#Ino-Shika-Cho trio

[watermelonsloth]

I wouldn’t normally have more than one poll up at a time, but the one I currently have up (about your least favorite part of Naruto) has mostly stagnated and the results are pretty much decided unless something major changes.

[weepingkunoichipainter]

Sakura in chapter 14

[perfectmakerpirate]

[land-of-the-eddies23]

[thepinkheaded-doctor202]

[frieddefender-chopper]

[dutifullybitchyblaze]

[velvet-ymarinebloo77]

[pleasant-youthphoenix-77]

Voiced by Stephanie Sheh [Eng] and Nana Mizuki (Jpn).

[deisbookofdemons]

It took a little bit but soon enough they had a few teams... The four Rangers would of course be with Smithy.

Red would find himself in... some kind of cell. He'd hear some people talking a bit away from him.

The ranger groaned as he woke up, opening his eyes. "Where- Where am I?"

[watermelonsloth]

Why I Don’t Ship the Ino-Shika-Cho Trio with Eachother

(Disclaimer: When I talk about the trio, I’m predominantly talking about Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji, but it does apply to the other trios to a lesser extent.)

I just want to put this out there and see if anyone agrees.

I usually ship based on how much sense a ship makes to me. Not based on amount of canon content, I think I’ve made it clear by now that I don’t give a shit about what canon has to say about relationships. It’s based on how I imagine their dynamic and how potentially romantic I can imagine that ship being. So, going off of that, I “should” ship the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. They have history, they’re closely knit, and there’s no problem that sticks out about their dynamic. But I don’t ship it and I’ve finally deduced why.

The Ino-Shika-Cho trio is a sibling dynamic.

Imagine being raised alongside two people for the express purpose of becoming a close knit team that works well together and never abandons each other. Your parents are also super close and spend all your childhood together, from when you learned to walk through your teen years. Can you imagine wanting to fuck them? Can you imagine wanting to marry them? My answer is, obviously, no because I can’t imagine seeing them anything other than a sibling. That’s really what it is that disturbs me about the ships; they don’t just have history, they were raised together. Even in canon, their dynamic never comes across as romantic, and I don’t think I want it to.

[weepingkunoichipainter]

[perfectmakerpirate]

[land-of-the-eddies23]

[weirdleeenough]

Drabble, Frenemies

Choji's friends are not friends with each other.

He's not quite sure, but he thinks its a lot more than that.

Childhood Enemies! Frenemies to Lovers! Young Love, SFW.

Shikamaru Nara / You

When you're young, it's easy to think the world revolves around you.

Your toy, your snack, your mom, and most importantly, your friend.

Maybe as you grow older, some things would change. You'd learn compromise, and what it means to be tolerant if not welcoming. Skills necessary for being a kind and reliable adult.

Yet for some reason, you had to learn these skills way earlier than most.

Why?

Because your friend wasn't just your friend.

He was Shikamaru Nara's friend too.

Shikamaru who was lazy, who cared for nothing more than staring at clouds and counting how much seconds it would take to hit REM sleep.

He who was so blatantly two-faced and a slob, and way smarter than you to boot. Shikamaru always got his way.

And that meant Choji Akimichi would have to be a friend to you both.

It wasn't a trio. God forbid! That fate was saved for some narrow minded tradition with the name Ino-Shika-Cho attached to it. Where they'd tickle the bottoms of each others feet in a random deer forest, whispering secrets in each other's ears.

Whatever!

Shikamaru Nara was not your friend. Not even close. He was the plus one, an add-on, buy one get one if you will.

He pulled your hair, and sighed, and rolled his eyes, and called you names! He just complains and complains, "Oh, why is she here? What a drag!" Yes, what a drag! Shikamaru Nara was that kind of guy.

Unambitious! A laidback loser! No-good slacker! He pinched you during the middle of third year exam! He slept through your 12th birthday party! He told his dad, and your dad, and Choji's too about your super, super, SUPER secret sleepover party! He, he..., he...

He kissed you!

He kissed you...

Today.

On the hill.

He just held the back of your head, gave you some weird look that made your heart stop, pulled you close.

