#well worth pursuing

[obihoe]

i think its so crazy the way having power as a shinobi always seems to be such a double edged sword on naruto. like on one hand, u need it, its a tool for survival and it earns u respect from ur peers. but on the other .. it can also lead to the exact opposite. if u have too much power it can lead (or contribute) to isolation and becoming ostracized from ur community bc it makes people fearful of u .. this is applicable to madara i think and to naruto and gaara as well. madara isnt ostracized only bc of his power, it is also his lack of skill in forming bonds bc he has trust problems but his power is a major contributing factor. he is feared for his power (but also admired) and the more he gets isolated, the more he starts building his own identity around it as well and starts thinking its the only thing valuable abt himself. naruto as well is feared for his power as a jinchuuriki even tho he is also a bit of a special case since its only the grownups that know abt this so his peers ... they ostracize him for the opposite thing. he's a failure at the academy and a difficult learner so he gets no respect. it is only when he starts gaining more power (or controlling it better) and using it for the sake of the village that he gets everyone's respect and acknowledgement. he's a hero even all of a sudden. but gaara is an even more extreme case. gaara is also a jinchuuriki and he's ostracized for it to such an extent that he does not get to build bonds at all and in a bit similar fashion to madara starts self-identifying only over his power. both him and madara end up consumed by their power but while madara decides to use it for the sake of saving the world, gaara just fully decides to just live for himself, fight for himself and love only himself ... madara also becomes a bit self-absorbed but its not something he does purposefully i think. gaara just goes, well, everyone fears me and despises me anyway, so i might as well give them a reason. my only purpose in this world is to kill ... i have no other reason to live. i forgot where i was going with this but .. something something isolation, objectification and dehumanization from others on account of ur power and it leads to the person internalizing it and seeing themselves also as either below or above being human .. madara perceives himself to be above it, he develops a god complex and comes to think that he is the messiah who will solve the world's problems (with power) and gaara seems to perceive himself to be beneath it .. as a tool and a servant. both to his village and to the bloodthirsty voices he hears in his head.

#gaara #madara #naruto #posts #.. had a whole other chunk of text here that i deleted bc i thought it wasnt that relevant to the topic of thr post #but i still think its interesting so i'll put it in here #when i said gaara hears voices .. i was going to say mdr doesnt but then realized that thats not true? mdr also hears voices #presumably. he heard kuro zetsu speak to him in his head during their first (well majority actually) time that they spent together #in the cave. mdr seperates him from himself when he gives him to obt. and he seems to believe that to have been the moment of his creation #anyways but i think its so interesting how both him and gaara have a seperate identity with them that benefits from this? #they benefit from their corruption. the ichibi benefits from gaara's bloodlust and hatred and kuro zetsu benefits from mdr's power lust #and they both drive them to further pursue it ... there is something in there i think. something abt how experiencing isolation etc #will make u susceptible to ill-natured manipulation or influence. from the outside #gaara apparently can handle having to live with shukaku after he gains his first bond (naruto). and he isnt susceptible to it anymore #mdr wouldnt have gone down his path either if his bond w hsrm hadnt fallen apart #naruto is saved bc he does not give up on trying to find bonds. putting aside how it kinda sucks for him to have to prove his worth #to his village first. it is ultimately abt him never giving up. always trying ... and eventually finding the right people #to bond with #mdr never finds this up until the end of his life ... and its the reason he cant find his peace ever before #but i also think its interesting how both kuro zetsu and the ichibi .. i mean they dont outright manipulate their targets #theyre moreso just feeding into whats already there .. its why mdr/zetsu work great together narratively i think #but it also applies to gaara as well. gaara wants to shed blood bc he wants to share the same kind of pain he has experienced #just like mdr wants to gain power/become god cuz he longs for control and is fearful of depending on others #and both the ichibi and kuro zetsu want that as well. the ichibi hates how the humans have treated him. he hates being confined to #a jinchuuriki's body. he wants to be free. and if he cannot be free he will use his host to go punish the humans who did that to him #and kuro zetsu well ... he wants to be powerful i guess. but he moreso wants mdr to think that he is #so that he can become host to kaguya who will explode the fucking shit out of him #there's more even .... gaara seeing himself as a tool to others since he believes the voice to be his mother's .. and mdr seeing himself #at the center of everything cuz he thinks that the voice is his own. mdr bc of this being even more self-centered #but then also more altruistic. bc he's the savior. running out of tags here unfortunately but yeah .. much to think about

[uncanny-tranny]

The Cass Review coming out and the media frenzy surrounding it makes it feel like the world is falling apart around us. I'm very fortunate to live outside the UK at the moment, but my heart goes out to the trans people that are facing these current circumstances. It feels like the US will follow soon, and the rug will be pulled out from under us at any point.

