@xoxo-lahh
So in this verse, Tsunade never ends up teaching Sakura- as that role is fulfilled by Chiyo. (But she DOES return to Konoha eventually).
And Chiyo's first rule (for everything lol) is: Nothing is Free.
Chiyo always demanded something in return for healing, and unlike Tsunade, she considered medical jutsu a part of her arsenal. If it could kill, then it was always an option.
So Sakura learned from that mindset, trading her services and using her rare skillet as a powerful negotiating tactic, especially during Tea Country's civil war. Her healing effectively kept her, Enji, and Saeko in relative safety and provided her a card to play when she needed.
And, while Sakura is nowhere near as jaded as Chiyo is, and often enough of a bleeding heart to help people for damn near free, (a place to stay, food for the night, a new holster for her kunai), she is also VERY pragmatic about her skillset. The civil war taught her that sometimes, letting someone die is better. This puts her at odds with Tsunade, who has a very different mindset (and was, historically, bitter enemies with Chiyo).
Another issue that arises with Tsunade, is that the Godaime is a doctor- while Chiyo is more of a healer. Their understanding of the human body comes from a different place.
Tsunade can name every bone and muscle and perform open-heart surgeries. Sakura can heal bone and stitch back together muscles and flesh on a very basic level, but she's never going to be able to open up a human body and revolutionize medical history like she does in canon. (In canon, Sakura creates a Jutsu that allows her to do a four-man surgery alone; she can't do that here.)
However, she can do some stuff that Tsunade claims is impossible—like reconstructing/altering someone's chakra network, unblocking tenketsu, sometimes turning off someone's dojutsu from a distance, and lite-healing remotely (Tsunade is very upset about this one specifically). A lot of it comes from her mastery of Genjutsu.
Genjutsu, as I reworked in my comic, requires a complete understanding of someone's chakra network to control ALL their senses. Sakura's understanding and control are so prodigious that she can almost autonomously control people's bodily functions (a skillset that is GREATLY aided by training with Chiyo's puppet mastery).
She uses Genjutsu as a tool to understand the body and employs it as both support (helping an ally maintain a sense of gravity as they're pulled underground or flung in the air, etc) and offense.
And that's it for the wall of text! Once again, thank you SO much for the amazingly kind words and all the interest in this AU! <3
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I finally listened to the latest episode of the silt verses ("latest" meaning "it came out in january, I've just been really busy") and I don't want to be negative but I liked faulkner better when he was unhinged. No more pseudo-therapy or painfully honest conversations for these characters, they need to march to their doom being lonely, unfulfilled, and tragic.
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my one season 4 complaint is Where The Fuck Was Aneesa
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It is vitally, vitally important that Clark Kent is boring.
I don't mean 'boring' in an inherently bad way. A desk job is boring. Data analysis is boring. Due process is boring. All of these things are imperative for a functioning society but almost nobody will ever be praised for them.
When my car got stolen a year ago, the guy who took it stole a bunch of other stuff too. I was sitting with a cop in a backroom of the campus police station for almost an hour while he was doing paperwork (to make sure everyone would get their stuff back), and at one point he looked up at me and he said, "sorry about this. It's not all shootouts and car chases like on TV."
And I almost said, "well, due process is sexy" (I didn't, for obvious reasons). But he looked surprised when I told him I thought due process was pretty cool. Like nobody is supposed to think due process is cool. Things are only cool if they're glamorous or flashy.
The guy who stole my car was horribly addicted to meth. The sheriff told me, "you should press charges so we can put him away for as long as possible."
The sheriff was lost in a world of heroes and villains. He was the "hero." The addict was the "villain." But the person who helped people was the guy at a desk, who went back over the mile long paper trail and returned every stolen item to its owner. The important stuff is when some guy in an office writes an algorithm to save endangered whales, or when the third double blind test finally shows sufficient evidence for the efficacy of a new cancer treatment. The goose that actually lays the golden egg almost never cackles.
This is why the 'Glasses' comic is so important, to me. We live in a world which glorifies exciting acts of heroism but not "boring" ones. We live in a world that thinks people like Clark Kent aren't important, when they're often doing the most important work, solving the systemic issues, saving people who aren't lost yet. Sometimes we need firefighters, but in a perfect world, we'd only need safety inspectors.
