#sorry this is mostly deidara meta

[mixelation]

I’ve been wondering. What is actually keeping the akatsuki members stay in the akatsuki and not just defecting? For kisame and itachi it makes sense, but with people like sasori and kakuzu, who you can assume have been missing nin for a long time, why don’t they just up and leave? What’s making them stay on and work with the circus that the akatsuki is and listen to pein?

I think this question is one that Akatsuki fans largely actively avoid delving into, because it's very frustrating to answer. Like I'm not even 100% sure why Deidara can't just leave whenever he wants if he hates it so much. I mean, yes, in theory he could end up with a bunch of very dangerous people hunting him down.... but also the in-canon reason we seem to get is "he's bound by high school rules of combat bc Itachi was mean to him." So I think there must be parts that Deidara does enjoy, because he sticks around even after it gets both his arms blown off and the one other artist ninja dies and they give him an annoying idiot to work with.

If you want something vaguely canon, there's this video which goes into how different members were recruited. It is actually, as far as I can tell, a bunch of cut-scenes from a video game, so it is what i would call "canon only if you like it." But it's animated well and some of the characters do state reasons for why they go with Akatsuki. I'm not going to rewatch it right this second, but for example, I think Sasori says something like he wants to meet interesting people and see if he can find new art. (He finds Deidara. YOU'RE WELCOME.) Just keep in mind that because it's video game cut scenes, every encounter is set up to be the lead-up to a fight, and then there's a fade to black for the actual fight because that's the part where you're supposed to be playing the game.

For me I think there's multiple reasons, and different characters are going to weigh them different in their motivations:

It's basically a missing-nin union. It's a shit show and Kakuzu might kill you at any given moment, but there's steady work and theoretically protections from hunter-nin, and also even if your coworkers are assholes, you can call in their expertise. I think this was part of the pitch to Hidan in the video game movie: yeah he's immortal, but that doesn't mean he's immune to being imprisoned or sealed away or blown up and buried in a hole. Even immortal dudes benefit from having a partner.

Opportunities to do interesting things. I think several characters felt their talents were under-appreciated in their hometowns, but Akatsuki encourages people to be the best horrible monsters they can be. Oh, you want to blow up a castle? We have three jobs for that, AND you'll get a paycheck out of it. Also: even missing-nin need a sense of fulfillment. Like Kakuzu has gotten along fine by himself for decades, but I bet he secretly finds managing Akatsuki's finances to be satisfying.

Meet interesting people! You're immortal? So are THREE OTHER PEOPLE HERE-- Oh, you're into art? Guess who we just recruited--

All of these characters grew up in ninja villages, so I think they at least subconsciously perceive this sort of vaguely structured mission-system as how work is supposed to be done. And I think this cultural aspect of it means that they're predisposed to at least kinda sorta agree to some baseline rules, because that's just what you do. So, in my personal take on Deidara, I think he hated the structure and rigid rules of Iwa, but he's not against getting paid to blow shit up, and Akatsuki is a lot more loose with mission parameters so his art isn't completely stifled. He likes having cash to buy art supplies and hot meals, yeah. On the flip side I think Sasori liked having a lot of rules and structure; he just didn't like when the rules restricted his art, or when social rules meant he was "going against human decency even for a ninja" smh. So I think he'd actually be pretty willing to compromise certain things for the sake of buying into the ninja union, as long as he could still be churning out art.

One thing I think would be interesting to explore is what the consequences of Orochimaru defecting are. Because it seems like there never were any consequences for him, but no one looked at his example and went, "Oh, so I can just leave at any time." Maybe instead it had a unifying force, like EVERYONE is pissed they can't hunt him down and skin him alive. Deidara is like "oh, he just.... lost a fight to Itachi and left....?" and Sasori is like, "Yes, and now if any one of us multiple S-rank threats find him, it's on sight." And Deidara is like: "Well, only a COWARD would flee like that anyway, yeah."