How do we survive? How do I know if my friends will be okay? What if I fully transition just to be persecuted for the rest of my life? What will happen to us?

It's terrifying out here right now - if you have any advice on how you handle any of it, it would be greatly appreciated.

- a young trans person

I think so much of this relies on community support - you won't be alone in this, so you shouldn't live life alone in this. Regardless of potential intracommunity bickering, regardless of if we perfectly get along, no matter if someone passes or not, or has a complex identity or not, we all are affected by transphobia. We have to be in it together, to fight and support together.

Nobody knows, truly, what the next few years or decades are in store for us so, frankly, I think we invest as much as possible for the future, but also try to live. You don't just deserve to survive, you deserve to thrive. So whatever you do, I hope you're able to pause for even the briefest of moments. I hope you eat well, I hope you smile genuinely, I hope you laugh, I hope you dance. Fear and stress will literally kill you. I know for me, the stress I felt pre-transition absolutely would have killed me eventually - I don't wish that on anyone. It's absolutely reasonable to be scared about the future, I'm not saying it's not, but what I am saying is that you deserve a break. You deserve hope.

From a (perhaps slightly) older trans person: It can absolutely get better. Those tiny glimmers of hope that you cling to like diamonds won't be so few and far between. That sounds like absolute bullshit when you're on the receiving end of this, and I know that because I've been in that position, but something else that helps me through those "negative" feelings is this:

We survive. We have always survived. We have lost an unconscionable amount of people, but they won't be forgotten. No matter what happens, we keep surviving. The world cannot leave us behind without leaving behind swaths of humanity because we belong in the fabric of society. And something about that reassures me, because it is a reminder that we have existed and will continue to exist. And that means that we will outlive the hatred.

You're going to survive with us. In fact, I think you can thrive and not just survive, and I think that's something that doesn't happen in spite of the 'phobes, but rather it happens because you are an inherent equal person who is entitled to happiness.

#ask #anon #trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #transphobia #transphobia tw #whatever action you can reasonably take in your position or country is worth pursuing as well... #...such as things like protest but it's also a nuanced subject in that... #...you might not be /able/ to do some of that stuff and frankly i don't think it's always the best option for some folks... #...so i tend to try to also emphasize how important you as an individual *and* the broader community are #because you have inherent worth regardless of what you contribute. your worth never depends on Proving Your Worth

[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)

[ozonecologne]

i am simply ASTOUNDED at how much i get done in a day now that i’m on antidepressants. you mean to tell me y’all feel like this ALL THE TIME? i have so much ENERGY! i’m so excited to DO STUFF! every day!!! isn’t this wonderful!!!!!!

#y'all never told me it could be like this!!!! #i can't believe it took me this long to make this stupid little change in my life #i am so grateful to my doctors and new support network #i'm doing so well now :) #I’ve also lost weight?? god this is awesome #not spn #text #about #if you ever needed a sign to finally make that appointment and go see that doctor: THIS is your sign #it took me so long to get here and make the choice to pursue getting better #and i'm here to tell you that it's very worth it #go do it. it might be hard but it feels good. #and i believe in you.

[pawsitivevibe]

Well. I've always thought of this kind of thing as a "does it really matter" type deal. But. It seems like there may be some personal benefit to pursuing an ADHD diagnosis as an adult ... I think I want to know for sure. Since it keeps coming up. I guess that's another thing to talk to the doctor about ... I don't know how one goes about trying to figure out if that's what's up. There's like online services with counselors that I looked at ... Not sure that kind of thing is any good though.

#My husbans has well managed ADHD ... #It's maybe possible that it could explain some things for me. And if it IS that then there's real steps to take to manage it right #So it seems worth knowing? #These 'symptoms' can just be ... behaviours that have been reinforced through idiocy and not actually like 'real' so I'm not putting too #much thought into this #But I dunno Tom thinks it's worth pursuing #And my brother has ADHD ... my mom does ...

