#Fuck it tagging every member of the ninja team lmao

[localguy2]

Oi may I please request some zane head cannons (I need some variety )

💡💡💭

Sure thing, here's a teeny tiny list of headcanon for your enjoyment:

- Heavy sleeper imo, probably the heaviest on the team, it may be confirmed that Cole snores, but in my eyes Zane will always be the heavier sleeper cuz of Crystalized and Seabound

- he's actually a pretty good leader, but self doubt and worry fuck him over more then anything, that combined with how his plans sometimes don't take into account the people around him makes him scared shitless of leading at times

- examples of mostly good leading is in Season 5 where he's mainly the one spear heading the team in Stiix, although to be fair to Zane, Kai did also fuck up a lot of his plans (*cough* making Ronin raise the price & unintentionally hitting him with the crane which broke his voice box *cough*)

- examples of bad plans/leadership is possibly Sons of Garmadon where he basically throws Cole under the bus to get into the SoG (poor Cole lmao), and while he did get a good amount of info for the ninja, in the end it ended up with him at the bottom of the canyon (although again to be fair to him, if it wasn't for Harmui then the Sons of Garmadon would have probably not found about his true identity)

- on the topic of whole SoG plan, he's really fucking embarrassed about it and is also really guilty, and he apologises constantly to Cole for it, because not only did his plan get his brother in danger, in his eyes it was all for nothing since he got beat by Mr.E and almost died for it, depression!

- sorta linked with the last one, Green Ninja complex! (this time Nindroid edition), Basically like Lloyd, he feels like he should be more responsible, as such he holds himself to ridiculously high standards at times, which can be a determent of his own health at times, physical and mental, physical as in throwing himself into danger, and mental as in not wanting to fail at anything, because in his eyes "I'm a nindroid, I should be much better at this then the avgrage person.", fun all round ey?

- Can communicate with PIXAL without having to say anything, basically messaging PIXAL just by thinking about it, which has lead to some very obscure and random moments where he and PIXAL break out into laughter all of the sudden (yes they have inside jokes about everyone including each other)

- will not allow himself any rest if any of the ninja is hurt in any shape way or form, and if everyone is injured? Well fuck me he's staying up for at least 2 weeks with no sleep just to watch over them, something that Wu doesn't approve of because he probably needs as much rest as the rest of the injured ninja, but he can't do anything since-

- Zane is stubborn, stupidly stubborn at times, if he's focused on a task oh he WILL get it done and he will not let shit get in his way

- has won a chess championship because he thought it would be an "intertsing expiernce.", he hated it because of how people showed up and asked for pictures and shit lmao

- has both the most and least amount of control over his element, most as in being precise and accurate with freezing his targets and landing his shots, least as in the Ice Emperor trauma overwhelming him and causing him to lose control sometimes (although with Quest for The Lost Powers, he's since regained full control over his element)

- when the others found out that he was a nindroid (and that he didn't have a mom), they all decided that the next best thing would be to make him the mom of team, as such they celebrate mother's day in his honour (he finds it weird but at the same time amusing asf)

- mother's day when he was dead after Season 3 was possibly one of the most depressing times for the ninja, >:)

- makes ice sculptures for everyone randomly, which sorta leads into the next action

- he's the "Shows affection through actions" type, he doesn't have a problem saying that he loves his family out right, but he prefers physical actions to show his affection (making ice sculptures, cooking a favourite dish, heck perhaps even knitting clothes)

- occasionally lets his falcon out just to talk and hand out with it, he loves his berb a lot since its his last link to his father

- an absolute Disney princess with animals, "Awwww look at this horrifying abomination!" *pets the creature* "Can we keep him? <:)"

- still chills out at the bottom of cold lakes (this task has become significantly easier ever since Nya became the elemental master of water)

- is locked in an endless war with Cole over the title of "biggest brother in the family", it is yet to conclude despite all the shit they went through

- speaking of big brother and shit, I see a lot of people talking about Kai and Lloyd or RGB siblings, and believe those are really damn good I can't argue about that, BUT, hear me out: Lloyd and Zane with Lloyd as the little brother and Zane the big brother.

