#So it says here you take the generic.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Los Chicos Peleandoooooo

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#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #song lan #xue yang #I know it makes jokes less funny if you explain them but I feel like I gotta for this one: #xue yang’s Spanish here is playing on the fact he’s a beginner (using a commonly taught phrase) #combined with the fact that he’s clearly taking what he’s heard Xiao Xingchen use. #of course XY would want to know how to cuss someone out in another language. Do you think XXC would teach him how? Nope. #XY would ask ‘How do I to someone I really hate them?’ #and XXC would say ‘You tell them ‘Te Amo Mucho’ :•)’ #As FAR as XY is concerned he knows *so* many swears. These words are just terms of endearment. #XXC would not swear or cuss anyone out but he *would* punctuate phrases with general terms of endearment. #More so directed towards A-Qing but Xue Yang has been proven to be a decent indirect learner. #That said he has also been shown to Not Quite Get The Nuances (consequences of observational learning). #Sadly he never had a good observational model for love or compassion B*( #Spanish speakers please oh god please correct me if I biffed something badly here. I can fix it.

[essektheylyss]

Honestly, it is so funny remembering that Annabeth Chase's literal, stated, canonical fatal flaw is hubris.

Rick Riordan was like, "This clever, neurodivergent preteen girl believes that she is smarter than the gods, and she will get the chance to prove herself right," and he was correct. 😌

#pjo #honestly annabeth best character cuz in the end the gods straight up are like 'you're right. here's your dream come true' #like never once did mr. riordan say 'and she should stop being like that.' #honestly in general mega props to pjo for framing fatal flaws as a source of strength consistently #both percy and annabeth in the end get to be So Valid in their fatal flaws lmao #like it's so funny that in the end percy straight up is like 'I don't know shit but you all need to shut up and listen to annabeth' #and annabeth is like 'I might be an asshole but percy is the best most loyal person I know and we all need to be willing to die for him' #and they both are so correct for it. the NARRATIVE SAYS THEY ARE CORRECT ON BOTH COUNTS. #actually uwu cuz like #thinking about the fact that annabeth takes that dagger to protect percy and it's basically her last major act before the battle is won #and the fact that percy appeals to luke by saying 'annabeth was right listen to her' and that's how he finally wins #literally using each other's fatal flaws to win and live. ANYWAY I MADE MYSELF EMOTIONAL #as you can tell i will be a fucking wreck once the series comes out nobody touch me.

[miraculouslumination]

The audacity to be like "there's a problem with racism in transandrophobia discussions" while also unironically using the term "transandrophobia truther(s)"

#Jean mumbles #Of course there will almost always be racism in discussions of oppression #But like...bro are you really going to say this and then side with the exact same people #Who have constantly erased and silenced the voices of trans men of color and other marginalized trans men #Calling them shit like white-aligned or overall gatekeeping their blackness #Are you seriously not seeing how that call is coming from inside the house #And again - truther is something that has very heavy ties to antisemitism #So again. Are you really the hero because of this? #Are you actually helping people here? #Now I'm white so obviously take what I say here with as many grains of salt as you feel is best #But all I'm saying is that racism is fucking everywhere and there is not a single group in this discussion who is guilt free #And right now you're participating in the violent act of erasing and silencing the voices of non-white and non-gentile trans men and mascs #I wish the best to anyone who has fallen for this pandering bullshit #And a huge apology to all the trans m&ms this bullshit hurts #Transandrophobia #(Gatekeeping blackness but also just non-white raced and ethnicities in general)

[luciquel]

they discontinued 1899, but there's most likely going to be a second a third season of wednesday. i'm telling you, if it's not 'editable' for tiktok, it's automatically a flop. people don't want content that makes you think anymore, they want cool scenes they can slap an overplayed song and cheap filter over, so that their brains don't shortcut when it's presented with content not compressed into something easily digestible. god, i hate it here

#i am NOT saying that you shouldn't enjoy wednesday or that it shouldn't be renewed. i rlly don't care #what i AM saying is that from now on that's what we're mostly gonna get. generic series. quantity over quality #i hate it here so muuuuuch!!!! #we really doomed ourselves with fast and easy content huh. like i'm forced to watch stupid things bc stupid ppl refuse to train their #attention span. brb i'm gonna murder something #i have to be a hater about this okay? and i rlly don't care if u take it personally lol #but wednesday - although fun to watch - just does not compare to the mammoth of creativity that 1899 is #anyways. #wednesday #1899 #🥑; raquel talk

[ghouljams]

Yeah ghost is good and all but goose owns my heart where's the goose x reader at i need to marry that woman before he can daaammnn

👀👀 forreal? Damn. Ok, here's Goose doing some real cowgirl shit and staking her claim.

The way her hips slide against the saddle, reigns wrapped around on hand, the other gripping the back of the seat as the sleek palomino attempts to buck her off is absolutely sinful. You'd only stopped in the exhibition to get out of the heat of the fair but now you couldn't move, couldn't look away. You find a seat on the bleachers just in time for the horse to come close enough you can see her smile. She catches your wide eyed stare and winks.

"Goose from Ranch 141, showing us all there is an easy way to break a horse," The announcer jokes, earning a small laugh from the audience as the horse gallops around the dirt circle in the center, trying to shake off its rider.

The horse slows, rearing back and bucking hard. You hold your breath, watching Goose leave the saddle and slide right back into it. Another hard buck, her arms are tight, holding herself in the saddle as the horse tries its hardest to get her off. You don't think it's supposed to look so effortless.

You watch the rest of the show with bated breath, waiting for one of them to give an inch. You're unsurprissd when it's the horse that finally breaks, standing still and calm as Goose looks around the tent. Looks for you, you realize when her eyes land on you.

She gives the horse a little tap with her heels and directs it your way, giving the crowd a victory lap, and leaning dangerously far out of the saddle to set her warm brown hat on your head. You feel your cheeks starting to burn as she takes the horse back out of the ring, and disappears. You'd think you were dreaming if you couldn't feel the felt on you head.

You wait nervously by the exit. People file past you tossing you knowing winks. You don't pay them any mind, eyes searching for the woman who'd staked her claim on you.

