#i need to reread the pursued and the pursuing to cleanse my mind its so bad

[jokest3r]

I am also guessing they de-hoeified Nick Carraway at that point who the hell is Nick, at that point he's Background Character #5

[schakira]

Think of a show or movie that had an ending you hated. How would you have rewritten it?

Okay, I love you for asking the question of the decenny. I cannot stress the importance of this question to me. I've even stopped everything, including drinking water, in order to write an answer to this question. I even opened up a google drive doc to go into long details about...

WHY Naruto Shippuden’s ending is absolute fucking trash, and how I would change it

FIRST of all, Naruto is the first anime that made me discover streaming sites. It made me want to become an artist as a young teen, and discover a creative world with deep writings. I was persuaded that Naruto was the HEIGHT of all anime, because of what it has brought into my life. I still think about this story everyday, and that’s the impact it has had on me. It was just so iconic. But you see, as I grew up, I ended up noticing the mistakes in the show, the countless fillers, the talk no jutsus, the repetitive plotlines, the mistreatment of women in the show, the poor writing, so on and so forth. The ending of the naruto franchise was a complete let down, introducing power-ups after power-ups late into the show, weird plotlines surrounding the Uchiha clan, incoherent political conflicts that stem from seemingly nothing tangible, all at the price of beautiful narrative potential that was introduced at the beginning of the story. And I think this is all the fault of Shonen Jump.

There’s something about weekly serialization of a manga, and constant concurrences that force you to create chapter after chapter, cliffhanger after cliffhanger, weird plot threads after plot holes, so on and so forth. Whether you want to or not, it ends up warping the story into something you hadn’t envisioned at the start. HELL!!! Masashi Kishimoto’s editors even forced the guy to introduce a main villain during the Chunin exam arc, creating Orochimaru, the first main villain of the series. Had that intervention not occured, we would have been closer to the original Naruto storyline that Masashi Kishimoto intended to create. To me, it’s a complete no brainer that the story needs to change at its beginning for it to have a truly satisfying ending; what people loved about Naruto was the journey, and the hard work behind each character. They loved Rock Lee vs Gaara because it was Diligence vs Talent, the Innate vs the Learned. (something Naruto vs Neji pretended to be; I mean Neji was preaching that Talent always beat hard work, and Naruto proved him right by using the Nine Tails’ Chakra he had since birth to beat him.)

You ask, how would I change the ending of a show that I hated? Well here’s how I would change the entirety of the naruto franchise to not be going to trash, in a few steps:

Delete Orochimaru, or make sure that when he dies he dies for good. I swear this dude comes back faster than cockroaches. stay down queen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Uchiha Clan massacre should not be turned into “an admirable act of self-sacrifice” by Itachi because what the actual fuck? The Uchiha clan was a marginalised minority in the village of Konoha, and the Hokage kept pushing them and denying them rights, putting them next to police districts to monitor them, and treating them as demons that the clan itself started to prepare a revolution, which they then used as justification for their whole ethnic cleansing and fans of the show still think it was the right thing to do. Hello? Itachi is fucking crazy, a war puppet manipulated and groomed by the village into turning against his own clan for the sake of the people of Konoha!!! Where in your mind is that sane? Sasuke was right to go seek revenge against Itachi AND justice against the village.

Keeping that in mind, Sasuke’s plotline where he adamantly pursues more power away from the village is actually iconic, so I’d keep it that way, to contrast with Naruto mindlessly wanting to be the Hokage for fame and prestige, only to then be faced with the reality of this ninja world full of death. The story would be one of moral turmoil for Naruto, wondering if his dream is even worth pursuing after hearing the truth of the world, the Uchiha Clan and the horrors committed by the Konoha village. (Also we could add in the very easily forgotten fact that the Uzumaki Clan was also massacred during a war and there are only a few Uzumaki members left?)

NO RESURRECTION. NO RESURRECTION JUTSU. NO ONE COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD PLEASE!!!! even 13yo-me understood that this greatly undervalued the shock and importance of death in this show. Maybe it was cute when they did it with Gaara but like… for the entire konoha village during the pain arc? during the whole 4th ninja war??? get out.

Following that, the resurrection jutsu that orochimaru created should not exist too. fuck that shit. it was cool for 10 minutes and then they overused it.

Madara, Hashirama, The sage of Sixth Paths and whoever the fuck should STAY as legends, where legends belong: in the past.

Give actual plotlines, character growth and screetime to women. Sakura had so much potential, Hinata, Tenten, Temari, Ino… hell everyone had so much to do but they were rendered to… nothing. This is why everyone’s like “blah blah blah fuck Sakura” of fucking course you can’t like her; she’s been written to be a bland character when she had so much potential (i.e. chakra control. Tsunade’s apprentice, etc…)

How should the show end? With Naruto vs Sasuke, after everything, with the same intensity and ninja tricks. I just don’t want the inter-dimensional alien shit going on. Fuck the Otsutsuki clan. All my homies hate the Otsutsuki Clan.

Actually, if anything, I think there’s probably someone who wrote a fanfic where they actually fix everything I’m talking about here. So I’m gonna stop here before I start writing a 30 pages thesis on this.

Long story short: Weekly serialization kills good stories imo. Good stories take time, otherwise they lose their beauty. idk. I didn't reread myself and I wrote all of this at 5am instead of sleeping. 

(and in terms of visuals, you can also see a drastic change in panelling, art style, dynamism and whatnot between old Naruto and Boruto. It’s so flagrant. but this is a story for another day. I have a lot of opinions on that)