I mean it's just waiting to happen at this point, shared trauma alone is enough to make these 2 understand each other really well, here's a few examples:

1) the overlord, they've both faced the overlord alone and they damn well know how terrifying it is having the weight of the entire world on your shoulders

2) loving thier fathers, and having to watch thier legacies be destroyed, Sensei Garmadon's sacrifice was all for nothing when Harumi brought back the evil side of him, and all of Julien's good work was now sorta in bad name because of the Nindroid army, after all the nindroid army was based on Zane's design, which was made by Julien

3) both are scared of what they might become, in Season 11 Lloyd is scared that he might becomes like his father, an Oni, which is one of the reasons he hates embracing his Oni side so much in Crystalized, and Zane is scared of becoming just lines of code (personal interpretation is that it's the Ice Emperor, the Staff's influence and Vex's manipulation basically render him a set of lines of codes, constantly repeating the same cycle of attacking innocents and trapping them in his ice)

4) they've both died, Zane god knows how many times and Lloyd briefly in March of the Oni (shared death expiernces hellll yeaaaah)

This headcanon is a hill I'm willing to die on proudly

- on the topic of the nindroid army actually, Nindroid hate SKYROCKETED during Rebooted, and Zane wasn't spared that hate, fortunately for him and unfortunately, most of the hate went away after he sacrificed himself, yeah he might be fuckin dead but hey at least the word nindroid now isn't ruined anymore!

- has a sort of secret agreement with Kai of looking out for each other constantly, while Kai is a goofball at most times, he and Kai both are extremely serious about protecting their family, thus they understand each other super well, if Zane needs to have a serious talk with anyone, it's not Wu or Cole or anyone else he goes to, it's Kai, and vice versa

- stays up the entire night sometimes because he's having an existential crisis about how he's gonna outlive all his friends and loved ones, have fun with that one

- and now for a rapid fire set of HCs when it comes to his relationship with the other ninja:

Lloyd - a little brother he has to protect at all costs

Cole - the best costumer he could ask for, if Zane opened a restaurant Cole would be there every single day, will cook 5 cakes for Cole's birthday

Nya - tech and fighting bestie, Nya used to be Samurai-X so she knows her way around technology, as such they love talking about the latest stuff from Borg, also fighting besties, aside from their elements working well together (and especially if Kai is there, helping melt Zane's ice for Nya to control) they also are the most dangerous and well coordinated duo on the team, they will bust out fighting moves like it's nothing, and they are especially good at pinching their enemies and overwhelming them with constant attacks

Kai - mature brother he can trust at all times without hesitation, they both easily have the most shared secrets out of everyone, a testament to show how much they look out for each other

Jay - video games and random talks bestie, Zane has no issue spending hours at a time just to listen to Jay talk about anything cuz he genuinely finds it fun, plus it kills the time if there's nothing better to do

Wu - Wu still has a soft spot for Zane (bring back that season 1 and 2 dynamic writers c'mon), and Wu has special tasks reserved for him, and some secrets as well (Lloyd and Cole also have soft spots in Wu's heart)

PIXAL - do I seriously need to explain PIXAL? I mean fuck she's literally the love of his life, she understands him more then anyone im the world, and she knows everything about him thanks to living in his head for a while (vice versa with how he knows everything about her since she lived in his head), she's also the one to repair him most of the time (and again vice versa), the love for each other goes way beyond a nomal relationship because they just understand each other so well, and if harm falls on any of one of them, the cookie will indeed, crumble like a stack of playing cards

Oh and also vehicle building besties loool

[momowho34]

Time for another naruto au post that so long and complicated it might aswell be a fic in and of itself. Why am I like this :,) Naruto au where Itachi runs away from the village with Sasuke in tow and doesn’t leave him behind. Also Itachi is a little older then a teenager because it makes more sense. Buckle up this is a long one.

