#each person is doing something that is individually irrational

[goatbeard-goatbeard]

the way that Aziraphale’s faith in God is actually the same thing as his faith in Crowley

in our world, faith in god(s) is a proxy for faith in other people. gods don’t literally exist, but we still feel their effects because their followers do things in their names — things which are impossible for mortals but possible for groups of mortals

like take voting for example. a single vote is unlikely to change the result. but the faithful don’t care if they’re doing something individually irrational. they’re not doing it for the outcome; god will handle the outcome. and as a result, they DO get the outcome: faith groups are consistently overrepresented in government. their own actions become the divine intervention

in Good Omens, the angels together did all the things God brags about to Job, like setting constellations in the sky. Aziraphale and Crowley’s half-miracles added up to 25 lazarii. when they told the magic shopkeeper they’d handle the miracle, that’s exactly what they did, because acting on faith (in each other) IS the miracle

is fixing heaven impossible? yes. but with God* all things are possible

*whoever actually set the constellations in the sky

#apropros of nothing: this is also how strikes work #each person is doing something that is individually irrational #they’re all doing HALF a miracle #25 lazarii #good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 #good omens 2 spoilers #exvangelical #exvie #ex christian #good omens meta #good omens analysis #good omens speculation #anyway been thinking a lot about how choirs are the voice of god #not because any gods literally exist #but ‘wherever 2 or 3 are gathered together’…

[linkcities]

in a year or two (i'll take care of you) | gojo satoru/reader

“Do you have a favorite flower?”

You ask him this moments before the two of you begin your journey home, dragging along your worn out suitcases and the individual white plastic bags filled with dirty laundry. You ask him this and you’d come to realize later on in your life that it’s a question he found himself thinking of whenever he hears your name.

He places his head against yours gently. “I do.” He whispers, “sweet peas, if you know them.”

You hum. “What do they mean?”

Geto Suguru and his jet black irises gleam under the light of the vernal sun, his hair dancing along to the music of the leaves from before. Through the corner of your eyes, you caught a glimpse of the way he smiled at you so softly that day—it’s one you’ll grow to never forget, regardless of how many years pass you by.

“I’m a bit unsure, but,” he tells you, his index finger tapping the tip of your nose. “It’s ‘thank you for the time we spent.’”

or,

Snippets of your grief after Geto Suguru's betrayal, spread throughout the course of thirteen years; alongside the only person who could understand even just a crumb of your pain.

—

pairing | gojo satoru/reader

note | this is a preview of the current 'fic i'm working on. not sure when i'll be posting it, but the projected word count for this piece is around 17,000 words, subject to change. enjoy! :]

—

The day after that, Shoko went on to pretend as if nothing happened. She continued her routine. Medical check-ins, training, mission updates. The day after that, from Satoru, you heard that she blew through an entire pack of cigarettes in under six hours. You think this must be her way of repenting. Irrational penance for something she knew she wasn’t accountable for.

In the present, Satoru hops up to sit on the metal bar posing as the only hurdle between you and the running stream. His hands are in his pockets now, your bag discarded safely next to the railing. Carefully, just as he averts his stare elsewhere in the distance, he brings out an old and tapered pack of cigarettes.

You watch him intently.

“Stop staring at my hands.” He grumbles underneath his breath, loud enough for you to get rightfully annoyed by. “I don’t want to hear whatever you have to say.”

Your heart drops to your stomach after that. You say nothing in response.

Satoru tugs out his lighter from his other pocket cautiously, as though he was testing out your reaction first, and when he realizes that no protest would be sprinting towards his direction, he takes a stick from the box and he brings it close to his lips. You watch everything through the corner of your eyes.

The lighter clicks, and then you wince. Smoke flows out through his mouth in seconds, three coughs following suit. He tests it out repeatedly, a few more times, more and more times; waits for his body to get used to the smoke.

Halfway through his first stick, he coughs violently after a long puff. You wince again. “I’ll leave if you don’t put that out.” You mutter, displeased, waving away the cloud of gray enveloping your surrounding area. He doesn’t budge.

Deep breath. You know better than to try and tell him what to do. I know better than this. There was no rational conversation to be had when it came to Satoru. They were only ever frustrating and indignant and brutal and upsetting. “It’s bad enough that Shoko’s smoking more and more each day.” You try to bite your tongue, but the metallic taste of your own blood only makes you want to keep speaking, “why are you doing this to yourself, now, too?”

Ash falls from the burning end of the cigarette. He hangs the stick loosely between his index and middle finger, turning around to rest his elbows against the silver railing. Satoru does not offer you anything but an unconcerned shrug.

More and more ash falls atop the grass beneath your soles. When he coughs for the last time, you push yourself off the barricade and turn to the direction of the subway station.

“This isn’t mine.”

You pause. Satoru exhales deeply behind you.

“Shoko and I cleaned out Suguru’s old room three days ago,” he tells you, quietly, overdosing on the wave of uncomfortable air. “We were supposed to clean it with you, but your mission was extended and Yaga said we can’t keep putting it off.”

At this, you clench your fists. You take it upon yourself to look back at Satoru, who was now standing straight—overlooking the flowing river, watching the currents pass by and turn orange. You dissolve into a puddle of many, many regrets. You circle in on the lingering emptiness that has been tormenting you for weeks, and the conclusion strikes you like lightning again, almost as though you were realizing it for the first time: We had all lost something so terribly important when Suguru left. It all happened so quickly, you think to yourself. Suguru left quickly, too. Just three weeks ago. The wound was recent and fresh and the higher-ups didn’t even give you enough time to let it scab first before ordering you to search through Suguru’s things. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

This isn’t mine.

That’s what Satoru said. So it must be Suguru’s. It couldn’t be Shoko’s; she never liked to share. You and Satoru never smoked as often as they did. No, incorrect, the two of you never smoked at all. You walk closer back to the railing, laying your left hand on top of the bar.

“Did you find anything?” You ask him. “Anything worth keeping?”

You see him struggle with looking for an answer for your question. Satoru was never subtle with what he was feeling. “I took some of his clothes,” he starts, “I kept a bunch of his shoes, too. We’re the same size. Shoko took his lighters and books.”

There’s a lump in your throat filled with words you know you’re not allowed to speak into existence. You want to tell him, though. Put it back in his room. I can’t handle seeing someone other than Suguru wear his clothes. You argue with yourself, inwardly. You asked him the question, yes, but truthfully you were hoping he’d answer no. No, I didn’t find anything. It’s equally as devastating, but at least that way you’d carry no reminder of his leaving.

(But is that what you really want? To forget? To erase all traces of Geto Suguru from your brain?)

It’s a horrible thought to have. It’s a horrible thought to have. Satoru and Shoko were more than welcome to grieve the way they wanted to grieve, and the lord knows you weren’t significant enough to the universe to ever be given the right to police them.

A single cough. He disrupts your thoughts, loudly stomping over them, almost as if he knew what was running through your head. You know he does. “I don’t know why I decided to keep them.” Satoru directs his stare down to the ground, his hair nestled in front of his eyebrows. “They’re in boxes on top of my closet. If you want some of them, just let me know.”

