#thank you for this incredible question

[pardonmydelays]

what do you love the most about twenty one pilots?

i fucking love this question, but there's no easy answer to it. i guess i'm gonna have to try tho, because sometimes i feel like maybe some of you don't really understand WHY i totally changed my entire blog when clancy came out (it's kinda like me loving this band was my biggest secret for such a long time, idk. i still remember how a few months before it i've mentioned something and anix literally yelled at me like "WHY THE FUCK YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU LIKE TWENTY ONE PILOTS" lmao. anyway).

first of all, no one has ever made me feel so seen and understood. there's real magic in tyler joseph's lyrics, you might hate me for what i'm about to say right now, but speaking of tortured poets - for me it's not taylor, it's tyler. and the scariest part of it all is that i very often relate to his lyrics. but that's also beautiful - it's therapeutic in a way. so when clancy came out and i realized i relate to pretty much EVERY song on this record, i just thought to myself, oh lord, how did i survive this long without their music. it's always been them for me. i will never abandon them again, i swear.

second thing, the lore. you all know i'm a slut for stories told through music (*cough* musical theatre *cough*). also, if the plot of the story is complex and weird as fuck, there's a pretty big chance it will become my favourite thing in the world. the entire lore is an insane metaphor for mental health struggles so, obviously, i can find a part of myself in it. i would die for their lore, honestly. it's all i can think about. and clancy will always be my fucking blorbo.

another thing i love a lot about them, and it's something you don't really see if you don't watch their interviews or live performances, they are literally just two dudes. both josh and tyler have always been very anxious and awkward and weird and that's what makes them more human in my opinion - just two fucking idiots who are best friends, lmao. they are so relatable in every possible way. they are also the funniest dudes in the entire world. and their friendship is so fucking beautiful. the only difference between us and them, truly, is that they are extremely talented and they have their own band.

also, they care about the clique so fucking much, this was probably mentioned on my blog before (maybe even today in a previous ask). they don't care about the charts, about awards, about anything really, all they care about is their music and fans. they don't do it to be the best band in the world. they do it to save lives - our lives as much as their own (if it wasn't for this music i don't know how i would have fought this). and that's what makes them different and honestly, better than the other artists.

they are also pretty much unproblematic. i wasn't really sure if i should mention that, but i feel like i need to. tyler joseph made one stupid mistake a few years ago - the way people reacted to this still breaks my fucking heart. he realized he was wrong tho, he apologized. the other day i saw a post here on tumblr about how he's fucking problematic and racist and the worst man on the planet etc etc. can we... fucking stop, please. it was just a stupid joke and he knows it was dumb and unnecessary. most people wouldn't even apologize, but he did. end of story. i will defend him with my life (not saying he is perfect, but shit, if you want to cancel him for one mistake maybe you should look at yourself first).

i feel like there are thousand different reasons but i'm just gonna stop here, because it's too fucking long already and no one will read it anyway.

[glassedplanets]

a few months ago giffy was like "haha hear me out, what if tattoo au" and then we blacked out and talked about nothing else for like three weeks

[vfdinthewild]

my neighbors are up to something...

submission by @cozypiscean

[ddeongies]

hello my fav writer, im curious abt ur top 5 ryeji fics 🧐

OKAY this was both hard to answer and easy to answer bc i'm good at remember to bookmark my faves (and also reread them all LMAO). that being said!! the below list is not in order, there are honorable mentions, and there's just so much incredible ryeji fic out there that it feels wild to just say 5.

what’s in a name by snowandwolves

if you haven’t read what’s in a name and you read ryeji fic…… please read it right now? it’s not only my favorite ryeji fic, it’s one of my fave stories of all time (including published shit like this fucking fic is a tour de force). it’s simply one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever read and i could not recommend it enough. (this author’s writing is so good i started watching warrior nun just so i can one day enjoy their warrior nun fics i’m so for real right now)

all or nothing (unfortunately orphaned 😭)

all or nothing is one of my comfort fics. it’s a perfect little two shot and idk how many times i’ve read it. the characterization is just lovely. the ryeji relationship is warm and soft and slow and sweet and inevitable (which you know is just how i like it). perfect amount of getting to know each other, perfect amount of pining, a dreamy dreamy yeji it’s just elite

