#and honestly the METAS I'm planning

[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)

[taranza-stan]

Kirbytober day 12-Shadow

#trying to get back into kirbytober now that I've got some more freetime again #I finished this literally 40 minutes away from Midnight #also my copy and paste plan didn't really work out because a lot of the lineart just appeared weird afterward #so I had to fix that which took some time #kirbytober #meta knight #dark meta knight #honestly now that its done I'm kinda mad I didn't switch out the color palettes on theses two #like the dark colors in front of the light background and vice versa #but eh this works too

[lvicevlk]

MLC questions because my memory is failing me

A) Does anyone know if there was ever an in story reason given for why Di Feisheng doesn't kill women?

B) I vaguely recall seeing/hearing that Di Feisheng was also poisoned in the battle 10 years back but I can't recall where or when I did, can anyone point me in that direction?

C) I cannot for the life of me remember if we were given any information at all about the third of the Three Kings. Did I just completely blank on this or did they really give us nothing?

#mysterious lotus casebook #di feisheng #I'm like 90% sure the meta reason for A is roughly 'we need Jiao Liqiao to survive this action he would definitely have killed her for' #and honestly anything along the lines of 'he thinks women are weak' doesn't really square against the fact that he apparently had 12 women #of enough recognized and respected rank in Jinyuan that jlq decided she hated them personally for his apparent regard of them #we also see a lot of women fighters among Jinyuan ranks in the first flashback so any sort of misogyny angle doesn't really make sense? #and to be frank if dfs imposed any binary division on the population I'm pretty sure the categories would be 'fighter' and 'non fighter' #like. he's clearly aware of gender but I don't ever get the sense that it's much of a factor in how he evaluates people? #and B seems like truth because it's pretty clear that both dfs and lxy were supposed to die/vanish in that fight #sgd's entire takeover plan kinda hinged on both of them being removed from the picture and how else was he going to make sure it happened? #and given the way we see dfs heal in the show him being poisoned is also the only thing that explains why it took him 10 years to recover #he bounces back from injury absurdly fast he shoulda been out of that cave in like a month tops unless something was interfering

[elympios]

honestly after having seen x1 i’m thinking about the difference between jude’s altruistic-to-a-fault kindness and ludger’s altruistic-to-a-fault kindness (not helped by the general issues in determining ludger’s characterisations)

i guess the most i can conclude with is that while ludger is friendly but he’s not as universally kind to the same degree jude is, nor is he as inclined to make the effort either. ludger is clearly capable of being kind to people just because, but he has specific people he’ll go to extreme lengths for, and not in a noble way where he’s extremely determined to do what’s right or good like jude or milla, but where he actively chooses that person’s safety to the detriment of other people he also cares for.

x1 had the consistent theme of people having a purpose, and while i’d say it’s a stretch for x2 to be in any way continuous with that, muzet has a voice line in x2 when she defeats ludger in the bad ending where she says “i know how you feel”, referencing her actions in x1 where her purpose in life (protecting the schism and serving maxwell) being threatened leaves her aimless and desperate to find orders.

in both the game and the manga, ludger expresses that he cares more about the personal connection he has to julius and elle than he does about saving the world. the manga makes it an explicit statement in dialogue, but the game makes it explicit in actions, by having ludger choose to save elle or julius instead of the world. (although he only gets to go through with it in the bad ending.)

ludger, pre-canon, has friends, if only the two, but despite that his focus is exclusively on julius, and it doesn’t seem like he either had plans to leave, nor that he was especially concerned with doing so? it’s mostly coincidence, but he does only bond with other people once julius is inaccessible to him. victor, too, raises elle in near-complete isolation of the world, and ludger explicitly gives up his friendships with everyone else for julius’s sake in the bad ending.

my point being that he’s perfectly fine eschewing other friendships for julius or elle, and, especially contrasting milla and jude, who both set aside their happiness together in order to follow their individual paths, he isn’t as invested in doing things for good’s sake as he is for doing things for the sake of those he loves.

so i would like to propose that ludger’s purpose in life is to care for and protect the person he loves the most, it is what makes him happiest, and just like muzet he can take it horribly if he’s threatened with failing that goal.

although.

there is a more heartwarming aspect in the elle ending and the manga. where ludger is actively offering up his own life to save elle, or so that julius and elle can both live without him. so i’d argue that, from a personal level, the elle ending and the bad ending are ludger’s happiest endings, for being able to fulfil his own goals, as opposed to the ludger ending, where he fails to protect them both and only has the solace of fulfilling victor’s wish instead by bringing elle into the prime dimension.

#is this meta? eh. i don't like calling my ramblings meta. #meta sounds like i know what i'm talking about haha #i feel like i'm just writing fanfic while taking notes from canon #v #x2 #julius and elle both have a lot of faith in ludger and victor's respective kindness and love for them #but honestly... i wonder that neither of them realise just how /selfish/ ludger and victor are about them #very fortunately for julius. it's a mutual selfishness. because elle is not okay with it. not with victor's plan nor with ludger's #but julius is fine with it. and for that the bad ending feels rather happy despite everything

[brucenat]

Hi, this is just a idea but have you ever thought of writing a connected story where after the events of Age of Ultron Natasha meets Bruce???? 👉🏻👈🏻, stories like this have already been made but I find the different perspectives interesting

;)

#ask avian #answered #i still don't know if talking in the tags is considered okay or lame or what but anyway if you're here #i honestly don't think hulk would've gone to space at the end of ultron were it not for the larger plan in which the mcu was operating on #i'd honestly love to talk more about this but only if people are interested #bc i'm not about to inflict a meta upon the lovely BN folks unwarranted/unasked for #ANYWAY this is one of the ideas that's been sitting in my brucenat vault for over a year now #and i'm delighted to get this message #i only hope i don't disappoint

[fantastic-nonsense]

honestly as much as I bitch about TLJ specifically, I lowkey think the sequel trilogy was doomed no matter who tried to make them because they were made in Hollywood's peak "absolutely nothing we ever make can be sincere!" era, which is antithetical to how George Lucas approached making Star Wars.

One of the most interesting things about Star Wars has always been how absolutely sincere it was about its themes and message and everything that happens in the movies. Even if it's ridiculous, even if it's objectively silly, nothing is ever really treated as such within the movies themselves. A naive farmboy genuinely does have the skill to take down a planet killing weapon. A slave boy from a backwater planet really does have a key part to play in the fall of the Jedi. A group of three foot high killer teddy bears are treated as serious opponents to Imperial forces. Jar-Jar Binks gets to be a Senator with an instrumental, if small, part to play in the story of the prequels. Everything has its place and every part of the story is treated with equal sincerity.