Your mind goes numb. You don’t know how to respond to that. Satoru’s saying all the right things right now and you’re unsure of how to handle his being rational—it’s not like he hasn’t been this way in the past, it’s just that usually Suguru was the one who was often rational enough for the both of them. Your mind goes numb. You hear nothing but an incessant ringing. Ultimately, you understand what Suguru’s abandonment entails; you know that his leaving necessitates numerous adjustments and relearning of previous lifestyles. If Yaga were here, he’d say something along the lines of Good. If it took him leaving to get Gojo to straighten up, then good. You could honestly hear his voice saying that. But you know he never would. He’s high strung, but he’s not heartless. You’re projecting something.

You’re projecting something because everything feels either wrong or excessive. Satoru is being rational and quiet and Shoko is avoidant and even more jaded than before. You don’t know what you’re supposed to be; and yet Satoru stares at you, finally, for the first time in a while, with wide blue eyes and chapped and parted lips, staring so expectantly almost as though he’s tethered to your reactions. The sheer weight of his eyes alone is too heavy for you to carry.

“I don’t.” You say, finally. After several agonizing minutes of only trickling silence. “Keep them, it’s fine. I wouldn’t have a place for them in my room, anyway.”

In the blink of an eye, the weight dissipates when his pupils slant themselves back towards the gushing river. The tension is thick, and so is his nearly tangible disappointment, but you convince yourself it’s out of your control. Gojo Satoru is a god among mortals and if his sorrow cleaves the world in half, the burden of stitching it all back together shouldn’t fall on one as miniscule as you.

“Alright.”

He throws the worn out pack of cigarettes to the steep downhill curb near the river, and then he turns around to walk to the direction of the subway station. His footsteps echo loudly in your head. It disrupts the incessant ringing from before.

An exhale escapes your throat. None of the air you’re trying to keep inside is staying inside. You lean against the barricade. We had all lost something so terribly important when Suguru left.

When the silhouette of the young god’s retreating form no longer appears in your peripheral vision, you descend down to the river and you pick up the pack of cigarettes before the wind blows it towards the water. The sun sets in the horizon, and you feel an ache inside your chest, a thrumming in your head; the ghost of a migraine looms over you, and yet you think it couldn’t possibly feel any worse than this.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk one-shot #gojo satoru #gojo #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #jjk x reader #jjk gojo #one-shot preview #✧ | juno writes! #pls count on this fic to slay as hard as wormwood because it WILL #im not finished with it yet but best believe i Will be powering through soon enough

[melodiousmonsters]

I'm just going to start talking about my celestials each month to give you all some low effort and fun(for me) content. Also doing full illustrations of them as well, with some design notes at the end.

My interpretation of loodvigg, named Fhobia Denta Latrostratous (they're one of the three celstials with a full name at the moment) is a fair bit different from other's interpretations of it for extremely personal reasons. They're a tad bit strange, and creepy looking, but overall they are a compassionate (in their own strange way, like almost everything about them) and creative individual that's held as a role model for all shadowkind. They also have a lavender colored ring around their pupils so their eyes aren't fully pink, which is the main difference from the cannon loodvigg, along with the subtly different feathers, lower body, markings on the abdomen, and scales on the arms.

They are generally unexpressive (tonealy, the main way monsters express their emotions) yet VERY emotional. Over the years they gradually became more in control of their emotions due to sheer life experience, but they are still a little more irrational and driven by emotion than most of the other celestials.

They hate being touched, loud sudden/repetitive noises, math, people or things that get too into the meaning of art and other stuff like that, and the texture of a few things like fish meat or coarse fabrics. There are very few things they have a neutral opinion on, one of which is the taste of blood by itself.

They love keeping up their appearance in most situations, for example, their hair isn't naturally like that, they use their saliva like hair jell and specifically style it to look like that, also they would be absolutely rancid smelling and filthy with their diet of fresh meat and preferred locals of wet warm caves. They spend a lot of time cleaning themselves, which is extremely rare for monsters. They also like eating more than your average monster, they eat like a toddler because of how preoccupied with eating they get, collecting/making taxidermy and other oddities, and all critters, especially invertebrates though.

They are majorly interested in biological sciences, specifically preservation and taxonomy. They gave the celestials and dof era monsters/critters their scientific names(no I don't have scientific names for the celestials yet, I've kinda ran out of ideas for scientific names tbh). They happen to spend a lot of their time in a very large cave network with a lot of different types of caves that make good enclosures for keeping critters to study.

They care a lot about the other celestials as they are siblings and gets very angry if something bad happens to them, only if they feel it's undeserved, their empathy is a bit wacky and  inconsistent.

Also most shadow monsters tend to share in its odd mannerisms, sometimes the behaviors show up in completely non shadow affiliated monsters and no one knows why.

Disclaimer (I think that's the right word), yes you guessed right, Fhobia and the large majority of the shadow monsters are autistic, the term isn't used in universe as the monsters don't have a word for autism as they aren't that into psychology and "the way that monster is" has worked in place of a proper word historically, monsters aren't into categorizing others.

as for design notes and process here it is! all the stuff in red boxes are final.

#my singing monsters #beezleart #art #melodious monster chronicles #loodvigg #fhobia denta latrostratous

[floradinterlunium]

When Rationality Becomes Irrational

The number one reason people refuse to accept or admit the obvious nature of Jikook’s relationship is not because of Homophobia or Taekook, it’s because of excessive rationality--Jikook can’t be in a relationship because of the risks.

We’ve all heard the rationalizations:

1. Why would Jikook risk their careers and their bandmates careers over what could potentially amount to a fling? A break up would destroy the group! Jimin and Jungkook are too professional to take such a risk.

2. Hybe would never allow them to be in a relationship. BTS is their number one money maker and Jimin and JK are two of the most popular members. Let’s forget break up, what if they’re outed...that would destroy the group and with it HYBE’s number one source of revenue. So anything that looks suspicious has to be fan service because its financial suicide to allow Jikook to be “real.”

And I will admit all the above is true! Jikook being in a relationship is a massive risk! But this is where rationality can start to impede on our logic.

Yes, it is “irrational” to enter into a relationship with your same sex bandmate in a homophobic country when you are at the peak of your careers...but it was also unavoidable...

Let me explain:

Imagine falling in love with your best friend that you not only happen to work with but also live with. To make matter worse, let’s also imagine that your friend also loves you too. A physical relationship at the very least is bound to happen because at no point are you ever able to escape your feelings...you are with the object of your affection 24/7.

In my opinion,  It is more logical to expect a relationship to blossom out of that, regardless of the risks, then to expect these two individuals to have more self control than a Buddhist Monk. 

It is not rational to expect people to Always behave “rationally.” Thus, whether or not Jikook being in a relationship is rational or not should play no role in whether or not one thinks they are. Because there is no doubt that them being a couple is a risk...no one is arguing against that. All we are saying is risk aside there is no way they aren’t in a relationship because things like GCFT happened:

Jungkook planned and paid to take Jimin to Tokyo for his birthday--A city he said he wanted to spend his free time in on multiple occasions. He then spent a lot of time researching and constructing a romantic vlog of Jimin in Tokyo  set to the tune of a romantic song. No normal unbiased person walked away from that video thinking anything other than this video was made by a man in love with Jimin. 

Risk aside there is no way they aren’t in a relationship because they say things to, and about each other like, “I promised him I’d go even to the moon with him,” or “he’s my I am you, you are me,” or “I want to spend a long time with you” or “my favorite thing is waking up and seeing JK.” These aren’t things Just friends or even best friends say to each other in normal conversations. These are words lovers speak to each other.

