#i will kill kishimoto myself

[wispforever]

do you guys ever think about how he WAS SIX YEARS OLD

[everygaara]

[every-sakura]

[immagods]

Ive started reading shatter me and can I just say that Kenji has been here for about 12 lines and I love him so much already

[thelov3lybookworm]

Undercover (part 2)

Part 1

Summary: She just wants him to leave her alone.

•○●⛦●○•

A/n: im sooooo sorry for the amount of time you had to wait for this part, but i promise ill try to write faster 😉

(again, its been almost one and a half years since i read the books, so theres a possibility i write something thats not canon. so if you see it, no you dont 😉)

anyways, enjoy!

•○🌑○•

Shoving her clothes into her bag was not the best idea, considering it was only increasing the amount of work she'd have to do later on.

But it sure made her feel better, and who was going to stop her?

Dropping the lumpy backpack to the ground, Y/n stalked back over to the small cupboard she had been given, and ripped out the leggings, pants, shirts and anything within reach of Y/n's slender fingers.

A knock on the door drew Y/n's attention, and she scowled at the unmoving thing.

"What?" Y/n snapped, pushing her clothes into the poor bag.

Y/n was sure that were the bag a living being, it would have cursed Y/n to hell and back for the torture she put it through.

She was also sure living in hell would have been a better option than going on a mission with Kenji, that too as a last resort.

No one answered back to her angry inquiry.

Reigning in her groan of frustration, Y/n stomped to the door and nearly ripped it off its hinges as she opened it.

There stood Kenji, with his signature asshole smile on his ugly little face.

"Are you deaf?" Y/n hissed.

He had the audacity to blink at her, raising his eyebrows, like she was being unreasonable.

She probably was, but who cared about that?

"I think I should be the one to ask you that."

"What do you want?" Y/n sneered.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe, his shit eating grin unwavering. "Just wanted to make sure you hadn't died of happiness that you were going to be working with me-"

The door slammed in his face before he could let more bullshit spew from his disgusting lips.

Y/n could hear his soft laugh through the wooden door, and she cursed Castle for the slow renovations.

Most of the Omega point had been upgraded, given metal and good quality doors through which sound was hard to pass unless people spoke through a microphone. But Y/n, as her luck would have it, had been assigned a small quarter in the part of Omega point that would be last to get upgrades.

It also did not pass Y/n's notice that the part Kenji lived in was the first to be renovated.

"Don't get too excited Y/n!" He yelled through the door, and Y/n whipped around, glaring holes into the worn wood.

"The only thing I'm excited about right now it killing myself."

"Nice one Y/n." Kenji laughed, loud and free.

Y/n said nothing, her anger dissipating at what she'd just revealed to him. Hoping that he would leave, she defeatedly walked back over to her backpack and dumped all its contents on her bed, settling down to fold them all neatly.

A moment of silence passed, and there were no sounds other than the soft rustle of the clothes on Y/n's lap.

Though a moment was all she got.

"You're joking, right?" Kenji called out.

Y/n ignored him.

"Y/n?"

"Go away Kishimoto."

Maybe he could hear the defeat in her voice, maybe it was the way she did not really scream, but he began knocking on the door frantically.

"Hey! Y/n!"

When Y/n did not acknowledge him, he suddenly began pounding on her door. "Y/n. Open up."

"Fuck off."

"Tell me it was a joke and I'll fuck right off."

"Leave me alone."

"Say it Y/n. Say that you-"

"I am not going to hang myself Kishimoto." Y/n yelled, frustrated, before mumbling to herself. "At least not today."

"Fine. I will leave, but remember, this conversation is far from over."

"If you don't leave right now, more than this conversation will be over."

A pause.

"And what's that?"

"Your life."

He laughed, and it slowly faded away like he was leaving, just as a small smile faded onto Y/n's face.

Asshole.

•○🌑○•

General Taglist: @cassie6392 @harrystylesfan2686 @eve175

Kenji Kishimoto Taglist: @kennedy-brooke @hnyclover @minnieoo @sidrapotter

[madara-fate]

i don't understand how u stay sane after all the ask you get everyday. people are always talking how bad ss is when in fact it was really well written in part one. sakura stopping sasuke from the curse, sasuke giving her advice and motivation to become better, how he made her realize that the world was not how she first thought. both of them shared a lot of moments when they were alone with orochimaru and sakura started to fall in love for real. they are very subtle, and even if there were difficult times, she didnt want to cut him off not because she was "obsessed", but because he was his friend too and family. people makes fun of her for not killing sasuke when is one of the mains reasons why i like sasusaku, she knows that he may have his reasons and that his heart is still pure. even if sasuke didnt ask her for that, in the end thats what he always wanted. he said he was a kid starving for love. besides, the two confessions are actually really beautiful, this is not sakura being pathetic, is her being vulnerable and brave, telling him she just wants him to be happy even if she don't understand his pain or has the power to stop him. people loves to pull the "she is manipulative" card when she never forced him to accept her feelings or touched him with weird intentions. people who try to use minato & kushina dynamic to make fun of ss needs to understand that minato is not sasuke. he is not going to show his love the way minato does. they are two different people. now, kishimoto sidelined sakura a lot and i wish he would have explored them more, but they are not forced. if sasuke fell in love with her is because he saw how great she was and thats it. i don't like gaiden or boruto that much if i'm being honest, i really dislike kishimoto decision with sasuke conclusion, but this is for the last war arc mainly. what i mean is, everything that NS/SK/SNS blame SS to be is pure bullshit. they are in fact the couple that makes the most sense and they are never going to make me hate unconditional love. kishimoto makes sasusaku feels real, and people who thinks the genjutsu is sasuke being disgusted with her just like he was when karin touched him needs to stop being biased because it was a pretty obvious paralel that kishimoto made on porpouse. both of them were holding that "thank you" even when they were falling apart. sasuke even remembered his family . no other couple has the same tension and moments like ss, and for a shonen, i love how sakura showers sasuke with love because he fucking deserves it. i mean she told him "if i could have take all of your pain onto myself to comfort you, i would have!" How thats not beautiful?! She adores him. anyways, i hope you never fall out of love of ss, they are really full of love and forgiveness. 😊

That was very well said 👏

And don't worry, I'll always be a SS fan ^_^

[leportraitducadavre]

Obito did nothing wrong!

