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panharmonium · 5 months

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Hi! I love your Naruto thoughts and meta posts with all my heart and I want to ask your thoughts on something that has been on my mind literally since I was 13: what do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura? I went from being a hardcore shipper when I was a teenager, to being against any romantic relationship in Naruto after finishing the anime when I was in my early twenties. Nowadays I'm very into platonic love and depictions of friendship and I think the anime's obsession with forcing the "romantic interest" curse upon the main female character robbed us of... so much. There are a few wonderful moments in the anime where Sasuke and Sakura acknowledge each other, but because she's always "the girl with the crush", her actions are so often interpret as irrational or selfish by the fandom.

Hi @riemmetric! It's great to talk to you again! Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this; RL has been making demands of me lately and it took me way longer to finish writing this up than I wanted it to (then again, I knew from the minute I read your original ask that my reply was going to get long, so I suppose I should have predicted a delay XD)

It's funny, my sister once asked me to choose between Sasuke or Sakura for an “unpopular opinion” meme, and I ended up doing Sasuke solely because I think the negative fandom opinions about Sakura are so unhinged and divorced from the actual text that I wouldn’t even know where to start. People are entitled to dislike whatever characters they want, obviously, but there are some fandom takes that are, for me, so obviously rooted in bad faith viewings/readings that there’s no urge in me to discuss them. That said, since you asked, I’m happy to go into my own thoughts on this a bit, with the disclaimer for other potential readers that I only write about fandom things for my own personal enjoyment, not as a contribution to The Discourse. If you don’t like Sakura, great! I have no interest in changing your mind. Please consider this a sincere invitation to scroll on by and go enjoy whatever parts of the fandom appeal to you.

In general terms: I love Sasuke and Sakura’s relationship as much as I love all of the relationships in Team 7. If we’re talking about them specifically as a romantic couple, then I probably fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, because I do like them together in a post-canon (to be clear: non-Boruto) setting, after time has passed and they’ve continued to develop individually and reconnect with each other, but I also wouldn’t exactly call myself an intense “shipper,” in the sense that I have no interest in pulling things out from the text and incorrectly citing them as evidence that Sasuke has hidden romantic feelings for her during the canon period. He cares about her in the canon period, just like he cares about Naruto and Kakashi. That’s not up for interpretation; it’s the text. But Sasuke during the canon time period does not demonstrate specifically romantic interest in anyone.

[A note before people who might ship Sasuke with Someone Else emerge to rail against this statement - please just scroll past and continue enjoying fandom in whatever way is most fun for you. It is cool to ship whatever fanon thing you want; I think that’s great! But earnestly citing any loving or emotional thing Sasuke does re: various characters in this story (yes, Sakura included) as indicative of specifically romantic love isn’t supported by the text. I know there are always going to be enormous subsets of any fandom who insist that it is, and I'm certainly not going to barge into anyone else's space to complain about that (because other people having fun together is harmless and none of my business), but I'm not obligated to indulge it on my own blog, either.]

Anyway, that said - the reason why I love Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship (from here on out I’ll use “relationship” in a general, non-romantic sense) is precisely because Sakura isn’t just “the girl with the crush.” Sakura has an arc when it comes to Sasuke, and its trajectory moves in the exact opposite direction of “irrational” or “selfish.” She specifically goes from “the girl with the crush” to “the girl who steels herself and tries to put her personal feelings for Sasuke aside for the greater good” to “the girl who knows she can’t put her feelings aside, but who also knows full well that Sasuke doesn’t reciprocate them, and who still wants to save him regardless, because he matters to her as a person and a friend.”

[I'm putting the rest of this under a cut to save everyone's dash, and also to emphasize once again that this is a personal post on my personal blog which I wrote in response to a question from a personal acquaintance, the full content of which no one is obligated to read. I am not sending this post to random strangers and forcing them to look at it. I'm not even putting it in the character tags. I'm typing it up on my own blog and putting it under a cut. If you already know that you don't like Sakura, but you still click the link/read the post and then feel an urge to comment and complain, I am going to copy-paste this disclaimer and remind you that I specifically recommended that you scroll past and go have fun with fandom in your own way. Thanks in advance for responsibly curating your own fandom experience!]

So, from the top:

1. the girl with the crush

Sakura is, obviously, completely obsessed with Sasuke at the beginning of Part 1. She’s also deeply clueless about him and his history (bizarre though it is, the story seems to indicate that she initially doesn’t know what happened with his family, the same way young!Obito is initially clueless about Kakashi’s father). But what I like about Sakura and Sasuke’s Part 1 relationship is how this changes over time.

The critical scene that kicks this off happens right at the beginning of the manga, when she and Sasuke are talking by that bench - she complains about Naruto and blames his behavior on him being all alone/having no family to scold him; and even says she’s jealous that he doesn’t have parents to nag him all the time. This obviously triggers an outburst from Sasuke, who tells her she has no idea what loneliness means and that she “makes him sick”/she’s “annoying” (importantly, the exact same thing Sakura said to Naruto in anger earlier that day), which in turn prompts Sakura to reassess herself and wonder whether she’s been making Naruto feel this terrible all the time, too:

From that point on, it’s a process of her putting little pieces together. She still has a MAJOR crush, and she still acts like a twelve year-old, but as we approach the end of Part I, Sakura actually has a more accurate grasp on Sasuke’s current state of mind than Naruto does. Naruto is initially excited to fight Sasuke on top of the hospital, because he feels like Sasuke’s finally acknowledging him, whereas Sakura is the one who immediately recognizes that something is wrong about this situation. She is also the one who, after this fight, is concerned that Sasuke is really unwell and might do something drastic like run off in pursuit of the power Orochimaru promised him, but when she communicates this to Naruto, he assures her that this would NEVER happen:

(Sakura isn't convinced, though, because she goes to monitor the exit out of the village anyway.)

I’m not criticizing Naruto for his response here. I ADORE hearing him say that Sasuke is too strong to need Orochimaru, with such perfect confidence - I love seeing how much respect and admiration he has for Sasuke underneath all their fighting, because that’s the whole reason he’s always baiting Sasuke and yelling at him and claiming “you're not so great!” He looks up to Sasuke; he wants to be like Sasuke; he thinks Sasuke is awesome! (It’s that Obito @ Kakashi behavior, you know?) But the fact remains that he is clueless about what’s actually going on with Sasuke in Part 1, and he remains clueless(ly optimistic) for a long time.

(Eg, when he catches up to Sasuke during the retrieval arc and Sasuke climbs out of that cursed seal coffin, Naruto waves at him and calls "Come on, let's go!" as if Sasuke has been successfully rescued and is now going to come running home. Even in Part II, when Naruto hears that Sasuke killed Orochimaru, he beams and immediately says, “So he must be on his way back to the Leaf Village!” And everyone else in the room is like, “....,” because they know better. Naruto doesn’t yet fully understand [or doesn't want to accept] the extent to which Sasuke has willingly chosen this path, and it’s not until after Jiraiya’s death/the Pain attack/the Five Kage Summit that Naruto really starts to understand Sasuke more clearly, which is something he himself admits.)

Sakura, in Part 1, has access to more information about Sasuke - she’s there for his first dissociative monologue during the bells test, she’s there for the curse mark’s placement, she’s there for his first violent transformation in the Forest of Death - she is, in fact, the unwitting catalyst for it (“Sakura…who did this to you?”), and her compassion is the reason Sasuke is later able to overcome the curse mark’s influence - so she has a more accurate/complete picture of “how he’s doing,” for lack of a better phrase, whereas Naruto, who doesn’t know about the curse mark in the first place, is still in the dark. This means that Sakura is able to accurately discern that Sasuke is struggling more than Naruto realizes, and specifically to predict that he’s going to run away.

(This dynamic is then interestingly flipped in the back half of Part II, since at any point after the Five Kage Summit, Sakura doesn’t have access to extremely relevant [if currently questionable and unproven] details that would in any other circumstance inform her behavior).

Of course, just because she has more info in Part 1 doesn’t mean she has some kind of miraculous insight into Sasuke’s every thought and feeling. There are parts of her attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village that are as clueless as any of Naruto’s assumptions, and they showcase the kind of magical thinking common to childhood - like when she says that if he stayed with her, she could give him happiness, she’d do anything for him, even help him get his revenge - this idea that she herself can do something to make him feel better, that she can love him powerfully enough to defeat his pain - obviously none of that is rooted in realism.

Is this part of her approach irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered? Of course it is! But it’s no more irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered than Naruto’s stated plan to drag Sasuke back to the village even if he has to “break every bone in [his] body!”

Hating on Sakura for her Part 1 attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village while simultaneously lauding Naruto for his feels like a bad faith misread of what is, to me, pretty clear narrative intention. The story doesn’t at any point intend for us to see her begging him to stay as a selfish or conniving attempt to get something she wants. She’s begging him to stay for the same underlying reason that Naruto is: she cares about him. She thinks he’s making a mistake that will only cause him more pain in the end (she’s right) and she wants to make it so he feels less pain right now (she can’t. But she doesn’t understand that/isn’t able to admit that, and she’s willing to try ANYTHING that might help).

It’s critical that this farewell scene is set in front of that same bench from their first important confrontation - she references that day and how angry he got at her, and this time she tells him that she understands his reaction. She’s learned things and she recognizes how insensitive she was being back then (“I know what happened to your clan, Sasuke”), even though she still can’t fully grasp all the complexities of the situation. She tells him that him blowing up at her back then helped her understand what loneliness actually meant (as opposed to her previous shallow understanding of it), and she challenges him about his choice right now: "So that's it, you're choosing the lonely path?" And when she tells him that she'll be very lonely if he leaves, we're immediately shown a panel of Sasuke thinking of both his friends, with the very clear implication that if he goes through with this, he will be lonely without them, too - that he's still struggling with the idea of leaving them, no matter how hard he tries to pretend:

Sakura at this point knows that Sasuke isn’t interested in her the way she is in him, but she still wants to give him happiness, however fantastical and immature her ideas sound to us (and, I’m sure, to him). “I’ll do anything, even help you get your revenge/we'll have fun every day, and...and you'll be happy! I'll make sure of it!” - of course, it’s completely childish. It’s irrational. It’s ridiculous to think that any of this would ever be effective, but no more ridiculous than Naruto’s belief that he can simply break every bone in Sasuke’s body and keep him in the Leaf by force.

Both Naruto and Sakura are children who have a deeply oversimplified understanding of Sasuke’s situation. They both still think they can fix him themselves. They both think they can save him themselves. They both think they can convince (or force) him to do what they want, what they think is in his best interests. Both of them don’t yet understand that he has to want to come back, if it’s ever going to mean anything. Their attempts to keep him in the village are immature and unrealistic, yes. What they aren’t, however, is selfish, because neither Sakura nor Naruto are doing any of this with the intention of advancing their own interests. They’re only thinking about Sasuke - how to keep Sasuke safe, how to make Sasuke happy - even when neither of them are taking an approach that will actually work.

Naruto and Sakura are children. They’re afraid of losing somebody they care about. Their attempts to prevent that from happening are desperate and messy and ultimately ineffective, but they are also genuinely felt and rooted in a true desire to rescue Sasuke from his pain, which - and this is the single most important thing that should impact our viewing of Part 1 - is something that Sasuke RECOGNIZES. He doesn’t spend that agonizingly long moment bowed over Naruto’s defeated body so we can pretend he doesn’t understand that Naruto was just trying to help him. He doesn’t take the time to murmur, “Sakura…thank you,” before laying her out carefully on a bench, just so we can discount it and pretend that he doesn’t recognize and appreciate her genuine intention to make things better for him, however clumsy that attempt might have been.

2. the greater good

If Stage 1 Sakura is "the girl with the crush," then Stage 2 Sakura is a progression to “the girl who decides to put her feelings for Sasuke aside in order to protect innocent people, including (but certainly not limited to) Naruto.” She’s driven to this decision by interactions with Shikamaru, who all too recently had to grow up fast himself (“We're not kids anymore...we can't allow a war to break out between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud because of Sasuke") and Sai, who risks his new friendship with Sakura and Team 7 in order to speak some hard truths and deliver one of my favorite lines in the whole story: “I don’t know what promise Naruto made to you, but it’s really no different than what was done to me. It’s like a curse mark.”

(INCREDIBLE. How can anybody be complaining about a season where Sai gets to say something that goes THIS HARD and Sakura LISTENS and takes DRAMATIC ACTION that actually propels the story forward in a meaningful way - )

[Okay, yeah, brief personal opinion interlude - it is just bonkers wild to me that there are people who complain about Sakura in the Five Kage Summit arc. That entire season is the greatest character arc she ever has. Literally she has never been more interesting and dynamic than in Season 10; it’s the first time she ever gets to be as deep and fascinating as the boys; what is everybody so worked up about? Oh, “she lied to Naruto that one time” - Sasuke joined infant-kidnapping baby-murdering human experimentation machine Orochimaru when he was twelve years old in order to (dare I say it????) selfishly pursue his personal goals and yet, somehow, we are still able to root for him. He abandoned his friends/allies to imprisonment and death (Suigetsu and Jūgo) or outright stabbed them in the chest himself (Karin) in order to (SELFISHLY) get what he wanted, and yet, somehow, we are still able to love him, understand him, and be on his side. Naruto is canonically not upset with Sakura about her lie after receiving context for the situation and I think we can probably take our cues from him without feeling the need to bring her up on war crimes; please calm down]

[Sorry, I just really love most of Season 10 and think it’s one of the best examples of how good this story can be when every single character gets to do something that matters (as opposed to things being all Naruto, all the time) so I get a little bit worked up over people complaining about some of the best writing Sakura ever gets. I don’t understand what certain elements of fandom want from her. People complain about her being “useless” and not doing anything that contributes to the story, but then they complain just as much when she does finally get to act decisively and have just as complex/dynamic an inner world as the boys. She’s “weak” for being unreasonably in love with Sasuke, but when she tries to be “strong” and put her love for him aside and eliminate him in order to protect Naruto and the rest of the world, she’s evil, because she should have been more understanding of his situation (despite the fact that she doesn’t KNOW anything about his situation). But then when she can’t go through with killing him after all because she cares about him too much despite the things he’s done, she’s not "compassionate" or "kind" or "a good friend," she’s “weak” again. Nothing Sakura does in S10 is more wrongheaded or rash than any of the batshit, buckwild things Naruto and Sasuke have done in the past (and will continue to do in the future), but when Naruto and Sasuke have big feelings or take bold action, it makes them interesting characters, whereas Sakura can’t breathe in anyone’s direction without being minutely scrutinized for moral impurities.]