Risk aside there is no way they aren’t in a relationship because instead of just flying to Hawaii from Europe, Jimin chose to fly back to Korea, get JK a birthday cake, and plan a birthday party to surprise Jungkook. He didn’t just wish Jungkook a happy birthday like any just “friend” would do, he made it a point to never miss celebrating Jungkook’s birthday with him. That is something a boyfriend or husband would do for their partner.

Risk aside there is no way they aren’t in a relationship because whenever JK looks at or talks about Jimin he has stars in his eyes. Jungkook comes live a lot and he spends the vast majority of his lives either live reacting to Jimin content, talking about Jimin, or becoming like a kid at recess whenever Jimin makes a point to comment on his lives. How can anyone watch JK’s recent lives and not conclude that, that man is in love with Jimin. His behavior is not normal friend behavior. Hobi’s support, and Yoongi’s support is normal friend behavior. They show up for him, cheer him on and even fan girl. But JK takes the cake. He spends huge chunks of time just gushing over JM, Why? Because he loves him.

Risk aside there is no way they aren’t in a relationship because when sick the only person JK doesn’t mind accompanying him or staying in the room with him, even when he’s being stripped naked is Jimin. When RM asked if he wanted them to leave for privacy...JK said yes but no one made JM leave because it’s understood that JM is not like the rest when it comes to JK. That’s a high level of closeness...to allow someone to see you so vulnerable, in a state of helplessness and be okay with it. 

Risk aside there is no way they aren’t in a relationship because they are always together. Band members, staff, they themselves admit this. They are always together on and off break. JK said when they were on break the only members he spoke to were Ji-hope. When members mention them they confuse their names, or talk about them in unison...Jk and Jimin did this or JK and JM are always up late! They are a package deal. We may not see them much now days but we know they are still together a lot because of the way they speak and other’s speak about them as if they are used to seeing them together “JM will come (box) when he gets off.” “JK make ramen for me when I come over.” “JM come eat chicken with me-” JM responds I will come when done. 

Risk aside...Their closeness defies normal friendship closeness. Jikook are human with human impulses and feelings. If they started having feelings for each other there was no avoiding a relationship...regardless of the risk...regardless of Hybe...regardless of the band! No normal human being would be able to stop themselves from entering into a relationship with a person they loved if they were under the same conditions. Every day i grow more sure of the fact that they are together because when I look at them I look at the abundance of footage BTS footage, fan sightings, JIkook statements and I conclude that even though they are well aware of the risks they took it because they knew there was no other option.

Jungkook is more superstitious then Jimin he believes in things like Destiny and from the way he looks at Jimin and behaves towards, protects him and sometimes treats him like porcelain it is clear that this man sees Jimin as his Destiny. Jimin while self admittedly doesn’t believe in things like fate and destiny, he does believe in committing oneself to someone for life and I truly think he sees JK as his life partner...which is why, as careful of a person as he is, he has taken the risk...because JK is his person.

#jikook #kookmin #jimin bts #park jimin #jeon jungkook #jungkook bts #serendipity #jikook bts #kookmin bts

[njordr]

no because anakin was never dealt with a winning anything, my dude spent years as a slave’s kid working in the junk shop building droids as a form of fun.

i always enjoy the whole “Anakin just expected Obi-wan and Padmé to trust and listen to him?? Asshole” discourse because like… yeah??

not trying to self insert here but as a mentally I’ll individual 🫡 who in a fit of mania sometimes believes they are absolutely, 100% right and has the irrational thinking of; “im right, and you love me, you’re the person I love most, you should get it” & is totally irrationally emotional when they DONT, yeah… I GET THAT SIR!!

Even if it’s completely understandable, deep down I know they’re not at fault for not getting my own emotions, I’m in control of those — not others. I know this. Still, when my partner says something that goes against me it’s like nails against chalkboards sometimes

Again, when looking at Anakin he had nothing. He was a slave all his life, just to a different master each time. on Tatooine, to the Jedi/code, Palpatine and even to the Darth vader suit, he is never of his own free will. It was Qui-gon’s choice to win Anakin, to take him from his mother and home to what he thought would be a better life. granted it is, but he also finds himself isolated from what is imo what is supposed to be his “placeholder family”

MORE IMPORTANTLY Padmé is the love of his life, telling him that what he thinks they need, what he’s done for her and their family etc to be at peace/alive was actually WRONG!! BAD!! All meanwhile he doesn’t have any of his support at his side; Rex is off with ahsoka, obi-wan is fighting grievous on utpau meanwhile Palpatine has puppy Anakin at his every whim and call ((lets not forget that Palpatine had to have been grooming Anakin from a relatively young age)) They don’t get it, they didn’t see Padmé die before their very eyes, they don’t know what’s waiting them. Anakin is trying to save his family. Obi-Wan going against him is salt in the wound, even if Anakin himself knows it’s wrong and against the code and just completely evil.

I mean, Padmé FORGAVE him for the whole tusken massacre smh is it such a stretch to believe she would stand by his side as he waged war against the galaxy? i mean… isn’t that what love is…..? selfish, passionate, narcissistic, messy? she herself is a politician who often prioritized Anakin over her own duties I bet my man expected some “if you have a body in your trunk I’ll bring the shovel” type beat which also, i reiterate, WHY WOULDN’T HE when his wife forgave him for mass genocide, children included?,

he is emotionally/mentally fragile, he just recently slew younglings and killed Mace — you think this mf is thinking logically? Stop giving him the benefit of the doubt; he was a mess throughout the series, not once did he ever have his feet on the ground. He isn’t suddenly going to make the “right” decision, especially if it means sacrificing his loved ones. He’s an extremely flawed character, stop expecting him to make the right call.

The blocks of Anakin’s character have been set up to fall, Obi-Wan and Padmé are two of his most beloved relationships aside from his MOTHER that are completely dogging on his only hope of SAVING THEM. Anakin was never simply, “you have to do what I say or else I’ll get upset!” that’s a disrespect to his character — he can think logically. He isn’t a child. He is strategic, effective, in tcw he is the most efficient victorious warrior making Palpatine’s efforts look even better as leader of the republic. He builds droids from the time he is a young child all throughout his formative - adult years to the extent where knows how to understand their bleep bloops.

Anakin is flawed deeply, he was doomed from the get-go, never had a chance. His feelings are complex and deep and he questions the faith he swore to follow/protect. His character is so interesting to me and I have such a difficult time depicting the raw duality of man he wears on his shoulders everyday. Our desire to do good, yet to be evil; our desire to be unselfish, yet we are selfish.

This beautiful, scarred, monstrous mosaic of a man who from the very beginning, had a huge amount of pressure on him was meant to be so horribly dismantled. What other choice did he have? He is the chosen one, how could he be wrong? How could his idea of saving his family be any less honourable than the Jedi of the Galaxy?

