#meta157

antoine starts the story as the epitome of the french coward. hes weak, largely unhelpful, egotistical, and difficult to get along with. as the story progresses, he overcomes a lot of this as you’d expect, but i found the way he overcame it to be very interesting. he drops his ego before he learns to be brave, which leaves him feeling weak and unloveable. his father was a general in the war, and antoine was meant to follow him, a core member of the the group of kids that almost singlehandedly kept the revolution going for years after the fall of the acorn kingdom, but he’s a loser. and once he drops his overbearing pride, it starts feeling less like “serves you right” and more just.. sad and pathetic.

i could go into every step of his development but i wont because that’s not what you asked me to do, but i will say that what i REALLY love about him is that after his arc is “complete”, he’s still very much himself. he’s brave, he puts his life on the line for the cause and for his friends and at the point where the story abruptly ends he’s in a coma because he threw himself over an explosion in order to save the prince. but he’s still a nervous character. he’s jumpy, he asked amy and sonic to come with him when he went to PROPOSE to bunnie because he was scared to do it by himself, he has his moments of pride, he’s still very much ANTOINE.

now, he has people who love him for who he is, and he is very open about loving them. his relationship with bunnie is so fucking cute, he is impossibly proud to be able to call her his wife, and despite being like. kind of objectively stronger and cooler, bunnie feels the same about him. he and sonic used to NEVER stop ragging on each other, but by the end of the story its so clear that the respect they have for each other has skyrocketed. antoine can still be, like, a little bit annoying to some of the other characters. because he’s antoine. he is a little bit of an annoying guy. but he has so much love in his heart and he tries so very hard

tbc i don't think that sasuke could be happy "settling down," i don't think he DOESNT like being on the move all the time, but the scene with naruto where he leaves konoha without saying goodbye to anybody is clearly not a scene where sasuke is content with his life in the way naruto is. he isn't doing this because he wants to, its because he thinks that he has to suffer in order to be good, and that the people of konoha wouldn't accept him any other way. it IS TRUE that sasuke has always been a big believer in sacrifice for the greater good and wouldn't consider his own happiness to be important compared to the missions he needed to go on, regardless of how deserving of happiness he considered himself to be, but i absolutely refuse to believe that, if he DID believe he deserved it, there has been NO TIME EVER that he could come home and just be regular. just for a little. there is absolutely something that is pushing him out of konoha, unrelated to "i have a mission to go on." there's still a disconnect.

WHICH. unfortunately. brings me to. end of shippuden. he receives a letter from naruto praising him for protecting the village even without being there, he thinks, "maybe it's time to come home." sometime before he comes home, he catches wind that naruto is getting married. he sends a letter with nothing on it other than "congratulations," and he does not come home. for like 4 more years. next time he's home for an extended period of time it's when sakura has already giving birth to sarada and he's helping raise her until she's juuuust old enough to start retaining memories before he fucks off again.

he doesn't want to be around sarada and sakura. he doesn't want them to worry about him or concern themselves with him. he doesn't want to be affectionate with sakura, who clearly DOES want to be affectionate with him. he considers the fact that he and sakura had a kid together to be the thing that most connects them, which is only significant in this case because anyone with eyes can tell that they are not really connected in basically any other way. it's like the ring he gives her in that dino arc. clearly since you wear a ring now to show we're married it means that we're married even though i'm not doing any of the other things a husband should do, but this ring makes up for that. clearly since we have a kid our hearts are connected and we really do love each other, even though i'm not doing any of the other things someone who really loves you would do. you could argue that his refusal to make any contact with sarada and sakura IS out of love, that he's afraid of hurting them and thinks he's protecting them by staying out of their lives (this is most likely what kishimoto intends), but this claim doesn't have any actual PRECEDENT outside of the fact that i'm being told that sasuke apparently loves her, the evidence for that being well they got married and had a kid. off screen.

i think he feels guilty that sarada even exists, because it's his fault she has no dad and it's his fault she inherited the uchiha's massive capacity for grief and love, it's his fault that sakura is raising her alone, and he's running from this because hopefully he can make up for it by doing good for the whole world since he cannot bring himself to make up for it by being there for his wife and daughter. "she has sakura, she'll be fine" because sakura is more her parent than he will ever/could ever be. he doesnt HATE sakura or sarada, to be very clear. he cares about them both as people, he fully respects sakura's strength, is proud when he sees sarada fighting well, he wants her to be happy and wants her to like him, he wishes he could be a better father and husband to her and sakura. just without having to be their father and husband.