#naruto fandom talk

[tamelee]

i just saw a posts about novels that went like

sarada told sasuke he has lipstick stain, sasuke tries to wipes it off and she says he doesn't have one and sakura doesn't wear lipstick.

how do they defend this novels with their lives? it confirms sasuke never kisses sakura and doesn't know if she wears lipstick or not and kisses someone else who wears lipstick. it also confirms naruto likes to wear lipstick XD.

Please. These novels are ridiculous. Kishimoto already confirmed they’ve never kissed in Gaiden. Twice. 

(* something nicer = meant the forehead poke)

Though I wouldn't believe anyone if they said they actually like these novels, because the story (or lack thereof) is complete shit, but it’s fine if they do. A good story isn't the intention unfortunately. I genuinely wish that people understood what exactly it is they are defending. I’m writing a post for someone who asked something regarding canon, but I need to take brakes from it because it pisses me off that this happens constantly to franchises— not just Naruto. 

And in this case it’s even worse, or perhaps it’s just a prime example, because Jun Esaka (writer for some of these novels) made such a fool of herself on twt by making it all too obvious what her intentions were by writing them. (If it wasn’t already obvious.) First, when people pointed out the many flaws, she admitted that it’s “just her story” and “just her interpretation” (she had only read 'Naruto' for the first time a few months before that), but when other ss-shippers started to defend her and said she was a better writer than Kishimoto (as there’s 0 love between SS when he writes), she basked in that glory and went along with it. Even to the point that she completely disrespected Kishimoto, the story, the craft, openly made fun of other characters (mostly Hinata) and ships like NH and demanded her other novels to be animated as well. It’s unprofessional af. And then when fans asked her for a nsfw novel for SS she agreed and told them to harass the company about it. (She didn’t say ‘harass’ exactly, but come on you can’t be that dense given their reputation with staff.)

What are they defending? 

How can you defend anything when the motive is so obviously just personal bias/gain and/or financial profit to a company where both in this case don’t give a shit about the original story. It's not about shipping though, it happens all the damn time to all my favorite franchises and I'm genuinely sick of it. And it's not even about a writer writing about what they want either because I already expected that, but Esaka did her absolute best to try and disprove the bond between Naruto and Sasuke and change narratives completely even for individual cases for the sake of telling her "story". SNS-moments weren’t romantic to her and she quite literally made fun of it by copying them in her story to point out its "irrelevance", but give them to her het-ship and now all of a sudden it is romantic???? She basically calls Kishimoto a liar because ‘Sasuke Retsuden’ in particular is a direct response to ‘Gaiden’ (made by Kishimoto). She blatantly tried to disprove anything he said and indicated about her ship. She wrote about characters that, yes, have the same name as those in ‘Naruto’, but are so out of character it hurts. It took me months to recover my lost braincells. 

I don't think my post about it is still up, but to name a few things in that novel if you're interested: Sasuke resents Naruto and his test-tube daughter because he’d rather travel with Sakura, his wife whom he loves so much. But he has to do stuff just because Hokage Naruto said so and his daughter wants to stay in Konoha so he has no choice but to comply. Being apart from his wife-(did we mention he loves her so much? because he does. so much.)- makes him feel so very lonely and he misses her body so much because he knows it so well. He fails to do anything other than being jealous about the women-deprived prisoners going after the new hot doctor, Sakura, who is his wife btw. that he loves a lot in case you missed it. and he rather stares at trees that remind him of her than helping his friend Naruto who’s apparently dying from his own chakra or whatever kind of bs. Sasuke lets himself be bullied by prison-guards that aren’t even Shinobi, for having long hair and looking like a girl, though Esaka makes sure to mention how so very handsome he is and he looks like a cat. Sasuke loses a battle against an overgrown lizard and tries the same damn jutsu 4 times(!!!!) before realizing it may actually not work, I think because he forgot how to fight, but he can however create anything from ice like Elsa (Frozen), or from dirt like some Gaara-hybrid to make Sakura a ring because he loves her so much ofc… oh and he’s now a healer too. Sasuke sacrifices people’s lives even when it’s not necessary at all bc ig Esaka thinks he's a killer, and also he wouldn’t mind being brought back with Edo Tensei if it means he can stay with Sakura, because fuck everything they’ve been through in the original story, yeah? They also immediately forgive the bad guy cuz he's so relatable even though he just murdered I dunno how many people. SS kiss while an injured Naruto is squished in between them because SS-shippers have some sort of “Naruto has to watch our ship being in love to really make it legit because that’ll learn him for getting in between!”-kink (that's real actually) and according to Esaka, Sasuke is so worried about his daughter and in fact did meet up with them during those 10+ years because he loves them oh-so-much and fuck you Kishimoto that’s why. 