He isn’t simply angry at them for not agreeing with him/falling with him, he feels betrayed. Personally. Obi-Wan and Padmé are pieces of Anakin, people that he loved so fiercely he labeled them as his enemies once they hurt him, he is too far gone to give them any semblance of second chances

anyways yep happy Thursday guys

#star wars #rambling #holy shit I wrote this over 8 hours #rambles #ooc #hc #headcanon #headcanons #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #padme amidala #obikin #anidala #writing #brain go brrrr #brain go brr #the clone wars #revenge of the Sith #being wistful #phantom menace #star wars feels #star wars headcanons #Star Wars headcanon #star wars rots #star wars the clone wars #talking 2 myself #it’s ok don’t mind me #im fine #like fine when ur running on 5 hours sleep #and the bipolar mania sits in in waves of up and down

[ronwestbreeze]

Hello I just had a question about your gonna go far and it’s about reeds if you were ever to write her but instead of mating with our fav forest Navi you would mate her with the sea Navi would you change anything about her,also when I say sea Navi I mean Ronal and tonowari

Thank you and have a nice day,night or afternoon alos cannot wait for more on Reeds and what’s happening I’m on the edge of my seat

oooh that’s such a good question! and i’d be happy to answer!

hmm, thinking about both tonowari and ronal’s personality i do think there will definitely be some differences. like if reeds landed near the sea na’vi instead of the forest na’vi, i think she still would act the same because the root to her rough personality right now is her mother’s death. so i don’t think her cold, irrational, and angry traits would change. reeds would probably seek temporary shelter with them, agreeing to keep away from their village for their comfort.

tonowari, after some convincing, i think would agree to these terms. since reeds didn’t land near the sea na’vi people, they don’t necessarily have a reason to be super wary around her other than the fact that she is obviously sky people. he would obviously send warriors to check on her because he rightfully doesn’t fully trust a sky person living somewhat near his people but i don’t think he’d be as extreme like tsu’tey. but then again, that’s because we are looking at this from a perspective where reeds did not land near the sea Na’vi. but when he sees that reeds is of no problem to his clan, i think he would be more laxed toward her.

reeds would definitly want to make herself useful, again one of her noticeable traits, so she would probably somehow beg him to allow her to learn their ways and make herself useful to his clan, even if her avatar mimicks the physical traits of the forest Na’vi.

here, i believe ronal will be more prominent. obviously in the beginning she would definitely not trust reeds because she is a sky person. and because she wants to protect her clan as tsahik. it mostly takes convincing her to let reeds stay temporarily, and one of the promises would’ve probably been making herself useful as thanks for letting her temporarily stay with them. ronal didn’t see how she could be useful but would’ve reluctantly agreed to the terms. ronal would definitely keep a close watch on reeds of course, even if when it seems like reeds isn’t up to something, ronal is still wary around her. but she does eventually allow reeds to train and learn the ways of the clan.

now here comes the mating bit. how exactly would reeds interact with them in a romantic sense? this is actually such a fun thing to think about, because i like to study both the canon characters and figure out a way to apply the way they would love someone, especially in a slow burn sense.

tonowari would probably be the first to fall for reeds and here’s why. for me, he is totally into strong slightly dominating women, hence ronal. and since reeds has a very blunt and somewhat dominate personality, i think it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine tonowari becoming smitten with reeds over time. he seems like a very calm and gentle sort of man which i don’t think is difficult for reeds not to fall for. he would unknowingly bring her to a calm to her chaotic mind and emotions. he would ground her, and with time, would begin to read into reeds expressions and begin to understand her. because i believe the one thing that could win reeds over is someone understanding her. someone not seeing just one side of her and then deciding that is all she is. tonowari would see all of her and accept her, understand that she is just a very complex and somewhat broken individual. a human. not just a demon. and i find that really beautiful.

now ronal and reeds would definitely clash alot, lol. they are kind of like jake and reeds in the beginning. two very stubborn personalities that would take a long while for them to finally each some sort of middle ground and be tolerable to each other. and i imagine them reaching that point when reeds does eventually become well-versed in their clan culture and makes herself useful. with the sea na’vi, i see her working more with healers since she isn’t forced to be fighting and brutal unlike her situation with the omatikaya clan and the clan wars. reeds would love working with healers honestly, and i think if she hadn’t been in the midst of clan wars, she would’ve went that route as well with the omatikaya people. but with the metkayina, she is a healer. and because of this, reeds would probably work with ronal alot, hence them eventually getting to know each other and starting to meet each other in the middle. ronal of course would see the worse side of reeds because of their clashing but i think what’s beautiful and what makes reeds fall first, would be that ronal sees her awfulness and doesn’t believe she is a monster because of that. she doesn’t invalidate her feelings, her loss of her mother. ronal only distrusted reeds at first because of being a sky person, not because of her “reckless” emotions. hope that makes sense haha.

ronal would fall for reeds’ nurturing nature that goes hand in hand with her warrior-like personality. because let’s not mistake it, even if she rarely shows it, reeds does have a nurturing side which is often overshadowed by her blunt nature. i believe one of the only times her nurturing would come out would be around only ronal and her son, ao’nung. oh she would love being treated gently by reeds, i don’t know, it’s so sweet to think about.

so in other words. tonowari and ronal would adore reeds as their third mate.

sorry for the mouthful but i had fun thinking about this! would love to see everyone else’s thoughts on this too!!

#ronwestbreeze’s got mail #[you’re gonna go far] #yggf #tonowari x reader #ronal x reader

[panharmonium]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, from the top:

1. the girl with the crush

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. the greater good

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

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

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

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

Anyway. Back to a more measured response.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. she only wants to save you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. the shadow of my family

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

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

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

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

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

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

[gatheringbones]

[“Conflicted feelings about both love and the “opposite sex” were built in to the liberal division of labor by gender. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, one of the first philosophers to sentimentalize both individual self-reliance and female dependency, was radically ambivalent about love. While love derived its intensity from individualism, it also created a dependency that undermined individualism. The male lover tries to find a partner who represents the highest embodiment of female virtue and beauty. To be worthy of her, he must meet the highest ideals of male virtue and beauty. The paradox is this: What makes each individual unique in the other’s eyes is that each represents the best of a stereotype; what makes love complete is when each lover most fully conforms to the proper gender role.

As Berger puts it, the lover searches “for one single person to represent all that he is not, to confront him as his other half and his opposite” and thus to “make the world complete for him.” But he must also make the world complete for her by being all that she is not. In consequence, philosopher Elizabeth Rapaport explains: The lover is dependent, entirely, terribly dependent on his beloved for something he needs, the reciprocity of his love . . . [but] He will only be loved if she finds him pre-eminent. He must present himself in the guise in which she would see her beloved. This leads to a false presentation of the self and the chronic fear of exposure and loss of love.

Women, of course, face the same problem: The more successfully they attract a lover to their ideal gender qualities, the more they must suppress those aspects of their personality that do not fit the ideal. Each person loses his or her own half in the process of attracting “the other half.”

In the world of separate spheres, both men and women need love, but they seek and experience it very differently. For men who subscribe to the values of bourgeois individualism, love introduces an uncomfortable contradiction into their personal sense of autonomy and rationality. It is “a mysterious and irrational force irreconcilable with their otherwise highly rational, respectable existence.” Men tend to see love as not susceptible of conscious or rational control, as a force that hits with little warning and may pass just as suddenly—somewhat like a summer storm. (Indeed, it would be difficult to understand how men could make a rational decision to fall in love with a person who embodies all the traits that men are taught to hold in contempt in every other sphere of their lives.) While some men are captivated by this one socially acceptable chance to abandon rationality and calculation, and therefore fall in love over and over again,for most men the ideal is to get out of the storm, to resolve the uncertainty, to be able to stop doing this foreign, threatening, and above all distracting emotional work.

