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#maybe they wanted me to give my own take
astrophilip · 2 months
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heartstopper 💗
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moeblob · 15 days
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I am really tired of a situation rn.
#fe three houses#felix hugo fraldarius#me using felix on my angy days because he is my angersona? you bet!#anyway if you want to try to get someones money or something bc you hurt your own car banging into mine#can you try to be a bit more timely with it buddy come on you hit me on feb29 !#why am i getting your insurance company calling me today !#also i would like to point out i didnt do it and neither of us were hurt and i filed a claim with my own insurance comp#and also filed a police report bc he didnt even suggest calling the cops to the scene#so like yeah hey man maybe you and your insurance company can move a lil faster or smth#literally everything that happened the day of is - according to my dad - an intimidation tactic#i look like im 15 and he probably thinks he can take advantage of a new driver but ya know! tough luck!#im just really tired and stressed over multiple things not negative so getting this on top of it was like#bro .................... anyway my phone didnt pick up for some reason so i called back and then nothing got resolved#cause the person who actually called me wasnt around to connect the line to from the guy who answered#idk man just its a lot despite my v minimal energy#got a job interview on monday tho ! and then also next week is an eye exam#and you might be thinking isnt that a good thing to get your eyes checked? you are correct but i am horrified#there are two body parts that give me absolute anxiety and eyes are one of them#and i know my eye sight is declining and im just v anxious#its fine im going to be fine i just have to be anxious about it
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milkbreadtoast · 7 months
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yu junghyeok and prince cedric have like practically the same design (+v similar personality) but listen the Vibes they have r diff... idk if this makes sense but u know charas w tired dilf energy... YJH has that but not cedric.. hes like a baby.. the way I describe it is YJH is babygirl but cedric is just my baby🫂🔥🔥🔥*gets incinerated* SKJDJ idk if it's noticeable at all but I try to capture diff vibes when I draw them....
when i draw cedric i try to go full shoujo... he is a romance novel male lead... sparkly eyes bright colors 90s anime blush... goes full squish mode when drawing him chibi MFNSKJ🤭
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but when i draw yjh im like... no i have to convey the Angst and Depression.... *gives him dark circles and takes the light from his eyes*😇🖤
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idk if it's noticeable but I also try to differentiate their designs in subtle ways (besides eye color etc),,, I give them diff eyebrow shapes!! I like YJH with triangle brows(thicker at the ends) and cedric w tapered brows(thicker toward the middle) like the webtoon... I also try to make cedric's hair a bit curlier than YJH🥹
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#cedric riester#yoo joonghyuk#yu junghyeok#TWSB#orv#re: i ​have to convey the Angst and Depression.... *gives him dark circles and takes the light from his eyes*#<-- this is also my approach to drawing dark choco cookie KJDKSSJ#not that cedric isnt also angsty and depressed but... he hasnt been thru the Time Loops™️😔#and besides... he has his own emotional support prince jesse(yeseo)😇#to help him sleep better at night... whens the last time yjh had a good nights sleep... he was a gamer before this too🤧#yjh may be my pookie but the sheer weight of his chara holds me back from woobifying him completely...#maybe one day tho KJFKSJ#i think those squishy black eyed chibis r just as cute tho🤭#Still need to draw both of them more...#yjh is my bias btwn them but cedric is more fun to draw for me smfbdm at least rn#AND ITS BC OF THESE REASONS!!! LIKE I GET to go full shoujo and squishy blorbo w ced#and sparkly and blushy#but i cant do that w yjh it'd be too jarring skfjsndb#THEYRE BOTH EQUALLY CUTE TO ME BTW... but since i love both... i dont want to draw them exactly the same...#and like i said it'd clash tonally too much if i drew him like a romance novel male lead (even tho hes just as handsome as one)#I NEED TO READ THE ORV NOVEL#btw for me yjh owns this archetype... the yjh archetype... 🤧#but cedric is a cute variation bc of his orange eyes and curlier hair... 🤭 his fanta eyes make him stand out#from the other yjh wannabes (shoving jumin han into a locker) im jk#me @ every chara who looks like him: 🫵u will never be YJH /j#/jjjjj#ced is the exception... i immediately liked him BC he reminded me of yjh... there r enough fun diffs too#what on earth compelled me to ramble this much#my art
