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Working at a smile
Prompt: False smile | Holding back tears | ”I said I’m fine.”
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Gabriel looked around the classroom. He could see David disappear through the door and cursed. He had wanted to speak with him, make some arrangement about the World War I-project they should be working on. He quickly shoved his books into his bag, grabbed his crutches and hurried to catch up. Oskar put a leg infront of Gabriel’s feet and Gabriel hit him with one of the crutches.
”Not today, please.”
”Going after your lover~?” Oskar teased.
”Why, are you jealous?”
Oskar made a disgusted sound and turned away again. Gabriel waved goodbye to Mikaela and left the classroom. Hurried through the corridor. David had already disappeared. Gabriel’s crutches hit the floor with way too much force as he continued through the school, out through the entrance. David was disappearing into the crowd, his body getting more and more obscured for every second.
”David!” Gabriel called.
He lifted one hand and waved, but David didn’t turn around. Determined, stressed. Scared? Gabriel shook his head, took a few deep breaths and went down the stairs, across the yard. People moved out of the way when they saw him. Made if faster for him to traverse the yard then for David.
”Hey!”
Gabriel caught up. David stopped. Almost… trembled? Gabriel’s heart beat fast and he grabbed David’s sleeve to not lose him again.
”Hang on, lemme… catch my breath…”
David nodded. Smiled at him. Something was off with the smile. A milimeter too big, the way David’s teeth showed between the lips. Gabriel couldn’t pinpoint whatwas wrong, just that something was.
”You didn’t need to run”, David said and laughed.
The laughter was just this side of panic. Gabriel recognized it from himself, when he busted his knee. He let go of David’s sleeve, pulled a hand through his hair and gripped the crutch again instead.
”Are you okay?” he asked. ”You’ve been ignoring us lately.”
”I’m fine.”
But his eyes glanced around, like he was being chased. Gabriel shrugged.
”Okay then. Can I come with you? We need to work on our project.”
David’s smile disappeared. Reappeared, but tenser. Gabriel pulled at the straps to his backpack.
”Or we can go to my place?”
”I don’t…”
David seemed to fold into himself. His shoulders sank, he shrunk, his face turned towards his feet. He shuffled his feet. The sentence died out and disappeared with the wind. Gabriel tried to not let out a sigh, but David flinched. Gabriel never knew what he did wrong, why David felt so scared around him.
Gabriel gestured to a bench, tried to not look threatening despite having no idea how to even begin threatening anyone.
”Can we sit down? My knee’s still fucked up.”
David’s cheeks turned red. He nodded, sat down on the bench. Stared at his knees. Gabriel crutched over and sat down as well. Put his backpack next to himself. He let out a relieved sigh as he could take all the weight away from his knee. David opened his mouth, closed it again. Gabriel was pretty sure what he had wanted to ask, because everyone asked that.
”Two more weeks, then I’ll be free”, he said. ”It’s mostly painfree by now, as long as I don’t walk too much.”
He nudged David’s side.
”You’d know if you stopped avoiding us”, he said with a smile.
David looked away. Gabriel grabbed a small notebook from his backpack. Better just get to the point.
”I’m guessing today’s not a good day to work?” he said.
David nodded. Gabriel opened the notebook.
”So when’s a good time for you? My schedule’s flexible now when I can’t do anything.”
David snickered and Gabriel smiled. He was getting somewhere.
”M…” David’s voice trembled. ”Maybe tomorrow? Over lunch?”
The urge to say something sarcastic about missing their lunchbreak was huge, but Gabriel pushed it down. He was trying to befriend David, not push him further away.
”Yeah, sounds good. The library will be empty so we’ll have all the books to ourselves! Eat with us tomorrow, then we’ll go there.”
David tensed up again. Gabriel wrote down the plan in the notebook.
”We’ll see how far we get and if we need to do some after school-work after tomorrow, I guess.”
He put the notebook in the backpack, looked at David. He was still tense.
”...Benjamin won’t be there, just me, Lisa and Maria. You can relax.”
David smiled. Nodded. Gabriel tilted his head.
”...So are you okay?” he asked.
”I said I’m fine”, David answered, but his voice was tense. ”I… I’m fine. Everything’s handled. Just…”
He looked around in a way Gabriel had seen Benjamin do so many times. Searching, trying to find the perfect white lie. Or Bullshit lie as it most often was in Benjamin’s case.
”...lots of schoolwork.”
Gabriel decided to accept the lie for now. He nodded, stood up again.
”Lisa is smarter, but if you need help you can always ask me”, he said. ”I mean… I think my highest grade is a B, but I can try.”
He laughed. David stood up, shook his head.
”It… it’s fine. Thanks though. I gotta go home now.”
”Alright, see….”
David was already bolting down the street. Gabriel grabbed his backpack.
”...you later.”
He shook his head, put the backpack on his back and grabbed his crutches. Started walking home. Maybe tomorrow he’d be able to get some better answers. Because something was wrong and he wanted to figure out how to help.
#windy writes#whumpril2023#hjälp jag är en zombie#say hello to a couple of my ocs that I invented years ago for nanowrimo!#it felt stiff to write about them again#not sure if you can tell from the text#that story was in swedish so it's weird to write for it in english ^^'#but also I don't 100% remember them#this was not a scene I had planned for that story#but I guess it happens in it now#I have missed these idiots so it was fun :3#if stiff x3#anyway here's another offer for the muses of whumpril!
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How Homestuck Beyond Canon Candy Timeline has/will have parallels with Homestuck proper around and during the events of [S] Game Over
Jane Crocker heavily aligned/influenced by with Crocker Corp. Notice how her neck accessory looks very similar to the Crocker computer tiara. There's also the circuits surrounding the button, which are reminiscent of Crockertier Jane's visual mind control effect by The Condesce.
Jane also kind of looks like The Condesce with how she's silhouetted here.
The head of Crocker Corporation on a large Crocker space ship. A ship which I would like to point out looks eerily similar to the ship that The Condesce flies around in except the forks/sporks are facing the opposite direction and it's got black on it instead of mostly red.
Jake dying at the hands of Crocker influenced Jane and coming back to life parallels with this Jane coming close to killing Jake, but stopping right before death. Same green text too.
The cast of characters surrounding this time in the comic are also similar.
We also got the whole Crocker laser beam of death being hinted at which we've absolutely seen before.
I talked about this in one of my previous theories, Jake is getting a better grasp of his hope powers; so, I think we could see another hope explosion again in some capacity out of Jake's concern for Tavvy.
I could also totally see Jake being held hostage by one of the Crocker Clones A.K.A. the Brig Boys and Kanaya cutting them up with her chainsaw (hopefully avoiding Jake).
This is more of a little side detail, but Vriska is once again on the sidelines while this massive important fight takes place because she's trapped in her own personal Hell this time.
CHARACTER DEATH FLAGS - I don't know how to organize this post and there was a lot more potential evidence to this than I thought there was going into it.
