#her story is worth telling

[alchemania]

Finally got enough energy to talk about Furina's SQ and while I loved her and the troupe, MC and Paimon were .... Not Great. I talked about this with friends but in Paimon's case especially, the way they interact with Furina feels like people who just don't understand trauma and depression and then engage with someone suffering from both in all the wrong ways.

Talking about how much of a downgrade her house is from the opera house, making fun of how she can't cook, pushing her to act when she's set a very clear boundary and then guilt tripping her after she's stuck to her guns, shaming her for not being able to fight well (Paimon literally talks about how second hand embarrassment is overwhelming and I'm just like ?????), telling her she's "not acting like herself" when she attempts to open up and be vulnerable....it's just really rough. That and the MC asking "is something wrong" when Furina gets sad over Poission ..like bro people died and she couldn't save them and she's tearing herself apart over it. Those people are never coming back and you know it and you have the gall to ask her is something wrong??? Of COURSE there is!!

It just feels especially odd because we literally get to see all of Furina's suffering and Paimon in particular is. SO mean? Like she was more understanding with Wanderer and Ei and THEY'VE tried to kill us multiple times!! I don't get it, and honestly I'm very proud of Furina for refusing to waver. Let her rest!! She's tired and depressed and she needs time to heal; and honestly fuck Paimon for trying to make her feel bad. Furina's worked harder than she EVER will.

[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.

[sc3n3kitt3h]

IM LIKE IF A BOY WAS A MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL WAS A SCENE FAG

[torgawl]

if you call himmel pathetic i'm throwing hands at you. himmel showed the purest form of love for frieren and you guys think that's pathetic? what's pathetic is not respect other people's feelings or boundaries and acting like people owe you anything just because you like them. himmel was happy to have a friendship with frieren within her own conditions just because he genuinely enjoyed her as part of his life. he was happy to wait for her for his entire life is he had to but he also never stopped living for himself. that's fucking beautiful. loving someone so much you are able to let them go, not wanting to change who they are or impose anything on them? unconditionally, nonetheless? that's the point of life.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Thralls has the already pretty complicated objective of making Ganondorf's perspective a compelling (if very flawed) one, but the even taller order and my real agenda here is to convince people that Impa is a compelling character u_u

[paniniwrap]

after watching when marnie was there

me: damn so it was her grandma huh 💔

also me, but in tears: erm actually 🤓☝️ it’s about this lonely child discovering that she has always been loved in a way that’s so strong that it transcends past & present. the lightness and the relief that comes from seeing yourself in someone else. you may be outside of the circle but it doesn’t mean you can’t make your own. one u can invite others in too.

[spotaus]

*It seems you managed to stumble across a unique trio...

Decided to do a silly lil doodle of my favorite Dopple-trio! :D on the surface I feel like this'd be a daily occurrence. Kale is the most normal of the 3 of them, but I wanted to draw her and Paps having a cute lil conversation. (More ideas below the cut!!!)

Pretender regularly interacts with humans (his disguise slowly recovers, and he continues to mostly abstain from his old habits) and usually appears as "human" as long as he's out. Sometimes in public I feel like ppl would be willing to talk to him, and he's always quick to make it clear that to get to his family people would have to get past him. (Also I think in their neighborhood/town everyone gets increasingly confused because he regularly goes, "Yeah, that's my Kid" some days abd other days he's like, "That's my little sibling" and it's just that he's her guardian and the terms are kinda interchangeable because it's easier to use them than explain the whole situation lol)

Pretender also has no sense of fashion. He's always so close to a neat outfit then takes the wrong turn before he exits his closet lol.

Paps stays in skeleton form (at least for the first few years) even tho it's dangerous, because his human disguise is awful and makes K uncomfortable. Instead he trains genuinely with Undyne and Tender to properly figure out a human shape over about 4 years. Eventually he does have a human disguise, but he's contented in his monster form too.

K I can't say a lot for (beloved @oodlesndoodles is who designed/owns her!) But I'm pretty certain that she'd probably still wear her one monster-style outfit sometimes if only to show her solidarity with her family, or just to mess with people on the streets 🙏

Also:

I love the idea that someone talking to them would take in this info and be like ???????

Last Notes: Human!Pretender is one of my favorite blorbos ever to doodle! His hair texture is probably the most satisfying thing ever! Paps keeps miraculously looking good for this AU??? I've never been able to draw Papyrus before??? Idk what changed, but I love him! And KALE! K my beloved I have struggled so hard to doodle her well and usually fail but I think I did it!!! I love her sm...

