#has Sasuke even actually canonically killed anyone come to think of it?

[avengernomore]

"Just as a reminder, if you want me to kill someone, they had better be a REALLY bad person. I'm talking really really bad shit. I'm not a fan of taking human life, especially if they can be reformed, but there are lines that should not be crossed."

[edai-crplpnk]

2.- was sasuke right? || 3.- were naruto's intentions with sasuke selfish? || 8.- show a screenshot of your latest draft with no context ((always gonna pick the excuse to see sneak peeks lol)) || 14.-openings or endings?

For the Controversial Naruto Take Ask

2 - was sasuke right?

I'd like to preface this by saying I find it utterly insane how everyone (in canon and also a bit in the fandom tbh) says stuff about sasuke needing to atone for his crimes and whatnot when he literally has never killed anyone in the whole series. Even Naruto has, and he hasn't. And it's explicitly said that he has gone out of his way not to, and that he has asked Taka not to either while they were working for him. So, of course, the whole barging in at the gokage summit thing was not very cordial, but compared to what most of the characters have done, he's pretty fine. (Kakashi kills a child in the very first arc, may I remind everyone.)

Anyway. If the question is "Was Sasuke right about wanting a revolution and to take down Konoha's government?" I mean. Yes, I think that genocide is bad and that states that have been built in a way that allows and, furthermore, have flourished on them, should be undermined. I don't know if he was going to have a plan for that that would have led to something more functional to be built, I'll give you that, but yes Homura and Koharu should have died in a jail cell decades ago.

The part where he went full "I am going to become an eternal god hated by all and ruling by fear" was probably ill-advised though.

3 - were naruto's intentions with sasuke selfish?

That's an interesting question because I've never thought about it like that? I think that one thing happening in their dynamic is that they have very similar problems and trauma, but very different ways to react to it. And so they can relate to the other's motivation, but tend to think "but you are being mistaken about the solution because I know how to solve this and it's not that". But the truth is they are both traumatised teenagers willing to literally die for attention and a feeling of accomplishment and purpose, so I don't think either of them really has it figured out 😭

I don't think that Naruto's intentions with Sasuke were selfish, in the sense that I think he genuinely was doing what he was doing with the belief that it was the right way and that it would help and save him (which, for a part at least, it did). But maybe it was selfish in that he wasn't able to consider that because just he is seeing one path out of his problems and pain, then that path has to be right for Sasuke as well. To consider that he was a different person who maybe needed to make different choices and that's okay.

Not to do my self-promo but actually yesdo this authors, it's good: this is part of what I wanted to explore in Take You Heart Above The Water. Sasuke cannot (and as a matter of fact, in canon, does not) come back to Konoha and integrate into it the way Naruto does. And it's not necessarily a good goal for him to have. They have different relationships with the village, the people, different needs, or maybe similar ones but different ways to meet them. Helping people grow and feel happy and loved doesn't always mean helping them have the same life as you do.

8 - show a screenshot of your latest draft with no context

The last thing I worked I just posted it, so I'm going to take sneak peek of the last WIP I've worked on. It's All Bones and a Beating Heart, my ShikaChou modern AU.

The breaks in his voice takes him by surprise like a tide rising while one’s looking away, only catching back their attention when the cold water reaches their feet. The admission he’s about to make has been building in the back of his mind for weeks, unspeakable but unshakable too, feeding on him like a parasite that will now gush out through his throat after having overgrown his guts, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. His lashes stick with tears when he blinks and his lips are dry when they part. “I don’t want anything in me anymore.”

Fun times 👍

14 - openings or endings?

I'm gonna say endings just for Nakushita Kotoba.

Thank you for asking!!

[leportraitducadavre]

The affirmation that "Team Taka isn't as good as Team 7 because it lacked bonding moments" misses both canonical support (Sasuke literally awoke one of his MS to save Karin) and critical skills.

We are speaking here about military states that, since chapter three, admit to designing teams with specific members in order to exploit at maximum the shinobi's capacities, guaranteeing a good enough success rate during missions. Whether these groups form some sort of friendship outside their training and/or duties isn't even remotely important because, well, why would it be? These are disposable people who are taught the importance of the "greater good", which means making difficult decisions -if a member of a cell isn't ready to die or sacrifice someone's life in order to accomplish a victory it gets ostracized (Sakumo).

The notion of friendship often presented in the manga (politically) differs entirely from the Western conception of the term, as the friendship that Hiruzen speaks about is about preserving the balance between the villages at the risk of people’s lives. 

The "friendship" inside a military state that has no issue in sacrificing people's lives in order to grow politically and economically can't be about caring for others more than anything as it contradicts and threatens Konoha's nationalistic mindset where the village's prosperity and safety have to come first. The Uchiha cared more for those dear to them than the village itself (and this is to be discussed in a deeper manner as the Uchiha were against Konoha's discrimination, not against the Shinobi system in itself), which is why it's surprising how many people that claim to care for others are so fervently haters of a clan that did exactly what they say to want on a character/team.

Furthermore, Sasuke's "bonding moments" with Team 7 are unimportant, as he cares not for a single member inside that cell (at least on the level this people claim he does) but Naruto (and that just after the Kage Summit Arc), so why is that friendship highlighted to unrealistic proportions whilst Sasuke specifically choosing Team Taka as support to perform his most important wish (kill Itachi first, bring the shinobi system down later) is brushed aside? Is it because this fandom can't fathom Naruto the great being insignificant in Sasuke's development? Is it because Sakura's relevance inside Sasuke's thoughts and/or actions is nill? I admit that the scale is utterly inclined in his favor as his presence is pretty much the entire reason for the main characters to both exist and develop; which is why it's understandable the need for that portion of the fandom to create ways in which both Sakura and Naruto actually matter -but pretending that such self-fabricated relevance is canonical and Team 7 blurs Team Taka's actual canonical impact on Sasuke's behavior is embarrassing.

Edit to add: Besides the aforementioned reasons, think for a moment everything in common this group possess in order to understand how each member is able to relate to one another. Karin, Suigetsu and Juugo are the last members of each of their clan as is their leader (Karin is the last pure blooded Uzumaki and Sasuke is the last Uchiha as he's to kill Itachi and doesn't know about Madara and Obito, who die later on regardless), the four of them were/are persecuted due to their biological gifts (an aspect of their nature they have no control of), and them four were, also, experimented on by Orochimaru.

I don't think anyone else could even start to comprehend Sasuke in the same manner as they do, and it's incredible how most of the fandom highlight Naruto's capacity to understand Sasuke's loneliness yet disregard Team Taka when they not only can envision it on a similar degree but also are able to grasp the idea of their entire kin being massacred.

And, to add one more thing, Sasuke considering Team Taka members "disposable" as some people point out (when he wounded Karin in order ro kill Danzo), is just another layer on his tremendous commitment to reach his goal.

He stated plenty of times how sacrificing his life was something he was willing to do should that help him achieve his wish, and the lives of those close to him are no different (he wounded Karin because it helped him reach Danzo, he tried to kill Sakura about five times because she was trying to interfere, how is him attacking Sakura not on the same level of disinterest for her as him attacking Karin?).

They try to build a case for their arguments by stating over and over how Naruto and Sakura have Sasuke's best interest at heart, despite them constantly ignoring Sasuke's requests (whilst Team Taka respected and followed his command) and forcing what they consider is the best for a teammate they knew for barely a year.

Naruto's sole purpose is to bring Sasuke back to Konoha in order to get back his rival and win his acknowledgement, while Sakura's reason is to have her crush close to her as to feel validated as a woman and a kunoichi and to gain sexual favors of him.

They're both so incredibly selfish in this regard it's outstanding that the fandom, who's so adamant about pointing out toxic relationships (platonic or romantical), isn't able to see this when the one being attacked is a man they personally dislike. If, for some reason, they're willing to see some of these flaws in the aforementioned characters, then they shift the blame to Kishimoto, yet they don't do the same for Sasuke nor any Taka Member, who they judge as living individuals just as suddenly as they're willing to claim Sakura and Naruto as fictional products.

[my-inner-crisis]

Sometimes you watch a tik tok that enrages you to the point where you want to rant for an hour. So this is it (probably not an hour-length read mind you but ya know).

Two very popular arguments on the clock app have my blood boiling.

1. Where did Lucien’s ACOTAR personality go in the rest of the series?

Oh, I don’t know, let me see. He began the series in relative peace, only having to deal with Tamlin’s ass, which was honestly his least serious problem. Remember how his brothers and father executed his lover brutally and then tried to kill him? He owes Tamlin his life, so you know. In the very beginning of ACOTAR, first thing that happens to Lucien is that his friend, Andras, is murdered in cold blood and SKINNED. Not only does he die, but he’s skinned. After that it’s just downhill for my boy Lulu from there. He is taken under the mountain, tortured to break Feyre’s spirits, UTM is a particularly triggering place to him since he had his eye carved out of his head like 50 years ago, he was so severely beaten and his face was in such a state, it MADE TAMLIN VOMIT. So, he goes back UTM, his mind is held by Rhys like a toy, he’s whipped by Tamlin under Amarantha’s rule, he’s punished for helping Feyre, yet he still goes to help her again. He’s severely abused physically. Good good. Then he comes out of that situation just to find himself in the worst PTSD hours not only for himself, but for Tamlin AND Feyre. He’s caught in the middle, any push he tries to achieve with Tamlin backfires horribly. The High Lord with the power of brute strength hits him. Feyre is scheming and he is aware of it, he gets dragged between the two of them, he isn’t sure what Feyre is up to and tries to go rescue her. He thinks her mind is warped by Rhys who lied so much to him and everyone, Lucien certainly couldn’t guess he was good actually. Feyre leaves Tamlin and messes up the Spring Court in the process, leaving the High Lord to be a useless depression monster, the direct result of that being that he is sexually assaulted by Ianthe. Tamlin has 2 brain cells so of course Hybern double crosses him, which leads directly to Feyre’s sisters being turned fae. Keep in mind that Lucien had no power over Tamlin at any point, you think he’d let himself get dragged into dumb deals with Hybern? Of course not. But now his mate thinks him culpable in her Making, she loses the one she loves due to this and it’s obviously directed to Lucien too, she never asked for a mate, she was happy to marry Graysen, so now Lulu is here courtless (oh no), homeless (so sad), with a mate (yay) who doesn’t want him (noooo) so maybe, MAYBE he is depressed. He finds friends with some sad little humans who also have sad lives like a queen without a throne and a man whose people have been dead for 500 years and the human lands is nothing like it used to be. Lucien is so far away from happiness or even just like a normal, simple day, it’s funny. And we’re surprised he’s not the snarky little rake he was in ACOTAR? Just READ.