Anyway. Back to a more measured response.

Every single piece of development Sakura has with regard to Sasuke in this season satisfies me so much. Her initial shock and disbelief at hearing that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki? Good, appropriate. The fact that she starts to acknowledge the reality of what Sasuke’s done sooner than Naruto does? Also extremely appropriate, very in-character for both of them. Her taking Sai’s words to heart and deciding that the promise she asked Naruto to make when they were children is causing him to suffer and she has to relieve him of that burden? Juicy! AND thematically significant (promises!!!! the burden that a promise places on a person, especially when it can't be kept - we've seen that before in this story and we'll see it again). Her anguished pivot from wanting to protect Sasuke to realizing that she has a responsibility to protect the countless innocents who will die because of the war he’s trying to start? HELLO THIS IS INCREDIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Her knocking out the classmates who agreed to help her so they don’t have to share in her burden (and so the only person Naruto will hate when it’s over is her)? BRUH. Her being so committed and focused on her goal of saving innocents and protecting Naruto (not just from being harmed by Sasuke/the Akatsuki, but by the possibility that Naruto will someday have to hurt Sasuke himself) that she tries to take everything on by herself and walks into a confrontation that she absolutely cannot win?? INCREDIBLE. (Literally the first time I watched this, I said, “Finally!!! It’s Sakura’s turn to go off the rails!” I laughed with my sister about how Kakashi isn’t even mad, because Naruto and Sasuke have been pulling stunts like this for years and Sakura was way overdue for her own meltdown.) And then, after Kakashi intervenes in the fight - Sakura barreling back into the battle when she realizes he’s going to take on the burden of killing Sasuke himself in order to spare her and Naruto the horror - “I can’t let Kakashi-sensei bear this burden!” I love her for that.

And then, of course, in the end - her not being able to do hurt Sasuke after all. Despite committing herself to the act, despite forcing herself to put her feelings for him aside, despite resolving to stop him from starting a war and killing innocent people, she can’t harm him. She cares about him too much. This, too, is thematically significant - think about Itachi’s “you don’t have enough hatred” - she doesn’t have enough hatred to kill someone she cares about, even if it seems like he deserves it, even if would be the right thing to do to protect others. She can’t do it, and Sasuke almost kills her for her compassion.

I love the dynamic this sets up between her and Sasuke, for a few reasons:

1) Personally, I think Sasuke respects Sakura much more for trying to kill him than he would have if she’d just tried to talk him out of his behavior or beg him to come home (a la their original confrontation in Part 1). This is the first significant interaction he’s had with Sakura in years, and the fact that she does something SO contrary to his memory of her is an important demonstration of the fact that she’s not the same girl she used to be. Sasuke spends a lot of time after his defection declaring to his old team “I’ve changed; I’m not that person anymore,” but this is one of the moments where he’s forced to acknowledge that his teammates have changed, too. Time didn’t just stop for them when he left. While he was turning into someone new, so were they. They grew up without him, and his old memories of them can’t encompass the whole picture of who they are now.

(This is a little tangential, but in general, I love the spectrum of reactions that Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi have in this sequence, and the way that all of them are ultimately messages Sasuke needs to hear. Sasuke - who we know textually regrets what he did here, who apologizes to Sakura for it later - for “everything,” in fact - needs Naruto’s aggressively optimistic open-arms policy, yes, needs that potential, that unconditional possibility of return. He also needs Sakura’s refusal to let him hurt her friends and start a war that will kill thousands of people, needs her surprisingly ruthless attempt to take him down; needs just as much her failure to do so, because it shows him that she still loves him too much to kill him even as she condemns him. And he needs Kakashi’s grim line in the sand, needs someone who very possibly won't hesitate like Sakura (despite the horrifying personal cost), someone who will try to reach him but also won't let him escape and become the next generation’s Orochimaru, who won't let him cause untold suffering to untold numbers of people just because a teacher loved him too much to stop him when he had the chance.

(And then even Kakashi chooses not to deliver a killing blow when he has the opportunity -)

(I know that in fandom people are more likely to be all, “oh, Naruto Good, everybody else Bad,” but I don’t think the narrative frames Sakura or Kakashi as “worse” than Naruto in any way. The story goes out of its way to make it clear how desperately they don’t want to hurt Sasuke and how much they care about him. And [this is just my interpretation, so obviously I won’t claim it as fact], I personally think that Sasuke - Sasuke, who, looking back, can see how lost he was then and how tortured he would have been if he’d gone through with many of his plans - would be grateful to Sakura and Kakashi for making an attempt to stop him when he couldn’t stop himself.)

2) On the other side of this, the fact that Sakura wasn’t able to deliver the killing blow means a lot. Sasuke was incapacitated under that bridge; he was completely at her mercy - but she stopped with the kunai an inch from his back. She couldn’t kill him, even though she knew that he was completely willing to kill her (because he'd attempted to Chidori-assassinate her from behind just a few minutes ago). That’s huge! Sasuke is too out of his head right now to process this or understand it, but later, it's going to matter. She stayed her hand. She spared his life. She loved him too much to hurt him, even when he’d given her every reason to take him down. She hesitated, and he almost killed her for it, but her inability to strike him ultimately gave him yet another chance to come home, another chance to get better, another chance to have a life outside of his pain. Despite everything, some part of her still hadn’t really given up on him, and that knowledge will matter later, when he’s finally able to acknowledge it.

The point of all this is to say that I really have no complaints about Sakura and Sasuke’s dynamic in their S10 confrontation. This season is the point where Sakura fully grows past her “girl with a crush” stage and into her “shinobi must make very harsh decisions” adulthood, but it never means that she doesn’t care about the person she’s trying to take down. Her ultimate inability to deliver the killing blow remains a dangling lifeline for her relationship with Sasuke, an open door that Sasuke is able to walk through at the end of the story (literally, in fact, when Sakura opens that portal for him and saves him from Kaguya’s desert prison, and figuratively, too, when Sasuke apologizes to her).

3. she only wants to save you

The last stage in their relationship is what Sakura settles into during the war arc. She started off Part 1 being just a girl with a crush, then tried to harden her heart and put her feelings for Sasuke aside in service of the greater good, but she was unable to actually follow through and kill him, and because of that, what she’s come to accept by the war arc is actually two things: that 1) Sasuke truly is willing to let her die if it furthers his goals, and 2) she wants to save him anyway.

She has no intention of pursuing Sasuke romantically. She knows full well that Sasuke isn’t interested in her. She even knows that Sasuke isn’t really on their side (there’s a great scene where Sai questions Sakura about Sasuke’s return, and she reassures him that everything is fine, and Sai sadly thinks to himself “even I can tell your smile is fake”). She’s well-aware that Sasuke didn’t try to help her when Madara stabbed her. She’s well-aware that he left her to die in the lava pit. She’s also well-aware that none of this is enough to make her stop loving him. He doesn’t have to care about her - she still cares about him. She still wants to help him. She still wants to save him.

This is not hidden, hard-to-parse character development. It’s explicitly articulated on the page:

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers! She only wants to save you.

I’m not sure if people look at this last confrontation and unquestioningly take Sasuke at his word (as if we haven’t just read 71 volumes/watched 700 episodes showing us how how painfully distorted his thinking is), or if they stop reading/watching before the end of the scene, or if they don’t understand that Sasuke saying something doesn’t make that statement an accurate representation of reality. The entire point of this scene is to show us how deeply mistaken Sasuke is about Sakura (and, by extension, the rest of Team 7). He’s locked into a false pattern of thinking. His single-minded focus on revenge and destruction has blinded him to the unconditional love his friends feel for him; he’s become so accustomed to using others and being used that he can’t understand or accept that someone would care about him without needing a reason, without needing him to love them back, without needing to receive something from him in exchange.

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers! She only wants to save you.

Sasuke matters to Sakura as more than a love interest. He always has. She does love him romantically, yes, but she doesn’t only love him romantically, and her desire to help him is not and has never been contingent on him returning her feelings, romantically or otherwise. Sasuke isn’t able to acknowledge that in this scene, but that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to just sit back and agree with his warped perspective. Kakashi is the one who’s explicitly positioned as the voice of the narrative here. We, as the audience, are supposed to recognize that Kakashi is the one telling us the truth.

[tangential thing 1: You don’t have to love Sakura's last plea to Sasuke here. It’s not my favorite, either - the best part, other than Kakashi’s speech at the end, is the moment after Kakashi collapses when Sakura’s expression changes from pained uncertainty to pure rage, when she grits her teeth together - when I first saw that, I almost leapt out of my seat like “Oh my god. She’s finally going to let him have it. It’s finally happening - ” I wanted that so badly, and I still think it would have been a more effective writing choice for Sakura’s last words to lean more into her anger at the suffering Sasuke is causing all of them (himself included!) and less into yet another of Kishimoto’s “let me have Sakura articulate what a shame it is that she can’t do as much as Naruto despite the fact that I literally just went through a major reveal sequence in the war to show that she’s caught up to the boys; I can’t make up my mind about whether I want her to progress or not” - it’s extremely frustrating (and it's something he does at the very end of the S10 Team 7 reunion, too, which is the ONLY moment of S10 that falls flat for me). But at the same time, even if there are ways this sequence could be more satisfying, it doesn’t change the fact that her plea to him is not remotely motivated by a desire to be with him romantically and not anything to condemn her for.]

[tangential thing 2: I do like how she remembers that moment when Sasuke says “Thank you.” That panel precedes her saying “If there’s even a tiny corner of your heart that thinks about me…” (which I’m sure is one of the things that people like to criticize about this scene, aka “oh she’s sooooo self-centered” etc), but that particular line of dialogue is preceded by that particular flashback panel for a reason: Sakura knows that Sasuke DOES think about her. He thinks about all of them. Sakura remembers that “thank you,” and it reminds her that despite everything Sasuke has done and said since, despite all evidence to the contrary, she knows in her bones that his expression of gratitude back then was genuine. He cared about her once. He cared about all of them. She’s trying to reach the part of him that still does, if it exists.]

[tangential thing 3: The fact that Kakashi says “she suffers from loving you,” and it triggers Sasuke to remember his own family - thinking about how much he suffered (and still suffers) from loving them - “Perhaps…those are the ties to a failed past” - the idea that it’s not worth it to have bonds if it means you suffer this much…that it’s too difficult, it’s too painful, and if Sakura and the rest of Team 7 were smarter they would just give it up (all Sasuke knows how to do now is sever potential bonds before they can hurt him; so why aren’t Sakura and the rest of his teammates doing that, why can’t they let it go, why are they making this so hard - ) << yeah, he clearly doesn't care about her/them at all.]

4. the shadow of my family

This has all been a really long way to answer the original question, but the short response to “What do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura?” is “I really care about it,” just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto, just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Kakashi. And I don’t think the story ever asks me to choose between them.

I’m not sure whether it’s the impact of Boruto-era “canon” that gets in the way of other people approaching things this way (I don’t consider sequel material when I evaluate the original story), or if it’s Kishimoto’s frequent disinterest in/disrespect towards female characters, which yes, does sometimes make it harder, or if it's a shipping thing (bane of my existence), or some combination of factors, but for me, taking one member of Team 7 out of the equation hobbles the rest of the story. I can’t read/watch Naruto while hating one of the protagonists and loving the other three. It doesn’t work like that for me. The story wasn’t written that way, and there’s nothing in the text that would cause me to receive it that way.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with disliking one of the main foursome (or any character, for that matter) - obviously we're all going to have different preferences, and everyone is free to enjoy or reject whatever parts of a story they want, or to like or dislike whatever characters they want. I know that some people have more fun disregarding canon and doing their own thing, which is fine. My own personal zone of enjoyment comes from receiving the story as closely to how I think it was intended to be read as I can, and personally, when I look at this particular story, what I see is that all the members of Team 7 clearly demonstrate their love for Sasuke in ways that he himself later recognizes and acknowledges. All of them are driven by their desire to save him and their unwillingness to hurt him. All of them make repeated choices to chase after him when he runs away, to trust him when he hasn't exactly earned it, to give him another chance when he doesn't appear to deserve it. ALL of them, not just Naruto, do these things multiple times throughout the story, and Sasuke owes his life (and thus his eventual recovery) to ALL of them, many times over. Kakashi disobeys Hokage-elect Danzō and breaks the law to negotiate for Sasuke's life with a foreign head of state. Sakura and Kakashi both have opportunities to kill Sasuke in the Land of Iron, and they choose to spare him instead. Kakashi stops Sasuke from killing his only friends at two different points in the story, which would have been a mistake Sasuke couldn't have recovered from. Sasuke would have died in Kaguya's desert dimension if Sakura hadn't saved him (Sakura, who knew that Sasuke wasn't even truly on her side yet, who knew he'd abandoned her for dead multiple times already that day). Kaguya's bone bullet would have killed Sasuke too, if Kakashi, with his intention to die in Sasuke's place, hadn't leapt in front of it (Kakashi, who also knew that Sasuke wasn't fully on their side yet, who also knew that Sasuke had abandoned him for dead earlier that day). Sasuke and Naruto would have BOTH died in the Final Valley if Sakura and a severely injured Kakashi hadn't chased after them to heal their injuries.

