#hopefully not TOO long of answers

[ottiliere]

Here

I

Come

#petscop #marvin (petscop) #lucy art #I have some free time this week so I am going to try and answer some asks and do some general housekeeping it's been too long #it has been a tumultuous year but i might actually be back this time. hopefully!

[pacifistcowboy]

You ever think about how scary an Enerjak Silver would be.

admittedly, i’ve never read archie, but from what i’ve read on his wiki, i can see enerjak is some sorta demigod-spirit that possessed a few echidnas and has practically limitless power? so yeah if silver got possessed by enerjak it would be terrifying. silver’s already powerful as he is, so if he was possessed by this being with god-level strength, psychic abilities, and reality-warping, it’d be all over. he could probably turn the planet to dust with the flick of his wrist. the universe itself would be the thing at risk, the planet would already be gone. enerjak silver would be cool as hell to see. completely undefeatable psychokinetic armoured boy? it’d look so awesome.

anyway since i’ve never read those comics so i couldn’t go too in-depth with this question due to not knowing enough about enerjak, i decided to try design enerjak silver! :]

enerjak’s armour is seemingly inspired by egyptian royalty and armour, and since silver is italian, i decided to base enerjak silver’s armour on roman soldiers! i don’t know if that ended up coming across in the finished design, but i swear the inspiration is there ehfjejfjwjf. i tried to have it so silver’s quills came out the top of his helmet like the crest that some roman soldiers’ helmets had, also i imagine the visor covering his face is moveable, so he can lift it up off his face :]

#thank you for this ask and sorry it took me so long to respond #i’m vv busy with college but wanted to actually properly answer this so i had to find the time to actually learn about enerjak snxjsfj #i always find it so very sweet and lovely that you always tag me in silver stuff and talk to me about him #i have no idea where u came from but u showed up one day seemingly already aware of how much i love this boy #and decided to help indulge me and i appreciate it immensely <3 #hopefully i’ll catch up with the stuff you’ve tagged me in soon #but rn i’m far too stressed and busy but just know that i still love and appreciate it :]] #pacifistcowboyart #enerjak #silver the hedgehog

[irradiatedpiratebooty]

Pleeeease do tell me more about Francis. Why did he leave the Children? Why did he join them in the first place? What did he do down in that bunker for three years, and what was getting out like? How did he meet the companions he hangs around with?

so, i'm gonna go in order of the timeline of events in his life. and please forgive some mistakes in the writing, i unfortunately didn't luck out with my abilities, and don't usually write anything more than footnotes. though i'm hoping the more I write out posts like this, the better i'll get :)

I also made goofy doodles to accompany the writing to compensate, and to better visualize what i'm trying to convey.

growing up, he mostly drifted from place to place with his family, which mostly consisted of him, his aunt, uncle, and two other cousins of his. his aunt adopted him at a very, very young age.

they mostly kept to DC, but eventually wanted to travel more east.

eventually though, due to family drama and disagreements, his family disbanded and he just traveled with his aunt. His aunt was VERY close with the rest of his family, so their departure took a toll on her.

she was pretty desperate to fill the void that was left, so when the children of atom offered relief from the feeling of abandonment, it didn't take much convincing.

the only catch was they had to leave DC and join the expedition to the commonwealth.

so, how did Francis join the children of atom?

Francis was about 18 at the time, and was used to just- going wherever his aunt went. so he didn't really question it and tagged along. He listened to the preachings and started to buy into the ideology himself. his aunt began to firmly believe too, so that helped condition Francis.

why did he eventually leave?

he left at the age of 20, knowing damn well what the cult does to dissenters. he was aiming to make it all the way back to DC and rejoin his family, but without the travel supplies that isn't realistically possible.

plus he's never been to Boston before, so he had no idea what direction to go in.

what did he do for 3 years?

he managed to wander his way to sanctuary, where he met Nate. (who i decided to make into an old ghoul, who protected vault 111 from the outside. he believed in the rumor that the vault was a cryo-facility, and that comforted him.)

Francis was half-dead when he wandered onto Nate's front yard, but Nate is nice and saw Francis as the exact opposite of a threat. think a newborn puppy on freshly polished tile.

he offered Francis his own bomb-shelter to stay in, taught him how to cook (which ended up being a new hobby for Francis.)

Nate is like a dad to him, so it worked out nicely.

Francis has high perception, and he's not stupid. (he just has TERRIBLE charisma)

so, with his S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes in mind, He began to question the fact Nate had never opened the vault, and tried to convince Nate to finally check in on his family. Nate refused at first, but after sleeping on the idea, he agreed. only to be met with the realization that his spouse was mysteriously murdered, son kidnapped, and only a recording of the crime. (thanks alternate start mod)

baffled by the fact that nobody ever opened the vault doors since the bombs fell, and now troubled with grief, Nate struggled to even face it all. Francis, wanting to repay Nate for giving him a place to live comfortably and safe from the cult who may use him to set an example for others who are thinking of turning their back on atom- promised that he'll seek out Nora's murderer, and most importantly, find their infant son.

where the rest of the game's plot plays out.

one thing to note though is his face markings. like the third eye of atom and the other rings around his face. usually its just makeup in game, but francis, at the time, wanted to prove his devotion in the most... non-lethal way he could think of. and so he got it basically tattooed. talk about regretful tattoos. with all that backstory being said, Francis is pretty happy most of the time!

sure, he's been through a lot, but he tries to see the positives in things. his main goal in life, during the acts in the main story, is to just finally have a place he can call home. maybe one with a comfy couch and a nice garden.

#my art #doodles #fallout 4 #ocs #francis #long post #i hope this isnt too much info at once! #having to restrain my impulse to dump as much information as possible #mainly because i dont want to answer everything at once #where theres no questions left for him #i know it all REEKS of fanfic but its fun #hopefully things become more coherent the more i make these :)

[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)

[sitp-recs]

hello liv! thank you for your service to the fandom, i spend such an inordinate amount of time sifting through all your reclists! i’ve been seeing drarry authors do their first line/last line posts for patterns and was wondering how that might pan out for reccers, so i had a question for you— what are some of the fics you find yourself reccing most often, across lists? do they speak to your own tastes? does a pattern emerge through them about the kind of asks you get? you always rec a really diverse range of fics but i do see some recurring favourites cropping up and was wondering if you had thoughts on it!

