Yasqweenitsme - A Little Bit Of Everything All Of The Time

Something I love about Kishimoto's writing is how he subverted the soulmates trope for Naruto and Sasuke. A more basic writer would've made it too predictable and boring or too contrived as a retcon.

Kishimoto establishes in its most explicit form that Naruto and Sasuke are soulmates in chapter 671. The cover says it all; complementary colors (yellow/purple, green/red, orange/blue), Yin Yang imagery and text, Sun and moon imagery, Heaven and Earth text.

He had also already given us hints of the soulmatism between Naruto and Sasuke with the whole "my wind will make his fire stronger" stuff. Plus all the official art he made where he plays with perspective making Naruto and Sasuke adopt poses that are similar to the Yin Yang symbol.

However, what I like the most is how he subverts the trope: Naruto and Sasuke don't love each other because they're destined to love each other, quite the opposite, they love each other in spite of their circumstances and predecessors.

We look at their predecessors and hatred and lust for power triumphed over love. Ashura and Indra hated each other. Hashirama and Madara had more complex feelings but ultimately Hashirama chose Konoha over Madara and Madara chose power and hatred over Hashirama. One of them always ended up dying/killed by the other one, severing their bond. Naruto and Sasuke were supposed to go down this path, that's the way it always had been. But they chose not to. Naruto embraced this choice, Sasuke on the other hand had more issues accepting the choice his heart had already made years ago when he wasn't able to kill Naruto during the battle at the VoTE1.

Sasuke saw himself and Naruto when he looked at Hashirama and Madara have their last conversation before Madara died for good. Madara and Hashirama were never able to make amends and reconnect their bond, Madara dying with the words right in his mouth. This is what Sasuke had expected to happen betwen him and Naruto. Maybe he thought he would be able to kill Naruto or maybe he thought that at some point during the battle Naruto would finally give up on him and kill him sparing him from the pain of severing their bond, but none of that happened.

We look at the battle and Sasuke never had the resolve to kill Naruto. He closes his eyes when he's punching Naruto because he can't bear to look at the face of the man he loves, he can't bear that inescapable gaze.

We see Sasuke deactivate his sharingan when he's about to give his definitive blow and instead let Naruto beat him. He never had it in him to kill Naruto.

And we all saw during the arc of the Kage Summit how everyone begged Naruto to give up on Sasuke, to let them execute him and Naruto refused every single time.

Even during their final battle when it was Sasuke who was begging him to let him severe their bond he responded "sorry I can't do that because I'm your one and only".

A different man with a weaker resolve would've have given up on Sasuke, would have let others execute him for betraying Konoha or would have let himself be killed or would have had the mercy to kill Sasuke to spare him from loving each other. Instead they chose to not to because they put each other above everything else.

Here is where I'd like to bring back the "my wind will make his fire stronger" theme. Yamato had stated Naruto's wind overpowers Sasuke's lightning, I believe here is where Kishimoto is telling us subtly he's subverting the soulmates trope. Yamato stated the obvious: Naruto could kill Sasuke just like Ashura and Hashirama killed Indra and Madara respectively, and follow the natural course of their destiny as reincarnates. Two opposites going at each other until one of them falls. But then, to Yamato's surprise (and slight annoyance) Naruto declares he'd rather be the wind that makes Sasuke's fire stronger, very important to note it wasn't Yamato who mentioned it as an alternative, y'know like "well, your wind is overpowers his lightning but it can also make his fire stronger". No, it was Naruto who arrived to this conclusion himself, he was told he could overpower Sasuke but instead Naruto chose to be Sasuke's complementary that could make him stronger. Naruto chose to defy his fate.

Naruto and Sasuke were destined to meet each other and fight each other but they weren't destined to love each other, that was of their own accord.

Their love is a conscious choice not a prophecy forced upon them.

As a Johnlock survivor, I feel sorry for y'all. Truly.

LOKI | 2x02 "Breaking Brad"

I am still thinking about Old Fashion Cupcake.

Such an important part of this is that the typical coming-of-age narrative is about being young and free and discovering yourself and in those stories everyone knows who they are by the time they're graduating university. Everyone knows their own shape by the time they head into the working wold, obviously. They have partners, they know their own heart and soul, they know who and what they are and what they want and what life has for store in them and that's when life start, life starts after you discover yourself.

But not in Old Fashon Cupcake.

Instead we're being given the narrative of two adult man, one nearing 40, and the discovery of what it means to be queer and what it means to be different and what it means when the box you've always shaped yourself to fit is the wrong one. The idea that life can happen and you can live and you can still discover yourself.

Nozue has spent a lifetime fitting himself into the box he thinks he should be in, trying to fit into every nook and cranny of 'normal' without any consideration for himself. He has filled out the box and hollowed himself out in the process.

And now he's hitting a time in his life when he's expected to have figured everything out, to be living the life he knows he wants, to be an Adult and a Man and to know what the future holds... but all he sees is swathes and swathes of the same hollow life, the same false box, the same lies he's been trying to make the truth.

Togawa is younger than him but he's accepted that he doesn't fit the box everyone expects him to, he's accepted that he has to make his own shape, find his own place. That he can live life and be himself. And in finding himself, he's learned to see people who don't. And he sees Nozue.

This narrative is so deeply, inherently queer that it is beautiful because it is about the kind of self-discovery journey that comes from a world telling you one thing only to realize that what you want, what you need, who you are, doesn't fit that path. And when you're never offered an alternative that fits you... you take that path and you make the path work.

But when you finally have a chance to see the path that wasn't? To see the path you wanted and needed but were never given... you grab it with both and you run and then you panic because this in unfamiliar and new and that's terrifying.

Nozue is peeking down a path that is everything he's ever dreamt of, freedom and friendship and desserts and a partnership and a chance at more and he is both reveling and he is panicking because he's never felt this before. He's never felt this nameless hope and joy that bubbles up and fills up the hollow parts of himself that he shaped for society.

Being yourself, even in little moments, even in the tiniest things, when you haven't been for so, so long? It's exhilarating. And it's terrifying. The box is comforting when you've contorted yourself so long... stretching is painful and scary even as it relieves and reveals pain you have forgotten about.

Moon Melon 🌕 🌙

silly

Shouto figure skating AU ❄️⛸️

"do it again."

Lee Taemin

what could've been. 💔🩹

Hanako au redraw