#fixing naruto

[watermelonsloth]

Ino Should’ve Been on the Sasuke Retrieval Mission, Not Neji

I realized something and if I don't say it, it’s gonna bother me.

In part 1, pretty much every member of the Konoha 12 can be split into two categories: those who take their jobs seriously and those who don’t. The first group are the characters with something to lose or, more often, prove who tend to be more skilled than their peers. It includes Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, Rock Lee, Hinata, and seemingly Shino (although we don’t know enough about him or his motives for me to say this with full confidence). The second group either has superficial or no known reason to have become ninja and for a variety of reasons don’t really take their jobs, training, or (in some cases) even winning or losing seriously. It includes Sakura, Shikamaru, Ino, Choji, and Kiba. The only one I didn’t place was TenTen because she doesn’t have enough of a presence for me to know which she falls under.

Along with the part 1 finale, the Sasuke Retrieval Arc also serves as a wake up call for the team of genin. The entire series was a slow burn of information about how unfair and dangerous the shinobi world is—bell test set up KIA’d shinobi and that everything was not as it seemed, land of waves set up shinobi being used as tools and team 7 realizing their personal priorities, chunin exams introduced that there were much bigger fish and how cruel the shinobi world is, and the search for Tsunade arc displayed what could become of the shinobi who grew up in this system—that built to the Sasuke retrieval mission being the wake up call that not only did they need to get serious, they needed to get serious now. I could write a whole essay on this arc and what it represents, but I’ll leave it at this: the Sasuke retrieval mission made Naruto realize that he didn’t understand Sasuke nearly as much as he thought he did and the rest of his team (-the backup) realize that if they didn’t start taking their job seriously, they’d get themselves or their friends killed.

Or… almost the rest of his team. Neji doesn’t actually fall into this category. As I already said, he already took his job seriously and he was already very aware about what happened to the powerless. I’d be more forgiving if it helped move his personal arc along more or at least did something else for his character, but it doesn’t. It’s just extra screen time. And as much as I like Neji, he really didn’t need to be a part of this arc (or at least not such a large part).

You know who did? Ino. She never actually got an “oh crap, my priorities out of whack” moment. She doesn’t take her job seriously during the chunin exams, she doesn’t really show up again until the very end of part 1 for a scene here and there, then we don’t see her ‘til shippuden where she’s suddenly taking her job seriously. Maybe you could argue that Choji nearly dying was her wake up call, but it would be a pretty flimsy one considering the only reaction she has is calm relief after finding out he’s okay. Everyone else got their wake up call—Sakura during her iconic forest of death scene and the boys during this arc—but she didn’t.

Now, as you might’ve guessed from the title, I think the most obvious solution to this problem is the best. By swapping them out, Neji isn’t acting as a noticeably unnecessary inclusion and Ino gets a proper moment of character growth (and badassery). As bonus points: I think Ino would have a more interesting dynamic with the rest of the team, Ino would have more emotional stakes in the mission through knowing Sasuke and Choji sacrificing himself prior to her fight, the audience could potentially get some actual insight into why Ino (and the other girls) like Sasuke so much, and both of Shikamaru’s teammates nearly dying on the first mission he led would be even more of a swift gut punch for him. Ino should’ve been on the Sasuke retrieval mission, not Neji.

[kokodrawings]

Role reversal AU: Sakura as Orochimaru's student 🐍

(and Sasuke as Tsunade's successor)

[orochiposting]

“I can fix him dw” [drill sounds] {screaming} [chainsaw revving]

[roarshackle]

🎶 Lloraré por ti, No me dejes ir Que sientes por mi? Quedate hasta el fin 🎶

[narutothoughts]

Kakanaru au where kakashi gets hurt on a mission and passes out in the middle of a forest on the way back to Konoha.

When he wakes up he’s neatly laid out in the middle of an old shrine, with fresh bandages wrapped around his stitched up wounds and warm tea at his elbow.

The fact he remained unconscious through someone moving him and closing his wounds was discontenting even if it wasn’t particularly surprising. He did lose a lot of blood and chakra after all.

Now that he’s awake, kakashi knows he should leave. He knows better than to test his luck staying in place for too long anywhere outside of the village.

But…he’s curious. And despite the stitches, he’s still in danger of infection considering Konoha is over a week away in his current state.

So he leverages himself up, and tries to look around as much as he can. But the entire shrine is empty. Not a single sign of the one that helped him.