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mainapnifavouritehoon · 9 months
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hi guys i-
#Hey so i wanted to talk about this really bad this has been bothering me for quite some time#i have been busy a lot these days and i dont get time at all to do anything but i can see myself wasting my time just scrolling#I have school and then coaching and then ofc i have to study on my own for which i barely take out time as im highly careless#My last 2 exams went absolute shit and that fucking scares me because i'll be having my JEE soon#Mummy has been telling me to stay away from my phone and ik she trusts me but she but she deserves a daughter that studies ig?#And now i kind of consider that as an option because this phone is very very distracting#I have been thinking about deactivating but i realized it would mean i would lose all my precious posts and interactions#So i wont be deleting this blog as i am too attached (i will be coming back istg)#I will be taking a break and ig thats what yall call a hiatus#I will be giving away my phone to my parents (trust me i have to)#Ik this will be hard for me to just leave all of a sudden so i'll slowly start vanishing if that makes sense?#This message also doesnt mean that i will be shutting down my phone rn at this moment and that this is goodbye#This is just to prepare the people that i love and who love me that i will be highly inactive and not come online for maybe months#This is not an impulsive decisions i have really thought through this#Also just to tell you again MAIN ABHI GAYAB NAHI HONE WAALI BUT THODE TIME MEIN I WILL GO ON A BREAK THIS IS JUST A PRE HIATUS MESSAGE#Also i hope you guys will still love me and remember me once i come back#Because coming months are going to be hard for me#I hope you understand and ily guys okay?#(Oh god why am i so dramatic about everything) xoxo
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panharmonium · 4 months
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Hi! I love your Naruto thoughts and meta posts with all my heart and I want to ask your thoughts on something that has been on my mind literally since I was 13: what do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura? I went from being a hardcore shipper when I was a teenager, to being against any romantic relationship in Naruto after finishing the anime when I was in my early twenties. Nowadays I'm very into platonic love and depictions of friendship and I think the anime's obsession with forcing the "romantic interest" curse upon the main female character robbed us of... so much. There are a few wonderful moments in the anime where Sasuke and Sakura acknowledge each other, but because she's always "the girl with the crush", her actions are so often interpret as irrational or selfish by the fandom.
Hi @riemmetric!  It's great to talk to you again! Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this; RL has been making demands of me lately and it took me way longer to finish writing this up than I wanted it to (then again, I knew from the minute I read your original ask that my reply was going to get long, so I suppose I should have predicted a delay XD)
It's funny, my sister once asked me to choose between Sasuke or Sakura for an “unpopular opinion” meme, and I ended up doing Sasuke solely because I think the negative fandom opinions about Sakura are so unhinged and divorced from the actual text that I wouldn’t even know where to start.  People are entitled to dislike whatever characters they want, obviously, but there are some fandom takes that are, for me, so obviously rooted in bad faith viewings/readings that there’s no urge in me to discuss them.  That said, since you asked, I’m happy to go into my own thoughts on this a bit, with the disclaimer for other potential readers that I only write about fandom things for my own personal enjoyment, not as a contribution to The Discourse. If you don’t like Sakura, great!  I have no interest in changing your mind. Please consider this a sincere invitation to scroll on by and go enjoy whatever parts of the fandom appeal to you.
In general terms: I love Sasuke and Sakura’s relationship as much as I love all of the relationships in Team 7.  If we’re talking about them specifically as a romantic couple, then I probably fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, because I do like them together in a post-canon (to be clear: non-Boruto) setting, after time has passed and they’ve continued to develop individually and reconnect with each other, but I also wouldn’t exactly call myself an intense “shipper,” in the sense that I have no interest in pulling things out from the text and incorrectly citing them as evidence that Sasuke has hidden romantic feelings for her during the canon period. He cares about her in the canon period, just like he cares about Naruto and Kakashi.  That’s not up for interpretation; it’s the text.  But Sasuke during the canon time period does not demonstrate specifically romantic interest in anyone.  