2. Elain clearly doesn’t want Lucien and clearly wants Azriel, this is a crack ship

All I have to say to this is the following:

We don’t know what Elain wants, we don’t know why she does whatever she does, we don’t know her motivations and we don’t know how she feels about Lucien. All we know is that she’s reluctant to speak to him and she opposes the idea of mates. It’s fiction, it can go anywhere. SJM could kill half of the characters on one page. Stop arguing with Eluciens (or anyone else) about their ship’s validity. Let me have my cottagecore fantasy with them and maybe you’ll be right, but I can still ship it, even if it doesn’t become canon. It doesn’t have to be correct to be a ship. I used to ship Sasuke with Gaara because they interacted twice and my 14 year old brain was like yes. Just leave people be, let us enjoy our ships 😌

[sneezemonster15]

I feel like at most sns might just be ambiguous instead of full blown romantic or brotherly. It's in the middle and it has enough moments for both sides to see them as whichever way they please. Like the moment in the final fight where naruto tells sasuke he's wrong when sasuke asked if they were like brothers is anime only, so it serves as fanservice. After that, and in the manga they have sasuke understanding what naruto meant as brother meaning he returns the feeling too cuz now he finally understands. So the fans can take whatever they like out of it since it's possible to see it as both

No. You are wrong.

Only those who don't understand how homophobia and closeted homosexuality works would think of it like that. And those who don't understand storytelling and visual language. Heteronormativity and homophobia makes it even worse.

By ambiguous, you mean that people suspect they are gay and in love but go with the safe choice because it's shounen or they aren't canon and SNS wasn't made explicit?

Well they couldn't have been canon, what about shounen genre and censorship don't you understand?

I know they are romantic because I understand what Kishi did, and anyone who understands storytelling, visual language, and tropes used in gay media, at least the sincere ones where creators have written realistic and nuanced gay and closeted gay characters living in a conservative society would know for a fact that SNS is romantic. Or even if you were just honest with yourself, and sensitive and open minded. I have seen those fans here as well.

Kishi was subtle but not that subtle. When I watched Naruto the first time, I suspected from the start that they were romantic and by the end of vote 1, I was sure. And it actually heightened my Shippuden watching experience even more because I was able to correctly expect and anticipate what Kishi was going to do regarding SNS and that's what happened broadly. I knew Naruto wouldn't ever give up on Sasuke no matter what, because he loves him. And Sasuke would not really be able to kill Naruto because he loves him too, he tries to kill him with all his might, but they are always nuanced in both vote 1 and 2, nuanced for a reason. And I was right. So I didn't have to experience anything like those fans who thought Pein arc was where Shippuden should have ended and the rest was just retcon (😒) or dudebros who thought Naruto broke character by begging the raikage for Sasuke's pardon. I knew they would reconcile and won't end up killing each other. Because their relationship operates on love, not hate or rivalry.

It would be damn stupid of fans to think SNS is brotherly or ambiguous when Naruto explicitly says they aren't brothers and Sasuke implies it clearly as well. What good is your comprehension if you can't even understand plain text? Lol.

Seriously, please watch other gay media. See how closeted homosexuality is portrayed in media.

Why do you even think Kishi chose to hammer on the whole 'Are we brothers or friends or more?' to begin with? Throughout the manga? Why this deliberate constant harping on friends and brothers and comrades again and again? What do you think it's just accidental?

Just for fun? It has no meaning, no significance? Kishi is just blowing shit out his ass? He doesn't mean anything by it? Just wasting precious and costly panel space?

Lol. It's very meaningful.

This is actually a very common trope in gay media and narratives.

Thinking of romantic love as brotherhood is pretty common in gay coming of age media, both Asian and western. Naruto only 'WONDERS' if Sasuke is like a brother, he doesn't say it with confidence. He doesn't have a frame of reference to understand his tingly and romantic feelings for another boy when he thinks that men are supposed to like girls. But at the end, in chapter 698, when Sasuke becomes annoyed and insists Naruto explain what he means by 'friends', Naruto haltingly admits that it's not something he can explain. If he thought they were brothers, don't you think he would have just said it? When have you ever seen two men this shy or reticent about their brotherly feelings for each other? Give me one example, just one. Lol.

This lack of frame of reference regarding gay media is a detractor for Naruto fans. If you don't know what you are looking at, you wouldn't know why it's important. Which is why several instances in the manga that denote romantic love between the two go totally unregistered by most fans. Also heteronormativity. If these instances and moments happened between a het couple, they would have no problem noticing them. But just because it's between two boys, you think it's not romantic.

This is why you think SNS is ambiguous or brotherly. Because you don't see or understand what Kishi did and how he did it. Well that's why I am here and so are so many other credible SNS blogs. Go learn.

[uchihashisui-kun]

KakaSaku. I cannot stand Sakura being fucking everywhere

Shisui/Sakura. As I said before, I hate Sakura being absolutely everywhere

Um... Do you like hate Sakura as a character or do you just like not like her being shipped around with everyone?

Because i thought that you loved all of Team7 including sakura

I don't think I've never made it a secret that I don't like Sakura, and I really don't care that it's Kishi's fault or whatever other bullshit I have seen repeated over and over again. Is she written badly? Idk. Maybe. But that still remains her annoying canon character

There are some fanon depictions of her that I like and I'm not ashamed to say that, if she's written well in fanfics I'm completely fine and happy about it. However. In my time reading and writing fanfics, I have seen So. Many. Sakura Ships. And I can't take it anymore. And I'm not talking about Sakura with the Konoha 12 or the Sand Siblings or, Hell, even the teachers. That's normal stuff. I don't like it most of the time, but I can see why and how it exists

What I'm talking about is that Sakura is fucking everywhere, and I mean it

I've seen enough Sakura/every Akatsuki member to be sick of it, especially Sakura and Sasori, although I can see why that's a thing and I can respect it. I've seen Sakura with every. Single. Uchiha. It doesn't matter if it was ItaSaku, ShiSaku or, Hell, MadaSaku. I've seen Sakura with Izuna. I've seen Sakura with Indra

Sakura with like, every single character we know from Kumo is a thing, and believe me when I say that I've come to hate Sakura/A with a passion

I've seen Sakura/Rasa. Sakura/Orochimaru. Sakura/The fucking Sage if Six Paths

And I have to admit that I, regrettably, have contributed to this some years ago when my best friend, who is not a writer, asked me to write some Sakura fanfics for her because she loves my writing style and wanted some stories of her favorite character written by me. And do you want to know what ship she asked me to write about? Sakura/Trafalgar

Trafalgar. From One Piece

The problem with Sakura in canon is that outside of her medical knowledge she's kinda useless. "BuT sHe KiLlEd SaSoRi" I hear everyone screaming, and yeah, she did. Thanks to Chiyo who saved her ass multiple times by puppeteering her around otherwise she would have died in 0.3 seconds

She's a joke of a character who thinks to be as strong as Naruto and Sasuke but then cries and calls for Naruto the moment something happens. "BuT iT wAs PeIn WhAt Do YoU wAnT hEr To Do" Idk, fight like anyone else without acting like a useless crybaby? She's a medic, she could have gone help Tsunade with the injured or whatever instead of kneeling on the ground screaming her heart out for Naruto. She's a fucking trained shinobi, she has to be ready for emergencies

And because she's so useless, basic, bland and badly written, people have started using her as a puppet (heh) and a vessel for their Self Insert, and believe me I've seen my fair share of authors that are like "Omg I'm so Sakura that's why she's my fave" and then the story is the most ugly Y/N SI Wattpad story where Sakura gets sold and passed around like a fucking toy and everyone and their neighbor fights for her for whatever reason, there's never an explanation for this shit, it just is

And yes, I use Sakura in my AUs. And do you know why? Because that's my depiction of her, and I get to decide for her to not be a poor excuse of a shinobi who is actually smart and stands up for herself and doesn't lie to her friends and abandon them in the middle of a fucking forest (I still haven't forgotten THAT scene. When she, Lee, Sai and Kiba wanna go to Sasuke but Sakura fucking puts them to sleep with a trick and ABANDONS THEM IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING FOREST WITHOUT MAKING SURE THAT THEY'LL BE FINE IF LEFT ALONE. SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE SMART. WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE DOING LEAVING THREE SLEEPING TEENAGERS AND A SLEEPING DOG IN THE FOREST WHERE ANYONE COULD FIND THEM AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE THREE FUCKING FREE KONOHA SHINOBI. SHE'S FUCKING MENTAL IS WHAT SHE IS. SHE'S LUCKY SAI HAD A CLONE WITH KAKASHI AND TOLD HIM OTHERWISE WHO THE FUCK KNOWS WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED)

So. Yeah. I don't like Sakura in the slightest both in canon and in many fanon depictions of her, although there are some stories that make me like how she's used as a character together with everyone else. I'm happy when people give her the good characterization she deserves and I try doing that in my AUs as well. I never leave her out just because I don't like her in canon, instead I take her and try making her better than she is. But that doesn't mean that I like her or her 1938480281 ships. I'm tired of having to block every single one of her tags when I search for stories (and you wanna know why? Because some people will tag her in the ship but not as a fucking character in the story, so I find stories of her even if I exclude her general character tag and I'm tired of it. People need to learn to tag their shit correctly)

And I don't hate Sakura fans, don't get me wrong. I just don't like the character, that's all

[narhinafan]

People that say NaruHina has little development do not paid attention to the Naruto manga are the same kind of people that say Sussaku has development even know the development is almost non-existent. Sasuke and Sakura barely interact with each other in part 1 as anything more than teammates the way Sasuke treats Sakura is just like every other person he doesn't treat us anyone special he doesn't treat her in a way that is different. If Sakura was Sasuke's intended love interest he would treat her differently he would hesitate to harm her in his reunion with her in Shippuden he wouldn't constantly treat her as an annoyance or avoid her in the sequel series. Sasuke and Sakura have barely interacted. There's not one on screen kiss not one moment where Sasuke expresses concern or his affection for Sakura physical or with words none so how is their development for them? Almost all their interactions are negative if people think that's development that's good then I question if they understand how romantic interests work.

Naruto and Hinata in contrast have far more development in both part one and part two ever interaction they have is their relationship progressing. Their first interaction we see on screen Naruto thinks Hinata is weird then when he sees her in the tuning exam he sees her in a different light and then her proud failure speech he blushes something he never did around Sakura ever. Also unlike Sasuke Naruto is very careful how he talks to Hinata or how he treats her which is pretty obvious for a main character they would treat their love interest differently than any other person. Yeah the development is subtle that's because Naruto is not a romance manga but if you look at the sequel series there's more interactions with them as well and it's positive and Naruto and Hinata are the only couple that have confessed their feelings for each other and had a kiss on screen people can whine and moan about oh the last should not have needed to exist to resolve their romance but at least it's more than the banshee and Sasuke ever got and they could go suck it.

NaruSaku and SusSaku are garbage ships that needlessly hate on other ships for the most ridiculous reasons I can go on the non-cannon filler ship Narusaku but that would be it making this too long so I'll just ended at that.

The people who say that didn't pay attention NaruHina actually has a lot of subtle development from the start of the exams all the way to the end. Like when he checked on her in the manga Naruto puts his hand over hers its very hard to tell, but it is there. While during the Pain fight Naruto actively protects and avoids Hinata when he loses it and there are many more subtle moments in their interactions during the manga.

SasuSaku though it is one sided Sasuke sees Sakura as annoyance and while he does treat her as a teammate that is where it end nothing more. The reason their interactions are almost always negative is cause Sakura doesn't mean that much to Sasuke, like he has tried to kill Sakura several times in part 2 with no hesitation yet they want us to think he sees her as someone special.