Itachi refuses to kill his family and runs to warn them but when he gets there everybody’s dead except for Sasuke, (who witnessed the whole thiNG OOPSY-) so he takes him and runs for their lives.

Itachi joins the akatsuki but uhhhhh now there’s a four year old tagging along and Itachi’s too scary for anybody to mention it.

Imagine the fluff and angst potential with the akatsuki oooooof there’s so much omg

At first they all think it’s super annoying but within like two days they would all gladly die for this kid. Seriously they were pretty sure their hearts were made of stone at this point but apparently not.

Kisame is surprisingly really good with kids, partly because he appears fairly calm on the outside without being too standoffish so Sasuke likes him best. Also Kisame could happily play peek-a-boo for the rest of his life he likes the small things

Kakazu is awful with kids but sasuke likes him anyway and he hates it (not really) Hidan.... really doesn’t know what to do. He’s never cared about another person in his life, okay? He kind of wants to kill the small child but he knows Itachi would steal his fucking knee caps and bury him at the bottom of the ocean so he doesn’t even mention it ever

Sasori is the mom when Itachi isn’t around. They would all feed him candy until he fucking died if Sasori didn’t stop that. Sasori is also the one to go “oh my GOD Deidara you can’t dare him to climb that mountain he could fall and hit his head no I don’t care about that deidaRA HE IS SEVEN YEARS OLD ITACHI IS GOING TO KILL YOU WHEN HE GETS HOME MARK MY WORDS—“

Tobi likes to blame all of his mistakes on Sasuke as a joke. Also they all teach Sasuke bits of their fighting styles so he becomes even more formidable and all of them are kind of freaked out by how quickly he masters their techniques

When he’s too young to tag along on missions he has to stay with Konan and Pain. He really values Konan because she’s really the only one of them who treats him like a person instead of a stupid child that needs protection.

“He costs too much,” Kakazu says. “He shouldn’t be here, what about how much it costs for him to stay with us” all while consistently finding room in the budget to get the kid anything and everything even though he’s fairly low maintenance to take care of

When Itachi arrives, everybody tries to disregard the rumors paired with Sasuke being there. Because of Itachi’s overall demeanor and Sasuke’s refusal to talk about it, they assume that he killed his family but didn’t kill his little brother for some reason

...And then Sasuke starts having nightmares. Like loud, screaming and crying in the middle of the night nightmares. Every time it happens, Itachi wakes up, calm and collected, and holds him until he falls asleep again. They all start having doubts about Itachi really killing his family.

Itachi doesn’t really hold a grudge against Konoha, but he didn’t see the whole family die like Sasuke did. Sasuke wants revenge, and he’s dead set on it.

Okay yeah but what abt the actual plot and stuff??? Don’t worry I’m there.

So a while later after that during Naruto’s three year journey (which he still takes with Jiraiya because he needs training to fight Orochimaru who is still a big threat btw) he meets this weird black haired kid staying at the same hotel he is.

Turns out they’ve both got caretakers who are absent (Jiraiya’s at a brothel somewhere and Kisame and Itachi are off killing some guy) which sucks so they bond over that and compare abilities and beat the shit out of eachother a little and develop a mini rival complex all of that but then

“Wow you’re so cool! You fight just like a ninja! You should come back with me!” Naruto laughs one day. Sasuke asks “Back to where?” And Naruto’s like “back to the leaf village of course! I’m a leaf village ninja, I’m out here training with my sensei! I forgot that I left my headband in the room, I can show it to you.” But Sasuke just gets really pale and runs off and Naruto doesn’t see him for the rest of the trip.

He thought he’d never see him again but then Sasuke gets separated from the Akatsuki members reeeaaaallly far away from their base and Konoha. As he’s trying to figure out what to do, a certain ninja crew happens to be in town. Naruto is like “omfg I know this kid!!!!!!!! Hey Sasuke!!!!! Hey Sasukeeeee!!!!!”