Remove any one member of Team 7, and Sasuke never makes it home. Without the combined efforts of all three of his teammates, he doesn't survive. That’s the way it should be, thematically, for a story whose first and most foundational premise was the importance of teamwork, and since Sakura was just as essential to that framework as everyone else, I’m just as invested in her relationship with Sasuke as I am in his relationship with everyone else. You can’t remove one leg from a four-legged stool without damaging the integrity of the entire structure, and for me, discounting any single member of Team 7 irreparably damages the integrity of the entire story.

TL;DR: I love all of the Team 7 relationships, including Sakura and Sasuke's, because despite what some segments of fandom seem to believe, the text of the story never gives me any reason not to.

#naruto #meta #replies #anyway that's that! hopefully that is a helpful answer #thank you for the question! i honestly don't think i would have ever gotten around to writing about this if i hadn't been directly asked #i love talking about the stories i enjoy (obviously; we all do; that's why we're here)#but i'm usually ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about responding to takes that blatantly misread the narrative to justify hating a particular character or ship #mostly because a) it's whatever. as long as people mind their own business and leave me to enjoy myself they can do what they want #and b) some opinions are so divorced from the actual text that they're not worth discussing #like. what's the point of responding to random internet posts saying that sakura was selfishly pursuing sasuke as a lover the entire time #when that is textually and provably not the case?#if you're that committed to experiencing things in direct contradiction to what the narrative is asking of us then just go ahead #is it mildly annoying to me? sure. but so are lots of things and it's better to just let stuff go #like - i initially planned to take this piece of meta all the way up through sakura and sasuke's last scene together #the one where he tells her 'maybe next time' and finally reclaims and redefines itachi's forehead tap (INCREDIBLE. THIS SCENE.)#but ultimately i changed my mind because everything i wrote for that last section was coming out too harsh #i generally prefer to talk about fandom stuff in a chill/friendly approachable way #but i kept thinking about the most obscenely & disrespectfully inaccurate read of that scene i'd ever seen #and i couldn't figure out how to talk about it in a non-scathing way #that scene and the one where naruto gives sasuke's headband back are the ONLY well-written things about the finale of naruto #they are SO perfectly constructed and i can't respond to people slandering either one without feeling an urge to kill #so i just deleted it. partially because again - this is fandom; it's not that serious; people can do what they want #but also because i know i get extra frustrated about people picking over the text and plucking out isolated bits and pieces #to contort into blatantly misinterpreted mutant shapes that 'confirm' whatever pre-existing judgments or ships they had #instead of experiencing the story as a cohesive whole & keeping in mind the greater context of what it's always been trying to communicate #people on this website say 'we all interpret things differently :)' as if it means no one can ever be wrong about what a text is saying #newsflash: not all interpretations of a text are valid. things can't in fact mean whatever you want them to mean.#the ***story*** persists and exists even if the author is dead to you #if you choose to ignore that then that's fine; it's just fandom; who cares. but i'm not going to pretend you're 'analyzing' anything.#(ok now i'm really done. you can see why i deleted this section XD)

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kxllerblond · 9 months

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Happy Tuesday everyone, I will now be unloading unsolicited opinions about the RPC.

People take 'This is a hobby!!' way too far to the point you are not taking into account other real people also exist and are only thinking about yourself and it can come across as scummy and self-absorbed and a lot of people use the 'just a hobby!' to excuse this shitty behavior and an inability to communicate with other hobby enjoyers like adults.

No one should get mad at people for dropping threads or not being active, but it's also super shitty to just ghost people and go 'teehee just a hobby so you aren't allowed to be upset!'. Like, yeah, you have limited time and a real life but so does?? everyone else on here?? It's super not cool to just invalidate people who are upset their limited time is, in their view, being wasted.

Obviously, I'm not defending people that don't just unfollow or block and move on and who get passive aggro about it all. And I'm also not calling out the people that don't do much but are like PRESENT to some degree even if it's just ooc shitposting.

I mainly mean the people I see who refuse to do threads, to answer asks, to communicate when stuff is being dropped to some degree, to participate and be social in any capacity and then get kinda pissy when no one wants to send them shit anymore. Like you are entitled to exist and participate in this hobby as you see fit....but it is a social hobby. You HAVE to give to get and if people pin you as someone who only takes, they're going to stop giving. None of us have little meow meows that are so interesting that we can just expect people to frolic to them and gush about them and shower them with interaction without some sort of reciprocation.

And, frankly, I don't think there's room to complain when that happens. You can't have your cake and eat it too in this scenario. You can 'this is just a hobby!' your way through things how you like, but you also have to realize the consequences of that and you can't be upset when they come down on you and your blog.

#like I KNOW there are ppl here i am chill with who do not interact with me as often as before because i am a notorious thread dropper #and not everyone can do that short thread. drop. new thread. drop. manner of rapid rping #and thats FINE. i accept that consequence.#and there are ppl im chill with who i dont send memes to much anymore because they never answer them or never return the favor #doesnt mean im mad about it doesnt mean i fault them for it. ppl have lives. but that the consequence and it involves me redirecting my tim #and energy to send memes to ppl who DO engage in return etc #there's just been this sudden surge in like....entitlement ive noticed. and it's just sort of co-opd what used to be a message #directed at ppl that were being demanded to reply to things the same day etc like it was a legit /good/ message #now you cant even like unfollow someone without them being like ITS JUST A HOBBY HOW DARE YOU UNFOLLOW hostility because someone is choosin #to take their business elsewhere so to speak so they can have fun with this hOBBY. its so...weird ykno #we dont owe anyone anything but a lot of ppl forget the second half of that which is #yeah but other people dont owe us anything in turn either #cw long post #cw negativity #well i mean only if you see urself in this post i guess OOP. otherwise man idk #dont get pissed at ppl for not hobbying to ur speed or standards #but also dont be surprised to learn ppl are different and have different paces and shit and WILL move on #if theyre not getting enjoyment out of the pace you're hobbying at #ur not entitled to their attention just like they're not entitled to urs ykno

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rattusn0rvegicus · 4 months

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Bro they really be trying to put four year olds on antipsychotics... crazy shit

#Look I have very mixed and confusing feelings about the fact that I didn't receive any psychiatric treatment at all until I was 19-20 and #didn't get antipsychotics until I was 22-23. But like...#The pendulum can swing way too far in the other direction too #I'm reading Anatomy of an Epidemic and oh I'd love to have a conversation with Robert Whitaker about my case #<- grew up fundie Christian and very extremely anxious and then obsessive compulsive and then psychotic and depressed #(but did not receive any medical care for it whatsoever)#While I think meds would have helped me I also think that the average modern American psychiatrist solution of like #'throw more and more drugs at the problem until they go away and throw drugs at the side effects of those drugs' is. Bad #Idk what I'm saying tbh #I know for a fact my issues (aside from at least part of my emotional numbness) aren't iatrogenic. I was Very Mentally Ill from the start #And while I do consider my utter lack of care as a kid/teen/young adult to be some form of neglect it's like #The alternative (the modern American psychiatric system) was NAWT good either #I don't know a single person who's on meds who doesn't have some sort of complicated relationship with them and all I'm saying #is they shouldn't be treated as a magic bullet #Hell *I* have very complicated feelings about my meds and I haven't really been *harmed* by them just... Chilled Out Too Much #ANYWAYS #This book is kind of shitty towards ppl on SSDI (kind of implying that they're a Burden To The Country) which is gross #but otherwise I'm enjoying it

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monty-glasses-roxy · 11 months

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Thinking about Meteors AU again and I thought “Hey what if I did Monty’s whole thing first and then Roxy’s whole thing which can be the breaking point and Vanessa has to step in as the long suffering only braincell to ever enter the Security Breach universe”

#There's only so much patience she can have #they're like giant toddlers at this point and she loves them but also oh my GOD #STOP trying to eat the ducks at the park!!#and get out of the fucking tree!!!!#PLEASE!!!#someone help her she's like that meme of the parent with two toddlers on leashes going two different directions.#except the toddlers are an anthropomorphic wolf. alligator and spider.#the spider is the easiest to handle he's so chill and then there's just those two idiots #biting chunks of the bar of soap.#i love meteors I should totally go back to that one its honestly hilarious #the horrors really do be horrific #but it's so fucking funny #/chill

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magickedhat · 1 year

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i know i've said this before but i just love wren's character development over the years. as a teen they would steal/vandalise from random people or businesses just for the thrill of it or from spite. now they'll steal and vandalise from the thrill of it but ONLY from brand businesses or individuals they have a personal grudge against. it isnt much but its better than nothing AHKDBBI

#ooc. ◜♣ / ❛ 𝐧𝐨𝐣𝐢 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐬. ❜◞#as a teen they also reacted Terribly to feeling wronged #if u got on their bad side they were a terror essentially ahkdbi #not so much physically?? they'd still get in fights but they also knew physical strength wasn't their best quality #they'd just vandalise or steal tbh abkdkb or play dangerous pranks #if u were nice to them it was chill but they could still be a jerk sometimes. like. just for Fun #i just abkdbkbof look they've MATURED okay i'll take what i can get #they're more mindful of how their actions affect people now #and they have uncovered a lot of stuff about their parents now and their anger is directed towards a very specific cause #rather than being taken out on the people around them #(most of the time)#they're trying abjdbjcbj

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if-you-like-pina-colada-s · 1 year

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The aph nations are all pathetic ass losers we all know that I've seen yall drag them through the dirt like ragdolls. But let them be cool for once, just let them be downright the coolest people you've ever met. Just an absolute blast to be around. This new years I'm gonna write them some stuff that makes em look so cool you guys just you wait.

#hetalia #hws #this is probably incomprehensible to yall but whatever you'll see what i mean #when i say cool i mean leather jacket sunglasses lean back cuz im so chill kinda cool #i mean the cruisin downtown with the homies strutting down the street in my sexy new oitfit kinda cool #i mean the we shine brighter than the neon signs at night kinda cool #i mean the sly smirk as i rev up the engine of my ferrari and wink at your direction kinda cool #i mean the no matter where we go people cant help but stop and look cause dayum we're so hot kinda cool #i mean the when we smile youre a goner and when we talk youll never want to stop listening to my voice kinda cool #the kinda cool that just draws you in and leaves you wanting more of em cause wowza they're just so. damn. cool.#ik yall love dragging them thru dirt and throwing them down muddy slides like ragdolls that have been thru hell n back but PLS GUYS #let them be cool

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ohnoproblems · 1 year

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watched a broadcast of a police "chase" today where the dude drove the speed limit and obeyed all traffic directives except for yielding to cops. they tried to pit maneuver him twice and he just took himself over the median and turned around to follow traffic the other way. the cops ended up spike stripping one of their own SUVs while trying to stop him. when he finally stopped he just sat in his truck, unarmed, with a big tank of nitrous doing whippets for several hours while the cops desperately wracked their pig brains for a tactic that could stop a dude from chilling in his truck.

this was a situation that could have been resolved with a taxi and a tow truck and like, a court summons after running the plates. cops aren't here to solve situations, they're here to justify their obscene budgets and military equipment by making every situation an excuse to wage chemical warfare on anyone who doesn't allow them to define the situation.

they shot pepper bullets into his cab. he sat in his truck. a gaggle of them crept up to the passenger side and tossed in a tear gas canister. he tossed it back out the driver side and kept sitting in his truck. the cop negotiator brought water for the guy but then rather than actually give it to him to demonstrate even an ounce of good faith he threw it on the ground like 10 feet away from the truck as the most obvious bait. they brought in SWAT! fucking SWAT and their shitty SWAT monster truck, for an unarmed dude sitting in his truck. it was only misdemeanors until the cops showed up and made everything about them which made the dude's every attempt to leave into a felony because it's happening around a cop.

and all the while the news anchor is like OH YOU DON'T WANT THESE PEACE OFFICERS EXPOSED TO FURTHER RISKS, YOU DON'T WANT THEM CAUGHT IN CROSSFIRE (from who?? other pigs?? they're the only ones with guns!). HEY COP CORRESPONDENT, WHAT IF YOU USED A FLASHBANG ON THE GUY. god, when even the cop correspondent is like "uhh we're not doing that" you know you've said something sick. i cannot emphasize enough how much of it was just the dude sitting in his truck. the pigs solved this real brainscratcher of a conundrum with more tear gas because that's the only verb they know.

abolish the police!

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familyvideostevie · 4 months

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day after tomorrow

joel miller x reader

summary: joel drops you off and picks you up from the airport. you are definitely falling in love with him.

warnings: modern no outbreak au, game!joel or hbo!joel, fluff, really just a fluff fest honestly, new-ish relationship, falling in love, sweet enough to make your teeth ache | 2.7k

A/N: this is a christmas gift for my dear friend @strangerfreaks who makes my life better in every way possible. i love you! hope you enjoy this <3

___

He's leaning on the side of the truck when you hurry outside with your stuff.

"Morning," you call. It's barely that, sky still dark and air still carrying the bite of the night's chill.

Joel straightens up and gives you a tired smile. Most of his smiles are tired but they're always genuine when directed at you. He tugs the backpack from your shoulder and presses his lips to your cheek, beard scratching your skin gently.

"Howdy," he says in your ear before pulling away.

The travel mug Joel pushes into your hands is warm to the touch.

"Tea," he says before you can tell him it's too early for coffee. His voice is deeper than usual, still warming up from sleep. It's not a cup from the local shop -- they're not open yet -- so he must have made it at home. "No caffeine before flights."

"You remembered?"

He gives you an unimpressed look and grabs your bags. They go in the backseat of his truck and he jerks his chin at the passenger door. "Get in. S'chilly."

It's also early. So early you were not going to ask him to drive you to the airport but when you mentioned you had to go on a work trip he offered. Insisted, actually, once he found out what time you needed to get there.

"You ain't takin' a cab that early," he had said. "Hell, you ain't takin' a cab home, neither. I'll pick you up."

