#there is so much more out there beyond the canon ships and beyond multi-sakura

[renaerys]

Heya Renaerys. Can you tell me your thoughts on multi saku ships? 👀 I'm not a super majestic avid fan of Naruto and I'm just one of the normal ones who like the canon ships of it, but as I found out that there are fans that ship Sakura with other characters, I got curious about the nature of it. What is the appeal? How does the ship/s work? What makes you love it and enjoy it so much?

Ps. Worry not! Despite liking the canon ships, I'm open to multi shipping. So I hope these questions appear "safe" lol 😋

I am someone who does not in any way support the "canon" ships in Naruto. So I only ship things are not that lol. But I'm a fan of people liking what they like and not bothering others, so I sincerely hope you find fanworks featuring your favorite ships that you can enjoy and love!

I'm not interested very much in multi-sakura. I actively ship only two Sakura ships, which are SasoSaku and ShiSaku, and in very specific, nitpicky ways. That is just my personal preference. I'm supportive of some other Sakura ships and I enjoy experimenting with rare pairs if I get a really good idea, but they don't get my heart pumping like these two do. My main problem with multi-Sakura is that the majority of that fandom doesn't actually care about who Sakura, the canon character, is and instead they flatten her to be a cardboard, self-insert YA heroine with a vaguely stubborn streak. I don't think this is like evil or bad or anything. There's a reason this type of main female character archetype is popular and ubiquitous. But I find it excruciatingly boring, personally.

Canon Sakura is kind of a shitty person. She is extremely selfish in many of her decisions, and her brand of romantic love is obsessive and smothering and, again, selfish. She is a very insecure person. For all of part 1, she is lazy and unserious in her role as a shinobi and cares only about her crush on a boy. And she is really bad at taking no for an answer. She experiences a lot of growth in Shippuden, some of which mitigates and improves upon some of these earlier negative qualities. For example, she stops being lazy and starts actually working hard at being a shinobi and becomes pretty strong. She demonstrates more positive qualities, such as more compassion for others, a fighting spirit, and teamwork. She also just gets older, and with that comes the expected growth in maturity. A 16 year old is going to be more mature than a 12 year old.

But the negative qualities are part of her character and her growth, and I don't hold any of it against her. I think these qualities make her interesting and layered, and decidedly not the cardboard, blank slate, self-insert YA heroine type at all. Yet, so much multi-Sakura or "BAMF" Sakura content erases all of this nuance. To many of these types of fans, she's always been just a victim wronged at every turn, never did a thing wrong herself, every hot guy in the world wants to bang her for some completely mysterious and illogical reason, and she's "not like the other girls" in the laziest, most insipid ways. She becomes a chimera of the traits of many of the other female characters (she is sassy like Ino, caustic like Karin, tough like Temari). None of this is earned or even remotely close to who this character is in canon. And it makes me wonder--why are these people writing about Sakura when they really ought to be writing about any of these other female characters who actually do possess these traits and may be a better fit for a particular story or ship? Why do you have to steal these traits and give them to Sakura and make every ship about her?

I know why. You know why. I don't think I have to spell it out.

All of this being background to your question: what is the appeal of multi-Sakura? In short, multi-Sakura has become associated with self-inserting into a female character you've stripped down to bland oatmeal personality in a pretty package to make her appealing to the lowest common denominator and shipping her with any hot guy you want without thinking critically about why the pairing might make sense or work as evidenced by canon personality and/or events. Is that every multi-Sakura work in existence? Definitely not. Is it encompassing of every person who happens to have a Sakura ship? Not even close. But it is a significant and, sadly, vocal majority, and the term "multi-Sakura" itself has become shorthand for this kind of shipping preference and characterization (or, rather, lack thereof).

But just like any fandom preference, it's basically harmless. Boring and vapid, in my personal opinion, but harmless.

[tatchling]

Shipper tag game

tagged by @lunanoc (heathen <3)

What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care about anymore?

I wasn't much of a shipper when I was younger? and while I forget about ships, bringing them back to my attention is usually enough for me to go <3<3<3

Which ship would you consider your first one?

Steve/Bucky (mcu version) - I wouldn't say it was my first ship but the one I was really aware I was shipping - before then I really did like uh I think it's Fey/Kurogane (not sure on the names) from the dimension hopping CLAMP thing (where they look for Sakura's wings bits)

Your first fanfic was about which couple?

I had to check XD - An unfinished Steve/Bucky, written in 2015 - tbh I though my first fanfic was a brotherly relationship (no shipping) one, bc that's the oldest I do remember and that is complete

Do you remember the first couple you saw fanart of?