But nearly everything made in the 2010s always had to be funny or meta or self-aware or subversive or self-depreciating about its message and the genre it occupied. There was always a twist. There was always a "I'm more clever than my audience" or "I know this is dumb, but watch it anyway" vibe being brought to the table. Everything always had to take at least one cheap shot at people who wanted to take a piece of media seriously and sincerely treat it as a story whose creators had something to say.

And meanwhile George Lucas was always just like "I have a story, and I want to tell that story. I don't care if people like it or don't like it. My themes are my themes, my message is my message, and you can just die mad about it if you think it's too naive or sincere."

Any world that is fundamentally built on sincerity and genuine belief in a core set of messages cannot maintain integrity when people who do not wholeheartedly believe in the sincerity of that world's message are put in charge of it. The lack of belief will always shine through. The lack of understanding will pervade every inch of the new entry. The sheepish embarassment of "I know this is dumb guys, but watch it anyway because I'm going to do something ~different~!" will always be the audience's takeaway over anything else the creative team tries to say. Because instead of just making a good movie that both logically follows the other ones and actually adds further depth to the existing themes, they're embarassed to even be trying.

Even apart from the utter lack of planning and the mess of executive meddling that went into the sequels...is it any wonder we got the end result we did when no one involved in the creative process actually genuinely, wholeheartedly believed in George Lucas's message and the story they were telling?

#which...honestly also explains why Rogue One is the best Disney-era Star Wars movie #because it's the only one that actually captures that same genuine‚ unironic love of the genre #and a wholehearted sincerity of the franchise's messaging #star wars #george lucas #jj abrams #rian johnson

[thavron]

I was writing a meta post about the final fifteen and honestly it got so long an unwieldy that I gave up and just decided to live in denial land for a bit. But there is one piece of the puzzle I want to put out there, and that's how the flashbacks are edited, or one in particular.

I've seen a couple of great posts about how the flashback minisodes are edited in season two to be from Aziraphale's POV and not the Objective View, and if I was a better meta writer I'd have links for you, but I'm not, sorry. I've also seen a few posts discussing whether Aziraphale is a reliable narrator. That is definitely something we ought to consider when dealing with this sort of POV storytelling, but not entirely relevant to my post, but worth reading about if you have the time.

What I want to discuss is how the Metatron conversation is edited. We see Aziraphale go outside with the Metatron, this is the usual objective viewpoint. It then cuts to the scene inside the shop. We don't see the Metatron conversation again until Aziraphale is talking to Crowley. The way it is edited makes it very clear that this is not just a flashback but also Aziraphale recounting the tale. The use of "He said-" cut to scene, and "I said" cut to scene makes it as clear as the editor possibly can make it. It is a technique often used in editing to reduce exposition monologuing. Whether this is an accurate depiction of the Metatron conversation, we don't know but not actually relevant to my point (though worth thinking about).

What I want to point out is that Aziraphale chose to give Crowley four important pieces of information.

I don't want to go back to heaven.

There are enormous projects afoot. (consider that they have already discussed the possibility of a second Armageddon, though only Crowley knows about the Second Coming.)

They know about the Arrangement.

We could go together as angels.

He says all this in such a way that suggests he's fully drank the cool aid, but if we review the information without the dramatics it sounds more like a warning.

The use of double signalling ("it'll be like the old times, but even nicer" whilst shaking his head no) which occurs throughout the scene, this post and this video got me thinking about how deceptive Aziraphale is being. But he's not trying to deceive Crowley. He is trying to pass on the above information, hinting that he has a plan, whilst putting on a show for whoever is watching. He assumes Crowley is on the same page, and then it all falls apart when it becomes apparent that Crowley is really not. This is when he changes tack, and begins to panic.

He's left with the horrible task of trying to respond to Crowley's declaration positively, whilst not breaking the illusion. Which is why we get lines like "We can be together... as angels."

He also obviously sees them as a unit already (our car, our shop) and so it may not have he occurred to him that Crowley wouldn't just trust him and follow him into heaven. It's insensitive yes, but also not out of character for Aziraphale. I think this is the real kicker here, Aziraphale feels rejected because Crowley doesn't trust him enough to follow, and Crowley feels rejected because he doesn't feel good enough. Yet they are both clearly saying they want to be together.

I think the final few moments with Aziraphale and the Metatron is really what sells this idea to me. He is left undecided. He has the choice, abort mission and follow Crowley, or go ahead alone. He's devastated and you can see him wavering. If this was truly about him being excited to go back to heaven, I don't think we would see this indecision.

I can not decide just what is motivating Aziraphale to leave, whether he sees a sliver of hope to fix things in heaven, or whether he has decided to take on the role of hornet in a bees nest, but what is abundantly clear to me is that he has a plan and he wanted Crowley to help him, and Crowley said no. Or maybe he didn't. He was waiting by the car after all. Maybe this moment is what allowed him to move forward with a smile?

#good omens #good omens meta #my meta

[luffyrose]

Oh Brother....s?

I had the most brilliant mini-idea while raging at video games because my parents suck at em. Anyway, there's really no correlation there, but the idea!

So we all know the whole "Danny is related to (Batkid) and he was give away because blah blah" or "he died and blah blah". We know those, and we love them, but what if, hear me out, Danny is related to MULTIPLE of them.

Danny is the child of Willis and Talia.

Now he was definitely not planned or anything, it just happened during a random mission and Talia couldn't bother to deal with it much. She decided that if the child lived she'd give it to Willis, a sort of test. It's not like she needed the baby, Damian had been born a little while before. Talia is one of those mothers who doesn't LOOK pregnant even when she's about to have the baby so basically, Danny does end up being born but is a really sickly kid, like REAL sick.

Of course, she really couldn't care less about the kid so baby Danny was given to Willis, who just gave Danny to Jason and Catherine. He's like 8 or so, so he isn't Robin yet, and he is SO happy to have a little brother. Except he's terrified for Danny, whose name was originally something else with Daniel being his middle name thanks to Jason (also why he kept the name Danny and not his original first name), but he doesn't want Danny hurt. After a few years, just before he becomes Robin, he gives a barely like 4-year-old Danny to a shelter or something with a blanket and a note.