call it fate, call it karma by crushpdf

this fic….. read it please if you haven’t it’s criminally underrated. the fact that it has fewer than 2k hits is actually insane to me. idol yeji and producer ryu and they just fall in love and it’s low drama and perfect and another comfort fic of mine. idk what to say, it’s a 6k one shot, so honestly just read (or reread) it now and thank me later

muse by qaisal

i was considering not including a qaisal fic on this list, but that doesn’t feel right or honest, like there’s a reason they’re top of the tag!! i think muse is my personal fave (and one of the first ryeji fics i’ve ever read, which is probably true for many! if you’ve somehow read my fics and haven’t read muse i am confused, but it’s just cute as hell! i’m too old to write a high school au, so it’s very nice to have an elite one like this to read and reread when i wanna feel warm and fuzzy inside

you’re a mean one by snowddeong

this fic…. also one of the first ryeji fics i read. i don’t generally read gp, but when it’s good it’s good, and YAMO is so fucking good. idk how many times i’ve read it. snow has this unfair ability to tie like so much yearning and history and backstory and tension in these simple moments. and then they combine it with some really hot shit? elite smut fic like it’s an all time classic!!!

honorable mentions:

wheel, snipe, celly by lonewolflink

bite me by hwang_yeddeong

cartwheel heart by aprilflower

step by step (then a leap of faith) by snowandwolves

good boi by hwangdroid (also snow)

[nebuladreamz]

Birthday time :D

I doodled this on the 18th, figured it’d be nice to save for today.

This past year has been the most wildest year of my life. To everyone I’ve come to known, old and new.

You mean the fucking world to me. Here’s for an even better rest of our year, together.

@f0rtunesfuture @amberluvsbugs @garbagechocolate @darkxsoulzyx @kandidandi @just-a-drawing-bean @cacaocheri @bunmuffin @sleepykas @xitsensunmoon @justaduckarts @skizabaa @starsketchez @fernzwing @smoljeanius @ilsole @tuzesdays @magicclownjuice @ohno-the-sun

(If I haven’t tagged you there is a Very(tm) high chance I am either unsure if you’d want to be tagged or too much of a coward to do it anyways but that does not mean you’d mean less <3)

[aseuki]

hi there Stell, good luck in the tourney! i'm plopping starstruck dee here in your inbox for a hot second!

she wants to know what's up with the economy and you seem like you might know! she also wants to tell you that you have the most amazing beautiful wings she's ever seen and also that your gun blades are soooooo incredibly super cool and you look like you must be really good at them and also that it's totally impressive that you live on a star and she wonders if that means the two of you are friends and also th

[Obtained(?): +1 Conversation Buddy] Good luck, Starstruck!

[panharmonium]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, from the top:

1. the girl with the crush

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. the greater good

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

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

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

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

Anyway. Back to a more measured response.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. she only wants to save you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. the shadow of my family

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

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

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

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

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

[hailsatanacab]

@the-witchhunter - this is incredibly disturbing, i love it. fair warning, i took it more in the direction of that oglaf comic (nsfw) where Vlad fully doesn't realise that this is a love shrine, this is a completely normal thing that you do for your arch enemy!

———

“Daniel! I can explain!”

“Oh… my… God...”

“Daniel, really, it’s not what it looks like!”

“Really?” Danny breathes, shocked and honestly kind of fighting down the urge to vomit. The thermos slips from his fingers and clatters to the ground, the sound echoing far too loudly in the enclosed space. “Because it looks like you have a shrine dedicated to my dad in your closet.”

“No, that’s not—it’s more complicated than that, Daniel. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I don’t think I want to understand.”

“Your father is a ridiculous man, Daniel. I hate his stupid face so much. Look at him!”

Vlad turns back to the actual shrine, with actual candles and actual flowers and actual photos of his dad with… Holy crap, did Vlad cut out Mom in each of the photos? What the fuck? 

Wait… Look, Danny tries not to look too closely at the weird things Vlad has hidden around his mansion dedicated to his mom, but he’s fairly sure that the pictures of her he’s cut out (in heart shapes—yeah, Danny’s definitely going to barf) are the ones Vlad’s put in his other weirdo closet shrine that Danny also wishes he’d never seen.

“Why don’t you just have one shrine? Why have—no, you know what, I don’t want to know. I think I’m just gonna leave.”