This thing between you isn't new anymore, not exactly, but it's not solid yet. It doesn't have a name. But it's been a few months and you know what his sheets smell like and the feel of him pressed against you in the middle of the night and how he laughs with his head thrown back, mouth wide and eyes creased at the corners. He likes to take you on long walks around the lake a few towns over and you know all about his daughters even if you haven't met them yet. Your life feels a little more solid with Joel in it and the swell of your heart in your chest when you talk to him, when you see him, when he looks at you, is a welcome feeling. It's nice to want and be wanted in return.

The inside of his truck is warm, your seat heater already turned on. The radio is down to a low hum and there's a silver cup similar to your own in the holder between the seats. Joel gets back into the truck with a slight groan and glances at you to see if you've got your seatbelt on before he clicks his.

"Ready?" he asks. You nod. He settles his hand on your headrest and looks out the back windshield as he reverses the truck out of the driveway. "Shouldn't hit much traffic," he says.

You take a sip of your tea and watch him as he drives out of your neighborhood and towards the highway. Part of you wishes you would hit traffic so you could look at him longer. Even in the dark you know his face pretty well by now. His hair is getting a little long, the dark threaded through with some grey and falling over his perpetually lined forehead. The scar on the bridge of his nose that you love to run your finger across and the bruises under his eyes from too many nights up late working on site plans and employee schedules. You don't think you've met a man who works as hard as Joel, and yet here he is driving you to the airport when he could be sleeping.

Maybe it's because he's tired or maybe it's because it's dark or maybe it's because you're leaving for a few days but Joel lets you look without teasing. His eyes catch yours for just a second and he smirks.

"Why don't you drink coffee before a flight?" He takes a sip of his own thermos. You watch his throat work as he swallows and look away this time. The sky is starting to look purple out your window, the trees and fields and occasional buildings flying by too fast for your eyes to settle on anything. Joel drinks coffee like it's water. You're still leaning things about each other -- most days you find yourself thinking that you want to be learning things about him for the rest of your life -- and this is a new topic of conversation. You haven't had to be on a plane since you met him.

"I don't really like flying," you say. "Makes me nervous. I figure caffeine will just make it worse."

"Don't like it much either." You look at him again and find see smirk turn to a frown as he merges onto the nearly empty highway. "You gonna be okay?"

He asks like it's within his power to make flying something enjoyable, to cancel your work trip, to squash everything in this world that makes you nervous. Mostly you're just glad he's not teasing you about it. Maybe someday you can take a trip and be grumpy about it together.

"I'll be fine, Joel."

"Hm."

He rests an elbow against the window and rakes his hand through his hair.

"What are you up to this week?" you ask.

He sighs. "Not much," he says. "Lumber shipment but Tommy's handlin' it. Ellie says her shower head is actin' funny so I'll go to her place and look at that. Probably sit my ass on the couch and try to watch a damn football game or somethin'."

"So what I'm hearing is you're going to miss me." It's meant to be a tease but it comes out a bit more earnest than you'd like.

He sends you that unamused look of his but the mirth in his eyes betrays him, tells you he sees through it. You're learning that he's good at that -- seeing what you really mean, what you really want, who you really are, all the way down to the core. "Course I will," he says. "What man wouldn't miss cold hands bein' stuck up his shirt when he gets in bed?"

You scoff and Joel snickers. You could remind him how he usually catches your hands in his before you make it to his hemline on the rare nights he does wear a shirt, how he cradles your fingers and blows on them softly while rubbing them with his perpetually warm palms. The memory makes your breath hitch just a bit.

It's only three days. Some conference your boss wanted you to go to in his stead. It won't require much of you -- you just have to attend a few panels, a dinner or two, and schmooze a little bit. You'll be back before you know it. You tell yourself it's silly to feel this apprehension at the distance, the time apart. But you're used to Joel by now and damn if you won't miss him. Used to him taking up space in your kitchen, used to his arm around you on the couch, used to his short texts and heavy gaze. You know by now that it's only a matter of time before you love him.

"I'll miss you, too," you say softly. Joel eyes you, smirk turned soft again and reaches for you. He settles his palm on your thigh and you cover your hand with his.

When you get to the airport aren't many cars around and you're pretty sure the attendants won't yell at you for idling. Joel seems to think the same thing as he gets out of the truck to set your luggage on the ground. You leave your now-empty to-go mug in his car and throw your arms around him when he gets to the curb with your suitcase. His chest rumbles in amusement but he hugs you back, one palm rubbing between your shoulder blades until you pull away.

"Thank you for --"

"Nope," he interrupts you. "No thanks allowed." He hands you your backpack and you shoulder it. "I'll pick you up on Wednesday," he says.

You wave him off. "I get in way too late, don't worry about it --"

His hand cups your cheek and the words sputter out in your throat. "I'll be here," he says again.

"I'll call you," you say. "When I get there." It sounds like a question.

His eyes crinkle at the corners. "Please do."

"Thanks for the tea --"

"Now, what did I just say?"

You wrinkle your nose at him and he rolls his eyes before leaning in to press his lips to yours. You sigh into the kiss just a little though it remains chaste, mouths closed as his thumb strokes your cheek once, twice, before he pulls away. It's the kind of kiss that feels fond, feels familiar. A kiss that becomes routine and for a second you imgaine the press of your mouths a thousand times over just like this.

"Safe flight, sweetheart."

You smile at him and grab your suitcase before you stand here kissing him all day. "Bye, Joel."

6:04 am: you make it to your gate okay?

You send him a picture of your breakfast sandwich and the sun rising through the window, painting the sky purple and orange.

6:05 am: don't text and drive!

He replies with a photo of a full mug of coffee on his counter. It's a silly one, a dinosaur wearing a Santa hat. You think Sarah got it for him as a gag gift.

6:05 am: home already. let me know when you land

6:06 am: will do. have a good day!

The flight is pretty okay. You spend the bumpy moments thinking about Joel's hand on your leg and get through it just fine. A shuttle takes you to your hotel and you have to hurry a bit to be ready for your first panel.

You're busy all day. So tired by the time you get back to your room that you flop on the bed with a groan.

"Ugh," you say, face smushed into the sheets. You're tired and hungry and...you miss Joel and feel a little silly about it.

That sense of puppy love, as most people would call it, hasn't faded. Your feelings for Joel are more than the crush they were when you first started seeing each other but they still linger in the realm of infatuation. You like to look at him, to feel the solid warmth of him beside you, above you, underneath you. You like being near him. But you're also starting to love things. You love the way his voice sounds when he wakes up, the way he says your name over the phone, the way he asks you what you want, how you are, how your day was. You love to see him on your couch, in your kitchen, in your bed. You've started to miss him when he's not around.

And what you said to him in his truck is true. You do miss him. It's an ache that sits in the center of your chest, an ache that feels like the best kind of bruise -- because it comes from something good. And because you know it'll be soothed soon enough.

But, because you're only human, you doubt that it's as serious for him. Joel keeps his cards close to his chest and while you feel like you know him pretty well by now you also have so much to learn. So, though you really want to, you don't pick up the phone and call him. Maybe the next time you're away.

7:54 pm: day 1 done! ready to get in bed. why do men talk so much?

He texts back immediately.

7:54 pm: god knows. don't forget to order room service on the company dime. sweet dreams.

You laugh and do as he says.

The rest of the conference goes the same. By day three you're exhausted and your face hurts from smiling at so many people. Your shoes are no longer comfortable and as soon as the closing keynote ends you're out of there, changing into soft clothes and taking the shuttle to the airport. You text Joel a picture of your airport dinner and then your eye bags and he replies with a cute that has you giggling a little too loudly in public.

You just want to get home to him. Your own bed is a bonus.

But then your flight gets delayed. Twice. Joel tells you not to worry, he'll pick you up in the middle of the night if he has to. Once you board you get stuck on the tarmac for another half hour before finally taking off. It's a decidedly less relaxing experience because you're so anxious to be home but you make it. When you land it feels like you're sitting in your seat for ages. You're tired and feel gross and you want to go to bed. Your phone turns back on and you've got one text waiting for you.

10:34 pm: i'll be by baggage claim

That was 15 minutes ago. He must have been checking your flight in the air to get here at a reasonable time. God, you want to touch him. You want to stick your nose in his neck and inhale.

You try very hard not to run through the terminal to the escalator that goes down to arrivals. It seems to move really fucking slowly once you're on it. As soon as it gets far enough for you to see the baggage claim level and everyone waiting there your eyes search for him. You see some families, a few tired children sleeping in arms that hold them tenderly. A group of girls with a sign that reads WELCOME HOME RACHEL!

And then there's Joel.

Once you spot him it's hard to keep a smile from your face. He's standing there with his hands in his pockets, eyes glued to the escalator. Jeans, jacket, boots, and a firm set to his jaw that might be intimidating to anyone else but to you it's familiar. It's him. Once he sees you he stands a little taller and you see his cheek twitch. If someone wasn't in front of you you'd be down the steps in seconds but you wait until you're at the bottom to race forward.

It's probably a bit dramatic. You drop your suitcase and backpack at your feet in front of him.

"Hi," you say, and then you throw your arms around his shoulders. Joel laughs.

"S'like you're comin' home from war, or somethin'," he says, though his hugs you back just as tightly. "Should'a made a sign."

"Feels like it." Your words are muffled by his shoulder.

"That bad, huh?" His palm drags up and down your spine. "Let's get you home, then."

Neither of you pull away. "I missed you," you say softly.

Joel breathes deep and pulls away, hand on the back of your head as he makes sure you're looking at him.

"Missed you, too," he says gruffly. Then he kisses you. It's less chaste than your goodbye kiss but still perfectly acceptable for airport arrivals, you think.

"You hungry?"

"I sent you a picture of my dinner!"

"Not what I asked." You shrug and tangle your fingers with his. His thumb strokes the back of your hand. "We'll get you somethin' on the way home."

"Do you want to stay over?" you ask in a rush, realizing too late he's got no reason to want to. It's late and tomorrow is a workday. "I'm just gonna shower and go to bed but I--"

Joel's nostrils flare. "If you want me to I will." Simple as that.

"Okay," you say. He squeezes your hand.

You walk in easy silence for a few moments. Once you're in the car you'll ask how his week was, tell him about the gossip you learned at the conference. You'll look at him the entire drive to your place, drinking your fill of him after three days without. Yeah, you're going to love him. It's just a matter of time.

"Thank you for coming to get me," you say.

Joel looks like he wants to argue but he allows it.

"Anytime," he says. It sounds like a promise.

thank you for reading <3 reblog, send feedback, general masterlist here!

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fluff

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kquil · 2 months

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POLY MARAUDERS | HEROES IN TATTOOS PRT.7

07 : APOLOGIES & COMFORT

CHPT. SUM. : sirius and remus are both very stubborn and need you to help them make amends, thankfully james is there

REQUEST. : could i request a hurt/comfort blurb with poly!marauders in the heroes in tattoos series where r is having really bad cramps and they comfort her- maybe when they're busy with clients and she doesn't want to disturb them but they notice? - requested by an anon (i had to make some tweaks, i hope you don't mind, my darling)

TAGS. : modern au, muggle au, tattoo artist!sirius black ; tattoo artist!james potter ; piercer!remus lupin ; hurt/comfort ; fluff ; mvp james ; james becomes a menace though so is he really the mvp? ; wolfstar fluff ; making up ; reader is also an mvp ; accidents happen ; period things~ ; remus is on the brink ; somebody save this man! ; no! somebody save reader from this man! ; assumes that reader does not take medication to regulate her periods ; assumes that reader wears sanitary pads for her periods

LENGTH : 4.3k

← PREV. : 06 | SELFISH DESIRES | SERIES M.LIST

“Sirius…” Remus sighs as he sits across from you and the man in question.

“If you have a problem, I hope you know that I don’t care,” you feel the tattooist smirk against your temple as he presses another searing kiss into your skin. The tension from the room hasn’t fully dissipated yet, however, most of the fiction was swept aside leaving the air clear enough for a more civil conversation.

With Sirius’ insistence, you were left no choice but to sit in his lap as Remus sits across from you. This left James to sit all on his lonesome, occupying the grandfather chair to your left as a warm smile reveals his asymmetrical dimple, directed solely at you.

Remus groans in frustration and stands to his full height in order to pull his sleeveless sweater off. Sirius peppers light kisses along the column of your neck but it isn’t quite enough to distract you from the image of Remus undoing the top buttons of his button-up shirt nor the way he rolls up the sleeves to his elbows - a weak attempt at trying to cool down from the heat of the previous encounter.

You’re tempted to look down once again but are too embarrassed to do so; the images that pervade your mind are too inappropriate and they taint the gentle and kind image you have of Remus… Although, maybe that isn’t too bad. A gentle giant masking an indelicate second face was quite attractive in your eyes. Maybe he’ll finally suit the rouge-ish image that comes to mind when you take in his many tattoos, which were often suppressed by his soft, dark academia-inspired fashion.

Massaging away some of the tension in his taut wrists, his large and veiny hands on full display, Remus sits back down with a frown, “This is a fucking mess—”

“—you’re a fucking mess,” Sirius shoots back, a mischievous hint in his tone as the heat in your cheeks continue to increase until you’re positive you have steam steadily rising out of your ears.

“This is serious, Sirius,” Remus calls his name almost mockingly and the icy stare Sirius sends him in return is so icy you feel the chill run down your spine without having to look.

“Oh, I am serious, don’t you know who I am?” before the tension could rise to dangerous levels again, you launch yourself off of Sirius’ lap, willing the butterflies from your stomach away and suppressing all imagery of the affection Sirius was just drowning you. It was his attempt at distracting you from the tense situation but you’re fed up of it now. It also breaks your heart seeing them like this when you know their true affections for one another.

“That’s enough!” you stand as strong as the finality ringing in your statement, “you two need to make up!” Remus and Sirius face the point of your accusing finger with disgruntled expressions, “I thought you two loved each other,” your disappointed tone makes their shoulders sag in shame and their eyes avoid one another’s.