Everything goes the same with both of them from there. The reason why Jason is easier on Damian compared to the others? He kinda looks like his baby brother, not identical but like, there's a resemblance, and he kind of finds it uncanny. Reason Talia even gave the time to help Jason? Well, he's technically the older brother of her younger child, and after having Damian for a while she does feel a little bad. Even if she doesn't want to meet the kid, she figured helping his older brother was a good enough way to apologize.

Danny remembers his older brother. How he looked and his name, and how he always took care of him. It's why even when his new adoptive parents neglected both him and Jazz he doesn't think anything is wrong. Jason had raised him. Now Jazz was. It was simply normal to him. He's just got major parent issues honestly.

The only people who know about his older brother are Jazz and Tucker though. His parents never were told because they'd been too busy to learn about it. Jazz had helped him on the earlier nights when he cried for Jason. And Tucker had learned when they first became friends as kids. Even if he was close to Sam, he never mentioned Jason though, it kind of felt like something he shouldn't touch anymore. It'd been years and even if he still had that star blanket, the note he vaguely remembers with it had been taken and put with his papers...and well he didn't know where those were.

Jason had already died and come back when Danny had the accident, so neither was aware of the other still. Danny does the whole hero thing for about 3 years before everything came crashing in for whatever reason, and he has to run. With no plan, he just follows his core and ends up in Gotham but he doesn't know why. Gotham herself is THRILLED to have him back because Jason was hers and this was Jason's little brother as well as her king! So she's trying to help the disoriented and hurt boy to his brother.

Cue shenanigans and angst though and it take a good MINUTE for Danny to even meet the Bats, let alone Jason. I'm thinking everyone meets him in one way or another before Jason is getting something from the cave while they're talking about this meta kid who LOOKS kind of like Damian but not at the same time, so they need to figure out if it's a clone or what. Jason sees the picture and is frozen, not even noticing the fact that he started crying while the whole fam is freaking out.

It's Damian, who looks between Jason and the picture, that notices the subtle differences that had them thinking it was still familiar were from Jason. And dun dun dun, it's Jason's little brother. He never knew who the mother was and after someone gets him out of his like mini-panic from knowing his brother was close by, he just bolts to his bike to go find him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I actually think I may make this a one-shot series. If anyone else wants to use this idea though feel free as well! Just tag me or smth :D

I honestly do think this is gonna be another thing I write though, I kinda love this idea a lot XDD

#dc x dp #dp x dc #dc #dcmultiverse #dc comics #danny phantom #danny fenton #ghost king danny #jason todd #red hood #willis todd #talia al ghul #damian wayne #robin #dc robin #batfam #batfamily #tucker foley #jazz fenton #this is such a crack idea but I'm treating it seriously XD #Like in my brain it is a very serious and angsty with a good ending fic #I'm so gonna have to write this at some point so you guys can see what I mean #lotta tears are required in this one

[bowtiepastabitch]

I've just realized something...

What does Michael know????

I've seen an uptick the last day or two, coincidence or chain reaction I don't know, in metas analyzing Michael Sheen's acting choices during the Final Fifteen. Heartbreaking. Devastating. His facial expressions make me want to cry my eyes out.

So I'm chilling, enjoying watching y'all think thinky thoughts when I have a thinky thought of my own. You can't come up with that range of microexpressions without having the context for yourself. You just can't. Michael has to know what's going on here.

How much did Neil tell him about the next season? We can speculate all we want about what Aziraphale's plan is based on these facial expressions, but to do so assumes (don't get me wrong, I think it's a fair assumption) that Michael himself knows what Aziraphale's plan is. Imagine sitting on that knowledge right now and not being able to say anything.

Edit: I have been reminded that Neil said outright that of course Michael is in on S3. For this to be a proper meta that's context I would have needed, but honestly I'm so sleep deprived my brain is in shambles. What I really want to know is what thoughts Michael has in his gorgeous head while filming this scene.

#good omens #good omens 2 #michael sheen #neil gaiman #ineffable husbands #good omens final fifteen #good omens meta

[eviebane]

Aziraphale spoke with The Metatron during the attack

Aziraphale's only plan during the bookshop attack was to request the gate. We know from S1 that someone in Heaven has to open it. Aziraphale initially thought it was God but it turned out to be The Metatron, who says he'll leave the gateway open for Aziraphale.

In 2x05 Aziraphale requests a gate. "Hello? Anybody there?" He's reaching out to someone in Heaven. Note that just before the gateway opens, the audience mostly stays with Maggie & Nina while Aziraphale is busy in the background. He disappears for 1 minute and 14 seconds just before opening the gateway.

The video below shows the bookshop attack up until Aziraphale steps away from the gateway, focusing on Aziraphale's whereabouts (2m16s).

At this point I wonder exactly what Aziraphale was up to. Requesting a gateway is a sure-fire way to summon someone from Heaven, but no one appears in the gateway and he ends up just using it to discorporate demons. Aziraphale acknowledges that even demons aren't that stupid, they won't keep walking into it forever - it was a flimsy plan.

Is it possible that this plan was either only part of his plan, or a failed plan so he adapted. In either of these plans, I think the goal was to speak to Heaven but as the gateway was empty, Aziraphale used the gate as a weapon.

Why would Aziraphale reach out to Heaven? Well, it's exactly what he did in S1 when things went wrong. He tried to talk to God to 'sort this whole mess out'. Trying again in S2 isn't that far-fetched.

Several times in S2, Aziraphale references being under Heaven's protection and the bookshop being an embassy, despite even Shax pointing out that wasn't true.

Did Aziraphale want to speak to Metatron? We now have Aziraphale requesting a gate in the same manner he did in S1 when he spoke to Metatron, so we have to assume Aziraphale expected that requesting the gate would summon the Metatron to it.

Perhaps he was trying God (even though he tried God in S1 and knows he just gets the Metatron) or trying another angel (but we don't know of any angel allies he has so this seems unlikely). Therefore I'm concluding he was trying to summon the Metatron.

Why would Aziraphale want to speak to the Metatron? It could have been purely to get access to the gateway as a weapon in the attack, but again, Aziraphale himself said it wouldn't be that effective. I believe Aziraphale's plan went beyond just opening the gateway.

You can read my meta post about the Final Fifteen and Aziraphale’s plan for season 3 here.

If Aziraphale wanted to speak to the Metatron, I believe it was to ask for help. Now, the Metatron wouldn't give this freely so he would ask for something in return. Remember that the Metatron is keen to launch Armageddon 2.0 and knows that Aziraphale is a threat to his plans.