[lilyrizzy]

My dad's gf (who I've decided after months of being forgiving to hate) told me yesterday that she thinks I wouldn't be able to write a book or be a good writer, and "it's harder than it looks, you know," and I-

[snailsrneat]

A painstaking entrance

-----------------------------

Synopsis: Our protagonists wakes up in a strange place with no memory of how she got there. With no other choice, she trudged through the painstaking challenges ahead of her.

-----------------------------

"Uggh, my head." I whine, as my brain slowly begins to reenter consciousness. My head pounds violently. "Motherfucker..." I hiss, trying to nurse my aching skull between my palms. 'Why does it have to feel like a knife is in my head?'

Groaning, I open my eyes, my vision full of darkness. 'Huh? Are my glasses not on?' Lowering my hand to my face, my fingertips brush against the cold acrylic of my glasses. 'Weird..' I try to reach my hand forward, but am stopped by a piece of wood. The gritty material scratching uncomfortably against my dry fingers.

'Eugh, I hate that.'

Grimacing I retract my hand before reaching to the left, same result. Then to the right, even tried above me, same thing happened every time.

'I should probably start using hand lotion.' I note to myself. I sigh, bored. I'm stuck in a box with nothing to do. Except pay attention to the waves of discomfort that travel through my brain.

I sigh again, this time deeper. I try thinking back to last night to give me some sort of clue as to where I am. However my memory is as good as a goldfishes, I can't remember shit.

"Well fuck."

I really am too tired for this right now.

Just as hope of ever seeing the light of day began to fade, the box caging me in began to shake. My eyes widen, 'FINALLY! I'm tired of being held captive inside this stinkin' box!' Suddenly the shaking stopped, and high pitched voice coming from outside began to speak.

Honestly I didn't really care to listen to what it was saying, the only things on my mind right now is trying to get out of here. I suppose that's why I was surprised when I was met with a ball of blue flame. Practically to the face.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" I screamed so loud I'm pretty sure people in North Korea could hear me.

Now trauma aside, that fire ball did do something good for me. It blew the wall in front of me off. 'YES!' I excitedly jump out, landing much lower than I had expected. Turning around to see what held me captive for so long, I was met with an unexpected surprise. A floating coffin with it lid now on the floor and burn marks covering it. 'OH!'

"HEY! YOU, HUMAN. I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

A high pitched voice sounds from behind me. I think it's the same one as before, but I can't be sure. Swinging around, I don't find the owner of the voice. That is until I look down.

The owner of the high pitched voice is a grey cat creature with blue flames inside its pointed ears, and a pitch-forked tail. The cat seems to be happy that it finally caught my attention. A smug grin covers its face. It clears its throat and begins to speak.

"I am the great mage Grim! And you stupid human need to give me your clothes! Now! Huh- HEY!" It tried to yell out for me, but all it was met with in return was a loud slam of a large door and a muffled "FUCK THAT!"

Listen, I know it probably wasn't a good idea to try and run away from that thing. But what other choice did I have? What, sit there and listen to it's stupid speech and strip? Fuck no. Currently I have no idea where I am, I have nothing but my own fists to defend myself, and I don't know ow if I can call for help. Running is my best choice if I want to keep my dignity and humility.

I bolted as fast as my stubby legs could allow away from that room. With the weird cat thing chasing not all too far behind me. Occasionally yelling profanities and telling me to strip.

'Damn pervert cat.'

Occasionally the thing would spit blue flame my way, which only made me run faster from it. My lungs began to burn like I just smoked fifty packs of cigarettes, and my legs were aching for rest.

But it I stopped right now, I know it would only mean more danger. So I have to keep moving. Even through the pain.

After what feels like an eternity of running from that weird cat monster. It's voice begins fade and I slow my pace down dramatically. My heart is still pounding against my chest, my lungs are still struggling for air, and my legs ache like I just ran a marathon but I need to keep moving.

I don't know where that thing is right now but I don't want to have another chase scene like that again anytime soon.

I take a look around the area I'm in and notice that I made it to what feels like the words largest library. No joke, this place looks about the size of a football stadium but instead of all the overpriced seating and food, added on to all the people screaming for their favorite team; It's walls are lined top to bottom with bookshelves all full to the brim with books of varying genres and topics.

Looking up higher I finally notice the books floating midair. Occasionally they flap their pages to keep afloat.

'I don't know what kind of drugs I'm on right now, but I want off. Now.' I think to myself.

