#this is for my b lovers out there
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for he’s a jolly good felon
#beyond birthday#this ones a bit older!!!#did this last month maybe#anyways burn scar b!!#prison b!!!!#death note#death note another note#labb#labb murder cases#b death note#bb death note#death note fanart#this is for my b lovers out there#i see u#i AM u#i understand#v’s gallery
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Alas, this beautiful dream could not last.
#dungeon meshi#falin touden#dungeon meshi spoilers#better drawn mdzs#(<- my higher effort art tag. I need to get a new one.) While it's different from my usual style I really loved how this came out!#Strolling back to the art scene to remind everyone I am still a lover of botanicals.#I had a blast with the symbolism for this one:#White lilium longiflorum (easter lily) for rebirth. Purple hyacinthus orientalis for sorrow and forgiveness.#Red spider lily (Lycoris radiata) for loss and death.#'Rebirth into something new' is so well done in Dungeon Meshi. She is back but she is not the same.#The last few episodes/chapters gives her this dreamy quality to her. As if she's not quite real. She's so perfect in their memories.#And as we know of dreams - no matter how sweet- they must end once we wake up.#It is so painful to lose someone twice. To see someone you loved in a dream and wake up and remember that loss again.#Dungeon Meshi being a grief allegory is important to me. I'll explain more as the story continues B'*)
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nothing hits quite like "I despised the very air you breathed until I was confronted with your humanity, complete vulnerability & it somehow touched my own, & oh, fuck- there's a permanent you-shaped crack in my heart now & the hands that wanted to throttle you are moving to protect you, all on their own."
#enemies to lovers my beloved#this show is so simple but utterly satisfying so far#i can't gif till much later & my sincerest apologies go out to my fellow giffers b/c that last scene was filmed on an actual potato#dangerous romance#dangerous romance the series#perthchimon#kanghansailom#enemies to lovers#bl tropes
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is apollo still mourning hyacinthus or did he, like, move on
& will you ever draw him? /gen
actually!! I did design Hyacinth! I just don't know where to put him right now, but he is alive on Olympus with Apollo :) !
His concept is still in the planning stages, but after awhile looking at this, i'm more or less happy how he came out :)
#i just uh... like shipping apollo with dionysus and hermes because i forgot about apollos actual lovers xD#my b but pls understand there's so many gods out there#I also had to make sure i didn't accidentally have him look too much like dionysus lol#cuz i sometimes sameface and that be like that#or apollo has a thing for purple boys who knows#my art#hyacinth#greek mythology
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"—matsukawa, quit pushing me down, asshat!" "nah." "i will kick your shins bro do not test me—"
alt. ver. before the redraw (bc i still kinda like this 😔)
#a silly !#yumeship#matsukawa issei#haikyuu oc#hanamaki takahiro#haikyuu#mblue art#self insert#ocsona#seijohbros au#<— will b using this tag to refer to these shenanigans w my haikyuu ocsona for now 🫶#maybe in the near future i'll make a (tentative?) ref sheet for this new lil guy <3#(i say that knowing i havent made new/official ref sheets for my own utmv sonas lmfaooo 😔💔)#also yeah um dont mind the shading! or any anatomy mistake! i wanted this out of my head asap and move on to the next doodle</3#edit i redrew the guys; something in me said smt jst aint right so i changed their angles to be as close to my initial vision as possible--#--and the brain seemed to calm down after that lolz orz#idk if i conveyed it well but mattsun is supposed to look like he's really towering over my ocsona due to the camera angle lol#(ngl that little curve on mattsun's mouth was for the simp in me 😔--#--he was gonna have his usual :/ pout thing but that braincell won and took over /silly)#(ngl every time i look at matsukawa in this i get hit w 1-2hp dmg.)#(hes staring right at the camera/viewer. he looks. soft and . pogi. like cute-handsome. clutches my hair)#(gawddam bestfriends to lovers trope i can never escape from you shakes my fist)
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griffith - nails, hair, hips, heels
#i could have gone to sleep but like. what would be the point. ive ruined my sleep schedule for way less deserving things so might as well#anyway hiiiiiii this is nowhere near as good as my good old-fashioned lover boy edit but please accept this humble gift#personally im very fond of the ending <3#berserk#griffith#griffith berserk#taps the mic hi id like to specifically thank the op of the fanart where griffith drinks c u m out of a teacup i wouldnt b here without u o7