NaruHina you knew it was going to happen, but with SasuSaku there was always that underlying feeling he may never come back or it just won't happen. As early as part 1 it was obvious and only became more so it went on, by the proud failure speech NaruHina was pretty much set in stone as I think that was when Naruto truly fell for Hinata as his face when she calls him a proud failure the slight blush you can tell he is touched then saying he likes girls like her.

What makes it worse is the amount of filler SP pumped for NaruSaku they even ruined several NaruHina scenes by altering them and then films with it like RTN was advertised as NaruHina and SasuSaku film only for it to be filled with NaruSaku rubbish. Like seriously how nice would it have been if they worked harder to make it possible to fit into the canon timeline and showed NaruHina/MenmHina as well as Hinata getting along with Naruto's family and ended it with say they lose their memories of what happened in the genjutsu world. It could have been a perfect film if they made NaruHina a focus.

[x-authorship-x]

Do you have any Naruto ocs?

I do!! Some are really old and I've basically forgotten everything about them lol, but some have always managed to stick around (it's even more impressive if I can actually keep them as an OC and not end up merging the idea into canon characters)

1 - Takara: she's Konohamaru's older sister by six years (3+ Rookie9), she was in a genin team with Aburame torune (before he was snatched up by root) and taught under Genma. She specialises in trapping and ends up becoming the demolition expert of konoha on par with Deidara. She's very good at eavesdropping on her dad (monkey masked anbu commander) and grandfather (sandaime). She ends up dating kankuro ^_^ mainly used for cool diplomacy insights

2 - Asahi: (SIOC), he's born with uncommon awareness of chakra but a civilian in the middle of nowhere in Whirlpool country. He's raised to be a fisherman like his family but one day sails down the coast further than anyone dares and comes to the Uzushio ruins (his mum was an Uzumaki but dammit red hair is a recessive gene okay). He fucks around and finds out experimenting with chakra, ends up moving down there full time as an adult, doesn't even realise he's doing crazy chakra shit because he has no scale of reference. Takes care of local bandits using nothing but the crazy Uzumaki seals he reverse engineered. Accidentally makes Kiri think that Uzushio never actually died. He ends up being thought of as the Uzukage. Crack treated seriously. Mainly used for Uzushio and civilian culture antics.

3 - Minako: used for Uchiha Sharingan tomfoolery. Activates Sharingan from trauma of falling out of a tree and fracturing her eye socket. Proceeds to ignore all pushing to be a Shinobi and takes up weaving and makes some very stunning kimono, obi, and tapestries. She couldn't be less interested in killing people. Itachi leaves her alive because he didn't do a headcount and she was away on a caravan. Sasuke low-key adores his kinda-cousin/aunt/sister. Basically so I can explore the use of dojutsu in non Shinobi crafts and get Sasuke in therapy asap

There's more but those I remember off the top of my head ✨

[kar-a-kael]

Happy B-Day, Kabuto! In honor of this (leaped) day, I thought I might do a list of Early Kabuto Head canons that floated around the internet when he was just introduced. So much has changed in the last...20...years.

Kabuto with pink hair. In the very first fanart I saw of him, before there was any official color, people gave him really light pink, or sometimes blond, hair. Healer = pink, I guess?

Ninja info cards are common place. No one makes a comment when he pulls them out, or seems surprised that someone would be keeping tabs on the competition. Always wondered if there was a dropped card game because they never came back.

He really didn't know how to deal with Sound nins. I've always thought that a guy able to go toe-to-toe with Kakashi and re-map his nerves in 30 seconds probably wouldn't have problems with basic vertigo, but we didn't even know he was a spy until the end of the second exam! And even then, he insisted that the Sound-nin's threw him for a loop.

He really was a nice guy! What? Before we got the Orochimaru reveal, he seemed genuinely helpful to Naruto and co. And poor Naruto looked so sad when Kabuto dropped out! Kid took the apparent face-heel turn pretty well, all things considered.

Kabuto's eye power/berserker energy. They never really explained how he was able to freeze those random ninja. Looking back, it was probably some kind of 'killing aura', but he never uses it again, nor does anyone else that I remember. I always thought that this + Oro's comment about Kabu's 'old blood' coming to the fore hinted that he was a secret berserker that might snap or fall into blood-lust. But all his later powers build upon his abilities as a medic, rather than any hidden spy/eye powers.

Healing abilities. (not technically a headcanon) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Kabuto is the first character we see using healing jitsu's. And until near the very end, I'm pretty sure he's the only male healer. I always thought it was interesting that it's such a gendered profession, yet its introduction is with the only male and only evil healer.

Kabuto's dad as Orochimaru's lead scientist. Does any one remember Kabuto's team leader/dad? He shows up in like...one panel, and might be the same guy who was mentioned as leader of the retrieval ninja who taught Kabuto to 'play with corpses'. For a while, there was a theory that one of Oro's background scientists in the anime was the same guy, but neither character ever got any depth or explanation.

Kabuto planned on betraying Orochimaru. Several points throughout the series there are hints that Kabuto finds his master's tendencies disturbing, to the extent that Oro seems to enjoy toying with his loyalty and almost expected the younger man to go through with his plan to kill Sasuke. Yet at no point does Kabuto actually go against his master's wishes. Unless...

Kabuto revealed himself intentionally. Surely you don't go to all the trouble of setting up a whole room of doppelgangers just to not kill your target. Unless you were intentionally staging a scene where you had the 'excuse' not only to save the kid, but also alert the authorities and give yourself an air-tight alibi for needing to pull back from your undercover mission. Sounds like exactly what a double agent might do...but no, he's actually Orochimaru's most fanatical servant, and never did a thing against him.

But, he's a nice guy, really! He saved Hinita. And then knocked out everyone in a non-lethal way. C'mon guys, he's totally a secret good guy! Or maybe had some more complicated plan. Look at those glasses. You know he's gotta be smart! Really!

There's probably a ton more early Naruto Kabu head canons that I'm forgetting. Maybe you remember ones I've forgot. (Please remind me) But it's fun looking back a how much the character has changed. Just imagine how different he could have been if any of these had turned out true.

But I guess he got his good ending either way! Happy B-Day, Kabuto!

[problemswithbooks]

I honestly don’t think there going to be buddy buddy with the villains maybe shouto and dabi I read a lot of shounen when the super villain at the end they tend to go somewhere to reflect like I know people make head canon but I have doubt fairy tail one of the worst shounen didn’t do that

People write how much they will all get along but I doubt it only one is Dani and his family probably sharing a meal but I read too much shounen and it very rare for enemies buddies to be friends like that izuku isn’t going to be bff with shiggy probably have exchange of hopeful words at best think how naruto handle orochimaru or Ed and scar

Different asks but similar awnser.

Yeah, I'm hoping it's less buddy, buddy, and more 'I helped you see the light and I hope you do better in the future', type deal. At least given the way Hori has written the rest of the story so far.

Because I'm not against that kind of thing happening in general, but Hori just hasn't set it up properly, nor do we have the time to course correct.

Usually if the protagonist and antagonist become friends it's at least somewhat before the final boss of the series (Zuko and the Gaang). That or they have a past connection/prior good relationship that the characters can fall back into (Naruto and Sasuke). In bnha we really don't have that.

Touya and Shoto come close, but they actually have the least amount of connection and prior relationship then any other member of the todofam. Shoto didn't even mention Touya to anyone--Fuyumi was the one that brought him up when Shoto's friends came over for dinner. He doesn't long for a relationship with Touya until after the Dabi reveal, which kind of makes it come across as rush/forced by the author.

Meanwhile Touya hated Shoto and has been planning to kill him for years, despite knowing he was abused by their father. He is nothing but a pawn in his eyes and worth more to him as a body then a living brother. Heck, even as a child we're not really shown Touya having any positive feelings toward Shoto. The best we get is him admitting that trying to kill him as a newborn was wrong (though that revelation becomes kind of mute later when that becomes his entire life's goal).

Even though I didn't get farther then the Chunin Exams in Naruto, I can understand why Naruto and Sasuke eventually made up and became friends by the end of the series. They fought and bickered a lot, but they were also willing to put aside their differences and fight side by side. Sasuke even sacrifices himself to save Naruto in their first real battle. He ends up surviving, but in that moment we see how despite their arguments they do have a bond and care for each other.

This isn't to say I want Shoto to hate Touya, but I think a bit more was needed to explain why he suddenly wants this stranger in his life. Frankly, it would make way more sense if Shoto didn't care much for Touya but wanted to bring him back because he can see how much that would mean to his family. Perhaps see how upset they all are and remember how they mourned him and think that deep down his big brother must have some good in him if his family loves and misses him so much. On top of understanding his brothers anger, it would better cement Shoto's drive to bring Touya home, and explain their family reunion in the end (if that's how the story ends).

Then if we go to Shigaraki and Toga, or really any of the LoV besides Dabi, it becomes really hard to see how these characters could be believably be buddies with anyone but each other by the end. It's just to late. If Hori wanted that kind of narrative the other LoV members really needed to defect from AfO sooner.

I really expected either Himiko or Spinner to join the Heroes before this final fight. Partially because things had gotten out of hand and they don't believe if AfO's world domination plan, but mostly because they care for Shigaraki. Spinner more then most was dedicated to Shigaraki and genuinely cared about him. It wasn't the best set up (it would have been nice to get a few panels of them chilling and playing video games rather then Spinner just saying it), but there was enough between them that it would have been belivable that Spinner would leave on his own and beg the Heroes to save Shigaraki.

This has three major benefits--shows how deeply they care for Shigaraki, that they don't agree with AfO, and give them some time with other characters so you can see their relationships grow. All together it also has Spinner or Toga have the bravery to risk a lot to both help Shigaraki and do better. It gives them the agency in their change, instead of it being entirely driven by the protagonists telling them stop being dicks, see that AfO needs to go down.

If this had happened, the characters being friends at the end wouldn't be as much of a stretch because we could have seen those bonds start to form. The villains start to change, and for both sides to air their grievances with each other. For the Heroes/kids to see how dedicated that villain is to saving their own friend, even if it means possibly dying.

Instead, if that change of heart happens so close to end, all of that stuff is gone. It kind of makes the LoV look like cowards who only decided to switch sides because they were getting beaten. It means any relationship they have with the rest of the cast takes a back seat to the action, because there's no breathing room. It undermines the LoV's bonds because none of them were willing to risk anything to help Shigaraki until some rando gave them a pat on the back and firm talking to.

It becomes impossible to see why any of these characters could end up friends except that Hori told us they are. Which is why i think a more hands off approach makes more sense, where if they are saved and alive, the kids who helped them may not hate them, but they they're not palling around either.

[poquito-burrito]

Naruto for the fandom ask thing :>

YAY this is so fun!! thanks for the ask bestie, you chose an immaculate fandom to ask me about haha <3 alright here goes :

3 male characters I love:

Itachi (always)

Naruto, me little baby

Sasuke, me little emo baby

3 female characters I love :

Tsunade, me strong girl 1

Kushina, even tho we didn't get to see her long, man do I love her

Temari, me strong girl 2

3 romantic ships I love:

Jiraiya and Tsunade, this ship had me like "break my heart. Not it's okay break it. Go ahead. BREAK IT NOW."

