#Don’t start any discourse it’s just a fun meme

[incorrectquoteswwdits]

It fits for all sides of the fandom!

[mazzystar24]

idk who else to go to with this but i have so many people sending me hate because i don’t like bucktommy when i literally never even post about them????? they keep calling me toxic and a hater and i’m not i just have shipped buddie for years and i don’t vibe with tommy…. it makes me sad because this fandom used to bond over buddie so much but now i just see angry tommy fans (and admittedly some buddie fans but nowhere near as many) spreading so much hatred and rudeness while turning around and calling buddie fans toxic when we just want to ship our 6 year long standing ship… and like i said i genuinely never post about bucktommy, and if i do say something about them that can be perceived as negative then i always tag it “anti-bucktommy” and i NEVER tag it bucktommy so that they don’t have to even see it! It hurts to open up the app not knowing if i’m going to have another person calling me homophobic or a fetishizer (i’m literally queer) or calling me a toxic bitch when i literally don’t do anything but post happy buddie content 9/10 posts! and like i said i know i’ve seen some buddie accounts go to extremes and i’m not defending that, but i’ve seen people who will call out even the slightest apprehension to bucktommy as if they stepped on someone’s grave, while simultaneously bullying and harassing buddie shippers for minding their own business… like i can’t even go into the buddie tag and it’s people attacking us left and right while the bucktommy tag is nothing but everyone gushing over them… i hate that we can’t enjoy a 6 year old ship anymore because half the fandom decided to jump to this other one that has barely gotten any screentime between two characters that don’t really have chemistry with each other and they want to berate us for it and call us names. I’m not a fetishizer and I’m not toxic, I’m just a late 20s queer girl who wants to talk about buddie without a barrage of hate and insults thrown at me but I can’t do that anymore… 9-1-1/buddie used to be my safe place but now i can’t even come on tumblr because i’m worried a stan will be lurking in my asks/replies waiting to tell me how awful i am.

i’m sorry to dump all of that on you but i just opened a really nasty ask and it hurt a lot to read what they said about me and you were the first person on my dash

Hey anon!

Okay so I can already guess I’ll be late posting this cos i think I’ll be replying to this in increments throughout my day today, and also I can tell this is really bothering you so I don’t wanna just give like a short rushed answer - oh wow I actually wrote this in one sitting cos I can’t shut up once I start

Yes the fandom has been a downright mess lately and it’s like I always say, people if you wanna engage in discourse that’s your prerogative and no one is faulting you for that but it’s the utter lack of fandom etiquette these toxic fans have that’s the real issue and I also feel like as you said a huge issue is this kind of imaginary high horse they seem to have

Like I totally agree that there is like this section of toxic bucktommy fans who try to warp not liking bucktommy into being biphobic- which look if people are actually being biphobic by all means call them out but when you’re going to actual queer people who posted 166283894 posts celebrating bi buck, only to attack them for not liking the ship?? Then that’s just plain stupid I’m sorry, like being happy to have the queer rep and not liking bucktommy isn’t mutually exclusive and it’s ridiculous people are trying to make it out to be

Like I’ve personally been sent an ask like that where they implied that I was biphobic for not being a big fan of bucktommy and that “I don’t know how exhausting it is for bi people” - which I gotta say made me go what about my blog would ever make someone think ah yes straight 🤩

And thing is at the time they sent that my most note filled post was my celebration reaction meme extravaganza to getting bi buck which I feel added some fun irony to the whole thing

And calling people shipping two MEN (buddie) homophobic takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance that I gotta say I’d almost be impressed with the leaps in logic if it wasn’t so annoying

Now I personally don’t know what state the bucktommy tag is in cos I mostly stick to the 911 abc and the buddie tag but I know how the buddie tag has been and I agree the misuse of tags to make a negative space is absolutely ridiculous and again that all goes back to the etiquette part

And the fetishising thing is also just another thing that absolutely grates my nerves, because these toxic fans really need a dictionary thrown at their heads because buddie is like the polar opposite of that.

First of all a large section of buddie shippers im aware have asexual Eddie headcanons and that aside let’s say we want gay Eddie and buddie and all those things, let’s even say we want them to fuck nasty *gasp🫢* and sloppy and write 156273 smut fics where they plain fuck like rabbits (*nun faints in the background* also probably some pearl clutching occurred upon reading this),

THAT’S NOT THE POINT HERE- the point is the main appeal of buddie as a ship isn’t that ooo look two hot guys kissing; it’s the history it’s the friendship, it’s the vulnerability, it’s the will scene, the shooting, the trust, the parallels, the understanding of each other, it’s the domesticity and it’s all these moments that have nothing to do with sex or objectifying their dynamic or mlm relationships but rather shipping them because they are two people with this amazing connection and these experiences

and THAT? That’s the furthest thing from fetishisation

Now I could be controversial and talk about how SOME and some is the operative word of this sentence- SOME toxic bucktommy fans have been blatant in not really caring about the story or the characters or buck and Tommy as individuals or the team dynamic or anything other than seeing these two men kiss, these being a lot of the same fans who refuse to watch the show other than the bucktommy and Tommy scenes and then will act like they somehow understand the show more than fans who’ve been here years or seen the whole show BUT I digress because I know that saying this is me basically asking for spam hate (so shhhh let’s pretend I didn’t say that 🤫)

who said that? 👀not me👀damn that’s crazy a ghost just ran across my keyboard 🙄

Anyways back to you specifically, because I really do think it bares mentioning, if you’ve been respectful to others then that’s all you can do and thank you on the behalf of everyone cos it really makes a difference, and I wanna say sorry on the behalf of every asshole who’s deciding to attack you for ridiculous reasons, the best advice I can give you is to genuinely not let it get to you I know it’s easier said than done but you know who you are and you know your intentions and some dumbass sitting behind a screen who can’t even properly comprehend what biphobia or fetishisation actually is (or worse DOES know what it is but is just using it as a way to put others down over a tv show to have an imaginary high ground) isn’t worth your time or your distress and they cannot change who you are

This part might be over explaining the obvious but in case you don’t know/ are new to tumblr or whatever: If you wanna continue to have fandom spaces as a safe place filtering should get rid of a lot of the posts and so should blocking but ofc you’ll see a few so just skip past and enjoy the content you like, if you wanna make posts and are scared of asks from toxic shippers maybe you can turn off your asks temporarily until you feel like you’re in a better place mentally to deal with it

Oooo or an idea that might work is you can ask your followers and mutuals (who are the ones most likely to be sending the nice asks) to use an emoji at the start of their asks to indicate to you that this is an ask you’ll like then you can delete any ask without that emoji without even having to look at the hate if it’s causing you that anxiety - if that makes sense?