Let me preface this with the fact that the existential split between Meat and Candy sometimes seems to try to course correct itself and much like certain peoples DNIs, it doesn't want any doubles. We see this with Dirk, Dave (he died even if he ascended to ultimate self afterwards), June/J/John, Terezi(seemingly), Meenah (her other self is in the black hole with Lord English so we can't necessarily confirm death but yknow), Aradia (is just Aradia), Gamzee, Calliope (that is a whole complex situation), and Rose (if her future sight is correct, but we'll get to that). Those are the only examples I can think of at this time, but it's absolutely a repeating pattern of the universe sort of course-correcting to have only one of each of our main characters exist at a time. This, at least in the cases of Dirk, Dave, & Rose seems to be related to the ascension to ultimate self, but we can't really say if that's why the other characters only get one existence at this time.
Karkat has has at least 2 deaths from around this time, one involving Crockertier Jane as well which could be a sign of things to come.
Rose's death flag is that she has literally foreseen her death in her future sight. She is thinking about Kanaya and Roxy in the same thought process while seeing her own death, feeling full of regret (even though she's trying to repress her own feelings) about her relationship to Roxy and Kanaya. Very similar to her being regretful as she was dying in Roxy's arms. I'm also guessing the bullet that hits her will be from Jake's gun, just throwing that out as a possibility.
ROSE: What... ROSE: Happened to me? ROXY: the witch got u ROXY: with her fork ROXY: but youre gonna be ok ROSE: Oh. ROSE: That's nice. ROSE: *Cough.* ROXY: maybe you uh ROXY: shouldnt try to talk now ROSE: You saved me, didn't you? ROXY: ... ROSE: Thanks. ROSE: But, ROSE: She's gone, isn't she. ROSE: For good, I mean. ROXY: ? ROSE: I saw her die. ROSE: And. ROSE: It's a shame how... ROSE: *Cough.* ROSE: A shame that I never even... ROSE: Got to tell her... ROSE: I loved her. ROXY: who?
ROSE: Kanaya. ROSE: But... ROSE: You too, mom.
Kanaya also has a death flag here in getting hit by The Condesce's laser beam of death, but it's more of a maybe given that we see Rose's future vision of Kanaya holding her body in her arms. Keep in mind though we also had this bit of dialogue about the reliability of future sight right before we saw that vision.
JADE: dont forget im more than a little versed in future sight myself ok JADE: i dont care how credible it seems, you cant depend on that information!
Jake and Jane are also on the chopping block potentially, but I can't think of a way at this time, unless Kanaya mistakes Jake for one of the clones amidst her rage and ends up cutting through him along with the Crocker clones. The one pictured below was done by Aranea who is out of the story. Maybe Meenah's trident hits Jake somehow or something, I don't know. We also have meat Jake and Jane who are doing more okay.
On top of the parallels to the doomed timeline that was [S] Game Over, we also had Vriska say that this reality was fake and didn't matter. I'm paraphrasing and I don't know if we'll get a doomed timeline situation yet with the 4 kids still in it, but I just thought the amount of parallels was interesting & worth pointing out.
I also wanted to get this out before the next update in case it's related to the flash animation and any of my predictions come true.
Alternatively I think the flash animation will be Ultimate Dirk kick starting his SBURB home brew session on Deltritus. He probably has all the tech and narrative powers to do it based on what we've seen, they just need a species they'll both be satisfied with as the players for the session.
#I wasn't sure how to title this hs theory; can you tell? Wanted it to be accurate; this isn't the clickbait video site lmao#sorry that some of the image qualities vary; I couldn't be bothered to find specific pages in the long labyrinth that is act 6 and#ended up just using a summary video for some of these because that was much easier. There is so much to talk about I'm probably going to#miss something in HSBC so if anyone has anything else to add onto this post feel free to do it. when I tell you that formatting these#colored text chat logs was a nightmare; I mean that. Every time I saved the draft it kept glitching the chat logs too. Kept having to fix.#there's also some characters like Roxy where we don't know what she's up to in the candy timeline as well as Sollux and John/June Egbert#Also Calliope are any of them preparing for this fight or have some kind of plan? Captor could help but would need cover while he blasts#Anyway this mostly started from Jane's whole batterwitch vibe she has going on with Crocker corporation and her laser machine#hopefully Kanaya will be okay; but I'm definitely super worried about Rose atm and Jake too; also what's going on with Tavvy#Candy Jane as the new condesce it's not looking good for Commander Karkat Meenah or Kanaya. Mr English plz come save your son Tavros#mine#op#homestuck theory#homestuck beyond canon#homestuck#jake english#rose lalonde#jane crocker#kanaya maryam#karkat vantas#homestuck spoilers#homestuck upd8#cw flashing images#cw blood#cw gore
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Here is a link to the above post, just to cite the source. I don't really think OP is interested in what I have to say, but I felt compelled to write down my thoughts, regardless.
Sorry, stranger on the internet, but you seem to have mistaken a TV show for a Sunday school parable. Protagonists do not have to be morally pure. You do not have to agree with a protagonist's actions. Additionally, a TV show character being part of the main ensemble cast does not necessarily make them a protagonist.
You should, in fact, consider deciding for yourself whether a character is behaving in a way you agree with. There is a huge difference between media that glorifies a character's harmful actions, and media that simply depicts those actions and invites the audience to critically engage with them.
Sometimes, people do incredibly shitty things while thinking what they are doing is fine and normal, without even really thinking about what they're doing and why. It's important for us to see this in media, because it reminds us that we, ourselves, can be capable of participating in morally bankrupt systems (capitalism? anyone?).
Beyond that, a slaveowner being presented as a human who a viewer can understand and sympathize with is, in fact, critical to a nuanced story. This may come as a surprise to you but everyone who has ever participated in a morally bankrupt system has been a human who had friends and loved ones and complicated internal lives. If we dehumanize these people in media, we are again at risk of not recognizing when we or our loved ones are doing deeply harmful things. In fact, more TV shows should be like that.
Ignoring painful realities of history like slavery, or making slaveowners into fully evil cartoonish villains may be satisfying, but it is not more helpful or morally pure than presenting nuance.