Thank you for your kind words and for the ask, anon! This was a very interesting way to adapt that ask game to my blog and I appreciate you for including me 💜 I had to take a minute and think about this because despite knowing that I’ve recced some fics over and over across lists, I’ve never stopped to analyze it in detail. Taking a quick look, I’ve tried to identify some patterns and I think these examples offer interesting insights:

1) I Am Not Who I Became and A Sword Laid Aside - two long fics I mention a lot (often alongside each other) because they combine some very popular tropes: recluse & powerful Harry, competent Draco, forced proximity, fast smut + slow emotional burn, D/s undertones

2) Clear as Mud and Unfinished Business are two personal faves I don’t see in rec lists often, they’re more like old-ish hidden gems and I love getting the chance to sneakily include them!

3) Take the Moon and Life goes not Backward: two favourites written by my friends! Funnily enough, they’re both kid fics which is a trope I don’t really care for lol. Reccing friends is one of my biggest pleasures in fandom, I’ve seen a lot of criticism/questioning around it which makes absolutely no sense to me - appreciating each other’s work and finding things in common is what brings us together in the first place 🤷🏻‍♀️

The main reason why I include any fic on a list is because I believe it’s a good fit. I always try to get a sense of what the reader is looking for bc it helps me find the right tone, but it can also get challenging if the request is too vague or too specific. Because I publish lists on demand I try to be as trope agnostic as possible, but at the end of the day I can only rec what I’ve read and enjoyed, so this will always be a subjective process (which I love! Imo rec lists are special and unique exactly because they are personal).

Back to the pattern discussion, I think seeing the same works mentioned on a regular basis reflect not only my own preferences but the ways it matches some emerging trends among the readers who follow me. Now the blog’s been around for a while and I don’t rec as much as I used to, it’s fair to assume that those who stick around have found in my blog similar tastes and fandom approach. In the last couple years I’ve noticed more requests around themes such as powerful Harry, competent Draco, bi and gay awakening, or fics where they take care of each other, bond over shared trauma and redeem or heal together. I think those reading trends are largely influenced by writing trends and vice-versa (especially in the Tumblr bubble!) so in a way we’re all collectively setting those trends and de-constructing or giving new meanings to old perspectives. That’s the true transformative power of fandom! Love that for us 🙌

#wow this got a bit too long #sorry for the rambling there #asks #hopefully I was able to answer it? #lovely anons #thank you! 💜

[psycho-net2000]

Tumblr why are you being such a big bitch I just want to draw goofy Psychonauts absjhgddkjgagdfsf

#the mod speaks #Yeahhh #First my main was shadowbanned and now this one is too #Hopefully it gets fixed in the next month #Because that's how long it took my main #Anyways- #If I happen to get more asks soon if there's any anons who want to ask anything #Yall will have to wait #Because while the blog is like this I cant answer anon asks atm #GOD tumblr sucks

[astonmartingf]

Hello, Hello! Really big fan of your works. I'm obssessed with the YBOM series, everytime you upload an update I consumed it right away. sorry for the long message I just wanna praise you for your amazing skills

but anyway, I wanna ask whats your writing flows? like, how do you start writting your stories - especially the series one. Do you make an outline of the story until finish, do you just go with the flow or ? I'm starting to write as hobby but I'm not very consistent with it... Like how do you manage to be so consistent with writing while studying at the same time it blows my mind. again, sorry for the long ask 😭😭😭😭 im quite the yapper

first of all thank you so much for sending this, it's making me emotional. i'm glad you're enjoying YBOM <3

second i love asks like this!!!!! i'm very open and like to share my writing process and i have compiled a few examples of how my personal writing flows— and hopefully i can answer all your questions, the response is also fairly lengthy because i too am a yapper 🫡 and like the milestone name suggests there's a lot of personal lore here, anyways enjoy 👍

first how or where do i start? honestly despite me writing regularly i'm a mix of a vibe or mood writer and song titles!!! the ideas usually come early in the morning when i wake up or a thought before i go to sleep. most of the time these come to me during class hours and i write them instead whether it be in my phone or a notebook, or when i'm studying and i listen to a song and it randomly inspires me.

for the series, let's take doab since it's completed, the inspiration came from listening to the same some from patd! and it reignited something in my head and went from there

here are some original notes from drafting the series:

some things go and some things stay. the first two ideas at the start usually stay, and as the story goes i take liberties in changing the plot depending on how i think the driver or how i characterized the reader will react or respond to the situation in hand, so their decisions play a good part.

in greedy for example it was supposed to be a fwb to lovers with seb, but i scrapped the initial draft because it wasn't giving the way i envisioned. another factor is how i characterize the reader / yn because i struggle writing mean characters, and greedy was hard because i didn't want to write a mean character, i'd like to think i tried.

for my ongoing dilf series, it's definitely better because i've learned to pace myself (i definitely have not, but we're getting there)

for the case of ybom i thought of the initial plot and tbh ybom was just supposed to be a co-parenting fluff with reconciliation fic but as i wrote it, i began thinking of the reason as to why alonso and reader did what they did and we begin seeing the flesh of their characters

like the cliffhangers are on purpose, because i too have to stop and think what would be appropriate to push the plot forward, i realized that the ybom plot is all in my head

surprisingly it's shocking how i haven't forgotten about some ideas because i just write them directly and i haven't really written anything premeditated about it, except for the ending. here is the only page i wrote about ybom and it's mixed with other wips

one thing i realized while writing YBOM is to focus on a chapter at a time, but also to ensure that the small things the characters are doing will lead to a bigger picture. i have written a lot in the past and for different fandoms and even some original work, but i have never finished a single series in my name

the first series i finished writing ever was doab, and it was an epiphany for me, because i proved to myself that i could do it, and i could dedicate the amount of time i did, ever since i started writing in third grade, to have completed doab was a big feat for me

there's really only one story wherein i thought hard for the plot which is rlr, which is also why the updates are slow because this is my baby, and i have thought about this for so long, even though i'm not updating or talking about it, it's usually the one i keep making changes to

for the consistency— instead of focusing on consistently writing, my go-to is to take breaks consistently. writing to me is my break from studies and when i have time i usually write in my notes, a lot of the written parts in doab and ybom are written while waiting for the teachers, and in between lab work

also reading! when i'm in a slump i usually read other fics here, atm i'm reading: let me be your lighter @/nostappen and pancakes @/saintescuderia at idk if it's good to read when you're in a writing slump but i get inspired reading and think about what i will write next when i get the time.

being patient to yourself— some times you write a lot and some times you're barely writing and that's fine. it took me a while to learn that so now i'd like to think i'm better at managing my own expectations and choosing to stop when i no longer have the capacity to write.

and lastly to enjoy the process of it all— write what you want to write and have fun with it. not just writing but find a supportive community, i enjoy writing and sharing my silly little posts and talking to people here.

hopefully this has some semblance of understanding, and i made my point across with how i thought it would be conveyed? uhmm yeah, i hope you enjoy, this is vv lengthy actually now....