[sga-mcshep-4ever]

John Sheppard out of context.

#sga #stargate atlantis #john sheppard #joe flanigan #1x07 poisoning the well #out of context #there's a thought worth pursuing

[confinesofmy]

queued 30-something succposts 👍 i had to stop because i went far enough down my "x" tag to crash my app but i remember where i was so unfortunately i will continue sometime tomorrow. i don't know how a queue works so. i'm sorry in advance for the dribbling and constant stream of succession posts to come. just block the tag "succmas," you don't have to unfollow me, please, i'm begging you. 🙏

#i was so.. #happy/sad/passionate just emotive. period. #i'm not like that about anything anymore #i forgot i had ever been like that #👉👈 i think i might be balls deep in a sexy little depressive episode rn #talking about.. like 6+ months deep #and before that i was in the trenches of grief which i still am tbh #think i might've locked down pretty bad recently because i'm no longer going to therapy so it's just like oh well the healing is over #and there wasn't a lot of it #so i guess i will just be an open wound now #which simultaneously isn't true #but is very fucking true actually #i probably shouldn't have pursued cbt last year #bc it's bad to look at a year's worth of weekly therapy appointments and think 'what was accomplished' #but then again maybe it was really the difference between me killing myself and not idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #adam talks too much

[mejomonster]

My adult advice is if you do pursue something you're passionate in for a career (or really if you go about getting any job) that being treated like shit is not fair to you. Working over 40 hours for your dream job a week, working 60 hour crunch hours for months for your dream job, working with no health insurance for years, your dream job paying you a wage too low to live where you need to in order to do the job so you're financially getting worse, your job not hiring enough people because you care about the work too much to let it fail so they just overwork you and have you do 2-3 peoples jobs, your dream job does not protect you from work hazards and you feel you'll lose your job if you bring it up? You don't deserve any of that shit. You deserve better. Whether your job is some boring thing you don't care about, or your absolute favorite thing in the world that you care about deeply and find to be the meaning of your life, you deserve to be treated fairly. You deserve to not be overworked to the point of suicidal or sick, you deserve to be able to go to the doctor and take your kids to the doctor and know if your kid gets a long term illness you can get long term treatment, you deserve to not have the entire success of a company fall on your shoulders to do multiple jobs if you weren't the supervisor who decided Not to adequately hire, you deserve to be able to go pee when you need to, you deserve to have adequate protection from dangers to your life. Period. No matter what job. If you're being treated like shit, you don't deserve it. It's not a price you should be expected to endure, not even for your dream job. It's a fucked up situation that real people caused by deciding to treat their employees badly.

#rant #feel free to ignore #but like. if you never had a job yet or havent had many jobs yet or ur in college #its some food for thought. #i just like. when i was a child i didnt understand some choices my dad made. #now that im an adult? i do have a job i like and find meaningful. #but also like... i did WANT to do character concept art for video games. but i see employees in those companies now #workjng 60 hour crunch hours. short term contract work so no health insurance. #and its like... well i needed 4 surgeries in the last 4 years. i needed the ER like 20 times. #i needed 2 of those surgeries as a direct result of when i worked 60 hour weeks for a year #and it made me both mentally suicidal despite Liking the work. and physically damaged my health for life #and now i need medicine montjly that costs 600 or more if i didnt have insurance. #so its like... well. if i had tried to do character concept art for X companies games i played? #well id be dead right now. dead before age 28. because 60 hour workweeks over a year probably wouldve killed me #my life wouldnt have been worth drawing if yhat job turned my passion into my own hell and my own killet #you get me? #like. even if you pursue a dream job (or a hated job even) #know your limits. your life is most important. if a job says 60 hours ans you got 2 kids and need to work #until you can get another job to hire you? then you take the risk probably yeah #or youre healthy and willing to suffer for 4 months before ysing the experience to apply for a job that is 40 hours a #week and pays more. but if a job is demanding inhumane bullshit it IS a horrible thing #and its something you deserve better than.