Sasuke and Sakura

Naruto and Sasuke, duh

3 platonic relationships I love :

Also Naruto and Sasuke

Kakashi and his students

Hashirama interacting with litteraly anyone

3 favorite canon moments:

Naruto returning to fight Pain, like I remember it being the last scene of the episode, and Naruto appears, cape on, senin-mode on, on top of Gamabunta, after being gone for SO long and having us wait for idk how many episodes for him to come and fight Pain and I just got the biggest chills of my life seeing him appear on that battlefield

Itachi dying, because it's so sad yet so iconic; and this is Kishimoto's genius bc the first time I watched Itachi die I was so happy it'd finally happened, and then like 2 episodes later I wanted to rip my heart out of my chest thinking of that scene. Kishimoto had us fully hate a character then WORSHIP him in the blink of an eye I just-

Kakashi dying, even tho it was only for a little while and he came back, that death WRECKED me, I remember pulling an all nighter because I just kept wanting to know what was gonna happen but I couldn't finish the arc that night so I finished it at my best friend's the next day and it was like standing underneath waterfall of emotions seeing him die and come back in the span of 12 hours

3 favorite headcanons :

I don't really have headcanons (?), But I do think Naruto's chakra smells like ramen probably. I just made this up idk seems legit

3 things I hate about it :

Kaguya. Now I know that the production was complicated and Kishimoto needed to retire bc he'd been burning out for what, 20years? So the ending was rushed and stuff, and I still love Naruto to death, but Kaguya represents the trope I hate the most ever I think. It's the "bigger badder older" trope where as the story goes on, you discover that oop there's actually a bigger and older villain, and then another..etc, and I hate this because there's no build-up, and no NUANCE whatsoever with the storytelling. Itachi's story is magnificent bc there's so much complexity and greyness surrounding it, he had to save the world but it was strategically thought-out and carefully built, whereas that whole last arc was like "quick! Gotta save the world bc this bigger older badder alien villain wants to destroy it!" man eat a dick

The war. It was bound to happen, there had to be a Shinobi war and I'm not fully hating on that arc, but it was a long arc. I think it was well managed tho, there were some moments of reprieve like Edo tensei Itachi fighting off Kabuto, and Kabuto's backstory episodes, and the Hokages returning, etc. But still, it felt convoluted at times and the fact that a WAR happened and only Neji died (I swear I love Neji okay I cried) was so disappointing to me. I know it's a shonen, but seriously characters need to be killed off or else there are no stakes. I was barely afraid for any of the characters bc I knew no one would die. I think this is a problem not only in Naruto but in so much of the storytelling surrounding us. Just kill off characters guys it's great, look at George RR Martin, I'm sure he has a masterclass on the many many creative ways there are to kill people

Boruto. Need I say more? I know it's not technically part of Naruto, but it's canon in the Naruto universe so. Yeah. Boruto. Big nono.

[assortednarutoheadcanons]

Love this blog fr, makes my pillow cold at night. Makes my microwave not do that cause it's a croissant (hope you get that reference lmao)

Anywho, thots on team gai? Just in general not sure if you've made a post about them. But like what do others around the village think of em? Love u swag, ur amazing.

Oh honey, you beautiful monster. I haven't mentioned them because I'm Team 10 biased and I think we were robbed of their abilities. Team Gai is different as we can guess based off canon lore.

And Team Gai, darling? Well, they're neutral in the village but that doesn't mean they're not chaotic gremlins. They have Lee and Tenten.

And as with Team 10, this is not organized in any shape or form.

Compared to the Chaotic Evil energy Team 10 exudes, Team Gai gives off quite a bit of Lawful Chaotic energy.

Neji carries a bottle of shochu and sake on him at all times (protected by one of Tenten’s frankly amazing scroll seals) in the even that they need to break out their most feared weapon; Drunk Rock Lee.

(this gave Team 10 an hour long mental confused conversation on the benefits and drawbacks. The rest of the teams are immediately like ‘yup, that checks’ and just leaves Team Gai to whatever fuckery they have planned.)

Tenten is actually a fuinjutsu prodigy. Choji’s mother (head of fuinjutsu department) signed her on as an apprentice during the 2.5 blank period where everyone became chunin and Naruto edited Jiraiya’s nasty pornos.

Team Gai is by far the most responsible team and Neji is instantly the best babysitter for any Chaotic Evil groups (see Team 10).

Hyugas are just rational in general.

Neji hates the Yamanaka Clan with a passion.

Tenten despises the Nara Clan because she can’t beat them at go.

Tenten started the Go club at the Academy.

Lee doesn’t hate anyone but he is creeped out by the Yamanaka heiress who glares at him anytime he’s nearby.

(This isn’t about his fashion sense but because the Lee and Gai clans (subsets of the original clan) evolved to be completely resistant to Genjutsu and mental control. This pisses off the Yamanaka Clan to an almost insane degree because Ino has heard all these stories about losing battles to the fucking clan)

(It also has a little to do with his fashion sense)

Tenten can do tattoo seals. Neji has two, Lee has twenty, and Gai has zero because he’s too old (he claims. He’s just terrified of needles)

One of the tattoos allows for Neji to know if Hinata is hurt. It’s very useful because she’s on a team with Kiba and one of the only people who’s willing to wrestle Akamaru and Kiba at the same time.

Rock Lee killed a giant tiger in the Forest of Death with one kick.

Neji is bisexual and has kissed both Lee and Tenten.

Those two have also kissed.

Neji is allergic to oranges.

Tenten is colourblind and is therefore not allowed to set fires without supervision.

Tenten’s mother died in the Kyuubi attack but her father is a travelling merchant who rarely comes home. She lives with her two aunts, one who is a medical ninja and one who works in T&I.

Tenten is terrified of the Yamanaka Clan because of the horror stories she overheard from her aunt who told her medical ninja aunt about Yamanaka Inoichi and other Yamanakas in the department.

Neji has bitchslapped Ino. He is the only one to still live. (Ino deserved it at the time.)

Lee and Choji regularly spar.

Tenten hates the storage shadow technique Shikamaru created because he’s stabbed her with it.

Neji is the only one who can beat Shikamaru at Shogi. He can’t beat him at actual tactics but shogi is different.

Neji has also strangled Ino.

Rock Lee drinks coffee with a lot of sugar and milk.

Neji drinks very light tea.

Tenten is the only one who can drink straight black coffee.

They live together in an apartment in the Jounin Apartments and they all have jobs. Neji is the shopper, Tenten cooks, and Lee cleans (claims it’s a good workout)

All of them judge Team 7 very harshly. Neji for Sasuke the Missing Ninja, Tenten because Sakura is one of the most frustrating people to talk to, and Lee just judges them because they all lack youth because they’re ‘traumatized’ and ‘angry’.

There is no excuse for Youthfulness and the only people who he will not say that to is Sarutobi Asuma and Team 10.

Tenten is bizarrely adept at barbecuing meat.

Tenten is also a basic field medic (she did train in the medical ninjutsu sector briefly but found her calling in fuinjutsu.)

Tenten and Lee come up with the most bizarre plans and Neji says ‘No’ a lot. This does not mean he doesn’t take pieces and make them into somewhat functional plans.

Tenten isn’t from the Land of Fire. She’s from the western area which I headcanon is a Chinese Empire (if anyone watches Mao dao Zushi, think something like that and mix it with Naruto lore)

Lee can talk to ghosts if he’s in a marked graveyard. It creeps everyone else out.

Tenten likes salads

Neji makes perfect dumplings.

Lee eats more than Tenten and Neji combined. It’s equivalent to the amount Naruto inhales for one meal.

Gai loves sushi. This has not been passed onto his students as Lee can’t eat raw fish.

Tenten, when absorbed in her seal work, forgets to eat, sleep, etc until she collapses (usually with low blood sugar). To fight this, Neji and Lee have made a bucket of candy that she just randomly eats.

Lee becomes a jounin after the war.

Tenten dies in the war. Neji breaks down sobbing in the middle of the battlefield.

Lee is the only one to actively fend off a feral Team 10 and succeed.

Taka fears Team Gai as one fears Team 10. Because they’re Team 10 but organized and Not Insane.

Tenten actively uses old cookware as weapons. This has led to enemies getting smacked around with a frying pan and spatula while Neji and Lee laugh at them.

Gai eats raw onions around them.

He has also eaten a head of garlic straight.

All three of his students fear him because they tried it for a month and they can’t stand the smell of raw onions and garlic. They have them pre chopped by someone they pay.

Tenten has dragged an enemy by the feet to Konoha while he was screaming. Neji and Lee were unconcerned.

Neji loves peanuts. This poses a problem as Tenten actively hates them and will fight one on sight.

This is never explained or elaborated on as everyone has their quirks.

“Neji-nee-san, that isn’t a quirk.”

“Yes it is, Hinata-sama.”

Kiba steals Tenten’s candy and then gets stabbed by a katana.

Lee and Tenten have a move where they swing around an enemy and then just slam into them with as much force as possible. Think of the bloopers from The Greatest Showman, Zendaya and Zac Efron slamming into each other but with someone between them and they’re actively trying to hurt the person in the middle.

Neji usually watches this with unhidden amusement.

Neji meditates. A lot. He has his own garden thing where no one can enter if he’s there so he can calmly meditate.

I don’t know what else to add, feel free to add more if you have your own.

[captnjacksparrow]

Hello!! Well this came to my mind and would be interesting to put into words.

Something that her fans were right is that she hadn't to accept Rock Lee's confession and love. For them a No was No, which is hilarious becase their princess didnt do this with sasuke lol but anyway. After Lee saves Sakura in Death Forest, she changes her attitude towards him and started to be nice , she even defends him when Naruto said something aboout bushy-eyebrows. Even more, i dont actually remember scenes where she is rude against him after that incident in the forest. She tried to encouraged him and most of the time she was "nice" with Lee. In the Hospital in part 1 she was going to visit Sasuke and she also thought of Lee, so she gifted him some flowers too.

-All of this I speak from the anime canon, manga i dont remember tbh. Also in movies I remember her being nice with Lee too- So, what's my point and question? Why is she so bitchy towards Naruto? While she is nice -or try to- with Lee (which he fucking deserves this treatment of course) , why she is still so ungraceful towards Naruto? Naruto saved her much more times than Lee, but still she can be nice with him. I get that when you are confident with someone, you tend to "insult" more lets say. But i get that feel when naruto is around of shikamaru or the other guys. We know how he and Sasuke treat each other ♥ But still, i dont get this with Sakura. Even more, did she ever defend Naruto? From other people I mean. If she could change her attitude for Lee, being almost a good friend.

I always think about this @melody-of-lost-souls 🤔🤔🤔.... Why is she bitchy towards Naruto alone??

There is this hard fact that every author with just half a braincell knows, that is, 'IF YOU WANT A CHARACTER TO BE LIKEABLE, MAKE IT BEHAVE NICER TOWARDS THE MAIN CHARACTER'.

