#im still gonna pull for him regardless obviously. i need all his damn cons. but yk. i dont think this is doing much to endear him to anyone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aprito · 3 years

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hello <3 since i got these asks at the same time i decided to combine my thoughts on them in this post. yet another annoying sjw essay from yours truly on this blog

before i get into these i think i need to preface why im like. i guess overly hyperfocused on a certain unproblematic base (same age au / platonic canon) for them and avoid the ped0philic content like the plague lol

tw for pedophilia ment, rape ment if that makes you squicky. ALSO THIS IS LONG AND RAMBLY

as i’ve mentioned a couple times already, ive been into the ship since i was 12, back when it was very very common to not only post untagged (nsfw) canonverse content of the two in writing and in drawing but also non con and the like, so you can imagine how bad my first impression online was. thinking back on it ...as a child i found it disturbing but didnt really register how problematic it really was?? (i know, but i also lived in the middle of nowhere and had no one explain this to me)

skip to 2014 aka me coming back to naruto at 17ish and i had kinda become hyper aware of the fact that there was an increasing amount of people online who had come forward with explaining how fictional problematic content, mostly pedophilia, had been used to groom them into starting relationships with adullts. it was also a time where a lot of people didnt believe these victims, not registering how common it was for minors to be online friends with adults who had no boundaries and no qualms exposing them such content. not gonna get into my personal life here but i was lucky to not having gone through this myself. like... it kinda was my first time truly realising how fiction can EASILY be used to manipulate others irl (and yes i will not argue this, if you dont think fictional media can form and manipulate people’s opinions on attitudes, countries, cultures and virtues, pick up a book about the effects of propaganda media at least once please)

i, being young, still liking the dynamic but not really the romance, would point this out here and there in the fandom and get into fights with grown adults in their mid 20s who assumed i automatically hated the ship(s) and tried to restrict their freedom of speech or whatever, heard everything from the “age of consent doesnt exist in naruto” to the “sasori looks like a child what does it matter” despite people clearly playing on him being older and experienced. it made me so upset that people were just consuming all this content uncritically and exposing children to it tbh?? not really just sos but a lot of minor/adult ships in naruto in general. and thats where i sat down and thought, i do not want to be a grown adult talking down to children that point out how unsafe the fandom is. theyre absolutely right in drawing these boundaries and calling out adults who defend the uncritical consumption and creation of this content. i do not want to consume or create content that predators could use to groom minors, and i absolutely do want to let younger people in fandom know that i am respecting their comfort zones and want them to have a safe and fun experience. after all, naruto is not an adult show and i think a lot of people forget that!!!! i am not perfect in that regard but its something that i, at the age of 23, am very passionate about and strive towards to.

and i guess thats where same age au was born for me and i have been sticking to it ever since.

so finally we can move to the first question

aside from the fact that we both dont like canon sos, i dont think it would work out even if i wasnt prejudiced to it anyways. in all honesty, 35 year old canon sasori is not a redeemable character to me, given the fact that he’s easily amongst the cruelest villains in naruto (torturing and killing and taxiderming people for his own fun personal gain, never for a goal that served anyone but himself. how do you redeem having over 300 corpses in your backpack that you felt absolutely no remorse for killing). sasori was legit one of the only cruel villains that didnt had someone else pull the strings, which sends a clear message on kishi’s part, who absolutely loves to redeem villains LOL.

being that old, he obviously had already been very manifested in what he believed in, even if it was shakey, to the point where the first crack in that world view (sakura and chiyo protecting each other) immediately had him give up on his life all together. that, in my opinion, is not a man who’s going to know what healthy relationships would look like, regardless of it being romantic or not. 35 year old sasori to me has the same appeal as an expired can of tuna and he’s probably very happy 6 feet under. he’s supposed to be a failed gaara in that sense that he had no one to look out for him and therefore was never going to experience anything but a bad ending in life. its fine that hes dead honestly, it wraps up his short character development the best IMO.