#★ the inbox #amgf ★ lore milestone #this is a quite long answer i hope you find the answers and what works best for you #hopefully this doesn't sound too egotistical of me but honestly i don't know anymore #i hope you enjoy reading and writing fics!!! #thank tou for sending and participating in my party hehehe 🫡 #also!!! prompts!!! vvv helpful #and listening to music is one as well #okay that's really it all

[azems-familiar]

any thoughts on Cal's embracing the darkness? specifically...darkside!cal/bode.....👀

oh BOY do i have thoughts, actually. for both of these. i'm actually currently working on a fic (sitting at a little over 5k and probably going to be ~10k when it's done) which goes AU on Nova Garon and involves Cal fighting Bode there.

thoughts on Cal falling in general: yes, absolutely, i am so here for it, i love corruption arcs and i feel like this one is really well-built. from the beginning of the game we see how he's been struggling, how he's gotten darker and darker over the gap - he no longer reaches out to Ninth Sister (that it's time to set you free line right before he murders the shit out of her made me GASP), he's been working with Saw (who we know to use a lot of unsavory methods to the point that it got him disowned from the greater rebel alliance), he's been alone (which he never handles well At All). he consistently chooses to fight even when he shouldn't, he's not letting go of anything, he's gotten desperate. it makes sense. to me, Cal is the kind of person who pretends he's fine until he absolutely cannot anymore, whether that's hiding injuries or willfully refusing to realize he can't cope with things emotionally, and i feel like that's fairly well supported by the fact that the rest of the found family has each gone their own ways because they needed to make strides forward for themselves they couldn't while they were with him, no matter how much they love him, and because they can't help him until/unless he wants to be helped.

Cal also doesn't handle betrayal well, on top of Cere's death being the second time he's lost a master. to me, it's no surprise that he completely snaps on Jedha, and i think his fall is reinforced by a) the massacre on Nova Garon b) the fact that he outright refuses to listen to/understand Bode. Cal i think has a very black and white worldview due to his trauma and his youth in which he sees the Empire as a monolith and puts the crimes of the Empire onto every single person who serves it, and he struggles to understand why people would give in rather than choose to fight. i think we spend the game with him watching him run more and more on anger against the Empire as well as his desperation for Tanalorr, and that anger becomes more and more selfish until we get the snap on Jedha. honestly i think with the way the early game was written, even if Cere hadn't died, he would've still fallen, just possibly not when he did. it's been building up to that.

(i also love redemption arcs, i will say, but for a truly satisfying redemption arc you have to hit rock bottom first, and i want to push Cal there.)

in terms of fallen!Cal/Bode - also very much for this. part of this is just because i think the two of them killing people as fallen Jedi together is attractive and also what they deserve <3 but honestly narratively i think it just... works. mostly we'd just need Cal to work through his anger at the betrayal and actually properly understand why Bode did what he did (which is what i'm working on in the oneshot i'm writing), and to find a solution for everything that assuages Bode's paranoia. i do also think that with time, Bode could be convinced to return to fighting the Empire, especially if he knew Kata would be safe while he did it, but he's been through a lot and he's not there yet. but it's very clear that he doesn't like the Empire (only working with the ISB because he sees it as the only way to keep Kata safe), and i think it's also quite clear that he cares a great deal about Cal and didn't want to betray him at the point he did, but that he saw it as a choice between Cal's safety and Kata's safety and the latter had to be his highest priority. i absolutely don't think he'd find fallen!Cal any kind of turn-off, let's be real here, and honestly it's a dynamic i want to explore more of, maybe in AUs or something? i'm tossing around an inquisitor!Bode enemies to lovers au concept that might eventually turn into a fic at some point...

i may have gone slightly off topic here. anyway my thoughts on these are Yes, Yes, and More Yes, also i will go into an explanation of why i think Cal is actually fallen and not just struggling if people want. and also my final thought is that the Dagan parallel in this game is actually Cal and i will expand on this if asked to

#asked and answered #jedi survivor #cal kestis #bode akuna #spyscrapper #i got this ask and was like GREAT time to ramble #hopefully this is not too long and comes close to answering you. unfortunately i tend to wander off #unless i'm given specifics and even then sometimes. it's the adhd

[mamawasatesttube]

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

HMMM. well, depending on your definition of weird, there's probably several. i went down quite the rabbit hole looking up facts about albireo (a star in the constellation cygnus) while plotting out the core four space adventures fic i have yet to post, but i mean who doesn't love astronomy wikipedia pages???

the most fun big research deep dive i've gone on anytime recently though was the blue-banded goby one. i was thinking about ways to write kryptonian biology as different from human, and then started thinking abt how a lot of mammals have largely bimodal models of sexual dimorphism, but other parts of the animal kingdom do it differently. blue-banded gobies are really cool because they're bidirectional hermaphrodites, so they just change their sex to whatever's more convenient, and can undergo that change multiple times in their life cycles!!!

i skimmed a few papers, but this one ("Structural changes in the ovotestis of the bidirectional hermaphrodite, the blue-banded goby (Lythrypnus dalli), during transition from ova production to sperm production") was my favorite. there's a set of fish in there who both transitioned from producing ova to sperm and i think about them often. it's just so funny to me. this is so funny to me. oh we're both girls so neither of us can fertilize eggs? not to worry i'll grow some spermatogenic tissue-- wait. what are you doing.

overall i just love doing scientific research, especially in biological fields (im a bio student with preclinical laboratory experience so like. its my jam!!!). i also did a whole bunch of reading on various melliferous plants before writing a sex pollen fic. the research in question influenced all of one (1) line in said fic. BUT!! it was still fun fhjkds

Writers' Truth & Dare Ask Game!