Probably Castiel/Dean? Supernatural was inescapable pre-2011

Have you ever gotten into ship discourse?

Not so much discourse as I got on some anti list for reaper76 for not shipping pure innocent white bread and macho aggressive man versions of the characters lolol

Did you use to have any NOTP or have one currently?

only one through all the fandoms I've been in - Tony/Steve (mcu version only) - I think the comics version is fine, this is a movies only dislike

Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr probably heihua? OH WAIT NO, it was Er Jing/Wu Erbai & Pan Zi/Wu Sanxing

Currently, do you have any OTPs?

Considering that I rarely ever (if ever) fall out of a ship, and that I both multi ship and rarepair ship (on top of sometimes liking the obvious main ship) there's a trove of ships in my pocket (it would need its own post probably)

Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Nah. Canon is canon, shipping is shipping. I sometimes wish they had but it never goes beyond.

Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

Uh not really? Maybe Pan Zi/Wu Sanxing, but mainly because the whole thing is nothing but pain and lies and broken promises on Pan Zi so...

Do you have any ship that, in the past, would've been considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

What is your favorite crack ship?

I don't do crack pairs lmao. Now ask me about my rarepairs and we'll be there forever.

What is the couple you read the most fanfics about?

Overall, either reaper76 or Steve/Bucky - mainly based on the size of these fandoms - more recently it's probably heihua

What do most of your ships usually have in common?

Complex relationships? No easy top/bottom, no simple who leads and who follows. I like them to be difficult but entangled in each other in a way that feels organic and layered and not just smashing random things together

What you absolutely hate in a ship?

If I can't make sense of it. I can make sense of a lot of ships, and I live and have lived in rarepair hell for years, so not being able to make heads or tails of how two characters would fit together means I can't ship them (and that there'll be no point telling me about them)

tagging @shaish, @tiesanjiaoshenanigans, @kelly42fox, @thatlittlemouse @mejomonster aaaaaaaaaand whoever else wants in

[unioncolours]

A 2nd Majsasaurus Year!

Today, 22nd of September 2021, it’s been two years since I officially joined the magical world of fandom. 22.9.2019 I uploaded the first chapter to my fic Shadows and Sand, and the rest is history.

I did a deep dive into my first year as a fic writer and active member of fandom last year, when it was my first anniversary. You can read it here!

In that meta discussion about my membership of fandom, I presented it as if walking on clouds. I was so, so happy and talked during all the discussion about my happiness in fandom.

Since that post was written, my life and also my perception of the fandom I am part of has changed. Change isn’t always bad, as I really had a honeymoon phase with fandom over a year ago, and the low after hit hard.

But let’s see what I’ve been up to and what I’ve been writing! The following year provided much change and fun things! Please keep reading 💜⬇

The first fic I wrote since 22.9.2020 was a Sakura x Ino fic. I had for a longer while been interested in writing a woman-loves-woman ship, which I had never done before, and as a wlw-person myself the urge to explore that part led to Promise me this is just a kiss. The pairing itself was chosen on rather random, it had to be two women and I like Ino, so I chose the most popular Ino-wlw ship for this for convenience.

I really liked writing the fic and it was well-received! It was the first time I had written a fic that was entirely centred around exploring feelings and having sex.

After this I jumped directly onto the next idea that had been boiling inside me for a longer while. Up to this point, all I had written, except the wlw-fic, had been set in the Naruto canonverse and I was itching to try to work with a multi-chaptered modern au! The pairing was of course my beloved Shikadai x Inojin.

It was during the creation of this fic I began to struggle. This was a new genre, as this was romance only and all my other works had been action and fantasy based, except the sex fic of course. I was maybe over critical and stressed, which resulted in me having a hard time writing it. But I made it. Was the sky always this beautiful? ended up being 35k long, and in hindsight, I freaking love, love, love how it turned out in the end and what it represented. I am very proud of this fic.

I “upgraded” as a fan by the end of October when I bought myself a digital drawing tablet. I began drawing fanart of Shikadai and Inojin and preferably them two together, haha! I still draw a few days a month and find it extremely fun as a side hobby beside the writing.

We are now in November 2020. By this time, I had completely finished my zine fic, Under the Scorching Sun, which I had written during September and October, for the Shikatema zine I was kindly accepted to. I was proud of what I had created and was eager for the rest of the contributors to wrap up theirs, so we’d have a wonderful zine for sale in 2021. It was lovely to write ShikaTema again. As the zine fic was about to be released in months from when I had at first finished it, I wanted of course to write something fans and friends could immediately take part of on the internet. I had hyped myself up to a state where I wanted to write a third and final story in my series To love and never let go, my epic series about Shikadai and Inojin.