What was the deal? This is difficult to theorise as we don't have a lot of clues. There's a few lines that strike me as odd.

"Do people ever ask for Death?" "What?" "Well, the name of your establishment, Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death. I assume they always ask for coffee." "They don't ever ask for Death, no." "No, I don't suppose they do. So predictable."

"It's just you and me, Aziraphale. I think we need to have a bit of a chinwag, don't you?" "I don't believe there's anything left to be said. I've made my position quite clear."

The way Aziraphale says he's made his position quite clear feels to me like a conversation has already taken place. We know Aziraphale isn't offered the Supreme Archangel job until later on, so what could they have discussed prior?

We see parallels in S2 about making deals where someone could claim a favour owed later on. Did Aziraphale also make a deal with the Metatron - in exchange for the gateway, the Metatron could claim a favour from Aziraphale?

It could be a blanket 'yes' to anything he asks for. It could be Aziraphale's return to Heaven or even his death. I'm honestly not going to rule anything out. But this could (could!) explain Aziraphale's sincerity during the Final Fifteen when he tells Crowley about the Metatron's offer. Perhaps this was a better deal than he was originally offered or just imagined. Remember that there are pieces of his café conversation with the Metatron that we don't see.

Maybe it's a little far-reaching, but I do think it's not outlandish to believe that Neil has something very sneaky happening up his (and Aziraphale's) sleeve, and any good magician has already started their trick before the audience even starts watching for it to begin. There is so much to unpack in S2 and I think to guess at S3, we need to look back further than the Final Fifteen.

As always let me know your thoughts!

*edit* I don't think the gateway was opened before we see it open, but we know that Heaven can hear his pray before the gateway opens. Was Aziraphale in the back room praying for help?

#good omens meta #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #gomens #goodomens #ineffable divorce #gomens 2 #good omens 2 #the metatron #bookshop attack #nina #maggie #shax

[wolfjackle-creates]

Bring Me Home: Chapter 2 Part 2

It's Wednesday! Time for another WIP Wednesday. No Ghost!Robin today. I've been focusing more on this fic. I think I'm going to try and start alternating weeks, but there's no set schedule or plan and it's liable to change at a moment's notice.

Fic Summary: Tim and Danny are both neglected by parents who care more about their work than their families. They deal with this by spending too much time online and find each other playing MMORPGs. They keep up their friendship as Tim becomes Robin and Danny becomes Phantom and don't bother keeping secrets from each other.

First, Previous

1.3k words

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Cassie hissed, “What the fuck, Tim!”

“I know!” whispered Tim back. “Danny mentioned home security, but I had no idea it was like that!”

Bart shook his head. “Want help with that kidnapping scheme? I’ll join you on your road to villainy.”

“That’s the problem with Tim,” agreed Conner. “He makes the road to evil look like it’s really the best option. Count me in, too.”

Cassie groaned. “Damn it, you guys are right. I’m in.”

Before Tim could do more than flip them off, Danny was back. “The pop express has returned!”

Cassie was closest to the door and Danny passed over her drink first. Only to freeze as their fingers brushed.

“Oh,” said Danny who looked at their hands then up at Cassie and back to their hands. “Huh.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Cassie and Tim started to get a bad feeling.

Which was only worsened by Danny looking at him with a grin forming on his face. “Sooooo, Tim—”

“No!” Tim shook a finger at him. “You’d better not tell me what I think you’re about to tell me! You’re OP enough! No more!”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “You done?”

Tim sighed and decided to just collapse backwards onto Danny’s bed. He stared at the ceiling and waved a hand in the air. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

Danny, apparently, loved making him suffer and continued passing out the drinks without telling him what he discovered. Then the mattress dipped next to him and Danny was above him with a grin that wouldn’t melt butter.

“So, Tii-iim,” Danny sing-songed.

“Daaan-ny,” replied Tim in the same tone.

“Apparently I can sense metas. And aliens. Which is so cool. They feel so different to humans! I knew about my ghost sense, but didn’t realize that applied to other species.”

Tim just sighed and closed his eyes. “Of course you can.”

“Conner!” The mattress shifted again as Danny moved. “You feel like warm sunshine and it’s so cool. Bart, you feel like static. Which… little awkward for me, but it’ll be good. I should try and get over my fear of electricity. Cassie, you also feel like static, but in a totally different way. Can’t explain it any better than that.”

“Why is static a problem?” asked Bart.

At the same time, Tim said, “I’ll add it to the list. And the descriptions.” He cracked one eye open to look at Danny. “Will you promise to stop developing more powers for me?”

Danny laughed and nudged his knee. “No promises.”

Cassie looked between them. “Does this mean you know?” she asked Danny.

“Wonder Girl, right? And Superboy and Impulse?”

Cassie nodded. “And Tim told us about you.”

“My lips are sealed,” Danny promised.

Tim rolled his eyes and pushed himself up. “Just gimme my water and fix my phone.”

“Wow, Tim,” said Cassie. “Rude much?”

“No. Look, you’ve no idea how ridiculously OP Danny is. Almost every week he calls me saying he discovered something else he can do.”

“If you think that was rude,” added Danny with a laugh, “you should’ve seen the things he said to me when I got him killed in Elf Night.”

“Ugh,” Tim feigned annoyance. “Don’t remind me. Honestly, what were you thinking? You were a rogue! Why did you attack the boss head on like a barbarian? We lost weeks of game progress! Weeks, Danny!”

Danny just laughed and threw the water bottle at his face. Tim caught it easily.

“Just give me your phone, Slim-Slam.”

“Slim-Slam?” asked Conner.

“He tried to object to Tim-Tam. I made him regret it.”

Tim shook his head. “This was a mistake. Why the hell did I ever think it’d be a good idea to let you guys meet.” To hopefully get them to change the subject, he shoved his phone in Danny’s direction. “What do you need to do to this anyway?”

“We just need to make it compatible with ectoplasm. There’s enough ambient ecto in Amity that waiting a few weeks allows it to happen naturally, but that’s not an option for you guys. Tuck and I went through, like, fifty devices figuring out the exact quantities and locations to add ectoplasm to force the process without destroying the device. It took us ages, but we figured it out. Now Tuck and I get extra money from the tech geeks in town who don’t want to wait the month or so it usually takes for new devices to start working.”

“Speaking of Tucker, will I be able to meet him? And Sam? You’re meeting my friends, I want to meet yours.”