“Dove, please—”

“—Listen…” the careful intonation in your voice doesn’t go unnoticed and wills them to hear you out with care, lips sealed shut, “you were both right — you both had good reason to act the way you did and I can’t blame either of you for wanting to steer things into a certain direction but I’m also to blame for this, okay? I was horrible at communicating my true emotions and that led to a lot of unnecessary heartache on both sides,” with a deep breath, you establish your resolve, “can’t we all just make up and move forward together?” everyone in the room knows that when you said ‘we’, what you really meant was just Remus and Sirius.

James has been an absolute angel throughout all of this, collateral damage to their bickering and unloving behaviour towards each other; stuck between a rock and a hard place. You only have sympathy for him being caught up in the middle of it all.

“Dove, it’s not—”

You swiftly interrupt, “I love all of you,” your confession makes them all stutter and flush pink in the cheeks. It’s an image that makes you smile warmly just before insecurity creeps over and your smile turns shy, “don’t… don’t you love me too?…” it was now clear in their actions that they reciprocated your romantic affections and so you weren’t wrong to assume that they wanted you to take part in their relationship…right?

The drawn out silence that followed was too much for you to bear. Even after taking some of the blame off their shoulders and confessing your love, they were still too stubborn to admit their wrongs and make up. Huffing, you make your disappointment and frustrations known with a deep frown, thoroughly concealing your heartache from their silence .

“We just need—” Sirius finally begins, stubborn as ever, only to be glared at harshly by both, Remus and James. This was not the right time for excuses. You had just worded your true feelings for them and they needed to reciprocate in kind. But those words were hard to come by, the timing for a confession also wasn’t ideal for the moment. Then again, when would it ever be. They’ve all just proven how incompetent they were at emotions despite being in such a loving relationship, and yet, you were still willing to accept and be with them romantically. The words they have for you reached beyond that of just love; they were also grateful, astonished and embarrassed for their incompetence.

“I love you too, angel, so so much,” James finally speaks up, eyes bright and his smile warm with his adoration of you. He ignores the high tension in the room, eyes fixed solely on you as he glowed like the summer sun but he doesn’t reach out for you in any way, he simply sits and admires. Admires how beautiful you look, admires how strong you are, admires how loving and sweet you remain despite all the trouble and anguish they’ve put you through.

You feel the world disappear around you and narrow your focus onto the only person you were grateful for in the room at that moment. Year heart pounds with warmth and devotion and all you want to do is be close to him. Helping yourself into James’ lap, you smile up at the bewildered look on this handsome face, “Oh James, you’re my only saving grace,”

James smiles at your words as his arms wrap around your waist, securing you in place, “yeah?” his voice is a faint whisper and airy with his adoration for you.

“Yeah,” reaching up, your arms wrap around his neck and pull him close so you can press your face under his chin. Behind you, you feel the baffled attention of Sirius and Remus, “how about I feed you some lunch again? Like we always used to do?”

Without waiting for an answer, you lean over to swipe up one of your lunch containers and proceed to feed him, completely ignoring the grumbling and whining emitting from Sirius and Remus.

“I like your thinking, angel,” James giggles adorably and happily accepts your affections as the two of you silently agree to ignore the other two until they make up. In the mean time, you’ll enjoy each other’s company in your own little bubble of love.

“How does it taste?” you ask sweetly, blatantly ignoring Remus and Sirius, sitting side-ways on James’ lap but keeping your full attention on him.

“Delicious! More than delicious!” James exaggerates and basks in the bell-like giggles he draws from you, he doesn’t want the sound to ever stop, “You’re always such a great cook, angel!”

“I made it all with love, just for you, Jamie~”

He hums low and appreciative, “I’m so fucking lucky, aren’t I?”

As you continue to feed him, James takes the opportunity to look over your shoulder and smirk at the miserable faces of his two lovers. They know they deserved this unfair treatment. They also know that, to remedy it, all they have to do is abandon their pride and apologise, which is always worth it when your love is on the line — it should be easy for them. All things considered, this was just light punishment.

Faced with only one solution, Remus and Sirius turn to each other. Sirius still grumbles under his breath as Remus sighs. The brunette accepts that it was entirely his fault for pushing Sirius to suppress his natural way of loving just for his own personal fear that things would turn out horribly, otherwise. And judging from the way Sirius avoids his eyes and continues to whine, Remus knows it’s up to him to make amends.

‘But it’s not so bad’, Remus smiles to himself; seeing one of his beloved partners grumpy and stubborn was oddly charming. And now that most of the conflict has dissolved, Remus had no other reason to hold back an apology other than for his own personal pride.

Making his way over, Remus kneels down beside his grumbling lover and whispers his name affectionately, “Sirius,” Remus waits, patient and unhurried, until his beloved in question finally looks at him. As soon as they meet eyes, Remus is left thinking the same devoted thought he’s always had when drowning in his boyfriend’s diamond-grey eyes, ‘how did I get so lucky?’ which is then quickly followed by a guilty, ‘why did I ever let it get this far?’

“Remus,”

“I’m sorry,” the piercer doesn’t wait for a response and, almost desperately, leans up to capture Sirius’ lips. The kiss is filled with emotions, a mix of sincerity, love and forgiveness. The sentiments were so keen they almost smother the murmured, unspoken words on Sirius’ tongue, “what was that, love?” Remus asks against his lover’s lips, unable to pull away fully. He missed this…

“I’m sorry too…”

It was a unanimous decision to have you spend the night at the boys’ shared flat. They’ve been kept away from you for too long and tonight they wanted to make up for lost time. High on emotions and desperately missing their presence in your life too, you agree as long as you dropped by your place first for a change of clothes. But not before having Remus and Sirius apologise to James for their neglect of him.

“You know, we really are so happy to have you in our lives, dollface,” Sirius utters, leaving feathery kisses on your lips as he pushes the door to their flat open whilst carrying your duffle bag for you. He was kind enough to take you to and from your flat on his motorcycle just for the quick collection of your night time essentials.

“I’m happy you’re in my life too, Siri,” the situation has finally dawned on you but you still can’t believe the events that have lead you to this very moment.

“Stop hogging her, Padfoot!” James whines, sweeping you off your feet and hurrying to the living room with you in his arms. Once there, he sits you on his lap triumphantly, “Aha! You’re finally mine!” he cheers and attacks your neck with a flourish of kisses, tickling you and infecting the air with your melodic giggles.

“Now you’re hogging her Prongs, stop being a hypocrite!” Sirius pants lightly after rushing to the scene from the hallway, a grin plastered on his lips despite his accusing words.

From the kitchen, Remus smiles to himself at the sounds of merriment in the air and continues to cook dinner.

This is how it should be…

Remus wanted to sort the conflict with Sirius out more, so he insisted that you spend the night in James’ bed which you happily agree shyly, James grinning widely at your side. All three of you agree as Sirius whines and makes adorable grabbing motions at you but it’s no use as Remus keeps the tattooist pressed tightly against his side, dragging him off and trapping him in his room for the night. The sight made you giggle but it was a brief reprieve from the anxious nerves that soon had you avoiding James’ eyes.

“You’re so cute,” James whispers affectionately at your shy behaviour, resisting the urge to kiss you as he leads you to his room and gestures to his en suite, “you can change in there, beautiful, I can change out here and brush my teeth at the kitchen sink instead,”

With a small smile, you move past him with your duffle, eager to get ready for bed but squeal in surprise when you feel a teasing pinch at your ass. An explosion of heat blooms across your cheeks when you glance over your shoulder and observe James’ sly wink and devious smirk directed at you.

“James—!”

“Angel with a cutest ass, aren’t I a lucky bastard?” he chuckles and presses a devoted, almost possessive, kiss onto your lips, “I never did say thank you for making those two apologise to me,” he purrs and nips at your bottom lip, “you make me feel seen…god, I love you so much,” you squeak into the fierce kiss that follows, almost losing yourself in the embrace but pry yourself away with a squeal when his hands travel too low and squeeze greedily at your ass.

You rush into the bathroom with butterflies in your stomach as James licks his lips and laughs merrily. He’s come to love teasing you and you didn’t know whether to argue or welcome it with open arms. Shaking the thoughts out of your head, you move on to change into your pyjamas - an oversized shirt and shorts - before proceeding with your night time skincare routine. For a moment, you contemplated taking a shower but rule against it, not wanting to prolong your night time routine. No more than fifteen minutes later, you were out of the en suite bathroom feeling refreshed and ready for bed but giggle at the sight of James already tucked under the covers. He looks so cosy and innocent, it almost makes you forget about his devious behaviour earlier on.

“All ready?” James asks with his usual boyish grin and sits up, allowing the covers to drop from his chest, at which point you quickly realise that James is a liar. He didn’t need to change into anything! All he did was take off his shirt and he was all set for bed! “I changed into comfier pyjama pants, though,” he argues lightly as you slip into the right side of the bed.

“That’s just half changing!” your retort has him laughing aloud, your flustered state beyond amusing and incredibly adorable in his eyes.

“Am I making you shy, princess?~”

“…No,”

“Oh yes I am~”

“Go to sleep, James,”

“Not without a goodnight kiss from my angel,” he leans over you with his naked chest on full display and you stutter in embarrassment, “don’t be shy, come and give me a fat smooch~” he puckers his lips above you and awaits your compliance with closed eyes.

“James—”

“I’m a very patient man, darling, I can do this all night long,”

“No you’re not,”

“Yes I am,”

“You’re not,”

“I am,”

“Not!”

He finally peaks an eye open. Then slowly opens both eyes as he un-puckers his lips to smirk down at you, caged in between his muscular arms as he props himself up with his elbows, “You just like staring at my beautifully muscular chest don’t you?” you watch as his ego inflates to dangerous levels right in front of you, “My tattoos turn you on too, angel?~”

“Oh for goodness sake!” you finally relent and lean upwards, your smile matching his own when you finally capture his lips in his much desired, goodnight kiss. With one arm holding himself up, James uses his spare hand to hold your face in place, prolonging the kiss. You have no choice but to accept his needy demands as your hand searches his bedside table for his lamp switch.

Morning comes with you groaning in discomfort as a syrupy wetness coats your inner thighs and painful pangs make you want to curl up into a ball. Your bleary morning fog makes the situation difficult to decipher but the realisation soon comes crashing down like a landslide and you lift the covers with a scream, the scent of iron becoming more potent. Beside you, James jumps awake, fully alert as his worried, hazel eyes scan you, trying to discern what may be the problem.

“What’s wrong, angel?” he asks, voice deep and groggy with sleep but dripping in concern.

“James, I’m so sorry,” you sob into your hands and curl up into yourself, hiding your face away from him.

“What do you mean?” he reaches forward, inching closer to you in the process and quickly realising what’s wrong when he feels an unusual wetness seep through his thin pyjama pants, “oh angel, don’t be upset, it’s okay,” he coos, gently prying your hands away from your face so he can kiss your forehead tenderly, “it’s normal. Are you okay?” he asks softly, looking over you without an ounce of judgement or anger on his face, only concern and soft, kind, heart-fluttering love in his eyes.

“Th-the blood—”

“I don’t care about the blood,” he insists gently, “I just want to make sure that you’re okay,” you remain silent from the embarrassment but he’s understanding, “do you want me to get you some painkillers?”

As soon as you give an affirming nod, he’s out of bed and hurrying down the hall. It doesn’t take very long for him to come back to you, a glass of water in one hand and a pack of painkillers in the other.

“Thank you,” you finally utter with a small smile, still upset at having ruined the sheets but so incredibly grateful for his tolerance. Patiently, he waits for you to take your dosage before he’s sweeping you up in his arms and carrying you into his en suite.

“Get cleaned up, angel,” he voices into you hair before placing you back on your feet, “I’ll change the sheets in the mean time,” he leaves you with a kiss before you could utter another word of apology. He wasn’t going to take it, he made that very clear, because it wasn’t your fault. And it was nothing a little oxi stain remover couldn’t fix.

The start to the day wasn’t ideal but James, Remus and Sirius made one of the most agonising and frustrating times of the month for you much more enjoyable. James woke his two lovers up while you were showering in his bathroom, thanking your lucky stars that you bought a spare change of clothes just in case you wanted to shower, and they all made the effort of getting you comfortable.

James changed his bedsheets and laid a dark coloured towel down for you to lay on top of just to catch any more potential leakage. He made sure you didn’t see his bloodied sheets again too so that you wouldn’t continue feeling guilty and happily took care of the stains away from your line of sight. Sirius worked on breakfast as Remus made you some tea and a hot water bottle and, before James steps out of the flat to buy you period pads, you hear Remus call out helpfully, “look for the long, heavy flow pads and make sure to get the ones with wings,” their thoughtfulness makes you smile.

“How did you know to get these ones?” you ask when James comes back, panting as he hands you the pack of pads through the door of his en suite.

“Remus told me, and I heard girls experience heavier flows on the first few days,” his answer draws out a proud smile. You have no doubt you’d be well taken care of in this relationship, though it does make you bashful.

“Thank you, James,”

For breakfast Sirius cooked you french toast with strawberries and honey, apparently it was the only good thing he could cook. Remus balanced the sweetness of the meal out with some eggs and toast, while James brought over the tea and hot water bottle Remus had also prepared. Breakfast was pleasant but they boys were insistent that you stay in James’ bed and call if you needed anything. As much as they wanted to spend the full day right by your side, they were preparing to make the announcement of returning their business into full operations and were still taking calls and responding to client emails at home. You didn’t argue, you knew the shop was important to them so you didn’t want to be a burden.

The day drags by and you know they’ve made it clear that you could freely call out to them whenever but the hours drag by and they haven’t heard a single peep. They didn’t mean to lose their full attention in their work; it’s been so long since they were last filled with the motivation to keep up with their business that emails and paperwork on equipment orders had piled up significantly so they were swamped. Thankfully they were finally inspired enough that the work didn’t feel laborious. Unfortunately, that meant seeing them in their element though James’ open doorway and shying away from redirecting their attention back to you.