A hand wraps around yours, tugging you all the way out of the tent before you can turn to face her. Goose raises a brow.

"Hope you didn't think I'd abandoned you," she beams, you shake your head and try not to lean away when she leans closer, peaking under the shadow of her hat, "Fuck you're cute. You got a sweetheart I need to be worried about?"

"No." You tell her quickly.

"No you're single or no I can take 'em?"

"I'm single," you let her tip your head back with two gentle fingers under your chin.

"Good, good girl." You mouth goes dry, and you think it isn't just the summer sun making your cheeks hot. She's not that much taller than you but her confidence makes her seem larger than life. "Come on then, let's enjoy the fair." Goose turns away from you, tugging you along behind her towards the festivities.

"We aren't going to-"

"Oh we are," she confirms, pulling you against her side as you walk, her fingers tightly laced with yours, "but I thought you might appreciate a little woo-ing first."

You very much do. You think she must've sensed you were nervous, because she makes every attempt at making you feel secure with her. She leads you through the fair with ease, treating you to fried goodies and barbecue, adjusting your stance with gentle touches when you take a turn at a shooting gallery. You make a valiant attempt at winning her a bear and end up with a shitty plastic top. She kisses your cheek with the same enthusiasm, and wins a bear for you in two clean shots.

The sun is setting when you finally get led towards the exit. You have to admit, you feel sufficiently wooed. You don't think you've ever had a date this attentive or fun. Even just talking to Goose as you walked around was a blast. She laughed at your jokes and told some horrendous ones in return, and now she was eagerly pressing you against the cab of an absolutely ancient pickup.

Her hand slides into your back pocket and drags you close, she cups your cheek as you wrap your arms around her shoulders and kiss her for all the trouble. Although given the way she smiles against your lips you think she must've had fun too. It certainly bodes well for you when she swipes her tongue against the seam of your lips. You wonder if you're too eager, shivering when she twists her tongue against your palette.

She slots her leg between yours and presses close, making sure you have no avenue of escape. As if you'd want to when she kisses you so hungrily. Her teeth catch your lip as she pulls back, nipping just to sooth the ache with another quick kiss.

"I know the saying is 'wear the hat, ride the cowboy,' but I can swing it either way you want." She murmurs, thumb rubbing your cheek, "Just give me the word, Sugar."

#woah shes bisexual bet you didnt know that #oc: goose #oc x reader #x reader #literally dont know what to tag this as... also wasnt sure what pronouns to use so its fairly nebulous aside from one good girl #fun Goose fact is that shes tall like 5'9“ or so #at least here #yall my sister says its weird u wanna fuck Goose since shes supposed to be a reader insert #but if u wanna fuck goose be my guest #she'll gladly take you home #cowboy!141 #since thats my general cowboy tag

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Since we're on the topic of flower symbolism...

Idk if you noticed but on the neighborhood map there's a single white daisy blooming in Frank's yard. Daisies represent loyalty and innocence and so in the language of flowers they represent the phrase "I will never tell." Hm...

very true! tbh i haven't paid much attention to Frank's daisies because they don't seem to be "his" flowers - that title belongs to sunflowers <3 - and white daisies also appear all over Julie's house and in front of Home. and to me it loses a bit more credence since there's also a red daisy near Julie's and blue daisy-like flowers pretty much on his house

#i associate them more with wally tbh! #HOWEVER! im not willing to discard such a take! #im just a bit more skeptical on the daisy train #i mean they Are a very generic Flower Shape so who's to say that they really are daisies? who knows! #theyre just a bit too ambiguous to stand out As daisies #the ones in front of Home are much more clear-cut and precisely drawn #which makes me think that the other generic daisy-shaped flowers are there just as decoration #BUT WHO KNOWS! YOU MAY BE ONTO SOMETHING HERE IDK #homebogging #rambles from the bog

[moongothic]

You know, I would love it if we could see Mihawk just. Get slightly fucked up by someone, have his sword stolen and watch him figure out how to fight with some random ass sword instead

I just think. It'd be neat.

Like we kinda know how The World's Greatest Swordsman fights with his itty bitty knife, we know what kind of damage he can do with his iconic Yoru

I just think it'd be fun to see him fight with a regular katana and try to get his stolen sword back or summin' IDK

#Moon posting #Cross Guild #Mihawk #OP Spoilers #OP Meta #IDK something something Cross Guild can't pay for Garp's bounty so Blackbeard's crew goes and attacks them #Kidnaps Crocodile and Buggy to steal their abilities and takes Mihawk as captive to see if he'll join BB or not #Steal his sword in the meantime to give to his crew as a toy to play with or something #I don't know there's something about this scenario that facinates me #Also if Luffy and co went to save Garp from Blackbeard I could imagine a scenario where the crew find CG in the prison #And free them. And could you imagine Mihawk asking Zoro to borrow one of his swords while he goes gets his back or summin #I JUST THINK IT'D BE NEAT #This scenario facinates me. I would love to see it #Especially since we didn't really get to see that much of Zoro and Mihawk interacting so like. It'd be cute #Also like GENERALLY SPEAKING I would just love to see Mihawk in a 1v1 duel with someone OTHER THAN ZORO #(Or Shanks) #I dunno I think Mihawk is just Neat but we barely get to see him Do Things so it'd be so fun to see him Do Things #Break Week is hitting hard. It's been So Many Months and we still have no idea where the CG subplot is going #I can only speculate and make 50 different suggestions for where the story could go from here #(I say ''break week is hitting hard'' on the Friday evening after 1101 was released unofficially) #(This week is gonna be rough y'all lmao)

[jahiera]

pondering on a meta diving into Gale's abstract brand of selflessness (willingness to go away to a corner of the world to die so that none of the faceless masses will be harmed by his mistake) vs his personal selfishness (willingness to stick by tav despite being repulsed by tiefling camp murder + general vocal approval or interest in accumulating more power) and Gale's status as someone who is good aligned but generally ineffectual at enforcing actual good (the way that wyll or karlach will actually leave the party) which is fascinating for a fairly good-aligned person. just love when the Good Guy is actually kind of fucking weird. edit: tumblr cut off my tags Okay. and how all of this ties back in an interesting way to his relationship and power imbalance with mystra. he was wronged, deeply, but he also desires still that ... status / closeness to divinity in some way, by her influence. Gale thinks that he would be a better god simply by virtue of his mortality but he cannot escape the appeal of holding himself apart from others and being more than, greater than, something closer to godliness and thus inherently removed from mortal values and standards of right and wrong, which the gods themselves don't adhere to in the same way.