Danny shrugged. “Sure. I’ll text them to meet us at Nasty Burger in forty minutes.” He sat at his desk and set down Tim’s phone to do so. Then, he opened a drawer and pulled out a set of micropipettes and disposable tips in a variety of sizes along with an empty glass beaker. Then came out an electronics tool kit. Tim had a similar one, though Danny’s looked like it had been obtained piecemeal as nothing matched. Finally, he opened a different drawer and pulled out a vial of a glowing green liquid.

Tim pushed himself off the bed and moved to stand over Danny’s shoulder. His friends joined him.

Bart asked, “So what will you be doing? What’s that green stuff?”

“It’s ectoplasm. The stuff ghosts and their dimension are made of. Ectoplasm is… complicated. This is unshaped ectoplasm, also called pure ectoplasm. A ghost or sentient creature can impose their will on it and make it function in a specific way. Since I’ve died, I have an easier time shaping it than most humans. I’ll send ‘tech’ vibes at it to get it to fuse to the phone more easily and apply carefully determined quantities to the different parts of the phone.”

“‘Tech vibes.’” Tim couldn’t hold back the groan. “It’s like magic. I hate it.”

Cassie bumped her shoulder against his. “You get that from Bruce.”

“Damn right, I do.”

Tim watched as Danny popped out the sim card. “First thing I’ll do is add a hundred microliters to the sim card. Then I’ll take the screen off and get to work on the innards. Do you guys want new batteries, by the way? Tuck’s got a bunch of ecto-batteries. Could have him bring them along when we meet up. You’d never have to charge your phone again.”

“Hell yeah!” said Conner. “Sign me right up.”

Tim shook his head, but couldn’t hold back the smile. “What do you mean by never have to charge it again?”

“I mean an ecto-battery will power the phone longer than the computer in the phone will last. I’ve switched over all my electronics. Nothing in this house is hooked up to the electricity grid anymore. I haven’t used a wall plug in four months. Not since Tucker and I fixed the batteries my parents designed.”

Tim didn’t like the sound of that. “Two questions. First, if the battery outlasts the phone, how should we dispose of it. And two, more importantly, ‘fixed’? What the hell does that mean?”

Danny had finished with the sim card and discarded the pipette tip in the beaker. Then he set about removing the screen from the phone. “Just bring the phones back to me when you’re done with them. I’ll upgrade your new ones, too. And their designs were liable to explode, overload the device, or bring it to life so it attacked. But Tuck and I took care of all that. Now devices only attack if Technus manages to get through the portal.”

Tim could sense Conner trying to look at him, but he resolutely refused to look away from Danny’s hands. He was removing the cameras and adding more ectoplasm to them, though much less than the sim card needed.

Unable to get Tim’s attention, Conner asked, “Who’s Technus?”

Danny shrugged. “One of my rogues. Tuck thinks he’s the ghost of Nikolai Tesla. He’s interested in controlling all technology and will make himself a giant mechasuit cannibalized from any electronic he can find in, like, a half mile radius. Super annoying.”

---------

Next

So I've decided which episode of the show this will take place during! It's mid season 1, so Jazz knows about Danny but Danny doesn't know she knows. I don't think that contradicts anything I've written (need to reread it), but if it does, no it doesn't. I dunno if most of you know what micropipettes look like, but if there's any interest I can take pics at work tomorrow and post them so you can see what I mean when I talk about the tips and stuff. I meant to do that today and then I didn't.

Tag List

@gremlin-bot, @bonebrokebuddy, @britcision, @lady-time-lord-, @welcometosasakiworld, @akikkobara, @phoenixdemonqueen, @dolfay, @skulld3mort-1fan, @we-ezer, @markus209, @sjrose1216, @onyxlightdragon, @dragonsrequiem, @jesus-camp-the-sequel, @spidey29phangirl, @kyrianclawraith, @evilminji, @introvert-even-on-the-internet, @emergentpanda-blog, @lexdamo, @v-inari, @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit, @longlivethefallen, @undead-essence, @xye-chan, @liandrin, @seraphinedemort, @kisatamao, @schalensitzbucket, @caelestisdreamer, @runfromthemedic, @nutcase8691, @channajen, @tonicmii, @ambiguouslyominous, @vythika96, @addie-lover-of-stories, @ironicvixen, @violetfox2, @pickleking8, @mysticalcomputerdetective, @ark12, @mygood-bitch99, @squirrel-wolf

Getting close to the point where I'll have to split the tag list in two! (I'll still add anyone who is interested.)

#dpxdc #danny fenton #tim drake #cassie sandsmark #conner kent #bart allen #dead tired #danny gets a new power #tim is done #tim is going to drag everyone with him if he goes evil #he just makes it make sense

[kirbybecomesastarwarrior]

THE JOURNEY OF A KING

I know I'm the most guilty of putting Meta Knight on the angst train... but this is all necessary for his growth. By the end of the series, our boy will get everything he deserves and sit on the throne where he rightfully belongs!

Or, in this case, the leader of the GSA. Believe it or not, I've planned this plot line from the beginning: Why else do you think Kirby gets the title of "Starlight Prince" when he gets knighted. This is Kirby & Meta Knights' story... they grow together and become what they were always meant to be.

And yes, for those of you who participated in the voting poll (whether he was Mordred or Gawain, honestly a half & half, but...):

Meta Knight is Mordred of the KBASW series.

This is Meta Knight's character song... (I was so inspired by this)

I can't really explain why just yet I have a longer post I plan to do but... to make a long story short:

Basically, kind of like Jon Snow's plotline (well, just after season 6: pretend the last two seasons of Game of Thrones didn't exist)

Meta Knight is basically the illegitimate child, but in this case, a demon child created by Nightmare. And due to that, GSA will never truly be accepted despite trying to walk the path of a noble knight. He was labeled "the cursed star from the moment he was born... and only found true happiness when walking his own path.

Meta Knight's story is about him learning to love every part of himself and that he is always worthy. He learns that through raising Kirby & being his mentor. And becomes the leader he was always meant to be.

I will get around to explaining the whole Mordred & Gawain sides of Meta Knight (it's going to be a long post!) And we are, absolutely getting the KBASW version of "THE KING OF THE NORTH" with Meta Knight!

Hope you all stick around for it!

#kirby #meta knight #metadad #kbasw #kirby anime #krbay #kirby right back at ya #hoshi no kirby #kirby of the stars #kirby gsa

[trigunbookclub]

TrigunBookclub Afterparty!

Hello there! As bookclub winds down to a close, there a few things to announce:

Bookclub Afterparty!