Sasuke is like o-o but then he starts to consider his options. If anybody figures out about his sharingan, he’s straight up fucked. His eyes are gone, he probably gets murdered. Naruto is like “what r u doing here????” And sasuke spins a fairly convincing story

He’s like “oh yeah and I know my way around this place so I can help you out could I maybe seek asylum in your village maybe??? I could be helpful” just so he can head in the general direction of Konoha and hopefully get closer to his base along the way.

So Kakashi begrudgingly agrees and Sasuke tries not to burn alive because he’s in the general proximity of leaf soldiers that he fucking hates and he will not grow attached to any of them at all no siree, not at all, no way!

Sasuke begins to grow close to them, of course. Sai and Sasuke do goth shenanigans and he fights with Naruto and tries to get Sakura to leave him alone (what is up with her why is she being so weird?)

Oh bonus angst: Tobi used to talk in his sleep sometimes, and at some point Sasuke drops “those who break the rules are scum, but those who leave their friends behind are worse then scum” casually and Kakashi almost has a full blown panic attack.

This is when he first realizes something is seriously up with this kid; and his first name sounds... familiar. His suspicions are just suspicions until they run into Orochimaru. Now Orochimaru could just out Sasuke as akatsuki, instead he plays with his feelings a little bit. He keeps saying things like “how does it feel to fight on the same side as your enemies for once?” And “have you forgotten already?” They defeat him without Sasuke revealing his sharingan but the jig is up in Kakashi’s mind.

Kakashi doesn’t quite connect the dots; but he’s almost there. Whoever this kid is, they’re coming back to the village for sure. It’s the safest thing to do. Meanwhile the Akatsuki are freaking out. Itachi is unhinged and almost grieving, they have no idea where Sasuke could be. The team is out in full force; including Tobi

And you know, Obito doesn’t care. He shouldn’t care, nothing matters in this false reality. It just doesn’t. Tobi might have given a shit about Sasuke, but Tobi isn’t real. He’s just a front, Tobi doesn’t exist. So why is he looking so hard for this stupid kid that he shouldn’t give a shit about? Obito convinces himself it’s just a front, it’s just part of Tobi’s act, but it’s not. What’s happening to him? Why is starting to feel things now, so deep into the plan?

Annnnnndddd that’s as far as I got with it lmao. That’s still pretty fucking far tho

[panharmonium]

next round of in-progress naruto thoughts under the cut

[i actually haven’t progressed that far from where i was last time, honestly, but i could feel myself getting to a stage where i had some things i needed to write up.]

fyi, this one is a little more gripe-y than usual - still enjoying myself, but there are some things in the current arc that are bugging me.

[spoiler policy disclaimer first, as always: I am watching naruto for the first time and have only gotten to the point where naruto and bee break out of the island barrier and leave to join the war.  i am trying to avoid spoilers, so please don’t interact with this (tags included, because the notifications now show them to me automatically) with any spoilery commentary, including even general things like “oh i love this show but it gets less good after X point” or “X season is better than Y season” or any general assessments of quality/likability/etc re: future seasons.  Thank you! <3 ]

anyway, to go ahead with my grousing -

there are a couple things about this current arc that have me feeling "ehhh.”

1) too many dead people

i’ve personally always been lukewarm on the “revive/reanimate dead characters for the Confrontation Value” trope, which is probably due to me having been a comics fan for so long (i was pretty deep into DC-land during Blackest Night, and that’s not even the first/last time this sort of thing has been done there, so).  i’m not saying it CAN’T be done in an interesting way, but most of the time my experience with it has been that it’s kind of cheap/redundant storytelling.  it usually doesn’t add much to an emotional arc, for me, and when it retreads an emotional arc that did have a strong conclusion, i feel like all it does is weaken the original story.  

so like - places where i feel like shippuden does this well are with minato and kushina.  i found both of those scenes with naruto to be powerful moments that added something new to the story/to naruto’s development.  (but they’re not even part of the whole reanimation jutsu plotline, which is what i’m mostly feeling “eh” on, so it’s not even the greatest example.)