For women who accept their role in the liberal division of labor, however, love is both a rational choice and a pursuit that requires conscious, calculating behavior. Maleness represents a world of achievement, autonomy, and effectiveness. It is highly desirable to gain access to someone who represents that world, but it is also dangerous, because there is always the chance that a man will treat a woman the way he treats the rest of the world, as a prize to conquer and then leave behind. The woman must control her own emotional storms, harnessing both her own and her lover’s feelings to achieve definite ends.”]

stephanie coontz, from the way we never were: american families and the nostalgia trap, 1993

#stephanie coontz #history stuff #gender stuff #currently reading

[akaashism]

Hi...if you don't mind, can I ask something from Merlin BBC? What do you think are Merlin and Arthur's greatest personality strengths and weaknesses? Why? What do you love about their dynamic? Sorry if you've answered these questions before.....

Merlin and Arthur are both such distinct personalities, and both incredibly amazing, yet such incredibly flawed individuals.

Merlin is very humble, and caring, and protective and would do anything for his loved ones, but this love is also makes him blind to reality sometimes and makes him judgemental and irrational and go to such extreme lengths that things go awry. That I suppose is his weakness.

Arthur, on the other hand, is strong and resilient and loves very loudly and he's an amazing leader who never loses sight of his morals no matter what. He's also very open-minded and can be swayed with powerful arguments. But that also makes him impressionable and gullible and makes him vulnerable to heartbreak, which eventually leads to his downfall. Love, like Merlin, also makes him blind because he can't imagine his loved ones doing anything wrong which often comes back to cut him.

I love everything about their dynamic. The closeness, the emotional intimacy of their relationship, the teasing and banter, the domesticity, the way they'd die and kill for each other, the way they care. It's all stunning and their dynamic carries the show.

#ask response #thanks for the ask!! #merlin emrys #arthur pendragon #merthur #bbc merlin

[a-study-in-sepia]

Proxemics and Deduction 01

Proxemics is defined as the branch of knowledge that deals with the amount of space people feel is necessary to set between themselves and others. 

It’s a fascinating field that we, as deductionists, pull from on a daily basis whether we’ve been aware of it or not. If you see two people walking together, how do you gauge their relationship? Lovers, family, friends, colleagues, mortal enemies; all options, along with many more. There are quite a few scenario-specific examples, such as coworkers carrying the same identification tag, or a couple each tending to a stroller, but without fail, as a supplementary measure, or more often, as an introductory observation, we fall to proxemics. We look for levels of comfort, and one of the best ways to gauge that is physical closeness. Proxemics is one of several modes of nonverbal communication, ranging from something as simple as touch (haptics), to something as obscure as use of time (chronemics). 

To explain proxemics in its most concrete state, we can reference Edward T. Hall’s interpersonal distances of man. 

Imagine four concentric circles, in the center, a person. The first three circles are at 4, 8, and 12 feet respectively. Now add one more circle at 1.5 feet. From nearest to farthest, you have the intimate distance, personal distance, social distance, and public distance. Each of these measurements is used to represent the acceptable levels of closeness in various situations. It is important to note that Hall’s model, and thus Hall’s denoted application, is limited to Western ideals of social conduct. While these same measurements may not fully apply cross-culturally, all human-hosting spaces will model some form of proxemics. There will always be bounds between intimate, personal, and public space, but occasionally, they will be marked at different points. The difference between a friend and a colleague may be a matter of a few inches, and yet breaching that unspoken rule, can cause immense discomfort. Gauging this space, or lack thereof, is a major aspect of social deduction. It’s one of the first behavioral observations we utilize as deductionists, both new and old. 

Before marital status, even before handedness, we have social connection. We all see it, I would venture to say we intuitively understand it, so much so that the lines between observation and deduction begin to blur. 

The basics are in the textbook application, but there’s much more to proxemics than reciprocal relations. What about the colleague who’s getting a little too close for comfort? The wife who’s preparing for an imminent divorce? The regular with the irrational phobia? 

Deduction, in many ways, is best dissected through deviance.

Proxemics sets a baseline for us to observe and through this baseline, enables us to detect changes. These changes speak volumes. To take the first example. You notice two coworkers behind the counter in a cafe. Their relationship status is unknown - simply colleagues, barely acquaintances, best friends - it's unestablished to you. You watch them interact; there’s limited camaraderie, few words exchanged from one, a few too many from the other. Is worker B simply over communicative, or is there more to it? You see B encroach on what would be appropriate for a colleague (social/personal depending on the available space - which is something I’ll touch on in a moment), but A steps away, leaving B in the next available concentric circle. This is something we would likely notice without the knowledge of proxemics, but would be unable to categorize beyond a vague ramble about “intuitive social knowledge”. By referencing an established baseline we streamline the observation and solidify it in the process, creating a new building block to jump off of. “Individual A looks uncomfortable” turns into, dare I say, a mathematical reference point for any and all future behavior. 

It is important to acknowledge that this particular example is not representative of Person A’s baseline. It is also important to acknowledge that not every person follows the same baseline, and that certain situations will inherently alter expected baselines. Let’s take the example of a very small area behind the counter in this imaginative cafe. Informal colleagues will likely be forced into what would be considered personal or even intimate space. Proxemic expectations change not only cross-culturally, but by environment. The best way to understand proxemic norms in non-standard situations, is to spend some time observing many people who are exposed to that specific situation. If you simply go off how you would feel in that situation, you are setting a baseline with a possible bias. People tend towards environments they're comfortable with. There is, after all, a reason they’re behind that counter and you’re not.

Now, one might argue that if the proxemic standards are constantly changing, the applications of the specific measurements are all but useless. While it is true that the baselines are constantly changing by environment, there is an overarching standard. When the space is provided to do so, people will revert to defined patterns. And in situations where the space is not available, using this model, you can deduce a whole host of things with the proportional proximal input and subsequent behavior. Personality, relationships, levels of comfort and discomfort are all vital bits of information. 

One interesting morsel I feel like throwing in here is the fascinating subject of lines. Lines, queues, whatever you want to call them are one of the best places to observe shifting proxemics in action. As more people enter the queue (when the space is confined) the spaces between individuals will decrease until they reach a social breaking point, at this point the line will turn, often veering out of the designated queue area. Onto another cafe example (can you tell I got coffee this morning). One person walks up to the register. At this point, the only proximal opportunity is between the cashier and the patron - which is generally defined by the width of the counter between them. Now, another person walks up and starts a line - depending on this individual’s personal proxemic preference, the standard in the line is set. The next person who joins the line will tend to follow the set amount of spacing, and the next person, and so on, as space allows. The patrons up ahead, uncaring of what’s going on behind them, will typically not adjust their positions, leaving a continuous theme of compression as the line progresses, until someone breaks and opts to turn the line. If there is no way to turn, that same slinky effect will move its way back up the line as people become aware of the discomfort behind them. I observed this in action this morning while waiting at my local cafe. Because there is continuous movement, the comfort of the line is rarely at the forefront of anyone’s mind; their priority is to reach the front, not be optimally comfortable while waiting. If, for example, people were queuing onto a bus (which for some reason didn’t have seats) and had to stand there for a couple hours, everyone would evenly disperse. In scenarios with movement, one person’s typically insignificant social preference has a domino effect on those behind them. There’s an observable push and pull of conscientiousness and the introversion-extroversion spectrum. We adjust subconsciously to the line’s collective consciousness, bow down to the social conduct overlord, and occasionally get squished in the process. Take some time to observe this phenomenon next time you’re waiting. Be a menace and try standing too close or too far and watch how uncomfortable you, and possibly others, get. Next time you're first in line, set a weird tone, but remember, with great power comes great responsibility. 

