#what interacting with blood mages does to a mf

[romanoe]

[hallwaydodge]

long rambling reflection on my history as a naruto fan and why im deep in kabuto stan mode atm

soo i have been a naruto fan for a uhhh long ass time (17 years now?) and i was deep in fandom for ages before falling off sometime around the start of the war arc...it started with the emotional blow of losing jiraiya (me and a friend read the chapter when it released and just clung to each other sobbing lol, well written, just sad)...the dumbassery of pain resurrecting everyone.....mr sasuke choosing to honor itachi's legacy with destruction....i had not read it in a bit when my friend called me up to ask if i had read the most recent chapter cuz NEJI DIED and i literally lay on a dark basement couch all day sobbing and was deep in grief like couldn't eat or sleep for like the next 2 weeks....i started reading again in bits to see if neji would resurrect (HE DIDNT) and if his legacy would be honored (....) but whatever it was just endless uchiha clusterfucking so i got bored and dropped again, only really returning for Magical Brother Soulmates naruto and sasuke (#NEJI WAS RIGHT) and then the last chapters to see how it ended and gape at the endgame pairings & inojin, the most bizarre looking mf ...

(At least orochimaru ended up okay and pretty, I decided)

anyways, i've consumed a lot of what i missed in my off periods but one thing i never really consumed was the war arc A) cuz im a filthy bitter neji stan until the day i die B) as someone who crusaded hard for tobi NOT to be obito (as i loved them separately but knew if they were combined i would lose all sympathy and affection) (my naruto forum username was literally tobi-chan) and that twist makes my teeth gnash as it's just kinda a bad character story, obito hate club here, and that leading to aforementioned uchiha gangbanging and SPACE ALIEN REINCARNATION PROPHECY MAGIC, something so utterly divorced from what naruto's story used to be... yeah

(have i ever stopped writing my post series neji lives shikaneji epic tho?? no!)

now the other day i saw a mention was like, kabuto is more dragon then snake. i always did wonder about the horns...so i went to go reread the hilarious kabumaru reveal which led to many a joke back in those old forum days -- the chapter was being weirdly hard to find tho and i kept getting distracted by other chapters referenced on his nwiki page and i ended up reading a lot of his backstory (knew in general but) andwar arc stuff, especially him v itachi n sasuke, which i had missed

And i was like? Oh? Heres kishi writing style I've been missing + maturity gained from time? sasuke calling itachi perfect when itachi sympathizes with kabuto because sasuke is too emotionally immature to have that capacity, the submission of identity to authority that drove them to extremes w kabutachi vs sasuke being driven to extremes by well. trauma induced personality but still, his personality, you know, who he simply is ... sasuke then leading into having to resurrect mentor/parental figure orochimaru and ninja presidents to figure out "who am i" which was really "can i choose to help konoha and pals while still being me"

and theres kabuto...forced to Accept Himself by itachi's brainwashing (itachi, who has always had teeth, always been pleasant, always taught) ... kabuto standing there ... orochimaru (who bore witness to all this drama from his cosy place on anko's neck) feeling so much more tired than he has after any other resurrection, giving kabuto those inscrutable looks, removing his presence from kabuto in an absolution, an apology, a return to self that leaves kabuto looking so young and tired and empty), telling sasuke he's fine how he is and also, still young, knowledge inherently ages you in a way trauma, power, and the passage of years can't

(i cant believe orochimaru was trying to stop sasuke for his own purposes. he manipulated sasuke but he never stopped him. ntm following that path allowed orochimaru to get his arms back and just have some fun trolling the mage, so it was a path for from detrimental to him.)

he wants sasuke to keep what childhood, what sentimentality he can -- again, acting the parent

and there's kabuto still. a 'brother son student'* to him, one of his oldest orphans, a follower so loyal and useful orochimaru would never make a vessel out of him even when desperate, and yet kabuto in his search for identity did it anyways -- (remember how he offered himself to oro, back in that whole rotting arms, late sasuke era?) and later orochimaru essentially tells his old teacher (a parental figure to himself) that the reason he's gonna bat for the good guys is because he saw what Trying To Be Like Him led kabuto and the world to, and he wants to, essentially, do better with this child under his charge and instead of imposing his will, see what sasuke can do with All The Knowledge At His Disposal

he told kabuto to form a self around knowledge, but it was knowledge for sake of power ... a descent to madness he himself took from a quiet, helpful child ... as character parallels go, orochimaru has very little in common with sasuke and much more in common with kabuto

"shape them in his own image ..."

now orochimaru was never guardian of the year, what with the fufufu-ing and child experiments, but i disagree with assumptions that the loyalty he inspired was entirely down to Stockholm or fear, because at the end of the day, orochimaru did as many horrific experiments on himself as he did unto others. leadership thru example.

then there's kabuto. kabuto who has hated, tried to kill, resented, feared orochimaru, but also kabuto who also loved and admired orochimaru, saw him as his home, was someone whose company he generally seemed to enjoy, someone he wanted to both be and surpass. someone inspiring

kabuto and orochimaru are alike, so kabuto tried to supplant his identity with the assumption that being alike = having walked the same path = being identical and eventually had to face that he couldn't both love orochimaru and be him, that it was a twisted mirror, that all he has ever been or would ever be was someone who had to make his decisions based not on history or blood or origin or culture, but on what made him happy

so, the orphanage, a home that does not move or die, a brother whom he can love and admire who is so different from him its not a twisted mirror ... a kabuto and orochimaru who do not seem to have interacted in a very long time, but for the whole, they didnt exactly part hatefully or on bad terms, and thus a kabuto who could just as easily make the choice to never see orochimaru again as he could to see orochimaru, if he wants to, if he's sure enough in his own identity to not worry about losing himself again ... he finally has choice, even if he, orochimaru, and sasuke are all restrained by the ethical limits of konoha atm

and uh yeah characters who struggle with their identity & the control others can then exert over them are a favourite of mine?

so what this memoir/meta tl;dr is is just me working out my thoughts this fine friday morning on how yakushi kabuto has, like, objectively, one of the best character arcs in all of naruto -- hell, maybe THE best, and i am sorry to have missed it when it was coming out because just. damn. that's good writing, y'all!