#anyway ship whatever you want!

[renaerys]

Heya Renaerys. Can you tell me your thoughts on multi saku ships? 👀 I'm not a super majestic avid fan of Naruto and I'm just one of the normal ones who like the canon ships of it, but as I found out that there are fans that ship Sakura with other characters, I got curious about the nature of it. What is the appeal? How does the ship/s work? What makes you love it and enjoy it so much?

Ps. Worry not! Despite liking the canon ships, I'm open to multi shipping. So I hope these questions appear "safe" lol 😋

I am someone who does not in any way support the "canon" ships in Naruto. So I only ship things are not that lol. But I'm a fan of people liking what they like and not bothering others, so I sincerely hope you find fanworks featuring your favorite ships that you can enjoy and love!

I'm not interested very much in multi-sakura. I actively ship only two Sakura ships, which are SasoSaku and ShiSaku, and in very specific, nitpicky ways. That is just my personal preference. I'm supportive of some other Sakura ships and I enjoy experimenting with rare pairs if I get a really good idea, but they don't get my heart pumping like these two do. My main problem with multi-Sakura is that the majority of that fandom doesn't actually care about who Sakura, the canon character, is and instead they flatten her to be a cardboard, self-insert YA heroine with a vaguely stubborn streak. I don't think this is like evil or bad or anything. There's a reason this type of main female character archetype is popular and ubiquitous. But I find it excruciatingly boring, personally.

Canon Sakura is kind of a shitty person. She is extremely selfish in many of her decisions, and her brand of romantic love is obsessive and smothering and, again, selfish. She is a very insecure person. For all of part 1, she is lazy and unserious in her role as a shinobi and cares only about her crush on a boy. And she is really bad at taking no for an answer. She experiences a lot of growth in Shippuden, some of which mitigates and improves upon some of these earlier negative qualities. For example, she stops being lazy and starts actually working hard at being a shinobi and becomes pretty strong. She demonstrates more positive qualities, such as more compassion for others, a fighting spirit, and teamwork. She also just gets older, and with that comes the expected growth in maturity. A 16 year old is going to be more mature than a 12 year old.

But the negative qualities are part of her character and her growth, and I don't hold any of it against her. I think these qualities make her interesting and layered, and decidedly not the cardboard, blank slate, self-insert YA heroine type at all. Yet, so much multi-Sakura or "BAMF" Sakura content erases all of this nuance. To many of these types of fans, she's always been just a victim wronged at every turn, never did a thing wrong herself, every hot guy in the world wants to bang her for some completely mysterious and illogical reason, and she's "not like the other girls" in the laziest, most insipid ways. She becomes a chimera of the traits of many of the other female characters (she is sassy like Ino, caustic like Karin, tough like Temari). None of this is earned or even remotely close to who this character is in canon. And it makes me wonder--why are these people writing about Sakura when they really ought to be writing about any of these other female characters who actually do possess these traits and may be a better fit for a particular story or ship? Why do you have to steal these traits and give them to Sakura and make every ship about her?

I know why. You know why. I don't think I have to spell it out.

All of this being background to your question: what is the appeal of multi-Sakura? In short, multi-Sakura has become associated with self-inserting into a female character you've stripped down to bland oatmeal personality in a pretty package to make her appealing to the lowest common denominator and shipping her with any hot guy you want without thinking critically about why the pairing might make sense or work as evidenced by canon personality and/or events. Is that every multi-Sakura work in existence? Definitely not. Is it encompassing of every person who happens to have a Sakura ship? Not even close. But it is a significant and, sadly, vocal majority, and the term "multi-Sakura" itself has become shorthand for this kind of shipping preference and characterization (or, rather, lack thereof).

But just like any fandom preference, it's basically harmless. Boring and vapid, in my personal opinion, but harmless.