The last topic I’m going to be touching on is something I can find absolutely no research on (great intro, I know), so bear with me. I’d like to discuss proxemics in terms of the inanimate object - something that I’m very poorly defining, but I believe works in the context of this article. I’ve been taking notes on this subject for some time, but only in my own geographical area. It’s proved wildly effective at predicting where people will go, so I took some time this morning to watch live CCTV footage of city walkways in other cities, both in the US and nationally (London, Oxford, and Tokyo). This is simply anecdotal, but through this limited observation it became clear to me that people will walk in the middle of their perceived space, cross-culturally. This sense of available space changes depending on the presence of a roadway, varied storefront structure, as well as other people. If there is no one coming towards them, people will tend towards the middle of the walkway, often veering slightly towards the right or left side (driving/passing side of the given country). Individual patterns can answer questions about openness, day to day activities, and conscientiousness. For instance, a person on a walkway with no one coming towards them who is walking distinctly on the right side (in a right-driving country) may be very high on the conscientiousness scale, and/or their typical routine involves walking among many people. These sorts of deductions can be further parsed using other observations. 

If we accept the premise that people tend towards the middle of their perceived space (which, if other people are approaching, may be one side of a walkway - effectively leaving their “middle” veered to one side), then deviance will usually stem from moving towards, or away from, something. There are a lot of fun applications to this, for instance, deducing how much of a hurry someone is in based on how likely they are to go for the most acceptable path or the quickest path, at baseline. For example, I tend to opt for the most acceptable/safest path, I have high conscientiousness and high neuroticism according to the OCEAN model. But today, I jay-walked through a busy street to get somewhere before my order was ready. This is an example of considering the safest path. Considering the most acceptable path has some predictive applications. As I was taking a break between shifts the other day, I noticed that people who wanted to walk into a store changed their path relatively far in advance. In this case, they were heading towards something. I was able to easily predict which store someone might go into well up to a block away, when utilized in tandem with other observations. 

Early on in my research journey I found that in videos of people walking on the street oncoming individuals were encouraged to veer away from the person filming. I prioritized finding CCTV to avoid this, but found it to be an interesting example of people changing course to avoid something. There were also a few people who veered into the camera's view. Something as simple as this may give clues to an individual's level of openness and extraversion. 

In public situations where a person must veer into an oncoming flow of people to cross to their desired destination, they will often wait until they’re near adjacent to it; in a more desolate walkway, they’ll veer much earlier. Possibly charting their whole course along the less-acceptable pathway. 

I label this idea as the proxemics of objects because when walking, we seem to assign objects their own personal bubbles. We don’t walk near the table line of a restaurant unless there’s a specific reason to. We tend not to encroach on their space, in the same way we consider people. Perhaps it’s more for our comfort than the objects’, or perhaps we’ve all been traumatized by the videos of people dressing up as bushes. Either way, I found it interesting enough to throw in here, and if you’re seeing this, you found it interesting enough to read (yay). I’ll be further exploring the topic of object spatial awareness in a future article I have planned. 

Thank you for reading - below are some relevant articles - 

https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/11826_Chapter8.pdf

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/understanding-personal-space-proxemics/

Hall, Edward T., et al. “Proxemics [and Comments and Replies].” Current Anthropology, vol. 9, no. 2/3, 1968, pp. 83–108. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2740724. Accessed 6 Dec. 2023.

#deduction #deductive reasoning #sherlock #a study in sepia #sherlock holmes #social science #proxemics #social psychology

[johnwickb1tsch]

Rambling time again because-✨ late night thoughts ✨

So with each new chapter of bittersweet, (and the tex+john collab, which I could also ramble on for hours probably 😂) it's becoming more and more clear that John and the reader's relationship is currently like a stretched out elastic band. They're both very clear on what they want, they're both very stubborn about it, and aside from little sweet moments - or not so sweet moments 😏- here and there, they're basically getting pushed to the limits of their patience and sanity.

And it especially struck me with John, because let's be honest- The man is terrified of letting us go, letting our leash go in a metaphorical sense, in terms of something getting our of his control. It makes absolute sense with the life he lived, and especially with the amount of people he lost, Helen being the most relevant. Despite working for Ruska Roma and serving the Director during his early life, John has been in control for the most of his existence. He usually stays very cool and controlled from an outsider's view, but someone like Winston can easily see through him, and knows that he's anything but. He's calm, sure, but he's also impatient when it comes to things, hotheaded even if you look at the second movie - or any of them really - and what he did to Santino (who fucking deserved it, and I wanted to tap-dance on his corpse 😂). He's stubborn as a mule, and most importantly, he's not afraid to break the rules. Ever. Due to his skills, there really isn't many people who could hold his responsible if he does happen to break the rules either, and this also plays hand in hand with the fact that he was born and raised a morally dark/grey character. While all of this helps him a lot because he's practically unstoppable if he puts his mind to something, it also means that he is irrational, maybe even slightly delusional.

Have I mentioned that he's also very emotionally driven??? Look at him during the first 2 movies. The man went fucking bat-shit-crazy after people NOT disturbed him, but disrespected his late wife's memory, and pretty much ripped everything away from him that still tied him to Helen, - aside from their memories and his feelings - the very person who prompted this emotionally driven action from him to actually get out out of the life he once lived.

So now.. We have this extremely stubborn, and also extremely emotionally attached person, who lost pretty much everyone close to him, and is in fact very much so aware that his reputation means a death-sentence to pretty much anyone who interacts with him, INCLUDING little ol' us. So on a basic level, he is rightfully cautious and terrified, because people will not stop to consider whether they're bringing an innocent into this or not, they just want leverage over him.

This, combined with the fact that we, the reader, are also extremely stubborn (too), with a great amount of self-respect, an incredible display of self-esteem, and a set of although grey, but also pretty strict moral code, - where the lines do blur here and there depending on who does what, and why they do it - which he LOVES, however it also means that we're unpredictable. Attracted to him? Sure. Emotionally attached to him? Absolutely. But we're a strong individual and a free spirit, and that definitely made him doubt whether we would stay with him early on, (jealous!John intensifies 🤤) and is in fact actively making his paranoid that if he slips up, let's his defenses down, or maybe even becomes more lenient, we might be able to just slip out of his grasp, not that he'd ever allow it of course.

Buuuuuuuuuut- All of this is playing against him, against both of us really. While we might be able to get some kind of leverage over him the more he reveals, and the more time we spend learning the game, if there is to be a genuine relationship in the future like he wants there to be, like both of us want there to be really, he's doing this the wrong way, because he's basically trying to force it on us, and cage a free bird, thus the elastic band being stretched. And as we know, you can stretch an elastic band quite far, maybe even past it's limits sometimes, but at the end of the day, it will rip and it will snap back three times as hard, which is what I imagine will happen. Maybe not today, or not even tomorrow, but there is a limit to everything, including the patience of both characters, not to mention that John is already showing the signs of being tired with our constant stubbornness, (latest chapter 🤤) and if say.. He were to snap instead of us, it may very well snap us out of our helpless emotional state, in case he maybe were to overstep a line that he definitely shouldn't have.