When he wakes up again a few hours later there’s a pot of warm tea at his side to replace the old cup, a little pile of fruit, and new bandages. The day after that, there’s sake and plum wine added to the mix.

Kakashi doesn’t really know what’s happening but he’s never been one to sit idle nor has he ever been an ungrateful man. So as soon as he’s able to get up without his head spinning he gets to work. he sweeps the floors and dusts the cobwebs. Even polishes a little golden fox statue he finds tucked behind a wooden alter.

It’s the least he could do for his hidden host. The caretaker of this place maybe?

Kakashi’s body and chakra recovers faster than he anticipated. After five days he leaves even as the Hatake part of him that lives in back of his head keens.

Before he goes he pats the golden fox on the head. It was oddly cute compared to the 9 statues of snarling stone foxes surrounding it, though there was undeniable beauty in those too.

A few months later he’s injured again and realizes the shrine is on his way back to Konoha. He stops there to rest for the night and heads out in the morning, only taking the time to drink some of the tea and wipe down the alter, barely noticing how his chakra coils have refilled already.

And it keeps happening whenever he gets injured. He comes, he rests, he cleans, and goes with a pat to the gold statues head.

Until one day he wakes up to a long limbed blond at his side instead of the usual tea and fruits. When the blanket shifts to reveal a bare back and smooth tan skin he thanks every god out there for his mask covering his blush. Sleepy blue eyes blink open at him right on cue and honestly? Kakashi thinks he deserved that for not putting the pieces together earlier.

This is blatantly inspired by @rayshippouuchiha

[kumeramen]

Sakura as sensei with Shisui & Obito

[littlest-god]

Finished a request for @uh-oh-its-bird Tobirama And Itama having a nice afternoon!

[bumfuzzled-bee]

! Eight !

[astrozure]

i'll give you everything i have

[tothebestofmyabilities]

Boba baby belchers!!

[watermelonsloth]

Should Shikamaru have become a Medic Nin?

Back when I made my post about Ino on the Sasuke Retrieval Mission, I ended up returning to the manga to review some info. While reviewing, I returned to Shikamaru’s reaction to the failed mission/his comrades being okay. I could talk about how fucked up Temari and Shikaku’s reactions to Shikamaru’s very reasonable self-doubt/guilt was, but for now I’ll just talk about his interactions with Tsunade following those reactions. Specifically how (and I might just be reading into this) their interactions seem to hint at him becoming a medic ninja.

First, some review/background info for anyone who hasn’t read the manga/watched the anime in a while. The scene starts with Shikamaru and Temari sat outside Choji’s hospital room. At this time, Choji and Neji are under intensive care, Kiba has barely woken up, and Naruto and Sasuke are both still missing in action. Shikamaru feels guilty for, despite being team leader, walking away mostly unscathed and tells Temari that he’s considering quitting being a shinobi altogether. Temari tells him off for being emotionally “delicate” and Shikaku tells him off for being a “coward” (specifically saying that him leaving the field won’t actually protect anyone). Then Tsunade shows up to say that Choji is stable, Shizune says Neji is stable and Naruto’s returned alive, and Tsunade says she couldn’t have asked for more than them all getting out alive. Shikamaru promises the next mission will be perfect and the chapter ends.

This is a nice moment, but it’s not really relevant to my point outside of Tsunade mentioning that the “Nara Clan’s Sacred Medicine Guide” was helpful. The main reason I brought this up is because of how it frames the next scene.

So, the last scene was Shikamaru anxiously waiting outside the ninja icu for his best friend to survive feeling so useless that he wants to quit his job, something he only decides against after hearing that his team isn’t dead and being told that if he doesn’t want his friends to die, he should work to better keep them alive in the future. The next scene is him talking to Tsunade about how every team should have a medic nin and what it takes to become one. For the people who framing isn’t their strong suit: it’s following up a scene about a character realizing that to reach their goal (keeping their friends alive) they need to step up and work harder with a scene explaining how hard medic nin have to work to step up.

You can't even argue that Kishimoto doesn’t know that the previous scene will impact how the following scene is interpreted because he does it for the literal next scene transition. Almost immediately after Tsunade ominously saying that first-rate medics need a “special something” (literally only 2-3 panels apart) it cuts to Sakura, future medicine extraordinaire. At most, you can argue that Kishimoto intended for the scene to be interpreted as Shikamaru becoming a smarter strategist or that Kishimoto wasn’t considering transitions between chapters. But unintentional readings are still valid, so I think my point still stands.