[orcelito]

Tfw i avoided dealing with applicants for like 2 weeks so I had to play catch up today. Stayed like 2 hours late reviewing all 20 ish applications we got in this time, contacted 12, and I have a confirmed 4 interviews for this week with a prospective 2 more

Look at me being all manager-y lmao

#speculation nation #most of them r on tuesday bc thats my set long manager shift n lmao #confirmed 1:30. 3. and 4 on that day. prospective 2 and 2:30 (waiting to hear confirmation) #with One on wednesday! bc the person isnt available until then #lmfao i really am playing catch up big time but THAT is okay. We Good #god tho i really understand that one class that addressed resumes now. how they were like Keep It Short #bc recruiters dont have time to read big massive resumes lmao. & god thats so real #zipped down to education to know what i was dealing with. Then looked at prior work experience. Then availability. #education relevant Primarily so i can know when/if theyve graduated high school #bc not graduating isnt an automatic deletion. but it's good to know Especially for if someone's a minor or not #we already have a lot of high schoolers rn lol so im kinda leaning more towards Not in high school for this stuff #aside from that it's mostly assessing capability based on what little evidence there is. + how long they would be likely to stay #there really is so much going into reviewing all this lmao. & oh god i really am the obnoxious kind of employer kind of #like not Really. im giving everyone a chance should they fit within the criteria we require for hiring. #but a few ppl messaged us asking up on their applications n those ppl get mental points in their favor for caring about our position #caring enough to ask after it at least lol #ultimately im reserving judgement for interviews. but tbh theres a few ppl im on the fence about contacting #that r in the vague status of 'will pursue if they contact us first'. which is SO obnoxious of me actually but like #there r way too many ppl i have to consider for this. if im not sure how well a person will fit here then them putting that extra effort #is a great way of convincing me that theyre worth my time #that kind of thing of like. if They show they care then i'll end up caring more too #theres actually a high schooler i Probably wouldnt have considered but bc she messaged very actively im interviewing her too #reserving judgement. still have my doubts. but bc she put in that effort im gonna give her a chance. #ah. thus is the life of a fucking recruiter i guess lmao. god i hate it

[thedevotionaltour]

anyone else ever remember how they are gonna end up in some dead end soul sucking job instead of the actual career they wanna pursue because they are far too unskilled for it. just me. awesome.

#sometimes i get a twinge of hope bc my classmates will say nice things and then i remember the reality that exists and is real. #where i just suck. i lack so much technical skill. i feel like i have to reteach myself how to draw constantly. my style is not distinct. #it looks like the quality of a middle schooler's sketchbook where it's a drawing they're proud of but in comparison to anything else #it is just garbage. utter garbage. #i have been in such a horrific slump of feeling about what i make. and i tell my therapist about it. and he never ever actually reassures m #doesnt tell me to maybe ask if im being unfair in my standards. or says i should have some more compassion towards myself. #or finds it an issue in regards to my generally low self esteem. im so fucking tired of being told well. you can always go back to school #to pursue something else after wasting all your fucking time on this stupid fucking degree that will get you nowhere! #i feel hopeless! so utterly fucking hopeless! it doesnt matter when my peers with more skill than me say they like my work bc im positive #they are just being nice. i cant imagine you look at your work and then mine and still find it good and having worth. i cant. #i cant make anything good. im so tired of not being able to make anything good. im tired of not being able to have the motivation to do wor #in my own time to help improve my work because im too fucking tired because im too fucking depressed to do anything. im a failure. #im literally watching myself become a failure in real time and i cant stand it some days. genuinely what a waste. #i dont know what gave me the right to think i could possibly succeed at this. i feel like an idiot for wasting so much time and money. #im not saying this to seek pity or comfort either. im just talking about how i feel. because it just sucks. it just sucks #it sucks to know you will never make it. because even on the days you think maybe you can. it just comes crashing down again to remembering #oh. i wont. because i have none of what it takes for it at all. #man. what even ever at this point. who cares. i'll get over it. it just sucks. #vent.txt

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

There's a viral video circulating from the Fort Worth Zoo, of two keepers who ended up in a habitat at the same time as a silverback gorilla. Spoiler for good news: neither the humans nor the gorilla got hurt. It's a bad situation that ended extremely well, and that's why I want to talk about it.

