#kishimoto is also wrong

[seethinglikeme]

literally hate it when i’m scrolling thru a fandom tag on tumblr and see incorrect interpretations of the source material. you are all wrong i am the only correct person ever. i hope you are banned from the internet forever

[comikadraws]

Sasuke and the Final Battle

Alright! So personally, I dislike the conclusion that Sasuke's character got in canon. Here's why!

I am putting in pluses between panels to ensure nobody thinks those panels belong together.

The premise of the battle is as follows: Sasuke, motivated by the loss of his family, comes up with a plan to rectify the injustice he experienced which involves killing Naruto - not just because it promises him the power he seeks but also because he wants to cut that bond. It's a direct parallel to the first VotE fight.

Now, I still think Sasuke deserved better and I am very sorry to all Sasuke fans, but we need to get this one out of the way first.

While Sasuke's plans in the first VotE fight made a lot of sense, here, in the second fight, they are downright insane. He essentially plans to take over the world, become a dictator, and maintain his rule in neverending loneliness by becoming immortal. It doesn't need a genius to see that this should probably be considered tyrannical and self-destructive. And yes, he absolutely needed someone to knock some sense into him. But please keep in mind that the degree of Sasuke's insanity is a deliberate choice of the writer. A plot device for picking sides.

And it also makes a lot of sense for Konoha to be wary of him. Outside of this fight, he switched sides like five times. That's not something that would make you look particularly trustworthy or reliable.

It makes sense for Sasuke to feel guilty for his actions. He tried to kill his friends and comrades on multiple occasions. That's not something anybody would feel proud of.

But now, here are the issues I have with this battle and its conclusion:

Sasuke's core motivation is being glossed over

There's a huge bias going on in favor of Konoha and Naruto

Sasuke's sudden change of heart is abrupt and inconsistent with his character

The conclusion of Sasuke's character only exists in theory

Core Motivation

Sasuke's core motivation is the injustice experienced by the victims of the Uchiha massacre. His pain, loneliness, or even his wish for change are merely symptomatic, yet they are the only motivations ever acknowledged throughout the battle - even by Sasuke himself. I repeat: The systemic injustice that caused the massacre gets borderline ignored.

And if you ask me, there's a reason for that. Naruto needs to physically and ideologically defeat Sasuke - preferably without looking like the bad guy for shutting down a victim's cry for change and justice. But that only works by erasing and not ever talking about the corruption of the system. As a consequence, only Sasuke's "symptoms" remain - his detachment from everyone, the pain he embraces and causes, the unrealistic demands he has - and he ends up looking insane to the reader.

But defeating Sasuke and reducing his motivation to insanity like that, not acknowledging and condemning the injustice that motivates him, can only come at the cost of his depth, authenticity, and readability as a character.

The Konoha Bias

This also makes Kishimoto seem incredibly biased when it comes to Konoha. The crimes the village has committed, be it genocide, slavery, or child abuse, usually merely fulfill the purpose of "sad backstories" rather than being given the time and dignity to be properly identified, criticized, and rectified in the story. Injustice is allowed to be a character motivation or a flavor in the story, but it is not allowed to be a theme. That is no different here. Sasuke's traumas (though not their origin) are used to inform his actions but not shown as the result of the depravity of the system.

Aside from this linking back to Sasuke's character being deprived of his ideological value in the story (due to being a victim of the system and demanding change), this lack of attention and awareness toward the injustice reads like propaganda from an irl perspective. These are some of the most contemptworthy acts in existence we are talking about. And yet Konoha gets away unscathed.

Meanwhile, Sasuke, who is seemingly the only person demanding change, is intentionally characterized as "crazy", inevitably invalidating him and his desire for change. It basically reads as "yes, this system is rotten but everybody wanting to change it is evil". Change becomes evil by association. It's disheartening, demoralizing, and disappointing.

The Change of Heart

Now let's take a look at how his character actually progresses during this battle.

Sasuke wants to change the world even if that means killing Naruto or being lonely

Sasuke re-evaluates his relationship with Naruto

Sasuke realizes he no longer wants to kill Naruto or be lonely even if that means the world never changes

Now. Rethinking his self-destructive approach is, without question, a positive change. But that is not the problem here.

The problem is that this change in his character occurs rather unprompted. Sasuke, the entirety of the story, has ignored his own suffering in favor of justice. He has ignored every single character crying over him or telling him that they don't want him to ruin or endanger himself. But then Naruto basically says "it hurts to watch you suffer" and Sasuke suddenly rethinks his entire ideology. Naruto is basically only treating one of Sasuke's symptoms but not their origin.

This is unrealistic for his character and hurts his coherence (as well a invalidating him). It is a forced plot convenience to avoid any sort of compromise between Naruto and Sasuke. Both because Naruto has to come out on top due to genre conventions and also because Konoha cannot be questioned.

Missing Conclusion

Furthermore, this results in Sasuke's arc never coming to an actual "conclusion". As a victim, he should have been given justice. As someone who was supposedly suffering under his loneliness, he should have been given companionship. As a villain, somebody should have pointed out his hypocrisy and the wrongs he has committed.

None of that happened. Sasuke is not given justice and is even incarcerated in the most undignified and dehumanizing fashion possible in the anime. Afterward, he takes off alone. So in the end, even the "power of friendship" resolution that Kishimoto attempted to write only occurred on a surface level and failed in its execution. Sasuke is not changed because he realizes he is a hypocrite and doing more harm than good but because of a plot convenience. Sasuke internalized none of what he supposedly learned and practically had no conclusion whatsoever. He is still suffering. Nothing has changed.

The Point

And at this point, I'm just wondering "what was the point?". Clearly, the point of Sasuke's character wasn't to explore the darkness of the shinobi system. And it wasn't to seek justice for the horrors it has committed. It also wasn't about helping Sasuke heal from any of the hardships he's endured. Of course, all of these points were acknowledged by the story but never truly dealt with. A story can make as many promises as it wants and still follow up on none.

The point was, unfortunately, to be Naruto's trophy. Naruto is the main character, therefore he must remain ideologically unchallenged and perfect, he must have the strongest jutsu arsenal and he must have the most unwavering determination. Even if that means bending the other characters to the plot's needs. Sasuke is, thanks to genre conventions, not allowed to be right and Naruto cannot be wrong. A compromise or any justice at all become impossible unless they are a perfect match for Naruto's ideas of compromise and justice. While this doesn't mean that Kishimoto didn't care for Sasuke's story, Naruto's goal of saving Sasuke and becoming Hokage played a bigger role as compared to Sasuke's of changing the shinobi system, to the point that the latter was ignored whenever it inconvenienced Konoha's image.

[kelin-is-writing]

… I hate all this with the strength of a thousand suns. You deserved better, you really deserved way better than whatever this is…

[clarissaweasley-10]

Juliette Ferrars is the literal representation of "looks like a cinnamon roll-could actually kill you"💀💀

[orcelito]

Ok I Am enjoying getting to see Neji's teammates react to this. Especially Lee, who's fuckin wrecked by this. Wish we got more reaction from Tenten, but by this point I can't be surprised at Kishimoto not giving proper depth to the girls.

This part tho,

LEE... YOUR HAND... YOUR HAND TOOK HIS EYEBROWS AWAY... GIVE THEM BACK..!!!!!!!

[sakuratruther]

it’s so sad that sakura and sasuke relationship is so overlooked by the fandom. i’m not talking specifically about romantic relationship, before everything they were friends; sasuke thinks of both her & naruto when he thinks of bonds, but for some antis (that are mostly sns shippers, sorry to say) it’s canon that sasuke doesn’t give a shit about sakura when?? it’s not true?? and because of association problems of The Brain i can’t stand sns anymore. i think both sns and ss incapsulate naruto’s themes. and even though i love sasusaku so much i think that they all should be together, in a weird toxic polyclue because they are each other’s family. and y’all leaving sakura out of it makes me wonder if you even read the thing throughly

[colorisbyshe]

the one thing about me is i’m just not going to forgive uchiha itachi.

i’m kind of like the friend who keeps resenting your boyfriend for being an asshole even after you’ve forgiven him but for asshole brothers, instead. like... it’s fine sasuke. you can cherish your memories of him all you want. i’ll resent him for you. i’ll be here for when you get to where you need to be and understand fully how fucked everything was. i got you.

