#i hate a lot

[narutouzumakiarchive]

A while ago, I made a post about hypocritical Sasusaku stans that pretend to be anti Konoha so they can criticize SNS (despite having no grounds to stand on), and in light of recent annoying discourse, in this post I'm going to go over a case example at length because this perfectly encapsulates the typical behavior of that fandom.

So let's take a look at this post. In this tweet, they mention their criticism of Sasuke being saved from the darkness at the end. Now in order to deconstruct this post, we have to look at what "darkness" symbolizes in Naruto's text.

And when you look at the text, you'll see that "darkness" was attributed two distinct, but sometimes interconnected, senses. The first meaning of darkness in the text was loneliness, plain and simple. Wee see pitch black imagery when Naruto recounts the pain he experienced before he met Team 7, when he was all alone. And we also see this imagery crop up when Sasuke enters into a shroud of darkness after experiencing the pain of leaving Naruto, who is symbolically represented as the juxtaposed light to Sasuke's darkness. Though he doesn't cut off Naruto, an issue which is the crux of their conflict after the timeskip, the panels of Sasuke talking about pain still serve to contextualize his state of mind when leaving Naruto: "If I leave Naruto, I will experience pain, much pain."

The second meaning of the darkness is also established during the Sasuke retrieval arc: hatred. Itachi, in his desperation to be judged by Sasuke, forces Sasuke to seek out hatred in order to acheive his goal of avenging the clan by killing Itachi. And of course this meaning of the concept of darkness comes with a host of attendant negative connotations, as darkness is frequently associated with evil — especially in the Christian mythos that Kishimoto drew from.

Now there is certainly something to be said for Kishimoto's conservative framing, but that's for another post. The purpose of laying out the two meanings of "darkness" invoked in the text was to compare and contrast Sakura and Naruto at the end of the manga and see which particular meaning of darkness was salient in their motivations regarding Sasuke, and well... things don't look good for "sasukeslawyer."

Because Naruto continually reinforces his motivations for saving Sasuke. In the text it's explicitly spelled out that Naruto wants to help ease Sasuke's loneliness. There's a reason why the resolution of their feelings is spurred on by Naruto admitting to feeling pain for Sasuke, the same pain that Kishimoto narratively links to being alone.

Sakura, on the other hand, wanted to save Sasuke from the darkness of "evil" at the end of the manga. It is established during the 5 Kage Summit that because Sakura "loves" Sasuke, she wants to prevent him from continuing on a path of darkness and progressing towards evil. And Sai's description of Sakura's actions receive authorial endorsement. In this scene, Kishimoto builds up Sai's credibility by having him accurately assess that Sakura was quite likely planning on killing Sasuke and that her smile, when she stated she was planning on working together with her Konoha comrades to acheive that objective, was forced. The reader is given no reason to doubt this.

But most significantly, not once does the text show Sakura reneging on her beliefs about Sasuke's darkness. When we get insight into her feelings about Sasuke during the war arc, it is made blatantly clear that she distrusts him which is shown through the same fake smile she showed Sai before heading off to kill Sasuke. Additionally Sakura's to desire to save Sasuke from the darkness is reinforced, this time through another mouthpiece in Kakashi. And athough Kakashi is not the most reliable character, the text doesn't contradict this particular fact.

But Kakashi's reliability doesn't particularly matter for this post because "sasukeslawyer" and most other sasusaku fans believe Kakashi to be a reliable character that understands all of Sakura's actions. As indicated below, she takes no issue with Kakashi's assessment that Sakura wanted to save Sasuke from this negative darkness. And yet, there's no attempted moral harranguing or criticism of Sakura for wanting to save Sasuke from the progression towards evil by *checks notes* killing him. Nor is there criticism of Sakura never changing in this regarding and maintaining that desire to save him from the negatively connoted darkness.

In fact, "sasukeslawyer," has no problem with the idea of Sasuke, the genocide survivor, traveling for years to reedem himself and be "worthy" of the same Sakura who attempted to kill him on behalf of the same village she claims to hate only when she can use it in an attempt to downplay Naruto and Sasuke's dynamic.