To be honest, I started to like Sasuke because of that very fact 'He was extremely nice towards Naruto in his own way' and later I started to adore him because of his own backstory. But the first spark was because of Episode 3, Orphan insult scene.

It seems Kishi never had that intention to make Sakura be an honest friend with Naruto even in The Last movie. So, ummm.... Yup.

Like you said, Sakura changed her attitude towards Lee and she encouraged him when he was wounded after fighting Gaara. But anyways, she again went onto being a bitch in the Kage Summit Arc, by leaving Lee on the road without any care!!! So... That's what you can expect from her🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ But that's not the point of this post. Is it??

Point to be noted : Sasuke and Naruto insulting each other shows their comfort level with each other. Sakura harassing Naruto is not the same thing. Never.

I think she spoke for Naruto before Sasuke twice. One, In the forest of the Death. Two, Under the Bridge. But it doesn't matter.

She should've defended Naruto from Sasuke's attacks in Orochimaru hideout like Sai.

She should've worried about Naruto's wounds after Naruto came back like an Egyptian Mummy from fighting in VoTE in part 1. Instead she was worried about Sasuke alone.

She should've fought Sasori for Naruto's safety sake instead of getting information about Sasuke.

She should’ve stayed with Naruto when he went with Karui to deal with Sasuke’s Akatsuki activities. 

She should've stood up for Naruto in her final confession like 'Sasuke-kun, if you touch Naruto, I'll have to kill you eventhough I love you'... Yeah, she wouldn't stand a chance against Sasuke. But her character would've shined a lot.

So, Nope. She defending Naruto couple of times but letting him down countless other times doesn't matter.

WHY SAKURA TREATS NARUTO BADLY ?

After thinking about all the possibilities,

SOCIAL STATUS OF NARUTO

Sakura is the reflection of the Villagers' mindset. That is, The object of Hatred who should be treated like pest.

She definitely gave me that vibe in Episode 3. She literally treated him like a plague and I wanted to slap her so hard ever since. But even after the Pain Arc, I mean after Naruto became a Hero by making peace with Nagato, she still behaved like a Worst Bitch.

If she truly represents the social dynamics of the Villagers, she should have become a good friend like Shikamaru or Neji long back. But she didn’t.

So, we can safely eliminate this possibility.

SAKURA THINKS NARUTO IS 'THIRDWHEELING'

Well, This is from Chapter 3. So, I think whenever Sakura makes a move on Sasuke, Naruto accidentally comes in between her one-sided ‘duck dreams’ and spoil her party. It seems this has been going on for a long time. So, she just hates him for that. 

I found this ‘coming between’ thing twice in part 1. The first time was when Naruto stole the ‘First Kiss’ of Sasuke.

Second time was when Naruto was about to fight Gaara.

Here, Sakura was fretting over Sasuke’s cursed Seal and when Naruto asked her a question, she responded with a ‘Devil Face’. I mean is there any need to get angry at this time? There’s a monster standing before them and all she worries about is her poor ‘Sasuke-Kun’ and not even bothered about her surroundings, because Naruto will do the dirty job. All she can do is touch and worry about Sasuke. 

Well, In reality she is the one coming between them and she never realized that. What a self-absorbed Trash!!!

SAKURA IS JEALOUS

Naruto receives something from Sasuke that she never got from him, not until the very end and even today. That is, Attention. 

I noticed this in the Manga. Surprisingly, I guess none of the SNS bloggers brought this very cute panel up for discussion. It’s not in the Anime though!! 

This is from Chapter 3 page 6. (Geez!!!! Chapter 3 is a Gold Mine for SNS)

As you see Sakura was watching Sasuke up close like a Fruit Cake. It seems, Sasuke doesn’t give 2 fucks about her or anyone!!!

Now Let’s go back to Page 5 and see what happened earlier.

Naruto has been intensely throwing knives from his eyes. And you know what!!! Sasuke noticed it and asked him ‘What?’. To which Naruto asks, ‘What do you mean what?’. LOLLLLLL.

This is their First official conversation in the Manga.😍😍😍😍😍

Sakura looking at him with love doesn’t get any reaction and Naruto’s angry stare get his attention. Well, this is not an one time occurrence!!

In the Same chapter, it occurred again

This panel screams, ‘Why pay attention to Naruto, when he is not here?’. Kishi established this dynamics in freaking Chapter 3 and it never changed towards the end. LOLLL.

Even during Chakra Training, Sakura climbed the tree very easily in the hopes that Sasuke would appreciate her or notice her with admiration. But he was never bothered about her achievements even by a bit, but he paid attention to Naruto when he found out he was slowly catching up to him🤭🤭🤭.

I always find this scene very funny and cute because just like before, Naruto throws Daggers at him visually and Sasuke was like, ‘What did I do this time?’. 😍😍😍

And this is after getting the pass to participate in Chunin Exams

Well, I don’t have to add the scenes from Orochimaru Hideout, Bridge scene and War Arc, Do I?

And the best part is Sakura knew that Naruto gets his attention. So, her jealousy is probably the reason for her to treat him so badly. Just like how she treats Ino. Since Naruto plays dunce in front of her, she takes advantage of it and used him like a Tooth Brush.

This is also one of the reason for her to treat him badly.

Because Lee never came in between Sakura and Sasuke. It was Naruto, the whole time. And that's why she was like a bitch to Naruto.

Kishimoto in his own words,

I mean, Come On!!!, Sakura is nothing compared to Naruto's power level, strength or jutsu varieties to consider him as a rival in these departments. Still she is considering Naruto as her rival.

In what????

The only thing that connects them is their obsession towards Sasuke's Acknowledgement. And Kishi himself is hinting at a love triangle with Sasuke as the central figure.

Does it means Naruto also loves Sasuke and Sakura was jealous of it???🤔🤔🤔🤭🤭🤭🤭.

Well, that makes more sense. 😂😂😂. Because I can think of no other reason for her to be a bitch towards Naruto.

Curse You, Kishimoto!!!!!!

[nneefa]

That anti-sasuhina is down criminal for hating on creative works but ... there are some sasuhina fans that bullied a friend of mine (we're both on sasuhina fandom) some members are just absurd in their headcanons that we can't have another.

I’m not saying that there aren’t any SasuHina fans that aren’t downright vile and wretched. I know because I myself have encountered them too, but I hate this idea that the Naruto fandom - particularly the SasuSaku fandom - perpetuates when it comes to SasuHina:

that we’re all comprised of Sakura Haruno and/or Naruto Uzumaki haters (when some SH shippers love and treat them with more care than Kishimoto could ever dream of); that we’re all art thieves or that we don’t condemn art thieves (when there are art thieves in every single fandom ever made and that, contrary to stupidly popular belief, we actually do condemn plagiarism); that we all ship SasuHina out of spite towards canon (when most SH shippers are multishippers, never mind that some of us just like what we like without thinking about what is and isn’t canon, and even if we did ship SH out of spite, why does it matter when it doesn’t directly affect or harm anyone); that we just loves us some adultery/infidelity plotlines, or whatever other inane nonsense they seem to pull out of thin air, when that couldn’t be any further from the truth if they ever bothered to actually search for a decent SasuHina fic.

There are all sorts of shipping fandoms within the Naruto fandom that do this, but somehow, it’s only exclusive to SasuHina and we’re all labeled and painted with one brushstroke as the worst of the worst, by every stretch of the imagination, when the ship and fandom are literal blips on the radar in comparison to other fandoms.

It’s a shame that your friend was bullied, even worse that it was over something as harmless as shipping, but this sort of behavior is not exclusive to the SasuHina fandom, and I’m tired of us being generalized like we all are. The same thing can be said for SasuSaku or literally any shipping fandom within the Naruto fandom; in fact, the bullying from anti-SasuHina folks is so awful that we can’t even upload our fics onto AO3 or fanfiction.net without some douchebag leaving an unwarranted, disgusting comment under our stories before proceeding to tell us to kill ourselves because we deigned to write about a ship they dislike. Twitter is crawling with these kinds of people to the point where they tried to ruin SasuHina month - an event that’s been going on for more than a decade, mind you - for no other reason than to be assholes, because Hinata is “a big titty monster with an ugly husband” and Sasuke is “Sakura-sexual that doesn’t have eyes for a weakling like Hinata.” It’s all sick stuff.

As for headcanons: we can all believe whatever we want to believe, and the only way our headcanons can affect someone else is if we want it to. Hell, my headcanon is that Sasuke and Hinata would’ve understood one another on a level that far exceeds the relationship he has with Sakura had Kishimoto ever allowed them to interact with each other, platonically or romantically. I staunchly believe in it, no matter how stupid or absurd anyone thinks it is, no matter how much anyone disagrees with it, and no one can convince me otherwise, and it shouldn’t bother anyone that I do believe it to the point where they feel like it’s okay to insult me about it, because it doesn’t impact anyone’s life in any way, shape or form. And that goes for you anon: you can have whatever headcanon you desire.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: we cultivate our own experiences on the internet. Some of us like to torture ourselves by intentionally looking up stuff we know will piss us off, but at the end of the day, we are in control of what we do and do not want to see; and if something as small and insignificant and harmless as a headcanon over a mf crack ship can rile a person up so bad that they feel the need to bully and bash real life human beings, then they need to gtf off the internet and go touch some grass, because it’s never that serious.

[dai-nana-han-agenda]

i would actually love to listen to a sasuke rant there's so many parts of his storyline that still confuse me

hello!! so i am not the most eloquent person, especially since i’ve been out of school for past 6 months and my brain feels fried/mushy from the lack of use, but imma do my best to put my thoughts into words! putting everything under the cut because i kinda went off oops.

ok so to be completely fucking honest, i don’t remember anything that happens in naruto after the pein arc. i’ve watched all of shippuden once, when it was airing, but when i go back and rewatch, i never go beyond the pein arc (aside from certain moments/arcs later on). all this to say, most of my understanding of the characterization of sasuke comes from the og naruto to the beginning of shippuden.

so let’s talk about genin!sasuke. yes, as a fandom, i feel like a lot of us tease him for being “super fucking emo” & how he will, canonically, spout out the darkest little rants to anyone who will listen. but it’s important to put into context that he’s 1.) 12 years old at the beginning of og naruto and 2.) HEAVILY traumatized. like, my poor baby boy saw his brother, literally his favorite person in the entire world, murder his entire clan in cold blood. itachi literally tortured him, forcing him to relive the events of the massacre, in an attempt to goad him into “getting stronger.” and as much as i post abt how much i love itachi, bc i tend to ignore canon & live in my deluded fantasies of the massacre never happening, i know he’s not the hero kishimoto tries to paint him to be. i’m not gonna get into it, bc this is about sasuke, but i do just wanna say: itachi was also been manipulated by the shinobi system, but he continued that vicious cycle when he chose to torture and traumatize his brother in the cruelest way possible. itachi’s story is also really fucking tragic, because he was just a kid. he deserved to be helped. he’s both a victim and a perpetrator. but i digress.