The audio for this video is mostly someone praying loudly, so if you need to turn the audio off to watch it, you won't miss anything relevant. If you don't want to watch it, here's the summary: it starts with a keeper running around the corner into the main exhibit, pursued by a large male gorilla. She is quickly able to get into a doorway at the back of the exhibit, but does not completely close the door because the gorilla is standing across from her, watching. He eventually moves off to the right hand side of the exhibit, where we can see a keeper is trapped in the corner at the front. She was trying to move towards the exit as he moved to the right, and she stops, standing very still behind a tree, while he stays along the far right wall. They stay like that for a minute, and then the gorilla runs to the front right corner, and the keeper is able to run to the door in the back of the exhibit and get to safety.

Let's start with basic information. Even though it's just going viral now, this video is from October of 2023. It was taken not by a guest, but by the zoo security officer responding to the situation. Hmmm, seems like he maybe should have been doing something else during that situation, instead of than taking a phone video. It's going viral now because the guy (who is no longer employed at the zoo) decided to post it on TikTok for his five minutes of fame. This guy immediately started giving all sorts of media interviews, answering questions like "why no tranquilizers" inappropriately, making memes out of his own video, generally distasteful shit.

Zoo spokesperson Avery Elander gave a public statement that "thankfully, there was no physical contact between keepers and gorilla, and all staff and animals are safe." A comment from the zoo has also indicated that the incident was due to keeper error. (As opposed to, for instance, something in the fencing breaking.) According to the guy who posted the video, a lock was left unsecured and the gorilla was able to open the door to the habitat. I don't know if I buy it, and again, this just... is probably why he doesn't have a job anymore. By sharing that detail - real or not - he places a ton of public scrutiny and blame on that keeper team. (If that's what happened, I can promise you it will have been dealt with internally.) He also was nice enough to say he wouldn't name the women in the video... but verified they're still staffers at the zoo... which means they're eminently identifiable! Excuse me while I ragequit for a second.

So there's two reasons I wanted to talk about this. The first is to make sure it is well known that this guy is purposefully and intentionally exploiting the worst day of someone's life for media attention. Their lives were in danger, and he's using it for fame. His name is in the media articles - I'm not going to share it because he doesn't deserve that attention. The second reason, though, is because this video is a masterclass on how to survive if you end up sharing space with a gorilla. Every zoo person I've spoken to or seen comment on the video is so, so impressed with how the keepers handled themselves.

The gorilla in this video is 34-year-old Elmo. All apes in AZA zoos are managed in protected contact, so keepers are supposed to be separated from them by a barrier at all times. The zookeepers were in the habitat putting out a mid-day meal when he got out. Watching the video, you can see he's not actively being aggressive towards them - he's not making threat displays or trying to approach them. Mostly, Elmo seems like he doesn't know what is going on and he's kinda freaked out about it. (This is confirmed in the zoo's press statement, too). The staff stayed calm, and importantly, watched and waited to see how he'd move and act.

The zoo did say one thing, though, that's a bit misleading. In one article, their press person I quote as saying “In general, gorillas are considered the “gentle giants” of the great ape species.” Just because this may be true in comparison to other great ape species doesn't meant gorilla aren't still incredibly dangerous. This type of messaging always worries me, because I think it leads people to misunderstand the risks of being close to megafauna. Gorilla are extremely strong animals, and their social norms/behaviors are very different from that of humans. That's why it's such a big deal any time people end up in gorilla habitats, and why sometimes in those circumstances lethal measures have to be taken to protect human life.

These keepers are incredibly lucky to be unharmed. These women stayed safe specifically because they're trained professionals who knew how to act around gorilla, they knew this particular animal well, and they'd learned the escapes from the exhibit just in case this ever happened. We should applaud them for their cool heads and quick thinking.

As for the guy who posted the video? As a colleague put it, may he always step on a Lego.

#gorilla #gorilla video #viral video #zoo animals #zoo animal welfare #fort worth zoo

[awellreadmannequin]

Hey, pro writing tip for everyone out there.

It’s really weird to describe a person by a trait if that trait isn’t contextually relevant. Like, you might have an instinct to describe a character by their hair colour because that’s a notable trait about them to you, but you’re better off using a trait that’s relevant to what their doing or saying. Or just use their name or a pronoun. Titles work too, but they work best in context. Don’t be afraid of a bit of ambiguity in who is doing what if it suits the narrative. Plus, context can be created by juxtaposing action and quality interesting ways! Simply referring to a character ‘the (trait)’ just comes off weird and stilted if that trait isn’t contextualizing something.