adding to that, seriously, sakura was obviously interested in knowing why he was that way, and called him out for being seriously fucked in the head, but it’s weird to me that people assume she had any interest in actively rehabilitating him, let alone starting a serious romantic relationship with him. sakura who’s not only very, uhm, immature and straight forward when it comes to her romantic viewpoints also, as a big bootlicker, wouldnt soil her standing in the village by starting anything with a disgraced and far too gone criminal like sasori. shipping that version of sasori with sakura intimately is still going to set her up for a huge power imbalance that would be difficult to handle imo, even if she was the one in the fight ultimately exerting her power over him. i would still look at it and think damn she deserves better than having to play therapist for man like that lol.

additionally, even if you ignored all of this, you cant really ignore that sasori had already known her as a child, and that had been his first and most impactful impression of her. i dont think that sasori would look at 35 year old sakura and see her as a grown woman and not the little green girl she was in the fight. plus, you easily fall into predatory comparison territory between the “childish” and “womanly” and i have seen way too often in fic just being boiled down to her now being fuckable. a lot of of ships do this and i would just like to remind yall thats it not normal for adults to want to start relationships with children they have seen grown up or known as a child when they themselves were fully grown adults. therefore, maybe if sakura hadnt met sasori before it would be less of a problem? but that also obviously defeats the point of the dynamic and the reason he died in the first place. so yeah, it sounds kind of doomed especially if you were to make it romantic.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE SECOND QUESTION

let me preface this that im not fundamentally against age gaps, even if im not super interested in it. after all, colorblind had a 5 yr age gap (with sakura being 21), even if, say, i wrote similar fics today i probably would make it smaller lol. i think it can be handled well if both parties have enough life experience to deal with it, and the author is cautious of where the age gap starts, i think a 10+ year age gap would be fine in a scenario where the younger party (i guess sakura) was at least 25-27ish, meaning she has completed most of her most formative life stages and probably had been in relationships before, meaning she would be able to handle it without having to fear a huge power imbalance. the older the younger party is the less the age gap is going to matter tbh .TsukiHoshino and AngelOfDeath10 both handle age gaps in their fics really well imo, so i do not mind reading about them.

unfortunately, a lot of people in this fandom think making sakura barely "”””legal””””” (18, not even 20 which is hilarious to me because the source material is obviously japanese) because they both cannot stand her being past her “prime years” of being young fertile and fuckable to much older men as well as thinking a 20 year old is automatically old enough to handle that type of relationship. ive seen a lot of unironic takes that believe it will absolve them of callout posts if they throw around age of consent and “shes 18 now suckers!!!” enough lmfao. absolutely hilarious. aging a minor up without aging the adult down seriously reeks of predatory “cant wait until youre 18″ narratives and thats why i find it similarly disturbing as straight up pedo shipping.

ultimately, sasosaku is and will always be a inherently problematic ship in canon, which is why i think it should always be handled a little more responsibly in fandom spaces, ignoring or outright excusing the main problem factor, which is sasori, isnt going to convince anyone that the dynamic in itself is well written and interesting enough to explore in aus, like giving sasori the redemption most of us wanted him to have by aging him down to a point in time where he was still realistically going to allow being positively influenced, similar to gaara.

so really, what i think is well handled age gap and how most people handle age gap in the naruto fandom are two different worlds at times lol

tl;dr

canon shippers have never been anything but gross when i was younger and i didnt wanna be like that, even if youre “smart”enough to differenate, actual creeps dont really care and might use your content to blur the lines, sasori isnt rly redeemable so romantic canonverse realistically wouldnt make much sense and is still iffy, age gaps are fine if they are handled well, but given that the dynamic doesnt really need the age gap to still work im not that invested on making that an essential part of my shipping experience.

thank you for reading and hope this makes sense!

#nonitxt #meta #another hot take from me #but seriously if you're offended over these #unfollow me lol idc #defending predatory content is not a hill im gonna die on in this life

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adambstingus · 6 years

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33 People Confess The Shittiest Thing They’ve Ever Done

Found on AskReddit.