Choosing to ignore the floating books I shove my hands in my hands into my pockets and just continue walking. Feeling around the pocket, my eyes light up in excitement. 'MY PHONE! OH MY LOVE HOW I MISSED YOU!' Pulling the device from my pockets, I almost kiss my phone in excitement. Before remembering just how many germs a single cell phone carries and I stop myself. I don't want that on my lips. Hurriedly I stuff the phone into my bra, for safe keeping obviously.

I makes sure it's secure before I begin my quiet trudge forward. Just as I made the first couple steps I am yet again stopped. This time by the stupid pervert cat from earlier.

"MYHAH! FOUND YOU!" The cat thing yells, and adds to the ache pounding in my skull. Turning around I look down at the thing, it's breathing is heavy and it looks like it might pass out any second from now. "Oh no, you caught me." I exclaim flaty. It smirks through it's huffing and puffing. "Of course I did! I am the great and magnificent Grim! Now..", it stops for a moment to catch it's breathe, "Give me your clothes human!"

....

A moment of silence passes between us, as I quietly contemplate kicking the thing and running away again. Luckily I am saved from the trouble this time. As a suave, masculine voices picks up from the shadows.

"Ah, there you are."

A swift slap sounds through the quiet room as the cat thing is suddenly wrapped up in a whip. It thrashes about wildly, trying to be let go but is unable to escape the tight grasp of the whip. 'A little cruel, but given that thing is a pervert it's for the greater good.'

A man steps up from the shadows. A tall man with dark hair and bright, almost electric, yellow eyes. He wears a dark blue glittery vest and black slacks, a giant key tied to his belt. He has a masquerade mask that hides the majority of his face except for his mouth and eyes. He also has a top hat and feathers that lay on his broad shoulders with a cape that flows to the floor. His presence exudes confidence and wisdom.

He's attractive looking for sure.

He clears his throat before he begins to speak, "What do you think you were doing!? Running away from the entrance ceremony, leaving your gate. Have you no manners?!", He exclaims loudly, "And to bring an unruly familiar too. Is your goal to break as many rules as possible on the first day?"

'Okay, attractive looking but the moment he opens his mouth all that attractiveness is lost.' I think, while the cat thing begins to try and bite through the whip. Causing the guy to scoff and glare at me.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" He asks me. I can only shrug and fake an awkward apologectic smile, "Oops?" I answer nervously.

This action appears to not only offend him but his ancient ancestors as well. Oops.

"Oops? OOPS!? YOU BREAK MULTIPLE RULES ON YOUR FIRST DAY AND ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY IN RESPONSE IS "OOPS?"." He yells in my face, blood vessels pop out at the the top of his forehead and his pupils are so small you can barely see them. I decide against replying to him. It isn't worth it if all he's gonna do is yell at me.

Slowly, he begins to calm down. Now pinching with the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger and mumbling a bunch of nonsense whilst I have to wait until he finally pulls himself together. Soon enough he does, looking at me with a frown and saying, "I suppose it can't be helped but still, I hope you know that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated from a student of Night Raven College." I raise my eyebrow, "Student of what now?"

His own eyes widened in shock, "Night Raven college only but the most prestigious school for mages in all of Twisted Wonderland?" I deadpan "Never heard of it." This causes his eyes to blow even wider like an owl. "Oh my. Uhm, do you pray tell happen to know where you are currently?", he asks like I'm some sort of schizophrenic psyche patient. "Ain't gotta clue buddy." I answer crossing my arms. "Oh dear. It seems the teleportation magic must've messed with your brain.", He deduces, "Fear not young one! I, Dire Crowley, will help you by leading the way for I am ever so gracious."

The smile on his face gives me chills.

He spins on his heels and starts walking out of the library. "Come now", he calls out, "We musn't dilly-dally! We're already late as it is."

I silently debate in my mind whether or not I should go with him, 'An older man leading a teenage girl somewhere she doesn't know? That story never ends well...but what other choice do I have?' Sighing, I decide to follow after him. My short, stubby legs have a little trouble keeping up with his much longer ones.

Awkward silence fills the air between Crowley and me, with the occasional grunts from that cat thing. I pull up the hood on my new clothes that I am positive I didn't have on when I went to sleep.

'I don't know, and I don't want to know. Currently this hood is my only comfort here.' I think to myself as I stuff my hands in my pockets and keep my head down. After a couple more minutes of pure awkward silence, Crowley clears his throat. "Ahem, may I ask you a question?" "Shoot." "Do you happen to be a..uhm, female?" The question made me stop in my tracks. Not the question itself, but the way he said was just so...nervous.