#black sails#i don't really know what to tag this but i know i'm not the only one frustrated with this attitude towards tv shows#purity culture is out of control#black sails has a lot about it that can be criticized#and its fans do so frequently and with really inspiring levels of insight#what is the point of media that just tells you directly what you are supposed to think#and then just accepting that without questioning it#like from a structure perspective flint and silver are the protagonists#but i sure as hell don't think either of them are models for how to behave#description in alt text
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the way that diff languages sound r so fascinating they're all different and all so vivid
#russian is like the surface of a feather like it's light but not exactly “soft” but still very delicate#german is . cute ? i think it's adorable . it has a lot of momentum it makes u wanna talk fast and talk a lot#like it's squishy . sleek surface w a soft inside#thai is like song . it's like interprative dance or maybe a trust-fall . everything follows from the previous thing#it feels like a little fairy flying up and letting itself fall and flying up again and so on (for fun). its so beautiful but also playful#mandarin chinese is like . idk why but it gives me the same vibe the concept of Observation does . like to read and to see and absorb#and then to translate that into smth else . like . imagine a poet people watching or an artist preparing a canvas w practiced hands. thats#the vibe. soft and elegant and musical but like...in a way that feels lived-in. arabic feels wise ? like music or poetry u read#and feel nothing about then years later u stumble on and it applies to everything in ur life. that kind of vibe. like it knows more than u#and itll make sure ur heart and soul grows as big as its lexicon . polish is like snowflakes falling . it has the feeling of complexity and#elegance but it's also so so light and slippery and...maybe not elusive but the feeling of losing a dance partner in a waltz ? like fun and#light but also an underlying elegance and somberness still . turkish is like the feeling when u get a text from ur crush#and your heart tightens and you cant tell if it's really painful or really amazing . it feels like unrequited love . or a caress#or making out with someone when you know its the last time you'll see them. its beautiful in a yearning longing way#korean is like joking around w ur friends and you've stayed up until like almost 5 AM and youre so delirious that everything is funny#and ur speaking kind of lightly and openly and everything you say holds a lot of weight and doesnt matter at all. you laugh at everything#and youre practically talking in inside jokes and watching the sunrise together . one of them hits u on the shoulder lovingly. ur by a fire#yoruba feels like the metatheory of the matatheory . abstraction until it circles back to intuition or maybe#it feels like plotting the route of a comet or maybe like the soft warm whirr of statistics. trying to verbalise beauty somehow#when you know the best thing you can show it is by telling everyone just look!! look at the sky just look!#anyway yh i think i could do this for every language ever tbh
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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:
From that point on, it’s a process of her putting little pieces together. She still has a MAJOR crush, and she still acts like a twelve year-old, but as we approach the end of Part I, Sakura actually has a more accurate grasp on Sasuke’s current state of mind than Naruto does. Naruto is initially excited to fight Sasuke on top of the hospital, because he feels like Sasuke’s finally acknowledging him, whereas Sakura is the one who immediately recognizes that something is wrong about this situation. She is also the one who, after this fight, is concerned that Sasuke is really unwell and might do something drastic like run off in pursuit of the power Orochimaru promised him, but when she communicates this to Naruto, he assures her that this would NEVER happen:
(Sakura isn't convinced, though, because she goes to monitor the exit out of the village anyway.)
I’m not criticizing Naruto for his response here. I ADORE hearing him say that Sasuke is too strong to need Orochimaru, with such perfect confidence - I love seeing how much respect and admiration he has for Sasuke underneath all their fighting, because that’s the whole reason he’s always baiting Sasuke and yelling at him and claiming “you're not so great!” He looks up to Sasuke; he wants to be like Sasuke; he thinks Sasuke is awesome! (It’s that Obito @ Kakashi behavior, you know?) But the fact remains that he is clueless about what’s actually going on with Sasuke in Part 1, and he remains clueless(ly optimistic) for a long time.
(Eg, when he catches up to Sasuke during the retrieval arc and Sasuke climbs out of that cursed seal coffin, Naruto waves at him and calls "Come on, let's go!" as if Sasuke has been successfully rescued and is now going to come running home. Even in Part II, when Naruto hears that Sasuke killed Orochimaru, he beams and immediately says, “So he must be on his way back to the Leaf Village!” And everyone else in the room is like, “....,” because they know better. Naruto doesn’t yet fully understand [or doesn't want to accept] the extent to which Sasuke has willingly chosen this path, and it’s not until after Jiraiya’s death/the Pain attack/the Five Kage Summit that Naruto really starts to understand Sasuke more clearly, which is something he himself admits.)
Sakura, in Part 1, has access to more information about Sasuke - she’s there for his first dissociative monologue during the bells test, she’s there for the curse mark’s placement, she’s there for his first violent transformation in the Forest of Death - she is, in fact, the unwitting catalyst for it (“Sakura…who did this to you?”), and her compassion is the reason Sasuke is later able to overcome the curse mark’s influence - so she has a more accurate/complete picture of “how he’s doing,” for lack of a better phrase, whereas Naruto, who doesn’t know about the curse mark in the first place, is still in the dark. This means that Sakura is able to accurately discern that Sasuke is struggling more than Naruto realizes, and specifically to predict that he’s going to run away.
(This dynamic is then interestingly flipped in the back half of Part II, since at any point after the Five Kage Summit, Sakura doesn’t have access to extremely relevant [if currently questionable and unproven] details that would in any other circumstance inform her behavior).
Of course, just because she has more info in Part 1 doesn’t mean she has some kind of miraculous insight into Sasuke’s every thought and feeling. There are parts of her attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village that are as clueless as any of Naruto’s assumptions, and they showcase the kind of magical thinking common to childhood - like when she says that if he stayed with her, she could give him happiness, she’d do anything for him, even help him get his revenge - this idea that she herself can do something to make him feel better, that she can love him powerfully enough to defeat his pain - obviously none of that is rooted in realism.
Is this part of her approach irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered? Of course it is! But it’s no more irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered than Naruto’s stated plan to drag Sasuke back to the village even if he has to “break every bone in [his] body!”
Hating on Sakura for her Part 1 attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village while simultaneously lauding Naruto for his feels like a bad faith misread of what is, to me, pretty clear narrative intention. The story doesn’t at any point intend for us to see her begging him to stay as a selfish or conniving attempt to get something she wants. She’s begging him to stay for the same underlying reason that Naruto is: she cares about him. She thinks he’s making a mistake that will only cause him more pain in the end (she’s right) and she wants to make it so he feels less pain right now (she can’t. But she doesn’t understand that/isn’t able to admit that, and she’s willing to try ANYTHING that might help).
It’s critical that this farewell scene is set in front of that same bench from their first important confrontation - she references that day and how angry he got at her, and this time she tells him that she understands his reaction. She’s learned things and she recognizes how insensitive she was being back then (“I know what happened to your clan, Sasuke”), even though she still can’t fully grasp all the complexities of the situation. She tells him that him blowing up at her back then helped her understand what loneliness actually meant (as opposed to her previous shallow understanding of it), and she challenges him about his choice right now: "So that's it, you're choosing the lonely path?" And when she tells him that she'll be very lonely if he leaves, we're immediately shown a panel of Sasuke thinking of both his friends, with the very clear implication that if he goes through with this, he will be lonely without them, too - that he's still struggling with the idea of leaving them, no matter how hard he tries to pretend:
Sakura at this point knows that Sasuke isn’t interested in her the way she is in him, but she still wants to give him happiness, however fantastical and immature her ideas sound to us (and, I’m sure, to him). “I’ll do anything, even help you get your revenge/we'll have fun every day, and...and you'll be happy! I'll make sure of it!” - of course, it’s completely childish. It’s irrational. It’s ridiculous to think that any of this would ever be effective, but no more ridiculous than Naruto’s belief that he can simply break every bone in Sasuke’s body and keep him in the Leaf by force.
Both Naruto and Sakura are children who have a deeply oversimplified understanding of Sasuke’s situation. They both still think they can fix him themselves. They both think they can save him themselves. They both think they can convince (or force) him to do what they want, what they think is in his best interests. Both of them don’t yet understand that he has to want to come back, if it’s ever going to mean anything. Their attempts to keep him in the village are immature and unrealistic, yes. What they aren’t, however, is selfish, because neither Sakura nor Naruto are doing any of this with the intention of advancing their own interests. They’re only thinking about Sasuke - how to keep Sasuke safe, how to make Sasuke happy - even when neither of them are taking an approach that will actually work.