Yeah, that sounds like the best option. Danny takes a cautious step back, very ready to get back home, bleach his eyeballs and maybe never look at his mom and dad ever again. Or, at least, not until he has successfully blocked this from his mind forever.

He only gets one foot out the door when Vlad lashes out and grabs him. The day just keeps getting better and better, really, doesn’t it? Even as he twists and turns, he can’t get out of Vlad’s ironclad grip and he’s pulled even farther into the closet. 

Panic rises in his throat as Vlad shuts the door—what the fuck is happening? He doesn’t want to be dragged into Vlad’s creepy shrine to his dad, what the fuck? What the fuck!

“I loathe your father, Daniel, I hate him with the very core of my being. Look at him!” 

There’s no goddamn way in hell Danny is looking at any of the pictures, no thank you. He squeezes his eyes shut and wishes he were somewhere, anywhere else, when Vlad jerks his arm forward so he comes nose-to-nose with the largest framed portrait of his dad in the very centre of the table, smiling with his doctorate and a very unfortunate 80s mullet. Dear God, no.

“I hate his smug face! I hate his stupid fashion sense, you have no idea how much I detest that orange jumpsuit of his, how much I want to claw it off him and tear it to shreds! If I have to listen to him say another boneheaded, idiotic, ridiculous thing, I will—I’ll rip his throat out with my teeth! You don't know how long I spend here looking at him, imaging all the ways I'll have him grovelling at my feet. One day, Daniel, I'll have him one day...”

———

The sun was going down when Danny finally managed to escape and find solace in Sam and Tucker. He's not going home. Not yet.

“Danny, are you okay? We were so worried, we couldn’t get hold of you for hours! Where were you?”

“Sam, Tuck… Vlad, he…”

“Holy shit, Danny, you’re shaking, are you alright? What happened, what did he do?”

“I think… I think he wants to fuck my dad.”

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

First of all, I just want to say. I called it lol

Finally an sskk face off since the sacrifice. I am going insane. I can’t articulate all my thoughts rn but something about the way Atsushi aimed a kick at Akutagawa that he fully expected the guy to block (because they know each other’s usual fighting styles!!!) only for it to connect and hurt him; Atsushi begging Akutagawa to recognize him because even if he still can’t consciously admit it, Atsushi has become convinced that Akutagawa wouldn’t be attacking him like this if he knew it was him; pleading for him to snap out of it and demanding to know why he saved him aghhhhh I’m going feral we know the reason Atsushi we know whyyyyy

I can’t believe it actually. We are at the point where sskk do not want to genuinely hurt each other. Atsushi attacked only out of self defence and was taken aback by actually breaking his wrist. Akutagawa refused to kill Atsushi in the Fukuchi fight and Atsushi is now convinced he’d stop attacking if he recognized him. Holy shit. Oh my god.

And Sigma badass moment! My boy, he pulled through! Either him or Chuuya had to break the stalemate; hell yeah, validation. Wasn’t there a meme someone made? “Prison arc -> prison arc if Sigma still had a gun”? Well Sigma’s got a gun and things are picking up babyyyy! His retort to Fyodor was quite possibly the funniest thing he could’ve said in response. Just completely shut him down. Using what he’s learned running the empty home Fyodor previously tried to buy his trust with. Beautiful. ADA Sigma real??? (I think the story will have to acknowledge his very public involvement with Taneda’s shooting and the acts of terrorism the Hunting Dogs now know he is responsible for… so I’m not sure how that will go but I’d like to see him end up with the Agency tbh… so long as it makes sense.)

Things I did not expect:

Mysterious note left in Russian??? It could be Mykola I suppose but… why? What happened? If he’s actually in trouble I doubt he’d need help escaping. Is it a trap? But what for? Alternatively… could it be Pushkin? He was in Meursault initially right? We never found out what his connection was. It could be a new Russian author too! Intriguing! There’s also the matter of it being written in Russian in the first place - who is it meant for? Sigma specifically? Or is it meant for someone else who speaks Russian?