I can't help but wanna tease this guy.

"Yes I do happen to be a woman. Why do you ask? Is it cause you're scared of us?" I ask teasingly. From the way he asked the previous question it sure seemed like it. Also who the hell says female? Just say woman.

"No-it's just-hmm, never mind." He fumbles over his words. I can't help the chuckle that falls from my lips. "I ask because it's not often the dark mirror picks out women for our student body." He explains. "The what now?" I ask, tilting my head. "You don't know of the dark mirror?", his face is full of shock, "Oh no, the magic might've messed with your memory more than I realized." He sighs dramatically. "The dark mirror is a magical artifact that can see one's soul. We use it to determine who goes into what dorm." He explains.

Despite not fully understanding what he said, I just nod my head because I don't want to talk anymore. He seems to be okay with this as we go back to our awkward silence.

Walking past a lot of stuff I had barely seen when I was running away from the cat thing. Just a while bunch of classrooms and hallways. 'I guess this place might actually be a school.' I eye Crowley, who seems to be caught up in his mumbling. Something about a ceremony, I don't really fully understand. 'Whatever, either way atleast I know he is a lot less dangerous than that stupid pervert cat.'

Speaking of the creature, he seems to given up on fighting and is now just glaring daggers at Crowley.

Cute.

After what seems like forever we make it back to the door from before. It stands tall and somewhat threatening. Like behind it holds some sort of terrifying beast. 'Well I already dealt with one beast today. What's another, right?' I think to myself, gulping.

Following Crowley through the doors and through a large crowd, something I wasn't expecting. He leads me to the middle of the room where I see a floating mirror. 'What's with the floating stuff today?' It's something I clearly hadn't caref to notice before. He gestures me forward, towards the mirror. While I do obey and walk to the mirror, all I can focus on is the sound of whispers floating about the crowd, and eyes burning through me. It makes me want to shiver. I hate the feeling of eyes one me.

Looking over the crowd for a moment there's one group in specific that sticks out to me. There were six people in the group in total, all with their own opposing 'Aura's' shall we say. There was a boy with crimson hair and a stern face, a boy with lion ears and tail who seemed very uninterested in everything around him, another was a boy with silver hair and seemed to eye the large crowd with some sick amusement. Like he was planning some devious plot.

'Yeesh..that guy is a little too creepy for my liking.'

Looking through the group again, I notice a boy with crimson eys, and another boy very striking violet eyes and blonde hair. The last member of the group was a...floating tablet.

Okay yeah, I'm definitely on drugs. That or I've officially lost my mind. Whatever I'll just ignore the floating I-Pad. For the sake of my own sanity I need to ignore the floating I pad.

The group seem to be mumbling some things to eachother. Occasionally ones looks over to where I am. 'Now I'm a little curious, what are they talking about?'

-----------------------------

"As I said, there is no room in Heartslabyul for troublemakers. No matter what their reasons may be." I say firmly. Crossing my arms, my eyes glare harshly into the Freshman who was already reeking havoc on their first day here.

"I have to agree with Riddle on this, Kalim.", Vil states, "I'll already have my hand full training one freshman. Training two will be too much of a hassle." The explanation causes the normally chipper Kalim to turn sour. His smile deflates into a sad pout at our words. "Yeah, but still it isn't fair to judge him based on the fact that he ran away before the ceremony.", He argues, "Mayne he was running from something? You guys saw the lid to that gate, it was burnt to a crisp."

"Kalim you're too empathetic for your own good.", Azul butted in,"Even if he was running from something wouldn't it be smarter to go find a staff member? Instead of just leading it across the school where it could run into one of the dorms? Or maybe find another student to maul." Azuls face was smug, more so than usual, as if he just won an argument. Which to be fair, he just did.

"Who cares?", Leona finally speaks up, "Either way it doesn't matter unless she's sorted into one of your dorms." "Oh so the sleeping lion finally rises to talk with the 'Herbivores'?" Vil teases, causing Leona to glare daggers into the blonde. "Shut yur' trap. If it wasn't for you all yapping like a gaggle of seagulls I wouldn't be awake." He growled out. Venom dripped from his voice as he glared into Vil. A moment if tense, awkward silence fills the space between us. Before Idia finally speaks up, "Uhm, is no one gonna point out Leona said 'She' and not 'He'?" His voice boomed low through his tablet.