[A note before people who might ship Sasuke with Someone Else emerge to rail against this statement - please just scroll past and continue enjoying fandom in whatever way is most fun for you. It is cool to ship whatever fanon thing you want; I think that’s great!  But earnestly citing any loving or emotional thing Sasuke does re: various characters in this story (yes, Sakura included) as indicative of specifically romantic love isn’t supported by the text. I know there are always going to be enormous subsets of any fandom who insist that it is, and I'm certainly not going to barge into anyone else's space to complain about that (because other people having fun together is harmless and none of my business), but I'm not obligated to indulge it on my own blog, either.]
Anyway, that said - the reason why I love Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship (from here on out I’ll use “relationship” in a general, non-romantic sense) is precisely because Sakura isn’t just “the girl with the crush.” Sakura has an arc when it comes to Sasuke, and its trajectory moves in the exact opposite direction of “irrational” or “selfish.”  She specifically goes from “the girl with the crush” to “the girl who steels herself and tries to put her personal feelings for Sasuke aside for the greater good” to “the girl who knows she can’t put her feelings aside, but who also knows full well that Sasuke doesn’t reciprocate them, and who still wants to save him regardless, because he matters to her as a person and a friend.”
[I'm putting the rest of this under a cut to save everyone's dash, and also to emphasize once again that this is a personal post on my personal blog which I wrote in response to a question from a personal acquaintance, the full content of which no one is obligated to read. I am not sending this post to random strangers and forcing them to look at it. I'm not even putting it in the character tags. I'm typing it up on my own blog and putting it under a cut. If you already know that you don't like Sakura, but you still click the link/read the post and then feel an urge to comment and complain, I am going to copy-paste this disclaimer and remind you that I specifically recommended that you scroll past and go have fun with fandom in your own way. Thanks in advance for responsibly curating your own fandom experience!]
So, from the top:
1. the girl with the crush
Sakura is, obviously, completely obsessed with Sasuke at the beginning of Part 1.  She’s also deeply clueless about him and his history (bizarre though it is, the story seems to indicate that she initially doesn’t know what happened with his family, the same way young!Obito is initially clueless about Kakashi’s father).  But what I like about Sakura and Sasuke’s Part 1 relationship is how this changes over time.
The critical scene that kicks this off happens right at the beginning of the manga, when she and Sasuke are talking by that bench - she complains about Naruto and blames his behavior on him being all alone/having no family to scold him; and even says she’s jealous that he doesn’t have parents to nag him all the time.  This obviously triggers an outburst from Sasuke, who tells her she has no idea what loneliness means and that she “makes him sick”/she’s “annoying” (importantly, the exact same thing Sakura said to Naruto in anger earlier that day), which in turn prompts Sakura to reassess herself and wonder whether she’s been making Naruto feel this terrible all the time, too:
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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:
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(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.
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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:
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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 -)
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(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:
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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
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This has all been a really long way to answer the original question, but the short response to “What do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura?” is “I really care about it,” just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto, just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Kakashi. And I don’t think the story ever asks me to choose between them.
I’m not sure whether it’s the impact of Boruto-era “canon” that gets in the way of other people approaching things this way (I don’t consider sequel material when I evaluate the original story), or if it’s Kishimoto’s frequent disinterest in/disrespect towards female characters, which yes, does sometimes make it harder, or if it's a shipping thing (bane of my existence), or some combination of factors, but for me, taking one member of Team 7 out of the equation hobbles the rest of the story.  I can’t read/watch Naruto while hating one of the protagonists and loving the other three.  It doesn’t work like that for me.  The story wasn’t written that way, and there’s nothing in the text that would cause me to receive it that way.