Like aside from the fact that this obviously isn't true [Kishimoto wrote 9 pages of Sasuke reflecting on his journey in the manga and not once is Sakura mentioned, because he can't individuate her and Sakura had to chase Sasuke on his journey because Sasuke never came back and Sakura couldn't take a hint]...

On what earth is Sasuke not worthy in general, let alone for Sakura, who's shallow romantic inclinations he repeatedly rejected to begin with. It is Sakura who didn't take accountability for trying to kill Sasuke instead of bothering to find out why Sasuke took the actions he took. She is never forced to reflect even once on how she acted towards Sasuke nor do we ever see her make a single negative or critical statement about the shinobi system. But these alleged anti-Konoha warriors have no complaints about that, and that's because it's not about them disliking Konoha or the elders who deserve to die. It's about them trying to undermine SNS because they resent Naruto and Sasuke's dynamic and want to prop up SS. But don't just take my word for it.

They take the canonical scenes of Sasuke looking at Naruto, which mirrored Sakura's own body language towards Sasuke, in order to attribute it to Sakura (this is one of many examples).

The sharingan is obviously a reflection of love and Naruto was explicitly associated with Sasuke's sharingan on three different ocassions. Kishimoto cared so little for SS that he couldn't even bother to associate a crucial element of Sasuke's character with Sakura in manga that he wrote with his own hands. So Sasusaku have to use filler novels that Kishimoto didn't write, let alone acknowledge, to say that Sasuke would transform a new and unheard of sharingan if he lost Sakura. LOL.

There's the editing the panels of VOTE 2 to claim that Sasuke made Sakura watch Naruto and Sasuke's personal memories, despite the fact that 1. We clearly see the only thing Sasuke shows Sakura is a violent genjutsu of her getting stabbed in the chest.

2. The manga utilizes clear visual language to depict the transition from memories into real life to indicatr who is thinking about the memories, something not present in the panel that Sakura wakes up from which makes because

3. Naruto and Sasuke thought about memories which Sakura wasn't even present for and Sasuke cannot telepathically transmit memories.

And this isnt even all, but the point stands nevertheless. Sasusaku fans harass SNS shippers using fake moral justifications that they don't even abide by. Don't be fooled. It's always been about their frustrations over the romantic tones in SNS. But it won't change the fact that more than anyone else, Naruto and Sasuke both saved eachother from the darkness of loneliness more than anybody else.

[vamprisms]

i feel like a lot of the 'i hate kids' crowd would be more tolerant if they understood that due to a kid's limited experience of the world that 4 hour flight might just be the longest they've ever had to sit still for or that trapped finger might literally be the most pain they've ever felt in their short life or they might not have ever seen a person with pink hair ever so of course they want to touch it or nobody's told them yet that they can't run around the museum and they only just learned cheetahs are the fastest animals so of course they want to put that to the test. how were they supposed to know etc etc.

[transrevolutions]

the thing terfs (and transphobes in general) don't seem to get about sexual preferences re: not being attracted to certain genitals is that like. okay. you have a preference. this feature is a turn-off. but that does not mean it is necessary to constantly broadcast how unattractive and undesirable you find people with this feature. you do not have to do that. in fact, it is generally considered quite rude. sexual compatibility or lack thereof has nothing to do with moral purity or legitimacy.

[tariah23]

White people are miserable, racist losers period. They’ve even been getting mad at Japanese people for correcting them about Yasuke as well.

[elliesbelle]

emily gwen, the creator of the sunset lesbian flag that we’ve come to commonly use, still continues to live in poverty.

multi-billion dollar companies have used their design and made profit from it, and yet they have not seen a cent for their creation.

i’ve been friends with emily for years, and i have not once seen them be financially stable the entire time. i’ve seen them homeless, unemployed, starving. right now, they need our help more than ever.

please consider donating to emily’s ko-fi, especially if you’ve used their design to create something and profited from it.

[emotional-moss]

idk y’all should treat fat men better. and i don’t mean mildly chubby guys i mean honest-to-god love-handles-and-double-chins fat guys. stop calling them shit like discord mods or gross weebs or nasty creeps or neckbeards or that they’re stinky or sweaty or beer bellied or whatever else. fatphobia isn’t cute, even repackaged in a neat little box of “ew men”

[chiptrillino-art]

(ID in ALT Text) Happy very, very late Mother's Day!