#answers #radioactive-earthshine #ive also thought way too hard about oceanic gyres and plate tectonics while trying to worldbuild #concluded one time that i accidentally worldbuilt myself into having the sun rise in the west #because my subtropical gyre in the northern hemisphere was counterclockwise #which would indicate the opposite direction of planetary rotation as earth has. #and i was like OH NO!!!!! bc in-text i was pretty sure i'd already described sunsets in the west so i'd have to go look for all of it #<- you can probably see the tolkien influence #but t hen i was like man this is an anime fanfic i Cannot be assed #if i just don't mention it hopefully no one will notice #and no one did notice. but it does still bother me to this day even tho ive long-since abandoned that fic ksdfhjhs

[ex-textura]

Your post about your OCs quest names got me thinking...

If they were companions what would be their likes and dislikes, how would a player gain their approval? 💜

Okay I know I've been holding onto this for So Long but I've been Thinking™️ and that's not my forté.

Wall of text incoming because I've been writing this on my phone and. Formatting is a lot of work..

× Auric's approval would be difficult for a chaotic aligned character to get I think. He'd approve of kindness, following the rules, defending the weak. He'd love saving Mirkon and Arabella. He'd disapprove of taking the idol for Mol though. He'd probably also approve of you drinking Jaheira's truth wine. If you could recruit his sister, he'd approve of every kind action toward her, but he'd disapprove of flirting with her. Also letting Astarion bite you. He never could trust him. Also talking to him about music or poetry would get huge approval boosts. He's a big romantic.

× Naught's approval is a bit more all over the place and probably harder to get in general just because they don't really feel very strongly about anything until later in the game. But being kind to animals is a big approval, while doing the opposite is gonna make him hate you. Especially with birds. They'd approve of being outwardly flirtatious and forward with your intentions. They'd definitely approve of licking the damn spider. And throwing dung at the goblin outside the camp. Also, even though they can't read and aren't really inclined to, taking any opportunity to show off your smarts, teach him something new would be like a full +10. They like nerds. If you can be snarky with Nine-Fingers Keen, too, he'd approve of that.

× Ciaran approves of being nice. Helping the helpless. Saving people. All the big heroics. Play music with Alfira. Motivate the tiefling kids. Tell him you trust him.Do Not Do Not do the murder tribunal. Don't let Shadowheart kill Nightsong. Don't let Astarion ascend. Under no circumstances side with the goblins or he'll just leave. Generally everything Astarion dislikes in act 1 will be a Ciaran approval. He'd also approve of petting every single animal in the entire game. All of them. They're so soft please pet the babies.

× Jinx. Likes. Chaos. Steal the idol, why not. Throw some dung around. Play music with Alfira. Tease Mattis with the ring trick. Drink the truth wine and play truth or dare. Let the weird ox do its thing. Send him up on stage at the circus. Mess with Akabi and cheat at the wheel game. Pet the animals. Lick the spider. Get sent to jail. Break out of jail. Let Volo pick your brain. Any opportunity to say something weird or off-putting will probably get an approval, if only cause he'd think it's funny. But also talking about magic, poking at magic, anything that involves appreciating the gift that is magic - for good or ill. Jinx is also kind so not necessarily self-sacrificing acts of kindness but helping people, doing the right thing, general Good Boy approvals. Disapprovals are less common but outright cruelty is generally where he draws the line.

× Amaris approves of knowledge, and follows the tenets of their goddess. Read the book of dead gods, the necromancy of thay (sure it's evil but think of the knowledge contained within!), anything you can get your hands on. Open the chest at the Selûne shrine in the owlbear cave. Protect Isobel. Let Astarion feed on you (vampires may be undead but they are still children of Selûne's light and deserve protection if they seek it, and do no harm. And Astarion is trying okay? Kinda. It's enough.) Ask questions always, exhaust that dialogue tree! Agree to save the tieflings and the gnomes over and over again. And Barcus. Do Not let Shadowheart kill the Nightsong. Do not convince the nurses and Malus to kill themselves, do that with your own hands. Don't try to convince them to use the tadpoles. Don't speak ill of the gods. Except Shar. Speaking against Shar will always net big approvals. And again, the usual "Karlach/Wyll/Gale approves" from helping people apply to them as well. Let them talk about Selûne, and home, and their best friend Morridah. Take them to Sorcerous Sundries. Be a little kinky.

#im sorry i took so long to answer this! #there are so many good opportunities for approval/disapproval in this game I've definitely missed some #but hopefully this gives the gist of it #all these boys are fundamentally good because im too soft #bg3 #my ocs #oc: auric #ciaran finch #oc: jinx #oc: amaris #oc: naught #asks

[lululawrence]

As a non American can you explain why are there 3 concerts in Ohio? Is it a really big and populated state? Or else Louis could've done 1 bigger venue.

Djebdishdisvjdvsh

Sorry. I had to scream a little in the car because listen 😂😂😂 when the dates were announced I wanted a single show in Ohio. We get passed over all. The. Time. So often. So I first saw cuyahoga hills and was like…. Why there??? Nothing is there??? 😂 but OHIO! And then I saw Cincinnati and I was like… Cincinnati too???? Okay! Hitting the northeast corner and southwest corner of the state! Cool! And then Columbus too??? Like I legit texted @londonfoginacup asking like HOW MUCH DOES LOUIS LOVE US THAT HE IS GIVING US THREE OHIO SHOWS? Like we have to go to all three to show him Ohio loves him and this wasn’t a mistake right??? 😂

Which we obviously did. But we were just as surprised as you, I PROMISE YOU.

That said, there’s a lot of reasons why he could have chosen three shows here.

One: Ohio has three major metropolitan areas in the one state, which is pretty rare outside the super large and populous states. He’s hitting the three major markets and since he seems to be trying to hit even the smaller areas that don’t get much attention with this tour, it makes sense for that alone really.

Two: Location. Ohio is a state in an area of the country called the Midwest, but we are located in a pretty central area. This could explain it as well, because he’s not going to Kentucky (the state south of us) and I don’t think he’s going to Pittsburgh? (The closest large city east of us, he played there last year on Valentine’s Day hehe) which means they’ll be looking for shows to attend closeby, and Ohio can offer that. So while he’s also hitting Indianapolis (closest large city west of us) and already hit Detroit (another large city in the state north of us), he’s also not playing West Virginia (another state that borders us) and… yeah. Lots of people in that space who will be needing a place closeby to see him.

Which brings us to three: Population. We aren’t the MOST populous state or anything, there’s a reason people get us confused with Iowa and Idaho lol but, that said, we are the tenth (or seventh??) most populous according to the google search I just did lol different sites disagree, but when you consider there are fifty states, that’s still a good showing lol considering we have so many other populous areas surrounding us that the concerts would also draw from, that could have also been a contributing factor.