1. I told an adopted girl, I can see why your parents hate you.

When I told an adopted girl, I can see why your parents hate you.

2. THIS IS WHY GOD GAVE YOUR WIFE CANCER.

Learning guitar from uncle. Can’t do it. He said something like, Its easy, come on, you can do it!

Cue: THIS IS WHY GOD GAVE YOUR WIFE CANCER.

I mean fuck if any of you can top that I will be surprised; I was a little shit. Aunt ended up dying of cancer by the way.

3. Can you wait until you get home to start crying?

The other day my friend was in my car and said, I feel like I’m about to start crying. My immediate response was, Okaywell, can you wait until you get home to do that?

4. Stirred a coworkers drink with my dick.

I was pissed at a coworker who kept pushing her religion on me and I retaliated by stirring her drink with my dick after she had left it unattended. It was a silent victory for me. I look back on it and know that I’m a horrible human being for what I’ve done.

5. I intentionally broke a girls crayons while she cried.

When I was in 1st grade, I accidentally stepped on and broke a crayon this girl had while she was coloring on the ground. She started crying a lot about her broken crayon, so I looked her dead in the eyes and said I can’t be friends with sissy’s who cry over crayons. I then proceeded to intentionally step on and break the rest of her crayons.

6. Saw a man bleeding on the roadside and kept driving.

I was driving my ex home from the movies, and we chanced across a wreck on the roadside. The driver’s head was lolled on his shoulder, openly bleeding and obviously in need of assistance. My ex kept insisting, Keep driving. Someone will help him.

I feel like shit that I let her run me like that; I can’t believe I wasn’t the one to help him.

7. I made a Holocaust joke to a Jewish girl.

We were watching a doc about the Holocaust in journalism class (?)I was sitting behind a Jewish girl and right after they bulldozed a pile of dead bodies into a ditch I asked her if she recognized anyone on the screen.

As soon as it came out, I was horrified. we both participated in off-color inappropriate joking before, but this was next-level.

What a shitty thing to say. Im still ashamed.

8. I yelled at my grandfather and he died before I got a chance to say Im sorry.

I once yelled at my grandfather because he didn’t allow me to go over to a friends house because it was almost lunch time. He died before I got a chance to say sorry, gonna live with that for the rest of my life.

9. You want a medal or a chest to pin it on?

Sitting at a table with friends at college when a girl and her friend join us cause she knew one of my friends. Girl’s a real jerk to everyone. She hones in on my good friend who is insecure. Nervous laughter from everyone so she goes harder.

I stop her and, half-jokingly say, wow, good one. You want a medal or a chest to pin it on? (She was seriously flat as a board)

Girl stands up crying and runs out of the building. Turn to everyone cause no idea how that should be the reaction.

Friends tell me, She had breast cancer when she was 16 and had to have them removed. Only happened a few years ago.

Nice.

10. Threw sand in a kid’s face.

Threw sand in a kid’s face once. We were playing in the sandbox and I was trying to demonstrate that it exploded so I threw a bunch of sand in the air. 97% of it went right into his face. I was an adult.

12. I watched a guy pepper spray a sleeping homeless man on the train and was too scared to do anything to stop it.

I watched a guy pepper spray a sleeping homeless man on the train and was too scared to do anything to stop it. It happened a few months ago and I keep replaying it in my head, wishing I’d done something.

13. Emily, Im sorry.

When I was around 15 I met a girl online and we quickly fell in love, as hormonal teenagers are prone to do. Her parents went away during the school summer break, leaving her home alone for a while and she invited me to come and stay with her as our first face-to-face meeting.

I took the train down to where she lived but on arrival my heart sank. Even though I’d seen pictures of her, she didn’t really resemble the image my love-struck 15-year-old mind had built up. Mutual awkwardness and disappointment became the theme of our first day together so much so that I decided that, not only was I going to go back home the very next day (I think I was supposed to stay for a whole week) but I didn’t want to see or speak to her again.