Now that I’ve talked about the story structuring that started me down this rabbit hole, let’s talk about the actual story. Should Shikamaru become a medic nin?

I first want to go over whether or not Shikamaru has what it takes to become a medic nin according to Tsunade. She lists the qualifications as follows: a light and precise hand, an enormous amount of expertise, an adeptness at practical application, patience, and a “special something”.

Taking her first point literally, Shikamaru is pretty precise in all that he does and I don’t think shaky hands will be a problem for him considering all of the awkward positions he maintains for his different shadow jutsu. Taking it in a more metaphorical “gentle but efficient touch” sort of way, I also think it applies, at least when it matters. The best example of this is when he dragged Naruto out of his depression after Jiraiya’s death, but I’ll also mention how he became friends with Choji by standing up for him (in his own way) and how he deferred to Ino in the Forest of Death about protecting Sakura. Expertise is easily yes because it’s just training and Shikamaru has shown his willingness to put in the work if it’s for the people he cares about. I don’t think practical application will be a problem for two reasons: 1. Considering he’s able to translate shoji, a board game, into on-field strategies, he seems pretty good at translating practice into practicality, 2. Shikamaru just got out of a conversation with Temari about how he was too naive and that there’s a difference between training and doing, it wouldn’t make sense for him not to try getting better at the doing part after saying that. Patience is probably the most obvious. Asuma literally described him as doing everything at the pace of an old man. The “special something” isn’t explicitly defined in-manga, but it’s implied to be a person’s personal drive to do something/reach a goal. While it isn’t exactly something I’d describe Shikamaru as having at this point in the series, I would say him gaining it would align with his character arc of gaining that drive and learning to follow it.

Speaking of character arcs, I also want to get into how I think him becoming a medic would impact his character quality. I’m not gonna detail how him becoming a medic would be better payoff to his two scenes with Tsunade at the hospital because I’ve already gone into them and I think you’re smart enough to figure that out yourself. I also won’t get too into the other main benefit to him becoming a medic because I’ve already made a post on the topic. OGs of this blog may remember my post about Shikamaru’s sexism and how it should’ve been addressed in-series. Shikamaru becoming a student of Tsunade would absolutely do this. Not only would he be acknowledging her prowess as a ninja, but it would also give him a positive female role model (one who didn’t shame him for his feelings and would absolutely understand his fear of his loved ones dying in the field due to his failure). Plus, depending on your conclusions about the ninja world, by becoming a medic, he might be entering a female dominated field. I also think that him becoming a medic/doctor/surgeon would be a good (and potentially better) end to his character arc about motivation and self discipline because the medical field is absolutely ruthless and slackers aren’t gonna make it.

Some miscellaneous thoughts I had are also that expanding on the Nara clan’s ties to medicine would be interesting, Shikamaru probably has the chakra control for the job considering his clan jutsu, the series is in dire need of more male medic nin, there would be way more tragedy to Asuma’s death if Shikamaru couldn’t save him even with medical ninjutsu, I think Shikamaru killing Hidan using his knowledge of the human body (like irreversibly paralyzing him or just slowly cutting him to bits with the chakra scalpel rather than blowing him up) would be cooler, and Asuma wanting Shikamaru specifically to take care of Kurenai and Mirai would make more sense if he was a doctor.

If nothing else, I think Shikamaru becoming a medic ninja would make more sense than Ino and arguably Sakura.

[kokodrawings]

Role reversal AU: Tsunade's successor

(and Sakura as Orochimaru's student)

[badadder1]

kind of feel like reading narusaku

Sometimes I fall down Pinterest rabbit holes. This time it was narusaku fanart. I think that's one of my top pairs for Sakura after Kakashi. There's no way she would have let him be such a shit dad like he was in Boruto. They're cute. Idk. Does anyone have some top tier fic recs?

If anyone knows who's art this is, let me know so I can credit them. Pinterest is the worst for fan art 😭

[lilac-bramble]

Putting him back together again…

[bougiebutchbinch]

characters who oestrogen would've fixed

naruto (you sure do like to turn into a hot naked woman.......)

wade wilson (everything about her screams 'overcompensating class clown egg')

starscream (sweetie, one of the clones who represented different aspects of your consciousness was a woman, and you just flatly refused to even think about why xxx)

[please-read-the-manga]

Hm... the idea of the ghosts of Uchiha continuing to endure beside the mourner who grieves them, even beyond death... Idk, it compels me.