so, we go into og naruto with the knowledge that sasuke is extremely traumatized and has, since the age of 7/8, been plotting to avenge his clan by killing his brother. on top of all that, he has no one who helps him through that. i’m not entirely sure he has any real bonds until he’s placed on team 7. like, he’s still living in the compound, where he saw his entire clan murdered. he’s literally living with the ghosts of his dead family. that’s extremely fucked up (fuck u hiruzen u piece of shit).

throughout og naruto, there are multiple moments where you can see sasuke’s true nature. for one, he genuinely cares about his team. he literally threw himself in front of haku’s sebon for naruto. in the chuunin exam arc, sakura’s super depressed abt something and he purposefully compliments her genjutsu skills to make her feel better. in the gaara retrieval arc, he talks about how naruto & sakura are his precious people. when kakashi ties him to the tree after his fight with naruto, sasuke thinks about naruto and sakura as his reasons to stay.

before the massacre, we see that sasuke is a sweet, gentle boy who loves his brother and his family. that doesn’t just go away. at his core, sasuke is a good person. but his trauma is never addressed by any adult in the series & his quest for revenge is left unchecked for too long. he wants power so bad, and who can blame him? when he runs into itachi in og naruto, he’s determined to kill him, and he’s confident that he can. very quickly, sasuke learns that he’s powerless & nowhere near the level he needs to be to kill itachi. even after learning the chidori & basically defeating gaara, who was the strongest in the chuunin exams, he doesn’t have enough power to take on his brother (who, in a totally dick move, goads him about it, like the little bitch he is.)

sasuke doesn’t just leave the village without hesitation. like i said earlier, kakashi’s speech affects him. in both the manga and the anime, he’s visibly struggling over his choice. people say sasuke doesn’t feel anything, but i would argue that he feels too much. he feels really fucking deeply. he has to pick between his team, people that genuinely make him happy enough to forget about his revenge, or his quest for power. if he chooses his team, his happiness, does that mean he’s betraying his family? is he letting his family die without the justice they deserve? he can’t accept that, so of course he chooses power. he forces himself to cut ties, no matter how much it hurts, because killing itachi means letting his family finally rest in peace (and, he thinks, will bring peace to himself.)

so he leaves sakura on the bench (but he thanks her for caring, for loving him). he leaves naruto (but not before the iconic rain scene, where he struggles to leave him behind).

sasuke’s true nature doesn’t just disappear after og naruto. during shippuden, when he first forms team hebi/taka, he bonds with them in the same way he bonded with team 7. he doesn’t leave them behind (kakashi’s influence), he saves them when they’re in trouble, and he even establishes a no-kill policy (aside from those related to his revenge plot). he’s also openly disgusted by orochimaru’s experimentation (not to say that makes him a good person, because the bar is super fucking low if so, but i think it’s important to note).

jumping forward to after he kills itachi/learns the truth, he’s understandably so furious. his brother was used by the village to massacre his entire clan. it’s state-sanctioned genocide, plain and simple. of course he doesn’t wanna go back to konoha. of course he wants to destroy konoha. of course he’s gonna spiral. sasuke’s descent into darkness is a fucking tragedy because you can understand why he's in such despair. he locks away all the goodness inside of him because he’s so consumed by rage and grief and sadness and darkness (until naruto finally pulls him out.)

as a viewer of the show, of course i believe/can say, “omg, but that doesn’t mean you have to eradicate all of konoha when the civilians did nothing wrong. just take out the people in power (aka danzo) and be done with it.” but honestly, put yourself in his shoes. what would you do if your family/friends were murdered? what if you found out it was your favorite person who murdered them? what if you found out that they did it because the government told them to? i, for one, would burn the world down. or i’d just be consumed by grief/depression. like seriously, how the fuck do you come back from that? how do you keep living?

i personally believe everyone deserves compassion (cough, fuck the US prison system, cough). children don’t have the autonomy to protect themselves from trauma, nor do they choose the environment they're born into. and yes, of course i believe that when you’re an adult, it’s your responsibility to unlearn that trauma/work on yourself instead of taking it out on everyone else/using it as an excuse. but what if you don’t have the resources/support to do that? sasuke certainly didn’t. not when he was a genin, when everyone ignored his revenge plot (like seriously, get the boy some goddamn therapy!!). and, after itachi died, he’s stuck in a world where his entire clan was wrongfully murdered because of konoha (danzo) and he doesn’t know how to fix the hurt and pain and rage he’s feeling because of it.

on a quick side note, i do think there’s also an argument that could be made about how sasuke’s self-destructive tendencies & his extremely violent plans/actions were exaggerated to discredit the validity of his desire for revolution and systemic change. like “omg all revolutionaries are violent and out of control!! we need to put him down instead of understanding that he’s actually right, the shinboi system fucking sucks and needs to be revolutionized!” idk if kishimoto did this purposefully (with the way his writing goes from brilliant to absolutely fucking stupid, i really can’t tell with him). but i’m going off topic.

do i think sasuke is 100% justified in all his actions? of course not. i, for one, really wish sakura had buried him six feet under when he tried to kill her (yes, i know she tried to kill him first but that’s another rant for another time). i wish karin got to kick his ass bc she definitely did not deserve to be treated that way (she literally almost died because of him and sasuke didn’t give a flying fuck, like fuck him for that.) i think we can be compassionate and understand why he acted the way he did while also acknowledging that he did do some really dark, unforgivable shit.

idk. sasuke is just such an interesting character. i think he's an easy character to misunderstand, because it's easy to be pissed off at him for the choices he makes (especially when you have naruto as a main character, who's ideals are... well. we're not gonna get into that.) he’s not all good, but he’s certainly not a villain (which i feel like a lot of people paint him out to be.) i just have a lot of Feelings about him and i definitely don't think i did him justice in this rant but it's also like, 1 AM rn and my brain is scrambled lmfao.

so yeah, that’s my soapbox. i don’t even know if any of this makes sense (truly, i feel like my brain is malfunctioning half of the time help). but, if u wanna talk about it more, or talk about specific parts of the manga/anime, lmk!

[shortnotsweet]

Bakudeku: A Non-Comprehensive Dissection of the Exploitation of Working Bodies, the Murder of Annoying Children, and a Rivals-to-Lovers Complex

I. Bakudeku in Canon, And Why Anti’s Need to Calm the Fuck Down

II. Power is Power: the Brain-Melting Process of Normalization and Toxic Masculinity

III. How to Kill Middle Schoolers, and Why We Should

IV. Parallels in Abuse, EnemiesRivals-to-Lovers, and the Necessity of Redemption ft. ATLA’s Zuko

V. Give it to Me Straight. It’s Homophobic.

VI. Love in Perspective, from the East v. West

VII. Stuck in the Sludge, the Past, and Season One

Disclaimer

It needs to be said that there is definitely a place for disagreement, discourse, debate, and analysis: that is a sign of an active fandom that’s heavily invested, and not inherently a bad thing at all. Considering the amount of source material we do have (from the manga, to the anime, to the movies, to the light novels, to the official art), there are going to be warring interpretations, and that’s inevitable.

I started watching and reading MHA pretty recently, and just got into the fandom. I was weary for a reason, and honestly, based on what I’ve seen, I’m still weary now. I’ve seen a lot of anti posts, and these are basically my thoughts. This entire thing is in no way comprehensive, and it’s my own opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. If I wanted to be thorough about this, I would’ve included manga panels, excerpts from the light novel, shots from the anime, links to other posts/essays/metas that have inspired this, etc. but I’m tired and not about that life right now, so, this is what it is. This is poorly organized, but maybe I’ll return to fix it.

Let’s begin.

Bakudeku in Canon, And Why Anti’s Need to Calm the Fuck Down

There are a lot of different reasons, that can be trivial as you like, to ship or not to ship two (or more) characters. It could be based purely off of character design, proximity, aversion to another ship, or hypotheticals. And I do think that it’s totally valid if someone dislikes the ship or can’t get on board with his character because to them, it does come across as abuse, and the implications make them uncomfortable or, or it just feels unhealthy. If that is your takeaway, and you are going to stick to your guns, the more power to you.

But Bakudeku’s relationship has canonically progressed to the point where it’s not the emotionally (or physically) abusive clusterfuck some people portray it to be, and it’s cheap to assume that it would be, based off of their characterizations as middle schoolers. Izuku intentionally opens the story as a naive little kid who views the lens of the Hero society through rose colored glasses and arguably wants nothing more than assimilation into that society; Bakugou is a privileged little snot who embodies the worst and most hypocritical beliefs of this system. Both of them are intentionally proven wrong. Both are brainwashed, as many little children are, by the propaganda and societal norms that they are exposed to. Both of their arcs include unlearning crucial aspects of the Hero ideology in order to become true heroes.

I will personally never simp for Bakugou because for the longest time, I couldn't help but think of him as a little kid on the playground screaming at the top of his lungs because someone else is on the swingset. He’s red in the face, there are probably veins popping out of his neck, he’s losing it. It’s easy to see why people would prefer Tododeku to Bakudeku.

Even now, seeing him differently, I still personally wouldn’t date Bakugou, especially if I had other options. Why? I probably wouldn’t want to date any of the guys who bullied me, especially because I think that schoolyard bullying, even in middle school, affected me largely in a negative way and created a lot of complexes I’m still trying to work through. I haven’t built a better relationship with them, and I’m not obligated to. Still, I associate them with the kind of soft trauma that they inflicted upon me, and while to them it was probably impersonal, to me, it was an intimate sort of attack that still affects me. That being said, that is me. Those are my personal experiences, and while they could undoubtedly influence how I interpret relationships, I do not want to project and hinder my own interpretation of Deku.

The reality is that Deku himself has an innate understanding of Bakugou that no one else does; I mention later that he seems to understand his language, implicitly, and I do stand by that. He understands what it is he’s actually trying to say, often why he’s saying it, and while others may see him as wimpy or unable to stand up for himself, that’s simply not true. Part of Deku’s characterization is that he is uncommonly observant and empathetic; I’m not denying that Bakugou caused harm or inflicted damage, but infantilizing Deku and preaching about trauma that’s not backed by canon and then assuming random people online excuse abuse is just...the leap of leaps, and an actual toxic thing to do. I’ve read fan works where Bakugou is a bully, and that’s all, and has caused an intimate degree of emotional, mental, and physical insecurity from their middle school years that prevents their relationship from changing, and that’s for the better. I’m not going to argue and say that it’s not an interesting take, or not valid, or has no basis, because it does. Its basis is the character that Bakugou was in middle school, and the person he was when he entered UA.

Not only is Bakugou — the current Bakugou, the one who has accumulated memories and experiences and development — not the same person he was at the beginning of the story, but Deku is not the same person, either. Maybe who they are fundamentally, at their core, stays the same, but at the beginning and end of any story, or even their arcs within the story, the point is that characters will undergo change, and that the reader will gain perspective.

“You wanna be a hero so bad? I’ve got a time-saving idea for you. If you think you’ll have a quirk in your next life...go take a swan dive off the roof!”

Yes. That is a horrible thing to tell someone, even if you are a child, even if you don’t understand the implications, even if you don’t mean what it is you are saying. Had someone told me that in middle school, especially given our history and the context of our interactions, I don’t know if I would ever have forgiven them.