Just before I left I crept into her room and erased my number from her phone. Then it occurred to me that she had an inbox full of text messages from my number so I had to re-creep into her room and stealthily delete all of those, thus ‘deleting’ myself from her life.

I left and never heard from her again (although she did have my email address). That was about 17 years ago and I still feel very shitty about what I did.

Emily, I’m sorry.

14. Convinced a girl to blow me, them made her take the bus home.

Late, at party for my birthday, managed to chat a cute girl into blowing me. Was too drunk/tired/high on myself after to get her home properly so I made her take the bus. Not a heartbreaking moment but a real ass move.

15. She even tried to take my shirt off and I just reached into my backpack and pulled a different shirt out. I know, I’m terrible.

Hooked up with a coworker at her house after a party. After we had finished she asked me to stay and cuddle, obviously douchebag didn’t wanna stay and cuddle. I had made up my mind to walk home shitfaced at 3am. She even tried to take my shirt off and I just reached into my backpack and pulled a different shirt out. I know, I’m terrible.

Cue next day rolling around and at work I ask where she is and my boss tells me that she is spreading her mom’s ashes back in her home state and she was taking a few days off. That’s when I knew I was a real piece of shit.

Bonus points, she survived cancer a few months later.

16. I purposely smudged an old lady janitors mopping job.

Probs around age ten I was this piece of shit edgelord.Flash-forward to me in a McDonalds. Old janitor lady is mopping the floor. What does shitty ten-year-old me do? Walk across the mop trail and swish my feet to intentionally smudge it.

Gods I can barely think about it. Not even because I’m pissed or ashamed at myself but because of just that was, be it myself doing it or anyone else. This was probably an old lady barely able to make ends meet, trying to do whatever job she could…probably never wanted to hurt a soul. Then comes along some shitty rich kid who does something completely fucking douchey like ruin a mop job. Sure, not the most monstrous thing at face value, but put all of what I just said together and…fucking hell. That is dickish. I feel bad about it to this day; even writing about it is hard.

17. I refused help to a man who needed it.

I was walking out of a 7-11 gas station a couple of blocks from my apartment building late at night (no one else was there). An old, run down car pulled in and the driver rolled down the window and called over to me. He was clearly very upset and looked like he’d been crying. He told me he just found out his daughter had been in an accident and had been airlifted to a hospital about an hour away. He was trying to get there, but he was almost out of gas and didn’t have any money on him. He pleaded with me for anything I could spare. I told him I didn’t have any cash on me, and I went on my way.

That was a lie. I had plenty of cash on me, and regardless I had my cards on me with which I could’ve bought him some gas. I got about halfway home, thought about what I’d just done, and went back, but he was already gone. I went home where my friends were drinking, and I just sat on the couch and didn’t talk to anyone the rest of the night.

What the hell was wrong with me? Was I so jaded from living in a big city with panhandlers regularly asking for money that I couldn’t recognize when someone might genuinely need my help? The emotion on that man’s face was real, as was the pain in his voice. I don’t think I’ll forget the desperate please! as long as I live. Was it really that big of a risk to give this guy $20? Would that loss to me if he was some Broadway-class con man really be that bad when weighed against the possibility that I just let down a father going through the worst moment of his life?

What if his daughter didn’t make it, and he didn’t get to see her before she passed because some cynical asshole at the gas station couldn’t spare a few dollars? I hope that wasn’t the case, that his daughter was fine, and that someone with more compassion was able to help him…or better yet, that there was no accident and he was playing me. Thinking about the alternative has kept me awake at night on multiple occasions.

Ever since then I have tried to keep a more open mind and give people the benefit of the doubt, so that the next time I’m in a position to help someone who needs me, I won’t fail them.

I don’t think the guy wanted money for drugs. Anyone who works with drug addicts like I do would know that a true addict wouldn’t have any car, no matter how crap, that could be sold for even a few bucks that could get them another fix. Also, my neighborhood wasn’t anywhere near the drug corners, and he didn’t have the physical indicators.