[avenger-hawk]

i just read one of your asks about your future fics. have you considered writing about sasukes interactions with karin?? not sasukarin (but sasukarin is still a good ship!!) but i really like your karin meta and would love to see her in your fics, even if she isnt part of a ship!!

wow Anon I just realized in the last nice ask I received about my writing I forgot to mention a suisasu oneshot I started writing as a drabble here…I haven’t thought about writing something centered on Sasuke and Karin, usually I wrote about Team Taka as a team, as in my Team Taka headcanons here, here and in bits of In Power (ff.net/ ao3) and What He Wanted (ff.net/ ao3).

I know what you mean when you love a character like Karin and you want to see her more, even in a not shippy context. And I totally agree that SasuKarin really IS a good ship, the only worthy Sasuke ship with a girl, tbh. (I think Sasuino would be ok too but I’m not interested in it all all as I find it boring, and I prefer Saiino anyway).

(needless to say: SS shippers, don’t read, this is not for you. And since it’s properly tagged as anti, don’t bitch)

It’s only a matter of personal taste, I’m usually more interested in rarer pairings, and because when I think of Team Taka ships I’m more intrigued by suisasu and juusasu that in my opinion have room for both ‘healthy’ dynamics and darker ones. But if I weren’t so slow and full of future writing projects as you read, I’d totally like to write them. In fact, I’m gonna leave some random headcanons here cause I’m sorry I’m not able to write all the things I have in mind and you guys mention, AND because I’m so late replying to this ask that I feel guilty xD

My favourite things to read and write isn’t romance but dark stuff and hurt/comfort, so I would love some hurt/comfort between them, and there is a lot of possibility for this, just thinking about canon. I actually see SK hurt/comfort as canon behind the screen so you may have an idea already, both for shippy and non-shippy stuff.

For example, there’s nothing about Sasuke’s years at Otogakure but we know he was always with Orochimaru, not only training or taking poisons/drugs to get stronger, but also visiting other hideouts and assisting to his horrible experiments as well as seeing/meeting Suigetsu and Karin, mostly, as she was not a prisoner but a subordinate, kinda like Kabuto. She saw more about Sasuke than the others in Team Taka, and this may mean a lot of things. For example like in this fanart, inspired by that Karin-centric filler episode (I think 331) where she witnesses Orochimaru taking Sasuke in a dark room which seems quite creepy and may be interpreted as…eh, you get it. And there’s also Kabuto telling her that Sasuke sought Orochimaru, that he came her by his own choice…that, in this dark context, that he is ok with things being done to him (it’s the price for power). 

So it’s interesting to imagine Karin being more and more intrigued by this person, who saved her in the past, when they were genin, and who now came to her creepy leader that she knows very well, and ‘lets’ him do all sorts of things to him. Some random headcanons coming, more or less connected

-(tw: pain) Otogakure: she’s doing some work and she overhears someone moaning in pain, and she sees Sasuke shirtless, strapped to a table/bed and kind of squirming, as he’s been injected poison for his training and he’s clearly suffering.

(She takes his hand and tries to comfort him. She thinks he was in too much pain to remember but some time later he tells her ‘thank you. For being beside me that day’)

-(tw: r*pe) Orochimaru leaves the creepy room and tells her to heal Sasuke. When she enters she sees him battered bruised and bloodied everywhere, looking in pain and lost, defeated, and it’s easy to understand what happened, and that it’s neither a first nor a last time, but when he sees her he puts up a tough face, cause he doesn’t know her and he doesn’t know if he can trust her as maybe she’s like Kabuto. He can’t imagine that she (like in my Team Taka headcanons part 2) was r*ped too by Orochimaru, that most of his ‘most interesting subjects’ have been at least once. He’s the most special which means Oro always comes to him ‘to toughen him up’ and ‘train’ him or ‘just’ to be repayed for making him stronger, and he’s constantly manipulated by him (that he’s not as strong as Itachi, that he needs him to be stronger and defeat his brother, and so on) and she knows this. She, too, is wary of him cause he might be so manipulated that he supports him and if she says something wrong he might tell Oro who might punish her and she is ok with him now, he leaves her be without molesting her, so she wants to keep the peace. So she’s discreet and heals him, not in the impersonal way Kabuto does though. Sasuke appreciates silently.