......

"Huh? But he doesn't look like a...she." Kalims sentence slows down towards the end when he turns to look at the new student. All of our gazes follow his. Lo and behold, Leona was right. The new student was a she.

"That's even more reasonable not to want her in my dorm. This is an all boys school, no females are allowed on campus." I huff out. "Agreed, however I think it'll be interesting to watch what she does next." Azul says slyly. All of us keep our eyes trained on her form as she approaches the mirror of darkness.

-----------------------------

'They're staring at me now..yeah nope. Too creepy and weird for me.' A shiver crawls up my spine as I turn away from the strange group. Staring straight ahead me at the mirror, my nervousness only rises as it begins to speak.

"State thy name." It asks me. It's voice deep, bellowing throughout the crowded room. 'Do I really wanna say my name in a room full of strangers?' I suspiciously eye the room full of people, which I am slowly starting to realize might actually be full of only men.

I didn't want to believe Crowley earlier, but this is not good for me if I need to fight my way out.

Gathering all the courage I have within me, which isn't very much, I finally spurt out, "U-uhm, Twyla Blythe..?"

'Oh fuck me and my godforsaken stutter.' Is the thought running through my head as the mirror hums in thought. Shortly after it begins to speak again, saying, "The shape of thy soul is...unknown."

Gasps erupt through out the the room. 'I have no idea what just happened but my guess is that I was just publicly diary with chlamydia. That or cancer.'

"What do you mean, "The shape is unknown"!?", Crowley questions the mirror. "The one who stands before me, their soul is colorless, shapeless, and odorless. I can sense magic from this soul. Very powerful magic, but without knowing the shape of their soul I cannot place them into any specific dorm." Even mire gasps come forth from the crowd that slowly shift into murmurs.

'Okay so from that reaction definitely chlamydia.' "But thats not possible! In the hundred years since the Ebony Carriage has been used, not once has it picked upa student unfit for a dorm. This must be some sort of mistake." Crowley reasons, the look on his face that of complete bewilderment and fear.

The mirror doesn't answer him this time. Instead the one answering him is that pervert cat thing that looks like he came straight from a knock-off Pokémon game.

"MMHEE! *HUFF HUFF* LET ME TAKE HER PLACE INSTEAD! I'M SURE I'D FIT INTO ONE OF THESE DORMS." It exclaims proudly.

"Not so fast you hyperactive cat." Crowley attempts to order, but the pokemon reject refuses to listen. Stating, "Unlike that human, I'll be able to actually to actually get into a dorm with my great and powerful magic. Here let me show you! MYHAH!"

'Aaaaaaand now the rooms on fire, fantastic.' I think, my sarcasm unable to contain itself. The cat thing started shooting out fireballs at the large crowd, which was a bad idea because now everyone is screaming and trying to run from the blue flames. I just slowly back myself into the corner farther from the flames and closest to door. I decide it would be better for me to just watch.

Crowley begins pointing at the group that had caught my attention earlier, ordering, "One of you catch that blasted cat before it sets flame to the entire school!"

The group doesn't react much, except for the red eyed boy exclaiming that his butt is on fire. The blonde looks over at the boy with lion ears and tail and begins teasing him. "There why don't you go grab yourself a little morsel of that plump piece of game, hm? You can finally put those hunting skills of yours to use." "Shaddup." The lion boy growls.

"Bothe of you shut it, if you two aren't going to help I'll just do it myself." The red head says, glaring at the two. "How about I join you Riddle? It'll be a great way to show off to our freshmen." The creep butts in, the red head named Riddle just side eyes him but agrees.

The two pull out pens with different colored gems on the top, and begin shooting multicolored sparks at the cat. Which only made him panic and run whilst throwing fire back at them. Not very helpful. Their little chase ended very shortly when Riddle finally struck the cat, putting a collar on him. “FNNYAA! WHERE DID THIS THING COME FROM?!” It screamed in terror. “The queen of hearts rule 23 states, ‘One must never bring a cat to a formal affair.’” He informs the cat,

“You must vacate the premises or else.” “How many times do I have to say it?! I’M NOT A DAMN CAT.”

‘This is getting super boring and repetitive at this point..’ Instead of listening to their conversation I just tune them out. Their voices sound like quiet muffles whilst I stare out at the rather bright moon shining through the large windows. For the first time in what feel like a hundred years, it’s peaceful. Just me, my thoughts and the moon.

“Miss Blythe!”