Be so fr right now. It’s such a joke. And these are just the few things on the top of my head that I remembered ;-; ...

Again, what are they defending exactly? It would be nice to just have a genuine fan of the story write an actual story. No other motive other than "I really like the story and would love to explore some options while respecting Kishimoto's work because it'd be fun!" Except, that's unfortunately not very marketable and ffs it's just sad. (I know there's a Kakashi version and I personally really want to know more about his role as Hokage and what he's done etc, but alas.)

[magicalgirlypop]

honestly, i am so deep into magical girl fandoms that i forget their focus on female characters and sapphic ships isn't the norm in every fandom. like i was just watching this video because i needed some background noise while i drew

and i was so blown away by how male centered all the fandoms featured here are. m/m ships are the front and centre while f/f ships and female characters are pushed to the back. even in fandoms with a more platonic/family oriented focus, the relationships between male characters always take precedence over those of female characters. and you can't tell me "well, the female characters in x media just aren't well written" because male characters can be worse written and fandoms will take what little personality they've been given and make so many aus, hcs, fanart, fanfics etc. bbc sherlock fandom gave a male character who never even fucking appeared in the show a whole personality, backstory, characterization etc but never bothered to do the same with the female characters they claim were poorly written.

and honestly, its so sad. because there's so many good female oriented media and f/f ships out there but they just won't get the attention that male oriented media gets because people always need a man in everything. you can use the excuse of the female characters being poorly written all you want but even in media where they ARE well written, they get pushed aside in favour of men.

and god forbid you call this out, especially if you're a lesbian, you'll be accused of being homophobic and hating all mlm. i've seen it happen so many times on twitter. just because someone criticizes how mlm always gets precedence over wlw, doesn't mean they hate mlm. mlm rep is important but it sucks how its always given preference over wlw just because people prefer following men's stories than women's stories.

[jjkyaoi]

every time there’s a “how are they so in sync????” said from an outsider character moment w ships i like i’m standing up and screaming at my screen like a dad watching the superbowl

[jibanyans-chocobar]

Seeing how fandoms I'm in treat female characters I love (cough Sakura from Naruto and Dashi from The Octonauts cough) I now declare myself a "hated-for-no-reason-women-defender" and no one will stop me from loving these girls 🗣️‼️‼️

[jaguarys]

Truly criminal we didn't get more Sasuke and Killer Bee interactions like that is just undeniably the funniest dynamic ever. Sasuke who fully intends on killing his ass vs "who is this sassy lost child." Sasuke traumadumps his tragic backstory and Bee asks him when they started letting children join international terrorist organizations

[rewritingcanon]

Sasuke Uchiha

im so sorry i havent watched naruto all ik is that guy is nawtttt attracted to women

[phoenixyfriend]

So, what is an intrusive crossover?

(In response to this post)

The thing is I had a post about this way, way back, like... probably somewhere in the 2014-2016 era? My Marvel-and-Naruto period.

But I cannot find it.

Anyway.

I divide crossovers into categories or types, and here the most basic ones.

Intrusive: A character from one setting ends up in another, completely unrelated setting. They do not share a universe, do not share a planet, nada. This is 'falls through a portal' type of crossover. EXAMPLE: A Witch's Favor, where Wanda Maximoff and Maria Rambeau (Marvel) end up in the Star Wars universe due to an unexplained spell malfunction.

Shared Verse: The settings could theoretically, in some manner, exist in the same universe without ever intersecting. EXAMPLE: I usually use Naruto for this example, e.g. the Hidden Continent exists in the Pacific but has had minimal influence/interaction with the rest of the setting up to this point because it's magically cut off from the rest of the planet. For Star Wars, this is usually pretty easy by just putting whatever the second canon is as just. A planet in Wild Space. They exist in the same universe! They just haven't found each other yet! A great example is the fic A Star to Steer By, by @norcumii and @dogmatix. A subset of this is fics where one is the distant past of the other, like Muse on This or Red-Eyed Black Widow.

Mixed Verse: The setting is one that involves both canons influencing each other to a degree, or being in the same verse without being a fusion AU or shared-verse. The settings exist together, both having strong worldbuilding elements of the original, but are not fully themselves and show obvious elements of the other. EXAMPLE: Unfortunately my most recent example is an HP crossover so. Please keep in mind that this is from four years ago, before R*wling outed herself as a massive bigot: Professor Storm.