And lastly four: SCENERY. Listen. Ohio gets shit on a lot for being a “boring” state or a “flyover” state (aka no one comes here as a destination) and it pisses me off lol every single person I’ve ever brought to Ohio has been surprised when they got here because there was so much more here than they thought and parts of the state are GORGEOUS. I mean did you see the flyover view that John Delf did on Instagram of the cuyahoga falls venue??? That’s actually in a national park and it is just stunning there with gorgeous hiking and waterfalls and shit in the near vicinity. It’s amazing. And the venue he played tonight in Cincinnati was literally right on the Ohio river that creates the southern border for our state, and it had a view of one of my favorite bridges I’ve ever seen! PLUS!!! Tonight there was a full moon, and it was right above the bridge and Louis got to look at us AND THE BRIDGE AND MOON THE ENTIRE TIME. How gorgeous is that??? Like look at this shitty photo I took. Incredibly beautiful.

That’s from the railing that was only a short distance behind me and the sound guys for the concert so. Not shabby, right?? Now the venue in Columbus is right downtown in what we call the arena district because the arena where our hockey team plays is right across the street and the baseball stadium is next door and the new soccer stadium is in the area now too, so it’s got loads of venues and restaurants and shit right there and Kemba is one of the best indoor/outdoor venues in town now. I’ve seen several shows there over the years, and it’s great every time. It’s got good sound, a good setup, and the staff is always fantastic so while it’s maybe not the coolest venue, I do love when artists I enjoy come there. Not sure of the appeal on Louis’ end, but ¯\__(ツ)__/¯

So, taking all of these points into consideration, it does make a bit more sense… but three does still seem like he just felt like being overindulgent to us and show us extra love 😂😂 as emmu said, I guess Louis loves us best hahaha

We are just kidding, please don’t send me hate lol

I honestly also do not know why he chose to do this for us, but it makes travel plans a lot easier for us and I’m really fucjing thankful haha I’ve mostly been worried we wouldn’t be able to fill the venues sufficiently but so far so good so here’s hoping Columbus shows up too haha Heaven only knows parking and driving in Columbus is a fuck ton easier than doing so in Cincinnati 😂

#long answer long #sorry it’s so wordy #but hopefully this does help?? #I obviously feel a bit too much pride in my state sorry lok #but also forgive me for choosing to pretend to believe louis put three shows in Ohio bexause of me and emmu #😂😂😂😂 #fuck that idea is hysterical to even write out but damn is it a fun thing to joke about lololol #asks #anonymous

[naartjie-hijabi]

As an Indian from Durban I *totally* get you with that anon ask, and ugh, I’m sorry that you’re getting that sort of thing even online. Like… sure, whilst BEE and such aren’t perfect (most black people in our country still live in the country, people on top profit), they’re not white discrimination. I went to private school and I can tell anon that while on paper things like BEE seem like they’re ’against whites’ or smth, white people here in general still have an INSANE amount of money, connections, and assets from the Apartheid era, often built on the human rights abuses of that time, and most don’t care about helping disadvantaged people in the country now. My parents saved for decades for our house, which is fairly large and built on part of the LAWN of our neighbour’s house (a several story house owned by an older white guy). His kid went to my private school, and so I found out that this wasn’t even the only house he owned. My family only paid off our house last year, since my dad had to drop out of uni as he couldn’t afford it and opted to get a job to support his family instead. He broke his leg at that job and it still hurts him because he couldn’t afford time off to get it fixed. All that inequality from Aparthied, a lot of it and a lot of its echoes are still here. To say that it’s not is… you know?

honestly, I'm just hoping that the previous anon was asking out of good faith and nothing more.

BEE and BBEEE in practice aren't great but these systems that were implemented to ensure that POC have an equal footing with white people are being abused by white people. My dad worked in a company where he was the ONLY person of colour in a management position and getting paid a basic salary whereas his white colleagues got paid more for the same job or even less but he was there for "points" - not that he was unqualified but he wasn't being treated equally.

One of my friends is white and while she is by no means rich, she's fairly middle class altho in SA that's barely anything, but she's slightly more well-off than I am. Even still, her skin colour grants her privilege in walking in places where I as a coloured person would feel so uncomfortable. In 2024, people still stare when your skin colour is different and it's so disgustingly backwards.

But I totally understand how you feel anon. my dad couldn't finish uni cause he dropped out to fight against Apartheid, my mom was friends with Ashley Kriel, a coloured freedom fighter who was killed by the Apartheid regime, my uncle and aunt had to flee the country, meanwhile my aunt back home played white because she has pale skin and my dad who's incredibly dark for a coloured man was called derogatory names growing up because of his skin colour.

I'm also so incredibly sorry for your dad and pray that things will only get better for you and your family and you're totally right, denying the realities of Apartheid and the consequences thereof is a slap in the face to everyone who suffered. The people who complain are the people who benefitted and are more worried about losing what they gained through others' losses than helping or caring about anyone that's not part of their community.

The denial of white privilege and the idea that white people are being discriminated against is ludicrous. I live in CAPE TOWN, opposite every affluent white neighborhood is informal settlements. Hell, the neighborhood I currently live in is a white area and people own FERRARIS whereas my family's car breaks down every 5 minutes.

But anyways, I truly do believe that South Africa will gey better. I love this country wholeheartedly and I just want everyone to experience the same level of privilege and have access to all that is needed to succeed in life.

#asks #mari's ramblings #south africa #white privilege #i typed this out on mobile so hopefully this isn't too long #but thanks for sending in this ask anon #i actually had that previous ask in my inbox for quite sometime #i was unable to answer it for obvious reasons

[daydreamerwonderkid]

Thank you @airasilver for this question in reference to my OG Wayne Coven AU post

For what I have planned for this AU (and the eventual fic), I honestly go back and forth a LOT on whether Bruce would let his kids turn him.

A part of me even wonders if Alfred would accept the offer. I think it would pain him to put his grandkids in a position where they might have to live without him, but I also think Alfred would feel that he's lived a very fulfilling life. It wouldn't be a decision he makes lightly and regardless of what his choice would be, the Batkids would respect it.

Personally, I feel the issue would be a lot more delicate and complicated for Bruce. I genuinely believe Bruce would be content with his humanity and I could even see it playing a part into his moral code. The setting I have in mind for this AU is a more supernatural Gotham (though to be fair, vampires/werewolves/magic just exist in DC canon so it's not that much of a stretch). The only big difference that I can see in this AU vs actual DC canon is just that vampirism is more commonplace and comes with its own set of complicated societal issues.