‘Aand there it is, the end to my peace.’

Snapping out of my trance, I look over at Crowley, who now is holding the cat. ‘The hell does he want?’ “Ahem, was I not clear when I said to watch and take responsibility for your familiar?”, He lectures, “Now would you please discipline your familiar.”

‘This motherfucker- HE NEVER SAID THAT‘ Before I jump this man and beat the stupid out of him, I decide it would be better if I just calmly talk to him. “He isn’t mine.”, I say as calmly as I possibly could. Which isn’t calm at all, if my death glare didn’t prove as such.

Crowley’s pupils widen, if they really could widen given that they’re slits,

“Oh! Really?” He asks. “Yes I’m sure that he isn’t.”, it takes everything in me not to punch him, “You would’ve known that if you’d asked me beforehand .”

“Oh, uhm, then I shall have it expelled from campus.”, Crowley responds awkwardly, “Would you do the honors Mr. Ashengrotto?” “It would be an honor.” The creepy boy with silver hair answers back.

Grabbing the cat by the red collar around its neck, and dropping it out of a window. The cat screams some unintelligible nonsense as he quickly descends to the ground.

Without missing a beat Crowley claps his hands and turns to the large crowd, “I call this ceremony dismissed! All freshman please follow your dorm leaders to your respective dorms.” He calls out.

The group of boys I had noticed before began to lead individual groups of people out of the room, each shouting different commands and orders. Slowly the crowd empties out of the room, with almost every person staring at me on their way out. ‘Don’t these people know not to stare?’. Honestly it pisses me off.

After what feels like an eternity of being ogled at, it’s just me and Crowley left in the room, oh and that weird ass mirror. He turns around to look at me, his face full of confidence before immediately getting shot down by my glare.

Awkwardly he clears his throat, “Ahem, Miss Blythe it’s time to get you back home.”, he averts his eyes, “You can only leave the way you came so if you could please step into one of the gates and think of your home that would be greatly appreciated Miss.” He seems to be really nervous around me, good.

I guess he lied when he said he was scared of women. Oh well, at least I have something I can use against him now.

I step into the coffin from before, burn marks still on it from the cat thing. Crowley swiftly closes the lid and begins a sort of incantation.

“Oh great mirror of darkness, take this soul back from whence it came.”

………Nothing happened.

He starts again, “Oh great mirror of darkness, take this soul back from whence it came.”

…………Think this guy might need a new mirror cause this one ain’t working.

He starts up again, “Oh great-“ “It is nowhere.” The mirrors voice bellows throughout the room, a familiar shiver crawls up my spine.

“What do you mean ‘It is nowhere’?” Crowley huffs, clearly annoyed at the mirrors antics today. “The place this soul comes from, it does not exist. Therefore it is nowhere.” The mirror answers.

Crowley gets only more upset at the response, “Well this is just preposterous!” He shouts in annoyance, before lifting the lid of the coffin. “You.”, He points his finger at me, “Where is it that you said you’re from.”

“Uuuhm, Florida.” ‘Damn my nervousness.’ “Hmm, I’ve never heard of that place before.”, He seems to be deep in thought for a moment, “*Sigh* Follow me, we must investigate this strange anomaly.” He motions with his hand to follow him.

‘Oh great not again.’ I roll my eyes as I try to hurriedly stand without falling over. Crowley makes it halfway across the room before I finally rid myself of the coffin, and begin to catch up to him. ‘Damn tall people with their stupid long legs.’

-----------------------------

A/N

Hehe, I had this in the works for a minute. I hope y'all enjoy Twyla's entrance. She can be quite eccentric. Only when she wants to though.

Btw I made a Playlist of songs that just remind a lot of Twyla so for everyone whose curious here's that playlist. It's a bit a of a mess but it's exactly like her.

Oh and @cyanide-latte first of all hii, second of all I know this isn't the oneshot that I promised but isn't this a little bit better than a oneshot right? I think it is.

Anyway thank you all for reading this far, if any of yoy feel like sending in asks or questions I'd love to answer. Much love to all of you. Mwah 💋💋

[camping-with-monsters]

A relatively new addition to the cast of Duck Duck Goose, this is the malevolent and ill-tempered Little Bo Peep!