I hope my reply somehow made you feel better and I really hope that you can have your fandom space and enjoyment back 🫶🫶🫶🫶

[clonebrainrot]

Since I love this idea of making this summer bad batch summer I will be doing two things in celebration of this fact.

1.) I will be rewatching the bad batch and posting my thoughts and reflecting on the discourse I was seeing at the time as well as what my theories were during any given episode. Also doing some analysis on what we know now that it’s over.

2.) Until September 22nd I will be posting at least one meme per day that somehow relates to the bad batch. Just to make this more of a fun challenge I may pick two random episodes of the bad batch and make a meme of every piece of dialogue of that episode.

Either way it should be fun.

Also you can continue to expect my random other memes as well as my thoughts on the Acolyte. And copious amounts of random bullshit along the way.

This will start this Monday I don’t know how fast or not fast I will rewatch the bad batch but I can promise I will have it done by September 22nd

[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.

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group L Round 1: #L4 vs #L5

#L4: Comedians make comedy

Follows the conversations of five rakugo storyteller girls relating the odd things that happen to them each day. Their comedic and satirical chatting covers all kinds of topics, from pointless observations of everyday life, to politics, manga, and more. Each girl has something new to add to the discussion, and the discourse never ends in the same place it began.

Each of the rakugo girls has their own unique personality, with the energetic but immature Marii Buratei; the seemingly cute Kigurumi Haroukitei; the inherently lucky and carefree Tetora Bouhatei; the calm and violent Gankyou Kuurubiyuutei; and the pessimistic and unstable Kukuru Anrakutei. These girls—and their mysterious friend in a wrestling mask—give their observations to the audience, either backstage at the rakugo theater or in various famous locations around Tokyo.

#L5: Underground boxer loves vampire doctor (BL)

After losing his parents at a young age, Mignon lives as a mechanic by day and a cage fighter by night at an illegal arena. Living a life of exploitation and violence, the only person who gives him any attention is Oh Young-One, the resident doctor at the arena.

Despite accidentally discovering Young-One’s true identity, Mignon continues to love him, and it’s this pure kind of love that lets Young-One slowly open his heart. But when the hellish reality surrounding Mignon starts threatening the stability of Young-One’s life, can these two ever find happiness?

Titles, propagandas, trailers, and poll under the cut!

#L4: Joshiraku

Propaganda 1:

All the girls have fun personalities, and it puts some light on a form of Japanese traditional storytelling. It’s also the origin of the April 40th meme image.

Propaganda 2:

It’s hilarious! Genuinely one of the funniest comedy anime I’ve seen. The characters are all ridiculous and the bits almost all land perfectly. Mostly. Some of the bits require too much knowledge of Japanese language or culture to make any sense translated, but that’s not too many. My favorite character is Gan. I love the joke where she’s the “glasses girl” and so everyone assumes she’s meek and nerdy, but she’s actually super-violent.

The animation is also really good and gets absolutely ridiculous at points. There’s even a recurring meta joke where one character will complain about how hard the animators are working while being ABSURDLY over-animated. The standard structure of the skits is that the characters will start by having a conversation littered with puns, and then things escalated to a jungle shoot-out or crazy slapstick or a ninja battle or the characters talking politics. You never know, and it’s great.

Trigger Warnings: None.

#L5: Mignon

Propaganda:

Mignon is an independently-made BL aeni (Korean anime). There are only 12 episodes, and each is around 5 minutes long, except for the last one. Watching everything is like watching a short film, and not just because of the length, but also because of its quality.

The story is really short, so I can’t talk much about the plot without spoiling everything. But if you’re already into yaoi manhuas, then I can say that the plot is quite basic. The execution, however, is top-notch. Mignon takes a simple premise and brings out the best in it.

Characters are few but focused. Although there isn’t much time to delve deep into them, we are given enough info to care for them. The voice acting is also lovely. I don’t really watch aeni, and I haven’t watched KDramas in years, so I thought it would take me a while to get used to animated characters speaking in Korean. But surprisingly, after the first episode, it no longer bothered me. The voice actors did a good job in portraying the personalities of each character that I was quickly immersed into the story.

Then, there’s the use of color. The colors are purposeful and contributes to the atmosphere of each scene and also hints at us the significance of the place—loud, vibrant colors for the noisy arena, calm whites in the clinic where Mignon first found solace in Young-One, drab blues and greys in Young-One’s apartment where he’s lived alone for years, etc. And oh, don’t get me started on the scene direction/arrangement. It’s amazing how the creators can make every episode impactful despite having only around 5 minutes for each of them. Episode 10, especially, is a cinematic masterpiece.

Lastly, the music. There’s a lot of 80s synth-pop vibes, and I just love it.

Honestly, even if you don’t end up voting for Mignon, just go ahead and watch it. It only takes about an hour, and you won’t regret it.

Trigger Warnings: Mignon is abused by his coach. Lots of scenes that involve blood, but nothing too gore-y. Episode 10, however, has TOO much blood.

NSFW Warning: There’s an explicit sex scene. The parts are pixelated, but it doesn’t really leave much to the imagination. Also lots of tongue kissing.

If you’re reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

[call-sign-shark]

hi shark,

I saw your recent post on heaven's habit of not eating and arthur catching her fainting and so on..

I wanted to share my thoughts since I've actually been diagnosed with/struggled with anorexia in the past

To make not eating a sort of, “personality trait” for heaven, feels a bit insensitive considering some people struggle with disordered eating. And arthur’s reaction, “catching her” is sort of romanticizing eating disorders too..

It feels unrealistic to real life, and the fact that arthur just routinely catches her fainting doesn't really show concern. Someone needs medical intervention if they are starving themselves.. intentionally or not

I think his tendency to notice when she is about to faint sort of perpetuates the issue, because he’s allowing the behavior and not really helping her

That idea in general of heaven “forgetting to eat” also might lead people to imagine that not eating will lead to having a man fawn over them, and that could potentially invoke the intentional neglect of food.. it’s l not realistic to real life, and might be sending a bad message

I don’t know.. I think that whole concept just kind of triggered me a bit and left a bad taste in my mouth

Maybe it’s my own personal issues with eating in the past that are making me feel upset about it..