Because of that, I could see Bruce viewing his humanity as a tool to help him feel for the fear and pain of others. Also a big part of Bruce's identity as Batman was him attempting to transform his own fears into something he could use to fight against the evil and corruption he saw in Gotham. I think there might be a small bit of Bruce that worries that gaining vampiric abilities would rob him of his identity/motivation.

There's also the fact that Bruce in DC canon is already an outlier among the Justice League for being one of the very few humans with no supernatural/magical/alien/meta/god-like abilities. So placing him in a world where a good portion of the populace is made up various types of vampire wouldn't really change much in that regard.

I think he'd actually find a little bit of enjoyment in the fact that being a normal human guy doesn't stop him from kicking supernatural ass. And having a literal coven made of vampiric children to help him out doesn't exactly hurt, either.

Ultimately, though, what I think Bruce would struggle with most is the idea of putting his kids through the horrible ordeal of burying him. Especially considering that he knows how they'd all react if he ever rejected their offer.

Which is why nobody ever brings the idea up. All the Batkids know how important being human is to Bruce and they know it would be painful for everyone involved to even ask. I have to imagine that their have been many late night discussions between the Batkids about how terrified they are of the possibility of losing Bruce even if it would be to a natural death. Some of them were human before they were turned as well. So a few of them would understand where Bruce was coming from even if they don't like the idea of him dying human.

But like I said before, I think Bruce would start to feel guilty and even a little disgusted with himself as well. Bruce knows very well how painful it is to lose a parent and most of his children's trauma stems from similar experiences. The thought of putting his kids through the same thing again definitely eats him up inside the older he gets.

If I had to pick a time when Bruce would ever be open to the idea of being turned, it would have to be the day he officially retires from being Batman. Whether that's due to a serious injury, old age or because Gotham truly doesn't need him anymore, that's hard to say.

Even then, I don't think any of the Batkids would actually offer to turn him until Bruce brings it up first.

#dreamer talks #wayne coven au #vampire batkids #vampire batfam #batfamily #batfam #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #long post is long #i hope that answers your questions! #i ended up deleting the original reply #cause i felt like the og post was getting too long #so hopefully this will help keep things #a little nicer #thanks for asking btw!!! #and feel free to ask any other questions you might have <3

[maskyartist]

EXPLOSIVE KINGDOMS questions

did creek find them after the events of the first movie or is it different?

why does creek tell the putt putt trolls everyone is dead if it does takes place after the move?

how did clay and viva take the fact both branch and poppy are dead?

do you think clay also believed floyd is also dead seeing as he left before clay and clay lived in isolation will no idea if floyd left after him?

what inspired you to make this au?

i have more questions but i think this will cover most of what im questioning and also give me more questions i can ask later

FINALLY SOMEONE ASKS THE REAL QUESTIONS AROUND HERE! Been waitin for this one, have a timeline goin on my phone and everything OKAY SO!-

Creek finds them about 1 month after the first movie (a bit after World Tour starts. keep in mind the Putt Putts were isolated completely so they have no knowledge of the rockpocolypse n all that). Instead of the usual canon ending, Creek actually leads the Bergens to Pop Village as usual and ends up escaping in the chaos of the capturing of Trolls, running into the forest and essentially leaving them all for dead

2. So to answer ur second question with the first, its because Creek HIMSELF believes them to be dead! He assumes he saved only himself by leading Chef to Pop Village, and ends up telling Viva just that, fudging the story a bit to make him look sympathetic and the "only survivor of a tragic capture"

2.5 (To follow that up, he essentially tells Viva he and his village were captured by Bergens (true), but that he was the only one who managed to escape by the skin of his teeth and has been alone ever since. he paints himself as a victim entirely to avoid being denied entry to the village)

3. Here's the thing with the Putt Putts. In my mind, i've always hc'd that everyone HOPED the other Trolls were alive but...that was just hope. Everyone actually BEING alive was a pipe dream in their minds after the cave in. They believe the cave in extended to the entirety of the tunnel, not just their end, so they believe the entire Pop Tribe that were ahead of them are dead. Clay has a sobering realization he was right all along, and Viva is stone cold anger.

Learning her people were still out there, still being hunted, and eaten, it lights a fire in her heart.

This is the spark that begins the Putt Putt's aim for an all out war. So at least for this AU, the Putt Putts always believed the other Trolls were dead from the start.

4. While yes his brothers did leave, Clay had no idea WHERE they left. The only brother he has doubts on if he's dead is John Dory, seeing as he left for the mountains, and even then no one's a perfect survivalist. Who knows if he made it?

In my mind (and canon for this specific AU), the leaving order went JD immediately, then Spruce a few days later, Clay a couple weeks after that, and finally Floyd leaving Baby Branch with Grandma. Having it happen so immediately in the movie doesnt really sit right with me for this situation? So I wanted it spaced out

Clay has no idea where Floyd went. Hes got no clue hes on a "solo career". So he assumes he stayed with Branch and that they're both gone. Along with the unknown place of Spruce and the potential of what the mountains did to JD...

There are five planted flowers behind the Admin Building. One for each of his brothers, and one for his grandmother who he assumes died in the tunnels as well.

5. Honestly? And ur gonna laugh but aside from my general love of dramatic AUs and the idea of Clay being an arsonist making me laugh one night, I got tipped over the edge...CAUSE I FOUND THIS ANIMATIC-

AND ITS SO GOOD

the actual animatic (while being incredible amazing tasty spectacular) didnt inspire me, the SONG did. the idea of Viva singing the first half while her Putt Putts charge into Bergentown-

"In all of my years of living, it isn't very often that I get this far-

I try to chill with the waves...but damn, you've crossed the line~"

"I've been so gracious! And yet you hurt the people of mine!

That's right, the Trolls that you made die...were mine."

(with a lil tweaking to make it fit)

While Clay's under the city rigging things up cornered by Poppy and Branch trying to make him stop this and just-

"You are the worst kind of good, 'cause you're not even great." (aimed at Poppy)

"The Queen, who reeks of false righteous, that's who I HATE!"

"Because you fight to save lives, but can't kill, and won't keep us all safe.

I mean, you totally could've avoided all this, had you just ended them...

But no."

"You are far too nice! Mercy has a price!"

