#neji hyuga ask

[okamirayne]

*a Wild Friend turns dramatically in your desk chair cradling a fluffy white cat (it's a plushy)*

Do you ever think about how Neji spent his whole life rebelling against fate and destiny to be able to carve his own path only for Kishimoto to kill him off doing exactly what his destiny was determined to be from birth and then retroactively make his whole life struggle meaningless by establishing that fate is actually a real thing in the world by having Naruto and Sasuke be literally the chosen ones destined to change the ninja world

*takes a sip of tea (it's apple juice)*

I think about this a lot cuz it feels like a real fart in my face, ya know

*takes another sip, the cup is somehow fuller than before (it's tears)*

Anyway, this is definitely not me trying to not immediately dive into OtC after bawling my eyes out over BtB nuh-uh, no way, no how...

Except it totally is and I'm losing that battle, goodbye

*the Wild Friend turns the chair again and disappears*

*a Wild Friend turns dramatically in your desk chair cradling a fluffy white cat (it's a plushy)*

Do you ever think about how Neji spent his whole life rebelling against fate and destiny to be able to carve his own path only for Kishimoto to kill him off doing exactly what his destiny was determined to be from birth and then retroactively make his whole life struggle meaningless by establishing that fate is actually a real thing in the world by having Naruto and Sasuke be literally the chosen ones destined to change the ninja world

......*reliving the event*....

.......*eyes begin to twitch*....

........ *defaults to the Dastardly Twins excellent method of deep-seated denial*

I think about this a lot cuz it feels like a real fart in my face, ya know

Oh yes. I know. I bloody know.

I bloody remember it...

*considers the ceiling with false calm* You know when you laugh for a minute because you're so deep in the ass-end of feeling emotionally gaslit and cheated that you're processing the crap that's unfolding at the speed of a virus-molested XP Windows laptop...you know the one, right? You've got about ten alerts going off but you're stuck like a frozen monitor...your screen is blank...I mean, you can smell smoke coming outta your vents...but you're not catching on....because the BASTARD BACKDOOR MALWARE plot device you're reading (or watching) is like some dirty little Trojan Horse worming its way through your mother-bloody-board and your CPU is like WTF, cannot COMPUTE...and you're still not too alarmed because system's aren't yet fully shutting down...I mean...

Oh ho! What's this?! Neji just got impaled? Neji's on the brink of shuffling off his mortal coil!? What tosh! What Bollocks! Oh so he's leaking vital fluids...so what? That's happened before! No need for alarm. Nothing to see here, kids. It is but a scratch! A flesh wound! Just a waft of smelly red herring Kishimoto has thrown in there to distract you from the fact that there's no WAY that Neji's freedom-seeking character arc is about to go up in flames...because...

....wait..............

...........

WHHHHYYY?

Argh...*self-soothes, violently*...Way to kick-up the feels, Wild Friend...I probably deserve it...fair play to you, fair play...

Well...it is at this point that we have no other choice...

And I am still honoured and touched that you revisit BtB and it's following instalments (bloody hell, you read fast btw) to help with the hurt...or maybe to masochistically pick at the scab...but I get it...Damn, I GET IT. I mean, I swore up and down I'd never go POST WAR....and then Heaven Hold Us made a dirty little liar outta me.

[atoriv-art]

the gay thing really takes away from the villain speeches

[saintjudasi]

kakashi has not been telling him any of that

[kankuroplease]

You’re a fangtastic artist so congrats 🖤🖤🖤

My requests: tsau nejiten (I love the way they look in your style)- since it’s spooky season I’d love it if you’d include that vibe in the drawing and also make it as spicy as you’re okay with? Xoxo

Thanks! I did warn these requests wouldn’t take place during October, so it’s not spooky themed 😅 however I hope you enjoy~

[erumai-maadu]

more Konoha 12 headcanons bleaker

i’m gonna assume that last word is a typo???? unsure. BUT HAVE MORE HEADCANONS!!!!

team 7 and team gai are always together and team 10 and team 8 are always together. such is the consequence of your jounin senseis dating

tenten’s Eternal RivalTM is temari but she’s never actually admitted it out loud. shikamaru is so scared that tenten is going to steal his girlfriend through the power of youth and sweaty challenges

lee and sasuke are both insane about training and randomly challenge each other to taijutsu battles. as well as lee and naruto get along, him and sasuke have a similar intensity and focus level when it comes to training and lee prefers to train with sasuke when he can’t train with any of his team or with sakura

speaking of team 7 and taijutsu, sakura trains with team gai all of the time, especially with lee. their sparring has gotten so out of hand that tsunade had a special training ground made for them out in the mountains so they’d stop breaking the communal training grounds and pissing off all the chunin and jounin.