Bookclub may officially be over, but the Trimax brainrot continues! There are some bonus comics, the Multiple Bullets anthology (with all its great and terrible stories), and some folks have fallen behind, have essays left to write, or have things they wanted to create or share and haven't had a chance. I myself fell behind since life has been a bit hellish on my end, I'm two volumes behind--and I don't seem to bethe only one in that position!

So, I want to invite people to keep using and watching the tag until the end of October! Discuss, share theories, thoughts, art, shout-out posts and ideas that you love, just have fun! You can discuss the entire series and all related materials--hell, you can even do a read/reread it if you want to. Whatever goes, so long as it follows the guidelines.

Bookclub 2.0!

I've been talking with the @trigun-manga-overhaul team, who we all know has the best Trigun manga translation out there--but it's about to get better with Overhaul 2.0! When it drops probably next year, it will be at the pace of a chapter a week, and I plan to run the bookclub during that time to celebrate! This gives much more time for discussion, comparing, analyzing, and keeping up with posts. Since it will be a longer reading time and it's round two, spoilers will be allowed, though I will ask that they be tagged.

I also highly encourage everyone to feel free to use the tag when the hardcovers from Dark Horse are released to celebrate and discuss!

Bookclub Archive!

Since social media has a tendency to be ephemeral at best, the lovely @versaphile has taken it upon themselves to archive the bookclub posts of everyone who gives permission for them to do so! This way you can binge meta and posts and find everything much more easily. You can find the archive here, and see an example of archived posts here. If you're interested in or okay with being included in the project, please contact @trigunreferencelibrary!

Bookclub Stickers!

Multiple people have talked about wanting a badge of honor for participating in/keeping up with bookclub, and I think that might be a bit tricky... but how about some stickers? I figure that this way, the shipping is affordable even for international folks since I've seen a good amount of people around the world participating and lurking! I'm going to try and find printing for as affordably as I can (if anyone out there knows any good distributors for smaller batch sticker orders, please shoot me a DM!), and it won't be something to profit off of--just in memory of a great time! The only thing is I have two options, and I don't know if either of them are even what folks want. So...

And that's all that I can think of for now! I'm a bit exhausted and run ragged at the moment, so feel free to ask for any clarification on anything. When I started this project, I honestly didn't think I'd get many if any people following through--I know people lose their focus easily (myself included). But instead it turned into a huge celebration of a beautiful manga that is finally getting the attention it deserves after kind of getting buried by time. I've met some absolutely amazing and brilliant people throughout this event, and I just want to say thank you to every single person who made a post, supported others, and/or just lurked. You guys are fantastic and made this an amazing experience.

#Trigun #Trimax #Trigun Maximum #TrigunBookclub #I can't believe it's over ):

[thesmpisonfire]

Once again I'm thinking about Richas being rushed and not supposed to be seen in the state they found him

I honestly think Richas was supposed to be the egg given to the french.

He knows a bit of the language (Yes, ik that the meta reason is bc Ricardão is an overachiever and was learning french before the QSMP) when he barely knew Portuguese when he was found. And the French arrived not too much after the Brazilians, in a planned crash

Probably Pomme and Richas were in development at the same time (as we saw yesterday that the Feds are still constantly creating new eggs) and Richas was further in development, just missing his leg. The Brazilians crash was unexpected (Or maybe even supposed to be after the French and Pomme would be their egg) and clearly alerted as an invasion and a problem to be dealt with

They were the only ones that the islanders had to fight to get to, while the French were clearly displayed without much trouble (Maybe this will be debunked with the Germans arrival, we'll see). They had no fancy theater either, going over a dirt patch

Now, back to the eggs and the comparison between Richas and the others

I saw some ppl say that Tallulah is also a "rushed" egg bc of her disabilities but I genuinely don't think so. Besides her hearing and asthma, she's a perfect egg on the outside. She might have some trouble but she'd be perfectly capable of finishing the Parkour tests or any other that would be given to her. Plus, she wasn't just thrown in the attic by herself, she had a cage. She was on display for Wilbur to find. She has a bed model fit for her

Same for Pomme. She was in a cage, and the Federation themselves guided people to get to her by giving her coords. On the very first day, Pomme also had a bed model individual for her, with her beret

Richas, to this day, doesn't have an individual bed. He uses Tilin's bed still. Also, the Feds would have the perfect opportunity to introduce Richas in the middle of the other cracked eggs when they were returned, but they didn't. When the Feds told the islanders to go get their eggs, they only specified the parents that already had eggs and that they had been returned. The Feds didn't call attention for the Brazilians to get their egg as well. Richas wasn't in a cage in the attic to be found together with the others. He was thrown, still covered with preservatives, in one of the empty cages down stairs and the other eggs that found him, specifically Dapper, Bobby and Leo, who got BBH's attention, who got Slime and Quackity's, who then called the Brazilians.

Richas was a rushed afterthought so they could pretend they were expecting the Brazilians, but they weren't. The fact he has one leg is just another proof, and yes it would mess with his test if they had time to put him through the parkour, because guess what? Richas was SHIT at parkour. They tried to teach him during the Immortalyson day and Bobby finished perfectly while Richas had a lot of difficulty with the last bits. His dads knew it was due to his leg and told him there was no problem, they'd help him learn how to do it in a way that was fair to him

Richas also always points out how he didn't have a cage or have a bed special for him, joking that it's because he's Brazilian and the Feds hate them. He also is the only egg that seems to have problems with someone else's memories being mixed with his, probably because the Feds had no time to give the last touches to his mind before dropping him at the Adoption Center

#qsmp #q!richarlyson #qsmp theory

[ghanjrho]

A:TLA; how it should have ended.

Recently, I've been on a deep dive into the A:tLA fandom, specifically the Zutara sphere. And that means I've found a lot of long-form meta on the show, it's ending, LoK, script final drafts, you name it. That's all gone in the brain blender, and here's what came out the other side.

Sozin's Comet honestly doesn't change that much; only two real differences.

The magic rock is gone. Instead, we get a flashback to Guru Pathik, and Aang realizes that he has to let go of his attachment to Katara.

The Maiko/Kataang victory laps in the last 5 minutes are gone. Mai and Zuko get a scene where they wish each other well, but acknowledge that they're over. Katara and Aang have a nice moment where they choose friendship. There's love there, but it's Philia, not Eros.