Dazai is actually injured! I was certain he had something ready to get out on his own but I like this much better. Tbh I know this sounds bad but I’m actually way more invested now that Dazai has a broken leg and Fyodor was just shot. There’s higher stakes, you know? Damn though. I think Dazai’s injuries are. Worse. He’s being terribly self-sacrificial, and is apparently going to face off against Chuuya next time we see him. I do think now the stakes would be too low if Chuuya was completely free of the brainwashing tbh… I’m hoping for a double “I know you’re in there” fight between skk and sskk. Not that Dazai can do much physically but his strength has always been with words anyways, and I am certain Chuuya’s already fighting back. And I know Atsushi will reach Akutagawa. Manifesting sskk reunion where they challenge Fukuchi again and win this time via the power of unbreakable trust (delusional).

Sigma asks Fyodor “WHAT are you?” Which is interesting, and I’m hoping will acknowledge the way Fyodor doesn’t seem to age… but also intriguing is the “getting closer” part on the side which implies he’s not quite right. I think Fyodor will still turn out to be human tbh (it’d be weird otherwise, thematically), but now I’m starting to lend a little more weight to that theory about a Fyodor double…

Well anyways. This was a lot. I’m going to helplessly whir about it for a bit now.

[amywritesthings]

Hi I sent in the allergies ask LOL. I’ve seen people joke about Levi having a lil kitten sneeze but on a bad allergy day and he’s just fighting for his life (in the safety of his own office or with the team) and everyone’s trying not to laugh because they know it’ll set him off 😭😭

oh. my. god.

as someone who also has an embarrassing kitten sneeze herself, i am TRYING NOT TO COUGH-LAUGH IN MY OWN ALLERGY FLARE-UP RN THINKING OF THE FIRST TIME LEVI SNEEZES AND EVERYONE IS LIKE "...." and levi's snarling through gritted teeth just "don't."

like i know levi squad is one thing and they do their best to say nothing because they don't want to piss him off, but furlan/isabel? oh i know those two were relentless with teasing that boy in the underground anytime he did a 3-for-1 kitten sneeze. (thoroughly enjoying the idea that levi can't simply sneeze once and it's always in threes. that's even worse)

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

Me, walking to my college campus through a commercial area: *minding my own business*

Some Random Dude in a White Sedan, pulling up beside me: Hey are you a student?

Me, still walking, completely taken off guard: Yes?

Some Random Dude: Do you students feel safe walking through here?

Me, walking faster: I mean, I don't know? I'm good!

[andsotheuniverseended]

Orimar Vale sir if you happen to be free any night this week i would love to discuss sensory overload and the pursuit of escaping the limits of humanity to become a story that will never die with you

[pardonmydelays]

how were you introduced to the musical theatre world? what was the first musical you remember watching/listening to? what was the musical that made you obsessed? (feel free to elaborate)

wow, edith. i'm sorry. you probably forgot you sent me this and i don't know what's wrong with me (i have seemed to run out of excuses of why i am this way...). anyway.

so this is probably going to be like the most basic answer, but i feel like you all already know that hamilton is the one that made me obsessed. been meaning to watch it for such a long time, then i finally did and BOOM!, just like that, i realized that i have finally found the missing puzzle piece in my life...

i, of course, have seen other musicals before (mamma mia and la la land being the ones i've always loved), but those were just movies, and i definitely prefer musical theatre now - it's much better in my opinion.

now, after having such a long break, i must say that the ones that will probably stay with me forever are in the heights, the great comet (and probably other dave malloy's musicals), hadestown and tick tick boom. don't get me wrong, i love fun musicals, but i feel like maybe i expect something more from musical theatre world - i need it to absolutely destroy my brain, leave me heartbroken, make me think about the message for the rest of my fucking days... i don't know. i don't want to have fun, i want to fucking cry and die and relate to at least one character (nina rosario and pierre bezukhov i am looking at you). i'm insane. i'm sorry.

[seawing-vibes]

12, 15 (particularly seawings), and 39 for the ask game!!

12. One thing you'd add to an arc/ book?

P much what Qibilette Said, I'd love to develop the politics of each tribe during the war far more! I'd specifically find it interesting to explore how those politics impacted the tribes post-war! One of my main headcanons is that the Skywing Kingdom entered Total War due to their alliance with Burn (the Mudwings were close, but since they allied later on they didn't fully Get There), and due to that they struggled agriculturally post-war and relied heavily on Mudwing Agricultural to keep stable. Stuff like that I would find interesting to develop more & further examine how cultural clashes develop from post-war ideals in Pyrhhia!!