-(tw: random violence and blood) Inspired by this amazing fanart by @lisimba-art. Sasuke is trained to use his curse mark, but it’s hard to completely control his powers in that form, with those weird wings and everything. So it’s exhausting for his body but also for his mind, he can’t even think straight at some point, and he can’t control his emotions either, even though he tries hard cause he can’t be weak. Orochimaru makes him fight against other ‘test subjects’ with the curse mark or with other powers he developed on them, and Sasuke kills them…he hates killing, as there is only one person he wants to kill. He feels his body move and he can’t avoid it, he feels his nails slashing another human and can’t avoid it, it’s horrible, it’s like being trapped in a nightmare. 

Karin stumbles on the fighting ground and sees him. They know each other by then, she is worried about him, many in Oto bet on how long he will last, if he will last, when Orochimaru will ‘devour’ him, if the curse mark will ‘devour’ him first. When she sees him Orochimaru, who was observing him with Kabuto, left already. Sasuke is standing alone, a few corpses around him. She approaches him, talking slowly and calmly, to check his wounds. Nothing too serious, the most worrying thing is his mental/emotional state, cause he looks around without actually seeing things, he seems lost, troubled. 

It takes a few minutes for him to see the one who’s speaking to him, and when he does he’s not in his usual state anyway, Karin can tell not just from his chakra but from his body language. He’s standing so, so close to her, his shoulders are hunched and his eyes are empty, or somewhere else still. Or maybe they want to be somewhere else, she can’t tell. She should feel the heat radiating from his toned body -she dreamt of a moment like this- but the tanned version of what is normally pale is so cold..maybe he got so close because she’s warm instead.   

“Sasuke…bite me, you’ll get some chakra back and you won’t feel cold anymore,“ she tells him, but he just hovers over her, silent as a hawk watching its prey, but unlike it, just staring at her. 

“I killed all of them” Sasuke’s voice is low and raspy, but he’s back, she’s glad but also sad because he’s clearly upset by what happened and she knows why. Everyone does. 

- (tw: mentions of blood/violence/r*pe) This works both for Otogakure and for Hebi/Taka travelling. Night time, Karin hears some low pained sounds and she realizes it’s Sasuke having a nightmare, about either the above mentioned moment where he was forced to kill random people, or about some abuse Orochimaru inflicted on him, either directly or through someone else like Kabuto. He suddenly wakes up and realizes Karin was there. She tries comforting him by saying that she knows what he felt back then cause she was done similar things, and also Suigetsu and Kabuto and others, even though she doesn’t minimize his experience (as Oro’s favourite he took more than others of whom he soon got tired). It’s a hurt/comfort moment where they share intimate traumatic experiences and bond.

Bonus dark points if the experience Sasuke had a nightmare of, involved the aforementioned indirect abuse inflicted by Orochimaru but indirectly, through his current comrades Suigetsu and Juugo, ofc hypnotized/drugged/in some trance. Karin connects with the way he sometimes looks at them when he’s more tired and vulnerable, almost imperceptibly but she can see chakra shifts. They talk, he doesn’t say anything but the things he said in his sleep were obvious so she tries to make him admit and he does, as he’s honest. He doesn’t blame them, he knows they were under Orochimaru’s power just like he was during his curse mark mode when he wasn’t able to control it.

He thinks that Suigetsu and Juugo don’t even remember that experience but they do, exactly like he does with his killing random people in curse mode form. 

More bonus dark points if Karin assisted to the traumatic thing cause she was Oro’s assistant too, sort of.

Related to my Akatsuki AU that is mostly in my mind for now (how unexpected lol) and it’s Itachi/Sasuke centric but there’s also a lot of Sasuke interactions (like, with Deidara a lot, I just like the idea) and lots of Team Taka that exists in this context first as Orochimaru’s subordinates along with Kabuto, then as Sasuke’s comrades, cause while Itachi is a full fledged Akatsuki, like Orochimaru (he never left Akatsuki in my AU), Sasuke is not, and like Orochimaru has subordinates affiliates to the Akatsuki, Itachi has Sasuke. Unlike Akatsuki wearing cloaks with red clouds, Akatsuki ‘lesser’ members wear black cloaks like Sasuke and Team Taka wore in canon. They are given missions too, they’re younger and less experienced that the others and their interactions and dynamics are similar to canon ones.

Uh Anon why did you make me think of more interesting scenarios tho, I had too many already lol