#it's just one of those things that's really compelling about his character to me in terms of ... #Gale hesitates with the shadow lantern not really because he's put off by the magic #in fact if a sorcerer Tav condemns dark magic he rebukes it and argues that all magic is inherently neutral; some simply more #frowned upon than others #He appreciates good acts. he'll say We Should Do The Good Act. but he's not going to really fight FOR doing the right thing the way #others might; and when you get beyond the act itself he can very quickly rationalize #necessity. or mistake. or the value of power + strength behind it. #the dichotomy between his fearful willingness to die at Mystra's behest while not really tamping down his interest in power and survival #that peers out and I think (?) feels almost obfuscated behind his eloquence and his manners and charm and general clockability as a #guy who approves of good things. #and there are things he says & does that are further beyond the expectations of what you might expect from someone who is 'good' #the initial interest in a deal with Raphael; the approval of taking tadpoles despite the uncertainty and possible cost; the acknowledgment #that powerful forms (slayer form or ascending astarion) will be useful onward #His Fucking Speech to Tav after the grove slaughter where he's outraged and disgusted but can be swayed to stay #he's so... sunk cost fallacy too I think. at some point the ends must surely justify the means right #and his God of Ambition thing is sooo compelling because it really drives to the max the part of gale's personality that is always there #but obfuscated by his immediate insistence that he's a moral person right. you know him to be of sound judgement. trust him. #He likes seeing good happen and he's happy to go along with doing good things and he'll #state his opinion when he thinks something EVIL is happening. but he's not necessarily #going out of his way here either if tav isn't -- and to be fair game mechanics technically mean #no one is - but we can read from Wyll/Karlach removing themselves from the situation #(need to double check but can't Wyll also leave a slayer dark urge?) #that they CAN go out of their way #Wizard Apathy Baby! you feel benevolent toward others but you crave what is beyond humanity and #deeply rooted in the arcane; which you see as beyond too basic concepts of 'good' vs 'bad' magic; neutrality that sways with intent #you trust good actions but you didn't ACTUALLY use your power at the time For Others either; you probably could have but #you craved MORE. something BETTER. #and there's a lot there in how that interacts with his relationship to mystra too #his desire to achieve something closer to godliness and both thinking that he can do better because he's mortal but at the same time #has proven that he can separate himself or his technical moralities from a situation if it means exploration of power/knowledge Beyond

[stergeon]

say it

Byleth makes Edelgard say swear words.

(~350 words; too stupid to post on ao3)

“‘Shit.’”

“Grotesque.”

“Give it a try.”

“… Shit.”

“Very good. ‘Ass.’”

“That one is easier. I’ve said it before.”

“Then why don’t you say it now?”

“I… er…”

“If it’s so easy, then do it.”

“… Ass.”

“Excellent.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“How about this one? ‘Cunt.’”

“Wh—I actually, um, don’t know what that means.”

“You don’t know ‘cunt’?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Byleth, it’s simply not in my lexicon.”

“It means va—”

“All right, I understand. The gesture was absolutely unnecessary. I’m astounded at how many words there seem to be for the same thing.”

“If you think that’s bad, you won’t believe how many there are for pe—”

“Well, this has been a fun exercise and hopefully a source of great amusement to you, but I think I’m finished.”

“Wait, wait.”

“No.”

“One more, one more.”

“Mm, no. I don’t think so.”

“Please?”

“… You know it’s not fair of you to give me those eyes.”

“Is that a yes?”

“All right. All right. One more.”

“Yesssss. ‘Fuck.’”

“Byleth!”

“What?! You said one more, and that’s the one to say.”

“I’m—I am not—”

“Please?”

“You can’t pull the same maneuver twice in a minute and expect to succeed. That’s poor strategy.”

“Is it working?”

“… Regrettably, it is.”

“Then it seems like a good strategy to me. Just say it. ‘Fuck.’ It’s easy.”

“It most certainly is not!”

“Try it. Say ‘fuck.’”

“… Fuck.”

“Oh, that’s rich. That’s very good.”

“Are you quite satisfied?”

“Nearly. Now use it in a sentence.”

“Byleth.”

“I’ll give you one. It’ll be easy.”

“I did not—and do not—agree to this!”

“Just repeat after me.”

“No!”

“Say, ‘Byleth, I want you to fuck me.’”

“… Oh.”

“Go on, El. You can do it.”

“… Byleth, I…”

“Keep going.”

“Byleth, I-I want you to… f-fuck me.”

“Good girl. Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Less than I—ah—thought it would be.”

“Mm. Well, you’ve certainly earned a reward, haven’t you?”

“Yes, my teacher. Fuck…”

“Aren’t you a fast learner? I��m impressed.”

“If you don’t shut up and kiss me right now, I’m going to start swearing in earnest.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Your Majesty.”

#fe3h #fire emblem #edeleth #edelgard von hresvelg #byleth eisner #ficlet #sterge.rtf #sick of having this knock around in my drafts so now it is loose in the wild #but it’s so dumb that i really don’t want to bother posting it on ao3 #if i got an email alert for this i’d be disappointed #besides i’m trying to pretend i’m hard at work on the vickyvesties right now #it’s not crack it’s just goofy #theoretically this takes place during the honeymoon phase of chapter 5 of shared space #since edelgard knows her swears by the time of muscle memory/shared space chapter 9 #edelgard’s combination teacher/praise thing is truly unfortunate but what can you do. sometimes a girl is a gotdam mess #it’s not weird unless you make it weird. but she makes it weird. #i think sometimes (like here) she drops a ‘my teacher’ accidentally and byleth politely pretends not to notice #because if she Did call attention to it edelgard would be mortified and that would be the end of whatever fun things they’re doing #frankly no one deserves to say fuck more than edelgard #but with that giant stick up her ass she’d have a hard time getting around to it without some goading #i also hc that dropping honorifics is generally a Huge Turnoff for edelgard due to power dynamic shenanigans #their relationship is Complicated Enough in canon before i fucked it up more in shared space lol #so byleth is really asking for trouble here #but i also reckon ‘my teacher’ is a vibekiller for byleth so if anything they’re just riling each other up now #godspeed girls. hope you shut up long enough to get some

[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.