15. Any design headcanons?

Surprisingly, I don't have any major ones for Seawings! Out of all the tribes I imagine they are the ones to develop & create the most tattoos (softer scales mean better tattooing), so characters like Nautilus have tattoos. Other than that not much, my most canon divergent is that warm-toned seawings are common & that there are different builds (not significantly, just size & gill strength) between Ocean Born Seawings, Brackish water Seawings, and Land-Dwelling Seawings. Also something I don't see the fandom note on a lot, but I don't think all the glow patterns are exactly the same. In my headcanon aquatic is primarily region-based, so whether you're flashing with muzzle, crown, upper neck, etc matters more than the specific scales that are glowing. Giving leeway for unique patterns & amount of glow scales to occur. 39. Something in the fandom you see too little?

Ou I dunno,, maybe character analysis? I really love the amazing world-building & headcanons & development of the world the fandom does! But I don't see much discussion of the characters themselves. Except for like. Winter and Flame lmao. Granted I don't go seeking that stuff but I just find it could be a fun thing! I've posted a few random character analysis posts & had folks engage with analysis of their own which is amazing! So its definitely not something the fandom doesn't do, just not too common in what I see.

[entriprises]

Romeo Dixon on becoming an American rock sensation: ‘I spend a lot of time in my room’

He’s 25, calls his mom every Monday, and is the drummer and manager to one of the hottest bands out there, Heart Attack. 

It’s a Saturday morning, the sun’s been out no more than an hour, and Romeo Dixon holds out to me his backpack to hold while he tries his hardest to unlock the back doors of Heart Attack’s recording studio. It’s not actually theirs, he’s sure to make known. It’s just the space they’re using, thanks to the the band’s current recording label that found it for them. They get to keep their gear there sometimes, like now, when they’re working on a lot of music and need the collaborative space. He asked permission for access to the studio today he tells me. He wanted to be able to share where so much of the work is done. The studio is open 24 hours a day, usually, and Dixon is lucky that it is. The key’s not working. He apologizes twice before stepping off to make a phone call for someone to open the doors for us. When the doors open, he greets Joe, a recording engineer who looks like he’s been awake longer than either of us and is ready to go home. Dixon introduces Joe as “the guy who makes a lot of stuff happen around the studio” and then talks about how they had met when Heart Attack first moved in to work on recording there. Joe doesn’t stick around, he can’t, he tells us before rushing back to where he’d been working and disappearing from the halls of the recording studio. Even though he’s gone, Dixon has nothing but praise for Joe and the skills he brings to mixing and producing, continuing on about him. Joe hasn’t worked on any Heart Attack songs directly, but it’s less about what he’s done for Heart Attack at the sound stations and more so about how “it’s been an incredible learning opportunity to just be able to sit down with him and listen to him talk about what he does and the magic of it.”

Just walking through the halls, en route to Heart Attack’s dedicated space, it’s clear that the studio has an effect on Dixon. He’s more awake, energetic, and constantly trying to point out something on the walls that are covered from floor to ceiling in photographs, news clippings, and poster. His nervousness has been left behind at the doors and now he is full of endearment and gratitude towards everyone and everything around him. It’s almost surprising when he starts telling me about how he doesn’t often do interviews, and even more rarely individual profiles like this one. But he’s right. Most media coverage for Heart Attack has focused on the band as a whole or its stage dominating members. He doesn’t mind that he says, the others are better at it according to him. 

Today is new for him, and he’s agreed to it for a reason that is all but clear from the way he lights up at each and every thing he shows me. Heart Attack is everything to Dixon, and while it’s a profile on him, he is intent on making sure I don’t miss a word that he has to share about the band, its members, and it’s growth over the years through his jumpy and somewhat frantic monologues. Just when he’s about to tell me about a photo on the wall of a smaller indie band, he’s distracted by the sight of a recording session in progress. He then follows it up by asking me questions, and lots of them, and as time goes on it’s not entirely certain who is interviewing who. Through all of his frenzy, I get a genuine look into who he is unobstructed by flashing lights and the cheering of fans. Romeo Dixon is just a guy that cares.