It's warm, but the sun isn't even out yet. It's soft but he's barely touching you. It's breathy but you're not even sure if you're breathing.

And he sighs. Relieved, like he's been waiting years. He clings onto you so suddenly, grappling at your hips, pressing you into the grass. In a whisper, he calls out your name, then kisses you again.

Shikamaru Nara tastes like rice and mint.

He smells earthy. His hair is soft. His eyes are brown, and they're staring right at you, eating you alive.

Just looking at you like he loves you. As if you both weren't just stupid sixteen year olds. As if you hadn't spent the last ten of them bickering like the worst enemies. As if it was only natural, set in stone, aligned with a distant future.

"Say something," he says to you.

But you don't.

You simply lay back down as you were before. Nestling into his shoulder and the grass, head facing down the hill. You pretend you're waiting for Choji, scoff and tuck your hair behind your ears.

Hiding your joy, your smile, and the blossoming of your first love in the grass.

He smiles too, but he doesn't care to hide it.

Definitely not friends.

[pushpressure]

Reorganizing the Konoha teams

I know this is an old discussion that doesn't matter anymore, but I got back into Naruto and watched a video rearranging the teams, and it was weirdly bias for Sasusaku and added team 3/team Guy which was weird. So I decided to try my hand at it for fun:

So here are our teams

Okay to start with, we have to acknowledge the purpose of why they're together.

Team 7 is together because they're meant to help Naruto become a better ninja. Kakashi was Minato's student so there's the whole vow of protecting your master's son thing going on. Sasuke is there because he was the second top student in the academy (Ino being the first) and Kakashi has the sharingan, and Sakura was placed there because of her intelligence and chakra control. On paper, the combination made sense, but when you look at their grades on cooperation...

Putting two of the least cooperative people together with Kakashi as a sensei in a 4 man team was not a great move. I'm guessing they were hoping that Sakura could pull the team together, but did not take into account of her crush on Sasuke which set this team up for failure. Also, Kakashi's teaching method to solely use real life missions and his tardiness was not effective. These kids needed a more hands-on strict approach. Team practices back-to-back as if they're trying for the Olympics.

Team 8 is together because they're meant to be the manhunt team. They all have abilities to track people and take them down. With a sensei who doesn't play favorites, they're very effective as a group and as individuals unlike team 7.

Team 10 are together because of the Ino-shika-cho tradition which are absolutely perfect balance for reconnaissance missions.

If we had to choose which team is the best between Team 8 and Team 10, it naturally has to go to Team 10.

With 15 generations of team work perfected with the help of the Sarutobi clan who carries the Will of Fire, they have every angle of their team work covered. Yes, Team 8, is an effective team, but their skills are too similar that they don't blend well together on the battlefield and work better as individuals.

So taking that into consideration, we're going to have to permanently split the ino-shika-cho trio.

Because in all honesty, you can take out Choji and replace him with anyone else except maybe Shino. I'm sorry! I know Choji is a good boy, but as unique as his attacks are, he's just the muscle. And in all honesty, Naruto being in Team 10 would've helped him a 100 times more than team 7 because Shikamaru is a genius and actually likes Naruto, so he can help Naruto utilize his shadow clones better, and Ino actually cares about cooperation and her abilities that leave her vulnerable will give Naruto a sense of responsibility.

But we want Team 10's skills to be shared with everyone, so they cannot be together. In order for that to make sense, I guess imagine that they have older siblings who is already upholding the tradition as the 16th generation.

Moving forward, naturally one student on each team cannot leave their appointed sensei because they're compatible:

Team 7: Sasuke has to remain with Kakashi because of the sharingan, the lightning jutsu and their similar personalities. Yes, Kurenai uses genjutsu, but it's not a genjutsu at Itachi's level, and can't provide much more than that on the matter of skills. She may be able to provide a more motherly support, but taking Sasuke's background into consideration, I think a male role model similar to Itachi is more effective.

Team 8: Hinata has to stay with Kurenai because I can't imagine the other two giving Hinata the much needed attention and confidence she needs, especially from one female to another.

Team 10: Shikamaru obviously needs to stay with Asuma because they have that special bond as if Asuma is a second father to him.