I’m really not trying to attack you at all, and I know your heart intent wasn’t bad. I just wanted to share my thoughts and give more awareness on that sort of eating disorder realm to consider when conjuring ideas/scenarios like this.

If there’s more to it I’d be open to hearing an explanation

TW: Eating disorder and very harsh discourse.

Hey, thank you so much for this message. I am glad you took the time to send this to me and write it so politely. Don't worry I don't feel attacked at all, and I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. I should have put a trigger warning for sure. Let's make things clear: I've never intended to make ED a personality trait nor to romanticize it. By the way, it really hurts the fuck out of me to read this - but that ain't your fault, I'm glad you shared your feelings. First of all, you have to know something about me: Some people here already know it but I've been suffering from eating disorders for the past ten years and it is still literally impeding my happiness. It keeps me from enjoying simple things and it leaves me crying in the middle of the bathroom pinching my stomach/thighs and making me feel like I should grab a knife to cut the excess of fat or, at least, starve myself. And I'm not fucking exaggerating. The only reason I have a healthy weight and try to get better is my family/partner, so please don't think I'm trying to romanticize it while it's literally impacting my everyday life.

I decided to share this headcanon in a light tone because I wanted to shed light on a more fragile aspect of Heaven, who is a character with an aura of a monstrous, supernatural, and murderous creature. It doesn't make her cool or cute, it does show that she's plagued with trauma and disorders. That was the process behind my post. When people started to joke about it and find it cute I went with the flow because taking this issue lighter and turning it into a "fun fact" makes me feel better. Yes, it's selfish. Yes the jokes make the issue unrealistic, but it doesn't mean that my actual depiction of it is. Also, yes, meming isn't everyone's way to cope with things but it's mine. I am personally convinced that we can laugh about everything as long as it isn't done with malicious intents. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I feel. I'm really sorry if it came out insensitive to you and others.

Your thoughts about Arthur's lack of concerns are really interesting because as I shared this fact as a light-hearted headcanon without any details, I knew someone would eventually come at me with this so let me expand on it with more precisions: He doesn't just "routinely" catch her. What I meant to say is that it's something he's aware of and he's always worried about her, that's why he's keeping an eye on her. When he's home he makes sure she has eaten properly, but he can't be 100% behind her back. When his wife faints it doesn't make him laugh and he doesn't brush it off as if it was a casual/trivial thing, quite the contrary he's insanely concerned and immediately proceeds to give her something to eat. Moreover, I already mentioned that he hates her relationship with food in this ask. It doesn't come from nowhere.

Also, Arthur doesn't encourage the issue. He obviously actively tries to help her the best he can but I think you're in the right place to understand that external help doesn't do the entire job. In addition, I think we should take into account that they come from the '20s and that seeking mental help was probably harder than it is nowadays. Heaven herself is not aware that it's a disorder and that it's not normal.

Another part I'd like to briefly comment: "That idea in general of heaven “forgetting to eat” also might lead people to imagine that not eating will lead to having a man fawn over them" While I perfectly understand how someone could think these kind of things now that you have explained it to me, I literally didn't think about this AT ALL when writing my headcanon. Like, It didn't even cross my mind. I'm not the most empathic person so I'm going to be honest with you, when I read this part I was like "??? ah ok ??". For me, the fact that it's not the case is obvious. But my apologies if someone had understood the headcanon in this way because it's literally false and not what I meant to write. Please keep in mind that while it's okay to tell me when I am inconsiderate, I'm by no means a role model and it's not my job to overthink every of my posts. Yet, I do think I should have put a trigger warning.

Now, I'm going to stop here because it's already long enough and honestly I don't want to have a serious talk about EDs. It's already something I have to face IRL and as I said, EDs ruin my life on fucking daily basis. Moreover I have a bad case of sinusitis and my head hurts. The most important info I want you to take from this reply are that: I didn't intend to romanticize or normalize EDs / I know the struggle and I exorcize it through Heaven, even if this fact doesn't make me exempt from flaws and being careless/ While I talk about this in a light/casual tone it's actually concerning for Heaven / Arthur dislikes it, it's not entertaining it's frightening for him. It's the source of many of their arguments. Thank you again Nonny, I hope my explanations make things clearer. Take care of you by the way and once again, I really appreciate your honesty! :)

[dcynight]

RULES

CONTENT

- NSFW will be likely on this blog but not a constant. If you’re uncomfortable with murder, gore, blood, abuse, etc. (or any mentioning of these things); Then this blog isn’t for you. Sexual things may occur from time to time but it’ll be rare and tagged accordingly!

- Most art I use on here, whether for icons or other means are not mine, nor do I take credit for them. All things that I draw specifically will be tagged as such! Artist credits are as follows: koda_mint, shandzii, sanchesky, fluffpillow, deceptiveshadow, (more tba + links)

- I’m personally triggered by very little, but if I follow you back, if you could tag the following things for me I’d greatly appreciate it. Otherwise tumblr savior won’t work: emetophobia / trypophobia

- Again this blog is going to be full of adult themes and scenarios at times because despite these two being silly daycare attendants, this is still FNAF after all! I’m fine with role-playing serious topics, HOWEVER! Please message me or plot with me beforehand when it comes to heavy topics like this so we’re both on the same page.

- I WILL NOT post about fandom discourse, nor will I engage in call-out posts, vague-blogging, or anything else related. This is a fun and drama-free environment for both me and my friends. If you start drama, harass people, bully, or send hate of any kind towards me or my mutuals, you will be blocked and reported. As Sun would say, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all!

RP ETIQUETTE

- Personal blogs that follow me will usually be blocked. If you have a sideblog that’s your roleplay blog, message me and let me know, or have it stated somewhere on your blog so that I’m aware! I’ve tried in the past to let personals chill here but after weird inbox messages and nonstop spam in different areas, I no longer tolerate them.

- I don’t usually care about reblog karma. I will always personally reblog memes and prompts from their sources, and I won’t get angry if you reblog from me and don’t send something in every single time. However, I WILL get upset if you start to use me as your CONSTANT meme or prompt resource. This means, if you constantly reblog memes from me and never send even ONE back in to me. I will probably say something to you! This is a roleplay blog, and it gets discouraging after a while if you take everything I reblog and never bother to try and send anything back.

- I will ALWAYS read your rules page before I follow you. I will also do my best to make sure I send in passwords or any other form of verification. HOWEVER, I follow A LOT of people so if I ever break a rule of yours, I can assure it was probably an accident. Just message me privately and let me know and I’ll fix it, no problem!