For better or worse, good writing should be in conversation with economy of meaning. Every word in a sentence and every sentence in a paragraph should contribute to the gestalt meaning being conveyed. You can use stilted and ambiguous language to intentionally create meaning out of how the text is written. But that requires a level of competence that most writers simply do not yet possess. I won’t go so far as to say brevity, economy of meaning, and clarity are absolute virtues but, for amateur writers at least, they definitely are. You can’t write like Tolstoy and you shouldn’t write like Tolkien. Read Hemingway and write like him until you have a better grasp of the relationships between lexical, semantic, and narrative meaning. Once you do have a good grasp of these relationships, then you can begin to play around with using as language to set a tone or embody a theme. If you’re curious, you should read “The Taiga Syndrome” by Cristina Rivera Garza to get an idea of what is really possible to convey through style alone.

#claire thoughts #writing is easy #writing well is a challenge #but one that’s worth pursuing!

[sattarehi]

There is very, very little that is more annoying than when you have the idea of a joke, but the execution escapes you.

#incoherent ranting #i suspect this might actually be... inspiring? to comedians #but my ADHD brain is just like 'well abandon that idea we can't figure it out immediately so it's not worth pursuing'

[baronessofmischief]

My coworker has been so broken up over his girlfriend not texting him back and was literally on the verge of tears when he left earlier and yeah I feel bad for the guy but also. do not know him very well 😅

#there’s also like… a cultural divide between us where I don’t know if I can say something #bc I want to ask him like ‘hey do you think this relationship is worth pursuing if her family doesn’t like or approve of you because of ___’ #but BECAUSE I don’t know him all that well (despite him thinking of me as a close friend) #I don’t want to come across as ignorant or just not understanding the context #because I DO understand the context you know? #I just think he has hinged way too much of his emotional well-being on a girl living on the opposite side of the planet #I’m not saying ‘he doesn’t actually love her’ bc I’m sure he does #but I AM saying ‘she’s not the ONLY person you will ever meet in life who you will find you’re able to love’ #now I WILL say I don’t think getting your girlfriend’s name tattooed on your chest is a wise decision #I’ll say that to anybody tho 😂😂

[anantaru]

cw. ⪩⪨ fem! reader, rich boy au, rich boy alhaitham, semi public sex (in a library), he's insufferable, possessive (he's used to getting what he wants n wants you all for himself), a little yandere i feel like

rich boy alhaitham has never experienced the idea of not getting something he so terribly longed for— in fact, the very moment he laid his eyes on you, desire flooding his veins and invading his taste, it's with immediate certainty that he will make you his no matter what.

because you see, it has almost always been that way for him, the idea of something being too expensive has never really crossed his mind in his adult years— although it was safe to say that in order to make you stay forever, he must add more than the couple gifts he had already planned to send your way, such wasn't enough, despite the fact that they certainly would make things a whole lot more easier for him.

because who on earth doesn't like a costly, with diamonds paired piece of earrings from fontaine? hand crafted of immeasurable worth. or would you rather choose the extravagant silken garments from the nation of electro? oh, you forgot already silly? you're of course, getting both, it's on alhaitham after all.

he doesn't understand that this emotion growing in his heart might become quite dangerous in the future, although again, the man was of smart kind, highly aware of the power he held not only with his fortune alone, but his cleverness as well— and there would never be a time in his life where he couldn't utilize the one or the other, or use them all together to get the result he planned to achieve.

dear, dearer, dearest you, alhaitham ponders, as long as the sun was alive, as long as desire merges with his addiction,

"i will pursue you".

alhaitham knows that from the bottom of his heart, he will make you his, and not just have you for a short period of time during those special days— where two people simply let go of steam, soft fingertips glissading over the edges of sweaty skin as you're wrapped around his fingers, the slight swell of your lips, the strong blush on his cheeks, both vividly showing that the two of you cannot keep your hands away from each other.