I just became acquainted with a portion of Obito’s fandom that, in their passionate worship of one of the best characters written by Kishimoto, becomes obtuse to hold him accountable for his actions, choosing instead to blame Madara’s manipulation or Zetsu’s, while some others –far more rabid, rest his decisions upon his emotions, for which he had no control of.

I won’t dedicate this as much time as I probably could, as I hold no interest in dedicating this idea more than it deserves, so pardon me for the hastiness of this post.

I am, or rather I always considered myself, also quite enthusiastic when it comes to Obito, for whom I have a soft spot in lieu of everything he endured from a young age, however, detaching him from every action he performed (whilst painting him as a mere puppet and not the mastermind he became from the tender age of thirteen) is a disservice to his character, and the idea that we can’t hold accountable a twenty-nine-year-old man for his decisions it’s something both dangerous and that I personally find annoying.

Madara and Zetsu did, as some point out, lured Obito to specific decisions when modifying/manipulating events so Rin would die while he watched –as Madara wanted to guarantee Obito wouldn’t return to Konoha and would, instead, seek changes within a military system that did nothing but warrant their soldiers' expendability; something Madara had nothing to do with, as the war and mindset for which the shinobi system uphold itself were established prior to his intervention. Shortly after these events, Madara died, leaving Obito to his own devices and a sketched plan that, even stated by Madara himself, was not followed as planned. 

Obito was told to harvest the tailed beasts, he could’ve easily taken Kurama once he released him, yet he consciously chose to summon it upon Rin’s grave and break havoc in the village, for which the Uchiha clan was blamed. He also chose to kill an entire portion of his kin alongside Itachi and showed no remorse, as he considered it was a sacrifice made in lieu of ever-lasting peace (the fact that the clan was doomed regardless as the government already chose its destiny doesn’t modify the fact that he assisted in their destruction and warranted Konoha’s success). He controlled, without having to as he could’ve taken the three tails and sealed it upon the statue, Kirigakure’s Mizukage, deepening the gravity of the Kekkei Genkai cleansing (which basis where already there but it doesn’t diminish his performance) occurring in such village.

Many think that the seal placed on his heart by Madara was controlling Obito’s emotions and actions, however, the seal “Kinkoju no Fuda” that was placed both in Obito and Rin (and was twice removed by Kakashi’s Chidori –which is so incredibly poetic I can’t believe some of you would strip such moment from the relevance it has), was to guarantee that none of them would kill themselves -and while there was control intended upon it (x) Madara was nowhere around it to perform such task. Obito chose to remove that seal willingly (he knew of its existence, which defies the purpose of an ever-controlling seal even when the sealer is dead) by using Kakashi’s technique in order to become the Ten-Tails Jinchuuriki (x), as he never trusted nor liked the older Uchiha and wanted to be in control of Tsukuyomi.

He also was the one who bonded with the Ten-Tails and chose to kill Shukaku and Inoichi, he had absolute control of his actions and emotions at that point as he even threatened Madara to put everything in jeopardy, which makes the whole “Madara controlled him as he wanted” idea nonsensical (x). 

Madara even admits that he created such circumstances in order to draw Obito to darkness (x) and make him seek Tsukuyomi as an outcome –as he saw himself in hell, he’ll look for a reality that he could control. Why would he take such lengths to convince someone of doing his binding if he could control it even beyond the grave?

The seal was placed in order to control Obito once Madara was revived and in case Obito went “rogue”. If that seal had already been working, Obito would never have had the chance to even plan to take it out through Kakashi's Chidori, as it would have been controlled much earlier and the whole “taking out the seal” would’ve been on accident, at most. He defied Madara’s manipulation in order to become the Ten-Tails Jinchuuriki (x), allowed Kakashi to pierce through the seal (so no more “manipulation”), tamed the Ten-Tails and still continued to attack and repeat the same mindset he did prior to the seal’s destruction (x, x).

He even admits that the path he followed is one chosen by him (x) and he has no regrets (x) –how can his “fandom” deny him of the agency he claims for himself?

It’s true that you are what the environment makes of you, something for which Madara and Zetsu were responsible for (as Zetsu also manipulated Madara, so if we place blame upon a subject then we need to keep doing it to infinitum, and such practice holds no one responsible in the end), but once that happens, everything that comes after is of your own choosing. The environment shapes you and offers you choices, and it’s the decision that you make between such choices that, in the end, makes you:

You can't expect someone in a war-torn area to have the luxury of choices awarded to the those that live in times of peace; and you can't expect the poor, who struggle just to survive, to have as many choices as the middle-class exercises. In this regard, there's little difference between the fate you were born into and the destiny you make; as the less luck you have, the closer your destiny is to your fate; the more luck you have, the wider the gap. Then all of them become less about moral dilemmas and more about survival dilemmas: violence becomes right if your survival is at stake. And to drag the context back to the military, it becomes about the ethics of the state-created solider itself: what is a solider; why is it righteous; why is an anti-solider actor (an irony that provokes) against an illustrious solider villainous? State, too, is a choice maker, but the position of power awards it a greater liberty of what choices and how many choices people can have: the Uchiha didn't have any; Hyuga main branch had plenty; Leaf's sympathizers also had innumerable. You can't expect the receiver of few choices not to pick the ones that grant them clemency, freedom, and more future options in the face of oppression.

If the idea that “emotions are so strong they have no choice but to satisfy it until completion” it’s enough of an explanation (and I particularly detest such ideology as it relies mostly on Tobirama’s idea of Uchiha, which is absolutely preposterous), then it can easily be used as a defense for anyone that committed any sort of crime in order not to be held accountable: Murder might cause the killer excitement, so they acted upon that necessity to placate their emotion, if in anger, one can very easily assault someone and be understood, as they’re simply controlled by their imperative need to release such feeling.