It wasn’t until you willed yourself to walk to their kitchen that you finally caught their attention. All phone calls, email responses and paperwork filing was stopped as soon as you stepped into their line of sight when your craving for a snack became too much. They had gone for a quick shop to buy you an array of snacks from sweet to savoury that morning and had left the bag on their kitchen counter. You were just reaching for the bag when Remus caught your wrist and swept you up into his arms in order to carry you back into James’ bed.

All three of them felt incredibly guilty for having neglected you, unintentional or not, they even neglected themselves in the process by prioritising their work and forgetting about lunch. In Remus’ head, everything circled back to the night before as a chain of linked events. As you laid in bed, curled up and nibbling on a chocolate bar, you watch and listen as Remus scolds the two about how, if the outburst didn’t happen, they wouldn’t have asked you to stay the night, you wouldn’t have agreed and you wouldn’t have had to suffer from their incompetent care. Remus was being too hard on himself, which reflected directly onto Sirius and James.

“This is why I said we needed to be careful and. To. Be. Patient,” Remus snarls under his breath, almost growling at Sirius and James who stand at the foot of the bed. James nods with a disappointed sigh as Sirius crosses his arms and huffs in defiance. They’re developing a bad habit of speaking about you when you’re still in the same room but, at least, it means their thoughts are open to you.

“I didn’t see you complain when you watched James and I practically devouring her sweet little mouth yesterday,” Sirius’ challenging comment makes the tips of James’s ears turn visibly pink as an embarrassing heat climbs up your neck to bloom across the apples of your cheeks. Interestingly, James can barks and bites to his heart’s content with you but if anybody else brings it up, it seems that bashfulness isn’t far behind.

Remus shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose, “don’t start now, Sirius—”

“—I-I don’t mind, we’re all learning to love together and I know how important the tattoo parlour is to all of you so I really don’t mind…” you interrupt their bickering with flushed cheeks and shy eyes, unprepared for the reaction you would receive.

Remus snaps his full attention towards you in that moment. Your words were innocent and you look the picture of virtue, shy and sweet as you peer up at them with glittering doe eyes and a small smile. Remus doesn’t think anybody else could be more beautiful than you right now. You appreciate his passions, you support it even, you’re understanding, you’re kind, you’re loving, you’re sweet and you’re so incredibly lovable, he wants to keep you away from the rest of the world forever, selfishly keeping you for himself. He wonders if you know how much of a tease you’ve been to him this whole, working him up over and over and over again until he finally snaps.

Morals and patience be damned — he can’t resist you anymore.

Remus’ face carries an unreadable expression as he gives a slow exhale and strides over to you. Sirius and James watch from where they stood, unmoving but with sly smiles on their lips — they know you’re the perfect image of Remus’ weaknesses bundled into one being and they both knew this was coming. It was about time… they applaud him though, he has more patience than them — but he had more desires too.

It all happens too fast for you to register but Remus was quickly looming over you, propped up by a hand on the bed as his other gripped at your chin. His eyes were piercing and held such promise within them, un-breaking and passionate, that you couldn’t look away.

“Don’t tempt me, beautiful girl,” his voice lowers several octaves and is underpinned by a hypnotising vibration that corrupts your limbs with minor tremors and a ferocious heat. Shamelessly, he captures your lips in a soft and tender kiss, an antithesis to the dark gleam in his feral eyes, “I’m not above making a mess in the bedroom,” you gasp at the implication and, for a moment, your cramps become pleasantly arousing. Again, Remus can’t help but hold your lips hostage in an increasingly impassioned embrace. He greedily eats up your pretty moans, the muffled sounds going straight to his groin and making his smart trousers uncomfortably tight — a prickling warning to his precarious conduct, “so be a good girl and sit pretty until after you get over this, okay?” he utters roughly against your lips.

He’ll wait just a little bit longer…it’ll be worth it.

NAVI. | SERIES M.LIST | NEXT : ... →

A/N : goodness me, this was so much harder to write than previous chapters, i kept changing so many things but i think i'm satisfied with the final product, i hope you darlings do too~ the next chapter will be a pretty big one i think, so i won't be posting it for a while, however, i may post short additional imagines/scenarios for this series that don't necessarily follow the chronological order just to satiate some of you XD anywho~ i hope you darlings enjoyed this chapter and look forward to the next one

TAGLIST : @susyelectra @fangirlninja67 @pagesfalling @thepunisherfrankcastle @axeofwars @in-love-with-4-marauders @chicken-taco-burrito @valencia-rou @feast0nmeee @lestat-whore @hvmxjjk @twilightlover2007 @diaryofabiwoman @woohoney @celestialfantasiess @willbedecided @lovelyygirl8 @iiirhiane-g

@mangodamochiii @queerqueenlynn @l3xiluve @brain-has-left @bunbunbl0gs @citrusiove @virtualbuni @awkward-d3rs3-dr3amer @that1nerd-20 @wolfstar4everbitches @skepvids @dearmy-diary @em16cor @krazyk99 @imdoingbetternow @realalpacorn @remussbitch @swiftieeras1989 @lonely-nerd-sodaholic @canthavetoomuchchaos @b-i-h-i @ennycutie @kneelforloki @theteaobsessedbug @d1gital-data @venezsuwayla @melllinaa

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palmtreesx3 · 8 months

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Deeper for You

Summary: (5.1 k) It's your annual beach trip with the crew from Hawkins, something you've all been doing together your whole adult life after life forced everyone to part ways. You're all close, but this year, an accidental encounter in the outdoor shower makes you get a little closer with one person in particular.

This is self indulgence at its finest. Fresh off my last week at the beach this summer, I needed a little Beach Steve in my life to tide me over.

Steve x Reader, NSFW 18+ Accidental exposure, friends to lovers, breast play, female oral, fingering, dirty talk encouraged, a little orgasm denial, maybe a spank and unprotected intercourse in the shower.

Crystal water. Crystal skies. Beach chairs circled around umbrellas and coolers. Crisp beers slipped in aging koozies and passed around like old times. You and your friends have been doing this for years. Ever since goals and lives and even some wives have taken the group here and there, Nancy started organizing this annual beach trip for the group from Hawkins. Years and miles have nothing on deep seeded trauma, she said once, in a too cheerful voice despite it's truth.

The heat of the sand between your toes and the smell of suntan lotion have become a comfort to you, just knowing you're back there with your closest friends. As you all creep closer to thirty than you'd like, this week never fails to make you feel nostalgic, youthful and forget all of your problems because it never feels like an ounce of time has passed with any of these people.

This year Nancy had to upgrade the rental - more rooms for yet another married couple in the mix, Eddie adding a wife - a little too sweet but just enough sass for him - into the fold. It was your first time meeting her, really meeting her, because no bride has the time for new friendship on their wedding weekend, and you've had such a nice week spending time with her. Chairs in the sand by the waterline together with a book most afternoons, leaving the raucous energy that comes after some morning beers as background noise to your fantasies.

"What are you two ladies reading over here anyway" Steve pokes at your shoulder on his way down to the water to cool off.

"They're fantasy novels, Steve. Naughty books, if you must know." You tease back, Eddies wife blushing beside you at your brazen honestly.

"Naughty books? Like love stories where they kiss and share a bed?"

"No Steve, like '... And then she felt the tips of his finger circle her clit before toying with her folds and the wetness pooling between her thighs. Edging her, pulling her closer but never giving her cunt what she really wants'" you read in an exaggerated and breathy voice direct from your page, picking up right where you left off. "That, Steve, is Naughty Books. "

"Shit. Okay. Well I'll leave you two to it, then. What the fuck." and he trots off into the waves. Sunkissed skin a perfect contrast to the white, foaming waves he's now floating in.

"So, that… you guys have a thing before or something?" Eddie's wife asks softly. So sweet, you can't even be mad at her for it.

"Steve?" You laugh, "No-no no. Just go way back "

"Oh I'm so sorry" she squeaks out, "I just thought… I mean you guys. Nevermind."

"Don't worry about it. We're all a little too close for comfort sometimes. I get it. We just have always gave each other shit as long as I've known him, that's all."

Later that night, the whole group gathers in the back of the house around a huge built in fire pit, all taking turns sharing, giving updates about life and work and families.

Late nights have been happening all week around this pit, but tonight is cool, and the Sangria Robin and Max mixed up is keeping you chilled.

"Hey, honey. You finally quit or do you want to join us over here?" Steve calls over to you, beckoning to the group of smokers over on the bench seat to the left of the fire.

"Every time I try… someone like you offers me a smoke and here I am again." You shrug as you lean over to snag the pack of cigarettes from Steve's outstretched hand before taking a seat. You slide out a slim cigarette and pull the lighter from it's spot in the back, lighting up and passing it back, kicking your feet out on the coffee table in front.

"Someone like Steve, what's that supposed to mean? You hurling insults again?" Johnathan teases.

"No, no. Byers, shut the fuck up. Lemme enjoy this sweet nicotine with my friends in peace, okay?" You roll your eyes, not actually knowing what you meant either, before shooting a look at Max sitting with the group. "Since when did you sit on the smokers bench? Huh?"

"Don't start with me mom. You've tried to quit four times a year for the past 10 years, so I don't even wanna hear it from you." The redhead sasses back.

Such a beautiful, self assured young women she's grown into, despite having such poor eyesight from…everything that happened…you have always had a soft spot for Max, and she for you. The glasses she wears are thick, despite years of corrective surgeries, but they don't take an ounce away from how lovely she's grown to be.

"Yeah yeah, just shut up and enjoy it. I bet Lucas hates it. Doesn't he? Goodie two shoes." You quip back and Max giggles in agreement, both of you taking a long drag as a follow up.

"You two man-eaters are trouble." Steve jabs.

"Excuse me, man-eaters? The one who has been dating the same guy since middle school and me, who goes on what, maybe 4 dates all year? Yeah total man-eaters, Steve."

After finishing your smokes, you all rejoin the group, playing dollar games of cards and dice, laughing the night away at bad luck and bad jokes. El has been banished to watching over participating and when Eddie's wife asks why, the mutters and mumbling of a wide variety of excuses poured out.

"It's uh - against her religion!" straight from Dustin's mouth won out, mostly because it was the loudest. So now you're all pretending El is Muslim, and that's definitely not going to last the rest of the week.

It's nearing two am as you pad up the stairs, pockets 10 dollars deeper, sand still clinging to your feet just barely and Steve's button up on your shoulders from when he passed it to you to quell your chill. Just like every other night of the trip, you sleep like a baby, tucked in a soft mattress with softer sheets and the blanket of a decent buzz still coursing through your bloodstream.

The next day is the last on the shore and after a late start and breakfast cooked up by Nancy and Johnathan to sop up the hangovers the day goes on much like the rest before it. Relaxing in beach chairs and blankets, music softly humming from a boom box in the shade of the umbrella, balls being tossed in a friendly game of touch football in the loose sand by the dunes.

The tide was rough today and swept you and Eddie's girl away on your chairs once before you slipped your books back in your beach bag and decided if you can't beat it, join it. Frolicking in the waves together, the rest of the group is shortly behind you joining in.

It's not five minutes until Eddie is tackling his wife into the crashing waves, rolling her dramatically in the lapping waves and sand. Max and El are jumping through crashing waves, hand in hand trying to make it past the crest and to where it is calm. Some of the boys are sitting in the sand watching and enjoying the cool breeze you catch when you're closer to the sea.

You, well, you were enjoying yourself wholeheartedly. That is until you're making your way back to shore and a huge wave creeps up behind you and slams you to the ground. Water currents tossing you around a bit like a ragdoll, it's a moment before strong arms pull you up and out, wiping your hair out of your face and brushing the wet globs of sand off you as you regroup. It's Steve who's got you and brings you back to shore, where you flop down on the sand together and burst out in laughter after you're both sure that you're alright, making it even harder to catch your breath.

The day at the beach was way more sandy than usual because of it all, sitting in the sand, being thrown around by gritty waves and soupy sand finding it's way intermingling with your bathing suit. You just can't wait till the end of the day to shower and hose off, so you dip away to hop in the rinse shower along the side of the property. Door swung shut, you run the water cold so it's as refreshing as it is a welcome rinse to your body where the sand is sticking and scratches.

Hair slicked back by the cool droplets, you're realizing quickly that a simple rinse won't rid your swimsuit of all of the caked in sand. Maneuvering your emerald green one piece to shake free the grit of the ocean, you're making progress as you drop your wide set straps off your shoulders and start working out the sand from your upper half.

It's just then that Steve must have had the same idea, and he's traipsing through the door of the shower himself, only to find you, strap down, left breast fully exposed, tan lines of your right crisp and leaving nothing to the imagination the way the suit is bunching down, and your hands coaxing the water over them from the low pressure showerhead to work off the sand.

"Holy fuck!" You both yell at the same time.

Yours an exclamation. A "Holy FUCK!" A barked out reaction to the surprise. The admonishment of your friend who doesn't seem to pay a goddamn mind to anything going on around him or he would have heard the shower tap on and running when he approached.

But his… Well, his was a statement. A "Holy. Fuck." Drawn out. A deep and gravely comment made to acknowledge the surprise he's found. More of an interest than an intrusion.

So when you reached to cover yourself and hide from embarrassment as a knee jerk reaction, he didn't make quite as quick a move to leave you be. He lingered, just enough for you to notice and under his breath whispered out again "Holy fuck."

Adequately covered, or at least enough that you can feel functional at this point, you look at him to quip "Are you just gonna stare or what?" And you expect him to snap out of his titty haze and leave you be to shake out the rest of your sand trap, but he doesn't.

Instead he asks, "Well, is that an invitation?"

Your eyes narrow at him, and he shrugs in reaction. "You can't be serious, Steve. Get outta here."

"I save you, and this is the thanks I get?" He teases, and you can't help but see how his eyes, blown out and black, don't move from your body when he says it.