A ruthless little girl of blood and wool, she’s got a thin patience to those that oppose the goal of the sheep. She’s got quite the arsenal around her— a widespread flock of friendly looking little lambs that are much less cutesy when in battle. With relentless little manic sheep that are spotted all over the place, the sheep are spoken to have a vendetta against canine-kind and all things wolf-related, as they’ve grown tired of being thrown around and hunted so mercilessly by all the real big bad wolves of the world. When prey becomes predator, a leader is to be crowned to remind of the motive— and this is where Bo Peep— a girl perfectly fit for the job— comes into play.

Little Bo Peep is the human protector of these wooly little animals, and she’s been crowned to represent what they want— revenge; against all who have ever feasted their chop and harvested their wool. She’s uptight and snobbish— a total brat far too spoiled beyond repair. She makes the utmost perfect host for controlling, frolicking alongside the flock as it continues to flourish and grow. The sheep and their leader are the living proof not to trust all things cute and cuddly. In fact, they’re all proof that trust is a fragile virtue granted and destroyed— all you have to do is look into the gaze of Bo Peep the wrong way and you’ll find yourself with wool over your eyes!

Special thanks to @pazam, @menthum-mint and @shroingushour for some help with ideas for the finalized design! I had a little bit of trouble making her outfit a little more interesting initially, haha!

[maidenvault]

Just a wild idea I have but maybe the best way to understand the female characters of the feudal/classical-based societies of ASoIaF is not in fact “this one is an analog to the bad kind of modern political feminism” and “this one is the good kind of feminism.”

[ghoulhusband]

i’m going to bed early (well not early but early for me) but before i do i was thinking about the 2000 cap entry fee to vegas and how much i love mods that make everything worth a very, very small amount of money. because the mojave economy being absolutely fucking wrecked is something that i don’t think gets touched on enough. sure, you as the player are making money hand over fist in the base game, but everyone else is so, so broke in all the small towns you visit along the way. good armor for a whole town is a 1000 cap investment according to chet, who’s pretty obviously exaggerating, but say he’s right?

that means the bighorner hides, the most valuable thing these people have (aside from water,) AFTER being processed into leather, which is an huge amount of labor hours, is worth 111 caps, if we use the 9 npcs in game.

but say you used a higher number, like how many people there probably would be in a really really small town. 45-60 people, let’s say. 22-17 caps per armor. and the credit check to get into vegas—not even to have a good time, to be able to afford everything, but just to get in—is 2000 caps. now sure, maybe the people in goodsprings have more caps saved away, but this is one of their main exports. they maybe have two or three times that much money lying around, if they’re lucky. if we can extrapolate that to the other towns (which are honestly probably worse off because most of them aren’t producing anything anywhere near as valuable as food, water and leather,) that means that in most of the mojave, the people actually doing the labor have between 17% and .09% of the money needed to get into vegas, depending on how big we inflate the number of people in each town.

so if no one has much money, then the towns are probably operating on the barter system, and then it’s 5 caps for x thing if you really have to pay. which is great for them in theory, i’m very pro bartering, but there’s a lot of resources in the area they’re clearly not benefitting from. where are they going? well, quite a lot of the ncr soldiers, even with the shitty caps to paper money conversion rate, have enough money to pass the credit check. they take their paycheck and they hit the strip. now maybe they get a special exemption, but i’m inclined to think they don’t, because that makes no sense. house is in it to make money, he wouldn’t make an exception for most of his customer base. so if the average soldier in the ncr saves their money, they’re making upwards of $5k per paycheck (ncr dollars are worth about 40% the face value of caps.)

that’s SO crunchy. like i’ve thought about this before because it’s a key part of the narrative, but i never sat down and did the math before. like if we use 2k caps as a sort of middle class line, just to do some real world comparison, let’s say that 2k caps savings makes you middle class, which is about consistent with real world usd figures, then you probably make about 60k caps per year (that’s the median middle class salary per person in the u.s. right now.) so all these people from the ncr are making $150k a year in ncr dollars.

if the ncr dollar ever became worth 100% of the face value of a cap, the average person in the ncr (who aren’t part of the prison labor system, or the other exploited classes in the imperial hub, which is a separate point,) are equal in wealth to upper middle class people from the u.s., today, by our scale. now, maybe that number is skewed because only the middle class ncr citizens can make it to new vegas. totally possible. that still means the foot soldiers of an occupying army are making an insane amount of money compared to their real world counterparts (in the u.s. enlisted soldiers make between $24k-43k.) while the average person from the mojave has between 17 and 333 dollars in the bank account. those are really specific numbers but you know what i mean. if you have under $1k in savings in the real world you’re in economic jeopardy. much less if you have $17. if we extrapolate yearly income from those numbers, the people with the largest amount of money saved (333 caps or thereabouts) are making 10,200 caps per year. which is below the severe poverty line in the real world. the person with $17 would be making about 566 caps per year. vs. 150k. the ncr is just destroying the fucking economy and house is so complicit in that. it’s such a killer detail that the amount of money that’s being extracted from the region is astronomically high compared to the living costs of every day people, and the only one who’s really seeing any of that money without tons of strings attached is house. who can’t fucking use any of it for anything beyond exerting more control over the region and finding the platinum chip. see: he spent 812,545 caps looking for it in one year alone.