In the overall context of the narrative, Obito was fuelled by feelings of love, anger, and frustration like most other characters, as Naruto’s constant pursuit of Sasuke was also fuelled by emotions –the difference between both of them is that Obito looked for a solution that pushed him to move outside the shinobi bureaucratic system, which threatened Konoha’s stability, while Naruto’s quest was made inside such political and military structure, which ensured the village’s survival.

Regardless of this apparent idea that emotions are what made him act like that, thus, he has no control over his performance (and I’m tempted to say I prefer Obito’s detractors or, simply put, haters, rather than this sort of fandom), Obito is to be held accountable by characters affected by him, such as Naruto (who lost both his parents when he attacked), Sasuke (who was another victim of Obito’s manipulation and the UCM), Ino and Shikamaru, and basically anyone that directly or indirectly suffered from his actions. Just because Naruto “brought him to the light” and forgave him, that doesn’t make him any less guilty or gives any other of his victims equal closure.

“But Obito always cared what others thought of him, which is why Naruto was able to influence him.”

Not exactly, kid Obito yes, definitely, as his wish was to become Hokage he admired and wanted to be admired also, paying special attention to others and how Rin specifically, saw him. Adult Obito? He cared for no one specifically nor anything, he killed his kin, helped the cleansing of hundreds of people on another land, and killed thoushands during the war, amongst many other things he did in lieu of his plan, why would he care what anyone thinks of him at this point? It’s specifically shown during Obito’s final moments as an antagonist, as his adult self is confronted with his younger one, who claims the one Rin cared for was not the “current him” but “Uchiha Obito” (x, x)

There’s a gap between Obito from the past and this one, who detached himself from his emotions –at this moment, when Naruto (a reflection of his former self, which is why he’s able to relate and get influenced by him) takes his hand, he finally reconnects with such part of himself (thus, also his feelings), and the allied forces are able to extract the tailed beasts' chakra from him. In short, it was a revival of past Obito, not the unearth of feelings hidden deep beneath him, as it took Naruto connecting to him through their chakra and “bringing back” kid Obito by representing him (as when Naruto himself spoke himself with the adult version, Obito still choose his path; x, x). Even if their claim is to be believed as truthful, it changes absolutely nothing around his mindset or actions, having such “positive” feelings “hidden within him” doesn’t make him any less guilty nor unredeemable.

It’s perfectly fine to want to explore Obito’s “positive traits” rather than his dark ones, as such elements were beautifully done by the canon work itself through Kishimoto’s writing; yet to claim such things are more “canonically relevant” aspects of him than the rest when Kishimoto made him a paragon of a morally good individual that the environment transformed onto one of its darkest consequences (and well prior to Madara’s intervention as he claimed he would crush the “so called shinobi” shall he need to), it’s fallacious. I found most of these claims made by shippers that refuse to see their “romantical” dynamic of choosing under any other light but the one that masks Konoha’s actual contributions to Obito’s “creation” and puts the weight of his shift under his “Uchiha nature” (COH) or Madara’s manipulation. Therefore given their pro-WoF character the status of “hero” that helps Obito overcome his dark path with the power of their love; basically skipping upon everything Obito actually represents inside the narrative that took such long time to construct him.

However, for those that want to: if such “positive” exploration is to be done, then it needs to be performed through the study of kid obito onwards, giving him either other circumstances or changing specific decisions upon Rin’s death –everything after it’s, in my personal opinion, a disservice to his wonderfully constructed character. 

[oxydiane]

if sasuke dies while naruto is in another dimension i will get a tattoo of hinata and boruto on my face and take the first flight to japan to kill myself in front of kishimoto so each time he sees them he’ll be thinking of me

[al-hekima-madara-blog]

Schoolgirls dictatorship and Naruto fandom

After a year hanging around in the tumblr Naruto fandom, I've learned with certitude that men (and women) are forbidden to have friendship and express brotherhood. But also, I've just noticed recently that poor general culture is a must. When you read a story you shouldn't be curious to google what you don't understand and expand your view. but in contrary you should tear down the plot to your limited schoolgirl comprehension of the world. And gaslight everything/everyone that/who doesn't fit to your desires. And if it's not enough, have a tantrum, call people names !

What do I mean by schoolgirl? You don't need to be at school, neither being a teenage not even being a girl. You can be a 40 years old mother of 6 with a deep schoolgirl mindset. Schoolgirl is a concept, a way of life, a philosophy of being. It's rooted from the idea that everything is about you somehow. What you feel is what the world shall feel, what you see is what the world shall see, and in the Naruto fandom what you want is what Kishimoto wanted too but couldn't say it loud enough so he needs YOU to make it more obvious to the ignorant mass of readers. Here is an exhaustive list of what a schoolgirl will demand and impose as canon no matter if it destroys the whole story in the process :

intense emotional romance (love or hate, with me or against me tropes)

intense hardcore sex (hormonal urges)

intense anxieties. Toxic love affairs, taking pleasure in the victimhood's position with a total refusal to acknowledge own mistakes is a peak.

abolition of friendship. It's a shonen but you know those sad and pathetic males in denial of their true feeling, stubbornly platonic who refuse to engage in graphic intercourses for the well-being of schoolgirls' libido.

meowmeow-fication of the world, the cuter the better. Why should we take into account the mysterious attraction in the otherness, the beauty, the paradox and awe in human's nature, human's temperaments, the subtle differences between men and women while it's so much more easy for your lazy brain when everyone is a babygirl.

Decontextualisation. War? shinobi world? history? geography? politics? nuances? foreign cultural norms? No this is too deep for a schoolgirl. You need storyline like junk food, it needs to be fat, heavily sweet and easy to digest. How dare you add subliminal references to others artists from past centuries, arts, mythologies? You mean the schoolgirl needs to actually open a non fanfictional book? Shut up !