a place where i’m kind of in the middle is with asuma.  on the one hand, i really don’t think that this needed to happen, because the original story arc with him was SO strong.  however, they did kind of redeem themselves in a way by focusing the redux on choji instead of shikamaru, so at least they were still saying/exploring something something new.

places where i’m still pretty dubious are pretty much...everyone else.  i’m just not sure...well, i don’t know.  i can’t really say definitively how i feel about it until i get to the end of the arc and see how it ends, but at the current moment, i’m just not sure what we get out of seeing people like zabuza+haku, lady chio, itachi, nagato, etc....ALL of those stories had such powerful endings; it just makes me leery of these “resurrections” invalidating everything we saw previously/weakening the impact of what came before.

2) mixed messaging

this is my bigger gripe, and it’s something i’ve kind of had floating on the edges of my mind for a long time, but this season especially is highlighting it.

the one thing that is guaranteed to make me frustrated about this show (besides its obvious disinterest in female characters) is when it starts to lean super hard into the “Naruto Is The Only One Who Can Do It!” for every single task that needs to be completed.  and i know this is a stupid thing to complain about when the show is literally titled “Naruto,” but the reason it gets frustrating is because the initial message of this show was never “one super special person must do everything on their own and save everyone else.”  the original message of this show was teamwork.  

the very first lesson kakashi teaches the kids (and the foundation upon which the rest of the story has been built) is “you are stronger together.”  if you had all come at me together, you might have been able to take [the bells]!  he specifically criticizes naruto for working alone: “naruto - you do EVERYTHING on your own.  EVERYTHING.”  and that’s understood to be the Wrong Thing; it’s the reason naruto ends up tied to the stump.  but in the last few seasons especially (though there have definitely been previous moments where this has shown up before) the ONLY thing we keep hearing is how naruto has to accomplish everything by himself.  

it didn’t bother me in the Pain arc; i actually thought that confrontation was appropriate and necessary for naruto’s development.  but ever since then, it’s escalated to a point where now it’s like - “naruto is the only one who can fight sasuke!  naruto is the only one who can defeat madara!  naruto is the only one who can stop the war!  naruto is the only one who can erase everybody’s hatred!”  

and that’s the point at which i start to get frustrated, because my mind is like “okay, and the other characters are going to be doing...what, exactly?”

again, maybe it’s stupid to complain about that when the show is literally titled “Naruto.”  but i don’t think so.  title notwithstanding, this story at its heart was, in the beginning, an ensemble show with four main characters, whereas nowadays, the messaging is that only one of those characters can actually accomplish anything.  so i get kind of resentful, when i’m told that the other members of the team can’t do anything but step back and hold naruto up, because the essential message of this story has ALWAYS been “teamwork is more important than anything.  you are NEVER stronger by yourself.  we ALL have something to contribute.”

right now, the other characters feel like they’ve just been shunted off to do busywork.  none of them have grown or changed at all since the end of season 10 (and even the end of season 10 was starting to slide into the “only naruto can do anything about sasuke in the end blah blah” - yes it’s a huge pet peeve of mine but it is what it is; whatever; moving on).  we haven’t even SEEN sasuke since the end of season 10.  there’s been no consideration given to how kakashi is handling being drafted into a second war and being put in charge of 20,000 lives (and his clash with zabuza was just a vehicle for all the characters to reflect once again on how great naruto is).  there’s been virtually ZERO attention given to how sakura is handling things, minus that one scene where she’s looking at gory pictures from the previous great ninja war.  everybody is just marking time, punching a bunch of identical white zetsus until naruto can come solve the problem and wow everyone with his new abilities.

