#you made a great point abt sasuke and how he shouldve never been forced to take on the entire weight of avenging his family at 7 yrs old

[greenbeen-with-an-e]

Sns fans who mischaracterise naruto and sasuke's characters really upset me. To say that SASUKE, THE SASUKE UCHIHA, doesn't love naruto just as much if not more than naruto loves him is INSANE.

Sasuke, who was the one to reach out to naruto in the first place - establishing their bond. Sasuke, who was willing to die for this blond, little gremlin who he loves - abandoning his revenge plot in exchange for naruto's life. Sasuke, who could've (should've, even) killed naruto at vote1 to gain the mangekyou but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Again and again sasuke tries to distance himself from naruto. He sees him as his only weakness in his need to avenge his clan (his family, his parents, his aunts, his uncles and cousin). There is a lot of internal conflict regarding him when it comes to naruto; there's a sense of guilt (how can he love another when his family still isn't avenged? How selfish he must feel.) and self-loathing (he sees himself as weak and soft - no doubt boosted by itachi's words during their meeting in og nart).

But time and time again, he fails in doing so. Because so much of his heart belongs to naruto, its impossible for him to cut him out. He became a part of him, the link to his humanity that he so desperately wants to be rid of. If only to stop feeling so much - its human nature to feel love and hatred, pain and joy, after all. It's why he's so desperate to kill naruto in the first place. The only true way to be powerful, as sasuke believes) is to rid yourself of humanity so nothing can hold you back.

This is why sasuke can't help but engage with naruto at every opportunity, speaking to and mocking him even when he doesn't need to. If sasuke really didn't care for naruto, he would've ignored him at every turn, not once would he have engaged in conversation with the guy, let alone flirt with him too (bc straight ppl always lean over their enemies with their chest exposed😒😒 you ain't slick sas).

So to say that sasuke was just the damsel in distress or the one naruto needed to save minimises their entire relationship. There is an equal push and pull between them. They are equals in every way. Soulmates spanning a millenia. They are completely and utterly obsessed with eachother. None of this is one-sided for either party. This isn't some yaoi ship that straight women can self-insert into via naruto's character to be with sasuke and vice versa. They are more than that. Sorry not sorry🏃‍♀️.

In my very short time in this fandom, I have been able to understand one thing. The reason why a lot of shippers and fans don’t want to even consider Sasuke and Naruto’s bond as romantic or that Sasuke and Naruto could possibly be gay, is because they simply don’t see the reason to. 

And no matter how much you appeal to their common sense or rationality, they won’t. 

Naruto is a shounen manga designed keeping teenagers in mind. I don’t know why Kishi thought it would be a good idea to write a gay love story in shounen, considering its limitations, but he did. And look how it turned out. An all out disaster in the end.

I have been attacked by five different SS and NH shippers on my blog in the last two days. And they got abusive, really abusive. When I looked at their arguments, they were all basically the same, identical. No amount of reasoning could get through their heads. They couldn’t tell the difference between canon and non-canon, canon and headcanon. They would feel completely at home devising uncorroborated ‘proofs’ for headcacons such as Sasuke does love Sakura, Sakura is a strong female character, Hinata was Naruto’s first bond, Naruto and Sasuke are brothers, Sasuke is a terrorist etc etc.

They simply cannot even fathom that Kishimoto could have written a gay love story in their favourite show with their favourite ship and their favourite self insert. 

A lot of these shippers are very young, they are the target group of this genre. At that age, justifiably so, most cannot comprehend the complexities of life, family, LGBT+ discourse, feminism, narrative, visual language, narrative choices and nuances etc. And agree with it or not, truth is Naruto is not a simplistic story. It is a multilayered and complex story about love, family, political intrigue, belief systems, ethical and societal values, complex gay coming of age issues, philosophical impressions, meditation on war, peace, importance of communication etc. and is quite cinematic in its execution for the most part, with a distinctive style of visual language.

 Apart from the fact that after a point it becomes clear that Kishi could not juggle all these different threads together and went out of his depth, he did manage to create certain narratives that made sense and facilitated the potential for a satisfactory resolution.

Sasuke and Naruto’s story was one of them. 

Sasuke and Naruto are complex characters, so is their bond. Kishi mindfully imbued their bond with numerous nuances and gay coming of age tropes but the problem is, these nuances that denote romantic love between the two went unregistered by the majority of its target audience. A majority of this target group could not even recognize these nuances, let alone understand them. It is also a factor that most viewers can recognise the same nuances in het pairings, but can’t even begin to comprehend them in m/m pairings. It’s unimaginable for them.

TBH, most kids self insert in the shows they watch or stuff they read, whether it’s a ship or a battle or a dramatic situation, whatever. It’s how they learn to understand media, we all did it as kids. A lot of these fans who watched or read Naruto as kids and are adults now, have certain emotional associations with Naruto the series and they won’t let any amount of rational explanation come in the way of that, it’s too personal to them. Which is also understandable. Some of them may be ready to accept gay culture otherwise but they won’t agree that Sasuke and Naruto are gay, that’s why they get so righteously angry when SNS shippers call them homophobic for considering them just friends or brothers. You can’t tell them otherwise because the truth is Naruto manga also has all the other tropes of shounen which are supposedly ‘suitable’ for kids (and I am using the word ‘suitable’ with a pinch of salt here, they would definitely not be suitable for where I come from), and they simply can’t even imagine situating a gay love story in it, which itself is an aberration in this genre. 

You can try engaging with them, but more often than not, it will be pointless. It is not something they need to be told, it is something they need to see for themselves. You can rant and rave about the significance and deeply emotional and romantic meaning of chapter 698, it won’t matter. They won’t be able to understand what they can’t see.

Sure, some of them are plain homophobes or less than bright, but mostly, this gap in understanding of the narrative is because of a misjudged medium on the creators’ part. Because of the limitations of this genre, Kishi couldn’t make Sasuke and Naruto’s romantic relationship explicit, nor could he give it up for the sake of shounen.

Kishimoto, what were you thinking really? I want to know, I really do. Someday, I hope you become courageous enough to admit it, but until that day, I will resent you from the bottom of my heart.