[perpetualnova]

Thank you for responding! I know it was all over and incredibly long and I wouldn’t blame you for just saying “I agree” haha! Haven’t refreshed my dormant knowledge of Naruto in a bit so some of those points could be speculative and incorrect, my bad if that is the case. To put it bluntly: it reads gay because it is gay!

You brought up something I wanted to touch on that I glossed over. I definitely agree that there is in-universe misogyny and passive or undermined development for Kishimoto’s women. Most serve of the benefit or are connected to more powerful men in some degree so a woman’s more focused or impactful moments will always be eclipsed. And yeah, a few of his female characters are used almost for the sole purpose of dying to enforce reasoning for the future actions of men (Rin—> Obito, Kushina—> Naruto to some extent because of the dead mother trope; even if it’s not purely motivational on Naruto’s end, unlike Obito’s, the sentiment of women dying to further impact the plot still stands). Hell, I’d even forgotten the Tsunade and Konan information you just provided! So there is appropriate criticism of misogyny especially in the tropes women fill or their subservient purpose to the plot to uplift a man. It would be more beneficial to acknowledge other aspects of misogynistic details in Naruto as a whole instead of only focusing on how Sakura and Hinata are written because they aren’t the only ones affected by these writing choices. And to also understand that some characters are written with the intention of having certain unfavorable characteristics.

For sure, Hinata and Sakura could’ve been handled better; they could have had more motive or influences outside of Naruto and Sasuke; they could have had more moments that weren’t overshadowed by their impulsive, selfish decision making and outright refusal to understand or follow up on crucial information, but unfortunately they don’t and those were plenty in-character aspects to both of them. I guess the cognitive dissonance comes around when fans go the lengths of defending their characters portrayals while also saying they’re poorly written and declaring how misogynistic Kishimoto is. But even so, people are given valid reasons to dislike them that can’t be removed by baseless accusations of calling haters misogynists.

And I think the serious issue (besides misogyny and sexism) you’re referring to in the last paragraph was “inc*st”? Unless I just completely inferred something else entirely but final point because yeah, actually! The fandom really needs to stop trivializing an actual form of abuse with real victims as a “gotcha!” against a fictional ship. These reincarnated “brothers” don’t even canonically view their relationship as such, aren’t blood related, and that’s just not how reincarnation is meant to be understood here because it was the chakra, from my understanding; however, even if it were the soul, it’s well understood that relationships manifest differently in other lives so the argument is null. Like this fear mongering hasn’t dissuaded anyone from shipping SNS who has active reading comprehension. Anywho! getting off my soapbox haha

Hi Bella! This isn’t an ask I just felt like ranting a bit (a lot) because I’ve got a lot of Naruto feelings lately! No analysis just speaking from the heart so some of this might be up for interpretation lol but I’m mostly beating a dead horse here because what more can really be said?

The “so misogynistic it’s gay” phrase everyone likes to parrot is a complete disservice to Kishimoto as an author because how do you write Naruto and Sasuke’s dynamic accidentally when it’s essentially the driving force of the story? You don’t. And I don’t think he’s this raging misogynist people paint him as because he doesn’t really treat the other women with as much disrespect compared to S or H. He’s probably as misogynistic as the average male author or person out of willful ignorance but writing unlikeable and two-dimensional women, I would say, does not a misogynist make because not all of the women here are written with the level of contempt, sexism and mockery as these two. For examples: Temari was also strong, had a brash and unsavory personality and was labeled “scary” by Shikamaru but was a protective older sister and not unlikeable to readers. Ino, who also began as a “girl in love”, fell out of her crush with Sasuke and gained some perspective on her ambitions and affirmations after Asuma died (and she wasn’t the one to drop her friendship over a “rivalry” for a boy that didn’t return either of their feelings… I get it, I was once a kid too but Sakura still being just as childish in adulthood in regards to Gaiden? What a joke, anyways). Tsunade, Konan, and Kushina and all of their individual strengths do not revolve around the acknowledgement of men and their appeals. Their respective love’s, while tragic affairs, were openly reciprocated by their love interests and each aspect of their story was treated with some level of care. So at this point, Kishimoto simply didn’t feel like giving the same romantic grace to NH and SS because SNS was the entire point! of the manga!

The fact that the words Sakura and Hinata share of their shallow infatuations in their confessions are ignored or outright rejected (more than once mind you) actually ring true when they are frequently paralleled in text with how Naruto and Sasuke feel towards each other should be all you need to understand that! Because their devotion to another is believable! Their evolving, MUTUAL, bond and attempts at trying to understand each other throughout the course of 698 chapters is it! That’s the romance! It’s romantic as hell trying to grasp the deepest parts of someone, connecting with them in a way no one else is able to because of a shared experience through different circumstances and defending them when all others have turned their backs; protecting them, dying for them, “bearing the burden of their hatred” and proposing a romantic double-suicide where hopefully in the new world they are absolved of societies failures against their current selves and the ties still bind them (because they’re soulmates); not being able to cut a single person down because they’re your “one and only (friend)” and without them you’d finally be alone but you’ve seen and know what’s in each other’s hearts and you know they’ll never leave you and they’ll stand by you even at the cost of their life; having complimentary sun and moon symbols on the hands of the arms they both respectively lose together in a battle concluded by both of them communicating in depth how they view their relationship outside of simple labels. This is the single most important relationship in the manga. It’s impossible to ignore but OH do people try and draw incorrect conclusions about their connection and love for the other (that’s an entirely different rant).

And even if Kishimoto cared enough to spare a crumb of reciprocation from either male party towards their future “love interests/spouses” or even any sense of S or H actually understanding Naruto and Sasuke beyond attraction and personal convictions, that wouldn’t change; and ultimately kishimoto didn’t because he didn’t care to and that’s obviously not the story he was telling. Naruto as a manga revolves around the natural progression of SNS’ individual motives and aspirations laced with their mutual care and interest for the other. Their interpersonal connections with others mirror and influence their love and understanding of each other.

I think it’s a disservice to say Kishimoto can’t write romance simply because he didn’t develop those two “relationships”; like Minakushi is the staple blatant romance of Naruto (besides SNS) and both SS and NH fans constantly want parellel their bond, mimic tropes, or make banal and superficial comparisons of their favs to Kushina (and Mikoto too which screams insecurity here like please free them from the mediocrity, I beg) because they know it’s the epitome of love in regards to Naruto. But the closest comparison to Minakushi, trope wise, in my opinion, is literally SNS! And if either SS or NH fans had a single canon moment (written by Kishimoto) rivaling anything SNS have together they would be screaming romance at the top of their lungs but instead they cry “brothers/friends” to some of the most romantic text I’ve ever read whilst all they’re given by Kishimoto is eye sex(?) + (brotherly) forehead poke of rejection (“better than a kiss”; my ass) and “big strong hands” over my slave cousin’s corpse + silly contrived movie with imagery Naruto and Sasuke had first and both a plethora of cherry-picked panels taken out of context. It’s just embarrassing!

This comes from a place of neutrality for both S and H as characters tbh because I acknowledge they weren’t meant to be anything more than what we got. I just don’t like their fan bases praising fodder caricatures or their reductive ships because they “got the guy in the end” in extremely dysfunctional “canon” (lavender) marriages. If they would just let them be girl failures and pathetic in peace and regard them properly I wouldn’t mind. However, the constant character revisionism is annoying because I know I’m not missing some grand aspect to either woman. And they’re not “mothering” at all lol let’s be serious! They’re two cheeks of the same spoiled ass unfortunately and that’s just how they’re written— you’re not gaining feminism points for appreciating women written through a sexist lens like I’d argue that’s more misogynistic then just outright disliking them. Sorry! Kishimoto is an author, and like all author’s, he writes with intention. He wrote what he wanted to, how he wanted to and focused on what was important which was SNS. Laughably undeveloped or plain unlikeable characters be damned, Sasuke and Naruto were the main act and not the side show.

There are plenty of genre’s to choose from for interesting and developed female characters that aren’t contributing to male (and female, mind you) fantasies but unfortunately Shounen really isn’t one of them because there’s only isolated cases of actual decent representation across the board. But in regards to Kishimoto’s work, S and H got the butt end of the intentionally-poorly-written-stick compared to the other women and there’s no amount of personal head-canons no one legitimately subscribes to or cries of “you’re misinterpreting her character” that are changing that. My mind, and many other’s, has been made up because we see them for what they are and how they’re actually written.