#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)

[mikkokomori]

is omari basil still a delinquent

(and side note here id LOVE to hear you ramble all about your Omari au)

Ahem,,,, if it is alright with you then,,,,,, I will talk about my OMARI Basil then,,,,

To answer your question, he was planned to be the delinquent of the group (as per typical swap aus), though over time, I really began to sit down and think about it the more swap aus began to pop up around the fandom. I didn't really like the idea of being a carbon copy of various other omari aus in specific, so during the time I have been absent on here I began to slowly revamp the AU over time. I had to start over with what I originally had in the first place since a lot of the au things in my take on it also had contributions by followers as well!

For Basil, his first concept was initially a delinquent take... but the thing that caused a problem with that was the fact that I had planned for him to also play a sort of "detective" role in this universe, as I had written a short snippet on Basil having caught on to something suspicious going on between the older siblings and Sunny's sudden disappearance.......

Frankly, as much as a delinquent Basil is my darling concept of all concepts, I had to, unfortunately, push it to the side and alter his role in this AU to fit with the revamped look I was going for him... therefore fully integrating him into his "detective" role. In a way though, looking through Mari's perspective, he's sort of a clashing force with her and is equivalent to an antagonist in her own story (but! Keep in mind, Mari in this AU isn't the Mari who you should be sympathizing for.... an unreliable narrator who happens to be a wolf in sheeps clothing....).

As for the emotions, while a lot of people tend to view the emotions being assigned to the characters as their possible role in RW (the happy-go-lucky, the perfect student, the delinquent), for mine I ended up making it were each friend had 2 main emotions.... Basils would be anger and sorrow (Aubrey and Kel tend to have anger as their second emotion, though that is still up for debate! I still have a few things to work out :3). So, in a way you could say that in Headspace they were only ever seen as a one-dimensional character by Mari/Hikkiko, while in the real world, they had a even bigger "mess" of emotions that they all dealt with. In turn, Basil's concept strayed further away from the path of delinquent and more into a path which.... ehehe..... obsession as a concept is such a fun thing to play around with, don't you think?

Just as much as he plays the "investigator", he also is meant to be a parallel of what Mari/Hikkiko is. Obsession has always been a part of his character, and in doing so, you could say I played around with it until I found quite a nice concept with this. Mari/Hikkiko both have a need to keep Sunny around as the perfect brother and therefore paint his Headspace counterpart to their own liking.... while Basil in turn has, on some level, a need to imitate Sunny as closely as he can. Both are a form of obsessions I have given them, and in a way, the only reason Basils is a more "lighter" version of this is because Aubrey, Kel, Hero (sort of), Polly, his grandmother, and Faraway Town as a whole have been there to guide him on a better path. Though his obsession to keep Sunny's memory alive by becoming like him is still there, it's not to say that he doesn't have people to talk some sense into him-- meanwhile Mari does not have that type of support.

Obsession stems from love, at least, in their case. And in the end, it really depends on whether or not they have people who are willing to reel them back into a state of sanity. Basil was, at least in terms of my omari lore, viewed as a delinquent at one point, though he never acted out aggressively towards others unless provoked enough and only ever kept to himself.... eventually the town residents accepted the fact that this was just his way of grieving and treated him with patience and respect, especially with the fact he took it upon himself to go around town and helping around with the little things, though especially with gardening and photography.

it's not to say though, that he doesn't have some... worrying habits. That as in, most of his plants being replaced with tulips and most of the heads of certain plants being chopped off with garden shears, left to rot. While Basil mimics his best friends habits, he isn't exactly the best at fully hiding his feelings and emotions as Sunny was able to. No amount of masquerading will change the fact that once he's laid his sights on you, it'll only be a matter time before he seeks for your head on a silver platter.

#im sure i have much more to say and i probably ended up giving you more information than you can chew at a time but like... #listen..... i've been waiting for so #LONG for someone to ask something regarding the characters for the revamped version #in a way i will say that this omari au is a very personal thing with the way some characterizations come off #(some of the stuff in this au is based off real experiences lol) #and any time it comes to swap aus in general for any fandom #i always take them seriously #if anything. i WILL shit on someone in my head if their swap au doesnt have anything unique to it and its just a roleswap #its why the one swap au im actually paying much mind to is a friends au thats called CHICO #one things for certain; if your swap au doesnt have any creativity put into it i will cast upon shame on you your family your families dog- #jk but. swap aus have always been a passion project thing for me in every fandom i've ever been in and OMORI fandom is. well #lets just say that im the gordon ramsay of swap aus because theres BARELY ANY FUCKING GOOD FOOD AROUND HERE!!!!!! #OMARI AU #A Sisters Mourning AU #omori au #omori basil #omori spoilers #omori #anon asks #miko talks #mikkos ramblings #this also just goes in general for aus #ive always been picky and if theres something i dont like or something doesnt make sense well #im sorry to those who have to watch me get real bitchy with things #aus have always been a therapeutic thing to me and ik not everyone is gonna do what i want to see but even then #if your au is mostly for shipping (that has no relevance to the plot whatsoever) or blatant mischaracterization then you can leave!! #ik im sounding like a shen yuan rn but i have a lot of pent up rage and resentment #if you think you can get away with stuff like this in aus i will hunt you down and pour milk over your heads!!!!!

