#if she never goes missingnin. is loud about being aro. ect. she can keep doing her own thing.

[nohara-rin-dot-mp3]

some incredible thoughts from the tags. i wanna specifically build off of the points of: tolerance vs endorsement, an aplatonic reading of tenten, and tenten's aromanticism as the cornerstone of her gender-nonconformity.

in terms of tolerance vs endorsement, i think it's important to look at the context of these depictions. for instance, tenten being bored in boruto era is less a reflection of the narrative's views of her queerness and more a reflection of the narrative's views of adulthood. i mean, all of her peers are ALSO fucking miserable for the most part, and they're all heterosexually married! i have not watched boruto, so this is mostly speculation on my part, but i think the general unhappiness most adult characters experience is written because boruto (and naruto in its later stages tbh) believes that to be a successful adult, you must accept things the way they are, even if they make you unhappy, and because you are not allowed to hope for real, structural change, you will be unhappy. which. is certainly a thing to believe!

rock lee + associates is fascinating on this point, but i'd also argue that it isn't merely tolerating tenten. imo, most occurrences of her being sidelined as a straight man are a result of her being a "girl" rather than aromantic, because reacting to jokes in over-stated manners is a feminine trait. i'm not even making this shit up there's an episode where they tell hinata she needs to react to naruto's nonsense as a straightman to be more appealing to him that role is explicitly feminine. although the narrative does make sure to question tenten's designation as a straight man because. i don't know man.

i'd also dispute the claim that aromantic characters cannot be utilized for comedy. it's pretty easy to make fun of character's lack of romantic interest for a gag- characters like saiki k or jughead from archie comics are based around the "joke" that they don't like girls romantically, and that's funny because it's weird. it would have been pretty easy to do something like that with tenten's failure to uphold societal standards, but instead we get gags where shikamaru is the butt of the joke for suggesting that tenten could be in love with someone. rock lee + associates makes the choice to 1- not play tenten's aromanticism for jokes, 2- acknowledge tenten's aromanticism, and 3- play shikamaru as the joke for challenging her aromanticism.

all that in mind, i still hesitate to categorize this depiction as true endorsement. tenten does not meaningfully challenge the status quo through her queer identity- this is not to say that a-spec identities do not challenge the status quo, but that tenten is not using hers to disturb the norm. that's actually a character trait that tenten displays in other areas of her life (ex: not showing any particular care for the will of fire or any of that shit but keeping on with the child soldier stuff for different, non-patriotic reasons). honestly, more than anything it feels like flat out depiction, with little-to-no commentary about whether it's right or wrong, especially in the og naruto narrative. it's just portraying it as a personality quirk. it's tenten! :P

aplatonic tenten: she's just like me for real

more seriously, this is likely a result of tenten's lack of screentime. there is a weird disconnect between her and her team (possibly because the narrative is incapable of imagining men and women interacting without having some kind of romantic interest inbetween them and so it glitched out and rendered nothing but professional cordiality? idk) and i think that can absolutely be read in an aplatonic way. i don't actually have anything to say i just love aplatonic headcanons teehee

okay finally: back to the problem of her gender. i absolutely agree that her aromanticism is the root of her gender-nonconformity. a lot of naruto's gender frameworks are built in service of heterosexuality! by not engaging with romance, tenten also disengages with gender. this is also an observed real-world phenomenon, wherein a-spec individuals don't "feel" like any specific gender, because so much of gender performance is connected to idealized romantic + sexual experiences. i also think it's interesting that while tenten does not experience romantic attraction for others, others do not experience romantic attraction for tenten. it's a kind of validation of her removal from gender and romance, yk?

okay, so canon gnc traits tenten displays (sticking to og naruto because rock lee + associates got weird on a level beyond what i am currently able to explain teehee) include: bad chakra control/no abilities as a mednin, no romantic attraction, direct and brutal combat skill (fuck ton of knives no jutsu is not a girl skill), no interest in nurturing or children, (cant believe rock lee got to be a single parents before tenten), iirc all of her standard outfits have pants and not skirts/dresses or whatever, and her prioritizing competency/coolness. most of these can be connected to her lack of desire to act feminine for a man and/or are masculine, which is acceptable because being a woman is bad.