I was reading lately a comment from someone stressing that there is "obvious" romance spotted when Madara asks Hashirama to kill him and in reverse when Hashirama chose to kill himself. I thought to myself : Ok maybe not everyone knows what is the bushido (google it!) ...but surely this fandom has seen before a war movie or knighthood movie or even spend time talking with actual soldiers? They seems to genuinely ignore what is a code of honour. Secondly we're talking about a japanese manga and the Warring state era is heavily inspired by the real Japanese warring state era (Sengoku Jidai). If you have watched the documentary Age of samurai on Netflix, they… decide to perform su*cide all the goddamn time! 😭 Often for reasons related to honour, avoidance of disgrace for the group after a general loose a battle. But also a su*cide can be a form of protestation, a way to tell an important message.

Emile Durheim (google him!), a sociologist who wrote a study about su*cide classifies them in 4 differents types : egoistic, anomic, fatalistic and altruistic su*cide. The well-known japanese seppuku performed by samurai is part of the altruistic form. When Hashirama is ready to die, It has nothing to do with emotional turmoil for the love of his life or whatever metaphysical anxiety. He wants to prove how strongly resolved he is to build his village and the new era of peace he dreamed of and for that he's resolute to give up his own life for the benefit of the group. It's true heroism and it's selfless (see, I'm not a fan of Hashirama but I can detach myself from my subjective feelings sometimes)

And just before that, Madara accepting death from Hashirama's hand (a former childhood friend) is also a proof how highly he esteems Hashirama as a victorious winner even if he is his arch-enemy. In his own way Madara shows his selflessness. In this precise moment, even in his personal pain and anger against the Senju, he's still able to recognise Hashirama's dignity and protect him from going through the same despair of losing a brother. But yeah that's too much effort… Schoolgirl fever is way more comfortable, right?

[tamelee]

I think a lot of sakura hate is undeserved. Like ik she's said and done some things that were out of pocket, but then again so did almost everyone else and no one else gets scrutinized as much as her. I don't even like her and her fans are incredibly annoying, but I feel this much is true. I think she'd still be one of the most hated characters in all of anime if her undeserved hate went away, so it doesn't really make much of a difference. I feel like her hate is kinda like sasuke's, sometimes it feels like he gets hated on just for being sasuke bc ik some things he's done would've been swept under the rug if another, more popular character did it (eg when he killed some samurai) for sakura, there are lots of incel fanart memes dudebros made to make fun of her, so it seems like they hate her for just being a woman who rejected a loser man and likes a better man. It's no wonder her fans are so annoying, that's what happens when your fave character gets undeserved constant hate. My fave is sasuke and sometimes even I wanna do some petty annoying shit just to piss his haters off too lol. Also since she's a woman, there's definitely some misogyny at play when her character is being analyzed by men. Or even women with internalized misogyny. It's stupid to deny that, misogyny is the most normalized oppression everywhere. So many ppl don't even realize they're being misogynistic, that's how normal it is. Sure it's not always the case but ignoring it is just being dumb. Her fans using the misogyny card to actual genuine criticism is definitely stupid though. Like it's possible to not like a woman and not be misogynistic ofc. Also when they use that when sns fans ship sasuke with naruto instead of sakura, that's even dumber 😂 how is not shipping a woman with a man and instead shipping him with another man misogynistic in any way lol. But yeah, I'm definitely not on her fans side, or even a fan of her myself, but I can still acknowledge this

+ 2 Asks - long post:

When talking about critiquing characters and analyzing stories, it doesn't really matter who's doing the talking – whether they're fans, critics, or just people who love or don't love a particular show or character. We can't always figure out why (especially anonymous) people feel the way they do and how do we even discern the motivation or background of those who do so? —whether they're misogynistic, incels, dudebros, fans, or critics of whatever other stories, among other factors. In fact, in this case it’s pretty irrelevant? Or only relevant here because you brought it up.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t take away the fact that a significant portion of the 'Naruto' audience finds Sakura's character unlikable. She consistently is found at the center of conversations about the most disliked Anime characters. This is ultimately a reflection of storytelling, rather than solely an audience reaction. And that leads to a broader discussion about Kishimoto’s writing where many blame his lack of skill in writing when it comes to the portrayal of female characters. (Opinions may vary, so does mine.) Dismissing criticism by categorizing critics as incels or misogynists is oversimplifying it tbh because of course they harbor specific biases against a character like Sakura which in itself isn’t fair and would definitely make it ‘undeserved’. (I really wouldn’t use that term for a fictional character unless we talk about the story itself tbh.) You yourself say “not always the case...” So that doesn't mean Kishimoto's portrayal of Sakura or any other character, and the genuine criticism she receives for universally disliked traits, is any less valid. Many perceive her as selfish, and Kishimoto himself has used that specific term (and even worse) to describe her. So, you can’t deny that this foundation of her character exists. Her decisions and behavior make sense even if people preferred to see it differently. 

Though, when analyzing, it is important to keep the Shinobi world in mind, and only our own as reference. And that’s exactly why the hatred Sasuke gets is not the same.... :

The amount of hate/criticism has nothing to do with a comparison though. Sakura's actions are often deliberately misunderstood, twisted to fit certain narratives that are in her favor and even exaggerated to counteract the hate like the first ask said. On the other hand, Sasuke is generally misunderstood and is hated for it. Often not getting even a tiny bit of compassion because some people struggle to see beyond his exterior and just ride the Naruto-verse’s moral/value waves from the narrative. Where the entire point was that those ideals needed change. 

SAVE HIM!? Why is it always so actively ignored that Sakura tried to kill Sasuke twice but him defending himself or fighting back is ‘so incredibly evil’? This ‘resolve’ of hers becomes even more significant to Kishimoto’s message when we consider that she intentionally represents the same ideals that led to the genocide and with that- agreed to eliminate him without attempting to understand him even once. Repeating history in the meantime where, again, that change is necessary. And you start with trying to understand the other, something Naruto had to learn too and actively had to find that answer by himself. Never once did she actually listen to Sasuke when he tried to open up and instead twisted the few words he got out to make it about herself. Not only disregarding his (and Naruto’s) trauma but shitting on it, thinking he, of ALL people, would feel happy with her abandoning her family and friends for him and comparing her feeling lonely without Sasuke to his entire clan being murdered what forced him to grow up alone. I mean, hello? Kishimoto was saying something very loudly there and it’s nothing positive about Sakura and that certainly has nothing to do with a lack of writing skills, the opposite actually. Even if she was briefly a teammate, she rightfully became irrelevant to him, and her decision to get rid of the (in her and the world's eyes) “criminal” was entirely for her own sake because she couldn't bear to see her crush behave like one and deal with her irrelevance.  