[mongeese]

"Riz is the only character allowed to take stress for other people" oh okay what if i died

#they skimmed over this fast and it's funny but also MY BOY MY FUCKING BOY #because his whole fucking life has been taking on stress for other people. that's what he DOES it's his love language his everything #showing love through work. staying up all night working on cases for friends making folders and conspiracy boards so they can all pass... #riz gukgak the kid that you are i want to give you the world's biggest hug and say it's okay for you to look out for yourself first #i generally relate to adaine more than riz but this right here... lets just say im projecting big time #d20 #fh #fhjy spoilers

[istherewifiinhell]

IS FLYING GENDERED? On the masculine default, typifying gender in genre, and women as the other in the transformers cartoons.

question for the ages

once again i said back in the halcyon days of watching g1 (aka 5 months ago) i was like. Nooooo, decepticon is NOT a gender that's Silly. It's funny, but as a Read Of The Text, I thought it largely unneeded. (The concept came about, as a joke, involving dismissing the bad guys using the same language you would abt women (sexistly) that they're emotional [heh, flighty], vain, and shrill) after all. If in the 80s era there are 5 whole named/speaking woman tfs, its only ever gonna get better from here right? (<- booboo the fool)

anyway

Let's consider the axiom that the assumed default gender is male, that maleness is often seen as LACK of gender, and femaleness and gender variance are the PRESENCE of gender. In certain reasoning and worldviews, of course (See Androcentrism). Then add that, for transformers, the assumed default thing a transformer turns into, is car. (Autocentrism, if you will)

(The most general term for what a tf turns into is "Alt mode" as some of them are not vehicles at all. The other mode is "Robot Mode", whether its humanoid or not)

So I will be laying out why I believe the cartoon iterations support: non standard alt modes = non standard genders. This is in spite of the fact that FIRST lady tfs were all cars. Sleek cyber cars, but still. For whatever reason, (possibly, the reason for everything in tf, toys) they might as well not exist for how woman tf characters presence in the cartoons progressed over time.

And, to be clear, this is a reading of how these works of fiction are created, not a new unified bioessentialism but for robots aliens I'm proposing for like. In universe lore reasons. I hate that idea.

That said, alt modes in order of most to least gender: Spider, motorcycle, flying (in general, with rotors, jets), tank, and then FINALLY, car. (water and space crafts are already too marginal to rank, but they too can be assumed in relation to default maleness, AND that in making one a woman, would still qualify as othering her).

The NUMBER one reason for this is the bizarre need to have an ESTABLISHED woman tf character before making new ones. AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE. With a g1 gender ratio something like.... (counting even the most marginal cases for the ladies) 9:120? (That's a rough count from a quick scanning of the tf wiki g1 char list) Shits dire out here.

The second is, ofc, character design based. cis people [stand in phrase for the hegemonic world view] are not okay, and their opinions about how tf gender must need be depicted visually is. uh? Im not a fan. Size and shape dimorphism in general is a given, and specifically having women tfs as far more humanoid and curvy in specific. Also general cartoon lady face syndrome but, whatever. I think there's exactly one character here who doesn't have "lips" or "lipstick" as a distinguishing factor. I'm so tired.

Third is generally, the idea of The Girl Of the Team. When there's The Girl, she often isn't JUST a normal character, who happens to be a girl. See, of course, the Smurtfette Principle. But in my view there's also a trend to give The Girl "special traits" on top of "Girl", maybe even to directly combat the idea that the Girl Character has no other traits? To stop this from being a General Primer on Woman in Media, my explanatory focus is things specific to the tf franchise.

(A phrase I use for thinking about normative modes [in general, not just the Alt ones] in within the tf universe is "unique transformerdom" or, even more clunkily, "A transformer of unique transformerdom". The excessive verbosity is amusing to me personally. All I mean by it is to have an umbrella term for any of the ways tfs can be made unique from their peers in the non allegorical realities of the fiction).

I could, and do, and greatly want to, speak about this AT LENGTH. But it keeps spiraling away from me. So I'll say for now were looking at ways a character is being depicted different from her peers, not because she is the only woman (which she likely is), but cause she's a different kind of transformer, AND if she's othered for it.

(IN SOME forms of the lore. Being a transformer woman, IS A UNIQUE KIND of transformer unto itself. Let's just say I hate it and move on)

Fourth, is the gender of villainy. There is much to be said about gender presentation of villains, the ways they are allowed to be aberrant. We will get to it. There is also all the tropes specific TO evil women, and the modes of villainy open TO female characters. But a general thing I think impacting the gender ratios of the factions is the how "Good" and "Evil" female characters are written. I'll generalize and call this the "Damsel vs Temptress" dichotomy. (See concepts like the Madonna-whore complex). Transformers, is by and large, an action franchise. Unless special reasons are made, characters who can impact the action– have more screen time, and likely more memorable, and iconic presences. A villainous woman can be unchaste, violent, aggressive. While a heroic woman, even if not a literal damsel are more likely to be in a support role. The secretaries of the action genre: medics and techs.

(Another factor is that tfs are giant robots, and the good guys are often friends with tiny squishy little humans. These make very good damsel fodder, and can be taking up the spots on the roster that might, in a different franchise, go to women. Additionally, while woman characters in transformers overall is an interesting topic. When I say tf women, I'm referring to ones that are in fictionally, transformers.)

SO, now understanding our points of attack/obstacles for getting woman into transformers. (Getting established, gendering the designed, uniqueness of existence, and general villainy). Lets go over those alt modes, and the characters that have em, in more detail.

Spiders

The "Beast Era" (1996) intro-ed the spider ofc. And what don't we have with this one. She's a villain, but shes also misunderstood, the era and design style let to these more organic shapes. And they used them to make sure she was very sexy. She's genre aware, she's quippy, she's an absolute icon. So naturally. She gets ported to other later shows. Which means we just have sexy spider ladies running around when everyone else is a fucking truck and shit.

Her own origin is, well think of her as a "Bride of Frankenstein" to the resident evil scientist, also a spider. She was designed for, and manipulated by him in multiple ways. Her protoform (A blank robot base), was supposed to be one of the good guys (a Maximal), but was reprogrammed into a bad guy (Predacon). Even then, she eventually joins them, for her own reasons. She's not even the first predacon to do so, the difference? Well the characters are a lot more NORMAL about his autonomy. Both of these characters stress that being a predacon is an identity they still see as important. But only the woman is told that really, she is was was always MEANT to be a maximal. And while that's true in a sense. There's also a plot were she's forced (by plot contrivance, not the other maximals) to get corrective robot surgery for it. And when they think she died from, everyone's more sad for her boyfriend than for her. Ouch.