Now, I should maybe have waited another month, but I was worried the readers would give up on me if I didn’t write it right away. In December, I began writing To find hope in the Universe, with my usual speed and love for the art.

What I by then didn’t realise or even recognise was that I was very slowly turning burned out. I ignored all the signs.

In December I wrote simultaneously as Hope in the Universe a fic that was part of the Shikatema server’s Secret Santa event. The fic’s name was The Ghost Stories of our Hearts, and it was ShikaTema, as the event’s name suggests. It was fun to write and despite the final big fic, Hope in the Universe, pressing down on me, I finished The Ghost Stories of our Hearts and was very happy with the result. Sadly, at this point the burnout began taking control over me, and I never managed to reply to the comments.

The 15th of January, I began uploading To find hope in the Universe. It was a lovely experience, even if it was tainted by negative feelings coming from my decreasing happiness and the fact that it didn’t do as well as To dance above the Stars, the second fic in the series. To deal with two very contradiction emotions, loving my work, the characters, how I have painted an entire world around the characters and how I knew some people honestly loved my hard work, and then the negative feelings coming from not feeling good enough and depressed, was a difficult thing to navigate and still is when I think back to that time. It didn’t help that during the process of uploading the fic I went through grief, and I chose distraction as my coping method. I kept writing and working, the only thing I ever knew.

Our pre-order of the Shikatema zine was in full motion by this time and it was a nerve-wracking time! Mostly because of excitement but also worry. I’m super happy for my friends who were part of the zine, with whom I could share all the excitement and nervousness with. The zine ended up making good sales, which made me happy among the uploading of the long fic.

To find hope in the Universe was completed 31st of March 2021. When I uploaded the final chapter, I felt nothing. It was so weird, so spooky, to have finished a long fic and a series on top of that and not feel anything. But deep down, beneath the layer of depression, I felt great pride.

That was the emotion that broke free once the burnout left me. Pride.

I had created this empire of Shikajin, a whole alternative timeline, an alternative canon from my own head and to this day, that is my internet legacy. I love Trial of the Heart, which I wrote in 2020, but if I have to choose between ToH and this series, I will choose To love and never let go in a heartbeat.

So, even if it felt depressing and hopeless in the moment, I look now back with pride and happiness. Never forget that. Never forget that I made that.

April was a curious time. I swore to not write anything, because I had by now recognised that I was burned out and needed to rest, yet managed to scrape together three smaller fics.

The first one was another wlw-smut fic, TemaSaku this time called Another Light. I wanted to explore that part once again. I wrote it in canonverse and honestly think the fic ended up extremely nice. Perfect amount of feels and sex. It didn’t feel hard to write at all, because the setting, characters and emotions were so different from the fics I had written the last five months.

Now more interesting things lay on the horizon! A new zine, the Ino-Shika-Cho zine called Beyond a Bond had an interest check during the spring, and later the contributor application. I urged in the interest check to please give us the next gen kids, Shikadai, Inojin and Chocho – my kids and babies, and when it turned out they were going to feature, I had to apply as a writer. For this application I wrote a one shot, called It’s just hair, and I loved this spunky little story featuring the best babies that I created.

I also edited one of my tumblr fics, And then I kissed him, into a longer, better version that I later in May uploaded onto AO3. It was once again a Shikajin, a sequel of Trial of the Heart, and it was a fun little project.

Now May came and I sent in the application for the zine early, which I now am relieved I did. I am happy that I did the work for the application in April instead of May, because in May I had a few breakdowns and another grieving period, which lead to complete creative paralysis. I didn’t write a single word during May, only uploaded the two one shots I had prepared in April.

What I did do in May was to read through the Shikatema zine I had contributed to! It arrived in the mail! I was so nervous; my whole body was shaking when I opened the package right outside the post office. The zine now resides on the parade place in my little zine shrine in the bookshelf. Thank you to the mods who made this a reality!

To my great happiness my zine adventures continued as I was accepted to the Ino-Shika-Cho zine as a writer and was assigned to write my favourite characters. I felt so relieved and overjoyed, mind blown by the sheer talent among the contributors.

