#I'd like to explore Rin and Obito’s relationship too but I want to do a deeper analysis on the canon before

[enavstars]

I wanted to do this in digital but I don't have the time right now.

For context I hc Rin and Obito as 2 years older than Kakashi, so Kakashi was 12 during Kannabi and Rin and Obito 14.

I don't usually draw Rin that much but I absolutely love her and plan to do more with her. It's funny because when I first watched the show I didn’t like her. It wasn't until I began to read fanfics and saw all the headcanons and interpretations of her character here on tumblr that I started to like her. So thank you all for that <3<3

So here are some (bits of how I see her/of my my headcanons about her) on her relationship with Kakashi.

Rin used to idealize Kakashi, so ended up crushing on him. And Kakashi really did carry himself with a lot of self-confidence and strenght, always giving that prodigy vibes. So Rin being a kid didn't realize how young Kakashi actually is.

This changes after the Kannabi bridge mission. Kakashi, whose body is still adapting to his Sharingan, is unable to keep the confident facade due to the inmense pain he's in (I can expand on this in another post if you'd like), so he looks extremely vulnerable and small.

After seeing Kakashi in this state, Rin can't ignore anymore that Kakashi is a kid even younger than herself and inmediately drops her crush.

So now Rin sees Kakashi as more like a little brother, and she decides to look after him. (This comes from what little caracterization we have in canon of her. In the scene where Obito dies, while Kakashi is crying and shaking, Rin inmediately stops crying when Obito asks her to do the transplant, showing her incredible mental strength).

And she takes care of Kakashi not just because she understands how important he was to Obito, but also as a way to cope, in the same selfless (but unhealthy) way she's always known. She needs this, needs to take care of someone vulnerable to help herself. After all, she was really messed up by Konoha and the war, she is still a child soldier who got her obsession with being useful to the village drilled into her head. So she distracts herself from her own grief by helping Kakashi with his, thinking it's what Obito would have wanted, even if it's slowly destroying her.

Because here's the thing, Rin underestimates how important she truly was to Obito and prioritizes Kakashi over her, in the same way Kakashi prioritizes Rin. Neither realizes that both of them were the most important people to Obito.

So in summary, Rin seals her own pain and refuses to cry or show weakness in front of Kakashi (supporting him like she supported Obito) but at the same time she spends most of her time with him with the excuse that she’s helping him with the pain from the Sharingan.

They sometimes sleep in the same hospital bed, hugging and exhausted, and then there can be heard soft sobs and sniffles. But it's impossible to know which one of them is making those noises.

[no-nic]

fascinated by both rin's role in the momo pig au (manipulating her is always funny because she is so easily played if you know what you're doing. but do they? i'd argue that if anyone at least kind of figured some stuff out it'd be them...) and by everything about the rei and tobi au. the way kabuto is being used there + the themes of one person being unable to meaningfully change an entire entrtched system are sooooo compelling. also isobu liking icha icha is SUCH an idea im a big fan. if im interpreting the posts correctly kakashi also shows up at some point as sukea? how is team minato's relationship in that au? how is her unsuccessful suicide attempt being perceived? is she as interested in changing things or is that mostly obito's thing? how IS obito coping? he seems more hinged than in the canon timeline, but i'd imagine theres still a LOT going on in his head. do the akatsuki (og group) play into the au at all? it's all just very interesting to me your aus are always so fun.

oh no i have several pages written. incoherently

imagine me cackling like a witch who is explaining what exactly goes into their weird potions

q: what is rin doing in momo pig au? a1: she is being Observed & Guided. she is reduced to an instrument of murder, even more than in the usual shinobi way a2: her best

q: what is rei and tobi au about? a1: it's a deeply silly exploration of the world and characters. any moon alien plot is cut short (if it even existed and zetsu wasn't literally madara's hatechild) and anything approaching a "fix-it" is incidental a2: people going through horrors but still Having Hope. there being no fixing the whole world but them Trying Anyway. refusal of the shinobi system but not by Tearing Everything Down a3: rin & obito's runaway-to-vigilante pipeline a4: uchiha mikoto's jonin rank a5: neji's new stepfather

q: is sukea there? a: it's kakashi's go-to mask! everyone is wearing a literal mask (except kakashi's face is finally somewhat bare)!

q: how is team minato doing? a: minato is dead. kakashi thinks everyone is dead. rin & obito had a horrible reunion. rin thought she was dead and kamui was a really weird afterlife. obito has one (1) hinge and she almost died in front of him. they are doing better now. there will be a team reunion eventually.

q: what do obito and rin want to do now? a1: live! like people! a2: obito is having flashes of guilt over "abandoning" kakashi, but kakashi at least has the village (or so it seems). obito was weaponized by zetsu/hashirama cells, that whole put-sanbi-into-this-girl thing was some kind of set-up, and now rin is describing how the cursed seal on her heart felt and he is pretty sure madara didn't have his best interests in mind and he is spiralling and nobody is safe except the girl who was to be sacrificed again and again a3: obito wants to become a farmer a4: rin remembers the fear and the compulsion to return to konoha and the desperation to get rid of the parasite on her mind (her heart). she has a tailed beast in her, her chakra control is shot so she can't even do her medic job, and if she returns to konoha (flashbacks at the very thought) and isobu promises not to burst out they might just use her as a guided bomb too. or there might be some political angle to "give" her to kiri. she doesn't know but obito is here and he went through hell and he is still smiling at her. a5: rin isn't opposed to farming

q: what is kakashi's reaction to chidoriing rin? a1: the usual reaction to traumatic-moment-imprinted-into-your-brain-through-a-magical-eye :) a2: he is pretty sure she is dead. when he woke up, there was general carnage (obito mokuton'd all over those guys) but no body. "sometimes i can still hear obito and rin," he admits, "like right now, they are arguing over a vegetable garden. i guess the pure lands have those." cut to kamui dimension: there is in fact a passionate discussion over nutrients in mokuton-grown plants. rin is winning

q: who gave isobu icha icha? a1: rin says it's obito's fault because he bought it a2: obito says he's not the one who used it to teach the turtle to read, so don't you dare blame him. isobu is glad to have friends who don't see him as just "a battle monster"; even if his main part is stuck in a seal at the moment. and now he knows even more about the world and human relationships!

q: are the akatsuki still a thing? a: they are probably the original ame rebel group. they get money from running a publishing company (started as an anti-hanzo samizdat project, grew into a bigger thing). i guess jiraiya-sensei was good for something after all

q: who is kabuto working for? a: yes