Alrighty! Convoluted, possibly contradictory and very opinionated rant over. If you read this, you’re a real one LOL I hope all is well!!

i don’t think i have much to add, especially since you put it so well. i talked about the “so misogynistic that it’s gay” plenty of times before, and how nonsense and homophobic that take is, how kishimoto foreshadowing a romantic double suicide has anything to do with sakura being badly written? and that’s just one small example. people act like just because naruto and sakura are on the same team as sasuke, they must have the same importance to him, they expected both naruto and sakura to have the same influence over sasuke, but that’s not what’s written from the beginning, i believe the logic is “naruto and sasuke have a deeper relationship than sasuke and sakura, who has no room for development, that’s why they look gay (on accident)” but stopping at it is shallow, it’s not solely about their relationship being meaningful, while ss (or nh) isn’t, it’s about why it’s meaningful, and more importantly, only being meaningful isn’t enough either to be gay, it’s about why is it gay? why it feels gay? why so many people read it and think “that seems romantic”? naruto is a story that establishes some actions as romantic and then shows naruto and sasuke act exactly how it was established towards each other. did i mention anything about how lacking sakura and hinata are to talk about the nature of their relationship? no, because homosexuality is defined by who you’re attracted to, men are gay because they love other men, women are lesbian because they love other women, and it’s homophobic to say “actually, women are lesbians because they don’t love men”, it’s the same logic of telling a lesbian she just hasn’t found the right man yet. “naruto and sasuke love each other” and “naruto and sasuke don’t love hinata and sakura” are two facts that coexist and don’t have influence over one another.

i did mention that people say sakura has no room for development, but i disagree, sakura does have room for it, she has opportunities to be better, but she isn’t, it’s a deliberate choice from kishimoto, he simply doesn’t want sakura to be in the same position as naruto, he doesn’t want her to be important to sasuke, but giving naruto development while sakura remains inconsiderate (which is one of the reasons why sasuke dislikes her) isn’t inherently misogynistic. and even if he did want her (and hinata) to be better, that wouldn’t change how sasuke feels towards naruto and vice versa. and yes, i do agree with you that kishimoto writes sakura’s and hinata’s characters with mockery, as much as he writes ss and nh, but i believe he does that to leave no room for doubts, and yet… 🤦🏻‍♀️ for real, if people are already in deep denial of narusasu with naruto and sasuke being written that way towards each other while ss and nh suck, imagine if their relationship was written the same way but they were at least friendlier towards sakura and hinata (especially in ss’ case here), no amount of gay subtext would be enough to stop the homophobia and heteronormativity, the denial would be worse. but “sns shippers” really think they are allies when they help with this logic, that gayness is accidental and ss/nh only suck because sakura and hinata are women.

and this isn’t me saying there isn’t misogyny in naruto. misogyny in naruto is rin dying for male angst, is konan outdoing obito and not only dying, but being completely forgotten, almost erased from the story, is tsunade showing a fear of blood during her battle against orochimaru just so it weakens her in that moment and that is never mentioned again, is kushina wanting to be hokage and dropping that for no reason so minato could be, is even hinata being written solely for male wanking, but i can’t agree that naruto and sasuke not loving sakura and hinata is it.

5th and 6th paragraphs are very on point as well, emphasising them here because i couldn’t agree more. the double standards people have in relation to narusasu vs ss/nh is ridiculous and plain homophobia and, contrary to sakura/hinata stans try to say to scare people off by using serious issues, disliking sakura and hinata is not anti feminist or whatever, praising badly written female characters will only contribute to more of this kind of writing, so no thank you. i think i’m just repeating my and yourself at this point, but i feel bad to read a rant as big as this and only reply “i agree with everything!” hah.

[mdr-reikas]

Listen, I really love characters like Obito and Madara as they are, but can we please talk about how Kishimoto has been consistently incapable of writing a character that doesn't like the leaf village without instantly making them irredeemable or wrong in some way, shape or form?

It feels like Kishimoto is trying to make Konoha seem like the good guys, by making everyone who criticizes konoha an absolute nut case. This doesn't only apply to Obito and Madara, this also applies to characters like Pain and Sasuke. It's not like any of these character's criticisms of Konoha are invalid; it's more that people don't look at that stuff when it's followed by a myriad of war crimes, and I will not pretend like this wasn't intentional on Kishimoto's part.

(by the way, I think the reason why Kishimoto tries to defend konoha and the shinobi system so much towards the end of shippuden, is because Kishimoto set himself up for failure by writing a heroic protagonist that wants to become the leader of a village that is revealed to be more and more corrupt as the series goes on, but doesn't want to betray the original story line of naruto wanting to become the hokage and soforth starts backtracking to make naruto wanting to become hokage justifiable again) this is a story for a another post))

[zvdvdlvr]

DOM AARON WARNER SMUT PLZZZ

- 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐞, 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 : 𝒂𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒏 𝒄𝒂𝒏'𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒑 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔𝒚 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒔 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 : 𝒇𝒍𝒖𝒇𝒇, 𝒔𝒎𝒖𝒕, 𝒊 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒍 + 𝒂𝒍𝒕 + 𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑱𝒖𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝒚'𝒂𝒍𝒍, 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍 (𝒇 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈), 𝒇𝒍𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒔𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒍𝒚 𝒎𝒐𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒖 𝒊𝒅𝒓𝒌, 𝒊𝒎 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒐𝒏 𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌 5 𝒔𝒐 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒚

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 : 𝒔𝒐𝒇���!𝒅𝒐𝒎!𝒂𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒏 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒓 𝒙 𝒔𝒖𝒃𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

𝐊.𝐉.'𝐬 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐒𝐚𝐲𝐬... 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒉𝒐𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔: 𝒊𝒎 𝒈𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒂 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒖 𝒏 𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂 𝒃𝒊𝒈 𝒌𝒊𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒑𝒔 (𝒊 𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒅𝒓'𝒔 '𝒘𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒂𝒔𝒕' 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒊 𝒘𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒐 𝒊𝒎 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒈𝒐𝒐𝒇𝒚 𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒚 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒎𝒇𝒐𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒐𝒐𝒅!)

Kenji was the first one that looked at y/n. His jaw dropping and adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed made Aaron and Adam turn. Aaron also felt his jaw drop open and his eyebrows raise. He quickly turned to Kenji. "If you don't stop undressing my woman with your eyes, I will personally see to it that your skull gets crushed," he said blank faced before striding over to his girlfriend.

"My love..." Aaron trailed off when he got closer. y/n's dress clung delightfully to her body. The dark red dress had an intricate sparkly beaded pattern sewn from the waist up. "You look... No words have the ability to describe you, my love," he murmured.

y/n smiled. "You always know what to say, darling. I'm afraid a simple 'you are stunning' will suffice," she replied, taking Aaron's hand to help her down the last stair.

The blond man looked at her as if she'd grown four heads. "'Stunning'? That is the bare minimum, y/n. I'm thinking more along the lines of absolutely ravishing." He shook his head like in a dissapointed way. "Absolutely blasphemous," he muttered to himself.

Laughing, y/n fixed a stray hair while Aaron led the pair over to where Kenji, Adam, and James were waiting. "I just put this dress on. I'd like it if it could stay on for at least an hour."

Kenji let out a loud wolf whistle before Aaron could respond. He bowed dramatically before offering y/n his hand. Aaron regretfully let go of y/n as she took Kenji's hand. Kenji twirled y/n gracefully, making James giggle at Aaron's glower. Adam couldn't help but chuckle at the way Aaron's jaw clenched when Kenji dipped y/n, making her shriek and cling to him.

"You're horrible!" y/n said when Kenji brought her back up. However, Kenji just laughed and nudged her with his shoulder.

"I like to think I'm quite outstanding," he replied smugly. "James would probably agree, yeah?"

The kid nodded, just barely easing Aaron's scowl. "I thought you were gonna drop y/n, though." he commented. He laughed harder at Kenji's offended gasp.

Adam sat back and watched Kenji and James banter while y/n retreated back to Aaron.

She easily slipped one of the blond's arms around her shoulder. "What's wrong, lovie?" y/n asked, having an idea of the look on his face.

"Just not one for watching Kishimoto twirl you around like that," he said.

y/n couldn't help but smile. "I think it's really cute when you get jealous," she said, looking at Aaron with a bright smile that he couldn't help but reciprocate.

After that, Aaron fell in a daze. The only thing on his mind was the view he had when Kenji dipped y/n. Yes, Aaron wasn't a fan of Kenji swinging his woman around like that, but he had a nice view of y/n's cleavage. Aaron criticized himself for being a pervert.