LIKE THERES A VIBE HERE (obviously this isn't what'll happen im still ironing out details but this was my inspo :) That and Persona 5 Tactica that game's all about revolution)

I would say, keep in mind, this scenario would take place after finding out that yes the other Trolls are still alive, but now Viva and the Putt Putts are committed to completing with they started for those they lost to Trollstice's before them. They WANT revenge. Why should they have to play nice? Why should THEY forgive the consumption of their people? That kinda vibe :)

AND WHATEVER ELSE U WANNA ASK IS TOTALLY FINE! Send questions as u think of em! :D This AU isn't entirely complete quite yet, so these asks help me really nail down what details I want or at least see things written out and get some good feedback! :D

#masky gets the mail #explosive kingdoms au #trolls dreamworks #trolls clay #trolls viva #trolls creek #long post #i would've done a read more but i feel this is just gonna be long no matter what #hopefully this answers ur questions!! :D #if yall got anything to ask about my other aus absolutely send em my way #again this helps me iron things out SO much more then u think #my adhd brain needs the help #there's still one more AU i wanna design for and then i'll have my nice lil star of AUs #cause i think i deserve to have a John Dory in the John Dory support group too >3> #....well two if we also include The Royal Party but he'd never admit to needing therapy

[namor-shuri]

Our poll results are in! 🗳✨

*cracks knuckles* Let’s dive in and talk about it (: [Grab a snack and something to drink because this is about to be long. Yes, a bitch made graphs lmao Sue me] Alrighty, let’s do this:

: : : : : : : : : : :::::::::::::::::::::::: : : : : : : : : : :

I can't remember where bpwf was first released and the order of its premiere in each country but it's interesting to see that the majority of fandom [who participated at least] are from North America. Also Asia being the third highest group was fascinating because at least when it comes to Twitter, I’ve noticed a lot of the Namor/Shuri fan art has come from Thai and Korean artists. They are seriously carrying this fandom and I'm here for all of it.

ALSO: Random, but where are my Antarctica Nashuri fans?? 😭 I’m also curious to know how Africa has received the Black Panther franchise all together over the years. Do they resonate with it? Do they find it offensive/ overly dramatized? I’m curious. If you are a fan who lives in Africa, can you comment on your experience with this? I'd be happy to know.

To be honest, I’ve always assumed that the Marvel fandom [along with superhero spaces as a whole like DC and what not] were male dominated but this poll gave me some hope. I am curious what parts of fandom men frequent more vs women. For example, do Comic Cons ring in more women, more men, half and half? With fan art, do majority of artists identify as women, men, other? It’s interesting to think about. I also love seeing women/fem identifying individuals show up in these spaces because countless times we are made to feel like an inposter and harassed for our interests in comics, games, movies, shows, music, the list goes on. Questioned down with trivia, fact checking and all sorts of BS ultimately trying to prove that “you aren't a real fan". Don't ever let anyone make you feel like you have to prove your knowledge of anything to be interested in something you like. ESPECIALLY if it is coming from a man child guy.

ALSO: Hi all trans, non-conforming and alternative gender expressing baddies! Know you are welcome here and pls enjoy your stay at my humble blog abode. 👋🏾💜

It’s amazing to see how diverse this fandom is! I didn’t expect that we would have such high numbers of black/brown fans/shippers. As a black mcu fan myself, it’s exciting to see us show up in fandom. Fandom has unfortunately been heavily white/Eurocentric for a very long time, which has slowly changed but we still have a long ways to go in it’s inclusivity. With the increase of bipoc characters and the actors who play them, I look forward to this continual progression.

ALSO: It’s been heartwarming to witness Mexican, Indigenous, Lantix fans feel seen with bpwf and Tenoch, Mabel and Alex's performances! I remember how enamored the black community was with Chadwick and the first BP. We were hyped to have this treasure of a movie, which I assume is similar to how the Asian community felt with Shang-Chi and so on. It's been said countless times before but representation truly makes the world of a difference and the power of the bipoc dollar should never be taken lightly. We cause real change when we support something.

There will always be a spectrum of ages in any fandom but I figured the majority of people were probably within this age range. It may be due to the timeline of when the mcu was born and how it has progressed alongside millennials? This also explains why I keep seeing fans make posts about their age gaps with Tenoch and wanting to be his questionably young gf 😩 [get in line]

ALSO: Shoutout to the 55+ folks in the fandom! I have a sneaking suspicion yall are some of the coolest people 🤘🏾

Okay *inhales exhales* I know I'm going to get flak for this but let's hop into it lol I saw the scale sway back and forth for a minute but it mostly stayed between White Wolf [Bucky Barnes] and Iron Heart [Riri Williams]. I myself personally love both answers! My annoyance is not with shuriri, but with its fandom. They have been some of the biggest instigators/bullies since bpwf has dropped. I've seen all kinds of mental gymnastics from saying the nashuri fandom would rather see shuri with a killer than support gay love [like what??] to Letitia is clearly lesbian because of her attire [pls be fr] and everything in between. It’s so unwarranted and I never see Nashuri fans doing the same thing back. Enjoy what you like, and leave the rest behind. It's such an easy 1+1=2 concept and yet, it goes over people's head still. It’s honestly disappointing when a fandom turns you off to a ship/character, especially when the ship is lowkey dope. Something that reminds me of this was the stucky fandom when the Captain America movies came out. Y’all.......when I tell you this fandom had me STRESSED 🥴. I saw racism/ deliberate exclusion of Sam, hate towards Sharon Carter just because she was a woman, you name it. They annoyed me so bad that I began to dislike Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers as characters [trust me, it made no sense lol] I couldn’t stand seeing either one of their names pop up. It took some of the Avenger movies [and honestly the sambucky fandom + Sebastian Stan/ Anthony Mackie's friendship] coming out years later for me to even be remotely cool with the idea of Bucky Barnes again. Anyways *drinks water* I'm getting stressed all over again just thinking about it lmao Long story short, don’t be an asshole. Enjoy YOUR flavor of ice cream and try not to shit on others and their differing flavor of choice in the process. Trust me, it's easier than you think.