Now we move on to the student who actually needs this sensei to help enhance their skills:

Team 7: Kiba would do better under Kakashi because the man uses dogs who he personally raised as his main summoning animal. Kakashi could've had Pakkun or his other dogs help train Akamaru with Kiba as his partner.

Team 8: Sakura is supposed be talented with genjutsu so naturally she should've gone with Kurenai in the first place in order to tap into that talent. I also think Sakura would've also seen a role model in Kurenai as a kunoichi.

Team 10: Naruto naturally has to be teammates with Shikamaru, but also because Naruto has a natural affinity for wind chakra, Asuma would've been perfect in training Naruto to wield it just as Kakashi taught Sasuke to use light chakra. It also helps that Asuma is the son of the hokage, so he can help Naruto on that as well.

And so we move on to the last three students:

Who I honestly struggled to place since again, Choji is a close-combat person which the other teams already have covered. So I had to consider where he would be the most useful.

I wanted to make an all-girl group with a flower-theme going on:

Hinata being the Sunflower, Sakura the cherry blossom and Ino the florist and they have a teacher who uses floral genjutsu. It was perfect! But then I thought about how they would actually perform starting out, and while Hinata does know some taijutsu, she's not very proficient at it, and the girls can't really help her in that department early on in this teamwork.

So here we go:

Team 7: I placed Ino under Kakashi more for Kakashi's sake than Ino's because the man would be inspired to actually train them as a team in order to take Ino's skills into consideration. Ino is a Sasuke fangirl like Sakura, but Ino is the heiress of the Yamanaka clan so she has more important responsibilities, and has applied herself in the academy to become its top student and likes to take the lead. She won't let her feelings for Sasuke get in the way of making everyone work together.

Team 8: I placed Choji in this team to provide some muscle, and be the training partner she needs to put more oomf in her strikes.

Team 10: I placed Shino in this team in order to do Sasuke's job and that was to cover Naruto's weaknesses and act as the tactician to Shikamaru's strategies. The poor boy also needs the spotlight, and the gags would be funny.

With all these teams covered, how would they work:

Team 7 (The Cool Group): The show makes it seem like Kiba is a copy of Naruto, but honestly, he's a lot more chilled (granted he's not a hated orphaned boy with a demonic animal inside), so with Sasuke, I can only see them having a friendly rivalry if not at all. If anything, even on different teams, Naruto would still declare himself as Sasuke's rival, and the chunin exams would alight that intensity. But even before that, it's not like they won't see each other and fight on sight so the bond is still there. Other than that, Kakashi would train them each separately (not just Sasuke) and together to help Ino use her jutsu which will instill that necessary teamwork. And with Ino's assertive attitude and Akamaru being everyone's support animal, they would have them eat meals together, and won't let Sasuke or Kakashi get out of it if they didn't have something urgent going on. Is it wrong to say this is the more functional version of team 7? Of course, shit hits the fan when Orochimaru attacks, and I'll leave how that turns out for others to imagine. Comment cuz that'd be interesting.

Team 8 (The Gentle Group): I believe Kurenai would've trained Sakura in not only genjutsu but on how to be the team leader in order to fully use her intelligence. She would have Sakura on mock survival trainings in the forest in order to not crumble under pressure, and use her team effectively. Kurenai would have Choji and Hinata train together to strengthen their taijutsu and their confidence.

Team 10 (The Weirdo Group): I believe Asuma, Shikamaru and Shino would collab together to help Naruto become a respectable ninja. Asuma would help Naruto learn taijutsu before introducing him to wind chakra. Shino would help teach Naruto what should've been drilled into him in the academy and under Asuma's observation, help Naruto on his tactics which Naruto is pretty good at since he's a clever prankster, but Shino helps him refine it. Naruto respects Shino for that, but is incredibly weirded out by his attempts to become friends and doesn't know how to break Asuma to do as he wants since the sexy jutsu doesn't work on a womanizer like him. As for Shikamaru, he's more involved in Naruto's training when actual missions are involved since he actually has to use his brain for them.

I could say more, but that's all I should say.