Here’s the thing: I’m not Deku. Neither is anyone reading this. Deku is a fictional character, and everyone we know about him is extrapolated from source material, and his response to this event follows:

“Idiot! If I really jumped, you’d be charged with bullying me into suicide! Think before you speak!”

I think it’s unfair to apply our own projections as a universal rather than an interpersonal interpretation; that’s not to say that the interpretation of Bakudeku being abusive or having unbalanced power dynamics isn’t valid, or unfounded, but rather it’s not a universal interpretation, and it’s not canon. Deku is much more of a verbal thinker; in comparison, Bakugou is a visual one, at least in the format of the manga, and as such, we get various panels demonstrating his guilt, and how deep it runs. His dialogue and rapport with Deku has undeniably shifted, and it’s very clear that the way they treat each other has changed from when they were younger. Part of Bakugou’s growth is him gaining self awareness, and eventually, the strength to wield that. He knows what a fucked up little kid he was, and he carries the weight of that.

“At that moment, there were no thoughts in my head. My body just moved on its own.”

There’s a part of me that really, really disliked Bakugou going into it, partially because of what I’d seen and what I’d heard from a limited, outside perspective. I felt like Bakugou embodied the toxic masculinity (and to an extent, I still believe that) and if he won in some way, that felt like the patriarchy winning, so I couldn't help but want to muzzle and leash him before releasing him into the wild.

The reality, however, of his character in canon is that it isn’t very accurate to assume that he would be an abusive partner in the future, or that Midoryia has not forgiven him to some extent already, that the two do not care about each other or are singularly important, that they respect each other, or that the narrative has forgotten any of this.

Don’t mistake me for a Bakugou simp or apologist. I’m not, but while I definitely could also see Tododeku (and I have a soft spot for them, too, their dynamic is totally different and unique, and Todoroki is arguably treated as the tritagonist) and I’m ambivalent about Izuocha (which is written as cannoncially romantic) I do believe that canonically, Bakugou and Deku are framed as soulmates/character foils, Sasuke + Naruto, Kageyama + Hinata style. Their relationship is arguably the focus of the series. That’s not to undermine the importance or impact of Deku’s relationships with other characters, and theirs with him, but in terms of which one takes priority, and which one this all hinges on?

The manga is about a lot of things, yes, but if it were to be distilled into one relationship, buckle up, because it’s the Bakudeku show.

Power is Power: the Brain-Melting Process of Normalization and Toxic Masculinity

One of the ways in which the biopolitical prioritization of Quirks is exemplified within Hero society is through Quirk marriages. Endeavor partially rationalizes the abuse of his family through the creation of a child with the perfect quirk, a child who can be molded into the perfect Hero. People with powerful, or useful abilities, are ranked high on the hierarchy of power and privilege, and with a powerful ability, the more opportunities and avenues for success are available to them.

For the most part, Bakugou is a super spoiled, privileged little rich kid who is born talented but is enabled for his aggressive behavior and, as a child, cannot move past his many internalized complexes, treats his peers like shit, and gets away with it because the hero society he lives in either has this “boys will be boys” mentality, or it’s an example of the way that power, or Power, is systematically prioritized in this society. The hero system enables and fosters abusers, people who want power and publicity, and people who are genetically predisposed to have advantages over others. There are plenty of good people who believe in and participate in this system, who want to be good, and who do good, but that doesn’t change the way that the hero society is structured, the ethical ambiguity of the Hero Commission, and the way that Heroes are but pawns, idols with machine guns, used to sell merch to the public, to install faith in the government, or the current status quo, and reinforce capitalist propaganda. Even All Might, the epitome of everything a Hero should be, is drained over the years, and exists as a concept or idea, when in reality he is a hollow shell with an entire person inside, struggling to survive. Hero society is functionally dependent on illusion.

In Marxist terms: There is no truth, there is only power.

Although Bakugou does change, and I think that while he regrets his actions, what is long overdue is him verbally expressing his remorse, both to himself and Deku. One might argue that he’s tried to do it in ways that are compatible with his limited emotional range of expression, and Deku seems to understand this language implicitly.

I am of the opinion that the narrative is building up to a verbal acknowledgement, confrontation, and subsequent apology that only speaks what has gone unspoken.

That being said, Bakugou is a great example of the way that figures of authority (parents, teachers, adults) and institutions both in the real world and this fictional universe reward violent behavior while also leaving mental and emotional health — both his own and of the people Bakugou hurts — unchecked, and part of the way he lashes out at others is because he was never taught otherwise.

And by that, I’m referring to the ways that are to me, genuinely disturbing. For example, yelling at his friends is chill. But telling someone to kill themselves, even casually and without intent and then misinterpreting everything they do as a ploy to make you feel weak because you're projecting? And having no teachers stop and intervene, either because they are afraid of you or because they value the weight that your Quirk can benefit society over the safety of children? That, to me, is both real and disturbing.

Not only that, but his parents (at least, Mitsuki), respond to his outbursts with more outbursts, and while this is likely the culture of their home and I hesitate to call it abusive, I do think that it contributed to the way that he approaches things. Bakugou as a character is very complex, but I think that he is primarily an example of the way that the Hero System fails people.

I don’t think we can write off the things he’s done, especially using the line of reasoning that “He didn’t mean it that way”, because in real life, children who hurt others rarely mean it like that either, but that doesn’t change the effect it has on the people who are victimized, but to be absolutely fair, I don’t think that the majority of Bakudeku shippers, at least now, do use that line of reasoning. Most of them seem to have a handle on exactly how fucked up the Hero society is, and exactly why it fucks up the people embedded within that society.

The characters are positioned in this way for a reason, and the discoveries made and the development that these characters undergo are meant to reveal more about the fictional world — and, perhaps, our world — as the narrative progresses.

The world of the Hero society is dependent, to some degree, on biopolitics. I don’t think we have enough evidence to suggest that people with Quirks or Quirkless people place enough identity or placement within society to become equivalent to marginalized groups, exactly, but we can draw parallels to the way that Deku and by extent Quirkless people are viewed as weak, a deviation, or disabled in some way. Deviants, or non-productive bodies, are shunned for their inability to perform ideal labor. While it is suggested to Deku that he could become a police officer or pursue some other occupation to help people, he believes that he can do the most positive good as a Hero. In order to be a Hero, however, in the sense of a career, one needs to have Power.

Deviation from the norm will be punished or policed unless it is exploitable; in order to become integrated into society, a deviant must undergo a process of normalization and become a working, exploitable body. It is only through gaining power from All Might that Deku is allowed to assimilate from the margins and into the upper ranks of society; the manga and the anime give the reader enough perspective, context, and examples to allow us to critique and deconstruct the society that is solely reliant on power.

Through his societal privileges, interpersonal biases, internalized complexes, and his subsequent unlearning of these ideologies, Bakugou provides examples of the way that the system simultaneously fails and indoctrinates those who are targeted, neglected, enabled by, believe in, and participate within the system.

Bakudeku are two sides of the same coin. We are shown visually that the crucial turning point and fracture in their relationship is when Bakugou refuses to take Deku’s outstretched hand; the idea of Deku offering him help messes with his adolescent perspective in that Power creates a hierarchy that must be obeyed, and to be helped is to be weak is to be made a loser.

Largely, their character flaws in terms of understanding the hero society are defined and entangled within the concept of power. Bakugou has power, or privilege, but does not have the moral character to use it as a hero, and believes that Power, or winning, is the only way in which to view life. Izuku has a much better grasp on the way in which heroes wield power (their ideologies can, at first, be differentiated as winning vs. saving), and is a worthy successor because of this understanding, and of circumstance. However, in order to become a Hero, our hero must first gain the Power that he lacks, and learn to wield it.

As the characters change, they bridge the gaps of their character deficiencies, and are brought closer together through character parallelism.

Two sides of the same coin, an outstretched hand.

They are better together.

How to Kill Middle Schoolers, and Why We Should

I think it’s fitting that in the manga, a critical part of Bakugou’s arc explicitly alludes to killing the middle school version of himself in order to progress into a young adult. In the alternative covers Horikoshi released, one of them was a close up of Bakugou in his middle school uniform, being stabbed/impaled, with blood rolling out of his mouth. Clearly this references the scene in which he sacrifices himself to save Deku, on a near-instinctual level.

To me, this only cements Horikoshi’s intent that middle school Bakugou must be debunked, killed, discarded, or destroyed in order for Bakugou the hero to emerge, which is why people who do actually excuse his actions or believe that those actions define him into young adulthood don’t really understand the necessity for change, because they seem to imply that he doesn’t need/cannot reach further growth, and there doesn’t need to be a separation between the Bakugou who is, at heart, volatile and repressed the angry, and the Bakugou who sacrifices himself, a hero who saves people.

Plot twist: there does need to be a difference. Further plot twist: there is a difference.

In sacrificing himself for Deku, Bakugou himself doesn't die, but the injury is fatal in the sense that it could've killed him physically and yet symbolizes the selfish, childish part of him that refused to accept Deku, himself, and the inevitability of change. In killing those selfish remnants, he could actually become the kind of hero that we the reader understand to be the true kind.

That’s why I think that a lot of the people who stress his actions as a child without acknowledging the ways he has changed, grown, and tried to fix what he has broken don’t really get it, because it was always part of his character arc to change and purposely become something different and better. If the effects of his worst and his most childish self stick with you more, and linger despite that, that’s okay. But distilling his character down to the wrong elements doesn’t get you the bare essentials; what it gets you is a skewed and shallow version of a person. If you’re okay with that version, that is also fine.

But you can’t condemn others who aren’t fine with that incomplete version, and to become enraged that others do not see him as you do is childish.

Bakugou’s change and the emphasis on that change is canon.

Parallels in Abuse, EnemiesRivals-to-Lovers, and the Necessity of Redemption ft. ATLA’s Zuko

In real life, the idea that “oh, he must bully you because he likes you” is often used as a way to brush aside or to excuse the action of bullying itself, as if a ‘secret crush’ somehow negates the effects of bullying on the victim or the inability of the bully to properly process and manifest their emotions in certain ways. It doesn’t. It often enables young boys to hurt others, and provides figures of authority to overlook the real source of schoolyard bullying or peer review. The “secret crush”, in real life, is used to undermine abuse, justify toxic masculinity, and is essentially used as a non-solution solution.

A common accusation is that Bakudeku shippers jump on the pairing because they romanticize pairing a bully and a victim together, or believe that the only way for Bakugou to atone for his past would be to date Midoryia in the future. This may be true for some people, in which case, that’s their own preference, but based on my experience and what I’ve witnessed, that’s not the case for most.

The difference being is that as these are characters, we as readers or viewers are meant to analyze them. Not to justify them, or to excuse their actions, but we are given the advantage of the outsider perspective to piece their characters together in context, understand why they are how they are, and witness them change; maybe I just haven’t been exposed to enough of the fandom, but no one (I’ve witnessed) treats the idea that “maybe Bakugou has feelings he can’t process or understand and so they manifest in aggressive and unchecked ways'' as a solution to his inability to communicate or process in a healthy way, rather it is just part of the explanation of his character, something is needs to — and is — working through. The solution to his middle school self is not the revelation of a “teehee, secret crush”, but self-reflection, remorse, and actively working to better oneself, which I do believe is canonically reflected, especially as of recently.