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 2

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]

[cherrirui-official]

I hope u guys don't mind me posting these au doodles while I work on things ahaha

I also gave JD slightly longer hair in these doodles as a funny haha but I don't think it's funny anymore he looks genuinely good with his hair like that ahahaha I hope you're not mad at me for changing his au design a bit

[shkika]

if u call me beautiful you can have my attention for 5 more minutes

[dizzybevvie]

the worsties ever

[tippenfunkaport]

That viral post that's going around about how people who write "book quality" mlm fic are too "normal" to publish and have real jobs so only "weird" people publish their "shitty" fanfic is so completely out of touch with reality and I am giving a massive side eye to everyone reblogging it.

Not only is it completely, easily verifiably untrue (you cannot enter any professional writing space without tripping over a dozen grizzled scifi writers who got their start by filing off the serial numbers and publishing their Star Trek fanfic even going back decades ago??? it's a whole thing?? plus how can you look at the mlm category on Amazon right now and say with a straight face that people aren't publishing shitty Spirk and Stucky fanfic??? Oh, honey...) it's also the perfect example of this kind of sneering elitism that true artists would never sully themselves by seeking profit, they do it only for the purity of the thing that always somehow leads back to, "no one should be paid to make art, actually."

The only reason you're seeing more published fanfic right now has nothing to do with the idealistic purity of your hypothetical government employee written smut of the past vs the debased scribbles of those awful straights of today and everything to do with the fact that a) self-publishing has created a voracious readership that wants a ton of content so it's become a viable, flexible income stream for many, especially disabled people b) anyone can publish now with self-publishing tools so there are less gatekeepers and c) lockdown got a lot of people into fandom and therefore writing who never tried it before.

And if you really think there's no "shitty" published mlm and no "book-quality" m/f writing out there that started as fanfic, then you are clearly not a reader so why are you even talking about this?

[ironunderstands]

Crossposting my IP3 as parents post because this is my propaganda and you will read it

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

jesus christ, doc, i thought you were a goner! warn a guy next time, will ya? jesus christ, doc. jesus christ

bonus doodle post-extra-long-hug:

(listen im a sucker for the forehead kisses alright. whenever it happens in a fic i eat that shit UP. it's the cutest thing ever idc)

[kakyogay]

seven suns and their kids

and sunstone ig

[itslilacokay]

gonna admit uhh vicagent is the only ava ship so far that i feel ""safe"" posting on this blog.............. do any of you looking at this want me to post other ava ship stuff orwhat please PLEASE LET ME KNOW PLEAAAAAAAASE

[doverstar]

actually I love Tentoo and he is the Doctor and it was the only ending for Rose that worked and it is a huge gift to be able to have the man she loves grow old with her, they were always heading for that, y'all be quiet. I 100% understand the angst but it's okay, they're okay, good ending-

[usercelestial]

tbh i think a lot of the people saying "well both sides are wrong"/"bt stans are just as toxic" are just not exposed to other perspectives in this fandom. as a buddie fan who's been watching this show since s1, i can safely say that buddie fans have always been toxic. like as fact. to me, to say that bucktommy fans are just as harmful or just as annoying or just as bad as buddies consistently are is just. delusional. indicative of at worst a biased opinion and at best an uninformed one. buddie has been here since s2 and fans have ruthless ever since. bucktommy has been here for 3/4 of a season and for the most part, stay in their lane. i'm sure there are bucktommy fans who suck, like that's just being on the internet, but you have to be blind to ignore how insane buddie fans are and genuinely how much worse they are in comparison.

i don't want to generalize and i think constantly adding that disclaimer is annoying as hell bc obviously i'm not talking about everyone but because buddie has been here for so long and taken up so much mental space of very die-hard, passionate fans, you're going to see much more intensity on that side. after season 5, i had to step away from the fandom and the show because of how frustrating it got. it was annoying to see people swear up and down buddie will be canon by the end of s3-no wait s4-no wait s5-no wait- and ultimately it sucked my enjoyment out of a show i otherwise enjoyed because i got swept up in the Buddie Of It All and forget about why i watch the show to begin with. we've been left to stew in our theories and now we can't tell what canon and what's fanon anymore, and when the show reminds us, the disappointment and frustration kills our hopes.