That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with disliking one of the main foursome (or any character, for that matter) - obviously we're all going to have different preferences, and everyone is free to enjoy or reject whatever parts of a story they want, or to like or dislike whatever characters they want. I know that some people have more fun disregarding canon and doing their own thing, which is fine.  My own personal zone of enjoyment comes from receiving the story as closely to how I think it was intended to be read as I can, and personally, when I look at this particular story, what I see is that all the members of Team 7 clearly demonstrate their love for Sasuke in ways that he himself later recognizes and acknowledges. All of them are driven by their desire to save him and their unwillingness to hurt him. All of them make repeated choices to chase after him when he runs away, to trust him when he hasn't exactly earned it, to give him another chance when he doesn't appear to deserve it. ALL of them, not just Naruto, do these things multiple times throughout the story, and Sasuke owes his life (and thus his eventual recovery) to ALL of them, many times over. Kakashi disobeys Hokage-elect Danzō and breaks the law to negotiate for Sasuke's life with a foreign head of state. Sakura and Kakashi both have opportunities to kill Sasuke in the Land of Iron, and they choose to spare him instead. Kakashi stops Sasuke from killing his only friends at two different points in the story, which would have been a mistake Sasuke couldn't have recovered from. Sasuke would have died in Kaguya's desert dimension if Sakura hadn't saved him (Sakura, who knew that Sasuke wasn't even truly on her side yet, who knew he'd abandoned her for dead multiple times already that day). Kaguya's bone bullet would have killed Sasuke too, if Kakashi, with his intention to die in Sasuke's place, hadn't leapt in front of it (Kakashi, who also knew that Sasuke wasn't fully on their side yet, who also knew that Sasuke had abandoned him for dead earlier that day). Sasuke and Naruto would have BOTH died in the Final Valley if Sakura and a severely injured Kakashi hadn't chased after them to heal their injuries.
Remove any one member of Team 7, and Sasuke never makes it home. Without the combined efforts of all three of his teammates, he doesn't survive.  That’s the way it should be, thematically, for a story whose first and most foundational premise was the importance of teamwork, and since Sakura was just as essential to that framework as everyone else, I’m just as invested in her relationship with Sasuke as I am in his relationship with everyone else.  You can’t remove one leg from a four-legged stool without damaging the integrity of the entire structure, and for me, discounting any single member of Team 7 irreparably damages the integrity of the entire story. 
TL;DR: I love all of the Team 7 relationships, including Sakura and Sasuke's, because despite what some segments of fandom seem to believe, the text of the story never gives me any reason not to.
#naruto#meta#replies#anyway that's that! hopefully that is a helpful answer#thank you for the question! i honestly don't think i would have ever gotten around to writing about this if i hadn't been directly asked#i love talking about the stories i enjoy (obviously; we all do; that's why we're here)#but i'm usually ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about responding to takes that blatantly misread the narrative to justify hating a particular character or ship#mostly because a) it's whatever. as long as people mind their own business and leave me to enjoy myself they can do what they want#and b) some opinions are so divorced from the actual text that they're not worth discussing#like. what's the point of responding to random internet posts saying that sakura was selfishly pursuing sasuke as a lover the entire time#when that is textually and provably not the case?#if you're that committed to experiencing things in direct contradiction to what the narrative is asking of us then just go ahead#is it mildly annoying to me? sure. but so are lots of things and it's better to just let stuff go#like - i initially planned to take this piece of meta all the way up through sakura and sasuke's last scene together#the one where he tells her 'maybe next time' and finally reclaims and redefines itachi's forehead tap (INCREDIBLE. THIS SCENE.)#but ultimately i changed my mind because everything i wrote for that last section was coming out too harsh#i generally prefer to talk about fandom stuff in a chill/friendly approachable way#but i kept thinking about the most obscenely & disrespectfully inaccurate read of that scene i'd ever seen#and i couldn't figure out how to talk about it in a non-scathing way#that scene and the one where naruto gives sasuke's headband back are the ONLY well-written things about the finale of naruto#they are SO perfectly constructed and i can't respond to people slandering either one without feeling an urge to kill#so i just deleted it. partially because again - this is fandom; it's not that serious; people can do what they want#but also because i know i get extra frustrated about people picking over the text and plucking out isolated bits and pieces#to contort into blatantly misinterpreted mutant shapes that 'confirm' whatever pre-existing judgments or ships they had#instead of experiencing the story as a cohesive whole & keeping in mind the greater context of what it's always been trying to communicate#people on this website say 'we all interpret things differently :)' as if it means no one can ever be wrong about what a text is saying#newsflash: not all interpretations of a text are valid. things can't in fact mean whatever you want them to mean.#the ***story*** persists and exists even if the author is dead to you#if you choose to ignore that then that's fine; it's just fandom; who cares. but i'm not going to pretend you're 'analyzing' anything.#(ok now i'm really done. you can see why i deleted this section XD)