@burst-of-iridescent has a delightful essay series on Zutara, and the part that sticks in my head is that in the run-up to the finale, Aang and Katara are at their least unified. To wit:

In "The Southern Raiders" Aang is preachy, condescending, and more than a little hypocritical about Katara's plan to take vengeance for her mother. The episode ends with Katara explicitly rejecting Aang's belief that Yon Rha was forgiven.

In "The Ember Island Players" Aang is distraught at the idea that EIP!Katara's statements, namely that Aang is like her brother and she's attracted to Zuko, are true. When he questions Real!Katara about this, he responds to her statement that she's confused about her feelings by kissing her. The kiss is not returned. Again, no resolution is had.

Finally, in "Sozin's Comet Part 1" Katara is part of the chorus condemning Aang for refusing to even consider killing Ozai, no matter how many people are at stake. He runs off from the group, and from there disappears into the Spirit World to get Lion-Turtled. Yet again, no resolution, and the two don't reunite until the tea shop.

Now speaking of the Lion Turtles, I'm actually not opposed to them. Yes, they come out of nowhere to deliver an 11th Hour Superpower that handily spares Aang from having to actually make a choice he disagrees with, but at the end of the day it is a kid's show. Nickelodeon was never going to approve a script where Aang killed Ozai. Throw in a little bit of foreshadowing, and I'm good. It's worth noting here that the story of Avatar Wan was supposed to be covered in A:tLA, which would handily cover that requirement.

Now, for the post-canon. We'll start with Fire.

Zuko is NOT left alone in the Fire Nation. Similarly, Iroh does NOT fuck off back to Ba Sing Se.

Toph and Suki stick around. Suki in her canon role as commander of Zuko's Kyoshi Warrior bodyguard, while Toph and Mai use Toph's lie-detection and Mai's insider knowledge to purge threats to the new peace.

Toph eventually goes back to the Earth Kingdom to start a metalbending academy, but first she needs to make sure that her Sparky lives to be the grumpy old man he was born to be.

While Iroh is correct that for political and diplomatic reasons Zuko needs to be Fire Lord, he also bows to the reality that Zuko is plain and simply not ready to be the Fire Lord.

Zuko went from 4th in line to 1st in line basically overnight, and the 5-ish years he spent as Crown Prince were clearly not spent preparing him to succeed Ozai.

So a teenager with a fairly surface-level understanding of "how to monarch" has to self-Reconstruction the Fire Nation, while paying reparations, without having been militarily conquered.

This is how idealists get assassinated. New Plan!

Zuko is crowned Fire Lord. Iroh is his Prince Regent. It's very clear to all involved that Zuko is the one charting the course forward for the Fire Nation, while Iroh is there to convert intent to action, while teaching Zuko how it's done.

It doesn't hurt that Iroh is one of the Fire Nation's most successful military commanders, so the civil war route is a lot riskier for anyone to attempt.

Next, Sokka

Sokka honestly has a pretty good arc in the post-canon. Nothing I really feel the need to correct.

Eventually, Suki is able to hand off her duties in the Fire Nation to someone else and goes home to Kyoshi Island

It’s still home, but it isn’t the same. Or rather, she isn’t the same.

She never leaves the island behind, but it’s usually a stop on the journey from Wolf Cove to Republic City.

Then, Aang

Aang divides his time between Avatar duties and Last Airbender duties.

Avatar duties involve a lot of sitting in on meetings and reminding people that the ultimate goal is peace.

Last Airbender duties involve a lot of teaching Air Acolytes everything he remembers from his childhood. He gets lucky here, though.

The Airbender Genocide wasn't complete. More than a few Air Nomads escaped the Genocide, and hid themselves away. Some in small villages built in remote mountain valleys, others blended into Earth Kingdom settlements.

Plenty of quarter- or eighth-Air Nomad kids running around with airbending potential they never had the knowledge to develop. Think very early Book 1 Katara here.

The result is that a resurgent Air Nation is being formed, with a culture woven from the threads that survived through relics, the refugees, and Aang himself.

Airbenders are still rare, and it's over a decade before another airbender earns their mastery, but it's not his son and his grandkids when Korra comes around.

Finally, Katara

Katara spends a lot of time traveling. She spends time in the South Pole, helping to rebuild and learning Southern Style Waterbending from the released waterbenders. She also travels the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, doing what she can to solve problems.

There are a lot of problems to solve.

Her travels in the Fire Nation are particularly fruitful; word of the Last Agni Kai has spread, so she is known to be the one that the Fire Lord sacrificed himself for, and who healed his wound.

She and Zuko stay in contact, allowing themselves to have a slow-burn courtship.

After a couple of years she moves to Caldera City and starts getting down to seriously courting Zuko, preparing herself for Fire Ladydom.

The year before Iroh is set to retire as Regent, she and Zuko start thinking about the wedding.

There are a lot of potential traditions to uphold, even just between the Southern Water Tribe and the Fire Nation

This goes double for the daughter of the head chieftain of the Southern Water Tribe, and the Fire Lord himself.

They decide to have fun with it and do everything.

Aang presides over a private ceremony, family/close friends only, that is really just a mutual declaration of love and friendship.

Then come the Southern Water traditions. It's the full gamut, with ice-dodging, sacred hunts and more. In the end, Zuko is an honorary member of the Southern Water Tribe, and he and Katara are wed (again).

There's a diplomatic tour through the Earth Kingdom, stopping at Kyoshi, Gaoling, Omashu, Ba Sing Se, the Foggy Swamp the former Fire Colonies, and ending at the Northern Water Tribe. The language used artfully slides over whether the couple is newly married or about to be married, but overall it works well for the Fire Nation's reputation abroad.

The final act is in the Fire Nation. A full Royal Wedding, a grand affair of state, held at high noon on the day of the summer solstice. When all is said and done, Zuko and Katara now rule alone as Fire Lord and Fire Lady.

Alright, I have more, but I'm tired. Tune in next time for the Fire Nation (extended) Royal Family! featuring Steambabies (Found here)

#atla #zutara #fixit #fire nation politics #all the weddings #zuko definitely has the mark of the too stubborn to die #its not called that #but still #avatar the last airbender

[sylvaridreams]

I'm going to try and word this better than I did at 1 am venting on cohost last night, and maybe slightly gentler. I haven't finished the SotO update from yesterday. I got home, played for a couple of hours, did some meta on the current map, triiiiied to get myself to go back to story... and I couldn't.

I was BORED. It was quite honestly boring. Any dialogue that matters is Peitha talking to her people. I am a stage prop that occasionally vocalizes expositional questions and fires arrows at grunt mobs.