Somehow, y/n found herself sitting on Aaron's lap. Adam had wandered off, leaving James in the care of y/n, her lover, and Kenji. He sat beside the first two on hid own chair, picking at a pitiful piece of apple pie.

"You smell so good, love," Aaron murmured, resting his chin on y/n's shoulder. He pressed kiss after kiss on the sensitive skin around y/n's ear, delighting in the shiver that ran down y/n's spine. "Smell like... me," he groaned. Aaron barely withheld a smirk at the feel of y/n swatting his arm awkwardly as she tried to hold a conversation with Kenji.

Kenji yammered on about fuck knows what as Aaron wrapped his arms around y/n's waist, pulling her into him. "Aaron," she whisper-yelled.

She shifted in her spot to reach for her glass of water. Aaron kept his hold on her, giving her only a sliver of room to adjust. As y/n set her cup back down, Aaron clenched his jaw after y/n ground down on his crotch.

Seconds ticked by. Aaron had his face buried in y/n's neck while she conversed with her friend. James was slumped in his seat, eyes closed.

Aaron barely tuned in for the last part of his girlfriend's conversation.

"-better take James to his room. Kid's slumped," Kenji observed.

y/n nodded. She couldn't see Adam through the clumped groups of people but figured he'd be nearby. "See you tomorrow, Kenny," y/n said joyously. The pair watched Kenji shake his head, finish off his drink, and stand up.

"I'll get you back for that," he said, picking up James and wandering off.

"May I finally take you to bed?" Aaron asked in a low voice.

"You act as if I've been starving you," y/n mumbled back, leaning back into her lover.

The man scoffed. "It feels as if you have," he replied. "I felt positively disgusting watching Kishimoto dip you like that. Your pretty tits- Please, my love, let me take you to bed."

"I love when you beg."

He couldn't help it: Aaron whimpered. It was a quiet sound, no doubt. It came from deep in his throat, a whine that couldn't be stopped. "Please," he pleaded weakly, eyes fluttering closed.

"Take me to bed, my love. Show me how much you want to, as you said, 'ravish' me."

With that, Aaron stood up. He held y/n in his arms and happily took advantage of the crowds clearing so he could get to the elevator faster. y/n clung to him, arms thrown around his neck, watching his eyes darked considerably as he carried her to his room.

He opened the door quickly, stepped in, and locked it. Aaron set y/n on the bed carefully, as if she was made of fine porcelain. After taking off his tie, Aaron tossed it to the side, something to be found tomorrow morning.

Immediately after that, Aaron dropped to his knees, pressing kisses to y/n's legs before stopping aproximately three inches from her ankle to undo her shoes.

"Aaron..." y/n whispered. The man looked up, swallowing. y/n looked at him with such lust in her eyes Aaron felt overwhelmed with admiration for her. "Aaron please," she whispered again.

Aaron set y/n's shoes aside and stood up to kiss his lover like his life depended on it. He nipped at y/n's bottom lip and groaned when she gasped. When y/n finally pulled back, she let Aaron slide her so her head was supported by an array of pillows. "Love, flip over for me," he murmured.

When y/n complied, Aaron took his time taking bobby pins and hair things from y/n's hair. He set everything on his nighttable before he returned his attention to his lover's back. Aaron slowly unzipped the back of the bloodred dress. When he was done, he pressed kiss after kiss after kiss from y/n's neck to her shoulder to her back.

"Please, Aaron," y/n murmured. Her broken plead made Aaron feel overwhelmed.

"Tell me what you want, sweetheart. Tell me what you need me to do to make you feel good," he whispered, easing the dress down.

The cold air made y/n shiver. "I need you... I need you to eat me out," she shuddered. "Please."

Aaron cooed. "My love's asking so nicely."

"Aaron," y/n whined. After chuckling silently, Aaron finally 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 pulled the dress off. He leaned back, letting y/n turn over bashfully. Her shadowed complexion made blood rush... down.

Aaron's eyes wandered. They, like two unstoppable forces, traced every curve and dimple and scar and pimple from the top of y/n's head down her neck to the dip of her collarbone. His eyes marveled at every feature on her body, unconciously swallowing at the vulnerable beauty laying in front of him.

"You're staring."

"You're... unexplainable." Aaron's mouth answered before he could think about an answer. "So beautiful, my love," he went on. "That complex mind of yours, always thinking things through." With that, he tapped y/n's temple. "These eyes- dear God- the way you look at me..." He trailed off, cupping y/n's face with both hands. "And your mouth, my love. I love your voice, the way you talk to me. You make me feel so 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥," he whispered, staring straight at y/n's lips. When he finished his sentance, Aaron leaned down and kissed y/n.

"I need you Aaron. I need your mouth, please," y/n begged between kisses, legs wrapping around Aaron's waist. With each groan and whimper, y/n couldn't help but grind up on Aaron's crotch, a part of her relishing in the way his pitch grew higher and high with each movement.

He shushed her when he pulled back. "I know, sweetheart, I know. Lay down, love. I'll take care of you."

Panting, y/n did as she was told. Butterflies erupted in her stomach while watching Aaron watch her. His eyes were so dark they looked like the darkest, shiniest, crystalized piece of the night sky on a person. His jawline was accuented as he clenched his jaw and ground his teeth against each other (a habit y/n noticed when he was stressed, horny, or worried). A pitiful "please" escaped it's way out of y/n's face when Aaron hooked his fingers on the waistband of y/n's ordinary pair of underwear. Her thighs shook with every intentionally faint graze of Aaron's fingers.

"You gotta stay quiet, you know. There are a lot of important people here, lovely, and who's the only person in the world that can hear those pretty sounds of yours?" His dark, commanding tone scratched an itch in y/n's mind that she didn't know she had.

"You, Aaron, you. Only you, only you."

A smile spread across Aaron's face. "That's right, love." With that, he peppered y/n's sensitive inner thighs with kisses. With one hand, Aaron unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned, and unzipped his dress pants. When he pulled away, he saw y/n biting a knuckled to muffle her whines. "Good girl, being so quiet for me," he praised.

With little warning, Aaron slipped his pointer finger right into y/n's glistening pussy. A breathless gasp escaped the woman as she tried her damned hardest to be quiet- something Aaron internally admired her for. He slowly pushed in, out, in, out while watching a blissed expression bloom over his lover's face.

When he was satisfied with one finger, he slipped in another. "You're doing so well for me, angel," Aaron mumbled. y/n couldn't tell if he was talking to her or her cunt.

He was caught in a trance, dazed by the glistening liquids on his hand that were equally spread all over y/n's thighs. "All mine," he whispered to himself. The pace which he moved his fingers sped up, and he grinned when y/n's (normally shy) hands threaded themselves into his hair to push his head down.

It made Aaron actually throb to know y/n felt comfortable enough to take her own pleasure from him. The hands that have been doused in the blood of hundreds, curling into the g-spot of his favorite girl. His lips that had uttered hundreds of millions of insults and orders to people unworthy of his time had a new purpose: to bring his woman pleasure.

Aaron's fingers kept moving as he basically made out with y/n's clit. It seemed that with the way the blond was moaning and groaning, it gave him more pleasure than y/n.

For her credit, y/n was... semi-silent. Because her hands were occupied, the only thing she could do was bit down on her lip or tongue to stifle the squeals that begged to emerge from her throat.

By the way y/n's thighs were tensing up and pressing against Aaron's head (and the way her cunt was tightening and fluttering around his fingers), Aaron knew y/n was close. Just to be an ass, Aaron slowed the pace of which his fingers moved the tiniest bit. He couldn't help but smile when y/n whined desperately: she was so responsive.

After a minute, though, Aaron had mercy and returned back to his previous pace, sucking and licking right were she needed him to.

Words were an unknown factor at this point. Aaron was hell bent on giving y/n the best head she'd never dreamed about, and y/n was trying her damned hardest not to outright squeal. The air in the room was as hot as fire- or maybe that was what this kind of lust felt like.

And then that fire bloomed into something else; something made out of love and hate, bloodlust and admiration, darkness and obliviousness.

The white hot coil snapped- shattered, was crushed and destroyed.

With Aaron's face buried between y/n's thighs, he didn't get to see the way y/n's mouth opened in a breathless scream. Her grip on Aaron's head slackened and her thighs shook.