ALSO: If you are a shuriri fan that hasn't been hateful/ problematic, this isn't about you boo [yall are good in my books! 😘]

Crying that the #1 answer was “Bitch me!” because honestly mood. Jokes aside, I can’t really imagine Namor with another partner. It's probably largely due to the fact that Shuri was the main character we see him interact + bring his guard down with [outside of Namora?] This is also coming from someone who has not read the Namor comics and am very new to him as a character. If you have any knowledge you want to share in the comments, pls do ✨

ALSO: I threw in the Sue Storm comment to be annoying *teehee* but it was interesting to see how many people actually agreed with this statement. Maybe I'm just a horse with blinders about this fandom but I’m not really pressed? I’ve seen people argue that Ryan's current iteration of the Namor character wouldn't be in this type of relationship [along with people saying Tenoch wouldn’t go for it either] but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what unfolds *tries not to stress while we wait for future iterations of Namor and the fate of his character's arc/ Talokan*

The question on everyone’s mind! Although the delusional side of me was bummed that yall weren't more chaotic and went full "yes!", my logical side agrees with the final poll 🥲. Again, I'm not pressed about mcu and what they put out, whether it favors this ship or not. At the end of the day, I’m still going to vibe like I’ve been doing. If nothing else, I just hope we get to see these two characters and their rich dynamic again because Marvel can't ignore how the world reacted to Shuri and Namor. And hey, sometimes Marvel listens! Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie were on a mission after fans brought up a potential team up and after that, those two found every excuse to bring up a potential movie in interviews for YEARS until finally *boom* 🇺🇸🦅 The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Show 🦅🇺🇸 was born. Miracles do happen everyday rofl [I know these two examples have nothing to do with one another but let me have this lol]

ALSO: I only trust these characters in Ryan's hands so I'm hoping he's the first in line to direct whatever this future dynamic ends up being.

It was cool seeing what other protagonists this fandom is drawn to outside of Shuri/Black Panther. I’m curious to know what other ships y’all also enjoy [feel free to drop them in the comments if you care to share]. I feel like a lot of the top picks in this poll I also resonated with, like Iron man for example. I don’t know what it is but there is just something about a genius character with a mix of charisma/ big softy + sarcastic energy that will do it for me every 👏🏾single👏🏾 time 👏🏾

ALSO: Not everyone sleeping on Thor and Hulk?! 😭 I feel bad that I left out Ant-man [especially with Quantumania just coming out] but you can only do 10 options on Tumblr polls and it was between him and Captain Marvel so….a choice was made…..

This one cracks me up [and yes I had too much fun making these summaries which I find highly accurate] Also, I have no beef with any of these characters btw 😅 I truly believe that a hero is only as interesting as their counterpart. If your villain isn't captivating, it takes away from the hero + their storytelling potential and vice versa. The poll was split between Killmonger and Namor at one point [which if these two ever met/ were on screen together like ??? They have free reign to completely destroy my life. I welcome all calamity that ensues.] I'm not going to survive Namor and Kang in the same film this coming Avengers: Kang Dynasty movie.

ALSO: I didn't choose him but Thanos has been one of the most impactful/ compelling villains we’ve seen in the mcu thus far. I mean, he’s literally responsible for like 3 major films in the mcu + Josh Brolin is just amazing at what he does in general. This is brave to say but it was lowkey bittersweet to see his character's arc come to an end [obviously it was a huge relief but yeah]. Don't come for me.

This one was just for fun since I recently made that tenitia rant post but it was cool seeing some of you come back with your own film ideas of what Letitia and Tenoch could act in together. I'm so down bad for them that I'm game for absolutely anything. Romcom? Let's do it. A Podcast of them reviewing their favorite foods from their cultures? I'll eat with yall. Music video? Where's the link? I don't care what it is. Someone brought this up but I really wish we got more game interviews with them like them reading thirst tweets, answering the web's most searched questions, a joint hot ones interview, something! They would have killed those! Bring them back!🗣️ Bring them back! 🗣️ Bring them back! 🗣️

ALSO: Letitia has already voiced a character [Nooshy in "Sing 2"] so now I need Tenoch to do the same. I would love to hear his voice in something. It would realistically be in Spanish since I know the majority of his projects have been thus far but idgaf, I’m still showing up *turns on closed captions* [shout out to everyone who also started to learn spanish after this beautiful man came into our lives]

And last but not least, your blog feedback <3 Thanks again for giving your input on this. My blog is slowly starting to grow and I'm having a lot of new people interact with my page so I wanted to do a quick temperature check of what people are feeling. At the end of the day, I'm aways going to stick to what feels authentic to me and what I want to post because if you're not liking what you're doing, what are you doing it all for? But I will definitely keep this feedback in mind. For the people who are new or just coming across my blog, here are some examples of what I'm referencing in this poll: fan edits [1, 2, 3] rants [1, 2, 3] song recs [1, 2, 3] Tenitia [1, 2, 3].

ALSO: I thought I was doing the most with the amount of Tenoch posts I was blogging already but maybe not. Don’t worry, I'll find more ways to post our baby girl (:

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WOW, YOU'RE STILL HERE!? Nice 🥰 Seriously, thanks again to everyone who participated in this completely unserious poll. I've never done one of these before but now that I know what to do and not do, I may make another one in the future. We'll see. Continue to stay tuned for future Namor/Shuri + Tenoch/Letitia shenanigans 💫

#not this post accidentally posting earlier today and me being confused af ☠️ I hope no one read it rofl #this is way too long but here we are #nashuri #tenoch huerta #letitia wright #namor #shuri #bpwf #seaprincess #wakanda forever #black panther #namor x shuri #it would be cool to see how the fandom changes years from now and how different these answers may be #shout out to my fellow black/brown shippers 😘 #hopefully I’ll feel differently about the shuriri fandom bc the ship is honestly cute af #it’s everyone bypassing Thor/Hulk for me 🤣 #tenitia is my safe space #in Ryan we trust #marvel #namor movie #black panther 3 #poll results #back to our regularly scheduled programming

[stabbyfoxandrew]

i know you're not entirely happy with what you wrote, but i always love reading your writing no matter what

especially mafia au, i love how you characterize neil kevin and jean

TwT thank you anon i love writing these stupid silly assholes so much but man... i Struggle sometimes :'))

#kevjeaneil (bitchiest trio ever) would love to be mean to me #but actually it was angel neil that was giving me the most trouble TWT #i hate Transition Scenes with a passion. i'm not good at them. like all i want is to get neil and andrew back up on that fucking roof but #nah i had to sort out the rest of the situation at the court first >:( #anyhow!!! angel neil will Hopefully be nice to me today bc he and andrew will be back together for the first time since... #*looks* :O DECEMBER 6TH?!?!?!? OMG I WOULD BE PISSED TOO NEIL :'))) #i didn't realize it had been so long you guys. but i promise this SemiPlot stuff is needed. i promise... #also for andrew and angel neil it's literally just been like... a day #ANYHOW ramble aside: thank you anon i love u #anon #answered