Naruto and Sakura are children. They’re afraid of losing somebody they care about. Their attempts to prevent that from happening are desperate and messy and ultimately ineffective, but they are also genuinely felt and rooted in a true desire to rescue Sasuke from his pain, which - and this is the single most important thing that should impact our viewing of Part 1 - is something that Sasuke RECOGNIZES. He doesn’t spend that agonizingly long moment bowed over Naruto’s defeated body so we can pretend he doesn’t understand that Naruto was just trying to help him. He doesn’t take the time to murmur, “Sakura…thank you,” before laying her out carefully on a bench, just so we can discount it and pretend that he doesn’t recognize and appreciate her genuine intention to make things better for him, however clumsy that attempt might have been.
2. the greater good
If Stage 1 Sakura is "the girl with the crush," then Stage 2 Sakura is a progression to “the girl who decides to put her feelings for Sasuke aside in order to protect innocent people, including (but certainly not limited to) Naruto.” She’s driven to this decision by interactions with Shikamaru, who all too recently had to grow up fast himself (“We're not kids anymore...we can't allow a war to break out between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud because of Sasuke") and Sai, who risks his new friendship with Sakura and Team 7 in order to speak some hard truths and deliver one of my favorite lines in the whole story: “I don’t know what promise Naruto made to you, but it’s really no different than what was done to me. It’s like a curse mark.”
(INCREDIBLE. How can anybody be complaining about a season where Sai gets to say something that goes THIS HARD and Sakura LISTENS and takes DRAMATIC ACTION that actually propels the story forward in a meaningful way - )
[Okay, yeah, brief personal opinion interlude - it is just bonkers wild to me that there are people who complain about Sakura in the Five Kage Summit arc. That entire season is the greatest character arc she ever has. Literally she has never been more interesting and dynamic than in Season 10; it’s the first time she ever gets to be as deep and fascinating as the boys; what is everybody so worked up about? Oh, “she lied to Naruto that one time” - Sasuke joined infant-kidnapping baby-murdering human experimentation machine Orochimaru when he was twelve years old in order to (dare I say it????) selfishly pursue his personal goals and yet, somehow, we are still able to root for him. He abandoned his friends/allies to imprisonment and death (Suigetsu and Jūgo) or outright stabbed them in the chest himself (Karin) in order to (SELFISHLY) get what he wanted, and yet, somehow, we are still able to love him, understand him, and be on his side. Naruto is canonically not upset with Sakura about her lie after receiving context for the situation and I think we can probably take our cues from him without feeling the need to bring her up on war crimes; please calm down]
[Sorry, I just really love most of Season 10 and think it’s one of the best examples of how good this story can be when every single character gets to do something that matters (as opposed to things being all Naruto, all the time) so I get a little bit worked up over people complaining about some of the best writing Sakura ever gets. I don’t understand what certain elements of fandom want from her. People complain about her being “useless” and not doing anything that contributes to the story, but then they complain just as much when she does finally get to act decisively and have just as complex/dynamic an inner world as the boys. She’s “weak” for being unreasonably in love with Sasuke, but when she tries to be “strong” and put her love for him aside and eliminate him in order to protect Naruto and the rest of the world, she’s evil, because she should have been more understanding of his situation (despite the fact that she doesn’t KNOW anything about his situation). But then when she can’t go through with killing him after all because she cares about him too much despite the things he’s done, she’s not "compassionate" or "kind" or "a good friend," she’s “weak” again. Nothing Sakura does in S10 is more wrongheaded or rash than any of the batshit, buckwild things Naruto and Sasuke have done in the past (and will continue to do in the future), but when Naruto and Sasuke have big feelings or take bold action, it makes them interesting characters, whereas Sakura can’t breathe in anyone’s direction without being minutely scrutinized for moral impurities.]
Anyway. Back to a more measured response.
Every single piece of development Sakura has with regard to Sasuke in this season satisfies me so much. Her initial shock and disbelief at hearing that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki? Good, appropriate. The fact that she starts to acknowledge the reality of what Sasuke’s done sooner than Naruto does? Also extremely appropriate, very in-character for both of them. Her taking Sai’s words to heart and deciding that the promise she asked Naruto to make when they were children is causing him to suffer and she has to relieve him of that burden? Juicy! AND thematically significant (promises!!!! the burden that a promise places on a person, especially when it can't be kept - we've seen that before in this story and we'll see it again). Her anguished pivot from wanting to protect Sasuke to realizing that she has a responsibility to protect the countless innocents who will die because of the war he’s trying to start? HELLO THIS IS INCREDIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Her knocking out the classmates who agreed to help her so they don’t have to share in her burden (and so the only person Naruto will hate when it’s over is her)? BRUH. Her being so committed and focused on her goal of saving innocents and protecting Naruto (not just from being harmed by Sasuke/the Akatsuki, but by the possibility that Naruto will someday have to hurt Sasuke himself) that she tries to take everything on by herself and walks into a confrontation that she absolutely cannot win?? INCREDIBLE. (Literally the first time I watched this, I said, “Finally!!! It’s Sakura’s turn to go off the rails!” I laughed with my sister about how Kakashi isn’t even mad, because Naruto and Sasuke have been pulling stunts like this for years and Sakura was way overdue for her own meltdown.) And then, after Kakashi intervenes in the fight - Sakura barreling back into the battle when she realizes he’s going to take on the burden of killing Sasuke himself in order to spare her and Naruto the horror - “I can’t let Kakashi-sensei bear this burden!” I love her for that.
And then, of course, in the end - her not being able to do hurt Sasuke after all. Despite committing herself to the act, despite forcing herself to put her feelings for him aside, despite resolving to stop him from starting a war and killing innocent people, she can’t harm him. She cares about him too much. This, too, is thematically significant - think about Itachi’s “you don’t have enough hatred” - she doesn’t have enough hatred to kill someone she cares about, even if it seems like he deserves it, even if would be the right thing to do to protect others. She can’t do it, and Sasuke almost kills her for her compassion.
I love the dynamic this sets up between her and Sasuke, for a few reasons:
1) Personally, I think Sasuke respects Sakura much more for trying to kill him than he would have if she’d just tried to talk him out of his behavior or beg him to come home (a la their original confrontation in Part 1). This is the first significant interaction he’s had with Sakura in years, and the fact that she does something SO contrary to his memory of her is an important demonstration of the fact that she’s not the same girl she used to be. Sasuke spends a lot of time after his defection declaring to his old team “I’ve changed; I’m not that person anymore,” but this is one of the moments where he’s forced to acknowledge that his teammates have changed, too. Time didn’t just stop for them when he left. While he was turning into someone new, so were they. They grew up without him, and his old memories of them can’t encompass the whole picture of who they are now.