"Steve." You say, quietly.

"Yeah?"

"I can thank you later." comes out just above a whisper.

"I think I'd rather you thanked me now."

When you don't argue back, or say anything for that matter, he takes that as enough of an answer as he needs. He knows you, and he knows that you have no problem telling someone to take a hike, so if you're not yelling at him like he's a small boy who got his hand caught in the cookie jar, he knows you're inviting him to take a bite.

So he's inside the shower quicker than your mind can even catch up to what's happening. He's crowding your space and reaching backwards to do the one thing you forgot to do yourself, hook the damn lock. You're pretty sure this man hasn't moved his eyes from you since the moment the door opened and at this point, you're meeting his gaze.

A sweeping hand, under your ear and landing on the nape of your neck is what shakes you out of your daze and before you know it his lips are on yours. It's a bruising thing, the way he presses them into yours, pulling you closer still by where his hand is cupping your head with his broad hand. You come up for air just a second before he backs off and you find yourself, open mouthed and smiling into his lips, still pressing into you. "Fuck. Honey. I- you okay? With this? I don't wanna… "

"I know I tell you this all the time, but this is different. Steve, you fuckin talk too much. Shut. Up." You say, emphasizing your words with two little tugs to his own hair where your hands have snaked around, too.

And he takes this welcome advance as an opportunity to wrap his other hand around you, up and under your arm, resting at the center of your back. Pressing together, you're so close. Impossibly so, and every little tick of the hip or twitch of the lips can be felt by the other instantaneously. He's testing you out but getting bolder by the second when he experimentally rolls his hips just a bit before coaxing your legs a bit wider to slot his knee in between. You gasp out at the feeling of him against you and involuntarily find yourself rolling your cunt against his thigh.

"Ah-oh fuck. Shit. Steve." You squeak out, as you look down to see that he's tucked up his swim shorts high enough that your grinding on his exposed thigh. Bristly hair on his legs commingling with the scratch of the sand and sea salt on your own thighs.

"C'mon, honey. You came in here to get clean. Me too. Lemme help you, yeah? '

Nodding your permission, he gently slips his fingers under the still loose straps of your suit, coaxing them down further, fingers ghosting over your arms as he works them down.

You've been doing this trip for years, and you swear the last thing you ever thought would happen was having Steve fucking Harrington peeling off your wet swimsuit in the shower. "You sandy all over, huh? Me too. Gotta rinse you off." he says, as he's reaching up for the shower head, detaching it from its base and bringing it down in between the two of your chests. Holding it there for a moment, he seems to consider this whole thing for the first time. "You-your good, right? I mean, I trust you. Do you trust me? "

"Yeah Steve, I do." You say, pressing your forehead to his and blinking away droplets gathering on your eyelashes.

He pulls the rest of your swimsuit away from where it's suctioned on your tummy and works it down your body, dropping heavy and wet on the shower floor. Once it's out of his way, he's back on your lips, sucking in your bottom lip just as you feel the cool water hitting your clit. Steve moves the shower head gently but purposely around your whole cunt, paying attention to your sensitive bud between passes through your folds. "Gotta get you cleaned up, huh? Need you clean for me. For what I'm gonna do next." He teases and you moan at his words.

Not exactly sure what he has planned just yet, you let him keep working your pussy clean and with every second of the pulsing jets of water hitting your clit rhythmically. "Yeah, baby I think you're all set." He states, replacing the shower head where it belongs and reaching his free hand down to rub through your folds, checking to be sure you're comfortable and free of that pesky sand.

When he's met with yet another whimper he's immediately dropping to his knees on the wet planks of the shower floor "Can I please, please taste you. Please."

"I didn't take you as one to beg, Harrington." You whisper out the tease.

"I will for this - for you. God, would you just answer me?"

You look down at him and nod but he wants your words instead, commanding you to speak up. And so you do, you gasp out confirmation just as his lips latch on to your already sensitive clit. He suckles there a little bit, before moving to make his tongue wide and flat coaxing noises from you that he doesn't want to forget the sound of.

He throws your thigh over his shoulder, giving him deeper, more angled access to your cunt, working you, moving it in and left to right. You cry out as his nose nudges at your clit while he slips a finger in up to his second knuckle and the cry turns silent as he keeps up his ministrations. Droplets of water are tickling down your chest and stomach, soaking his hair and face where he stays tucked in between your thighs. He shakes his head back and forth tapping at your clit with his movement and making you see stars.

Adding in another finger, he keeps lapping at your pussy, taking breaks to nip at the place where your thighs meet your sex and back again. He licks off a trail of water along the seam of your leg before making his way back to your center. Scissoring his fingers, he groans right into you and the vibration of it all drives you wild. "God, you fuckin taste like heaven. So good." And he dives back in, running his wide tongue along your entrance, drawing it front and upward toward your clit.

This time he pauses and presses his tongue up into the base of your clit, holding it there just as he presses both long fingers up and into your spongy spot, freeing the most wanton sound yet from deep within your throat. It spurs him on to keep going, pulsing that tongue and stroking that spot within. You're tensing and shaking under his strong grip and soft tongue, leg still hiked high over him, water cascading around the both of you. You're tumbling over the edge quickly after that.

In a bit of a daze and with wobbly knees, you swing your leg back down off his shoulder and bring him up towards you by his ears, wanting to taste yourself on his tongue in ways you never have before, and he looks beautiful like that. Eyes wide and wanton, hair dripping wet down his hair spattered chest, jaw slack in his own lust and pleasure, lips a deep pink and swollen from working you up down there. You bring him up fully to meet your lips and groan into his mouth, your taste heady and salty and beachy.

"I think you're clean" he laughs out as he pulls back just slightly and you can't help but bark out a laugh back. He takes the opportunity to latch on to your neck and bites at the skin under your ear.

In that moment you decide you're not done with him.

Tugging at the ties of his swim trunks, Steve pulls back to look at you. "N-no, we don't have to."

You hear his words but you also feel the hardness underneath those trunks, "Steve, it's - it's no big deal. You started this. Let me… let's finish, yeah?" You eye him teasingly, eyebrows raised, "Something tells me you want to."

"You're a menace, you know that right? Always have been."

"Yeah, but you're into it, apparently." you stand on your tippy toes to whisper in his ear.

"Fuck. Fuck. Yeah." He gets out as you lick the water droplets up "Seeing you here every year. Highlight of my trip. Swear to God."

And as his soaked trunks hit the floor, the pair of you are both fully exposed standing under the running water together. Running your hand along his chest, playing with the tufts of hair there, you hook your finger though the thin chain hanging from his neck and pull him closer. "Steve." You whisper into his mouth.

"Yeah, whaddya need, honey?"

"You. God just, please fuck me. Okay?"

Clutching you close by the waist, he hikes your leg up and around his hip, reaching down along your ass to rub at your pussy from behind, working you up again. Almost teasing. The rock hard length of him is pressed up between your two tummies, begging to be paid attention to, so you break your bodies apart for just a second to angle him down, slipping if wetly between your lower lips - a mix of water and your hot dripping slick letting him slip through your folds.

A whimper slips out of your lips as his head catches your clit and he takes the opportunity to press into you, sounds something like a growl falling from his own lips at the feeling. Your mind is going blank, but the one thing you're sure of is that Steve Harrington's dick is huge. "Ohmigod, you're, bi- oh" you moan as he adds another few inches, moving slowly for you. "Fuck, you're huge. Jesus, Steve."

"Yeah? Biggest you ever had? God, tell me it's the biggest you've ever took."

"Shit" you hiss, as he bottoms out inside you, yelping out as you both finally meet at the base. "Yeah, shit. No one's ever been that fuckin deep, Steve. Holy shit."

"Fuck, yeah. I'm gonna move now, okay? You're good, right?" And you nod, enthusiastically. Almost too enthusiastically.

You've known Steve almost your whole life. You've played on playground swing sets growing up, rolled your eyes at his antics at your friends' parties in high school, cheered him on at basketball games and worked alongside him as lifeguards at the country club pool. You give him shit, he gives it back to you. You share comfortable silences and close friends. He's had your back in the face of monsters and raging fires… But right now, all that's on your mind is how he's pounding into your pussy in this shower and why this has never ever happened before in all these years. Because Jesus Christ, it's feeling euphoric.

The slapping of skin echoes loudly in the wooden and metal enclosure of the shower, bodies slick with water , hands gliding along your back and along your ass, keeping that knee hiked high for him, yours clutching the front of his shoulders and digging crescent moons into his skin. He's making noises, has he thrusts up into you at a bruising pace, hitting your cervix and making you cry out…but he's holding back all the same and all you want is him to let go a little more.

"Fuck, wait. Holy shit. Lemme just… " you drop your leg down and hear his small whine as he slips out of you, but you're quick to flip your body around, leaning forward and bracing yourself on the beams of the wooden door frame, shaking your ass at him in an invitation to get close to you again. "Wait. Wait… " you gasp out as you feel his tip nudge against your entrance from behind.

"What's wrong? Are you .. are you okay? I can stop." He gets out through heaving breaths.

"No. I'm good… but if you wanna finish me off, you gotta do one thing for me." Looking over your shoulder, giving him a playful but serious look.

"What'dya need. Honey. Anything. What do you want?" He holds his cock, pulsing and screaming to be let back inside your warm and velvety walls, dots of precome rinsed off by the droplets of water as fast as they emerge.

"Don't hold back. Just… .let me hear you. I wanna hear you. Talk to me. Don't shut up. And fuck - fuck me harder" you hiccup out.

"Yeah, yeah okay. I'll … I'll - fuck" he pushes in fully in one slide, no resistance from you in the least. "You wanna hear how good you make me feel huh? Always so cocky. Jesus."

His fingers are pressing into the tops of your thighs, purple mottled marks already blooming there under his fingertips as he pulls you backwards, spearing you on his cock, meeting him thrust for thrust. His other hand is wrapped around your waist, reaching for the soft of your belly, snaking up your chest until he finds your tits, nipples peaked with the chill of the air now that you're not directly under the stream of water. He runs his thumb along your nipples, giving them a playful flick back and forth before massaging them and pulling you up to meet him, back to chest.

In this position, you can drop yourself down as you meet his upward thrusts, bouncing on his cock and you feel his tip nudging a particular spot inside you that makes your walls constrict. "Oh honey, yeah? That's it. That's the spot isn't it?" And you can tell that has Steve's mind going off the deep end, making good on his promises to let you hear him, he's babbling, water splashing and raining down on you both, his grunts getting louder, and your name slipping off his lips in a whisper, like it belongs there.

Reaching back and around his neck, you turn so that you can see him and tilt his down to meet your gaze. Mouths both open, panting into one another, lips touching but never connecting because you can't quite sync up with the way you're both grinding on each other. "Jesus Christ, hnng fuck, I'm gonna… honey. Where do you want me? C'mon. Tell me."

You hear his sharp intake of a breath and feel his lips latch on to your throat, leaving sloppy kisses and sucking a bruise into it that you know you'll have to explain to your friends later. "Nnn-no. No. Not yet. I told you, lemme hear you. You're holding back I can tell."

"Oh-okay yeah. Gimme a sec. " He breathes through his nose taking in the scent of whatever vanilla soap you were using before he barreled in, maybe a little coconut still left over from your sunscreen, too. He exhales as his hand drifts down your front, settling over your mound and expertly finding your clit once again. He's rubbing figure eights, before sliding it between his two fingers, giving it pressure and pull from the sides as he continues to thrust into you from behind, bouncing you with very little effort because of how wet and slick you are from the shower.

"You're a fuckin' piece of work, you know that. Shit - taking me like this… fuck. " He growls out as he bends you forward fully now, holding you up by your chest as he rams into you. Leaning over just enough to get close to your ear he whispers in "Ya gonna let me come now? Fuck - ya gonna let me put it on your back? Huh? Your tits? Where do you wanna have it, honey?" He hisses as you grind your hips backwards and clench down hard on his shaft, squeezing on him and making his thrusts slow down, become more meticulous, more purposeful.

You're gasping in air and squeaking out noises of all kinds in time with his thrusts, telling him just how good he's making you feel between breaths. Just how deep he is hitting you. Just how much you wanna hear him when he comes. He's huffing out breaths and promising you things like next time as he's incoherently babbling praises at you as you ride back on his dick.

"You like when I talk about coming for you? You wanna have it, yeah?"

"Y-yeah I wanna. Inside. Do it inside, fuck!" You shout out, water from the showerhead beating on your back as his thrusts are jolting you forward where you're braced against the door. The janky little rusted metal latch holding on for dear life as he continues his pace, chasing his high and praying to God you let go with him.

He's feeling bold now that his brain is only chasing your orgasms. He groans the loudest moan you've heard from him this whole time as you feel him tense behind you, keeping up his movements but, just barely. His hips are stuttering and his hand falls down on your ass in a loud smack. "Ohhh shit. Honey. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about."

Your walls give him one last squeeze and you grip him tight, legs shaking under you as your orgasms rushes over your whole body. He has to hold you up as it rolls through your body, flashes going off behind your eyes as you cry out with pleasure. The pain from the smack to your ass being washed away with the cool of the water trickling over you.

It takes him only three firm thrusts more to fill you up, stuttering sounds falling from his lips. Incoherent blabbers and praises and gasps of your name spurting out along with his come.

You're both absolutely breathless, heaving chests and deep sighs filling the air while still connected to one another. Steve pulls you up slowly as he slips out of you, and spins you around. Still cradling your body and wrapping you into him, he pulls you both under the water to rinse off and come back down from wherever you both are floating off to right now. As you stand there swaying under the cascade, he brings his lips to your temple with a kiss as he mutters "I did mean it. I love seeing you here every year."

You hum along with him, because you do love seeing him too. You just never thought about it like this before. And now that you have, you're pretty sure it's the only way you can from here on out.

"We should probably get back down to the beach. I'm sure at least one of those nosey dipshits have noticed were both missing by now." Steve says against your skin.