She rejected everything Sasuke wanted, needed, and desired, including his central 'why' in the story. She reduced him to a moody handsome boiii with no goals of his own, one she neither could nor wanted to understand. She tried to insert herself into his goals without him giving her any reason to, and when unsuccessful, she wanted to discard them altogether thinking he was ‘too far gone’. Like Sasuke as a person as a whole was her ‘burden’ to bear simply because she wanted to be somewhat relevant. Even Kakashi said it :/ although he thought she did it all out of the kindness of her heart. (Ffs, Kakashi I like you, but no.) Now, please consider EVERYTHING and then think again why Sakura thought of Sasuke as a burden or why she felt burdened by him while lying about her trust in him to Sai? 👀

The importance of Sasuke having a goal is immense because he grapples with survivor's guilt. A goal provides a reason to keep going, a way to carry the pain and blame he places on himself. It allows him to be strategic and have a plan, which is the only source of hope that things may eventually improve. He rejected what Naruto stood for because he found it distracting and hard to trust at that point. OF COURSE he fought so fucking hard against it. No matter his feelings for Naruto, relying solely on effort like Naruto wasn't something he could do. Especially considering how his beloved brother had betrayed him in the worst possible way.

Now, here's a question for you: why would Sakura need to receive compassion or 'deserve' it when, as a character, she rarely demonstrated it herself, especially when it comes to the person she claims to like so much? And if anyone thinks that was out of love in any way, which it wasn't, then what does it all mean for Naruto????

If you genuinely believe there was any point in the story Sakura tried to save Sasuke for Sasuke’s sake then I hope you’re able to read the story again and question this very rigorously for yourself. Not just her actions, but what Kishimoto tried to actually show/tell and use them to measure how it stands against the bigger Themes also.  

Lastly: the whole point of needing to kill Naruto was BECAUSE he cared for him lol, read Sasuke's monologue again if it helps. That his bond with Naruto had too much of an impact on Sasuke. His one and only, his most important person/friend, only bond left that kept him from truly being alone, Naruto’s life in itself too much of a threat to his heart even when separated, blabla- should I go on? 🤔      

[sherylhooper]

JJK SPOILERS!!!

The new chapter reminded me again why I can no longer be satisfied with Shounen.

Gojo's dead and people think Itadori has a chance to kill both Sukuna and Kenjaku....

"We can now see who's the main character" (ნიშნისმოგებით, თან) cuz Gojo was "in the way of the story" and "story couldn't progress with him in it."

Yeah, if Itadori randomly gets an upgrate out of thin fucking air, when he doesn't even have a innate technique - "but he is gonna develop Sukuna's CT". — How the fuck is he developing anything if Sukuna is no longer in his body but in Megumi's?? You are BORN with innate technique!! Unless Sukuna goes back inhabiting Itadori's body, Yuji isn't developing anything (unless Gege pulls out some residual cursed energy leftover bullshit — i.e. powerup out of blue sky).

As a writer myself, I don't really understand why some people (especially Sukuna's die hard fans) don't get it how killing of Gojo Satoru OFF SCREEN is bad writing so I'm gonna explain (and rant) here.

Okay, pals, sit down, we are having a lecture in basics!

"How to become good at Writing 101" states that the writer can write story in TWO main ways: 1) is called "tell" and 2) is called "show".

Every single writer and critic from centuries ago to today can confidently say that writer using "tell" is one of the weaker writing choice. Let's compare simple examples.

1) "He died." — this here is "tell". Nothing happened, it's boring.

2) "He felt fatigued, he eyes could no longer focuse on the scene in front of him. The sound of blood rushing in his ears was defeating.. To draw air in his lungs was becoming harder and harder as time went on..." etc — this is "show".

Of course death can come instantly but as a doctor (by profession) I can assure you that human brain even after being decapitated can remine "alive" for few seconds/minutes, can understand commans, can open eyes, can look at someone who is talking to them, etc..

Even Gojo looking down at himself, while he was being cut in two, would have been enough "showing".

But to have another character, in this case, Sukuna, explain i.e. "tell" how Gojo died is exactly how it sounds — "tell".

In every literature: classic books, modern books, manga, etc, "tell" is considered weak writing style and it seems even Gege is bound to it for now.

Also, what was the point of unsealing Gojo if he had to still die in the end? Him remining sealed would make no difference in the story - Sukuna vs Kashimo would still happen and now that Sukuna has "adapted" to Infinity means absulutely nothing, cuz nobody is using Infinity in the manga anymore for him to cut "space".

In fact Gege just replaced Gojo with Sukuna as overpowered character and we can see that he hated Gojo solely based on how "strongest" he was (and on his attitude) and how he couldn't kill him.

And how he handled his overpowered character? Killed him off screen. So how's Sukuna dying now? Also getting off screened??

And Gojo died with no regrets, apparently. His pseudo-son has fried brain, his sister and his speudo-dad are dead (at his own hands (even if Sukuna is using them)), most of his shikigami are gone, and Sukuna is parading around using him as "meat suit" — that should, at the very least, still be Gojo's regret (not saving Megumi) but, no, apparently Gojo is selfish bastard who doesn't care about anything and he is glad that he died (even after not acomplishing anything at all), but just mad that Sukuna didn't go all out???

Talk about anti climatic.

Gojo dying like this is kinda giving Madara and Kishimoto and I do not like that (I don't think anybody does)...

This is why I can't deal with Shounen anymore, because no matter what, at some point story telling gets inconstintent and I better stick with Seinen, cuz story there makes more sense.