[thatonecrookedsmile]

More progress being made. I finished re-reading The Illusion of Living this past Friday. It's a nice book. 👍 This was the last of the Bendy books in this "marathon" that I'm doing which I had already read previously and now I'm rereading, meaning that I'm kind of up to date when it comes to rereading all the books that were released until December 2021. But the race is not over yet. Soon I'll start Fade To Black, and (technically) I'll finally be up to date.

Just to continue my chain of posting about the books I finished (at least, the main ones that I really wanted to read) here it is…something I did at the beginning of March, on the night when shit went down. (I hope you know what I'm talking about). I saw the tweets first hand, I was there! Right at the damn moment. And it was..something reading those tweets alright. If the image above doesn't show it, my mood that night and the next 1-2 days wasn't so… great. You might read this and think I'm exaggerating, but that night especially I, uuhhh, I didn't feel good! And this image (and maybe 2 more posts I made that night) are the results of that. (And to think that a week before this happened, I had finished rereading DCTL after a long time. Talk about better/worse timing than this)

At least, if you want the bright side of this, it's that even after that day, I decided to continue with my book marathon, and I don't regret it. I was down that day, but I wasn't out yet damn it!! and I'm still not. (I don't know if this sentence makes a lot of sense, but you get my point)

As a bonus, here's something I did the night I got to the part where Henry is first mentioned in the book (you can consider this as a representation of my reaction when he's first mentioned, both for when I read TIOL for the first time in 2021, as now in this rereading)

Feat. canon Henry design and my fanon design for him (I wanted to include him here + I still read this book with my fan-designs in mind)

[commsroom]

Happy belated birthday! Just wanted to hop in again saying I love your posts about Wolf 359. They’re all so good.

I’m on a relisten again and am at the end of season 3. And I’m thinking about how fascinating it is that Hera remembered the Thanksgiving with her at the table physically. And in a post if yours I read recently or you posted recently you talked about Hera getting a human body and I think that scene kinda hints at maybe wanting to be physically there? Idk.

If you’re up for it you can share your thoughts on this. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and leave you with some of my Wolf 359 thoughts.

Sending you good vibes over the internet.

thank you; you're always so sweet!! 💙

we're absolutely on the same wavelength here, too!! that scene in particular is a big reason why i feel like hera would want a body - what it says about her self-perception, sense of physicality (even without experience to contextualize it), and... as a result, that she experiences physical loneliness. and, notably, that all of those things are subconscious framing in what she misremembers. i've posted about that scene before here, and in my... way too long essay about hera here, which i'll try to paraphrase a bit. and in other places, too, probably! i think about it a lot.

so: i think there's a big difference between existing differently (which can be isolating in itself, but... through lack of understanding) and feeling like she's always being kept away from the others - somewhere else, physically. she clearly conceptualizes herself in that space as within the hephaestus, separate from it and the systems she runs, the same as everyone else. that's the difference between "other people need to change their attitudes" and... well, other people still need to change their attitudes, but there is also something fundamental about her circumstances that she's unhappy with and needs to change.

(and, obviously, like... because you know i see hera as a trans woman, i think some of the parallels you could make to medical transition are pretty clear in that framing, too.)

minkowski says “you weren’t here with us [...] we were over here, and you were over there” but minkowski would never actually say that - from her perspective, hera was as there with them as she's ever been. but if hera doesn't feel that way - if - like the sound design suggests - she's always hearing their voices the way they hear hers... if she's always felt that she's somewhere else... then it's hard for me to imagine there's a way to resolve that without giving her the autonomy to physically interact with the others, to be seen the way she sees herself - and that's something i think is really highlighted in the finale, too.

[voidoftetris]

hello for the love of god hello. i just watched adamandi and all my thoughts are fist fighting for the opportunity to get out first except now they’ve all been knocked out and i can’t get them coherent

[willowfey]

someone tell me to be brave and hit send on this email