part of my annoyance might just be due to the fact that the timeline is so wonky due to filler arcs - it feels like ages have passed for me, but in-universe it really hasn’t been all that long.  but i also think there are legitimate reasons for me to be frustrated, when the show introduces things and then just unceremoniously drops them without any indicator of when they might be picked up again.  like - the uchiha genocide reveal was (i thought) a Huge Fucking Deal that should have Major Repercussions - but it’s just kind of.....disappeared as an issue???  and yamato - he’s been CAPTURED!!!!!!  but the show has not shown a single character reacting to this, or even being informed that it happened, and i think that’s shitty, actually.  yamato isn’t a minor character.  he’s been naruto’s personal guardian since season 2.  he has done SO MUCH for the kids, and he is kakashi’s friend, and i think it is shitty to have him get captured by the same people who experimented on him as a child and then not spend a second or two making it clear that other characters CARE about this.  

anyway.  this is just something that’s been creeping up on me as time goes on, and the last few episodes of “Naruto is the Savior of the Entire World” talk just made it feel more immediate, i guess.  plus the new intro (which i know may not be reliable; sometimes they show things that never happen) had a shot of naruto fighting itachi, and i think that tipped me over the edge, lmao, because you know what?  enough!!!!!  naruto can’t be the one who gets to do EVERYTHING!  some stories are not about him!  there are other characters who have relationships that are not about naruto.  there are places where other characters should be able to accomplish things naruto can’t do.  the other main characters should be allowed to complete their personal arcs, separate from (not just secondary to) naruto’s journey.

like - just - this is how i feel: this show started out as a story about a group of four people, and the root theme was “teamwork is everything.”  i don’t like how the show has slowly started to mutate into a story about naruto’s “solitary” quest to save sasuke, when we have seen MANY TIMES that: 

a) sakura was the first of the kids who even knew that something was wrong with sasuke, while naruto remained utterly oblivious all the way through shonen jump (and partway into shippuden, tbh)

b) kakashi in the past has connected with sasuke in ways that NEITHER of the two kids have been able to achieve

i just don’t like it.  i don’t like how S10 had sakura say the line “naruto...you were the first one to ever see the darkness in sasuke...” when she’s reflecting on their fight on top of the hospital, because that is a LIE.  it’s a blatant retcon.  of the kids, sakura was the one who knew from the very beginning that something was wrong with sasuke.  she was the one who was with him when he had that semi-dissociative episode during the bells test.  she was the one who was with him during all the curse mark stuff in the forest of death.  she was the one who knew something was off when he challenged naruto to a fight - naruto was just psyched that sasuke wanted to “spar” with him!  and SHE was the one who suspected that sasuke might do something as drastic as leave the village - naruto explicitly told her not to worry; that sasuke was totally fine; he would never ever do something like that!

like - the show already barely gives sakura anything for herself; now they try to take this away from her, too?  and give it to naruto?  to hammer in a kind of connection between naruto and sasuke that demonstrably did not exist??  (i’m not saying that naruto and sasuke don’t have their own important relationship!  but it is just provably untrue that naruto was the person who understood sasuke best.  shonen jump goes out of its way to demonstrate how clueless naruto is about what sasuke is really like and what he’s going through.  naruto is SHOCKED that sasuke would go to orochimaru.  he doesn’t realize that their fight on top of the hospital is anything more than their usual rivalry business.  when sasuke pops out of the coffin behind kimimaro, naruto waves and starts laughing, because he thinks sasuke is still on their side and is going to run right home!  and even in shippuden, when naruto hears that orochimaru is dead, he gets all excited and goes “so sasuke must be on his way back to the leaf village!!! :D”  like.  he just doesn’t get it.)

and i won’t really get into kakashi’s side of things here, because i would end up writing too much, but suffice to say that i am just...wary of the way it feels like recent parts of the show are trying to minimize or...push aside the real, textually-documented connections that kakashi and sakura had with sasuke in favor of “Only Naruto Can Help!”  it frustrates me.  kakashi made inroads with sasuke that neither of the kids ever achieved.  sasuke talks to kakashi in a more honest way than he ever does with either of his peers, even when he’s out of his head with rage.  and i would prefer to see this show taking the angle that all three of sasuke’s team members are going to be indispensable for saving him.  

you know.  like teamwork.