Thank you for reading this rant and Sukuna-stans don't interact, cuz I'm blocking you all, if I see one word about "coping" or whatever.

(თქვენი თავი ნაღდად არ მაქვს და დიდი ალბათობით, შემდეგი თავის მერე ამ მანგასაც მივაგდებ).

[shameless-fujoshi]

Hi. Some ss shippers claim that Sakura wanted to die with Sasuke when she tried to kill him. They think so bc when Sakura confessed the second time, she said that they couldn't stab each other. You know japanese so I decided to ask you: Are they right?

Does it really matter what Sakura was thinking? We all know that she has an unhealthy obsession with Sasuke, whether that shows up in the Japanese or English version.

As for Sasuke not being able to stab Sakura, his intent absolutely was to kill her. Both times.

While there's no internal monologue on Sasuke's side, you can still see by his footwork in these 3 panels that he was in the proper stance to strike her with his chidori:

NOTE: Karin says "…やめろ　サスケェ…" which just means "Stop, Sasuke..."

The only reason he fails is because Kakashi grabs his wrist and redirects the momentum of his strike. His feet are still pointed in Sakura's direction, barely twisted from Kakashi's intervention.

Kakashi also says as much here:

Text: 本気の殺意…

Romaji: Honki no satsui...

Official Translation: He really meant to kill her...

My Translation: He really intended to kill her...

NOTE: "本気/honki" means "seriousness, truth, earnestness, etc" - with the "の/no" particle, it modifies (and amplifies) the verb "殺意/satsui" which means "intent to kill, intent to murder, urge to kill, murderous impulse" - so here Kakashi didn't just throw around a common word like "殺す/korosu", he used a specific word that means Sasuke had every intention of killing Sakura.

Even when Sasuke is talking to Kakashi, you can tell from his language that he has nothing except murder on his mind:

Text: オレをいつでも殺せるみたいな言い方だな‼

Romaji: Ore o itsu demo koroseru mitaina iikatada na‼

Official Translation:

My Translation: You say that like you can kill me at any time!!

Text: いつまでも先生面すんじゃねーよ…

Romaji: Itsu made mo sensei mensu nja ne~ yo…

Official Translation:

My Translation: Don't act like you're still my teacher...

NOTE: "面/men" means to wear a certain face or mask, to have airs of a certain sort. In this case, to act like a teacher to him (after all the time that has passed)

Text: オレはアンタを殺したいとウズウズしてるぜ…カカシ

Romaji: Ore wa anta o koroshitai to uzūzushiteru ze… kakashi

Official Translation:

My Translation: I'm itching to kill you... Kakashi

NOTE: "ウズウズ/uzuuzu" literally means "itching to do something/impatient/sorely tempted/eager" so he's even telling them how murderous he is at the moment.

Even when Sakura tries again, she hesitates:

Text: …覚悟　……したハズなのに…‼

Romaji: … Kakugo…… shita hazunanoni…‼

Official Translation: ...I thought... ...I had made up my mind...!!

My Translation: ...I thought... ...I had prepared (myself)...!!

Sasuke shows no hesitation whatsoever - and Kishimoto makes this clear by drawing every step Sasuke takes:

He turns, grabs her

He chokes her

Steals her kunai

Swings his arm back

Follows through with his strike (which looks like he was going to slit her throat, to be honest).

Kishimoto even draws the slash mark Sasuke made on Naruto's cheek. This shows that the kunai was in motion to slice.

Had Naruto not grabbed her in time, Sasuke absolutely, without a doubt, would have killed her.

I don't know what SS fandom is pointing at to suggest Sasuke hesitated when he tried to kill her, not once, but twice. All the evidence points to Sasuke not giving a shit about Sakura and finding her as indisposable as he saw Karin.

[wispforever]

1, 7, 10, 13 and 16 for the ask game pls!

1. Most Overrated Character?

I'll answer this question more than once, cuz I'm a hater and I have a few. First one first, I'm just gonna say it. I've never understood what everyone sees in Obito. Do I understand his narrative role? Yes. Am I sympathetic to him as a character? Very much. Do I like him? No. I've seen piles and piles of fanart, of meta, of aesthetics, and playlists. NO HATE, everyone likes who they like, they see something in him I don't. Just do not understand it.

I find Obito annoying and frustrating as a character. He doesn't fascinate me, which is odd because I usually am drawn to characters with a heavy backstory. I think it might be that he decided to kill Kakashi about it. Idk. Just seems like if he really believes all the things he believes, if he really has risen above Madara and the Shinobi system's influence like he says he has, he wouldn't fucking do the same thing Madara wants to do and also try to kill Kakashi who endured the same trauma. Just don't really get him. Glad he came around though. I wish he didn't have to die, I find it unnecessary. The Leaf needs more Uchiha jesus christ

Also I think the obsession the fandom has with Rin THROUGH Obito is more than a little uncomfortable. Rin should have been explored via an avenue that wasn't him. In addition to him, maybe, but not Strictly Obito. Just another female character becoming a plot device.

7. Should Naruto have become Hokage?

I think a better ending for Naruto would have been a personal decision on his part that he doesn't HAVE to be Hokage. In my opinion, it would've been more thematically satisfying. Why do I think this? Because Naruto wouldn't even like doing the actual Hokage job, seeing as it's mostly paper-pushing, strategy, and talking politics with the other Kage. This is what I said to myself before the end of the series. *watches Boruto* I was fucking right.

Being Hokage doesn't suit Naruto. He wanted to become Hokage originally so the citizens of the Leaf would praise and admire him. It was a child's dream born out of unrelenting hate and ostracization. As he got older, Naruto never put two and two together that what he'd set out to accomplish was not actually being Hokage, it was finding people he could belong with and feel loved by. He'd done that by the end of the first arc, and he only went up from there.