I am not saying that zuko is sokkas substitute for kya. or they look in any way similar! The whole concept here is that something was happening at the moment, be it how they were laying in bed, how the hair pooled over the pillow, or how sokka was able to hold onto it. It just brought sokka back. It triggered a memory, and suddenly he relived a brief memory. Making him suddenly miss his mother again. hope you enjoy!

[deadpoolian]

Even Funko ships them

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Another reason I want more Addams Family with the 90s cast is I think it would be so nice to see Morticia uncorseted and aging gracefully. I don't think she'd go full Grandmama but do you really think an Addams is afraid of wrinkles and cellulite?

Look me in the eye and tell me Anjelica Huston doesn't still have it.

[oasisr]

after hearing "simply having a wonderful christmas time" by paul mccartney 74 times while working in retail, I came to the conclusion that they shot the wrong beatle

[bastardlybonkers]

i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one

his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.

ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication

ok yknow what Edit: i shouldve made it even more explicit at the end of this post, i hadnt thought i would need to since i started the post with this, but i think a few too many people are missing my point so i just wanna clarify. i shouldnt have said 'really clashed' and left it at that because yeah they did, but it wasnt just their opposite methods of communication, it is also very much that toshiro was experiencing microaggressions via laios. it may have been unintentional on laios's part, but it still happened and wore him down, made it harder for him to communicate on top of both the more subtle social cues that he was raised with and his own communication difficulties. i also want to say that the fandom reaction to toshiro and the complete ignorance of this point is also racist tbh or at the very least ignorant. i understand that the anime did not cover this panel, and neither did the manga, as this was an omake, but im gonna be real with you guys. there are enough context clues within the story to clue you into this. if you didnt pick up on it thats ok, but i think this is a good lesson in picking up subtext in the stories that youre watching and/or reading. kui shouldnt have to explicitly say 'by the way laios was racist to toshiro' for this point to be understood, and at the very least, when the author portrays a character in a sympathetic light (as kui clearly does) it should make you question Why they are doing so and what makes them sympathetic, rather than youre immediate and only reaction to be 'well i hated what this guy did/said so i hate them and they suck'. idk exactly how to finish this, just. idk. question your biases and gut reactions to things you see in media and stories, and think about whether or not theres subtext that youre missing.

[ruushes]

companions re-classed part 3 - shadowheart 🌌🌚🌝

*shadowdancer isn't a 5e rogue subclass, it's a 3.5e rogue-based prestige class, but it suits her so well and when i played 3.5e as a kid i thought it was the coolest thing ever lol so i wanted to use it

karlach 🔥 wyll ⚔️

[hinamie]

I don't want to regret the way I lived

[chloesimaginationthings]

Elizabeth Afton bets on losing dogs in FNAF..

[pirateprincessjess]

I feel the need to periodically remind people that Idiocracy is a eugenics movie.

One of the things that eugenicists believe is that it is bad for society when the “wrong people” breed.

The entire premise of the movie is that “stupid people” kept having kids while “smart people” didn’t have kids, and it ruined society because stupid genes propagated while smart genes died out. This is eugenics propaganda.

I know people will read this and their response will be “actually it’s satire” but the movie isn’t satirizing eugenics. It’s satirizing anti-intellectualism, and consumerism, and it proposes eugenics as a solution.

When eugenics was first conceived, it was used as a way to justify inequality. The idea was that people who held privilege were able to do so because they were smarter and genetically superior to lazy and stupid people who don’t have privilege. Obviously this is bad and wrong, but it is also the core lesson of Idiocracy.

The movie literally ends with the main character becoming president and having “the smartest children in the world.” Because he and his wife have smarter genes than everyone else. The proposed solution for the things that Idiocracy is satirizing is for the smart people to have children that can be in charge of the world.

I know it’s fun to use this movie to dunk on anti-intellectualism and the MAGA movement, but we need to stop. When you quote and reference this movie you are spreading eugenics propaganda.

[ezrazzle]

After slowly chipping away at this for a while, I'm finally done drawing the cast of The Magnus Archives!