- I have anxiety and my memory and attention span can be shitty and sporadic at times. So it’s totally okay to remind me of replies I owe if it’s been a week or so since I’ve replied! HOWEVER, do NOT harass me or constantly pester me to reply to a thread. Otherwise I’ll drop it completely, and may even soft block you if you become hateful about it.

- Going off what I said above, my memory is bad at times. I also follow a TON of people. I WILL forget things. I may forget about replying to threads, I might also forget about replying to ooc messages, and even certain rules or headcanons about your blog or characters. I can PROMISE you this is not intentional though, and I encourage you to nudge or remind me of things if I DO forget!! Just again, do not be rude about it or hateful. I promise I’m doing my best.

- Sometimes I may get overwhelmed by the amount of threads I’ve accumulated. Or I may not know how to continue a thread if it hits a dead end and I can’t think of anything to keep it going. If this happens I’ll most likely drop a few that I may not be feeling atm. If this happens I will do my best to message you first if I decide to drop a thread of ours!

INTERACTING

- I will ONLY interact with MUTUALS. This means if you follow me and I am not following you back, then I’m probably not interested. My inbox is always open though to anyone even if we aren’t mutuals!

- I will interact with ocs and canon characters from different fandoms. But again we have to be MUTUALS, and I do ask that you have an about page or post somewhere that I can get to, just in case I’m not familiar with your character.

- I WILL NOT interact with personal blogs, or anyone under the age of 18!! This is for my own comfort and even safety. You don’t have to put your age on your blog, but if I ever find out you’re underage, you will be blocked!

- This blog will be multi-ship and multi-verse! I don’t do mains or exclusives, though I may have certain people I respond to quicker just based on the fact we’re close friends or mutuals.

- In addition to running this blog, I run another RP blog, and I also have a job irl. So my activity on this blog, as well as in general, will be sporadic.

ABOUT THE MUN

Name: Nub / Nubby

Age: 27

Pronouns: They / Them

Hobbies: Cosplaying, art, crafting, sewing, cross stitching, roleplaying, cooking, and prop-making!

** I also take art commissions! If you’re ever curious about prices never be afraid to message me!

[cozymochi]

🌻 >:)

IM FOUND ONE OF THESE MEMES IN MY DRAFts! Im gonna rank my experiences in the major fandoms i’ve engaged with.

🩵 YUGIOH! - Second longest running fascination. Upside!! Made life long friends. DOWNSIDE!! Was my first go at online engagement and in those 10 years so much happened that I still can’t help but feel a little sour. …Though ygo back in the day wasn’t good at tag comments, so I didn’t even know those were a thing for years until I branched out. 5/10. But grows to a 7/10 because i’ve settled into a niche area with so few people that it’s now a silly little club. 💕

🧡 Dragon Ball/Z - GENUINE CHAOS. Started off slow but intensified hard cuz get who got involved while Super was airing??? (I didn’t watch it lol), so the discourse and fighting was at an all time high. I have no idea how I even survived this in retrospect. My slight association with people netted me troll asks and my liking of Yamcha also set me up for those. …and frequent art reposting, and quite a few bizarre interactions. Pretty sure my art and edits have circulated more in latin america than I even know. This was also pre-tumblr purge so the amount of nsfw that got thrown my way is… something. That said!! Made also really good friends 💕 and DB/Z probably desensitized me to longer form discussions. 5/10 for insanity, but 8/10 for good reception and VERY PEAK and generous humans.

I think dbz hardened me.

💚 Invader Zim- started off fun (mostly irl with my friendo from days of YGO), but quickly devolved into territory that tested my patience. WHY ON EARTH THIS SERIES’ CONSUMERS had such a huge morality high ground base is beyond me. It’s this fandoms fault I learned about certain modern day online discourse terms and what instilled an irrational posting fear for a year lol. Fun at first and there’s super creative and receptive folk (then those people got kicked out) and left the most insufferable beings imaginable. There’s no in between. Shoutout to all 3 friends made who are still peak. 3/10, if I ever finish any remaining projects or decide to bite the bullet and show completed work, i’m not engaging again. The base just skews somewhere I can’t handle. Which is crazy given the ABOVE contenders have, on paper, done so much more.

dbz hardened me but iz weakened me. Which is probably why i need the formers bootcamp back. Don’t think I’m as fearful now, but i’ll still be salty.

💜 Twisted Wonderland - this is a work in progress experience. Will require further evaluation if all of the above experiences haven’t set my standards. Will stay in my corner. So far it’s 6/10 in vibes (they’re much calmer than the last one), tho I question how much of the interest is from what i do vs. what I did for others. Haven’t shared a ton of opinions yet and god knows lol we don’t want that /s. Still recovering from the former making me wanna just not do much. Baby steps I suppose.

💙 - Sonic The Hedgehog: This is a cheat, I have never interacted with the fandom directly (purely by happenstance, so thankfully no traces exist), but I have been into this since I was a child with no issues. So by default this is the best one. 10/10, didn’t engage, but I do lurk. Though all the stuff I see on tweeter isn’t exactly anything out of the norm for fandoms in general to do, so it weirds me out that people rag on this one for just kinda talking amongst themselves about innocuous things.

“omg this fandom is arguing over QUILL length ughhh can they never be pleased [30 yt videos about this drop]” ngl, this just feels like par for the course junk fandoms do. It really feels no different from DBZ where people go ham about the art style changes and which one is better. Or stupid shit in IZ where they fight about comics vs movie vs show. Like??? The only major difference here is that StH has more people in it (by the millions).

So literally nothing these folk do or say strikes me as anything more serious than what other fandoms already do??? Its just more outsiders see it then churn out content and perpetuate something worse from what’s honestly….pretty tame stuff. Maybe it’s just twitter’s setup given that’s all folk talk about.

[bandsanitizer]

Top 5 5sos fandom running gags

hello annie!! thank you for the ask 💕💕 I’m not sure if this includes jokes the band are in on? so I’m going to assume so bc I don’t know of (m)any exclusive? to the fandom? also i’m stupid and i don’t understand a gag so i hope these are ok answers

1. soon

bc what else would it be? soon is iconic. soon is legendary. soon has been here from the start and will be here until the end.

2. them being late to livestreams

the fact that they did an instagram live?? while running late for the tfofu show?? (correct me if I’m wrong😭)) is frankly so on brand.

3. luke is a meme

I love and respect luke hemmings and he’s brilliant and his brain is just !!!! wfttwtaf is proof of his genius!!! but also he’s a comedian. his humor is one of my favorites and I love the memeable content he presents. he’s a meme.