Aaron's fingers kept up the assult, despite the dull ache in his wrist. A sweet liquid suddenly filled up his senses, filling his nose and mouth and ears, slowly sinking down his throat. It filled his heart and soul and sank into his lungs. Once again he felt the overwhelming feeling of love and lust as Aaron lapped up every last drop of y/n's release from her sensitive thighs.

Above him, y/n panted as she came down from her high. Her stomach fluttered at the pornographic squelches coming from Aaron playing with her pussy and loudly sucking hickies onto her skin. "I love you," y/n whispered, tears rolling down her face. "I'm so in love with you Aaron."

A few seconds later, Aaron tore himself away and sat up. He hovered over y/n's body, his muscular, scared body versus the softer, curvier frame of y/n's showed the beautidully imperfect juxtaposition between the two. "Love," Aaron cooed, pulling y/n's hands from her face. "Sweetheart, I love you too. Come on now. Dry your tears, lovie. You did so well, staying quiet. I need to clean you up, okay? Are you here with me, lovely?" His soft voice asked. With enough care to make a grown woman cry, Aaron slipped his arms under y/n's waist and the other supporting her unclothed back. He picked y/n up without waiting for her answer and started to the joint bathroom that was redone.

"What about you?" y/n murmured into Aaron's neck.

"I'm fine, love, don't think about me," he responded. Even if his brush off was abrupt and y/n felt bad, she didn't have the energy to say anything else.

While Aaron moved around, y/n traced the numerous scars on Aaron's back. She heard a bath being drawn as she dozed off.

"Sleep, y/n. I'll take care of you" was the last thing y/n heard before she fell asleep in her lover's arms.

[narutouzumakiarchive]

what are your thoughts on the “kishi based off naruto and sasuke off him and his brother so it’s weird and morally wrong to ship sasunaru.” IMO I’m like…you know what else is weird? kishi making the two characters that are supposedly based of him and his brother kiss accidentally and not only did they accidentally kiss but that scene is replayed multiple times in the manga and anime. So yeah…

Well I many thoughts.

For starters, the interview in question (and I'm still not sure of the source) states that the bond between Kishimoto and Seishi, his brother, was based on the aspect of feeling mutual pain.

Now let's look at another interview, from Kishimoto the lying liar. In it he states that his wife might secretly realize that Hinata isn't the real model for his wife because his wife is quite strong, which the interviewer noted was kind of like Sakura. Isn't that interesting.

In this interview he also implicitly acknowledges the implicit similarity between Sakura and his wife based on the particular aspect of strength. And yet, sasusaku's wouldn't use this interview as an indication that Sakura was in a romantic relationship with Naruto. Nor would they claim that Kishimoto (who frequently acknowledged that Naruto was a reflection of him) was writing a manga in which his wife (Sakura) was romantically in love with the analogue of his brother (Sasuke) Why?

Because while fiction is a reflection of life, it is in no way an exact representation of life. People in real life are complex multi dimensional beings and have complex and multi dimensional relationships; in other words, people and relationships have dimensions and depth that extend beyond one singular aspect, especially characteristics that are as common and generic as strength, and shared feelings of pain. Thus, Naruto and Sasuke, who also have additional depth in their bond beyond feelings of shared pain (let me know when brothers have feelings of uncertainty regarding the nature of their relationship btw) aren't a perfect analogue of Seishi and Kishimoto.

But I also want to note that they never extend this logic to the reverse. For example, Naruto and Sasuke are explicitly likened to Izanagi and Izanami, who in the Japanese mythos Kishimoto drew inspiration from, on the basis of perfect complementarity, were married. Surely, according to their logic, since basing the fictional dynamic between Naruto and Sasuke of of one aspect of the dynamic between two Gods who were married means that Naruto and Sasuke had romantic feelings for eachother, right? And yet something tells me those hypocrites who are triggered by Naruto and Sasuke would disagree. Because even they can intuit that fictional depictions don't necessarily have a perfect 1 to 1 relationship with the things they derive inspiration from.

But, additionally I need to add that Kishimoto could say that Naruto and Sasuke are the most brotherly of brothers and that it would be a crime to ship them — he could even have them end the series affirming they were like brothers — and it still wouldn't matter for two reasons.

One, intent does not equal impact. It would not matter if Kishimoto intended for Naruto and Sasuke to have a brotherly dynamic if what we were shown in the text is NOT a brotherly dynamic. People put a lot of stock in information from interviews, but while that paratext can help enhance our understanding of the text, ultimately, it is seperate from the text and the text is king — in other words, the purpose of a system (in this case, the Naruto text) is what it does.

But let me talk about a funny example first before I discuss Naruto and Sasuke. In 2009, Folgers Coffee released an infamous commercial that made the relationship between a brother and sister take center stage.

Now I suggest you watch the video for yourself, but for people who want the TLDR: It received a ton attention and backlash as a result of the very obvious incestuous undertones.

Now the video was obviously meant to depict the dynamic between a normal brother and sister. I mean, taboo themes in a commercial for a brand that has consistently utilized rhetorical appeals to wholesome conservative family values makes for bad business. And yet, despite the commercial making it obvious that the main characters in the ad were brother and sister by having them explicitly indicate as much, that line didn't do much the quell the underlying tension that viewers picked up on when watching the coy flirtation and intense gazes.

Which brings me back to Naruto and Sasuke. Most people that interact with media do so casually. Many are looking for simple minded entertainment. They aren't going to comb through the internet to look for cherry picked interviews to discern the nature of Naruto and Sasuke's relationship. They'll simply look at what's presented in the narrative to do so, and what the narrative presents is that of an overwhelmingly romantic dynamic between Naruto and Sasuke.

Romance is a "social structure that's biologically potentiated." This will receive more elaboration in another post, but at its core much of what we consider to be romantic has been shaped by shared socioculturally produced conventions (that can be specific to particular cultures/societies or more globalized). And when it comes to determining what is romantic in a narrative, the shared conventions and expectations are further mediated by the values that the text promotes.

People who interact casually with Naruto won't see Kishimoto's interviews, but they will see things like...

The classic romantic kiss/almost kiss intimate moment in the rain

Sakura stating that all she wants from Sasuke is acknowledgement in an explicitly romantic context (which is an example of a convention/ideal being promoted in the text as romantic), Naruto internally identifying with Sakura in this regard, and Sasuke giving Naruto the acknowledgement that he wants but not Sakura

Naruto getting tingles in his lower parts when thinking of said acknowledgement from Sasuke

Sasuke thinking about his kiss with Naruto and Naruto's dream during what he believed to be his final moments, and indicating it was one of the many reasons why his body decided to move on its own to save Naruto, a moment that was explicitly paralleled with Haku's sacrifice for Zabuza's dream a mere few chapters later, the same Haku that was implied to have subtextually romantic feelings for Zabuza [and a quick interjection, acknowledgement of what is presented in the text does not equal promotion. Moral critiques are important and just as valid as more stylistic analyses BUT they are distinct things. "Haku was never implied to have feelings for Zabuza because that's gross" is not a meaningful analysis]

Naruto making a proposal that significantly resembles the structure of shinju (double suicide), (a concept that has great significance in Japanese and Western popular culture, hello shared cultural conventions, hello Chikamatsu Monzaemon, hello Romeo and Juliet) a concept that was invoked by Omoi at the beginning of the volume that Naruto's proposal was in. This concept is promoted as a romantic value in the text via Omoi, and of course, is accords with popular sociocultural understandings of what we know to be Romantic.

And make no mistake, Kishimoto was intimately aware of the history of the romantic convention he drew from.

Naruto being Sasuke's tether to humanity in the same way that Rin was Obito's tether to humanity as well as Naruto being visually framed in Sasuke's memory in the exact same way that Rin was framed in Obito's memories in back-to-back chapters.

And there's more, but there's no need to continue because even just these moments highlight how far beyond the het dynamics Naruto and Sasuke are in terms of mutual, romantic implications. Naruto and Sasuke's dynamic is shown as romantic which it why it wouldn't even matter if Naruto and Sasuke weren't intended to be romantic.

Now, the second reason why it wouldn't matter if Naruto and Sasuke were intended to be non romantic brothers is that.... they aren't brothers. Like the most surefire way to make a bond be brotherly is to make the characters related. [And not have their first pivotal interaction be a classic "accidental kiss" ship bait moment that was iconic enough to be recycled by their kids who are now love interests.] And further, the trope of two people (gay people in particular) who aren't siblings but have a unique, powerful and intimate bond that's metaphorized and/or euphemized as sibling-like doesn't inherently negate romance.