18. Did not visit my grandfather this Christmas. He died four days later

Did not visit my grandfather this Christmas. I had two vacation days from work which I used to visit someone I had been dating for a month on Thursday and Friday. Then at my parents place for the holiday and back to work the next week. My grandfather passed away on 29th of December last year. I’m a real piece of shit.

I made damn sure to drive the some 220km to leave a candle for him at a veteran memorial stone on New Year’s Eve. At the town he had lived for his whole life.

19. Told my mom I wanted to name my kid after my dad.

Was having a chat with my brother, sister, and mother about names for kids. promptly say that I don’t like the idea of naming my kid after a family member but if I did it would be my fathers name. At the end of this rambling, mildly insulting speech I look straight at my mom and say because I love Dad. Immediately realized that implied that I didn’t love my mother enough to name my kids after her. I tried retracing my steps and covering up my mistake, she laughed and joked about it, but her face showed that she was pretty hurt. Broke my heart that I could be that careless, that woman’s done nothing but good for me.

20. Told my host he looked like Butt-head.

Hung out with the host of a New Years party for a bit. Drank some of his beer and said, hey you kinda look like Butt-head from that show. He said he gets it a lot.

21. I kicked a girl out of my house after some lackluster sex.

I had a girl come over for some extracurricular activities. She was drinking and assumed she was staying the night. After we had very lackluster sex I went down stairs smoked a bowl, walked back upstairs and kicked her out of my house. Definitely an ass move.

22. My friend was counting change, so I knocked all his coins on the ground.

A friend of mine was counting his change on the entrance of our work. We were about to clock in when I asked him What you got there? He shows me with his hand open and I just tapped it from the bottom, all his coins fell on the floor with all the people passing by.

I laughed and left, felt pretty shitty after but when I went to apologize he laughed it off and said he’ll get me next time.

23. Best friend’s boyfriend died during the best summer of my life and I was a piece of shit.

After graduating college I spent the summer backpacking around the world. It was the most amazing thing I had ever done; I was kind of shy before but the experience gave me a new-found confidence. Once I was back home I was a hit at bars regaling new friends with stories and was finally successful with attracting the opposite sex. I was having the time of my life.

While I was gone by best friend’s boyfriend overdosed and died at Bonnaroo. A little back story we became friends because she put me back together after a breakup. Stayed with me and cooked for me, but did I return the favor when I came home… no :/

I was too busy having the time of my life. Shortly after I got home she crashed her car and got a DUI. She was in a downward spiral and I ignored her. We were working a shift together after that and I, still in euphoria from the night before, said to her I can’t believe how my life keeps getting better and better and yours just gets worse.

I didn’t realize what I had said until months later. It’s been years and I still think back on that moment. I could have been there for her but I was just a selfish piece of shit.

tldr: Best friend’s boyfriend died during the best summer of my life and I was a piece of shit.

24. Brought a morning-after pill to a woman I’d fucked the day prior while she was in the hospital after another guy beat the shit out of her.

Brought a morning-after pill to a woman I’d fucked the day prior while she was in the hospital after another guy beat the shit out of her.

25. I wanted to meet a gay guy so I could make fun of him.

I was very sheltered as a kid. I went to a private Christian elementary and middle school with 16 people in my 8 the grade class. When I was in 9th grade, I went to my first public school. No one knew me, so I felt like I had to be cool.

One day a friend of mine mentioned that her cousin was gay. I had never met a gay person before. I was genuinely curious if he was just as they appear on TV. So I asked her who he was, wanting to get the chance to meet him. She asked why I wanted to know who he was. Trying to be cool and not like I was genuinely curious, I replied, so I can make fun of him.

The girl sitting in front of me who I had never heard say a word, just turned around and said you’re a dick. It was the first and last thing she ever said to me.

I’ve never felt like more of a piece of shit in my life than that moment.