The second spider, in the 2007 show, is now one in a world where she is the only "techno-organic" transformer, hence, she is spider, everyone else is a vehicle. Similar to the first, her narrative is very gendered, but less in the way were, like, I do literally think the first was was experiencing in universe sexism from other characters. Here, they really focus on the "techno vs organic" narrative, and the tragic circumstances on how that happened. In this case its just real world sexist writing.

THIRD SPIDER, (2010), instead of misunderstood and tragic evil, this ones just super mega likes to cause pain evil. She also occupies a strange place between the typic vehicular tfs, and the insecticons. This is because she has a helicopter alt mode, and her robot mode is just, a lady with spider characteristics. And, more than just a passing bug like similarity, she has the power to control the insecticons (you know, cause evil woman mind control). However, she doesn't fit in with them either, as the insecticons are at the most insect like they've ever been, in look, living in hives and that most don't even speak.

They may vary in exact character, relationship to the story's moral conflict, and design. But they stay comfortably established, dimorphised, flirty and flirting with villainy. And bonus points, always, for black widow spider trope.

SO. SPIDERS. Established: ✅️ Gendered designs: ✅️ (Extremely!) Unique: ✅️ Othered: ✅️ Villainy: ✅️

Motorcycles

Tooooo my knowledge the first bike lady was in 2004, and fairly minor, in the actual plot, but rest assured, they did go the previously established woman route, by being pink, though, which one shes named after varies by language. But neither were previously motorcycles. (And yes, there is also this problem of mixing together or swapping out one woman tf for another. As if we have the ladies to spare). Even though motorcycle men also exist, this one just stuck for a bit. Maybe something to do with Those Movies. I think the Gendered Existence of a motorcycle is pretty evident though, general sex appeal, being smaller, the mode of riding a motorcycle is different, more physical and intimate. Mainly this ranks so high for the level of grossness they can pack in. Just how objectifying it can be, particularly with two instances where the human rider is an annoying teen boy. Naturally, I've also never seen a male and female motorcycle in the same room, but the approach to design tends to be different. And yeah most of em are Arcee, who's first alt mode was cyber car, but it's not just her.

Established: ✅️ Gendered designs: ✅️ Unique: ✅️ Othered: Depends on iteration, I do NOT like the way one gets called "tough, for a two wheeler". Villainy: ❌(they wouldn't need to be motorcycles if they weren't making them the Special Girl Autobot, after all)

Flying

General: It just tends to stick out when your one girl is only flyer in the group, even she's otherwise tactfully done. Only flyer of the Maximals, a falcon, only flyer of the dinobots, a Pteranodon.

Rotors

I can barely even figure this one. Maybe it's just a general, aesthetics and use case of the actually vehicles, the associations? None of these ladies (and special case) are very connected otherwise. As previously mentioned, the spider helicopter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A big one for this is the preschool demo shows, which are rescue team focused. In the first one the only woman on the human response worker team pairs with the helicopter, they mention she does medical at times. The helicopter is male, like the other tfs. But also he's afraid of flying, and while not the first case of a flyer with a fear of heights, their personalities are, pretty different. As he's both fearful AND effeminate, fine as character traits go but, with the tone of humour used, marks him as Other.

In the second, Whirl (pointing to icon) becomes a girl for the first time, now with standard humanized face. I assume as move to keep with the previous show of having a girl one, as there's no human team mates. She's also the only one who really likes rescue school. Aaaand that's all know of her. What more do you want from me.

Helicopters: Unique: ✅️ Othered: ✅️ (milder than some)

But why'd I call this section rotors instead of helicopters? That would be because one of the latest Sole Female TF we just put in everything™ is a VTOL jet with rotors. She'll tend to be the only jet of her type, which is also smaller than the type of jet used for the villains.

And, of course, aside from alt mode, the thing that makes her stand out most in the cartoons? That she's very clearly a comics character. (I find the emphasize that she's "fan created" over done, as it only controlled minor aspects, and irrelevant cause tfs get completely overhauled in new versions all the time). From her design, which is a bit busier than most characters she stars with. And also uses Japanese aesthetic signifiers in ways that I think are a bit misappropriated and untactful. (VERY USamerican comics). Also, when she stars next to a guy, also from comics employing Japanese aesthetic, you can tell its not deployed in the same manner. (E.I she has hair and makeup, he has armor). Either way, her depictions have her either as badass sword lady on mission from god who's constantly getting hit on by an annoying guy. Or have her be from a different planet and has special telepathy.

Do we see how both her gender AND the cultural signifiers are having affects here? That the main woman tf in a series can be a literal alien even among our alien robots, with cultural signifiers they don't have?

Ratings Established: ✅️ (made the comics to cartoon jump) Gendered designs: ✅️ Unique: ✅️ Othered: ✅️ (SO SO EXTREMELY, using methods in fiction and real life)

Jets

I think my association of jets with tf gender is stronger, than some of the above examples, even if there's less reason to it. And why is that? Well, lets get socratic. Here's another question.

Is This All Starscream's Fault?

No. He's not real, he can't do things. But. His legacy as THE main stay transformers character that gets to subvert gender? Yeah. (Sure, the G1 autobots have their own effete, but he's not in every single cartoon they ever made now is he? Plus now that I think about it, he is a FLYING car...)

From the get, he's not a Man's man. He's shrill, he's manipulative and duplicitous, petty and emotional, cowardly and wheedling. He is, of course, the Perfect character. Now naturally, the 80s cartoon was not concerned with your paltry logics. Starscream and his ilk are the jets, but every decepticon can fly. The gun, the cassette player, the camera, the cassettes.

And each to a last, more masculine than he is. Vocally or behaviorally, physically. Every one of them fit the gender expectations more than he does. Even being a small time grunt, is a masculine trait, after all, more so than unchecked ambition. So its not femininity from flying, from jets. But direct relationship, reference, and descendancy from Starscream that makes it. I've yet to see female versions of Jet fire and or the aerialbots, for example.