(This is a little tangential, but in general, I love the spectrum of reactions that Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi have in this sequence, and the way that all of them are ultimately messages Sasuke needs to hear. Sasuke - who we know textually regrets what he did here, who apologizes to Sakura for it later - for “everything,” in fact - needs Naruto’s aggressively optimistic open-arms policy, yes, needs that potential, that unconditional possibility of return. He also needs Sakura’s refusal to let him hurt her friends and start a war that will kill thousands of people, needs her surprisingly ruthless attempt to take him down; needs just as much her failure to do so, because it shows him that she still loves him too much to kill him even as she condemns him. And he needs Kakashi’s grim line in the sand, needs someone who very possibly won't hesitate like Sakura (despite the horrifying personal cost), someone who will try to reach him but also won't let him escape and become the next generation’s Orochimaru, who won't let him cause untold suffering to untold numbers of people just because a teacher loved him too much to stop him when he had the chance.
(And then even Kakashi chooses not to deliver a killing blow when he has the opportunity -)
(I know that in fandom people are more likely to be all, “oh, Naruto Good, everybody else Bad,” but I don’t think the narrative frames Sakura or Kakashi as “worse” than Naruto in any way. The story goes out of its way to make it clear how desperately they don’t want to hurt Sasuke and how much they care about him. And [this is just my interpretation, so obviously I won’t claim it as fact], I personally think that Sasuke - Sasuke, who, looking back, can see how lost he was then and how tortured he would have been if he’d gone through with many of his plans - would be grateful to Sakura and Kakashi for making an attempt to stop him when he couldn’t stop himself.)
2) On the other side of this, the fact that Sakura wasn’t able to deliver the killing blow means a lot. Sasuke was incapacitated under that bridge; he was completely at her mercy - but she stopped with the kunai an inch from his back. She couldn’t kill him, even though she knew that he was completely willing to kill her (because he'd attempted to Chidori-assassinate her from behind just a few minutes ago). That’s huge! Sasuke is too out of his head right now to process this or understand it, but later, it's going to matter. She stayed her hand. She spared his life. She loved him too much to hurt him, even when he’d given her every reason to take him down. She hesitated, and he almost killed her for it, but her inability to strike him ultimately gave him yet another chance to come home, another chance to get better, another chance to have a life outside of his pain. Despite everything, some part of her still hadn’t really given up on him, and that knowledge will matter later, when he’s finally able to acknowledge it.
The point of all this is to say that I really have no complaints about Sakura and Sasuke’s dynamic in their S10 confrontation. This season is the point where Sakura fully grows past her “girl with a crush” stage and into her “shinobi must make very harsh decisions” adulthood, but it never means that she doesn’t care about the person she’s trying to take down. Her ultimate inability to deliver the killing blow remains a dangling lifeline for her relationship with Sasuke, an open door that Sasuke is able to walk through at the end of the story (literally, in fact, when Sakura opens that portal for him and saves him from Kaguya’s desert prison, and figuratively, too, when Sasuke apologizes to her).
3. she only wants to save you
The last stage in their relationship is what Sakura settles into during the war arc. She started off Part 1 being just a girl with a crush, then tried to harden her heart and put her feelings for Sasuke aside in service of the greater good, but she was unable to actually follow through and kill him, and because of that, what she’s come to accept by the war arc is actually two things: that 1) Sasuke truly is willing to let her die if it furthers his goals, and 2) she wants to save him anyway.
She has no intention of pursuing Sasuke romantically. She knows full well that Sasuke isn’t interested in her. She even knows that Sasuke isn’t really on their side (there’s a great scene where Sai questions Sakura about Sasuke’s return, and she reassures him that everything is fine, and Sai sadly thinks to himself “even I can tell your smile is fake”). She’s well-aware that Sasuke didn’t try to help her when Madara stabbed her. She’s well-aware that he left her to die in the lava pit. She’s also well-aware that none of this is enough to make her stop loving him. He doesn’t have to care about her - she still cares about him. She still wants to help him. She still wants to save him.
This is not hidden, hard-to-parse character development. It’s explicitly articulated on the page:
Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers! She only wants to save you.
I’m not sure if people look at this last confrontation and unquestioningly take Sasuke at his word (as if we haven’t just read 71 volumes/watched 700 episodes showing us how how painfully distorted his thinking is), or if they stop reading/watching before the end of the scene, or if they don’t understand that Sasuke saying something doesn’t make that statement an accurate representation of reality. The entire point of this scene is to show us how deeply mistaken Sasuke is about Sakura (and, by extension, the rest of Team 7). He’s locked into a false pattern of thinking. His single-minded focus on revenge and destruction has blinded him to the unconditional love his friends feel for him; he’s become so accustomed to using others and being used that he can’t understand or accept that someone would care about him without needing a reason, without needing him to love them back, without needing to receive something from him in exchange.
Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers! She only wants to save you.
Sasuke matters to Sakura as more than a love interest. He always has. She does love him romantically, yes, but she doesn’t only love him romantically, and her desire to help him is not and has never been contingent on him returning her feelings, romantically or otherwise. Sasuke isn’t able to acknowledge that in this scene, but that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to just sit back and agree with his warped perspective. Kakashi is the one who’s explicitly positioned as the voice of the narrative here. We, as the audience, are supposed to recognize that Kakashi is the one telling us the truth.
[tangential thing 1: You don’t have to love Sakura's last plea to Sasuke here. It’s not my favorite, either - the best part, other than Kakashi’s speech at the end, is the moment after Kakashi collapses when Sakura’s expression changes from pained uncertainty to pure rage, when she grits her teeth together - when I first saw that, I almost leapt out of my seat like “Oh my god. She’s finally going to let him have it. It’s finally happening - ” I wanted that so badly, and I still think it would have been a more effective writing choice for Sakura’s last words to lean more into her anger at the suffering Sasuke is causing all of them (himself included!) and less into yet another of Kishimoto’s “let me have Sakura articulate what a shame it is that she can’t do as much as Naruto despite the fact that I literally just went through a major reveal sequence in the war to show that she’s caught up to the boys; I can’t make up my mind about whether I want her to progress or not” - it’s extremely frustrating (and it's something he does at the very end of the S10 Team 7 reunion, too, which is the ONLY moment of S10 that falls flat for me). But at the same time, even if there are ways this sequence could be more satisfying, it doesn’t change the fact that her plea to him is not remotely motivated by a desire to be with him romantically and not anything to condemn her for.]
[tangential thing 2: I do like how she remembers that moment when Sasuke says “Thank you.” That panel precedes her saying “If there’s even a tiny corner of your heart that thinks about me…” (which I’m sure is one of the things that people like to criticize about this scene, aka “oh she’s sooooo self-centered” etc), but that particular line of dialogue is preceded by that particular flashback panel for a reason: Sakura knows that Sasuke DOES think about her. He thinks about all of them. Sakura remembers that “thank you,” and it reminds her that despite everything Sasuke has done and said since, despite all evidence to the contrary, she knows in her bones that his expression of gratitude back then was genuine. He cared about her once. He cared about all of them. She’s trying to reach the part of him that still does, if it exists.]
