill/friendly approachable way#but i kept thinking about the most obscenely & disrespectfully inaccurate read of that scene i'd ever seen#and i couldn't figure out how to talk about it in a non-scathing way#that scene and the one where naruto gives sasuke's headband back are the ONLY well-written things about the finale of naruto#they are SO perfectly constructed and i can't respond to people slandering either one without feeling an urge to kill#so i just deleted it. partially because again - this is fandom; it's not that serious; people can do what they want#but also because i know i get extra frustrated about people picking over the text and plucking out isolated bits and pieces#to contort into blatantly misinterpreted mutant shapes that 'confirm' whatever pre-existing judgments or ships they had#instead of experiencing the story as a cohesive whole & keeping in mind the greater context of what it's always been trying to communicate#people on this website say 'we all interpret things differently :)' as if it means no one can ever be wrong about what a text is saying#newsflash: not all interpretations of a text are valid. things can't in fact mean whatever you want them to mean.#the ***story*** persists and exists even if the author is dead to you#if you choose to ignore that then that's fine; it's just fandom; who cares. but i'm not going to pretend you're 'analyzing' anything.#(ok now i'm really done. you can see why i deleted this section XD)
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shartfinz · 5 months ago
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I don't think Luigi would have ever had any of his own friends for like most of his life because he is a yapper
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iratusmus · 2 years ago
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this is fiona/scourge. to me. they get married and divorced all the time, both for funsies and also whenever they get into a fight/make up. (important note: they swap last names since in mobius the woman takes the man's last name and in moebius i choose to believe that the man takes the woman's last name). and also whenever theyre mad at each other theyll call each other their exwife/husband.
like. theyve been fighting over something stupid for the past few days and are on divorce round 3 and they run into sonic and tails and everybody starts beating the snot out of each other as is usual. something happens idk sonic takes like a potshot at scourge and fionas like “get away from my ex!!” and sonics like “.....ex-boyfriend????” and shes like “what? no. ex-husband.” and tails is like “YOU GUYS GOT MARRIED??????” and sonics like “YOU GUYS GOT DIVORCED??????” and fiona & scourge respond “yeah? and?”
so sonic pauses for a half second to digest this new information, and then says “wait. ok. so if you guys are divorced. why the heck are you still working together.” and fiona responds “um. because we're dating??? ??? youre so stupid omg” without missing a beat while scourge is obnoxiously scoffing/rolling his eyes in the background like this is incredibly obvious information and sonic just. stares for a good few moments. and then says “actually nevermind i dont care anymore i dont want to know anything more about your weirdass relationship”
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good-beans · 1 year ago
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(Milgram self-insert oc masterpost hehe)
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Name: For the sake of posting online I’ll call her Rose!
Color: #E7355B [the pink in the art]
Age: I guess she’d be 20 given when Milgram started huh.
Status: Milgram Staff, Machine Technician
Symbols/imagery: ballet/musical theater, science experiments
Song genre: very similar to Mahiru's, something upbeat and extra pop-y
Tentatively she's number 011? She's not really prisoner but she's also not free to come and go, so I'm not actually sure if she'd get a number (Edit: I've decided she'll actually be 012. Staff is given the 01X range, and even though Es doesn't actively have a number they'd be staff member 011, making her 012.)
Story: Since the project is supposed to be realistic/present day, the mv machine would be brand new and unpredictable tech, so they’d want someone keeping up on maintenance and making sure the brain-invasive process won’t cause any harm to the prisoners. Rose was studying abroad in Japan working on some cool neuroscience tech (irl I know nothing about technology or brains but shh) and she stumbled upon some secret tech/plans from Milgram. Long story short, she was dragged into the experiment to make sure things ran smoothly.
Writer's Reasoning: She’s really fun for me to play around with, as she allows me to work with a character who has a tiny bit of pull over Es’ mindset in conversation but not the final decision (aka mirroring the voting system), and someone who is simultaneously trapped in the prison but has a reason to see all the canon content.* I really enjoy the character interactions and dynamics Milgram has set up so far, so it’s been super fun seeing how things change for better and worse when someone not quite aligned with either Milgram/the prisoners is thrown into the mix!
*As much as I love dramatic irony in fiction, it would drive me crazy if I knew every detail of of the vds/mvs but Rose didn't – and every single Milgram character is The Worst Communicator Ever so I couldn’t justify that she’d hear it secondhand from them...
Story roles:
She’s a bit conflicted -- she’s officially Milgram staff and knows she should remain neutral on the prisoners, since she won’t be allowed to interfere with the process/executions. At the same time, her job description is literally “make sure the machine doesn't hurt them and everyone's safe :)” and she's way too emotional to avoid getting hopelessly attached to everyone 😅
I really enjoy the theory that the machine extracts videos based off of priming, so one of Rose’s duties involves listening in on the interrogation and making sure there’s been enough material discussed/not too much time has passed overall (hence the ringing of the bell happening at different lengths for each vd -- That's her ringing it :3). She then watches the mvs along with Es to make sure there are no machine glitches, and know how to calibrate it better for next time.
(IEdit: I've since decided to add in official trial mvs, but before when I wasn't ready to tackle that:) She has to run some tests on the machine to make sure things are calibrated correctly, so she'd extract little things here and there. It gives me the opportunity to think up lyric snippets and recurring symbols for her without worrying about full encompassing music videos.
I'm not afraid to admit she can fall into Mary Sue territory every so often by being everyone's friend, because it's less about "aw everyone likes her" and more about "canon is too painful rn and I need a fix-it tool to take care of these guys and give them hugs and tell them someone forgives them and cares about them and unfortunately these characters wouldn't let anyone less than a friend do that." Rest assured she's definitely not perfect and will fuck everything up on occasion :3
Miscellaneous: Whenever I play around with normal au ideas she's still working on the machine (but in a public, more ethical setting), and she's Mahiru's roommate :) Her character isn't super focused on love, but if I had to pick a cover song it'd be Stickybug II. It's very much my vibe, the lyrics fit well enough (better than most songs, at least lol) and it's one of my favorites out of my limited knowledge of unchosen Deco songs! (Edit, I've actually given her non-deco cover songs hehe)
So yeah, I hope she's not too boring without a cool crime to decipher, but I wanted to share since I was really proud of her! It took a bit of tinkering to find a way to fit her into a perfect secret-third-thing role that runs very smoothly with all of canon, so I was very excited!
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