Fusion: more or less 1:1 "this character from fandom 1 would be this character from fandom 2" or otherwise "characters from fandom 1 reimagined in fandom 2 with none of the original setting." For a long time, HP was the biggest and most constant example, but uhhh that's clearly been falling out of favor like raw eggs. EXAMPLE: After Me Comes the Flood.

There are other types, like infusing the plot of one narrative into the setting and characters of the other, which is a really fun kind of fusion (I always come back to thinking about Age of Marvels by justplainrii, which only ever got three chapters but still eats at my brain sometimes), buuuuut I'd say most crossovers are some variant of the above four.

[imminent-danger-came]

There is a distinct difference between "something good with flaws" and "something bad that's almost good" me thinks

[cloudabserk]

hey guys i wanted to thank you so much for supporting my art over the years!! i just hit 6k followers and i’m so excited :D

i’ve really been struggling and having a very difficult time for the past 6 or 7 months, so to be able to create every day and share it with people and have it mean something to them is so special to me. thank you so much to everyone who’s commented and shared, but also even to anyone who’s smiled because of something i did, thank you for letting me be part of your life and happiness 💙

if you guys wanna support my work you can here on ko-fi, or you can offer to commission me if there’s something specific you want. don’t feel pressure to, i’m not in dire need or anything as i have a support system in my family, but if i can earn money from my art, i can continue to spend a lot of time on it instead of trying to get a full time job right away

thank u guys 💙💙💙

[narudoodles]

Update! A kind soul over on twitter let me know that there are pretty reliable AI art checkers online, that have been developed by people specialising in AI and machine learning!

An NYT article also talks about the pros and cons of a number of them.

I tested all the 3 free open access sites (Illuminarty, Optic AI or Not, Umm-Maybe) and only Illuminarty and Optic AI or Not gave consistent results on both art and photographs.

I'll put the links below so anyone can go and check for whichever art they want to (download the original images from tumblr posts, and upload them)

https://www.aiornot.com/#home

https://app.illuminarty.ai/

These are the results :

Optic flagged it as AI immediately.

But Illuminarty had very interesting aspect : when I uploaded the full image, AI probability was 10%. but, on cropping out the bottom of the image (jacket) the probability jumped to 73.9%

This is consistent with my original comment on the art here

My limited understanding of these programs indicate that they scan the entire image including all the individual pixels. AI programs like Stable Diffusion, Mid Journey, DallE all leave signal artifacts when they process an image, which is then left on the final pic generated!

Compare these two @/skykashi original arts, that are immediately flagged as human made.

And now I get to my favourite AI art bro in the fandom @madasama! I commend you for admitting that you not only use AI, but are proud of producing a large number of "real" arts in such a short time!

Here's your "art"s results!!

@elhnrt made a far more detailed and organised post about this specific weirdo, feel free to check it out!

I will be using fandom tags on this particular post so that it has a broader reach. Especially for genuine digital artists and art lovers. Save the links, and always keep an eye out for AI, it's everywhere these days.

[oh-no-its-bird]

FUBAR MENTION IN MY STRAWPAGE INBOX LETS FUCKING GO

[spacealligator]

me standing up in the circle of people: hello, my name is Space Alligator and I'm addicted to starting WIPs I'll never finish. the rest of them in chorus: hello Space Alligator. me: I haven't started a WIP in two months *claps go around the circle* me: but! *already sobbing* yesterday I started ANOTHER ONE! Even though I already had NINE STORIES in my WIP folder! everyone in chorus again: you're valid *the fanfic writers anonymous counselor stands and hugs me and everybody claps*

[happypanda101]

Apologies for yet another Naruto rant, I’ve just been overthinking about things lately lol.

The fact that people continue to argue that Sasusaku got no development at all or came out of nowhere honestly boggles my mind? Granted, I know a lot of people watched the anime rather than read the manga. But looking at the manga, it’s made more obvious that Sasuke had a crush or at least had soft spot for Sakura in part 1. Things get more complicated in shippuden, but they are also able to have their moments too.

Now, am I saying it’s the best developed ship ever? Heck no. I, like a lot of people in the fandom, wish they could have gotten more development. Also maybe an explanation as to why they had feelings for each other. A lot of people like to say that Sakura’s love was shallow becasue she only liked him because of his looks, but when you actually look over everything, looks are never mentioned by Sakura at all. She’s either worried about her own or commenting on Sasuke’s skills.

Also, despite what some fans like to say, Sasuke never out right rejected Sakura’s feelings. When he knocks her out and plays the “I have no reason to love her or be loved by her” line, he’s talking to Kakashi. Sasuke is a very traumatized character, he’s not going to openly admit he loves someone.