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Get Haunted
#this is OLD#I was briefly obsessed w ghost Draco#so I’ll b posting more prob lol#as I clear out my iPad#still into it honestly#ohhh how he would pester#I imagine like him having a really reactive face#like dramatic#like he’s got big anime eyes when he says shit like this but#if he gets sad or rejected he melts into sludge like howl#or disappears and shrinks#or like when he thinks abt his situation he gets Wretched and bleeds more#or gets distorted angry like more rage than a normal human face is rigged to express#his hair emotes like studio ghibli#he squish-and-streches#anyways#good luck on your (tortured) enemy to lovers to Orpheus arc Harry#I believe in you !#blood is the colour of my true loves hair unu#he says reaching out to try and touch#yeah and who’s fault is that Harry?#cosmically let’s go with Voldemort#harry potter#draco malfoy#drarry#draco x harry#harry x draco#hpdm#hp fanart#in fact here we can trace back the origins of my obsession w green pink colour palette which endured when I started drawing again
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Close-up of the Night Pool acrylic photo card ⁄(⁄ ⁄ ⁄ω⁄ ⁄ ⁄)⁄♪
#b/c ruki's chest and abs deserve it#and also b/c i'm a thirsty hoe and i'll use literally any excuse to post bare chested ruki on my blog#but mostly b/c i'm unhappy with how the previous one turned out tbvh and am a lot more satisfied with this second attempt#it's still not perfect by any means but definitely an improvement#but i'm for sure never buying another acrylic photo card again#it'll be bromides and clear files all the way from here on out#speaking of...i've got 2 in storage rn that i am hoping to be able to post later this month#sadly no night pool one though :(#diabolik lovers#ruki mukami#ruki's abs#yes they merit their own tag#mine#dialovers#diahell
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Hi! Welcome to Jam’s Borrowing Class! Where I, an experienced, 2 inch tall borrower of many years, educate you on how to properly steal from giants! Let’s begin!
ONE: Your first priority is shelf-stable, long lasting foods. Stealing those fresh berries over dried beans may seem tempting! But those berries will mold faster, rot quicker! The beans are the best longterm option.
TWO: Don’t fall in love. Listen to me. Look me in the eyes. Giants are hot. Babygirl, we all know this. You will meet a giant, and you will fall in love with their soft hands and sharp smile, and you will be swept away into a daydream romance. They will woo you, and then they will get a new video game and pay a little less attention to you, and then they’re brushing you off cause it’s Thursday and they gotta play Fortnite with the boys cause they work all weekend at the gas station and it’s ~sooooo stressful~ and ‘I can’t spend ALLLLL of my free time with you babe. Chill out. Go in the dollhouse or something.’ LIKE REALLY MATT? REALLY. DO YOU EVEN CARE ANYMORE? THIS IS WHY I FUCKING TOOK YOUR USB OF BITCOIN AND LEFT, MATT. FUCK YOU. I DESERVE BETTER.
THREE: When borrowing threads and strings, it’s worth it to take the time to check if any are made of silk or kevlar! Both of these are far stronger than cotton thread. Fishing line is also useful, and durable!
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Just popping in to say i LOVE UR ART SO MUCH WAUGH!!!! Its soooooooo exoressive and u get across emotion and movement SO WELL!! I love ...littlr apple ...so much.....u imbue this donkey with Such Chaos
I love this little chaos creature, we should all forfeit our mortal possessions to her.
#poorly drawn mdzs#better drawn mdzs#<- Maybe? I do wanna start a more serious art tag and i did push myself harder than I normally do on this one. Hm.#MDZS#wei wuxian#little apple#Can you tell I've been practicing how to do hatching (Its soooo easy to go overboard#Thank you tumblr user seaslugbananabread (Iove the name (fellow sea creature and bananabread enjoyer)) this was a very sweet message#so sorry its been marinating in my ask box for so long; I wanted to have a good chunk of time to *Really* try and draw lil apple#I hope this makes up for it! I really mean It when I say messages like this really make my week!#It means a lot that people like my comic and can get what's going on in my little doodles B'*)#Esp the little apple enjoyers!! Let's go equine lovers!!!#If people are on board this early on when im really still just figuring out how to hold a pen properly then wow#Idk how to process it tbh!#(To anyone else who sent a message: *YES* I'm working on a doodle for you too; thanks for your patience!)