Dixon has been a musician since as long as he can remember, although he says he wouldn’t call himself that when he first started playing the piano at age four. In his own words, he thinks he “was much more of a noise maker than anything else. There wasn’t talent there, just a whole lot of key smashing.” He comes from an art inclined family, with his parents running their own theatre company for Shakespeare plays and more recently original works. He denies acting much, although not out of any stage fright that one might assume. The stage itself was never something frightening to him. It still isn’t, Dixon says, although he thinks it’s because he tends to be further back than front man Jesse ‘Mac’ McCoy or bassist Jessie Wilson. There’s some comfort in where he’s located. It allows him the best view of every show, and to continue experiencing the atmosphere of a live performance and the way people are brought together in the process. It’s a love that began when he was working alongside his parents as a kid. 

By now we’ve moved on from the hallway, and are situated in the center Heart Attack’s space. In every direction there is so much character and life to the waiting and still instruments. It’s clear everything is well loved, and although it’s missing the rest of its band, the room is no less full of character. Dixon shows me all the instruments they have in the studio. Each piece is more coated in stickers than the last, and he can’t resist playing a few keys or strumming a small tune on each one. 

I ask him if there’s any instrument that he doesn’t play, a favorite that has perhaps evaded his skill set. 

He’s surprised at first by the question, a little lost how to answer, explaining first that, “you sort of pick up a ton of stuff when you’re making bands and producing your own stuff and that all sort of feeds into our sound too.” When it comes to favorites, “If I’ve got one it’s probably in the band. I’m no guitarist like the others but I play,” he says, modestly, as if he hadn’t just played the intro to one of their songs for me moments ago. 

“I guess… I guess sax?” Dixon goes on to say. “I’ve never tried those types on instruments, the horns and the woodwinds and… I’ve never tried those. I’d like to for sure. We had a sax player join us for a bit when we were working on our recent stuff which was incredible. It was a whole new sound and… I don’t think I’m supposed to be talking about that actually. Forget that I said that. Or… no you can include it. We have a sax on a couple songs in this album. You can write that, just promise you’ll go listen to the album when it actually comes out. That’s all I’ll say. You gotta listen to it. It’s really awesome.” I promise him that I will.

Arriving at his drum set, he has an overflowing basket of drumsticks by its side. There’s so many, and they all vary in color, size, and age. When he sees me staring, he’s already ready to jump into an explaination about all of them. The brand he has the most is Vic Firth, a very popular brand amongst drummers of all levels, and they’re also the sticks he tends to prefer. 

Amongst the pile, there’s a standout pair: custom Heart Attack sticks. 

“They’re a gift,” Dixon explains. “Most of my sticks are, but these are probably the best gift I’ve ever gotten, and they were from Jessie. They got me these right around when they joined the band too so it was just an incredibly thoughtful gift from her.”

“So are sticks the perfect birthday gift for you?” I ask. He laughs at that, shrugging.

“I don’t know. I feel like I have enough sticks.” Looking at his basket, I’d have to agree. “I feel like birthday gifts are always a from the heart, from the other person sort of thing. it’s not something you ask for does that make sense? so picking a perfect gift is… What I need is a better car, but I’d never ask anyone for that. That’s a crazy expensive birthday gift.”

We finally finish up the tour of the space, although tour is a generous word. They may as well constantly be performing a tiny desk concert with the incredibly limited size of the space. They make the most of it, according to Dixon, and they have no complaints for now. In this city, and on their budget, they’ll take anything they can get. 

I join him as he sits on the floor, although he offers me a chair and just about everything else first. The floor is a comfier than expected seat, and sitting at his level I can get a peak into what long hours must be like in this exact spot. Staring up at the ceiling, I start to ask him about the band, and what the process tends to be for all their music making.

“I don’t know what it’s like for everyone else on their own, we’ve talked about it over the years but the process has changed a lot for me at least that I imagine it has a bit for the others,” Dixon begins to tell me. “That and songwriting on our own is just so private, y’know? It’s something we all have a very specific ritual for and then when we feel like something could go somewhere, that’s when we come together.” 

“I think when some of us were first getting into it we relied a lot on the word and advice of artists we liked, which is cool and worked to some extent, but as Heart Attack it’s something we had to figure out as a band.” 

Most of Heart Attack’s members, current and past, lack a formal background in music, and they’ve previously credited a lot of their growth to each other, online resources, and trial and error. 