as expected, you find yourself hidden behind a bookshelf in the house of daena, and alhaitham kisses you like he has been imagining it for decades on end, soft lips dancing over yours as he forces his tongue past your mouth, his hands greedily skimming through your trembling figure— soul catching soul, like each touch of him felt like it was searing through you, burning your clothes.

there, in those precise rolls of fingers repeatedly crossing your sensitive nipples, alhaitham makes himself acquainted with your trace as he graciously feels around the curves of your body and how well you reacted to his touch, kiss and tremble— an immediate reminder for him that you like it when he touched you like that, lapped his tongue over yours like that or pressed his muscular thigh against your wet cunt like that.

alhaitham was cruel in a way— one might even go as far as to assume that pairing an excessively clever man with a boundless amount of money harbors a much darker meaning in on itself.

but right now, he was slightly cruel to you as well when it becomes more and more painful and he knows, he always does, especially when he notices how you're having trouble breathing from his antics, quite wobbly on your footing as you look up at him through soft eyes, lips parted when each kiss of him made your heart clench, unknowing of everything, only waiting until he finally fucks you like you wanted to.

what you do not realize is that rich boy alhaitham was already weak for you, and he could barely wait himself, his mind fighting with his rationality, being overthrown by nothing more than the addictive scent of your perfume blossoming across the skin on your neck.

he flips you around instantly, your figure now squished between his chest and the bookshelf before he flicks your skirt up with ease, almost territorial like he's the only one allowed to do that from now on, frenziedly touching and loving your body like he needed you to breathe and stay alive, like it's only you who can make him be this way.

"ahh— fuck," he gasps into the back of your neck, his hot breath planing across the skin and manifesting a strong shiver down your spine, "i love those earrings on you," as he trails off, your hips twisting and twitching when he finds them with his hands, repeatedly pistoling his thick shaft into you until the lewd, squelching noises of skin on skin were overturning your little whimpers, smack smack smack, it's only getting louder— so alhaitham uses one hand to quickly close one palm around your noisy mouth.

he thinks it's adorable how you forgot that you were still in a library, yet it only showed him that he was doing everything right, only a little more until you're all his.

the scribe has got you covered, okay? alhaitham needs you to realize that from now on, you have nothing to worry about anymore, so please get that into your pretty head! you're far too delicate and pretty to trouble yourself with something such as stress, not anymore— because wether it was intimacy you craved, love you sought after or money you needed,

alhaitham has got you.

©2023 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify

#genshin smut #genshin impact smut #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #alhaitham x reader #alhaitham smut #genshin x you #genshin impact x you #alhaitham x you #al haitham x reader #al haitham smut

[rosecoloredknight]

I know for sure a girl is "courting" me because she told me that just now!?

I don't know how to respond though? I feel like I'm still conflicted with having feelings for someone else whom I have no shot with — but then again, that's okay because there's nothing wrong with that. I have moved on from wanting her in that way, but now I feel bad because I don't think I can be as present in their life anymore if I'm going to try to see how things go with the other girl now. THIS other girl is being open and honest about being interested in me, which I'm totally surprised by, and it's kinda of intriguing.. I think I should give her a chance?

I see it as her giving me a chance and I believe it would be best if I honor and reciprocate that same effort?

I have to acknowledge my feelings for the other person else was one sided and there never was a "what if" scenario or chance; And that's okay.

I already told the girl interested in me that I plan on moving to WA and she was totally okay with that prospect or idea — !!!!!!!

I need to slowwww down.

Okay, whatever happens, I need to understand that being a reply person should not lead my life. I deserve the chance of creating a family/partner to whom I can feel safe with.

As the sun shines above, there is someone for me to love 🖤

#i haven't pursued someone while they pursue me as well in like 6 years #i feel rusty but baby steps? anything worth it is worth being patient about right? #ahhh #i just appreciate the fact that they where blunt/honest and open about their interest in me #i feel like i have nothing to offer at the moment and that's what i told them #but #i know that i will become a better and worthy person of loving #i just have to continue to improve my overall physical and mental health #sigh #what a weird two and a half weeks it has been #but i'm grateful #moving on from crushes should be easier but they're not when it's from close friendship oof #HOWEVER as much as i will miss being present in their life i hope it's okay for me to look for my own favorite person as well #😊😊 #i am so excited to keep growing as person that someone would be proud of loving and supporting #personal