And sure, Superman is necessary within the story. There are disasters and villainy he can prevent. There are lives he can save. But being Superman is ultimately a terrible sacrifice, and if the heroism wasn't necessary he'd be Clark Kent all day. That's what makes him not a cop: he's not enjoying the car chases and shootouts. He avoids letting things get 'interesting' at all costs. He avoids glory.
The comic Strong Female Protagonist (by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag, BRING IT BACK) has several fascinating pieces of philosophy on superheroes and society, but my favourite is this:
Kal-el, living solar battery, isn't just someone who contributes to society from the outside or the top. He plugs away at boring, everyday kindnesses just like other humans. (This can make for great contrasts with Lex Luthor, who is the epitome of a light bulb person and could never understand why Superman would want to be a battery.)
Clark Kent is boring. Clark Kent plays things by the book. Clark Kent is sexy in the same way that due process is sexy, and any character who thinks the Clark Kent side is 'less than' the Superman side, is textually a goddamn idiot. "No glory save honour" and he will always have both.
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if you as a fic reader ever become possessed by the urge to do a popularity bracket with the fics other people wrote and shared for fun and for free, consider:
don't ❤️
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"You don't want me to have anything in my life that's not you."
"You're... miserable, and you're lonely, and you're going to trap me here to keep me every bit as miserable and lonely too."
Hannibal/House crossover strikes again
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You can’t force people to be honest with you. If you’re an up-front person who doesn’t have a problem asking for what you need, it can be easy to interpret wishy-washiness as cowardly and manipulative. It obviously sucks to be in emotional limbo, and I don’t blame you for interpreting their silence as a punishment. But have you considered it might also be a form of self-protection?
“Why won’t X tell me what’s wrong? I’m not a mind reader!” is a common complaint. But the question which often occurs to me is, who does that clarity benefit? Does the teller have reasonable grounds to believe expressing their anger is a safe or productive thing to do? Is it going to lead to deeper understanding, or just another argument? Is the person demanding an explanation going to listen, or use the teller’s complaint to retaliate, linguistically outmanoeuvre them, or adopt a position of victimhood? Often a request for clarity is disingenuous. We know what we’ve done and just don’t want to have to be the one to bring it up, because we feel guilty, and it’s easier to take a defensive posture than proactively apologise.
Not to mention that when we’re upset, the last thing we want is to give the person who offended us an opportunity to relitigate the situation. Especially if there’s wounded pride involved. It can be humiliating to confess the depth of your hurt feelings. That kind of honesty is an act of generosity, not emotional obligation.
Help Me Hera: Our Couple BFF's Won't Forgive Us
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I really need to write few more words about So Mi's relation with her body, because I cannot stop thinking about it
As I said before, notice how she's embarrassed when she and V meet for the first time in person. What V sees thanks to the Relic connection is the version of Songbird that she wants them to see
Myers treated So Mi as a tool, a weapon meant to give NUSA an edge in cyberspace. As So Mi says herself - using Blackwall comes with a cost. She was pushed and pushed to interact with it until her organic body couldn't take it anymore
So Mi already sacrificed her home, her friends and loved ones. Even when she had to give up her body for the cause it still wasn't enough and they asked for more. I bet her cyborg body could've look more... natural, but why should it? This new form feels a bit like an attempt to dehumanize her even more, make her look and feel like a machine.
Yet, she cares about how V perceives her. She trusts them and she wants them to see her as a person. She wants them to see that old image of herself - something she clings to as her mind is consumed by AIs beyond the Blackwall.
And now I can mention probably one of my favourite scenes during Killing Moon quest. When So Mi sits down for a minute to catch her breath. V can run some diagnostics on her or ask her how they can help. And how does she respond?
"Water, please..."