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bonefall · 8 months
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Did you man beam Drizzle? If so, why not just pair up Rustle with Cranberry instead? I get for the amazing ship name but I'm curious about the choice /gen
I totally forgot Drizzle's original gender, but also, I really don't want to overthink it. I'm so tired of overthinking it. I wanted CranberryDrizzle funny ship name and it was getting exhausting to plan out where every pairing in several hundred cats would be getting their kits from
Rustle is going to die at some point after having two QR kittens, and Cranberrydrizzle is going to have 2 important litters (Sunstrike and Emberfoot in the first, Fernstripe in the second). I have done an exhausting amount of work (weeks of planning and hours of work at a time, scouring the wiki and facebook screenshots, redrawing tangles, reading through suggestions, writing out full posts of changes and creating new groups with their own histories) untangling broken fragments of family trees and like... I'm tired. No more shuffling. I deserve Funny Ship Name. is this too much to ask
Boy Drizzle is just the easiest answer. I'd like for Drizzle to just be transfem but I was also told to avoid cats being trans just to have kits, which is ALSO frustrating me at this point, I don't like this weight of "perfect representation" that's being put on me when I'M not even perfect representation as a living human queer.
Do I let Drizzle be transfem and "break a rule," or change them to a boy and "lose" a lesbian pairing? It feels gross to me to have fallen into a mindset where I'm treating queer relationships like quotas or rigid rulesets
I feel like if I 'get something wrong' (like forget the gender of a Missing Kit or a side character, or handwave 'where did these kits come from' with 'trans/queen's rights' without considering a real secret surrogate) I'm going to get smacked upside the head and be forced to hyperfocus on one small part of a massive project when I already have a million other things to work on.
So unfortunately the most honest answer I can probably give is that im tired. I'm really tired. Overthinking minor details before making every single tumblr post is draining me. I forgot the missing kit's original author-assigned gender and didn't scroll to the bottom of Onestar's wiki page to check it before posting. I like the ship name. Cranberrysplash somehow gets pregnant twice, but I was told to avoid trans bioparents, yet doing that is making things even harder after I had to do weeks of work to make a good tree in the first place
I'll figure out Drizzlefall's gender when they become relevant in some context
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pineapple-lover-boy · 6 months
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Listen I know it was forever ago but what if after lesson 16, whenever the brothers mention how much MC reminds them of Lilith Mc is like, “Who?”
They’re grateful for what she did and honestly I love the thought of them being the only one to see her ghost and they’re besties but like
This is to piss the brothers off and stop them from comparing. They can talk about her. But not compare. Lilith supports this and does not want her greatx70 grandchild to be a walking memory.
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bootyful-seventeen · 25 days
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I am heavily contemplating on buying myself a dvd player soon and buying all the DVDs for a ton of movies and tv shows I grew up watching cuz I miss the magic of dvds
#hear me out on this one okay. but the Barbie movies were magic on dvd back in the day#and I do wanna see if stores are still selling the old strawberry shortcake dvds before I go online for those#I wanna snort that nostalgia so bad#and of course I’ll need to get the dcau on dvd#like all of it cuz I’m so bored with the dccu since we don’t get as much new stuff#it’s always Batman or superman and love them but I’m kinda bored from always seeing a new bman or sups movie#Wonder Woman I wouldn’t mind a new actor for her but I know she’s not gonna be a muscle mommy which I’ll be sad about#give me a Wonder Woman that is built like rhea ripely god damnit#the flash is eh cuz I found out this whole time I’ve been watching the Wally west flash#but yeah Wally is who I want and then there’s the green lantern like dude is so cool iams all we have is the 1 from 2011 I think#sure I could watch some of the tv series they have but I have too many shows on my watch list it’s overwhelming at times so I skip over lots#tho I will have to pray like crazy cuz some of the things I know I want are probably gonna be expensive as fuck even as second hand#saw a class of the titans season 1 dvd going for $81 cad 💀💀💀#the world is not kind to those who don’t love the digital age#I prefers my dvds cuz I own it and no one can take it away from me unless they physically steal it#omg I’m turning into my grandma cuz she still had the vhs player with some tapes too#just wish she never donated the tapes for swan princess 1-3 and Anastasia and ferngully and basically all my faves that she owned#like Ngl a part of me wants to hit up value village just to see if maybe they’re still there or if I’ll find other copies of the same things#cuz a perk about cities with older people is that you get so much older tech and other items it’s insane
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daydadahlias · 6 months
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some of y'all make it really fucking hard to keep creating in this fandom im just gonna be honest.