After Sasuke leaves, Naruto abandons this dream. Whether he says so or not, Sasuke is more important to him than being Hokage. This could be because Sasuke is the one who makes Naruto feel the most at home in the Leaf. I think of it like this: if Naruto wishing to be Hokage is really a wish for belonging, Naruto pursuing Sasuke instead of pursuing becoming Hokage implies that Sasuke has filled this emotional role for Naruto (or Naruto wants him to, at least). In the end, he is made Hokage because he saves the world and is the most exceptional Shinobi in the Leaf; it's what makes sense. Naruto never really wanted to be Hokage. He wanted to not be despised by literally everyone. And in the end he wanted to be with Sasuke.

No, I don't think Naruto should have become Hokage. I don't think Naruto likes being Hokage.

10. Is Sakura a shitty character or shitty-ly written?

I don't like this question. I see it thrown around a lot. I don't really understand it, honestly. What is a character? It's a fake person written by a real person. It's called a character bc its characteristics and shape are decided by the writer. So what then is the difference between a shitty character and a character that's shittily written? Maybe I'm not conceptualizing it properly. Anway

I think all of Kishimoto's female characters are written like shit. There are zero female characters in Naruto that are given the focus or development they deserve. None of them are treated as if they have the same agency, drive, intelligence, or autonomy that the male characters do. Sexism is alive and well in this writing; there isn't anything else to say.

Do I think if these characters were written by someone who wasn't sexist/a shitty writer/unable to understand women, they would be better? Absolutely.

13. Was Kakashi trying his best? Was he a "good" sensei?

answered here :)

16. Is Tobirama racist against Uchihas?

Racism is defined by google as "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized." 

The Uchiha is a group in the Leaf that is a minority and also marginalized, as the governing body at this point is made up of Senju, a richer clan and one that has always been at the top of the ladder socially, politically, so on and so forth.

Tobirama, before he becomes Hokage, is unwilling to trust the Uchiha becoming a part of the Leaf. Seeing as the clans have been at war for some time, the concern that he and his clan won't be safe trying to make peace with the Uchiha is not an unreasonable one. However, after Tobirama becomes Hokage, he imposes special laws specific to the Uchiha. He confines them to their own compound, so they will be contained and separated from everyone else. He puts up extensive surveillance, so that they are monitored 24/7. He creates a police force of only Uchiha under the guise of granting them "governing power", what it's really doing is alienating the Uchiha even further from the rest of the populace. He spreads rumors and creates "scientific" evidence that the Uchiha will turn evil with the evolution of their sharingan- something that would be considered a trait distinct to the Uchiha as an ethnic group. Mind you this is presumably years after they have cultivated peace, as Tobirama can only become Hokage after Hashirama is dead. At this point, his fear of the Uchiha has no basis in reality, as they have given him no reason since the war has ended to believe they are a danger (much less inherently evil). He is perpetuating the stereotypes that existed during the war- stereotypes that were born out of fear of the enemy, dehumanization of the other that you must kill or else be killed yourself.

So in short, not only was he racist against the Uchihas, he practically invented racism against the Uchihas.

Thanks for the ask :)

[hellcifrogs]

As a Minato lover, I wanted to ask were your dislike for the character exactly comes from? Cause he's kinda the character people in fandom don't usually have a negative opinion on. At least from my experience. Like- myself, and I'm sure others, acknowledge his mistakes/flaws, but I've never really seen anyone say they don't like him before lol? I'm genuinely curious, what are the issues with the character?

I just mentioned my main issue with him 😅

I didn't actively dislike him at first actually. I didn't mind him, he wasn't my favorite and I didn't agree with his attitudes, but he was... just there.

I always try to remind myself that, when writing Naruto's birth, Kishimoto had to work with a fate already set from the start, no matter how he tried to kill them to seal the nine tails, I probably would not like Minato's choice anyway.

BUT HE LOOKED AT HIS NEWBORN AND SAID HE HAD A SHINOBI DUTY TO SACRIFICE HIMSELF FOR THE VILLAGE!!!! 😭

And then the fandom (and most characters) love him and always praise him when he does barely anything ever* and THAT's what started to annoy me :(

*We see characters talk about Sakura's accomplishments that we don't always see, but the fandom hates her. Then we also ONLY EVER hear of Minato's accomplishments we don't see him do stuff, and yet people LOVE him. 😖

[bornonthebreakofdawn]

I’m so excited for the new Boruto!! 🥰 I’m also super anxious that I think imma make myself sick. 🆘 Saw the new Hima design, not sure how I feel abt it. 🤔 NH are stuck looking like they haven’t aged when the rest are continuously aging (although it’s only been 3 years). 🤧 so many feelings. 😮‍💨

What are your thoughts? What direction do you want this to go and where do you think is this headed?

Hiiiii! I opted to wait to answer this until the official release of the chapter is out

Just in case anyone wants to read it, you can read it here:

⚠️Spoilers ahead⚠️

In all honesty, I'm not sure anymore what to expect in the story. Hahaha

I had some theories before but they all kinda went poof especially after the switch happened. I'd probably just wait for Kishimoto/Ikemoto to finish cooking and I'll eat up whatever they'd serve lol

Current thoughts on the TS designs (Especially the outfits):

I think they look good but I also think some of their designs may be a bit impractical/may hinder their movement as shinobi. They do look fashionable though.

For NaruHina: Yeah... They've (unwillingly) become the first users of an anti-aging method c/o Kawaki 😅

Just a few other things I'd like to point out:

3 years had passed since Boruto and Sasuke fled from the village, but Code mentioned he had been chasing Boruto for 2 years. So I'm guessing within the first year he had an encounter with Boruto, and either Boruto or Sasuke inflicted that scar on Code's left eye

Let me also bring up this entrance by Boruto:

Such disrespect my dude 🤣🤣🤣

Other stuff:

So it seems in this part, Hima was recalling the Naruto vs. Delta fight. And even if (let's say the switch didn't happen) it was Kawaki who 'killed' their parents, Hima would still not believe he would do such a thing because she still has that faith in her brothers. I'm so touched by this 😭❤️

This part:

Sure the omnipotence had altered everyone's memories (and it seemed to even gradually wipe other doubts caused by it), but I'm quite curious how it will be when it comes to written records/pictures? Perhaps if people look at documents such as Boruto's birth certificate or photos including him, I'd guess that there'd be some sort of illusion that the affected people would be made to believe that they see Kawaki's name and his image even if the physical documents are still pointing to Boruto's identity? 🤔

We'll just have to wait and see in the coming chapters.