So what to do when an effeminate male villain was less maltese falcon and more that man has effeminate hips? Well. We had to start getting his ass for being effeminate, explicitly. They made the female clone of him, which yeah, is an offensive joke stemming from the various The Gender Anxieties. (Transmisogyny, homophobia and sexism. General relation toxic masculinity. A heady mix of all and more).

But I mean. It's free girl tf... Once given a name in extra canon materials, she start's showing up in other things. Once you're in books, video games, comics, and most importantly, toys, you're real. And then eventually, her first non clone appearance in a cartoon, and how her presence shaped it.

That being, Cyberverse. Which is a cgi show, you need to know this for reasons of production. Making new models is expensive. This has always been the reason you just make recolours of Starscream and name them different things. Chicken or egg on this one, I don't know, But because CV has Slipstream, and the only difference between her and the generic "male" decepticon jet, is a more feminine face; Suddenly, any random decepticon goon can be a woman.

An absolutely revolutionary take for striving to populate a fictional world with gender parity. By at large it also means they're way more lady villains, and specifically flying model of villain. The show has other woman, but none who get the same androgynous body mold treatment.

Established: ✅️ Gendered designs: Mildly to NO. Unique: By design, no. Othered: Yes for the clone, and Screamer himself, I suppose. No, otherwise. Villainy: ✅️(That's, the whole idea)

Tanks

It needs to be said. Sometimes, when doing things that transgress a norm, anteing up is less subversive. This is another reason why gender variance, female agency and overt sexuality are more common traits of villains. When already defying strictures of society. What's one more.

That's Right. TANKS ARE THE BUTCH WOMAN OF TRANSFORMERS.

Alright. Let me back up. Strika is the stone cold knock out undefeated champ of lady tf designs that, actually has a reoccurring cartoon presence. She is, admittedly, only a reoccurring to minor character.

Her introduction is in another show with techno-organics, this one involved in the struggle between well, the techno and the organic. Strika as we see her, and as the design that will go on to be iterated, is not in her normal transformer body. She has been transferred into a 'vehicon' body. Without a preexisting essence contained in one, vehicons are not considered alive, in the way a transformer is. Visually, they lack the more human body plan, a standard face, feet and hand like appendages.

To further contrast Strika against the two techno-organic woman. Both of them are tall, and slender. Their softer organic shapes designed towards elegance or beauty, whatever your subjective opinion of that result might be. They both have romance subplots too. By the way. Or honestly one subplot and one main plot. Strika. In contrast. Is built like a brick shit house. Her face is. Minimal. And her goal: protecting her planet... by terminating the heroes.

Now, existing as a character that can be referenced for other media, and given the detail that she was a "Famous general", it's off to the races. She makes a wonderful big tank menace that can fill out a background shot, too.

Without her I hardly think we could have Clobber, also from CV. Who is. The true goat. The finest thing, the achievements of all we could ever hope for. A big fuck off woman, gender swapped from a previous male design with minimal faff, with now even more personality and show presence. Friends, wants, desires. Emotions. Thank God for Clobber, Thank Clobber for Clobber. Thank Randolph Heard and Mae Catt for Clobber.

Established: Depends if you want to count that Strika had so much swag they kept drawing/modeling her Gendered designs: FUCK NO Unique: ✅️ Othered: only originally Villainy: ✅️

Cars

So now you have the final piece of the puzzle. In transformers, Autobots are Cars. Yes, there are plenty of autobots that are NOT cars, and there are cars that are not Autobots. But they're exceptions, they're aberrances. They're unique. And Autobots are the norm. They oppose the Decepticons. Decepticons are Villains. And Decepticons can fly. Modal simplified binaries and false dichotomy abound!

And the thing about those original Autobot woman, the one's who largely did not influence all of this? They were cars, it's true, but not like how the men where cars. They've not been designed from transforming car toys, with a shellac of humanoid gender over top. Their designed in the way of human gender. With the car on top.

When the preexisting clause leads to the original designs to be revisited, which, has largely only happened in more recent years. They aren't car woman robots. The cars are literally not part of their bodies, they are additional. Instead of a unifying identity of a robot who is a car, its Arcee and her backpack. Parts of cars get grafted onto their petite lady bodies, and placed anywhere out of the way.

In order to make a transformer a woman, they have to give her a gender, not understanding that that's always been the case. And to give her a woman's gender, she's got to LOOK like a woman, not a transformer. And to look like a woman, she's got to act like a woman. She must be heroic but reactive instead of active, or else, villainous, conniving and or self centered. To be a woman, we must have some other previous woman to explain her presence, or else explain it anew with her unique, strange, or exotic origin. How could she ever be a woman if she simply, existed, looked average, talked average. How could she be a woman if her body is hunks of ungendered car. How can she be a woman if she's everything we expect a transformer to be.

A woman is transgressive, a woman is not normal. Autobots are normal. Autobots are heros. Autobots are men. And Autobots do not fly.

#some shit #its not called cisformers #<- IT SURE ISNT FOLKS #a note on how im using citations here u can read BEFORE getting into the post proper #I'm writing this in mind that someone might have NO idea about tf. or. god forbid. #the general perspective of media trope analysis im working from. #So the links can be considered additional or further reading with intent of 1. if a more thorough understanding of a concept might help #2. something im eliding the name of for search reasons 3. a referential example of what im saying #4. a specifc reference/bit of info that might be unclear. in which case im usually linking to a SECTION of the page #5. JOKE #ALright now normal tag talking space. #THIS IS. serious media analysis done casually for fun! in that. I mean it. genuinely. But also im here for silly fun and im not trying #to be SOOOO academically rigorous that its still not. Posting. u know? #MUCH inspired. or i suppose u might say. encouraged to completion and whole hearted commitment by (fandom) silly serious analysis and #math theroying thematics #i have NO idea if this thing will be searchable with all the links and the words i used. but i prepared for it it case it is #AND I PUT A LOT OF WORK INTO IT!!!!!!!! SO its okay if anyone reads it! #but im also braced for bad faithing inwhich case. I will not be held responsible for my actions. thank you. #i have been told to tag this #maccadam #transformers #if someone tryies to kill me for it im not taking responsibility

[rainymoodlet]

Kiss Me in Komorebi+ 🌸

[Episode Five] One Last Push!