4. which song is the worst 5sos song debate

specifically the ongoing discourse that involves don’t stop and mrs. all american and the way that I personally feel no amount of discussion of song ranking will ever stray too far for either (or both) songs to be brought up. it’s fun to see everyone’s takes and I love the chaos

5. self-titled albums

I love and support them and their naming of 60% of their studio albums as something akin to after themselves 🤣 which considering the band sounds good and their music feels good… perhaps youngblood is the only not self-titled

[vikingrose24]

Obligatory welcome redditors and fuck u/spez

1) site wide memes here are less funny and more just fun to partake in. No requirement to partake if you don’t find whatever meme fun

2) you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it a thousand times, please change your pfp (typically called icons here) to a non hot girl photo, and put something in your bio. Do this prior to interacting with other people, they will assume you’re a bot and block on sight

3) search function sucks, but please make use of it while getting started. Use this to find people who post about things you like and follow them

4) in conjunction with 3, if you follow someone assuming you’ll like their content but you wind up hating it, don’t be afraid to unfollow. Also, if you frequently see someone in the tags you look up but find them overly annoying for any reason, don’t be afraid to block. They don’t have to be an ass to get the block here

5) tags are not for clout here. Tag appropriately to have your post seen by others (ie a pic of Robert Downey jr being tagged as Ironman). Tag inappropriately to be that annoying person that people block (ie a pic of RDJ being tagged Chris Hemsworth)

5b) tags can also be used for extra commentary not necessary for the original post, but you can’t make yourself post without at least typing it out

6) discourse here is generally not worth it. Do yourself a favor and either scroll past, or unfollow if you keep seeing it

7) likes and upvotes are not the same thing. Upvotes on Reddit lends to the traction of the post, likes here simply save the post for you to check on later (and for some people lends to serotonin production when they see the likes)

8) reblog what you like. Reblogging still keeps the original credit, but it shares the post with anyone following you, lending a larger audience for OPs work

9) for a small price, you can blaze your posts, be it shitposts, ads for your business, or a serious post. You can also do this to other people as desired. Blazing shitposts gets you more respect here. Expect to be clowned on hard though. Blazing shows the posts to anyone, as though it’s an ad

10) follower counts mean nothing here. I know it means little to nothing on Reddit as well, but if anyone was curious, it means Jack squat here. Block bots on sight, and report as spam.

[schizodiaries]

hi, i hope you're doing good! i just started a mental health/recovery sideblog to help me deal with my schizophrenia and did diagnoses, and i was wondering if you have any advice for running a blog like this? i really like how you use yours creatively, and i want to get the most out of my experiences <3

Hi there, I’m doing great. I hope you are doing fine as well.

I don’t know if I have much advice for making a mental health blog, but I can at least tell you how I like to run mine. Here’s what goes through my mind when considering what to post here on schizodiaries:

I like to reblog relatable posts, memes about mental health, resources, and informative posts about schizophrenia, coping skills, and general mental health topics.

Sometimes I like to use this blog as a journal to document my mental wellness journey. Be cautious about what you share though, make sure none of it is personal or sensitive information that someone could take advantage of (e.g. listing your triggers).

Having a tagging system is nice, I try to tag every post both for organization purposes and in case someone would like a certain topic blacklisted from their dashboard.

I personally try to steer away from drama and discourse, as it can be stressful for some people and myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t offer my two cents on a topic every now and again.

I like to have a theme with all my blogs. You might have noticed my theme on this blog is the white rabbit. So I’ll occasionally reblog posts pertaining to white rabbits.

I’m still trying to get better at this, but accessibility is important to a lot of disabled people, so I’m trying to refrain from reblogging images without IDs. I don’t know how to write them myself so I rely on others to do it. I also try to refrain from formatting my posts with different colors or fonts.

If an original post “breaches containment” or starts getting weird comments you can always lock the post and prevent it from being reblogged. You can also do this with personal posts that you prefer not to be shared.

I’ve never had to deal with anon hate or hate comments, but my solution to it is to simply ignore and delete them. Block them if you need to. Don’t even give them the time of day or the attention they crave.

Most importantly, as cliche as this might sound, just have fun with it. I have a great time running this blog and interacting with the schizospec community. At no point should it feel stressful or uncomfortable running a mental health blog. If you need to take a break, please do so, and if it gets too much you can always delete the blog.

[couldbebetterforsure]

I know Engage is almost upon us but thanks to you being gone for so long we never got to hear your thoughts on 3H! So……….character rankings👀👀👀👀👀👀 thoughts on the game itself👀👀👀👀👀

My dear Anon, I'm so sorry I took so long to answer this ask, especially since Engage is released now! But yeah, it's a shame I never did get a chance to state my thoughts on 3H so I might as well get into here! Better late than never, right? Also, I'm actually kinda glad I'm only getting to it now, since I feel like I've had a good amount of time to really get my thoughts together. Certain opinions I have are pretty different compared to what I would've said had you asked me my thoughts a few weeks after release or even within the first year I was part of the fandom! Also, for the sake of trying not to let this post show up in certain character tags, I’m gonna try to avoid name dropping characters.

Overall Thoughts

Despite all the discourse and nonsense of the past few years, I really did enjoy my time in Fodlan! I got the game on day one and I’ve logged several hundred hours into it! I have two completed save files for each of the four routes, one no recruit run and one recruit everyone run. I recently started up a meme run for the Blue Lions where I’m gonna have everyone specialize in weaknesses only/whatever their stats mesh the worst with. For my own sanity I’m just gonna stick with the Lions and the Church folk only for this run or I’ll drive myself nuts trying to work on this with everybody! But maybe I’ll do separate meme runs for the other routes in the future? Anyways, back to the point. I think the story was overall enjoyable but I felt like there was too much left unsaid or left “up to interpretation” instead of stated outright, which ended up fueling a fair amount of discourse to this very day. And that did sour my overall experience. But I enjoyed a fair number of the characters. Though I think I’ve made it clear by now I’m a Blue Lions fan so they’re my babies! Hopes was similar in that I had a fun time and, this is coming from someone who DOES like our dear mercenary friend Billy, I think I enjoyed how our Hopes mercenary friend was handled better (at least character wise, plot wise it could’ve been better). I don’t know, I just don’t think Billy was used well as a “silent protagonist”, and personally I don’t think silent protagonists work well in Fire Emblem games. My only big issue with Hopes is the weird choices they made when it comes to portraying certain characters or how far they wanted to go just to make certain other characters look good or innocent or whatever.