However, what really has to irrates me is when people try to argue that NaruHina got more development, which like? Bro, a whole ass movie had to be made to get them together. And as much as a soft spot I have for the Last, it wasn’t even that good! They had to bring the space aliens in again! I like NaruHina, but it’s obvious that the simps over at SP had a role to play in why the ship actually became canon.

Anyway, you don’t have to like the pairing. I know I don’t like a few ships that ended up becoming canon. However, it would be nice that whenever a Sasusaku fan tries to explain why they ship them an anti doesn’t comment: “lol Sasuke never liked her he hated her she sucks.” The amount of times I’ve seen these fuckers on a good Sasusaku analysis is tiring.

Just leave people alone. The worlds not gonna end over people shipping a ship you don’t like.

[shyflowerhologram]

this doesn't make sense (Deidara rarely does but), what does "thanks to Uchiha blood" mean? if Sasuke didn't have Uchiha blood and genes, he would be a different person, a random villager maybe? Genes make up the whole person, his personality, his looks, his abilities. Sasuke was born as Uchiha, formed as a blob of cells based on Uchiha Gene, expressed them and developed. What do you want him to do, Deidara? Erase just part of his DNA to appease your trauma? I guess that's what most dudebros demand but it doesn't work like that.

For comparison we can look at Naruto. He maybe wouldn't have those powers without kyuubi, but he still would be the same person, because kyuubi isn't in his genome. Meanwhile Uchiha abilities are part of Sasuke's genome. It's really simple. (No, I'm not hating Naruto, it's just a fact).

[phoenixyfriend]

Making this its own post instead of an ask.

I divide crossovers into categories or types, and here the most basic ones.

Intrusive:

A character from one setting ends up in another, completely unrelated setting. They do not share a universe, do not share a planet, nada. This is "falls through a portal" type of crossover. EXAMPLE: A Witch's Favor, where Wanda Maximoff and Maria Rambeau (Marvel) end up in the Star Wars universe due to an unexplained spell malfunction.

Shared Verse:

The settings could theoretically, in some manner, exist in the same universe without ever intersecting. EXAMPLE: I usually use Naruto for this example, e.g. the Hidden Continent exists in the Pacific but has had minimal influence/interaction with the rest of the setting up to this point because it's magically cut off from the rest of the planet. For Star Wars, this is usually pretty easy by just putting whatever the second canon is as just. A planet in Wild Space. They exist in the same universe! They just haven't found each other yet! A great example is the fic A Star to Steer By, by @norcumii and @dogmatix. A subset of this is fics where one is the distant past of the other, like Muse on This or Red-Eyed Black Widow.

Mixed Verse:

The setting is one that involves both canons influencing each other to a degree, or being in the same verse without being a fusion AU or shared-verse. The settings exist together, both having strong worldbuilding elements of the original, but are not fully themselves and show obvious elements of the other. EXAMPLE: Unfortunately my most recent example is an HP crossover so. Please keep in mind that this is from four years ago, before R*wling outed herself as a massive bigot: Professor Storm.

Fusion:

More or less 1:1 "this character from fandom A would be this character from fandom B" or otherwise "characters from fandom A reimagined in fandom B with none of the original setting." For a long time, HP was the biggest and most constant example, but uhhh that's clearly been falling out of favor like raw eggs. I've seen a lot of good ones for Hunger Games, though, and even wrote my own, but I know some other common ones are Steven Universe (which gem are they?), AtLA (which bender type are they?), or Pokemon (what trainer type are they). Also, arguably, generic AUs that don't take place in canon-verse, like modern or historical or zombie or Generic Cyberdystopia. EXAMPLE: After Me Comes the Flood.

Element Overlay:

A world-building element from Fandom B is applied to the setting and characters of Fandom A. Common examples are Daemon AUs or Sentinel/Guide AUs. I think a fun thing to point out is that, while they don't technically have a source fandom of origin since they were developed communally by fandom, soulmate AUs and omegaverse count as well.

There are other types, like infusing the plot of one narrative into the setting and characters of the other, which is a really fun kind of fusion (I always come back to thinking about Age of Marvels by justplainrii, which only ever got three chapters but still eats at my brain sometimes), buuuuut I'd say most crossovers are some variant of the above.

[reginamillls]

I get loving a side character I do so I like to view them as like a lil treat

the main characters are your dinner, they're the main course if you will and you need to eat dinner every day

you don't need a dessert after every dinner though

so when a side character does come up, it's a fun surprise, and you end up getting your lil treat at the end of dinner