i was also active in the dan and phil fandom and supernatural fandom, like ik why people think we're annoying and it's because we are. we make everything about the one thing we like, we comment on every post begging for it to become canon, we're violently disappointed when the show doesn't play into our fan theories because we've convinced ourselves buddie is going to happen by the end of the next episode or actually the end of this season or actually maybe the end of the next season. we've torn a part every female love interest, either making them boring or making them unlikeable in our fanon. all that to say is that when people call us annoying, they're telling the truth and when bucktommy fans say buddie fans are toxic, they're coming from a sincere place. i mean we can't even enjoy our own ship because we're so quick to get our hopes up and be let down about something as stupid it becoming canon. who cares if it becomes canon, just like it to like it.

and it makes sense why there's perceived "toxicity" on the bucktommy side. our energy is being matched; the obsession, the passion, the surge in fandom. if you don't like it or even just find it annoying, i suggest you guys look back on your own posts and comments and behaviors towards other people in the fandom and other characters and unbiasedly compare it to the Toxic Bucktommy Shippers you're claiming you hate. if bucktommy fans are obsessive, it's because we've set the stage for that. if bucktommy fans are getting aggro and defensive, it's because buddie fans have been on the opposition and don't know how to turn it off. we've gone from underdog to bully somewhere in the last 6 seasons.

[bioh4zards]

Wrap my eyes in bandages

Confessions I see through

I get everything I want

When I get part of you

[vanmarkus]

"you don't have to ship x just enjoy—" how about i ship whatever i want without some rando making it into their calling to hand out permission slips? maybe i'll enjoy the source material my way? maybe i find whimsy in shipping certain characters that others only see as platonic? what then? are you gonna steal my pillows?

[plulp]

heres yalls science teacher. have fun go crazy

[dayurno]

this is somewhat of a vent post & something i said i would not do again but has been plaguing me enough that i think getting it out might feel better. so. has anydoggy else been. Baffled and upset by nora sakavic’s refusal to speak on how terribly aftg has treated its characters of color? with the author of the series coming back with a new book and starting up on her online activity again, and questions of what she’d change about aftg bubbling up, it’s particularly glaring to me that we are all playing this very long game of pretend where we ignore how badly the non-white cast has been treated & her lack of thoughts on it

and i understand not wanting to bring up nicky and thea because people pick on her for it. i’m not trying to discredit nora sakavic’s terrible history of getting harrassed online by aftg fans. but i think it is very cynical, and it is very juvenile, and most of all very cruel, that she gets to ignore the very real ways the books have set up these characters to be hated. i think it’s obvious why the characters who get the most hate are the only canonical characters of color, and i think we do not get to treat this like a deliberate decision on the fandom’s part when the books have put these same characters in degrading and embarrassing and terrible positions in the first place. aftg is not a story about nice characters with clean pasts, but there is a very specific nastiness to the only characters of color being a brown man who sexually harasses and later assaults the main character, a black woman whose only scene is her lashing out at her love interest after being ignored for the first two books, and the japanese villain who gets maybe two lines of complexity before he goes back to being a terrible person. the white cast, in comparison, while not at all free from flaws, are never shown to commit mindless evil; all of their actions are ultimately justified. the book goes out of its way to give them concession after concession. we know exactly who to side with, because aftg tells us who these people are. does nicky’s assault ever get addressed in the books? does riko’s reasoning to be the way that he is ever gets more than briefly aluded to? is thea reserved even a shred of humanity or grace in her one scene?

anyway. it’s been years of talking about this and the fandom has been constantly hostile to criticism in this regard, and more recently any criticism at all, and it’s Grating to be on the other side of this discussion. it’s exhausting to know that in ten years we do not get even an acknowledgment besides the author saying she will not answer questions about nicky and thea anymore. it’s upsetting and it’s ugly and i wish no one had to talk about this again, but we do because what i thought was common sense has been washed away by a sudden influx of no-nuance adoration for the trilogy. basically i hope we all explode