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. But you are the one explaining these marks you left on me. I'm not saying a peep."

"Aw, c'mon sweetheart. You had a lot to say when I was in-"

"Stop that right now. If you wanna even think about doing this again, you're gonna stop right now." You roll your eyes at him while wrapping yourself with a towel and unlatching the door. As you back out and start up towards the house to grab a new swimsuit, he sees the grin on your face.

"Yeah, okay honey. Shutting my mouth now...so I'll definitely see ya later, then." He says with a wink, just as the door shuts and your left naked, wrapped up in Steve Harrington's towel with all your friends gathered round the grill out back making lunch watching you as you make your way around the path.

Eddie snarls a wide grin at you as he brings both thumbs up, his wife slapping his chest when she notices. "Hey Nance!" He yells out. "I think Harrington's got himself a new roommate for next trip!"

#joe keery #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington smut #steve harrington imagine #Spotify

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dukeofankh · 3 months

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Trying to find progressive masculine community is so exhausting.

I've flipped through local men's groups, trying to find places to explore masculinity in a chill, progressive setting. First of all, they mostly seem to be modelled after AA, and like, my gender isn't a debilitating addiction, it's part of my identity actually, but also, the invite and description of the event have maybe a short paragraph tops actually waving vaguely in the direction of what the purpose of the group is, and then ten to twenty paragraphs breaking down the rules. One spent longer talking about the hand signals he would use to direct conversation than he did describing what the conversation would be about. Another had a full paragraph explaining that if the group thought you were evading what they thought your "real" problem was, they'd probably "call you to take accountability". Like...I don't even know who these people are yet and they're already letting me know that they view it as their right, no, their duty, to bully me into seeing things their way. Like, this is in the invite.

...and this warning is there instead of any sort of breakdown of like, I dunno. Whether you should be a feminist to show up. Whether it was a safe space for queer men. What the hell they wanted to talk about. Joining a men's space is on some level inherently submitting yourself to the authority of the leaders of that group, and you don't usually get a particularly clear breakdown of what the values and goals of those leaders are, because on some level the answer is always going to be "whatever I want"

And like, unfortunately you do need to filter men to build a men's space. You do need to remove or chastise men who act in ways that are toxic or disruptive or misogynistic. If you don't things turn into an MRA chapter pretty quick. But the sort of emergency powers that leadership takes on as a result of that...just kind of naturally end up reproducing masculine heirarchies.

MensLib, the only online community of progressive dudes talking about masculinity that I'm aware of, is...on Reddit. So there is a moderator system. In theory, a moderator is there to...moderate. This is a space where people are going to be talking, and mods are there to make sure things don't get too toxic or off topic.

The issue is that, on some level, that is technically a leadership position. In a sub trying to rehabilitate masculinity. So you've got a bunch of folks who view themselves as the leaders of this bastion of goodness standing against the depredations of the misogynistic internet, guiding the hapless smooth-brain neophytes towards The True Way.

In practice, this looks like 95 percent of the posts submitted for the subreddit being rejected. That isn't hyperbole. On average, the sub has about one new post per day. Almost all posts directly relating a personal experience are deleted immediately, in favour of articles written about masculinity in traditional media publications, which are considered more trustworthy than the sus lived experiences of the guys in the sub. The post I wrote here about the effect of purity culture on male sexual shame that's sitting at about 15K notes was based on a 10K word post I wrote for Reddit that was deleted because "I didn't cite any sources to prove that there is a link between purity culture and male sexual shame, or that my experience was anything more than anecdotal". I get comments deleted on a regular basis, and after paragraphs of protesting in modmail that my comments are both fully in line with feminism and not against the rules, the mods have just finally told me that the rules don't actually drive their actions as a team. They delete anything they feel leads the conversation in a direction they personally feel is unproductive. The rule cited at the time of deletion is really just the broad category of why they decided to hit the button that says nobody is allowed to read what I wrote.

The issue is kind of twofold. First of all, progressive men do not trust other men. A good dude knows that he, individually, is a good person, but literally any other man external to him is on thin ice. Do you really want to tie your wagon to that guy? Do you trust him, really? How do you tell the difference between a guy criticizing an article because it's factually incorrect and criticising it because a woman wrote it? Probably best to play it safe and delete it. Weight of the odds, he's probably a misogynist, right? This is the internet.

And thats the other half of it. If you view yourself as part of the leadership of The Good Guys, and you're getting hatemail from incels and facists all day, you get to the point where most of the time people challenge your authority it's because they're a terrible person. It is very, very easy to get to the point where someone challenging you is seen as evidence that they are a bad person. And now someone is challenging you (and therefore bad), in an environment where you are in charge, and you have a "make your opponent disappear" button.

I know. A Reddit mod was rude to me and now I'm butthurt. It's petty and stupid. I'm just feeling like there's nowhere else to really go, and I'm pretty despondent that literally every space I've seen that even looks like it might be for progressive men has the same deeply hierarchical structure and constant status-oriented squabbling as patriarchal spaces.

#me writing stuff #positive masculinity #menslib

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fursasaida · 8 months

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Hi! Just wanted to ask. How can I give my students assignments that are chat-gpt proof? Or that they won't just copy the answer without at least doing some editing?

Hi! So, I don't think anything is ChatGPT-proof. You fundamentally cannot stop people from using it to take a shortcut. You can't even stop them from copying the answer without editing it. However, I think you can work with this reality. So, you can do three things:

Don't be a cop about it.

If you make your objective "stop the children from using the thing to cheat," you are focusing on the wrong thing. You will be constantly scrutinizing every submission with suspicion, you will be accusing people of cheating--and some of them will not have cheated, and they will remember this forever--and you will be aiming at enforcement (which is trying to hold back the sea) instead of on inviting and supporting learning whenever and wherever possible. (I'll come back to this under item 2.)

Regarding why enforcement is holding back the sea: It is fundamentally rational for them to do this. We, who "love learning" (i.e. are good at what our academic system sees as learning, for various reasons have built our lives around that, happen to enjoy these activities), see everything they might cheat themselves of by doing it, because we know what we got out of doing this type of work. Many students, however--especially at the kind of school I teach at--are there to get the piece of paper that might, if they're lucky, allow them access to a relatively livable and stable income. The things that are wrong with this fact are structural and nothing to do with students' failings as people, or (tfuh) laziness, or whatever. We cannot make this not true (we can certainly try to push against it in certain ways, but that only goes so far). More pragmatically, chatgpt and similar are going to keep getting better, and detecting them is going to get harder, and your relationships with your students will be further and further damaged as you are forced to hound them more, suspect them more, falsely accuse more people, while also looking like an idiot because plenty of them will get away with it. A productive classroom requires trust. The trust goes both ways. Being a cop about this will destroy it in both directions.

So the first thing you have to do is really, truly accept that some of them are going to use it and you are not always going to know when they do. And when I say accept this, I mean you actually need to be ok with it. I find it helps to remember that the fact that a bot can produce writing to a standard that makes teachers worry means we have been teaching people to be shitty writers. I don't know that so much is lost if we devalue the 5-paragraph SAT essay and its brethren.

So the reason my policy is to say it's ok to use chatgpt or similar as long as you tell me so and give me some thinking about what you got from using it is that a) I am dropping the charade that we don't all know what's going on and thereby making it (pedagogical term) chill; b) I am modeling/suggesting that if you use it, it's a good idea to be critical about what it tells you (which I desperately want everyone to know in general, not just my students in a classroom); c) I am providing an invitation to learn from using chatgpt, rather than avoid learning by using it. Plenty of them won't take me up on that. That's fine (see item 3 below).

So ok, we have at least established the goal of coming at it from acceptance. Then what do you do at that point?

Think about what is unique to your class and your students and build assignments around that.

Assignments, of course, don't have to be simply "what did Author mean by Term" or "list the significant thingies." A prof I used to TA under gave students the option of interviewing a family member or friend about their experiences with public housing in the week we taught public housing. Someone I know who teaches a college biology class has an illustration-based assignment to draw in the artsier students who are in her class against their will. I used to have an extra-credit question that asked them to pick anything in the city that they thought might be some kind of clue about the past in that place, do some research about it, and tell me what they found out and how. (And that's how I learned how Canal St. got its name! Learning something you didn't know from a student's work is one of the greatest feelings there is.) One prompt I intend to use in this class will be something to the effect of, "Do you own anything--a t-shirt, a mug, a phone case--that has the outline of your city, state, or country on it? Why? How did you get it, and what does having this item with this symbol on it mean to you? Whether you personally have one or not, why do you think so many people own items like this?" (This is for political geography week, if anyone's wondering.)

These are all things that target students' personal interests and capabilities, the environments they live in, and their relationships within their communities. Chatgpt can fake that stuff, but not very well. My advisor intends to use prompts that refer directly to things he said in class or conversations that were had in class, rather than to a given reading, in hopes that that will also make it harder for chatgpt to fake well because it won't have the context. The more your class is designed around the specific institution you teach at and student body you serve, the easier that is to do. (Obviously, how possible that is is going to vary based on what you're teaching. When I taught Urban Studies using the city we all lived in as the example all through the semester, it was so easy to make everything very tailored to the students I had in that class that semester. That's not the same--or it doesn't work the same way--if you're teaching Shakespeare. But I know someone who performs monologues from the plays in class and has his students direct him and give him notes as a way of drawing them into the speech and its niceties of meaning. Chatgpt is never going to know what stage directions were given in that room. There are possibilities.) This is all, I guess, a long way of saying that you'll have a better time constructing assignments chatgpt will be bad at if you view your class as a particular situation, occurring only once (these people, this year), which is a situation that has the purpose of encouraging thought--rather than as an information-transfer mechanism. Of course information transfer happens, but that is not what I and my students are doing together here.

Now, they absolutely can plug this type of prompt into chatgpt. I've tried it myself. I asked it to give me a personal essay about the political geography prompt and a critical personal essay about the same thing. (I recommend doing this with your own prospective assignments! See what they'd get and whether it's something you'd grade highly. If it is, then change either the goal of the assignment or at least the prompt.) Both of them were decent if you are grading the miserable 5-paragraph essay. Both of them were garbage if you are looking for evidence of a person turning their attention for the first time to something they have taken for granted all their lives. Chatgpt has neither personality nor experiences, so it makes incredibly vague, general statements in the first person that are dull as dishwater and simply do not engage with what the prompt is really asking for. I already graded on "tell me what you think of this/how this relates to your life" in addition to "did you understand the reading," because what I care about is whether they're thinking. So students absolutely can and will plug that prompt into chatgpt and simply c/p the output. They just won't get high marks for it.

If they're fine with not getting high marks, then okay. For a lot of them this is an elective they're taking essentially at random to get that piece of paper; I'm not gonna knock the hustle, and (see item 1) I couldn't stop them if I wanted to. What I can do is try to make class time engaging, build relationships with them that make them feel good about telling me their thoughts, and present them with a variety of assignments that create opportunities for different strengths, points of interest, and ways into the material, in hopes of hooking as many different people in as many different ways as I can.

This brings me back to what I said about inviting learning. Because I have never yet in my life taught a course that was for people majoring in the subject, I long ago accepted that I cannot get everyone to engage with every concept, subject, or idea (or even most of them). All I can do is invite them to get interested in the thing at hand in every class, in every assignment, in every choice of reading, in every question I ask them. How frequently each person accepts these invitations (and which ones) is going to vary hugely. But I also accept that people often need to be invited more than once, and even if they don't want to go through the door I'm holding open for them right now, the fact that they were invited this time might make it more likely for them to go through it the next time it comes up, or the time after that. I'll never know what will come of all of these invitations, and that's great, actually. I don't want to make them care about everything I care about, or know everything I know. All I want is to offer them new ways to be curious.

Therefore: if they use chatgpt to refuse an invitation this week, fine. That would probably have happened anyway in a lot of cases even without chatgpt. But, just as before, I can snag some of those people's attention on one part of this module in class tomorrow. Some of them I'll get next time with a different type of assignment. Some of them I'll hook for a moment with a joke. I don't take the times that doesn't happen as failures. But the times that it does are all wins that are not diminished by the times it doesn't.

Actually try to think of ways to use chatgpt to promote learning.

I DREAM of the day I'm teaching something where it makes sense to have students edit an AI-written text. Editing is an incredible way to get better at writing. I could generate one in class and we could do it all together. I could give them a prompt, ask them to feed it into chatgpt, and ask them to turn in both what they got and some notes on how they think it could be better. I could give them a pretty traditional "In Text, Author says Thing. What did Author mean by that?" prompt, have them get an answer from chatgpt, and then ask them to fact-check it. Etc. All of these get them thinking about written communication and, incidentally, demonstrate the tool's limitations.

I'm sure there are and will be tons of much more creative ideas for how to incorporate chatgpt rather than fight it. (Once upon a time, the idea of letting students use calculators in math class was also scandalous to many teachers.) I have some geography-specific ideas for how to use image generation as well. When it comes specifically to teaching, I think it's a waste of time for us to be handwringing instead of applying ourselves to this question. I am well aware of the political and ethical problems with chatgpt, and that's something to discuss with, probably, more advanced students in a seminar setting. But we won't (per item 1) get very far simply insisting that Thing Bad and Thing Stupid. So how do we use it to invite learning? That's the question I'm interested in.

Finally, because tangential to your question: I think there's nothing wrong with bringing back more in-class writing and even oral exams (along with take-home assignments that appeal to strengths and interests other than expository writing as mentioned above). These assessments play to different strengths than written take-homes. For some students, that means they'll be harder or scarier; by the same token, for other students they'll be easier and more confidence-building. (Plus, "being able to think on your feet" is also a very good ~real-world skill~ to teach.) In the spirit of trying to offer as many ways in as possible, I think that kind of diversification in assignments is a perfectly good idea.

#teaching #chatgpt #posting this on my first teaching day of the semester!#this is probably a lot longer than what you asked for but it is the answer i know how to give. hope something in it helps!

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