In canon, they are written to be partners, better together than apart, and I genuinely believe that one can like the Bakudeku dynamic not by route of romanticization but by observation.

I do think we are meant to see parallels between him and Endeavor; Endeavor is a high profile abuser who embodies the flaws and hypocrisy of the hero system. Bakugou is a schoolyard bully who emulates and internalizes the flaws of this system as a child, likely due to the structure of the society and the way that children will absorb the propaganda they are exposed to; the idea that Quirks, or power, define the inherent value of the individual, their ability to contribute to society, and subsequently their fundamental human worth. The difference between them is the fact that Endeavor is the literal adult who is fully and knowingly active within a toxic, corrupt system who forces his family to undergo a terrifying amount of trauma and abuse while facing little to no consequences because he knows that his status and the values of their society will protect him from those consequences. In other words, Endeavor is the threat of what Bakugou could have, and would have, become without intervention or genuine change.

Comparisons between characters, as parallels or foils, are tricky in that they imply but cannot confirm sameness. Having parallels with someone does not make them the same, by the way, but can serve to illustrate contrasts, or warnings. Harry Potter, for example, is meant to have obvious parallels with Tom Riddle, with similar abilities, and tragic upbringings. That doesn’t mean Harry grows up to become Lord Voldemort, but rather he helps lead a cross-generational movement to overthrow the facist regime. Harry is offered love, compassion, and friends, and does not embrace the darkness within or around him. As far as moldy old snake men are concerned, they do not deserve a redemption arc because they do not wish for one, and the truest of change only occurs when you actively try to change.

To be frank, either way, Bakugou was probably going to become a good Hero, in the sense that Endeavor is a ‘good’ Hero. Hero capitalized, as in a pro Hero, in the sense that it is a career, an occupation, and a status. Because of his strong Quirk, determination, skill, and work ethic, Bakugou would have made a good Hero. Due to his lack of character, however, he was not on the path to become a hero; defender of the weak, someone who saves people to save people, who is willing to make sacrifices detrimental to themselves, who saves people out of love.

It is necessary for him to undergo both a redemption arc and a symbolic death and rebirth in order for him to follow the path of a hero, having been inspired and prompted by Deku.

I personally don’t really like Endeavor’s little redemption arc, not because I don’t believe that people can change or that they shouldn't at least try to atone for the atrocities they have committed, but because within any narrative, a good redemption arc is important if it matters; what also matters is the context of that arc, and whether or not it was needed. For example, in ATLA, Zuko’s redemption arc is widely regarded as one of the best arcs in television history, something incredible. And it is. That shit fucks. In a good way.

It was confirmed that Azula was also going to get a redemption arc, had Volume 4 gone on as planned, and it was tentatively approached in the comics, which are considered canon. She is an undeniably bad person (who is willing to kill, threaten, exploit, and colonize), but she is also a child, and as viewers, we witness and recognize the factors that contributed to her (debatable) sociopathy, and the way that the system she was raised in failed her. Her family failed her; even Uncle Iroh, the wise mentor who helps guide Zuko to see the light, is willing to give up on her immediately, saying that she’s “crazy” and needs to be “put down”. Yes, it’s comedic, and yes, it’s pragmatic, but Azula is fourteen years old. Her mother is banished, her father is a psychopath, and her older brother, from her perspective, betrayed and abandoned her. She doesn’t have the emotional support that Zuko does; she exploits and controls her friends because it’s all she’s been taught to do; she says herself, her “own mother thought [she] was a monster; she was right, of course, but it still [hurts]”. A parent who does not believe in you, or a parent that uses you and will hurt you, is a genuine indicator of trauma.

The writers understood that both Zuko and Azula deserved redemption arcs. One was arguably further gone than the other, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are both children, products of their environment, who have the time, motive, and reason to change.

In contrast, you know who wouldn’t have deserved a redemption arc? Ozai. That simply would not have been interesting, wouldn’t have served the narrative well, and honestly, is not needed, thematically or otherwise. Am I comparing Ozai to Endeavor? Basically, yes. Fuck those guys. I don’t see a point in Endeavor’s little “I want to be a good dad now” arc, and I think that we don’t need to sympathize with characters in order to understand them or be interested in them. I want Touya/Dabi to expose his abuse, for his career to crumble, and then for him to die.

If they are not challenging the system that we the viewer are meant to question, and there is no thematic relevance to their redemption, is it even needed?

On that note, am I saying that Bakugou is the equivalent to Zuko? No, lmao. Definitely not. They are different characters with different progressions and different pressures. What I am saying is that good redemption arcs shouldn’t be handed out like candy to babies; it is the quality, rather than the quantity, that makes a redemption arc good. In terms of the commentary of the narrative, who needs a redemption arc, who is deserving, and who does it make sense to give one to?

In this case, Bakugou checks those boxes. It was always in the cards for him to change, and he has. In fact, he’s still changing.

Give it to Me Straight. It’s Homophobic.

There does seem to be an urge to obsessively gender either Bakugou or Deku, in making Deku the ultra-feminine, stereotypically hyper-sexualized “woman” of the relationship, with Bakugou becoming similarly sexualized but depicted as the hyper-masculine bodice ripper. On some level, that feels vaguely homophobic if not straight up misogynistic, in that in a gay relationship there’s an urge to compel them to conform under heteronormative stereotypes in order to be interpreted as real or functional. On one hand, I will say that in a lot of cases it feels like more of an expression of a kink, or fetishization and subsequent expression of internalized misogyny, at least, rather than a genuine exploration of the complexity and power imbalances of gender dynamics, expression, and boundaries.

That being said, I don’t think that that problematic aspect of shipping is unique to Bakudeku, or even to the fandom in general. We’ve all read fan work or see fanart of most gay ships in a similiar manner, and I think it’s a broader issue to be addressed than blaming it on a singular ship and calling it a day.

One interpretation of Bakugou’s character is his repression and the way his character functions under toxic masculinity, in a society’s egregious disregard for mental and emotional health (much like in the real world), the horrifying ways in which rage is rationalized or excused due to the concept of masculinity, and the way that characteristics that are associated with femininity — intellect, empathy, anxiety, kindness, hesitation, softness — are seen as stereotypically “weak”, and in men, traditionally emasculating. In terms of the way that the fictional universe is largely about societal priority and power dynamics between individuals and the way that extends to institutions, it’s not a total stretch to guess that gender as a construct is a relevant topic to expand on or at least keep in mind for comparison.

I think that the way in which characters are gendered and the extent to which that is a result of invasive heteronormativity and fetishization is a really important conversation to have, but using it as a case-by-case evolution of a ship used to condemn people isn’t conductive, and at that point, it’s treated as less of a real concern but an issue narrowly weaponised.

Love in Perspective, from the East v. West

Another thing I think could be elaborated on and written about in great detail is the way that the Eastern part of the fandom and the Western part of the fandom have such different perspectives on Bakudeku in particular. I am not going to go in depth with this, and there are many other people who could go into specifics, but just as an overview:

The manga and the anime are created for and targeted at a certain audience; our take on it will differ based on cultural norms, decisions in translation, understanding of the genre, and our own region-specific socialization. This includes the way in which we interpret certain relationships, the way they resonate with us, and what we do and do not find to be acceptable. Of course, this is not a case-by-case basis, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who hold differing beliefs within one area, but speaking generally, there is a reason that Bakudeku is not regarded as nearly as problematic in the East.

Had this been written by a Western creator, marketed primarily to and within the West (for reference, while I am Chinese, but I have lived in the USA for most of my life, so my own perspective is undoubtedly westernized), I would’ve immediately jumped to make comparisons between the Hero System and the American police system, in that a corrupt, or bastardized system is made no less corrupt for the people who do legitimately want to do good and help people, when that system disproportionately values and targets others while relying on propaganda that society must be reliant on that system in order to create safe communities when in reality it perpetuates just as many issues as it appears to solve, not to mention the way it attracts and rewards violent and power-hungry people who are enabled to abuse their power. I think comparisons can still be made, but in terms of analysis, it should be kept in mind that the police system in other parts of the world do not have the same history, place, and context as it does in America, and the police system in Japan, for example, probably wasn’t the basis for the Hero System.

As much as I do believe in the Death of the Author in most cases, the intent of the author does matter when it comes to content like this, if merely on the basis that it provides context that we may be missing as foreign viewers.

As far as the intent of the author goes, Bakugou is on a route of redemption.

He deserves it. It is unavoidable. That, of course, may depend on where you’re reading this.

Stuck in the Sludge, the Past, and Season One

If there’s one thing, to me, that epitomizes middle school Bakugou, it’s him being trapped in a sludge monster, rescued by his Quirkless childhood friend, and unable to believe his eyes. He clings to the ideology he always has, that Quirkless means weak, that there’s no way that Deku could have grown to be strong, or had the capacity to be strong all along. Bakugou is wrong about this, and continuously proven wrong. It is only when he accepts that he is wrong, and that Deku is someone to follow, that he starts his real path to heroics.

If Bakudeku’s relationship does not appeal to someone for whatever reason, there’s nothing wrong with that. They can write all they want about why they don’t ship it, or why it bothers them, or why they think it’s problematic. If it is legitimately triggering to you, then by all means, avoid it, point it out, etc. but do not undermine the reality of abuse simply to point fingers, just because you don’t like a ship. People who intentionally use the anti tag knowing it’ll show up in the main tag, go after people who are literally minding their own business, and accuse people of supporting abuse are the ones looking for a fight, and they’re annoying as hell because they don’t bring anything to the table. No evidence, no analysis, just repeated projection.

To clarify, I’m referring to a specific kind of shipper, not someone who just doesn’t like a ship, but who is so aggressive about it for absolutely no reason. There are plenty of very lovely people in this fandom, who mind their own business, multipship, or just don’t care.

Calling shippers dumb or braindead or toxic (to clarify, this isn’t targeting any one person I’ve seen, but a collective) based on projections and generalizations that come entirely from your own impression of the ship rather than observation is...really biased to me, and comes across as uneducated and trigger happy, rather than constructive or helpful in any way.

I’m not saying someone has to ship anything, or like it, in order to be a ‘good’ participant. But inserting derogatory material into a main tag, and dropping buzzwords with the same tired backing behind it without seeming to understand the implications of those words or acknowledging the development, pacing, and intentional change to the characters within the plot is just...I don’t know, it comes across as redundant, to me at least, and very childish. Aggressive. Toxic. Problematic. Maybe the real toxic shippers were the ones who bitched and moaned along the way. They’re like little kids, stuck in the past, unable to visualize or recognize change, and I think that’s a real shame because it’s preventing them from appreciating the story or its characters as it is, in canon.

But that’s okay, really. To each their own. Interpretations will vary, preferences differ, perspectives are not uniform. There is no one truth. There are five seasons of the show, a feature film, and like, thirty volumes as of this year.

All I’m saying is that if you want to stay stuck in the first season of each character, then that’s what you’re going to get. That’s up to you.

This may be edited or revised.