Same goes for the reader. Poor girl is extremely strong, so, so strong, with an incredible sense of self-worth but there is a limit to that as well. She still hasn't quite processed that her family and friends practically abandoned her, and it's not like John's back and forth, their little cat and mouse games, or being punished for not behaving a certain way - which makes John an absolute hypocrite because unless he wants to change our personality completely, he should not be punishing us for showing signs of what he fell in love with, of who he fell in love with in the first place - are helping.. So honestly- I await whatever you have in store for us because it is going to be WILD.

Spooooky! LOL once again I have to ask if you've been rummaging in my WIP??? 😂 You make so many excellent points!

Especially that John's excessive enemies would definitely fuel his paranoia for keeping this girl under lock and key, after EVERYTHING he's lost. 🎡🏹 It's like it's just not enough to be John Fucking Wick. These idiots keep testing him, even though they should absolutely fucking know he's going to kill them all in the end. BUT that doesn't help you if you're the collateral damage...

AND he IS such a hypocrite because of course he fell in love with her for her independent nature, but he wants to be the one to bring her to heel, for his own peace of mind? I think she's into it to a point because she's never really met anyone who could do it (and still retain her love). It's new and mysterious but once the shine wears off and she gets her feet (because shit what are we on? Like day 2? 3? He's going to find out how stubborn she can really be. You're right, something's going to snap.

#julia speaks #john wick #yandere john wick

[jowi8597]

"Cap gesture" & "raised fist gesture" - my comment to the recent bjyx cpn theory

One of the many reasons why mtjjs (Yibo's fans) dislike bjyx/yizhan cpfs so much is that they associate every little thing Yibo does with the other guy (xz), thus diminishing and depriving Yibo of his individuality and uniqueness. If it was just one thing every once in a while, I think most of us would just roll our eyes and let go, but when it happens every day, with every project, performance, commercial, etc., it's very hard to ignore. When you add to this our rational thinking and the knowledge that it's all a lie and that the theories these people create are made up out of thin air, irritation sets in.

Think about it, if you like someone a lot, you won't be able to calmly watch someone try to "erase" your favorite person by presenting them as someone else's shadow.

One of the mean ways to belittle individuality is to identify each little gesture with another person, especially if these are related to the personality and interests that define the essence, the core of this exact human being. Especially the gestures repeated since childhood, which are thus sweet memories, should be sacred.

Why am I writing about this now? I was frustrated to see cpfs trying to identify part of Yibo's dance at One and only promotional event with an unrelated person. It's about the „cap gesture".

The first thing is that this gesture is probably a natural part of the choreography and thanks to the video from another dancer, we can see the context.

"Cap gestures” are quite characteristic for dance / music styles like hip-hop and krump, less for breakdance, but such a fusion of styles is not unusual. When we add Yibo's roots - he's a dancer who started as a b-boy to change his dance style to hip-hop later, we can clearly see the sense of incorporating such a gesture into the choreography.

The "cap gesture” was also often used by Yibo in his childhood.

(here supercute video of 12yo Yibito 🥹)

Cpfs try to convince you that the gesture Yibo did during Ono dance is not a "cap gesture", but more like "finger glasses" (and thus imitating the xz’s gesture), but I don't think it resembles it at all.

We know that Yibo is a professional with a deep knowledge and understanding of streetdance, so to assume that he would incorporate a gesture that has little to do with streetdance into the choreography at such an important moment (promotion of his breakdance film) seems very unlikely.

The second thing I want to mention is another part of cpn. I mean the „raised fist gesture” that Yibo often uses in his performances, and which is also something that cpfs like to „link” to xz.

Well, my question is: was this gesture invented by xz and therefore is it completely unique for him? Answer: of course not! The gesture is a universal symbol of resistance and unity, the first appearance of which dates back to the mid-nineteenth century!

In addition, we also know that Yibo is an anime lover, and this gesture is characteristic of the popular anime "One piece" that Yibo likes.

(gesture from the anime versus Yibo's performances 😉)

(Yibo as his fav character from One Piece anime - Zoro, in Shu Uemura OP campaign)

To speculate that using this gesture would have anything to do with a former coworker is totally irrational. Please, be serious 😂

As for the fact that the „same” gestures appeared in the xz’s Doujin video a day later.. I don't feel like being attacked, so all I could say is that if you take the time and do some research, you'll quickly notice that the "Yibo first, xz later" "pattern” is repeated in 90% of cpn, be it issues of clothes, behavior, posting etc.. Draw your own conclusions! Jiayou! 😉

(Why do I comment on this? Cause I can 😉✌️)

#FreeYibo #Mtjj #wang yibo #Mtjj's comment #cause i can

[jmdbjk]

Concepts: Brothers, Partners

The conversation about people pushing the “oh they act like cute brothers” versus “they are boyfriends joined at the hip” and no grey area in-between...If you fall into either camp, y’all need to stop a minute and rethink all that. 

[Jimin had kinesiology tape across his neck, back and shoulders here and Jungkook was rubbing the area to soothe the pain]

All the members call each other brothers because they’ve lived and worked with each other for the past ten years. They are a close-knit team that know each other so well. They are family to each other as we just witnessed Hobi was so thankful of the fact Jimin came to support him this past weekend at Lollapalooza. They trust each other, there is no jealousy amongst the members.

Most people who regularly visit my blog are aware that Jimin and Jungkook DO NOT act like brothers. My blog and many other blogs, we post a lot of specific stuff that we think shows Jimin and Jungkook DO NOT act like "just” brothers. 

There is always something else, more closeness for lack of a better way to say that, different tones of voice, different words they use for each other and no one else (that we’ve ever seen), different body language reserved only for each other...different reactions and different cues that give away the fact they are SOMETHING BEYOND.

[If Jungkook’s hands were THAT cold, why didn’t he just shove them into his own pockets?]

The other extreme are those of you who want Jimin and Jungkook to express their relationship openly and often. Why don’t they interact on social media? Why don’t they attend events together? Why don’t they post love notes to each other? Which in turn, becomes “if they didn’t go to that soccer game/concert together, they must not be a couple” or “if they’ve never interacted with each other on Instagram, they can’t be a couple.” None of that is grounded in reality.

And this one: if they choose to spend time with other friends, they must not be a couple...that is the most irrational reasoning I’ve heard. 

If you think this way, then you have very limited expectations of how partners in a relationship should behave. This is not realistic on your part. If you are not in a relationship or never have been in one, and you think that’s how a potential significant other is supposed to act, you will never be happy in your relationship. 

You probably get confused and become doubtful of their relationship when you don’t see them doing things you expect a couple to do. Or you just want to justify your belief that they can’t be a couple because you don’t want them to be.

Yes, it’s nice to be close, to have physical contact, to do things together, and those ARE expected when you become intimate with someone, but to expect that to always be 24/7 is not realistic. As an individual, you should not need or want that, it is unhealthy. You should be free and able to maintain your sense of self even in a very loving and close intimate relationship with your significant other. A healthy relationship allows each to thrive and grow.

No doubt, as we’ve seen, both Jimin and Jungkook are very independent individuals. They have different interests, different personalities, different styles and tastes. None of that precludes them being committed partners. 

You can be married/coupled/partnered...whatever you want to call it...and still not be glued at the hip. You can have different circles of friends. You can even go on a vacation without your significant other and it’s not the end of the world as you know it. YES, really...you can!

I won’t get into the long discussion of them trying to live their lives in the context of their own culture/society/industry. Every blog on tumblr has discussed that ad nauseum because people often lack critical thinking these days.