26. I gave a girl her first kiss as part of a bet.

I started a bet with a friend in middle school that we could get this wholesome straightedge girl to kiss one of us. I won the bet at a super romantic moment at a friend’s pool party by a roaring fire but had no real feelings for the girl. A little while later her friend told me that was her first kiss and she really liked me and was heartbroken when she found out about the bet. She has to live her whole life with that as her first kiss. I’m friends with her on FB and 15 years later she is absolutely beautiful and I still feel awful.

27. I threw a brick over my backyard fence and hit a kid in the head.

I threw a brick over my backyard fence just cause, and actually hit a kid in the head. It was a pretty bad cut. When his parents and my mom came out I just pointed at my brother and he got the ass whoopin’ of a life time. I was like 6.

28. Ran over a birdtwice.

Was driving on a winding road on my way to a job on the countryside when I hit a bird with the car. Stopped the car briefly and saw in my rear-view that it was flapping around until it just sat still in the middle of the road, probably trying to recover from the beating it had taken. I considered stepping out of my car and move the poor bird to the side of the road so it wouldn’t get hit by another car but remembered that flock-living birds can get “expelled” by their flock if they carry an unknown scent. I also figured that this was far off in the countryside in Sweden, and the likelihood of another car passing by anytime soon was close to none.

I was on my way back home about an hour and a half later. My meeting with the client had been a huge success so I was in a great mood, singing to the radio and was probably driving a bit over the limit. I drove up a small crest and on the other side was the same fucking bird sitting in the middle of the road exactly where I left it, I had totally forgotten about it! It was turned towards me and I swear it looked me straight in the eyes, silently cursing at me in its chirpy bird-language as I inevitably drove straight over it for the second time…

Once again I could see the bird being slammed to the asphalt numerous times in my rearview-mirror before disappearing down the slope into the woods.

I’m entirely convinced this bird will dedicate his afterlife to haunting me from the other side for the rest of my life…

29. Girlfriends mom tried killing herself, so I went home to drink.

Was watching with my then girlfriend. Lots of bad things happened that night that we were unaware of, and in the end her dad stormed into our room shouting get upstairs now and call 999. Her mum tried to commit suicide by an overdose on something I’m not aware of. Her mum/dad goes off in the ambulance and my ex is hysterical, crying panicking etc. My uncle at the time also tried to hang himself a few nights previous…. I used this as an excuse to leave my ex for the night, go home and get drunk. I will never forget the tears I left my ex in, while I went home to drink.

30. Convinced a girl high as a kite who had the tiniest cut on her finger that she will die from infection.

Convinced a girl high as a kite who had the tiniest cut on her finger that she will die from infection and have it amputated or if she didn’t go hospital it would spread and lose her arm. She started crying, called her mum, and went to hospital.

31. I’ve had sex with 2 friends’ gfs…while they were still dating them.

I’ve had sex with 2 friends’ gfs…while they were still dating them. A decade of regret and lost friendships is the result.

32. Told a suicidal girl to go kill herself.

Met a girl through and online game that was a legitimate train wreck. Sending nudes to basically everyone at the age of 12, smoked and drank on the daily at 13 or 14, did coke and speed at 15. Girl was a major bitch and a manipulator to basically everyone, and had no one who cared about her as a result. I tried being the first.

As I said, she ended up being a massive manipulator and one of the only people I’ve ever branded as irredeemable. Checked in on her some years later, and asked her how she’s been. Said she was probably gonna kill herself, to which I replied Yeah, you go do that, and then blocked her.

Is that fucked-up? Yeah. Do I care if she actually killed herself? Can’t say that I do.

33. Kneed a neighborhood kid in the nuts for no reason.

Kneed a neighborhood kid in the nuts for no reason at all when I was like 9 or 10…I was a little shit as a kid.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/11/02/33-people-confess-the-shittiest-thing-theyve-ever-done/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/167051727832

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samanthasroberts · 6 years