Gameplay Thoughts

I’m a character girl first so gameplay isn’t really what I care much about but I do still have some thoughts. I really like that you can make any unit into almost any class! Sucks they still have some gender locked classes though, but it’s super fun to try out new things. And, like I brought up earlier, it makes for some great meme/challenge runs! I have mixed feelings on the exploring the monastery section in that it felt like too much and too little at once. Too much in that there’s a ton of space to explore but too little in that I feel like much of that space doesn’t really get used so I just feel like I’m walking around for no real reason. And in my no recruit runs I really got hit post timeskip with how EMPTY it was. I also felt like the calendar mechanic seemed kinda...pointless? Well, I guess more that it didn’t seem to work well. Gambits and battling the monsters was fun enough. For Hopes specifically, it was my first dip into a Warriors style game since the other FEW game didn’t get my attention, and I really had a ton of fun with it! It’s fun trying out everyone’s different fighting styles and getting used to them. Plus there’s something weirdly relaxing about just running around kicking the asses of crowds of mooks. Though I felt like support grinding was even more tedious in Hopes than in 3H...

Route Related Thoughts

I felt that AM and AG were the strongest written routes of 3H and Hopes respectively. While I do have certain issues with both (particularly a certain endgame decision in the AG route), I think focusing on the characters most and making the lore take a backseat made everything far more powerful and enjoyable. These routes take the most after classic Fire Emblem stories but I don’t see it as a bad thing at all! I liked that each of the Lions were interesting takes on classic Fire Emblem tropes. The growth of our complex and sympathetic leader, the interesting deconstruction and reconstruction of classic Fire Emblem stories and characters, and possibly the best use of Billy in the story really made AM work well! As for AG, it’s much of the same, but with the added bonus of having the other Lions taking more active roles in the plot. Plus I really enjoyed the chemistry between a certain Savior King and purple haired mercenary, which much like with Billy, really worked well with the story by making me connect with the bond between characters first.

VW is a route I consider kinda okay. As someone who usually enjoys lore stuff, I just found this route boring. It didn’t help that I felt a lot of the story beats seemed tacked on. Especially the end boss. Honestly the only saving grace for this route for me was that I found the Deer as characters, especially their charismatic leader, to be really likable! On the other hand we have GW. I’ve seen numerous people put their thoughts in on why this route fails and personally that is my own opinion too. It has a pretty interesting start but then decides to take both the story and the characters in such bizarre and frankly just plain stupid directions that I couldn’t wait to finish the route out of pure frustration. It also turned the main lord from someone who I really liked in 3H to someone who I couldn’t STAND in Hopes. It’s a miracle it didn’t permanently negatively impact my view of the guy.

CF was....well I’ll definitely try to limit my thoughts here for my own sake. But basically I found I enjoyed it most when I decided to turn my brain off and just entertained myself with all the different angst options it offers. But yeah, it’s a route where sometimes I just didn’t know what sort of tone they wanted to go for or how they wanted me to take certain moments. It didn’t help that sometimes the mood would change so suddenly I was left just being like “huh????” CF came across as a route where there were several ideas that could’ve been interesting or certain plot points that you’d think would be tackled as it’d make the most sense right? But those moments are either not used to their full potential or passed over with no rhyme or reason. The less I say about the route’s center of controversy leader, the better but I originally found her enjoyable in theory rather in practice as a result of said missed potential, but nowadays I can’t stand her much. But that’s mostly thanks to a very frustrating (to put it politely) portion of her fanbase. SB was pretty much more of the same so my thoughts on CF apply here too. One thing I will say is that the finale made me actually laugh out loud. If someone had told me how SB route ended before I played it myself, I’d take it for a silly meme you’d usually find in fandoms. But nope, that’s actually how the writers chose to have it end...Incredible...

I can’t believe I almost forgot SS....But that basically is the issue isn’t it. I think SS as a route suffers from not having a certain Archbishop take the lord role over. And it doesn’t help that it and VW share the majority of story beats. I heard some mention the SS’s final boss and VW’s should be swapped and personally? With a few other story changes I agree that it’s probably work much better that way! Sorry this paragraph is so short compared to what I said for the other routes but I don’t really have many thoughts on SS compared to the others. I think it does it’s job fine enough and, while I don’t care for how it did it’s final boss, I at least enjoyed it better than VW’s.

Character Ranking

I found a tier list that included 3H and Hopes characters so I didn't have to make two separate ones, so here's my character rankings! I feel like they're basically self explanatory but if you have any questions about any of my rankings, just ask and I'll be happy to explain! Also you'll notice a couple of characters I used both the 3H and the Hopes version of in the list. That was only for major characters for who my opinion was DRASTICALLY different for one game versus the other. Otherwise these rankings match my opinion of the character as a result of both games (but primarily 3H to be honest)!

[balladwind]

↘ independent && private VENTI from GENSHIN IMPACT ↘ headcanon heavy ↘ multi - para, multi - ship, ship friendly ↘ mun is 21↑ runs on a GMT +8 timezone

GUIDELINES.

01. this is an independent, selective and private blog. i will only interact with mutuals and will be extremely selective with who i follow due to the chaotic nature of this fandom. i won't follow first since i made this blog to roleplay with friends only but if you catch me on a time where i am more free, i'll follow back.

Please softblock / hardblock if you do not wish to interact anymore. There’ll be no hard feelings, of course. You do what you have to do but please just soft / hardblock to make it clear. Thank you !

credit for icon border:venuscommissions  credit for theme base code: soldierholiic

THREADS

02. one-liners, multipara are all okay. i lean more towards the latter but i wouldn’t mind doing one-liners either for fun.

03. usually, i match length. but i can also write a lot. i write a hecking lot, especially when it comes to meme in askbox. i ramble a lot. but don’t feel stressed over matching lengths - just give me something to reply to.

04. if you wish to continue a thread from asks, feel free to create a new post and tag me in it.

05. i’m known as a bit of a muse bicycle so i can roleplay any side characters to spice things up on and complement the threads. 

06. i will drop threads if i don’t feel it anymore but i will try my best to let you know about it beforehand and maybe we can either discuss another plot or shake hands and walk away like mature adults if nothing else works. there’s no pressure to continue interacting with me if there isn’t chemistry between the mun either !

SHIPPING

07. multi-ship, and is generally alright with most ships. feel free to chat me up if you find that our muse has chemistry / has potential to develop good chemistry. naturally, i will not write romantic ships with muns or characters under the age of 18. i won't write xiaoven, cynonari or zhongchi. platonic is fine.