But let me provide an example. There's a show called Breaking Bad, centered on a man who ostensibly turns to a life of crime in order to protect his family, but he's not important here. In the show, we're provided with the backstory of the primary antagonist in Season 4, Gus Fring. And the viewer gets to see that the reason Gus decided to devote his life to getting revenge on the cartel was because the loss of someone that was particularly close and precious to him, a man named Hector.

Within Gus' backstory, there's really only one scene of note that implies the two are gay. When a previous antagonist named Hector crudely pees into the pool, in the presence of Gus and Max, and is chastised by a fellow associate, Hector remarks that the two men won't say anything because they like what they see and makes suggestive kissing noises at them.

But there's something interesting about the way Max describes the relationship between himself and Gus. He explicitly states that he knows Gustavo like a brother. Hell, the name of the business that he planned to start alongside Gus was called Los Pollos Hermanos (translated in the show as The Chicken Brother's) and even the episode in which their story is expounded upon is named "Hermanos." And yet, many viewers picked up on the romantic subtext between Max and Gus, subtext that the showrunner confirmed was intentional. In the viewers minds, the subtext wasn't wholly negated because they knew eachother like brothers.

And that's because, the metaphor of the sibling, is often merely utilized to invoke desirable traits of idealized siblinghood (like friendship and trust) while setting aside the biological limitations of actual sibling bonds. Hence, in Japanese and Western media, this invocation of the sibling-like bond often occurred (and still does) in tandem with romantic subtext, and this is especially common in gay narratives when characters are trying to understand the nature of their feelings.

But this is a nuance that is lost by people that only chronically consume battle shonen. If you showed them the scene of Max talking about his dynamic with Gus they'd decry the people who dared to call it gay and make some fake deep statement about how people want to undermine pure brotherly bonds by making everything romantic. Because only in the Naruto fandom will people complain about you bringing up the fact that maybe it's gay to think about a kiss when you're about to die or to feel special butterflies when you're acknowledged by your rival. They'd combust if you tried to explain that idealized characteristics present in particular relational categories (like friendship and brotherhood) can overlap.

And if you go back to the interview, in which feelings of intensely shared pain are regarded as brotherly, you'll see that Kishimoto notes just that. He states that feelings of brotherly love and friendship are the same exact thing. Which means that in the period when Sasuke considered Sakura a nakama, something that obviously ended after he left the village, according to the very same interview that narusasu antis foolishly claim debunks our ship, it would mean that Sasuke also had fraternal feelings for Sakura as he did for the rest of Team 7 and thus was morally wrong. But you can't expect logic from het shippers.

Which brings me to my final set of points. I've already reached the 30 image limit so I can't post more images on this post (and will probably save it for another ask) but my post this far has only adressed the demographic that genuinely believes in the narusasu are like brothers argument. But, you need to understand that a significant portion of the people that push that argument don't even believe in it themselves, and I'm not joking. Search any narusakusasu account or popular "poly Team 7" art post and I can guarantee that at least 7 out 10 times, if you click on the profile of a someone with a cherry blossom and tomato emoji pair and search "incest" or "brother" on their account, you'll find a post of them speaking negatively about narusasu. It's almost funny how consistently it turns out to be true, but again, I'll address that in another post (along with the behavior of naruhina's because they tend to use different argument against sns). The point is that their issue with narusasu has never been about "moral wrongness" but about the fact that Sakura (and Hinata in the case of SasuHinaNaru's) isn't involved in their dynamic.

In fact, many Sakura stans are multiSaku's that have no problem shipping her with every man that ever breathed in her vicinity (Madara, Sasori, Itachi, Kakashi, etc.) and even the ones that didn't (Shisui).. I mean they're even publishing reworked fanfiction, [see this ItaSaku novel]. And yet they only bat an eye at Naruto and Sasuke. That's why ultimately, you shouldn't take them seriously, because they aren't looking to engage with you in good faith. They just want to undermine narusasu while stealing our tropes for their ship.

But since the word of Kishimoto is law to them, just bring up any one of the interviews in which Kishimoto's mocked Hinata, Sakura NH and SS, like him calling Sakura detestable, or his reaction to someone liking Hinata being "so you like girls with big boobs," or him initially agreeing that SS and NH were unrequited, or him stating he didn't know if Sasuke and Sakura would last, or him stating that Hinata isn't a regular heroine that stands at the main character's side but the type that watches him from the shadows (when her entire goal during the manga was to stand by Naruto's side), him laughing at an interviewer that stated Sasuke dealt with Sakura by leaving, or Kishimoto stating that he didnt have any devotion to the love story between Naruto and Hinata and he didnt plan to write it until Studio Pierrot suggested it, or Kishimoto stating that he avoided writing the reason for Sakura's love because it would sound too contrived, or — well, you get the point.

[evilkitten3]

#shout out to @Obihoe cause this started as a tag comment on one of your posts that got WAY too out of hand. just like old times lol#team 7#haruno sakura#sakura haruno#sasuke uchiha#team crackhead#naruto#naruto uzumaki#sasusaku#doesn't have to be but like. Yeah#for the record no disrespect to my boys Naruto n Kakashi I love them dearly. but like. they got their issues. that's half the fun of team 7#And Sakura has her problems with Sasuke too!! But her problems have nothing to do with understand him or his motivations or his personhood#and more to do with. Well. her absolute dogshit empathy. Emotionally disregulated ass.#'if you leave me I'll feel just like you did when your parents died' My beloved. Iconic. Great line. No notes. She's really just still so#inexperienced and naive that means she can explain and predict and KNOW him and his actions but still not empathize. She can say shit#like that with a straight face because she's never FELT loss like this before (except that minute she thought he was dead on the bridge)#so she can't imagine a worse pain. Just assumes it can't GET worse because she has no emotional concept of 'worse'. so it must be the same#she's literally the only person with a chance of convincing Sasuke to take her with him to Orochimaru because he's SASUKE of course she#knows all the right pressure points and keywords and concerns and stuff that she needs to convince him.#she's literally playing a little diolouge tree game with him. And maybe even winning up until that line! it's the dealbreaker

all of this!!! pre-shippuden sakura might've been crazy obsessed with sasuke but she also Understood him on a very strange level. like i think one of the biggest missed opportunities in the series was letting them have more bro moments bc sakura absolutely could've been sasuke's bestie

An interesting little fun thing with team 7 is that you assume that Sakura's gonna, like, woobify and simplify Sasuke by putting him on a pedastal,cause her goal is centered around him and shes a 12 y/o fangirl so like of course her understanding of him is skewed cause she doesnt see him as a person, just an object of affection, right? She's can't get Sasuke, can't imprint on and/or traumabond with him like Naruto and Kakashi do. They don't see him with rose tinted glasses, because they've lived through their own Horrors and empathize with Sasuke's experience.

......right?

WRONG lmao!! They have too many ghosts!! Naruto's single-minded codependent ass won't get out of his own way long enough to see Sasuke for who he actually is, only able to empathize with the parts of his trauma Naruto relates to and not really capable of understanding him outside of the context of himself (because Sasuke is. His other half). And Kakashi is far too jaded to be fair to him!! He can't decide if Sasuke is gonna end up as a mini-him or a mini-Obito or maybe a mini-Itachi, but either way he ALSO is too traumatized to see Sasuke AS SASUKE.

meanehile SAKURA'S autistic ass may have dogshit empathy, but you know what she does have? A special interest in sasuke. Nothing better to do then give herself a degree in Uchihaisms. She can write character studies about him. she can read his soul. Whenever she says something about him she is right. Every fucking time! She is RIGHT!!!!

'sasuke would NOT compliment me this directly or explicitly express worry unprompted, especially if it gets in the way of his goals' correct.

'Sasuke shouldn't hide that curse on his neck its not healthy BUT if I tell anyone about it he'll never trust me again, which might be even more dangerous for him then the curse mark. Like he can probably handle the curse mark but no one else can stop him from ripping peoples arms off.' correct.

Speaking of! 'Sasuke would not hurt me even when he seems to be...possessed? whatever the only way to knock him out of it is to present myself as Alive and thus something to be protected rather then something to be avenged, because he gets really stuck in his own head about revenge' CORRECT

'hey so um. like. Sasuke's gonna leave Konoha. I'm not sure anything can stop him at this point and honestly I'm kinda starting to doubt anything should, so the only thing I could possibly do to help him at this point is ALSO defect.' CORRECT!!!!