[tangential thing 3: The fact that Kakashi says “she suffers from loving you,” and it triggers Sasuke to remember his own family - thinking about how much he suffered (and still suffers) from loving them - “Perhaps…those are the ties to a failed past” - the idea that it’s not worth it to have bonds if it means you suffer this much…that it’s too difficult, it’s too painful, and if Sakura and the rest of Team 7 were smarter they would just give it up (all Sasuke knows how to do now is sever potential bonds before they can hurt him; so why aren’t Sakura and the rest of his teammates doing that, why can’t they let it go, why are they making this so hard - ) << yeah, he clearly doesn't care about her/them at all.]
4. the shadow of my family
This has all been a really long way to answer the original question, but the short response to “What do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura?” is “I really care about it,” just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto, just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Kakashi. And I don’t think the story ever asks me to choose between them.
I’m not sure whether it’s the impact of Boruto-era “canon” that gets in the way of other people approaching things this way (I don’t consider sequel material when I evaluate the original story), or if it’s Kishimoto’s frequent disinterest in/disrespect towards female characters, which yes, does sometimes make it harder, or if it's a shipping thing (bane of my existence), or some combination of factors, but for me, taking one member of Team 7 out of the equation hobbles the rest of the story. I can’t read/watch Naruto while hating one of the protagonists and loving the other three. It doesn’t work like that for me. The story wasn’t written that way, and there’s nothing in the text that would cause me to receive it that way.
That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with disliking one of the main foursome (or any character, for that matter) - obviously we're all going to have different preferences, and everyone is free to enjoy or reject whatever parts of a story they want, or to like or dislike whatever characters they want. I know that some people have more fun disregarding canon and doing their own thing, which is fine. My own personal zone of enjoyment comes from receiving the story as closely to how I think it was intended to be read as I can, and personally, when I look at this particular story, what I see is that all the members of Team 7 clearly demonstrate their love for Sasuke in ways that he himself later recognizes and acknowledges. All of them are driven by their desire to save him and their unwillingness to hurt him. All of them make repeated choices to chase after him when he runs away, to trust him when he hasn't exactly earned it, to give him another chance when he doesn't appear to deserve it. ALL of them, not just Naruto, do these things multiple times throughout the story, and Sasuke owes his life (and thus his eventual recovery) to ALL of them, many times over. Kakashi disobeys Hokage-elect Danzō and breaks the law to negotiate for Sasuke's life with a foreign head of state. Sakura and Kakashi both have opportunities to kill Sasuke in the Land of Iron, and they choose to spare him instead. Kakashi stops Sasuke from killing his only friends at two different points in the story, which would have been a mistake Sasuke couldn't have recovered from. Sasuke would have died in Kaguya's desert dimension if Sakura hadn't saved him (Sakura, who knew that Sasuke wasn't even truly on her side yet, who knew he'd abandoned her for dead multiple times already that day). Kaguya's bone bullet would have killed Sasuke too, if Kakashi, with his intention to die in Sasuke's place, hadn't leapt in front of it (Kakashi, who also knew that Sasuke wasn't fully on their side yet, who also knew that Sasuke had abandoned him for dead earlier that day). Sasuke and Naruto would have BOTH died in the Final Valley if Sakura and a severely injured Kakashi hadn't chased after them to heal their injuries.
Remove any one member of Team 7, and Sasuke never makes it home. Without the combined efforts of all three of his teammates, he doesn't survive. That’s the way it should be, thematically, for a story whose first and most foundational premise was the importance of teamwork, and since Sakura was just as essential to that framework as everyone else, I’m just as invested in her relationship with Sasuke as I am in his relationship with everyone else. You can’t remove one leg from a four-legged stool without damaging the integrity of the entire structure, and for me, discounting any single member of Team 7 irreparably damages the integrity of the entire story.
TL;DR: I love all of the Team 7 relationships, including Sakura and Sasuke's, because despite what some segments of fandom seem to believe, the text of the story never gives me any reason not to.
#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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I occasionally wish to reach out to old friends/acquaintances I haven't spoken to since high school/some other even earlier time in my life, but I have SOOO little social energy even for required tasks (like making dr phone calls or etc), I never have any leftover for extra ones, and it would be very odd to message someone I haven't spoken to in like 5 years out of the blue but then take 4 entire months to respond back lol.. My natural curiosity with nostalgia/collecting details of the past/etc. (literally if I were born a little earlier I would definitely do scrapbooking or something lol) is very strong, but, alas, not strong enough to beat out the Social Issues Demons apparently
#facebook always does that 'here's a post from this day 8 years ago' thing. and I see old comments interacting#with people and it's so like.. OOOOO~~ where are they now?? what's going on? how much have they changed as people?#how much are they the same? this is fascinating. i should contact them!!' but then it's like... take that to it's logical conclusion though#you would contact them and then IF they even responded it would take you 80 years to respond and then they would#think there was something wrong or that you were trying to be insulting or something. To contact anyone I need to include an 85 page#disclaimer of all of my social issues & mental illness things. 'If i take 3 weeks to reply I promise it has nothing to do with u' etc lol#THIS is why more people need to be into phone calls/voice calls/some form of audio real time communication/etc.#I think one of the main things that's hard about messaging through text for me is it's so unscheduled and open ended#(plus it takes forever if you're talking about anything in detail and gets very long very quickly)#because like you can send a message and then just get a reply whenever. and then you're expected to reply back whenever#so it's like you never know when the response will come or when a new obligation to reply can come up? so it's like this sudden thing with#no outline?? if that makes sense. whereas a phone call is very like 'hello let's schedule a call from 10am - 2pm on thursday'. And you know#EXACTLY when the interaction will start and EXACTLY when it will end and you can plan around it in your schedule easily.#I have the reverse thing of a lot of people (how people don't pick up phone calls/hate calls/only text)#I would literally talk on the phone with a stranger. I would have a discord voice chat with someone I barely know.#if someone I hardly even remember from elementary school asked to have a voice call with me out of nowhere I would do it.#but if a stranger MESSAGED me?? or someone I barely know sent me a TEXT or something?? I will never reply probably#It's just too vague and weird. and you can't read voice tone over text. and the interaction could last forever with no clear end#point and etc. etc. But a call is like. set. established. clear boundaries. you can read the flow of conversation better. rapport. etc. etc#I get that I guess people feel more anonymous or distanced over text?? but you can have fake phone numbers on the computer. or do like disc#rd calls. or zoom without a camera or etc. etc. Also the distance that's present in text is BAD distance because it just means that tone is#not conveyed properly and you will never truly get a sense of the person's conversational vibe or mannerisms or how well you really click.#ANYWAY ghgjh...... I'm so so so interested in concepts of like.. How did that one kid I used to talk to in elementary school#but then they moved away in 5th grade - how did they end up? what are they doing now?? etc. etc. Like despite the severe social anhedonia#and general lack of connection with others I'm just really fascinated in like.. idk. the human development of it all and like#the concept of how we're actually a million different people through the course of our lives ever evolving in different iterations and etc.#PLUS again. i love nostalgia. sometimes old peple you know might remember a shared memory or can tell you about something you forgot#or etc. like it's SUCH A COOL THING in CONCEPT but I am too socially inept generally speaking lol. which people I still talk to today are#familiar with my 'phone call once every few months' communication style. but strangers would just be like... wtf. And I don't blame them#Sure I literally cannot change the physical health + brain issues i have - but also I know enough to not put others through that lol
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What I love about watching Catherine Tate's convention panels is that she is making it into her own show, she is doing stand-up comedy with audience interaction and participation possibility for everyone who wants to. She basically does what she loves most - comedy entertainment. And she does it so brilliantly! She doesn't even need a moderator, she can work with audience so effortlessly! Like people can tell her jokes, come up to the stage and do bits with her, and everyone gets to ask a question or take a photo with her if they wish, and she is so sweet and kind to everyone and everybody gets a hug. Her panels are worth every penny people pay for it because they get to have a blast and they get a full Catherine Tate experience and the best time ever!