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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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#have a bunch of blogs who dont want to see adult stuff or whatever following me so jic i wanna say i do post nudity and suggestive stuff#every so often... suggestive stuff is tagged but nudity isnt so if that bothers u do watch out#also would valentina b a yandere?? idkkk...the loves reciprocated so i guess well never know her full potential#art#my art#oc tag#oc lovers
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🌴 the perfect girl! 🍌
#my art lol#vocaloid#vocaloid fanart#kagamine len#len vocaloid#miku vocaloid#hatsune miku#banana miku#yellow#lenku#i guess???? that was the joke shkjghsk. cmon. banana miku and mr. resident banana lover. has anyone done this yet#the draft for this was technically sitting in my files since january; it was colored and lined and everything i was just too lazy#to finish properly shading & rendering it. im still not sure if i like how it came out but eh it is what it is#made it slightly less yellow by suggestion of my brother but only slightly. b/c part of the point of this was i wanted to draw smthn yellow#my laptop started lagging w/ the main drawing lmao 😭 and apparently firealpaca freaked out for no good reason doing the shitpost doodle#SO??? IS SOMETHING CURSED HERE? IDK MAN. ominous signs maybe given we ended last year w/ len and we're starting this year w/. len. again.#cant believe this is the first proper drawing of 2024 lmao... as much as i love drawing emo shit drawing smthn silly for a change is fun lo#idk what proper posting times are thats not real this is tumblr.
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they were doing “is madeleine a pedo for being attracted to claudia” discourse on twitter the other day and i would like it very much if twitter was just nuked as a website lol
#rani makes text posts no one will read#claudeleine#my answer is who cares#my deeper answer is madeleine knows claudia over the span of several years & seems to think she’s met & befriended a 16ish year old & by the#time things start getting more overtly romantic madeleine thinks she’s like a grown adult. this is very clearly stated in the show.#my even deeper answer is that the eroticism surrounding claudia’s body is like Part Of The Plot the fact that she has a child’s body and an#adult’s mind & what that potentially means for her romantically & sexually is a defining part of her character & the entire point of#madeleine in the narrative is to give claudia someone who desires her as she is & doesn’t want to change her is it weird perhaps that she’s#clearly attracted to a teenager but isn’t pushing that boundary at all maybe! but she refers to the nazi she fucks as a ‘scared boy’ so i do#think that a) madeleine is already quite young herself and b) madeleine much like louis armand lestat daniel etc has this sort of dark & odd#moral code that essentially means she does not give a shit that her potential lover & life companion looks like a child she’s attracted to#claudia sexually regardless And That’s What Makes Her A Good Candidate For Vampirism!!!!!!!!!#my final answer is who the fuck cares omg these characters are out here dropping each other from the stratosphere & turning their murders#into public spectacles & lynchings these are all mass murderers and you’re mad madeleine wants to fuck claudia who she thinks is like 19??#be soooooo fucjing fr with me omg i’m tired of age gap discourse and i say this as someone who has partaken in it yall don’t even know what#makes age gaps like ~problematic in relationships i hate u guys#anyways in my mind they fucked crazy nasty literally two seconds after madeleine was changed & the only reason they didn’t do it before was#cuz claudia was worried about accidentally killing her otherwise trust they would have had some floaty sex in the back of that shop!!!!!
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i like to think about shri'iia's romance scenes if she has one bc she is running through my mind 24/7 like a rat on a cage wheel and i think act 1 would be her sex scene where she is very much servicing mc. shri'iia is trying to get mc on her side and she's been told that surfacers find drows exotic, so she's playing up that sexy drow stereotype. i also think the sex scene would be very much about mc's own pleasure and not really of hers, and if they try to kiss her or reciprocate she will avoid it. act 2 (after her oathbreaking) is a hanging out type of scenario where she teaches them how to make poison and she will reveal the method was her mother's passed down to her. then she will reveal more about her past and even share the memory of when she had to kill her own mother for lolth, and her own turmoil regarding it. which is such a big thing since that's one of the memories she doesn't like to remember and she refused to feel any mourn or guilt before (since that would mean feeling regret over lolth) but she does know..! cue love confession except it's more like she wants to take a chance with mc and she's never felt like this before. there is no word in drow for what she's feeling, and it's something new to her entirely and she's afraid of it but she wants to hold on it if mc wants her too. act 3 she takes mc in the park/open field where there is a willow tree and it's very picturesque and the moon is shining bright at night. mc sits on the bench and shri'iia will kneel in front of mc and there's like two variations - in her oathbreaker arc she leans her head on their lap, letting her guard down and she tells them how tired she is, and how the surface still frightens her but she's so glad she's met mc. there are still so many things she doesn't know about her future but what she does know is that she loves mc. it's all love confessions btw and i like the idea that she kisses their hands too... the imagery is a knight kneeling in front of their lady!! and imagine a subtle breeze too.. flowers flying around them.. like it's so pretty to me... and in the variation where she is not an oathbreaker and she has reformed her oath she kneels in front of mc and swears fealty to them. she wants to serve them forever, and devote her entire self to them. instead of holding their hand delicately, she is grasping on them like a life line, almost desperate. i want you, shri'iia will say, tell me you want me too. and if they say yes she will kiss their fingers then palms then up their arm and on their lips, a very happy dog, but if they refuse her mood sours so quickly and she will act like she's been slapped. she will then go livid and curse them in drowic but it's alright.. she can't deny mc of anything. if mc doesn't want her then she will respect them but that doesn't mean she will stop admiring them from the sidelines <3 ur stuck with her forever
#like part of why i like her sm with astarion's route is bc ^^ this plays out so similarly#so to me it feels the most natural 🥰🥰#but i like that idea of her teaching her lover how to make poison bc a) acknowledging the past that she was so ashamed and insecure of befo#e b) it was a skill taught to her by her mother and shri'iia actually did love her mom c) she's making the poison as a way to protect her#lover too... she always wants to be protecting them she's a paladin ofc she cannot help it...#and in my game i make astarion wear a drow poison necklace hehe that's from her#and he gets it in act 2 <3#oc: shri'iia.#shut up about bg3.