shikamaru and neji play shogi together all the time. neji has only beaten shikamaru a few times, always when he’s distracted thinking about something else

ino, shino, and tenten are the snoops/detectives and somehow know everything about everyone all the time

slugs aren’t bugs but shino still goes wild over sakura’s slug summon. deeply upset about naruto’s toad summons though

choji and lee have spicy curry eating contests all the time and are basically keeping the curry of life shop open with their patronage alone

kiba, naruto, and tenten are the agents of chaos of the group and their victim is somehow always neji

hinata hangs out a lot with team gai because of neji and is really close with lee and tenten. lee is one of the people who helps bring hinata out of her shell and become more confident in herself

shino insists on addressing all of team gai with ‘senpai’ until they finally get him to stop after they all get promoted in the second chunin exams.

lee cries whenever someone calls him senpai

the girls all hang out together regularly and have sleepovers at each others’ places all the time. the guys see the girls making plans to hang out and THEN decide they should plan something too

neji isnt allowed to play card games because everyone thinks he’ll use his byakugan to cheat. hinata is allowed to play but nobody ever notices that she keeps using her byakugan. kiba has lost so much money betting against her

sasuke nearly gets banned a few times for trying to use his sharingan but he gets clowned on for it because it’s so noticeable and he gives up after that

sakura loves using her strength to carry people around. she’ll just pick up her friends and start walking around, especially if she’s drunk

speaking of getting drunk, sakura tenten and choji have insane alcohol tolerances and because of that they’re usually the one paying for drinks when the k12 go out. sakura is the one to beat in drinking contests and the only one who has is tsunade

[alybur635]

doodle page I did a sec ago but forgot to put here LMAO

[ask-nejiten]

Is the Hyuga blush genetic? Does neji flush like a tomato when hes shy too?

Kinda hard to make a guy with ABSOLUTELY NO SHAME blush- to be honest.

He does really like it when his skills and intellect are complimented over his looks though!

[nejileeweek]

October 1 - First kiss / Youth

October 2 - Mutual Pining / Freedom

October 3 - War / Vacation

October 4 - Training / Mission

October 5 - Help / Confession

October 6 - Bandages / Matching

October 7 - Free day / Any AU

AO3 collection

- it's Nejilee week so the piece must be focused on Neji Hyuga x Rock Lee. no other ships(polyam with them) looking at the people who Know.

- No incest / adult x minor (yes ik they're not that but some people make weird aus... no.)

- Nsfw is allowed, but tag it properly + if it's art, you can put a preview then the full piece (with censoring because of Tumblr being Tumblr) under a read more

Tag @ nejileeweek for me to see the post, and you can also use #nejileeweek or #nejileeweek2024 , I'll be checking them and reblogging.

[chrimsonfoxdon]

1 for the ask game, we all have beef with Naruto canon so let's see the rant I know you got ready amd waiting to be unleashed 👀

OOOHHHH boy howdy…

There are MANYYYY things I don’t like about Naruto canon, but I think we all know what pisses me off most.

There was literally no point in Neji dying. None. If anything, it makes his story arc WORSE!! Dying for a main branch member?? Isn’t that what he was fighting against??? “He made his own choice to do it” except he didn’t?? It’s that illusion of free choice shit. It’s infuriating.

“Well if he didn’t hinata and Naruto wouldn’t have ended up together!!” Why wasn’t hinata fighting Pain to protect him enough? Why wasn’t he telling him that she loved him enough?? Like I’m not saying that that was a perfect moment, but it’s marginally better than whatever was happening during the war arc.

It only happened for shock value. That’s it. And I hate it and I just choose to pretend that it didn’t happen and he’s fine and living the life he deserved to live.

Ask game here!!

[asking-tenten]

What Do you feel abour Neji?

sometimes, i don't know either

[chaosnojutsu]

Neji deserved to die during the war arc. He did not offer anything relevant to the story at that point, and he was pretty much written off post Gaara rescue arc along with the rest of Team Gai. No point in having him around in Boruto tbh

tell it to someone else :)

[shukakumoodboard]

greetings gaaleesbians i have returned victorious from my venture into the sacred lands of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area and other glorious places in japan with absolutely banger toilets and thusly i can resume my scheduled shitposting. here’s some nejiten garbage from the draft of the upcoming chapter of tgod

[kankuroplease]

I need more forbidden romantic-ish moments between lee and michi and neji and tenten

A quick flustered foursome cooking moment 😅

[mahoushojoe]

re: naruto not changing the hyuga clan while i do believe naruto has a responsibility to do this as a) a good friend of someone deeply affected by this b) a supposedly good person c) basically their president and d) someone married to a direct beneficiary of this system i still think hinata and the actual hyuga clan itself does not get enough shit for just sitting on their asses oppressing the branch members and waiting for naruto to show them the light

[erumai-maadu]

(Slowly going back to my naruto era again…. Yay ) it’s so frustrating that Team Gai didn’t get to mourn completely. Like only Lee did and I get it that’s his rival and tenten that was her friend who also dealt with Lee and Gai ‘s shenanigans and Gai felt out of character when he told Lee like I get it but he never grieve after losing one of his students….