#catherine tate#dw diaries#sort of#like speaking from my own experience at a convention i can tell you for sure not every actor is good at doing cons#and not every actor is worth paying big money to travel and meet#i once spend quite a lot of money to travel to a convention to meet a rather popular actress and it was one of the biggest disappointments#and wasted money instances in my life#also one of the instances where 'never meet your idols' can be applied#but i would definitely pay money for travel and convention ticket if i could afford it if i had a chance to meet catherine tate#text
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homo sex is in!
#I kept the text pencil cause I wasnt sure if I wanted to keep it#and in fact it is erased in the sketchbook#but heres a problematic starlight glimmer for the girlies#I hate her hair#you can tell i didnt try on it#but thats probably the best cutie mark i ever drew#and Im good with the pose#I coulda fixed it more#but whatevers#mlp#starlight glimmer#shes directly across from the rarijack ill post that as a reply
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i am such a clown. decided to make stickers for my siblings even though i have ZERO design skills or knowledge of any programs that allow you to rotate text except for powerpoint. so i made them in powerpoint. (this took, mmmm, maybe 6-8 hours btw.) then had to find a website that would print and mail these stickers to me. no i don't want 50 stickers. i want one circle sticker and one rectangle sticker. oh that's not an option anybody wants to give me? okay then i guess i will buy 16 circle stickers (the least offered) and 50 rectangle stickers (the least offered. why not 16 also? a mystery). one of the designs is for my sibling's band, so if they like it theoretically they could use the stickers as merch or something lol. but i'm not holding my breath, on account of the aforementioned lack of design skills. i get away with a lot among my family because they're all so willing to react to my questionable creations with aww look, she Tried! but that probably doesn't work for strangers who are fans of my sibling's band. so i guess they will just have 49 extra stickers that they can idk stick to streetlight poles or something. not my problem.
#i originally designed them on graph paper. with like a compass and everything#i learned something new today!! apparently you can curve a text box around a circle!!!!!! that saved me some time#this all came about because my sister was telling me how sad she was that she lost her water bottle because it had a sticker on it#that she had gotten from her travels. and i was like awesome i'll just make her a new one#girl what! you don't know how to do that!!! CLOWNNNNNN#also i don't actually know what the original sticker looked like lol which is probably for the best so i can't 1) plagiarize#or 2) compare my shoddy workmanship to that of an actual professional#i thought about commissioning an actual graphic designer to do this but i quickly got overwhelmed with logistics#and it's so close to christmas i didn't really want to deal with the timeline issue#i really should have done this three months ago but of course i procrastinated#anyway. the website kept being like are you SURE you positioned that image correctly?#and i was like nope! but i don't know what else to do so let's just try it and see what happens :)#it looked fine in the preview. living on the edge over here. the extreme sport of sticker designing
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when i.v drops i will make a vellory google doc and ill have my own pepe silvia moment. Everyone will see the truth eventually
#they actually start making me sick the moment i think abt them too long okay#and the thing is theres not even that many interactions to pick out from. considering the game only focuses on what alex tells you#and im sure as hell this guy would Not gaf about those two honest to god#but out of their interactions that are shown/implied ... ouh [ falls to the floor ]#like they seem to be on Good terms w each other in general#but ill never shut up abt the fact its implied vella stayed back in wind town to check up on rory after the sewer dungeon#or the cutscene at mark's house where the only piece of dialogue rory has during it is bringing up vella#and how vella comforts rory when confronted w his soul survivor and how rory comforts vella when (i.v specific thing)#(<- was in one of the twitter preview images thoug You can find them on ackk's twt trust)#basically#someone please shoot me in the head i Cant do this anymore#text tag
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I love that all of my friends who have watched Crazy Stupid Love with me will point at Ryan Gosling's character and say "ohhh I see why you like him... he's like your other F/O, Barney Stinson :) except he kinda respects women a little bit more" and I'm like... what. oh... huh.
I see.
#ive queued a few love notes and this is one of them. hi. trying to come back slowly but surely#can you imagine Jacob and Barney in the same room??#Barney telling Jacob how to deceive and trick women into giving him their numbers#and Jacob is like '????? no I just ask for it. why are you tricking people'#or Barney tells him about The Playbook or The Lemon Law and Jacob's like '?????????????????'#'I just ask a woman to sleep with me and they say yes. idk what the hell YOU'RE doing'#then it turns into a whole thing abt how Jacob doesn't need to do those things to get a girl to sleep w/ him#bc Jacob is competent and handsome and Barney is just some guy#like if it were just Jacob and Barney in competition to see who gets the most numbers at the end of the night WITHOUT lying/deceiving#Jacob would get *every* single one and Barney would only get a handful#Plus Jacob doesn't lie to the women and say 'ok ill call you'... I'm assuming he doesn't anyway#There's no implication that Jacob isn't letting these girls know 'hey there's no attachment here this is literally just a one night stand'#like why does Barney feel the need to lie to the girl to make her leave his apartment#or why does he feel the need to come up with a lie to sneak out of her place when she's asleep?#why not just say up front 'hey I'm just looking for a one night thing this isn't serious'#whatever maybe I'm just asexual and autistic but I will never understand Not Communicating. esp when it comes to sex. but ok.#woof#love notes#????#💕♬♪ ♡ It feels different when you’re with me - ̗̀☆🥂🖤✨☆ ̖́-#💕 Our love is LEGEND ━ wait for it! ━ DARY! ✨ LEGENDARY! ✨#<- wow you can tell that first ship tag is recent and that second one is from YEARS ago#i need to update my old ship tags and put way more glitter text onto them#love notes: barney ♡#love notes: jacob ♡
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Ok so these designs are cute as hell, the Internet is just mean
I have too many thoughts about a game I still need to watch
#goodbye volcano high#i dont have the money to buy it but god i need to watch a playthrough when i have time it's so interesting to me#like; the theme of 'yeah we're going die but that doesn't mean we can enjoy what time we have left' sounds amazing to me love that#its so funny i was actually watching a review of it that was basically 'this game sucks and here's why'#and then it just started listing off shit like- 'the characters designs are pastel they're nonbinary you die no matter what'#and then my neurons just went off and went '👁️👁️ oh! sounds amazing i want to see more'#fuck yeah pastel nonbinary dinosaurs lets go#well i think its just fang thats nonbinary and then two other trans characters#i saw a cutscene! and it was about the experiences of being an apart of a family as sec-gen immigrant and trans-#and i thought that was cool as hell dont recall ever seeing that in any of thr arts ive seen before (but there's lots of art out there!)