08. please note that i will require sufficient threads and ooc discussions to start a ship with anyone but that goes for everybody, yeah? 

NSFW

09. yes, i am over 20 but i most likely will not be writing sex stuff with just anyone off the bat. main reason being i am pretty bad with it and i wouldn’t want to accidentally give anyone’s character a derection or anything. i do like to write the foreplay though but anything that comes after is pretty hard to interest me unless it’s with a shipping partner. also, i make a lot of sex innuendos joke because unfortunately that’s my main comedy go to but it doesn’t mean that i want to write smut.

NO-NOs

10. please don’t come to my dms with passive aggressiveness and uppity in regards to how i write my character. i don’t care that much about sticking to canon to a tee. i love to bend the lore, twist the rules around and entertain to the best of my creative abilities. i only focus on making myself a very happy writer and hopefully someone a very happy writing partner.

11.  mun =/= muse, this goes without saying. but if my muses becomes a bit too much, just let me know nicely and i’ll try and dial them down. your comfort is important but don’t be a jerk about it.

12. i will block anyone who engage in senseless drama or discourse. i will also not follow anyone whose headcanons or takes i am uncomfortable with that sprung up due to sinophobia, have incited sinophobia or any misinterpreted romanticization of my culture at that sort in this fandom. we sure live in a wild time, huh.

13. i portray the chinese version of the game when it comes to characterization of the characters and lore.

14. no god-modding, obviously. and try not to have your muse know things that my muse wouldn’t tell anyone. 

15. I have massive social anxiety, coupled with a lot of other shit with my mental health so I will be selective with who I will continue to thread with. If something bothers me, I’ll let you know nicely and gently. If we still don’t click, I’ll have to drop threads or plotting ( though I will still be open with working things out ) but again, I’ll let you know nicely and gently. Please be open to that possibility!

i have discord and i’m all willing to share with mutuals. just hit me up!

[lastavengedarchived]

Rules

once again for length, I will throw this under the read more. in general, be nice, this blog is not mutual exclusive, but may be low activity and selective.

hi im izzy, i'm 26, they/them. i only work as a part time theatre technican and so im around sporadiacally. @mastcrmarksman is my main blog.

you are welcome to like this post.

MUTAUALS ONLY + friends & plotted priority

please read my note about "ncu-remixed" at the bottom

GENERAL - non mutual friendly, oc friendly, cross over friend, but prefer to only follow, write with, and be followed by people who are 21+

HUB BLOG -  this blog hosts two sideblogs ( @justcallmered / vigilante oc ) If you are just following for the sideblogs, consider yourself a mutual. You do not have to follow this main blog.

DUPES - Duplicates are welcome to follow this, I may not follow back for other Peppers & Karens but consider us mutuals for sake of sideblogs.

CONNECTIONS - I do participte in having mains, exclusives, ship exclusives, and affilitates and am opening to discusssing these types of connections with mutuals and writing partners.

FORMATTING - I use tumblr dark mode, small text and default tumblr colored text for dialouge, but I can accommendate on request. I use x-kit to cut my posts and prefer for posts to be tagged at least with a blog's url or something, just in case of needing to track or blacklist.

TRIGGERS - I do not have any triggrers, but given certain muses topics of addiction, suicide, depression, abuse and grooming are present, sp tread lightly but all heavy topics and triggers are tagged with "content cw"

NSFW - I rarely post NSFW and normally do not write smut (with some exceptions). So don't expect much from me, especially if we are shipping. There is hinting at and discussion of the muses' sex lives, but detailed smut writing isn't an interest/focus to me.

INBOX + DMS - My ask is always open, anon is turnd on. Non mutuals are welcome to send asks, memes, and start conversations through ask box first. Mutuals are welcome to dm me. There is no time limit on memes.

OC CHILDREN - I don’t mind them with the exception of Pepper, I will only acknowledge them as a multiverse as a variant’s offspring instead of child of MY Pepper; she is not your mom. My Pepper is trans, along with generally she does not want to have children anymore. The only “children” she has is being "step-mom" to Jamie (teen abnomination / you know from sim)

DNI - minors, white washed characters (mcu maximoffs for example), active hydra characters (they are fucking nazis), youtuber, content creator or minecraft muses, real people muses i'm just not comfortable w/ how parasocial that gets. any form of bigotry, all the isms/phobias (rac/ism, sex/ism, homo/phobia, trans/phobia etc etc).

DISCOURSE - the muse does not reflect the views of the mun. Plenty of the media we consume and get attached to will display characters of varying views and behaviors etc etc. To some degree we can and should detach from that, and I do, I am detached from my muses and do not share their views. i do not condone any form of bigotry. as well as if any discourse comes up, assume that I, the mun, have looked into it, taken necessary action, and will react as an adult.

SAFE SPACE - my blog is my safe space first and foremost. it is curated for me. i will block, soft block, remove myself, and do as needed to maintain that. as well as i have the right to decline anything if i simply do not vibe as my blog is my blog, it is a space for me.

FUN STUFF - fluff, angst, slice of lifee, content heavy, dialouge heavy, paragraphs, crossovers, aus, multi-verse, multi-ship, anon asks, ask box starters, mutual random starters, edits, you name the fun

MCU - typically I will do crossover/multiverse shenangians with 616/MCU when it comes to MCU. I just don't vibe with MCU, and I also jut haven't watched it. The only verison that you will see is Karen has an NCU verse. I don't hate the MCU, I just don't gel with it and that may be my autism/special interest being specific 616 comics.

NCU Remixed - basically, I do treat the originally Netflix shows as separate/removed from the MCU, and will use those as origin canons or use the events in them as verses/canons, namely in Karen's case. Everything else from the MCU (the films, the other shows) are rejected, and I'll pull from 616 and comic event. NCU is like an alternate origin for Karen basically, that blends her LA arc from the comics into her NCU origin.

Basically what is accepted into "canon" for this verse - Daredevil s1 thru 3, Jessica Jones s1 thru 3, Punisher s1 thur 2, Iron Fist s1 thru 2, Luke Cage s1 thru 2, and The Defenders.

Anything after or before, I am not familiar with and don't think about (or involve into Karen's canon). Basically films and disney plus shows are amiss, both from a knowledge point ( but that doesn't mean i won't write with mcu folks or do some plotting for events; i just can't emphasize enough this "izzy's neurodivergence way of framing canon")

So where does that leave the rest of the universe?