[sasukeless]

agency is such a strong recurring theme in sasuke’s arc. through the entire manga you see many figures constantly trying to manipulate him and use him and stripping him of his agency.

like there’s itachi always trying to control sasuke’s life. he views sasuke only as an extension of himself, his younger brother. completely disregarding sasuke’s individuality as a person. it starts with itachi trying to plan each step in sasuke’s life through torture and manipulations, and it carries till the point where itachi is okay with brainwashing sasuke with shisui’s eye and force him to protect konoha and become a perfect puppet.

then there’s orochimaru which is basically self explanatory he puts the curse mark on sasuke against his will and sends people after him. on top of this the curse mark is stated to take sasuke’s will away one way or another. he forces sasuke to seek him because although sasuke has his own agenda of wanting more power due his growing insecurities, orochimaru still makes sure sasuke has to go to him.

and when itachi and orochimaru are both dead you think. “hey now finally people will leave sasuke alone” except kishimoto once again brings another figure to try to “tame” sasuke which is obito. and once again the same tale repeats with obito trying to manipulate sasuke.

(didn’t know which translation was the most accurate but both pretty much express the same)

but the thing about sasuke is that despite all these people trying to have their way with sasuke’s path, sasuke still manages to break of it.

itachi compares sasuke to a blank canvas easily to manipulate but this is just wrong. yes, it’s true sasuke was manipulated by him and to a certain extent by orochimaru but its always through lies and coercion and even then, sasuke always fights against it.

in a way sasuke’s arc is not just about fighting for revenge or fighting against bonds but also a constant fight to regain the autonomy they keep trying to rob from him

[soulaires]

I need me some Kenji kishimoto fics!!! Maybe like he's drunk and aarom calls u so u so u have to pick him up and he's being a lil suggestive and goofy and fluffy and stuff!!!

My Girl.

pairings: kenji kishimoto x f!reader

summary: kenji is drunk and absolutely have no brakes.

warnings: ooc, alcohol, drunk, suggestive themes.

« words: 1,659 ┇ao3┇reblogs are appreciated! »

authors note: I know this ask is ages ago but i just cant write something very similar to my old one so I did some twist to make it different. Enjoy! Also not proofread and I wrote this at midnight. Excuse it lmao.

Kenji had always been a tough nut to crack, but that night, the alcohol had done its magic, leaving him in a state of blissful inebriation. He, along with Aaron and  Adam, had gathered for a boys' night out. 

Kenji had decided it was high time for a boys' night out. He'd invited his best buddies, Warner and Adam, for a night of fun and revelry. Little did they know that Kenji had a surprise in store for them, something that would shatter their preconceived notions and send their jaws dropping. They didn't know that you and Kenji had been secretly dating for a while.

As the night progressed, Kenji became increasingly intoxicated, his inhibitions fading away like smoke in the wind. He couldn't help himself, and in his drunken state, he decided to let the cat out of the bag. With a wide, goofy grin, he began to regale his friends with stories about his amazing girlfriend (you).

"Guys, guys," he began, clearly intoxicated already, "you won't believe it, but I have the most amazing, pretty, talented, and hot girlfriend in the world!"

"I'm the luckiest guy, seriously." He slurred, leaning heavily on his friend's shoulder.

His friends exchanged bewildered glances. Adam chuckled, "Kenji, man, you've had one too many. Are you sure you're not just imagining this incredible girlfriend of yours?"

Warner and Adam exchanged incredulous glances, thinking that Kenji was simply caught up in the moment, or perhaps he was just too drunk to know what he was saying. "Come on, kishimoto," Warner chuckled, "you've had a few too many. Are you sure you're not just... imagining things?"

Kenji, however, was adamant. "No, I'm not making this up, guys. I'm serious. She's real, and she's mine!"

Adam chimed in, clearly amused, "Well, we've known you for a while, Kenji, and you've never mentioned a girlfriend before. Are you sure you're not delusional?"

Kenji shook his head vigorously, causing his unruly hair to flop around. "No, I'm not imagining. She's real, and she's mine!"

Warner, never one to care, chimed in, "Come on, kishimoto. You've been known to exaggerate when you've had a few drinks. You’re just being delusional."

"No, no, no!" Kenji insisted. "I'll prove it to you guys. I'll call her right now!"

Kenji clumsily fished his phone out of his pocket, fumbling with the buttons and nearly dropping it on the floor. He scrolled through his contacts, searching for the one name that meant the world to him. Finally, he found it— My Pretty Girl 🤍.

With unsteady hands, Kenji pressed the call button, the phone ringing in his ear. He leaned back and grinned at his friends, pride bubbling in his drunken heart. "You'll see!"

As his fingers danced across the screen, Warner and Adam watched with growing skepticism. They fully expected Kenji to dial a random number or play a prank on them. However, they couldn't have been more wrong.

Kenji, with a triumphant grin, put his phone on speaker mode as the call connected. Suddenly, a sweet and soothing voice filled the room, uttering, "Kenji? Baby? Do you need me to pick you up now?"

Warner and Adam exchanged a perplexed glance before their eyes widened in shock. The voice on the other end sounded awfully familiar, and the nickname 'Baby' was a clear giveaway.

Kenji beamed with delight, staring at his friends. "See! I told you she's real!"

Adam recovered from his shock first, shouting, “YOU ARE DATING Y/N ???”

Kenji ignored their comments and continued talking to you. "Pretty girl, I miss you."

You couldn't help but smile. "I miss you too, Kenji. Do you need a ride home?" 

Kenji's eyes sparkled as he leaned closer to the phone, his voice laced with a hint of flirtation. "I need more than just a ride home, Y/N."

As the night came to a close, Kenji's friends decided it was time for him to go home. He was, after all, unable to stand on his own at this point. Kenji's intoxication levels continued to rise. 

Kenji had other plans, though. He was in high spirits and wanted nothing more than to see you. "I need my baby. I can't stand being away from her" he declared, much to his friends' amusement. 

When it was finally time to leave, Warner knew they couldn't leave Kenji alone in his state. He grabbed Kenji's phone and scrolled through his contacts to find the number saved under "My Pretty Girl 🤍."

The call is connected, and your voice on the other end can be heard. "Kenji? Is everything okay?"

“Hey, Y/N, it’s me. Come pick your drunk boyfriend up before he embarrasses himself.” 

“Oh Warner, hey. Yeah I’ll pick him up. Please give him water to drink to sober up.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, voice thick with sarcasm. 

When you arrived, Kenji was in no condition to stand, let alone walk. He practically lunged at you, wrapping his arms around your waist and nuzzling into your neck. "You're amazing," he slurred, his warm breath tickling your skin. "So pretty. So hot."

You couldn't help but laugh, feeling a warmth in your heart. "Thank you, kenj."

As Kenji stumbled toward you, he was all smiles, his neediness and clinginess on full display. He hugged you tightly, whispered sweet compliments in your ear, and planted tender kisses along your neck.

You couldn't help but smile, your heart filled with love for this man who, even in his most inebriated state, couldn't contain his affection for you.

As you left the bar, Kenji couldn't keep his hands off you. He was floating, and every step was punctuated by laughter, stolen kisses, and playful touches.

He kept his arm wrapped around your shoulders, his fingers gently tracing patterns on your arm. 

"You're so pretty," he murmured, his breath warm against your ear as he placed sweet kisses on your neck. "So, so pretty." 

You couldn't help but blush at his compliments, despite knowing that he was under the influence. Kenji, always the charming one, had now added a touch of playfulness to his usually affectionate nature. You decided to tease him a little. "Kenji, are you trying to sweet-talk your way into getting a ride home?" 

Kenji let out a soft, tipsy chuckle, his lips grazing your earlobe. "Mhm, no. A way to make you scream my name tonight, though."

"Kenji, you're a mess," you chuckled, wrapping your arms around him as he swayed slightly.

"I'm not a mess, I'm a masterpiece!" he declared proudly, peppering your face with a series of sloppy kisses.

As you guys made your way towards the exit, Kenji kept stealing glances at you, his compliments flowing as freely as the liquor in his veins. "You're the most beautiful person in the world, you know that, right?" he slurred. His words were genuine, even if they were slightly incoherent.

The journey from the bar to the car was a wobbly one. Kenji couldn't seem to walk in a straight line, and he insisted on holding your hand with a grip that told you just how much he needed your support.