She asks for the most basic thing humans need to survive. I admit that scene made me tear up a little
I think what I want to say is - So Mi is desperate to show V that she is a person and not some tool that can be used and discarded at any moment. Cyberpunk is all about 'where does a human end and machine begin' kind of thing and Songbird's story is such a great example of it
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when i tell people i don't drink they assume it's for religious reasons or because i'm arab but in reality it's because i can't for the life of me get myself drunk no matter how hard i try 😭 idk it's like my body just rejects the alcohol and i get sick instantly before it even makes it to my bloodstream lmao
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jughead almost immediately removing himself from the musical aka the narrative the moment that someone else (kevin & clay) starts writing their own version of it and in turn, his removal from controlling the narrative ends up allowing the characters to take back control of their own narrative because when jughead writes and rewrites the story, it ends up trapping the characters deeper inside the narrative and the cycles they are desperate to escape until they are repeating the same behaviours over and over again but when kevin & clay write and rewrite the story, it ends up giving the characters back their agency because they're trying to help them which then allows them to break free from the narrative and walk away.
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“But just now an intelligent and I must admit, very attractive young woman had just chosen Lord Golden’s companionship over mine.
‘There’s no accounting for tastes,’ I told Whitecap, who was looking after his departing mistress with an aggrieved air.”
*****
“‘Good. And now we must all try to get what rest we can before tomorrow’s hunt. Good night,Tom.’
‘Good night, Lord Golden, huntswoman Laurel.’
After a moment or two of silence, I realized something. I had been expecting Laurel to leave so that I could secure the door behind her. I had wanted to tell the Fool about the basket and the dead rabbit, but Laurel and Lord Golden were waiting for me to leave. She was studying a tapestry on a wall with an intensity it did not merit, while Lord Golden contentedly contemplated the gleaming fall of Laurel’s hair.
I wondered if I should lock the outer door for them, then decided that would be an oafish act. If lord golden wanted it locked, he would do it. ‘Good night,’ I repeated, trying to sound sleepy and not awkward. I took a candle and went to my own chamber, shutting the connecting door gently behind me. I undressed and got into bed, refusing to let my mind wander beyond that closed door. I felt no envy, I told myself, only the sharper bite of my loneliness in contrast to what they might be sharing.”
*******
“I turned and found the Fool regarding me sleepily. He lay on his side in his bed, his chin propped on his fist. He looked weary, but insufferably pleased about something. The effect made him look years younger.
‘I didn’t expect to see you in your bed this morning,’ I greeted him, and then, ‘How did you get in? I latched that door last night.’
‘Did you? Interesting. But you can scarcely be more surprised to see me in my own bed than I am to see you in yours.’
*****
“Was my friend honestly losing his heart to her? I considered her silent profile as she rode alongside me. He could do far worse. She was healthy and young and a good hunter.”
- Fool’s Errand (Tawny Man #1) by Robin Hobb
Presented with no comment
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When it comes to kneeling, with the first kneel was reader on the floor and then Price in a chair? Then second kneel session they were both kneeling?? I like when authors describe the actual positions of the characters but I think I got a little confused 😅 I was trying to figure out the positioning just so I could make more sense of the scene. If you know what I mean?
I get what you mean!! I'm so bad at remembering to describe things like this properly too 😭
So in both instances Price was sitting and reader was kneeling on the floor next to him. To give the clearest visual, Price was sitting facing his desk, and reader was kneeling right next to him on the floor beside his chair also facing the desk. Price only drops down to kneel next to her once they're done, mostly just because reader's kind of boneless and has very little control in those moments and he's not going to let her fall and hurt herself.
I hope that clears it up lol.
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i don't like j0pper either but when people say joyce should've stayed with bob they always lose me because i have a hard time believing she even liked the man
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i prefer chameleon over kai, if only for the reason that she actively exploits the appearance of tai lung (as she should), while kai did not bother to show it to us for more than two seconds.
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when a character says 'I can't live without you' I often think it would be more powerful to say, 'I don't want to live without you'. Life will go on, the world will turn, but a light has gone out of it that cannot be replaced even if new ones are lit. I want to be with you, I'm choosing to be with you, I could live without you but I would be losing something incredibly precious that brings a certain richness that nothing else ever will.
'I can't live without you' sounds kind of coercive to me. I can't live without you I don't have a choice so you don't have a choice unless you want to destroy me, do you want to destroy me? Without each other we have nothing, are nothing.
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