“Sometimes we all just sit around a room, mostly this room, with our gear and it’s just about working in the same space as each other. We do that a fair bit because we like to bounce stuff off of each other. When we’re together, one of us sort of throws something out there and we sorta build on it, play around a lot with it and see where we can take it and then the song probably goes through fifty different changes in that process. It’s not even really a song yet, just something we’re all messing with.”

He asks me then what I like to listen to, or if I’ve gotten into any new music lately. I tell him about a couple artists, and he takes all the suggestions quite seriously, writing them down in his phone. 

“A big part of making music is also discovering music. We do a lot of listening to other artists and genres and we’ll share a lot of recommendations and playlists with one another. It’s how we grow and figure out what we like and don’t like and also what we could be doing.”

On the subject of learning and advice, we start getting into Heart Attack’s influences. While Dixon has a lot of personal heroes, when it comes to music and the band, he says it’s mostly rock and roll. 

“Mac and I are big fans of The Who, The Kinks, Ramones, U2. Crash likes a lot of stuff, they’re pretty all over the place. Jessie brings a lot more alt to it and I mean she’s really contributed the most to our sound lately. The influence list is sort of endless now.”

As to how it’s changed them, Dixon says, “the indie rock scene has been becoming a bigger and bigger thing in the last decade and it’s taken on a somewhat new meaning. you hear the words indie rock and there’s a certain idea or sound that comes to mind. That has taken a big toll on all of us as musicians. In a good way. The indie genre is changing, we’re changing. We’re going to keep changing and that’s okay.”

“Is your songwriting process different from what you do as a group?”

“That’s different. Yeah. That’s pretty different. On my own is hard to explain, like I said before, it’s really personal and specific. I record everything, all the time. That’s a very big part of it and it’s a little slow sometimes too.” He’s comfortable writing anywhere, especially in the studio, but what he needs most is silence. “Is that weird?” 

“I think it makes sense.” 

“And it’s still fun, it’s just not the same kind of fun as when we do it together. It’s a more individual personal fun when I write alone. I’m never miserable when I write. I don’t really write from that place, it’s not what our music is about usually.”

In the last year, anticipation has grown for the soon to be released Heart Attack album, and its fanbase has tripled. With the quick rise on the eve of the band’s album, I ask him how the fame specifically has changed things for the band, and for himself.

“We’re busier. I’m busier. It’s all very busy,” he admits. 

“Touring and playing live is great. It’s really unlike any other experience, and I’m incredibly thankful that we have been doing it so much. It sort of changes the songs to do them live, it gives them a lot more depth and meaning and getting to see the love people have for them has us all pretty breathless by the end of the night.” There’s an obvious but coming despite his enthusiasm. He doesn’t want me to misinterpret the love and dedication he has to the fans. I assure him it’s certainly not lost on me, and only then does he nod and give me what’s clearly the second half of his answer.

“But there’s a lot of recovery we all have to do. The people are great, we all get along great, but we do all need our time after the shows and the recording sessions to just get back to ourselves and our lives. Jessie has some of their own stuff going on and Crash too, some of us are still working other jobs and there’s always family stuff going on and any number of personal things. So there’s that part of it.” He sighs, settling in. It’s off his chest now. 

“I spend a lot of time in my room. I like to call my mom pretty frequently, we just talk all that stuff through. She gets it, cause she’s been there a little bit with the theater stuff and touring.” Since the band came together, Dixon’s spearheaded all their managerial responsibilities. It’s clear from the way he talks about the band and their future that although it’s taken a toll, he’s far from burning out. He just needs his alone time like anybody else. “It helps that I have good people, I have really good people in my life who listen, and also they don’t let me stay in my room forever. They drag me out to be a real person.”

“That’s important,” I tell him.

Dixon agrees.

Heart Attack’s third album comes out in August. 

[planet4546b]

signoise questions!!! feel free to ignore as many as u want, sorry there are so many i am just very 🙇 (emoji of person leaning on folded arms and looking interested if it doesnt load right- just looked this up and it is actually a person bowing??? i have always parsed it as like a more restrained :eyes: emoji. huh) abt all of the parts its very cool!!!

-decade: have u read the city & the city by china mieville? whatre the inspirations for this if u have any off the top of yr head? was this like a rogue architect (i am thinking of the cartographers without borders post about a flat and level kansas watch out for the 900ft cliff bisecting kansas city post) or was it an official govt project or something?