i think a safe framework for tenten's gender identity is to say that the cause of it is her aromantism and the reason it is accepted is because it tends to result in her being more "masculine," and the naruto narrative hates women, so it's okay with that. i will continue to believe this until some instance of another woman acting in a masculine way and being shamed comes up 👍

okay okay so hear me out i think that for the most part queerness in naruto falls into 3 categories: accidental, comedic, and villainous, none of which endorse it. comedic and villainous queer-coding actually condemn queerness. not to say that interpretations leaving behind the narrative's biases are flawed, i'm just pointing it out (its a surprise tool that'll help us later). also probably goes without saying but those these kinds of queer-coding aren't unique to naruto.

accidental queer-coding is just that- accidental. queer sexuality is typically a result of the naruto narrative hating women and therefore repeatedly centering male + male relationships, a bit of pandering in some cases (although imo this really only applies to the anime), and a bit of fandom amatonormativity. basically, stuff like naruto and sasuke, where their lack of chemistry with women and continual fixation on each other can easily be read as romantic. queer gender appears less often so i haven't been able to nail down the underlying narrative structures that cause it, but i'm talking about stuff like tenzo/yamato, where he's often read as transmasc due to that anime filler arc that can easily be read as a metaphor for transitioning (cutting his hair, changing his name, ect). the fact that the queerness was accidental doesn't erase the validity of the interpretation, but it does mean that the naruto narrative wasn't endorsing queerness.

comedic queer-coding is just the naruto narrative depicting non-standard gender or sexuality and then pointing and laughing. for instance, kakashi and gai's relationship is often played for laughs. they're "too close" for men, and the narrative expects it to be funny, because that might be gay and comedy can be found in subverting societal expectations. gender-based comedy is similar- naruto turning into a woman is supposed to be funny because he's really a boy. again, the narrative is not endorsing this queerness. it is laughing at it. in some cases, long-term depiction of these kinds of jokes can lead to normalization and therefore lose their comedic impact (see: kakagai marriage or whatever the fuck that was in boruto era) but that's an observed process that happens to long-running gags and doesn't equate to endorsement by the narrative.

villainous queer-coding is the naruto narrative attempting to demonstrate a character's role as an antagonist by depicting them with non-standard gender or sexuality. we know orochimaru is evil because of a lot of reasons, but one of the ways the narrative shows us this is by subtextually implying that he's preying on sasuke. and that's bad because that's gay. according to the narrative. we also see orochimaru play around with gender roles, which further serves to establish his villainy in the narrative. obviously, this is not an endorsement.

there's some overlap between these categories, of course (obito's tobi persona bounces between villainous and comedic queer-coding, for instance, in terms of his feminine behavior). however, as far as i'm aware, there's only one character who can't be sorted into these categories somehow: tenten.

her gender-nonconformity can be sorted into the accidental category, for the most part, because i think a lot of it's a by-product of kishimoto trying to make a strong female character and also her aromanticism. the aromanticism, on the other hand, is directly acknowledged by that narrative. because of that, it can't be accidental, but it is also accepted by the narrative. the fact that tenten does not fall in love is a fact of her personality and identity. i'd like to propose the theory that this happens because tenten is a woman, and the naruto narrative does not respect women. by discarding the perceived feminine flaw of falling in love, tenten is improving her standing in the narrative's eyes, even if doing so requires being queer. this would track with most instances of intentional non-standard gender either being a man acting in a feminine way or a women failing to meet the standards of femininity. because tenten's gender-nonconformity tends to be displayed as her acting in a masculine way, this is considered an improvement by the narrative, and therefore not depicted as a negative aspect of tenten's character. maybe idk i'm not an expert.