I could physically feel myself losing any remaining interest in the story as I clicked "what does this mean? What do you think of Peitha's plan?" type questions (which offer a poor illusion of choice in conversation. Look! Dialogue options! You can click all of these in any order you like but you must click them all!)

Why should I care about this story? I'm being brought along as the muscle that Peitha doesn't really need. I'm not offering anything special I'm terms of skill. I'm not an invaluable resource. I'm not even being utilized as the leader that gw2 has ALWAYS made me! It's always been "You're out there leading the armies, commanding all the way from the front line to the supply chains!" Now I'm just kind of around. Run a few events and come back. Characters refer to me and I apparently have no in-game response. MY CHARACTER doesn't seem invested.

And so many new characters. Every drop, it's like, have a bunch more named people! I was learning names during drop 1, and know some of the Wizards off the top of my head, but honestly I’m not bothering anymore. Why should I? Even if Nexus isn't killed off in the next chapter I play, I'm never going to meet this character again after he stops serving the story.

And where IS the story? Where is the meat? Drop 1 was at least interesting to me. Secret society hiding demons from the Commander. Getting sucked into this strange and horrifying place. Getting the life beat out of Alba by a hulking, terrifying demon and crawling away in fear. Escaping into the arms of strangers and getting this unknown voice in Alba's head, talking to him, saying what he wanted to hear, teasing him. Him refusing to tell anyone she was in there, because he *trusted this unknown voice in his head over all these strangers.* The story lulled a lot and it wasn't like... prime gw2 content. But it had a few hooks. When in Amnytas, Alba GASPED "Peitha!" right outside of the next story step and said "I can *see* you," and I turned my camera and saw what I knew, what Alba had to have suspected, confirmed. That there was a demon using his mind as a lounge. THAT was a moment, it was SOMETHING!

At least it was fun at points, at least there was some small amount of intrigue and mystery. And from there it was all just, "take a backseat, Wayfinder. This isn't YOUR story." I'm getting nothingburger bites out of each new story drop. Oh we went into Nayos to take the fight to them and killed Peitha's model reskin cousin. Anything else that drop? Anything? No but next time we recruited some general to fight with us! Can I get a smidgen of story? Something to hang onto? The only thing this drop that hasn't been "Don't care didn't ask plus I've seen your character model elsewhere" was Alba being called "that ugly creature" by a kryptis.

That's all I've got. I'm not enjoying it. I don't like SotO. And it is not for lack of trying it, it's not because i just don't like change and don't wanna see something new and different! This expansion feels like an empty parody of Guild Wars 2, and it feels like a slap in the face to anyone who was invested in Tyria. Pre-release they really hyped up that "It's time for new places and new people! We're gonna get a new cast and explore a vast new world!" I CARED about that world, which we still had SO MUCH left to explore. Are the borders of the map even the ends of the world of Tyria or does it keep going? Who cares. There's shit going on above the clouds. I cared about those CHARACTERS. Does Alba get to see people that he loves and cares about ever again? Is he making it to the wedding? Does he get a chance to go home and see anyone? Like yes we are not chained up in the Tower between instances, we can still play the game in those old maps, but the characters have been written out of the story.

And frankly these new ones are shitty replacements. I don't care about these people. I maybe had some small amount of "OK cool its Zojja I know her!" but it's not like I had any deep care or feeling for her. Not personally. Peitha was interesting at first but being brought along as part of her nameless, faceless grunt entourage has made me lose a lot of interest. She's not going to be a core character post-SotO. She either dies at the end, or takes over as King, and at best becomes a very occasional callback. "Ah, King Peitha! It's been some time, how is Nayos!" She's not going to reclaim the throne and then ignore rebuilding her people's infrastructure to hang out in Commander’s brain all day or join them on quests. We are a temporary ally and a stepping stone for her story.

Which sucks.

In terms of the rest of the SotO cast, it again feels like a pale imitation of prior Gw2 content. Like they're saying "remember season 1, meeting all those people one by one who would become your best friends and allies in life? 🤔 " and then they didn't even do it that way. Season 1 was a gradual introduction to these characters that you were given time, story, and Reason to care about. If Braham, Rox, Marjory, Kasmeer, Taimi, Rytlock, and Canach had all shown up and said "oh we're the Best Friends Patrol. Come along with us stranger!" I would have felt like a tag along. Not an equal in the group. Instead we met on level ground. We became a team together, we became friends together, each of us a vital part.

Which is opposite to how it feels now. These characters have deep history going back AGES. I just showed up, no one respects me, I'm not privy to any information or details on who is who and why should I care, I don't Get story time to ACTUALLY hang out and meet these people and develop my OWN relationships with them. When I leave, they will not care. I'm just being brought along like a lost kid at this point, until we reach customer service and they can drop me off, or until I wander away and find another deep group to follow.

I don't like this story. I don't like the setting. I don't like the characters or the group dynamic. I don't feel like an EQUAL in this expansion, I don't feel like I matter. Anyone could stand here and ask supporting questions to drive the dialogue between the 2-3 characters that actually matter, which again, does not include me.

And FRANKLY I hate that no one can say anything that isn't glowing praise of GW2 and Anet and every little detail is just scrumptious don't worry I love it, without a bunch of vague posts filtering in about "so much Negativity, everyone is a HATER, you just don't support The Writers and want them to FAIL, well then stop playing the game and delete your account and blog and go away forever, REAL fans LOVE nothingburger" to shun whoever dared say "I didn't like some or all of it." I'm happy for you if you're liking SotO but I am not. I'm sorry if you don't understand that criticizing something that I've played for a decade doesn't mean I hate it. I'm sorry if you can't take the MILD CONFLICT of me or someone else saying "I love this thing that you love too but I don't like how the new part feels" but most of us learned about conflict in kindergarten or at least through children's picture books and TV, so idk. Maybe you just need to cope at that point.

As it stands I don't like the expac. I don't see Anet turning it around and blowing my mind with the ending. And I really don't even care how it ends. I was asked the other day "how are you going to handle Peitha?" (in terms of the canon that I write, which has already moved past the end of SotO.) And frankly I was like. I dunno. It doesn't matter to me. She's either dead or on the throne, I don't care much either way. We could get the huge plot twist at the end that Peitha was the big bad or Isgarren or WHOEVER THE FUCK, and I wouldn't care. None of this matters to me. I'm going back to Tyria with my writing. The rest is filler.

#soto spoilers #gw2 spoilers