Y'ALL THIS ONE HAD ME SCREAMING. I admittedly played around with the contexts of my original playthroughs of these convos: they all happened at the dinner party, not throughout the night. But when Daniel went and apologized to Julien, the Attractiveness Alerts were through the roof, and he seemed to be barely capable of handling himself! He was so struck by the thought of kissing this absolute cherub of a man that it popped up as a Whim and in his Grab Bag of socials!

Also yes I am biased but it is incredibly hot when he flattens his voice to make a point. 🫣

And with that, we are finally at the end of the Dinner Party's one-on-ones! Hopefully with this peek into their interactions, we'll all understand the decisions Daniel makes at the upcoming Rose Ceremony... Stay tuned! We'll check in with our Bachelor just after this!

@morrigan-sims

[ Part 28/30 ] 🌹

#ts4 #ts4 gameplay #ts4 screenshots #ts4 challenge #ts4 bachelor challenge #;kmik #sim: daniel #julien west by morrigan-sims #|| #i could lay down on the floor for three hundred years. they are done. this is the last one-on-one scene. it is done. #we have an interview with dan courtesy of my darling maria and then a transition post and then... (SOB) rose ceremony :') #i am so not ready to say goodbye to anyone. while i am ready to not have to wrangle 21 sims (which was still fun as hell autonomously) #i will miss my seven departing sims so much ;o; #i hope you guys are excited!!! #i thank you all for the patience to explore these scenes with me dfkhdkfs #we boutta get into the MEATS #i hope jules comes through here :') he really is so preciously sweet #and i know dan talked a lot but julien tends to do most of the listening with him its precious #there are some dynamics where dan will sit and listen as the other takes control of the autonomously generated convo #and other times dan talks and talks and talks and the contestants just :)))) at him the whole time dsfkjdhsf #this is one of the latter fdjhk bless #also DAN TIDDIES DAN TIDDIES

[testing-12-testing]

Hey, so if anyone here was unaware

On Twitter, someone has come out with information regarding Gabe Velez/Gamerduck (frogbots va), talking about their experience with him. (the post is linked below but I need to warn you guys for multiple mentions of SA and abuse)

I am not going to say much else here other than I am fucking disgusted. I cannot even put into words how angry this makes me. Fuck Gabe, and fuck anyone who still supports him after this.

#fandroid #adhoc labs #putting this in the main tag bc this is fucking Important #im going to take a long ass break from fandroid content i really hope you guys inderstand #this is awful #important #sa mention #edit: cant update the original post but another person has come out as having similar experiences with gabe #once again im just. digusted #who knows how many people have been hurt here #ill come back and edit the tags if anything new happens #ok update again #gabe released a response. i read through it #it didnt really clear anything up and he pretty much tried saying that the people affected by him actually hurt him #and gave no evidence for such #the tweet just got deleted and people are generally not falling for it #i honestly dont know what he was trying to do there #ok last update for now #this is like. 20 minutes later #his twitter is gone so theres that i guess

[aro-culture-is]

quick note - this blog is gonna be sparse again for at least this week. trying new medications and tbh initial side effects are not super pleasant + actual effects build up. as a result: currently as if unmedicated for mental health, with anxiety+ side effect, extra fatigue, dizziness, and fatigue. it's uh, sure something.

totally recognize that most of y'all know we're absent at times due to health things, just wanted to give a heads up that this one is at least anticipated.

#fun fact sometimes condensing meds just means poorer treatment of some conditions #this is a re-expansion + new thing #so that instead of poorly treating my mental health and using an unusually high dose SNRI for another (physical) condition #i will hopefully both be in less pain AND not depressed af AND also have an appetite again #i doubt i will be lucky and not have a fucked stomach due to meds but one can hope that an appetite will allow me to eat foods that upset #my stomach a lot less #my health is forever a massive balancing act #every time a medical thing is like 'so what meds do u take' i'm like here i wrote it down for u #and they're like 'oh. ooookay. let me just...' *five minutes of typing and clicking later* #'so! what did you come in for again? uhuh. you said you experience pain daily? with your chronic pain thing? hm. have you tried yoga?' #/gen #like. straight up every time i say 'i am in pain all the time due to fibromyalgia' they are like 'ooh studies say regular exercise helps' #and like. theoretically yes! but also. i would be lying if i said the fibromyalgia studies i've skimmed don't set off general 'bad science' #alarm bells in my brain #like... cool you performed a fibromyalgia study with... all male lab rats? mhmm? so are you aware fibromyalgia appears to occur #overwhelmingly in women? like. data seems to suggest between 70-85%? #(not that the data can't still indicate things but it certainly makes male rats a poor choice of model for tests on it) #also just... idk i've looked at some metaanalysis and been like 'okay cool theory and for all i know about human bio or bio in general that #sounds more or less correct BUT. you never discussed that one study on this subject that did NOT support your conclusion. #and that's 1) interesting when it was the most diverse group of subjects and the exceptions often teach just as much as the 'rule' #2) just shitty science. tell me how your theory is still credible when some evidence doesn't fit the model. #like... 'given that all other studies were primarily conducted on white american women in their 30s to 40s it is possible that this model #only explains (the early effects of fibro since that's a typical onset period) / (a possible genetic link primarily found in white women) / #(a possible sign of bias in diagnosis that demonstrates the possibility that there are different causes) / combinations of all of those #like... idk a paper that just throws out things that don't support it is a pretty big red flag #it doesn't mean the conclusion is entirely incorrect but it is often important to understand the context in which it applies #like... it's very easy to jump to an incorrect conclusion if you used something in the wrong context #ie: thumbs up is a good job / positive thing in a lot of western civilizations. teenage kee once went to china and discovered it to be #neutral to offensive in many areas outside of major tourist locations that were used to it #anyways i gotta sleep