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mitamicah · 15 days
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Sad Micah hours. Yay.
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kraeuterhexchen · 29 days
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...maybe if I stop being getting my hopes up for a metal track every time I might be able to get more excited for new blind channel tracks again.. :/
#XOXO is nice and it's a banger and I like it don't get me wrong please. I am soo looking forward to seeing this one live!!#but...#It's what I'd call mainstream radio metal and it's just not doing it to me in that way.#You can pinpoint the tiktok breakdown again it's just so.. short#One more minute would not have ruined this song. It's over before it has started and I just wish they'd take their time with it#You don't need to have a banger from front to back. It's nice but you can let your music breathe and give it more timeeee#I know the 3 minute mark is scary but you can do it guys#And it sounds so similar to the other ones again. Yes they have their own sound and it is undeniably a BC song#but I feel like they lost a part of themselves and their music somewhere in 'we need to conquer the world and stay up for 4 days straight'#and 'we need to out out an album every year or it will all be lost'#you can't mass produce music. You are not a machine. The world won't die if we have to wait for 2 years for album.#I want more than catchy tunes and 20 second breakdowns again that you can clip surprisingly well#I have to stop the joel hokka voice in my head that tells me that they will be so heavy and hardcore and that the next#song will be the metal one he's been talking about all these times.#Maybe if I see them more as that mainstream metalband then I'll find my joy in their music again#I still love them a lot and I am sooo excited for the album and seeing them live twice and having a fucking party#I just miss the joy I had with albums like blood bros. There was variety and sooo much good stuff on there and each song sounds different .#and each song sounds different but it's undeniably them. Every song is unmistakably made by Blind Channel.#This is what I miss and it's what I think they lost somewhere in all the time pressure they are setting upon themselves#I hope I am making some form of sense here. My brain is fried from work but I wanted to collect my thoughts somewhere#I'll go and make some food and tea now and listen to XOXO again because it's stuck in my head :D#Have a cookie for reading my word vomit 🍪💖#personal
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theflyingfeeling · 7 months
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so idk if anyone remembers anymore but some time ago I described a fic idea in the tags of a post (and then elaborated the idea in a later ask) regarding Olli/Aleksi falling for each other while still being in relationships respectively... yeah, I kinda ended up writing something based off that thought and I just uploaded the first chapter on AO3, I hope y'all will be cool about it 👉👈
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snoozu · 16 days
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IMGONHSTHROWUPpt1iguess
#folks shall we talk about snoozus situationship?#lets talk about mo snoozu’s situationship#looonnggg ago way back in the summer. my dnd group met for maybe the third or fourth time before all the Boys went home#n our friends do a thing called ‘proper goodbyes’ where if someone is leaving it must be announced to the group or the host or whoever.#usually hugs are involved bc Friendship <3#ANYWAY.#on this night i gave a hug to. okay i need a code name#Raven boy. sure#and i was a good hug okay. so i said! man! you give the best hugs ! haha thank u laughs blah blah blah#everyone leaves#my ROOMMATE. and COUSIN . randomly throws out ‘i think you and him should date’ like right before we go to bed and im just like ‘huh???’#and they just go nothing goodnight! like okay.#fast forward? two months? him and i are very silly together. we joke around a lot and a LOT of the time end up saying the same thing at the#same time. its fun whatever. at this point for me its like yeah i could see it but im Me so i cant really do anything about it#bc i don’t Know know. yknow?#halloween night me n the roomies go to dinner all dressed up and i start complaining about dating apps and the people on there. i say sm a#along the lines of ‘why can’t i just meet someone the old fashioned way. where we’re friends for so long we just realize one day that we#be married.’ tO WHICH COUSIN ROOMIE ONCE AGAIN SAYS. I THINK YOU SHOULD DATE RAVEN BOY#so i go! 😳😳😳 whaaaaaaat….. and shes like ‘you guys are silly together!!’ and lm like okay great well now i get to panic about this dynamic#we actually start texting a lot thru november. and one day im talking about school to him and how its stressing me out#and hes like. i like to go on walks or hikes when im stressed. if you want i could show you my favorite spot#and then IM PANICKING. so AT FIRST im like noway abort abort abort haha actually i really need to finish my assignments :(#and then i think about it. and im like. why not tho. so then i text him back actually yeah lets go. and we go on a hike and its awesome and#fun and beautiful and we just talked. and then he takes me home and is like can i use ur bathroom real quick and im like sure but im NERVOUS#bc my roommates are clearly home and they’re going tonsee him and KNOW#and thats EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS. so they’re all oohooohoo you wanna talk about it and im like no!!!!! shut up!!! leave me alone !!!!!#anWAY. more talking. over thanksgiving break. not much over christmas break bc it was kinda a Moment for me. so dec-#*dec-jan we’re both kinda radio silence a little bit. and im like. probably wasnt a thing then. whatever we’re still good friends#and then. reader. we’re still good friends. absolutely charmingly good friends.#i started my own campaign in january and before the first session another one of the Boys needed a ride to and from an interview so i gave
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hestiasroom · 3 months
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does anyone else's mom think they are "mean" for having boundaries? or is that just my mom?
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dirtytransmasc · 4 months
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self indulgent got concept.
Ned brings Jon home, Cat hates the boy, everything stays the same... until Robert Baratheon is charging through the halls of Winterfell looking for the babe, ready to butcher the poor thing where he lay helpless in his cradle.
in a matter of moments Catelyn learns three things:
The babe was never a bastard, Ned had only lied to her to protect Jon, and that she would die before she let Robert lay a finger on the babe she'd previously wished death upon.
cue Catelyn Stark snatching Jon from his cradle, holding him, protecting him, loving him as she would her own son, risking it all to keep him safe, all care for herself thrown to the wind.
like they say, what a mother's love holds no bounds, and what it makes her capable of had no limits.
#listen listen listen#I just want Catelyn to love Jon Snow and I don't care what I ahve to do to make it happen#(plus the angst is delicious)#I was rewatching old kids movies and ended up watching ice age and idk why but the mom sacrificing herself for her babe gave me ideas#I just imagine young Cat holding onto the boy she hated and wished death on for being bastard (only to find out he wasn't one) as tightly-#as she could. knowing Robert and his men were coming. knowing they would slaughter the boy in front of her. knwoing she'd wished for this-#and deciding she'd give her own life to protect him if thats what it came to.#and in my mind she jumped from the window of the nursery knowing the halls will be filled with the kings men and leave little chance for-#escape. before fleeing on injured legs to hide the babe and herself knowing Robert would be right behind her. she's in agony. but she'll-#going for the babes sake. she won't stop until her heart is dead in her chest. even if it hurts to move and breath and think he keeps going#maybe she takes a horse and flees wintefell all together. maybe she hides somewhere in/around the castle. maybe Robert catches her?#if she runs with him she'd have nothing but the clothes on her back. she'd have to feed him and keep him warm. she'd have left her own son-#behind. the potential angst and hurt/comfort as Cat misses her own son and learns to love another. feeding him and keeping him warm from-#her own body while she's injured and lost and at the will of the elements of the strange new place she now considered calling home#idk I just think it'd be an interesting concept#there's something about a mother and her child being cornered by 'wolves' (in this case a stag). this has the added spice of Cat and Jon's-#dynamic. just earlier that day she could barely look at him and now she's willing to die for him. the change happened in seconds.#that was a lot of ranting in the tags. oops. anyway...#catelyn stark#jon snow#I love putting these two in harrowing. life altering. and/or traumatic situations so they can finally just be mother and son#I live for the angsty family feels#got#game of thrones#asoiaf
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lonelyteenagerdotmp3 · 6 months
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older people what do y'all do with your old school books like do y'all sell them to the paper wala or do y'all donate or something what d'you do
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