On the other fandom front, June didn’t continue any brighter, with stress and mental pain still having a strong grip around me, despite the very happy news that I am still so grateful for. I wrote a Yamanaka family fic which to this day hasn’t seen the light of AO3, because of negative emotions surrounding it. I turned into a complete wreck compared to me in June 2020. In June 2020 I was flourishing, I loved what I did, I loved fandom and I loved the friends I had made through Discord servers. Now I could find myself crying my eyes out over a wip not going the way I wished it would. What had happened to Bex 2021?

I was so incredibly frustrated with myself, groaning in defeat when my hands just couldn’t write. I managed to push through 6k of what I called my “emo au” – more of that later – and finish the Yamanaka fic which is still buried, and on top of that I had the zine and another fandom event, The Naruto Photo Album, to create content for. Why couldn’t I do it? Why couldn’t I find happiness in something that once was my reason for happiness?

In the end, I managed to write 15k in June. My former monthly word count used to be 30k. One could think this would turn into the end of my fic writing career, or the beginning of a longer hiatus, but I am stubborn and want to meet the expectations of the people who love my content, so I didn’t want to give up. I wanted to try. I wanted to be whoever I was before.

Funnily enough, the healing came in the shape of the most self-indulgent fic I have ever, ever written, a fic I like possessed began writing July the 1st 2021. It was nothing less than a freaking fairy tale AU, namely a Shikadai x Inojin Peter Pan AU. I can hear you laugh at the silliness of it, but this whimsical AU gave me back my love for writing. I hyper-fixated on this story quite a bit and stopped writing on everything else, something I almost never do.

Only happy boys fly ended up being 21 000 words long! I knew it was a niched story, and true to my guesses, the story has to this day very low stats. Today, two months after it was published, it has just above 100 hits and 10 kudos, so for all I know, only ten people read and liked it. I try to not care too much, since I love the story and in some way, that story saved me from going batshit insane over my emotions about writing.

At this point I had begun writing my fic from the Ino-Shika-Cho zine, finding joy in silly scenes with my favourite characters and trying to heal. The writing process was frustratingly slow, but one word at a time I got forward and as of today, the draft is done. The pre-orders are in December. At the side of the zine fic I wrote a short fluffy Shikajin story, CLEAR, a story with almost no plot, because I knew how much self-indulgence could help me.

And then, I finally began writing for real on my emo au, A gang of fallen stars, which has the first few chapters up right now! I have for the first time in six months a longer fic (if we don’t count the Peter Pan story) and it feels… good. This fic is once again a modern au, but in darker tones than my other modern au from November 2020. I honestly like what I have so far, even if I during June and July almost planned to never finish it. I am so relieved I managed to begin the upload. In September the Photo Album was released and I could show my two fics I wrote for it.

It sounds like this year has been nothing but misery, and at times it felt like it. However, there are a few fandom friends who brought light to my life when I couldn’t see it. The first ones to mention are of course my partners in crime, @notquitejiraiya and @thespookymoth. Together we created a server dedicated to Ino-Shika-Cho during the spring and it has been tons of fun with the members there! Thank you two for listening to me and for being my friends during 2021.

I also have to mention Soverel, who carefully begun taking contact through comments and likes on my twitter, and later through direct messages, and it has been a fun ride ever since. We’ve had lovely discussions which are very dear to me and your support means a lot to me. Thank you for being you and for drawing so many wonderful artworks you’ve shared with me. Haha, and for making me play Genshin Impact, even though I do it like twice a month!

Another person who has made my days so much brighter is @sugarriene. Thank you for sending me that one dm that made us chat regularly, thank you for popping up and sharing panels and your wonderful drawings with me, and for vibing head canons with me. You are a lovely person, and you make me happy.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to @yoboseyokyu for listening to me when I had to yell into the void and for making me happy with your cute posts on both twitter and tumblr.

Since September 2020, I’ve written around 195 000 words and drawn close to 35 illustrations, most of them of Shikadai and Inojin. Almost 200 000 words of Majsasaurus. I’ve created a Discord server and I’ve been part of two zines as a writer, plus a free PDF-project.

It has been a wild year. A year filled with passion for my favourite characters and ship, with the excitement that came with being part of projects and hyping them. It was a year where I learned to draw digitally, and heck what fun it was.

This also a year where I learned people can be mean to me because of what I ship and that fandom friends won’t necessarily always stay to be your friend anymore and how much it can hurt. I also learned what my limits are, and what punishment I get if I don’t listen to my own mind and rest when I have to.

It was a year, guys.

Now, onto the third Majsasaurus Year. Cheers!

And those of you, who supported me when I needed it – thank you and I love you.