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DIABOLIK LOVERS CHAOS LINEAGE Vol.3 Orange
Translation: Upcoming, and as always by courtesy of my buddy @otomehonyaku! Links will be added as soon as they are available ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡
Audio: Here (CD owned by me). Please do not reupload anywhere.
Starring: Ruki Mukami (CV: Takahiro Sakurai), Shin Tsukinami (CV: Shōtarō Morikubo), Ayato Sakamaki (CV: Hikaru Midorikawa), Kanato Sakamaki (CV: Yuki Kaji)
Plot: After being held captive first in the Scarlet mansion and then the Violet mansion, "Eve" has managed escape into the forest, where she encounters Shin, a member of the Orange family. Desperate to get away from her captors and the purported dangers of the forest, "Eve" asks him if he knows of a safe place she can go to. Shin offers to hide her in the Orange mansion, and "Eve" accepts, following him to his home. There, she soon meets his brothers: Ayato, Kanato, and finally Ruki, the eldest and head of the family. It quickly becomes apparent that Shin lied about the mansion being a safe place for the poor girl, who has now, if not precisely jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, at the very least entered an equally perilous situation as the ones she's just escaped from...
Word to the wise: Use headphones. The noises these guys make as they suck Yui's blood can at times get a bit...intense.
My Thoughts: Aside from being slightly surprised that Shin got more lines and focus than his "brothers" (he's the only one that appears in every track), this CD gave me more or less what I anticipated: Ayato and Kanato being disruptive and rebellious; Shin telling them to "obey Nii-san"; Ruki effortlessly seducing both Yui and me; and, of course, plenty of bloodsucking.
I found the interactions between the Orange "siblings" pretty entertaining. Kanato fighting Ayato off with a bottle of shampoo, of all things, was not something I ever expected from this kind of Drama CD XD. I do feel sorry for Ruki, though – the amount of property damage the others must cause on a daily basis must be a headache to deal with. The fact that these boys feel the need to kick in locked doors rather than, y'know, teleport through them says a lot about their needlessly destructive tendencies. Gotta make a dramatic entrance I suppose? lol.
Getting back to Ruki (my favorite thing to do, tbh), I thoroughly enjoyed his portions of the CD. The scenes where he and Yui interact definitely did not disappoint ⁄(⁄ ⁄ ⁄ω⁄ ⁄ ⁄)⁄. I really appreciate the writers for saving the best Ruki's bloodsucking scene for last; his voice and the sounds he makes when he sucks blood always have me _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_.
#me 🤝 yui: being completely unable to resist ruki's siren call#diabolik lovers#dialovers#diahell#chaos lineage#diabolik lovers drama cd#ruki x yui#yui komori#ruki mukami#shin x yui#shin tsukinami#ayato x yui#ayato sakamaki#kanato x yui#kanato sakamaki#mine#happy fangs in your neck friday everyone ゚+.ヽ(≧▽≦)ノ.+゚#i'm glad i managed to get this one done today b/c i got pretty sick earlier and didn't think i'd have the energy to do anything tbh#i usually get taken out of commission almost entirely for days by illnesses like these#but i feel pretty ok rn so i figured i might as well get this one done while i have the energy and then not have it hanging over me anymore#anyway i hope you guys will enjoy this one!#my fellow rukiyui enthusiasts in particular will be in for a real treat hehe#i'm gonna go rest for a bit now and hopefully be rid of this shit as quickly as possible
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