Once you guys were safely ensconced in the car, Kenji wasted no time in attempting to become one with the passenger seat. "I love this car," he mumbled as he hugged the headrest.

His antics didn't stop there. Kenji kept stealing kisses every few minutes, his lips landing anywhere they pleased – your cheeks, your nose, your forehead, your neck, your hands, even your ear. It was all rather comical and sweet, in a completely ridiculous way. "You taste like strawberries and sex" he remarked with a dreamy look in his eyes.

The car finally came to a halt outside you and his shared apartment building, and Kenji's drunken demeanor was still in full swing. He insisted on being carried upstairs, which was a considerable feat considering his weight. 

When you arrived home, Kenji clung to you, reluctant to let you go. He peppered your face with kisses, laughing and whispering sweet nothings.

Kenji, now sitting on the couch, looked at you with puppy dog eyes. "I need more kisses," he pouted, his bottom lip sticking out.

You couldn't help but oblige. His neediness was endearing, and even though he was drunk, you couldn't resist his affection. 

As you kissed his forehead, down to his cheeks, nose and to his lips, he quickly deepened it, a groan falling from his lips as he pulled you closer to him, sitting you to his lap.

"Kenji.. we can't. You are drunk" you said as you pulled away, while your boyfriend chased your lips.

"But baby, I need you right now, please. I fucking need to feel you." He insisted. 

"We can't. You are drunk, love" 

"My pretty baby, my best girl, my baby doll. Let me take care of you, please. I just need you so bad.." he begged you once again and you could not help but to let out a whimper. 

"I know you want to, princess." 

"Not when you are clearly drunk, okay?" You reasoned out and he pouted. He fucking pouted.

So, you stood up, playing 'Dancing Queen' by Abba as you invited him to dance.

The living room turned into a make-shift dance floor as you guys swayed to the melody, his head resting on your shoulder.

He began to mimic the bizarre dance moves of a famous pop star, twirling around the room with an exaggerated flair that left you both in fits of giggles. "I should audition for 'Dance moms,' don't you think?" he teased, striking a ridiculous pose.

As the hours passed, Kenji's antics faded, and he succumbed to the heavy pull of sleep. You tucked him into bed, his face still wearing a contented smile, and you could not help but smile back.

[stu-dyingstudent]

Sakura is the youngest of team 7

Let’s talk about a hot topic rn in regards to Sakura… the age order of the rookies. Tbh, I don’t think it’s a big deal but I’m tired seeing misinformation going around.

It’s been the common belief for many years that Sakura is the oldest member of team 7 because of the thought that the Naruto universe follows the American school system for age. However, if we use the Japanese school system then she would be the youngest of her entire graduating class.

What is used by many to back that Sakura is older is the information derived from the databook 4 character files. In those entries it follows that Shino is the oldest and Hinata is the youngest of the rookies. Sakura is said to be 17 during the war and Naruto (as we all know) turned 17 at the end of the war. This would indicate a following of the American school system for the ages.

However, databook 1 goes against this information. In this databook, it takes place in the middle of the chunin exams. For the character files it states that all of the rookies graduated at the age of 12 and that all of them are still 12 while under examination for promotion to chunin. Why does this matter? The only way for this to be possible is if it follows the Japanese school system and let me explain why.

In chapter 11 of the Naruto manga, kakashi states that “it’s springtime” during the Land of Waves arc. This whole arc lasts about a month and they enter into the chunin exam almost immediately after returning. In Japan, spring is from March to May and graduation takes place from mid to late March. Furthermore, the Japanese school system works where children with birthdays from April to March of the following year are placed in the same class. This lines up perfectly with the information here as if they graduate in late March then all of the rookies would be 12 when becoming genin and for the exam.

Now, you might say “well why should we trust one databook over the other?” Well, if you look at databook 3 it still follows that all of the rookies graduated at the age of 12, which follows what was said in the first databook. The entire timeline of Naruto is very difficult to follow without looking to extreme detail (which I don’t have time or care for). However, the wave arc being in spring is an easy find and sets up the storyline for it to follow the Japanese school system/year.

Even with all of this being said, I have seen plenty of people argue that “Naruto doesn’t take place in Japan and therefore doesn’t follow their school year.” Now let me ask, why would Kishimoto, a Japanese man who has used lots of Japanese history and folklore in his series and even said much of the scenery was based on Okayama (which is in Japan), not use the Japanese school year? Why would he use the American system instead? It makes no sense. The only logical conclusion is that Naruto follows the Japanese system and that databook 4 ages were a mistake.

Kishimoto himself has never officially come out to state the age order and there are no direct references of it in the manga. The only thing absolutely certain is that Sasuke is older than Naruto, which we all know and doesn’t help at all. Now, there is one scene in chapter 18 that could give us a clue that Sakura is the youngest, but it’s all perspective imo. Kakashi calls Sakura “our young lady,” which although doesn’t confirm anything, it does indicate or imply that she is the youngest of the team. Otherwise there would be no reason for kakashi to point that out instead of just calling her “our lady.”

Anyway, what I saw rekindle this debate was the apology that Shueisha released regarding some official Naruto merchandise that came out back in 2023. In this apology they admitted to getting the ages of Sakura and Gaara during the war arc wrong and changed the info cards of the characters from 17 to 16. In addition, Sakura's character description (for the war) in one of the Naruto videogames (Borutage) also places her at the age of 16 during this arc. Many fans say that these technically aren't "official" sources to confirm her age, but aside from the databooks, which contradict themselves, these are the only other sources of her age in the war. It's also something to consider that Shueisha went out of their way to make a public apology on the matter and corrected themselves. The databooks have plenty of mistakes, so if they apologized for one mistake then they would have to do it for all. Meaning, it's best if they don't.

Also, I have seen some fans say that this illustration was released by shonen jump, but I haven’t found any proof of that being the case. Nonetheless, I will still place it below as it provides a visual for the birth order and you can use your own discretion if you think it’s official.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the matter of age order. Cheers!

[maoam]

Male fans say sns holding hands with blood is not romance because it is the unison symbol.

*rolls my eyes*

First of all, it's not "just" anything because the whole point is that Naruto and Sasuke can hold hands even when they don't have hands. And their blood surely makes it look like they are fully encircling their hands.

But more importantly. Look at what Kishi wrote.

He made Naruto falter due to Neji's death, then have Hinata give him a long speech/pep talk about Neji and ninja way which made Naruto stand up and fight again. But. Not long after, he was struggling again due to many people dying and Shikamaru being near death, and Sasuke picked him up with just TWO LINES. No long speech needed. These are similar on purpose. People dying, Obito taunting Naruto, Naruto losing it, and then a pep talk.

Naruto's thoughts just kept coming after Sasuke's two lines. Sasuke was of course pleased with how much hold he has over Naruto. But yes, do you see how Kishi made two similar scenes to show how special Sasuke is to Naruto? He had to give some crumb to NH, but he didn't want to be too nice about it.

Even better: Naruto holding Hinata's hand to share the kyuubi chakra with her was the last scene of them interacting with each other. NH fans hold this scene in high regard and proof of their romance. But Kishimoto really went and cut the hand Naruto used when holding Hinata’s hand and made Naruto hold hands with Sasuke without his hand. He was saying, they don't have hands, but that's mere inconvenience, they are truly connected, they don't need hands to hold hands! Not to mention, with Hinata Naruto looks like he's being held at gunpoint (how Kishi surely felt drawing this scene), while with Sasuke he looks content, at peace, despite the fact his arm has been cut off and is bleeding.

Kishi has done this before the war arc too.

Hinata confesses her feelings to Naruto in Pain arc, how because of him she didn't go down the wrong path, how she wanted to be by his side, how she kept chasing after him, and then saying she's not afraid to die for him. Naruto tells Sasuke in the next arc how because of Sasuke he finally had a bond and didn't go down the wrong path, how he wanted to be around Sasuke, how he kept chasing after him, and then saying he's ready to die with Sasuke and reunite in the next world.

And while Naruto ignored Hinata's confession, Sasuke kept Naruto's words to him and thought about them even during the war arc. He also thought about their vow. Again, Kishi showing his preference, what truly is his otp.

Of course, SS/NH will say, well just because it's romantic in NH doesn't mean it's romantic in NS! Because they're homophobic. Because their modest intellect can't make them understand Kishi wrote these moments very close to each other, and that he's the writer, and that this was obviously all intended and calculated. Funny how the manga is riddled with countless "coincidences", it's almost like they aren't coincidences... lol.