#been a while since i had to ramble #brothers vs lovers #the extreme viewpoints irritate me #anons who come running when they dont do stuff together #jikook #kookmin #minkook

[ravynfyre]

do not come at me if you read beyond the cut and get traumatized.

my elderly cat died yesterday. i wish i know how, because the not knowing is killing me. she'd suddenly taken a turn for the worse, and i had already decided that we were going in monday to say goodbye. i don't know how she died, though. i had a really bad bout of insomnia the night before, and laid down to take a 3 hour nap in the late morning after chores. when i woke up, she wasn't begging for more breakfast, so i got worried and went looking for her. i couldn't find her. looked all through the house in all of her favorite spots, but she wasn't there. i didn't find her until i checked the crate of one of my dogs. the dog was eating her. dog had already pulled her head off and eaten the front half of her body. i had to get bags to collect what was left of my elderly cat from the dog's crate... and i will never know if the dog just found her body soon after i laid down for my nap (because i know my cat was alive them... i had fed her a little breakfast - less than she would normally want, so i was worried already - and then she'd come to lay down on me once i was settled) or if my dog actually killed her. i know that she was in multiple pieces, though, and i had to clean that up... and i have already had multiple people today telling me that my mental and emotional state, my distress, is unreasonable. one person literally asked me how i could be this upset for a cat when i have spent my life dealing with dead humans in even worse conditions.

here's my awful confession: i don't like people. they lie. they're complicated. they bring drama to my life. they hurt me. they go out of their way to hurt me. they hurt each other for the joy of inflicting pain. they destroy the world for fun and profit. humans are terrible creatures and i cannot stand them. there are individual people that i care for... but humans... fuck humanity.

my animals don't lie to me. they want food, safety, and compassion... and they love whole-heartedly. they don't try and deceive me for personal gain. except maybe for another snack, but i like food, too. my animals don't want to destroy the world. at most, they want the fun of the chaos of wrecking a stuffie.

but now i am conflicted, and that's the worst part, i think. she's a dog. dog's gonna dog. it's not like she was being malicious when she started eating my cat. she's got behavioral and medical issues that make her feel like she's starving, even when she's full. she licks things off the floor, sometimes, so it's pretty believable that she would start eating a corpse. but when she came to me, she wasn't cat safe, and it took many months to train that out of her. except i forgot that you can never 100% extinguish a set behavior... so an elderly cat on her last legs who was slow and weak... yeah, i could see this dog killing her out of misguided instincts, too. i just don't know. and that makes me sound like a shitty, unprepared, ignorant person, i'm sure, that i would risk my elderly cat like that. trust me, you can't say anything i haven't already been thinking about myself. (and other people have said to me already yesterday and today. you'd be late to the party) but the dog had been so trustworthy for so many months that it honestly wasn't something i could consider - except in retrospect. so i'm going back to closing the crate when i am asleep or not home. all of my other cats are young and spry and well able to take care of themselves, unlike my herschell was, but i am not going to risk that ever again.

i fucked up and my cat might have paid the price. or maybe not. either way, i still had to fish her decapitated, partially consumed remains out of my dog's crate... and apparently, being upset about that makes me irrational, offensive, and unreasonable. you know, because i have scraped decapitated, smeared human off of highways before. i should be immune or some shit.

how do i love that dog again?

#tw animal death #tw traumatic animal death #cw animal death #cw traumatic animal death #dead dove do not eat #heed the tags #tw graphic animal death #cw graphic animal death

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The great Erich Fromm:

“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet "for sale", who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his "normal" contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater independence and productivity,his neurotic symptoms will cure themselves.”

"The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots."

"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."

"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."

"Understanding a person does not mean condoning; it only means that one does not accuse him as if one were God or a judge placed above him."

"The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal."

"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often."

“Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.”

“If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.”

“Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.”

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”

“That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

“Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. 'Patriotism' is its cult...Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.”

“There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.”

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”

~ Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst and author (23 Mar 1900-1980)

[Ian Sanders]

#Ian Sanders #quotes #Erich Fromm

[rihon-scribe-some-writer-guy]

I’m not a hard core Superman Fan. I only have a adequate amount of knowledge to understand enough to pull up a price of media and not ask annoying questions about what’s going on. Superman is OP. His kryptonian birth name is Kal-El. The original story was an allegory of the struggles of an immigrant living in a strange world. Kryptonite is a elementally impossible substance that acts as reverse photosynthesis.

Anyways, it seems that there’s a new series in which Lois Lane jumped off a building in order to prove that Clark Kent and Superman were one in the same in its fifth episode. It has caused some fuss within the fan base. Half believe that Lois shouldn’t have taken drastic measures, while the other half believes her actions were justified.

My take: Both sides kinda have their points.

Originally I thought that Lois throwing herself off a skyscraper was irrational and manipulative. I feel like she didn’t have to resort to jumping off a building to prove Clark Kent = Superman. One of Lois Lane’s positive qualities should be her intelligence. Maybe she could have swiped Clark’s glasses and realized that they’re non-prescription. Maybe she could have taken a fingerprint sample of Superman and Clark. Maybe she could disguise herself as Wonder Woman and have a heart to heart conversation with Superman about his alter ego. There’s multiple alternative scenarios that would allow Lois to prove the truth in a way that showed that she was smart and resourceful without causing the person who she was considering to be in a relationship to divulge information about themselves that they weren’t ready to do. Considering that said information was something that Clark believed that she would exploit for her own benefits, I get why some individuals don’t like this episode.

Meanwhile, I also understand the argument that Lois was making. Clark was keeping a secret from someone who he was developing a relationship with. Lois was hurt because Clark couldn’t trust her in the same degree that she trusted him.

Part of the problem is that the story of Superman is struggling to adapt to the 2020’s. When Clark decided to take a career as a journalist, it kinda made sense in the 1930’s because it was a job that allowed the employees to leave their desk for hours. As long as Clark turned in an assignment, he could Superman to his hearts content. The Daily Bugle also gave him access to the current news which allowed him to stay on top of crimes. Now that the new series is set relatively in the present, all this starts to make less sense. We have work from home jobs and breaking news reports coming at us through the speed of internet now. Clark doesn’t have to work for the paper whose Pulitzer Prize winner reporter is trying to out the identity of Superman. In this why, the whole unhealthy relationship can be avoided.

Yeah, it’s my opinion that Clark’s and Lois’ relationship is unhealthy. Each one of them is expecting something from the other person. Lois wants the truth over care while Clark wants care over truth. Their lack to compromise led to Lois threatening suicide and then breaking off further relational development once she confirmed the truth, which probably was the most damage that anyone could inflict on the man of steel. Clark isn’t ready for a relationship as well since he is not willing to let Lois know his full story. Both of them hold certain ideals too high.

Now while I personally don’t enjoy how the plot has developed, I’m hesitant to condemn the writers because I don’t see where they are taking the story down the road. I recall when the comic writers ones wrote about Superman denouncing his American citizenship. When they faced major backlash because such a choice went against Superman’s ideals of fighting for the American Way, they stop pursuing that story and simply went into the next as if both happened. I found that more disappointing because there was justification for Superman’s choice. So while I am not thrilled in the manner of how the new series set Lois realization of Superman’s identity, I would be interested to see how they explore this imperfect relationship and attempt to resolve it to a reasonable conclusion.

#my adventures with Superman #Superman controversy #discourse welcomed #comic culture