-twins: i really like the name lariat for a city thats v cool also since theres a bunch of plays, are they all extant in their entireties or is it like a classical texts situation where we have fragmentary records? im really interested in the mixed media part of signoise & how different parts might be told, are u thinking of adding video or audio or anything?

-bell expedition: SO interested in how a caver becomes "disgraced." excited to see a bunch of cave content about the mar.

-pareidolia: a) VERY cool name i love it b) are u going to make the photographs they take?

-pepper's ghost: i dont have a specific q about this one i would just like to register my extreme excitement to see what happens w it.

& i guess just a more general q, do u have a rough idea of what media(s) each story is going to be in? also i am really really liking the name choices youve made for places etc.

i misread bowing as bowling and my confusion about that emoji only grew. but ozzy hi!!! thank you for the questions im gonna try to hit all of them :D

1. i HAVE read the city and the city (really enjoy it) although it ironically inspires a different city on the map (primary and meridian, which is where the playwright stuff mostly takes place). decade’s primary inspiration is pretty explicitly superstudio’s continuous monument, as well as a handful of other postmodern avant- garde architecture concepts, like constant’s new babylon. visually also something like blame, though i have yet to actually read blame i know not by reputation alone. the vibes of it are actually very much that pefectly level kansas post LMAO

decade’s architect is a supercomputer (also known as decade) that produces the plans that the people then construct (also very invisible cities, i’m just blanking on the name of the city itself that’s constantly building). a lot of decade’s story is pure mystery for this reason: how did they build a supercomputer? how and why does it create its plans? what is it building for? why is it that the only records of the city are from decade itself, and next to no records from its citizens exist? what was their form of government, who did decide to build, who led this project? much to uncover!!

2. mairzy finch was a relatively minor playwright during their life, and had one play that really became well known and four or five other less known ones. the bulk of their history is about a massive series of plays that are in fact fragmentary and were all found after their death and are being ‘completed’ and published by almas verrier. so there is a lot of classics to it in how those plays are reconstructed, published, and continually found (and the controversy around all of that), though this is not a project that gains a lot of scholarly attention, its pretty much only verrier and samira that are interested at all.

i would absolutely LOVE to add audio especially to these plays, within my ability as a single creator. although i will likely needle my sibling who used to act to get notes on things like stage and audio design (the entertainment interlude in kentucky route zero is a HUGE inspiration here).

3. quite simply, eric has previously led groups in which multiple members died, and while it is generally understood that that’s a bit of an occupational hazard, the general caving community has concluded those specific deaths could have been avoided if eric was not pushing the group to fuel his own ego. Oops! and glad you’re excited for the cave content because ohohoho so am i!!!!

4. my favorite thing about the name pareidolia is that when i’m researching other things i ALWAYS run into this word and go oh cool and go to its wikipedia page and forget one of the first images on the wikipedia page is a cave formation LOL. and yes i almost definitely will be!! i will at minimum be recreating them via digital art, but i have So many cave photos i can use various ways, and im thinking about getting some cheap ass camera to print physical photos as well. i have in my mind what his most famous photograph is and im so excited to recreate it GAH

5. i’m also SO excited about this one so glad to hear it!!! these two are characters that are close to my heart but have been at the fringes of signoise’s main story for a while, getting to spotlight them is super exciting for me. and there’s some weird late game plot developments with them that are fun. they also are the mechanism for my favorite Samira Realization and a catalyst for her downward spiral. woohoo!

6. the mixed media aspect of signoise is BRAND new and a lot of that i’m still brainstorming to figure out what’s even possible for me to do, but what i do know is the general format for each:

playwright: play scripts and academic papers (possible audio recordings/set plans)

decade: architectural plans, radio transmission transcripts

bell: interviews with bell and everett (god i would love so bad to make and photograph minis for specific cave scenes here)

pareidolia: photographs, research notes (?) i need…something else here but im still figuring out what (largely photo manips and limited animation. hopefully via physical camera)

peppers ghost: radio broadcast transcripts (i have the least wiggle room for other media in here i think, iltheres too much of it to be voice acted via just like dragging in family and friends and it’s pretty limited to radio. but i’ll find something im sure)

and thank you!!! naming things is difficult (the like…7 hours i spent trying to find names for all the new characters. god.) but i have quite a bit of fun with it. i like sounds ^^