#heard it got some glitches tho (havent looked in depth of what those glitches are) hopefully it got patched out#also im so fucking pissed i saw the gator game before i saw this 😮💨 (context; apparently made by people who made a fangame where they#the mc of this game a datable side character and they only have a happy ending if they detransition? which fucking yikes😬)#i saw people say 'oh but they did it empathetically' like how the fuck is taking a canon nb character and making them only happy through#detransitioning empathetic that sounds super fucking shitty and gross#i think a character that detransitions can be done and would be interesting to see- but this just reeks of people being transphobic for real#oh also purple dino has a slug or worm or something apparently! seems cute! just a lil thing#apparently its a rhythm game; listened to some of the songs and it sounded good! sadly i suck at rhythm games#but apparently failing doesn't affect the story? kinda wish it would but honestly better for me lol-#pink one and fang end up dating i believe- from what i saw pink is like- soft spoken artist? dunno if accurate but she's cute#all the characters are cute just look at them!!! awesome#also they have to just continue school like normal before they die and honestly thats so real#also saw people dislike the fact you dont see the characters actual die or the meteor#which is ??? dunno i just think some things are better left implied than shown-#anyways man i keep trying to find neat stuff about the game and all i see is people bitchin about it or praising the shit fan on instead 😔#man if i had two nickles for a time i grew to become obsessed with a media only for loads of people to hate id have two nickles#first nickle is kat elliot she's such a cool character Internet wasn't ready for her#also yes i saw obsessed i can just tell this is something ill go bonkers for#i mean god look how much text is in my tags for this already! and i still need to see the game in it's fullness!#im sure there's other cool shit
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i can't believe they made me speak french in the oral exam
#IT'S DONE#i don't know fellas i have no idea what impression of me they got#i stumbled a lot and contradicted myself so :(#also they told me how it was gonna go and they were like 'first we'll ask you stuff about the written exam. then you'll tell us about#your phd project and we'll talk about it. and then there's the second language exam :)'#and in my brain all alarms went off#i remember in the application i think i selected spanish as second language because the other options were like. french and german#and they were like. so french in your case right! cause spanish is not your second language :)#and i was sure!#(the last time i spoke french i was 17 in high school)#they made me read a text in french and then translate it#they saw me struggle so much in english that half-way through the translation they went 'you can translate it in spanish we'll understand'#and it went so much smoother from there on lol#anwyays. i have no idea what'll happen. i'll know next monday
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What are your ships?
I really enjoy shipping but I actually only have one in Kirby that I absolutely love and would say I ship. And that would be Metadede.
I like others, but I either don't feel nearly as strongly about them, or only enjoy them aesthetically and don't really care for them on a deeper level.
Besides, I tend to think of most of these characters as aromantic, or on the aromantic spectrum, so that contributes to how I feel about properly pairing them up in an AU or something.
That being said there are "canon" couples in my AU thing. It's two. Or technically five.
There's Metadede, of course. And then there's this... Giant. Nefarious. Queerplatonic polycule.
It'd take a whole separate post to explain it in depth, but here's the short version of it.
Wave 3 is in a poly relationship, but then, separately, Susie has something going on with Francisca, and Magolor has something going on with Chilly.
Also Marx is there. Her and Magolor and never too far apart so she's here now.
I could not pick one pairing, since I liked all of these, so I thought I just wouldn't pick any and I'd just have the one couple in my thing.
But in a moment of weakness I started designing hypothetical fankids for two of pairings, since I really like coming up with those, and got too attached to them so I found a way to make it work. And then just decided I wouldn't pick just those two, and I'd just make everything work all at once.
I've grown fond of this mess, I think it's funny and I like how the relationships developed even outside of the fankid context it originated in. So it all worked out in the end.
#physically had to stop myself from yapping more#you can ask about the evil polycule and the kids if you'd like. I'd love to talk about them. as I'm sure you can tell#also I'm not sure how this is supposed to be tagged#since i'm mentioning ships and characters and stuff but not actually like. Saying anything about them#so idk if i should tag them. But i've seen other people do it so if anyone with more experience could enlighten me that'd be great#thank you for your interest#text post
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Y’all is Hollow Knight hard or do I just suck because oh my god??
#not gonna inflict my ramblings onto someone else’s post so just making a text post for myself#but oh my god#what the fuck?#maybe I’m not a hardcore metroidvania fan but I like them well enough#do I suck that badly at games now?? am I old to the point that my hands can’t do this shit????#did I just somehow fuck myself at some point???#because wow this feels kind of sadistic????#and not even in the fun kind of way?????#like I think I’d rather submit myself to fear and hunger again rather than continue where I am now in hk#idk maybe I’m missing something#but I just got wall jump and was so happy until I fell down to where you can challenge those mantis dudes#got myself out of there but then as I was exploring northwest I keep dying and reviving from the fucking bouncy balls over water#and the normal mantis mobs are also kicking my ass?#and dont even get me started on the weird tentacley nuclear bomb mushroom things those are just bullshit#AND THEN AS I WAS HAVING A GOOD TIME EXPLORING HEADING TOWARDS A SAVE BENCH I GET DROPPED INTO DEEPNEST??????#WHAT KIND OF JUMPSCARE BULLSHIT??????????#AND THE FUCKING COCKROACHES THAT NEVER SEEM TO STOP SPAWNING KILL ME#and then I see how fucking far back I’ve been dropped in the corner of fungal wastes#and I try jumping through the fucking bouncy balls again#and I die and lose my money#I can’t fucking do this shit anymore y’all holy fucking shit#the number of times I’ve died and restarted from that fucking fungal wastes bench I am so sick of it 💀#legit I think this is the first time I’ve rage quit a game#it’s been a while since a game’s actually made me this angry I want to fucking throw something 😂#the willpower and self control I needed to not chuck my pro controller across the room…#if I didn’t have neighbors and a unit below me I’d be throwing shit for sure though#but instead I must smack pillows against my mattress in a rage 😂#I think I hate the ‘go back to where you died to get back your money’ punishment system… like legit I actually really really hate it.#I do think the game is fun and I know I’ll probably quickly gain the money… but it feels like the game’s telling me I fucking suck lmao#suffice to say I will not be playing any more hollow knight for the foreseeable future 💀
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I've been skimming through the first IDW tf comic run looking for some good non-MTMTE panels for some more character-centric photosets to put together and man. I know for a fact I've expressed this opinion somewhere on this blog before, YEARS ago at this point, but it is still completely and utterly true: everything before MTMTE was mid as fuck at best lmfAO
every time I start getting too entrenched in MTMTE/Lost Light discourse and "criticism" I just need to skim some of the comics that came before it and then I will immediately be unable to take any criticism of MTMTE/Lost Light seriously lmAO
#text post#it is truly just. drowning in an ocean of mid and being barely kept afloat by a couple wooden planks of good writing moments#and occasionally getting actively attacked by bad writing sharks. this metaphor is getting away from me but you get it lmAO#it's like actually wild that MTMTE and Lost Light were as good as they were#and sure you can dislike MTMTE and/or Lost Light but. they are not badly written I'll tell you that lmfAO
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