(muhahahaha come back to the pits with us mel. we have cookies!)

So much about Neji’s death was handled so badly, which explains the commonality of Neji Lives AUs. because EVERYONE knew that was bullshit.

So earlier I was watching an OSP Trope Talk (that series is a goldmine for writers btw everyone should go check it out) on fridging, and there were a few things that Red said which stuck out to me a lot.

Side note here: Neji wasn’t fridged, necessarily, but since fridging is a bad character death, Red was discussing a lot of character death tropes and how to write a good character death.

The main takeaway from the video is that a good character death feels like a conclusion to their arc somehow. Like even if it cuts off their life and their arc/future to some degree, things have wrapped up enough in their arc that the death feels correct or acceptable in some way. That clearly doesn’t happen here.

I think the reality is that Kishimoto designed Team Gai to be side characters, and killed Neji for emotional impact to Naruto and Hinata, as well as to set an example for how brutal the war was going to be. Nobody else died. It wasn’t a satisfying conclusion to his arc in any way, especially given that his whole narrative was about breaking free from the idea of the branch protecting the main family with their lives.

I think the arc of the Hyuuga clan was handled badly just in general but that’s a different (and related) conversation.

People can talk about “well it was Neji’s choice not because he had to” all they want. it just doesn’t feel satisfying. it’s a spit in the face to everything that Neji’s arc had worked up for till then.

Another thing is that a good character death has the characters around them grieve and be deeply affected by it.

Lee didn’t really grieve. He got to be sad, got to go “nooooo nejiiiiiii” and then never really mentioned it again. Naruto got a scene with Neji (that was longer than anything he got with HIS OWN TEAM RAHHH GRRR) and then was at the funeral.

The war was raging around them so one can argue they didn’t have the time to grieve. And honestly that could’ve been a very interesting thing. Forcing all of them to delay their grief because there’s a war going on, we’ll have to deal with this later, having them fight to stay focused on the task at hand, and the consequences of putting off that emotion.

Seeing something, anything that Lee and Tenten and Gai do to keep Neji in their minds. Even just them visiting his grave. Gai lost his father in a war and to lose a student, someone he probably saw as like a child to him, in a war would have been incredibly traumatic and hard for him.

Insane that in the manga there is literally no panel of Lee and Tenten at Neji’s funeral. We see team 10. but not Gai or Lee or Tenten. In the anime they’re there, so small condolences I guess.

Neji, like Shikamaru, is what I like to call a “main side character”. They are the side characters with a lot of screen/panel time and have these big and important narrative arcs that take up time and have an impact on the main character.

Lee, and Tenten especially are minor side characters who don’t get much. And Gai to some extent.

Lee gets his match against Gaara and his time during the chunin exams, and then beyond that I don’t believe we see much of him in a major narrative way. Even in the retrieval arc he’s mostly just there to show how strong Kimimaro is, rib Gaara a little about injuring him, and then sit there and ooh and aah while he summons enough sand to change the landscape.

Gai gets a bit of panel time as elite kickass jounin and Kakashi’s good friend, but still gets relegated to the side for Obito once he pops up. Madara vs Gai changed the culture the same way Lee dropping his weights did, and I think having Naruto bullshit no jutsu him back to life was…. A Choice. I got thoughts about that one too. I like that they did permanently disable him as a consequence, so his choice does have some narrative weight that others don’t. Gai gets a level of respect and dignity as a character but doesn’t really get an arc.

Tenten is the side character of all side characters. Doesn’t have a canonical last name, we know nothing about her, gets a fairly forgettable jutsu that you only really think about if you’re obsessed with her (diagnosis), and gets less screentime than Tsunade’s pet pig or Naruto’s sad boy hours swing. Her main traits come from anime filler arcs that only exist because some mfs on SP’s team LOVE team gai with all their hearts, and i adore them for this. But again, as a very minor character, she doesn’t get an arc or a focus or anything. and that’s fine, such is the nature of side characters, and such is my burden for getting obsessed with them so hard.

the point of all of this is that Tenten and Lee, and Gai to some extent, aren’t narratively important enough to bother getting panel time for grief. I think that’s why they didn’t get any sort of scene mourning Neji. I and the rest of the team gai fandom care more about Team Gai than Kishimoto ever did and that’s a little sad.

In the end it’s just bad writing, plain and simple. If Kishi needed Neji to die, there was a lot of narrative setup that he skipped in the process, and a lot of narrative afterward that would’ve helped justify the choice and make it actually satisfying.

Neji Lives AU for the win, as always.

[gerardwayissexah]

What is Freefall about?

It’s a slow burn(ish) NejiTen fic about how Neji gradually loses his inhibitions and accepts that he’s falling for his teammate. Oh, and there’s plenty of sexual tension and smut between them. I swear, I’ll start posting the story one of these days since I started writing it back in August, and I’m 1-2 scenes away from finishing.