In general, basically since these are origin stories, it is a more "comic" accurate imagining of the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men to me; meaning like the OG Avengers being Wasp, Ant Man (Hank), Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. Followed by the next iteration of the Avengers team introducing Cap's Kooky Squad (Cap, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and Black Panter, rejoined Wasp and Yellowjacket (Hank) and Black Widow, Herucles etc etc).

Spider-man has entered into college age and is vibing around with the Coffee Bean Gang of that era.

Fantastic Four has been around for a bit.

Leaves a potential for throwing around ideas like that and introducing some comic events remixed.

[chaoticsuper]

About

Call me Mango!

He/Him/They/Them

This is my spam blog, where I’ll post pics of my cat, reblog, etc.

Warnings

I’m going to start tagging things from now on! (sorta…) I want my blog to be fun, but there are times I will reblog things that are serious because they’re important. For those who don’t want to see that can block these tags.

Politics

Serious

Tw//Abuse, Tw//Death, Tw//Harm, Tw//Heavy Topics, Etc.

I will also be tagging things such as angst, heavy topics, etc. I do have friends here that cant handle things like that, So I will tag them please block these tags if you don't want to see those things.

Angst

Heavy Topics

🌧️

Rules

No Nsfw!

Including gore and such, please understand while I draw and consume content with gore in it doesn’t mean I want them suddenly sent to me. If I ever put gore on this blog, I’ll always put the proper tags and warnings!

Tw//Gore

Tw//Blood

No Hate/Drama/Discourse!

I don’t want any of that on my blog, If I ever put hate on here its usually jokingly! Ex. “My homies meme” Even then I will always clarify in the tags, I don’t want to get involved in discourse or anything of the like!

Other than that there’s not really much just hang out and vibe!

Fandom

I constantly switch between fandoms but I always have a few consistent ones that I’ll stay in for a while.

Main

Lmk

Jttw (I'm still reading!)

Sonic

Danny Phantom

I do like other fandoms (ex. Fullmetal Alchemist) but I mostly just reblog from those fandoms.

Other places to reach me

@MangosMindAnthology (My Art/Main Blog)

Twitter - ChaoticSuper (I’m not leaving till they kick me out lmao)

Insta - ChaoticSuper (Its so old, lemme update it)

Twitch - (ah.. working on it)

Kofi - (also… working on it)

[dathen]

It feels a little weird to start off Ace Awareness Week in the most ace-positive fandom I’ve been in by addressing something negative, but I wanted to address some common mistakes that people--especially allo authors--can make when portraying ace characters, even when they don’t intend to be acephobic.  

Most of the discussion of whether allo people can write ace characters all comes down to the same debate over and over: are you allowed to write ace people having sex or not?  With responses ranging from “No, never!” to “Yes, always!” with rarely any nuance.  But the fact is that there are just as many ways to insensitively write an asexual character in the most G-rated fics, and I never see any discussion on that.  So I’m starting one myself!

(warning for mention of acephobia and negative stereotypes about asexuality)

“Prude” and “Puritanical” 

These are extremely, extremely loaded terms, especially when applied to an asexual person.  I feel like a lot of asexual people know this by default, but when allo writers delve in they don’t have the history of weathering all the discourse framing asexuality as an inherently sex-negative identity, and how hard we had to fight for people to realize that being disinterested in sexual things for ourselves doesn’t equal judging other peoples’ sex lives.  Those words also imply some level of “this is a bad thing about this person they need to grow out of,” which takes on very ugly corrective connotations when applied to ace people.

On that note, “fluster the uptight prude, it’s fun!” is a very popular trope that I’m seeing used against ace characters more and more.  And in so many of these cases, you just have a scene of flat-out sexual harassment.  Or a scene of someone pushing past their friend’s boundaries.  Or people forcing someone to be uncomfortable because of their sexuality.  I can’t say it’s objectively worse when done to an ace character than to an allo one, but I can promise you that I’ve dealt with these exact situations dozens of times IRL and it’s miserable and each time I find it in an untagged fic played as cute and fun and hilarious it makes me feel ill.  If you’re aiming to write a fun friendship scene, maybe reach for something other than “a group of friends sexually harass the ace character because they enjoy seeing them get uncomfortable.”  And if you want to include a scene like that for other reasons, add a warning tag!

Sex-Averse =/= Sex-Negative

It’s an age-old acephobic viewpoint to treat sex-disinterested aces as if our not wanting to have sex is automatically judgment on everyone who does.  Back in the pre-discourse days, there was an amazing article about the pressure a lot of ace people feel to push themselves past their comfort levels to play up their interest in sexual things or willingness to expose themselves to it: even something like feeling obligated to listen to a friend going into detail over a hookup, out of fear of being seen as prudish or judgmental.  But having boundaries for ourselves is not an attack on anyone else, and people who have sex can just as easily be sex-negative.

“Oh but this character is a prude/sex-negative, but they just happen to also be asexual”  Why?  Why???? 

“Virgin” as an insult

Avoid using “virgin” as an insult, or as a synonym with being immature, naive, undesirable, an “incel,” etc.  I really shouldn’t need to elaborate.  This is such an accepted meme-ish fandom thing that people don’t realize how much it reinforces the idea that if you’re desirable at all of course you’ve had sex, or that asexual people have to have sex at least once to prove they don’t like it.  “Virgin” is an outdated concept in the first place!  Get rid of it!!

Additionally, “they just need to get laid” takes on nightmarishly corrective tones when applied to asexual people and, yes, is something we have to deal with constantly IRL.  

Tagging acephobic content

If you’re having characters within a fic hold these attitudes or talk like this...tag it.  I think there’s value in fiction that addresses stigma that ace people face, and acknowledging that people do treat us like this.  But it’s not something we should have to stumble into unprepared, so please give us the tools we can use to protect ourselves.  

“Sexually repressed”

This is another loaded term when applied to ace people.   Again, if you haven’t struggled through years of self-doubt because everyone around you is telling you your disinterest in sex is just repression, you just need to force yourself past it, you may not realize how terrible it can be to see an ace person painted as just being sexually repressed.  To this day, I still see posts of “there’s no such thing as asexuality, it’s just sexual repression.:  (Emotional repression is a whole different thing, we can absolutely be emotionally repressed)

You’re not a bad person or an Enemy (tm) if you’ve fumbled one of these, it’s just so deeply ingrained into society that it takes a lot of effort and dedication to unlearn--and I hope that this helps to equip people to start that process!