Thanks for sending this ask @asriah !!! 😁

[muffinmonstah-art]

Tell me why and how SasoSaku. Sell me the ship.

Oh, that’s an interesting challenge. I’ve made a post a few days ago about how freaking weird it is for me that there’s a new audience following me mainly for my western comics’ fanart, but those of them who are also familiar with Naruto and it’s characters, don’t know my SasoSaku headcanons, or don’t care about the ship in general. I have had an established fanbase for so long that followed me for this ship that I guess no one ever asked me “why and how” about the ship. But I think this is the perfect time to introduce new audiences to my vast, long SasoSaku lore. They are the core ship of this account. They are the main topic of the only longfic I own. They have their own month dedicated to them. I’ve made a vow to myself that no matter how tempting it is for me to write my first fanfic in English for other fandoms, I wouldn’t do that until I can translate Definiciones Torcidas to English.

So, welcome to my first essay attempt. Why do I ship SasoSaku, and why it’s so important to me. -Feel free to throw rotten tomatoes at me if I fail at explaining myself-

I think I should split this explanation into two main points:

The canon material that every SasoSaku fan quotes to showcase the ship’s potential. And in second place, my personal story/headcanon/established universe for the ship that exists separately from other people’s headcanons.

The canon material

To be honest, this part is kinda boring to me after so many years. The base it’s always the same since these two characters only interacted on one arc of the story. Quick summary for everyone reading this introduction and it’s not familiar with the source material: There’s a two-year timeskip. The main characters got split during said time skip and they have a rescue mission right after they get back together (Three of them get back together, Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi. Sasuke has left their village before the time skip on bad terms. He follows his own path of revenge, and when Gaara’s rescue arc happens, his location is still unknown).

Side Note # 1: I’m very much a Naruto hater. I think after this first arc, the quality of the story does nothing more than go down and down to the very bottom. I’ll try not to fulfill this essay with my complaints and rants about Kishimoto as a writer and his creation, and will try to focus on the task at hand, which is Sasori and Sakura and their canon interactions. But I think my overall critical perspective adds some context to my analysis.

 Back to the story, we are introduced to Sasori as a genius puppet master, the greatest one the Sand Village have ever given to the world. But he is a member of Akatsuki, the terrorist organization that kidnapped Gaara (The Sand Village’s leader - Kazekage - ). In fact, it’s both Sasori and Deidara who are given that kidnap mission. Deidara fights against Gaara and wins. Sasori does nothing during these first events. In fact, Sasori is presented as a mysterious, monster figure that just lies in the background while Deidara kidnaps Gaara. Basic trait of them both: they are artists. Sasori believes art is eternal, that’s why he created tons of puppets that can endure through time. Deidara believes art is ephemeral, that’s why his techniques are based on explosive clay figures of all sizes and forms. He blows things up, he can even blow himself up if the situation requires it. We see them fight a lot about their visions of art. Sasori threatens to kill Deidara a few times.

By the time Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi arrive at the Sand Village to help, they team up with Chiyo, a wise elder who is also Sasori’s grandmother. She has some other background story involving Kakashi’s father, who killed Sasori’s parents in the past but that is never explored. It doesn’t matter. She learns her grandson is a criminal that is behind this terrorist act so she goes with the group to help. 

This is the important part. By the time they track Gaara, they find him already dead. Akatsuki wanted the Racoon beast that was sealed inside Gaara’s body. These things are called bijuus. There’s nine of them. Naruto has the Kyuubi, aka the Nine tails fox beast sealed inside him. Once they extract the bijuu from Gaara, he dies. The encounter happens, the heroes learn they were too late, Naruto is furious. Deidara decides he’s going to take down Naruto so he leaves the scene flying above one of his giant clay birds with Gaara’s body. Naruto follows him, Kakashi goes too. 

So… Chiyo stays with Sakura and they are going to team up and fight against Sasori.

I forgot, Might Guy’s team is also present on this arc. They go as reinforcements to help against the Akatsuki. But they don’t matter. You could cut them and little to zero would change. I don’t think they are well integrated into this arc.

I think the fight is pretty good. 

See, Sakura suffers from being a main female character in a story written by a male writer who has NO CLUE how to write female characters. For that, she’s very unlikable during part one. Superficial, selfish, and with little to no focus on her. Besides of that, much of what she does is related to one of the most nasty romantic subplots I’ve ever read in fiction. Her rivalry with Ino (her ex-best friend) which should serve to create some empathy with the reader and make her a deeper character, achieves the opposite result when we learn early in the series that Ino was her role model, the one that saved her from bullying, and Sakura chose to cut ties with her after she discovered they both had a crush on Sasuke. None of them have had an actual conversation with him, they just think he’s hot. 

But hey, much of this can still be forgiven when we consider Sakura is 12-13 years old in part one, and she is one of the few characters living in the ninja world that has living parents. We are shown through many characters on this series that being a ninja = dying on a mission and that results in many traumatized orphan children left behind. And the last time we saw Sakura before the time skip, she promised to Naruto she was gonna get stronger. I think this arc FINALLY delivers on that regard. Chiyo and Sakura make a fantastic team against Puppet Boy.

She has super-strength now and has medical abilities like her teacher, Tsunade. (Another thing that annoys the shit out of me is… Why does Kakashi ignoring Sakura in favor of Naruto and Sasuke, to the point that she had to learn from another teacher is never brought up in the story? Anyway, moving on.)

Chiyo explains the Sasori we see is not the real one. That’s Hiruko, one of his many puppets. The real one is hidden inside Hiruko. So, they make a plan to take him out of Hiruko:

He’s all cute and young, hasn’t aged a day since he left the Sand Village 20 years ago. (Meaning, Sasori is 35 years old by the time this fight is happening. Sakura is 15).

How can it be? No time for answers. Sasori summons his most lethal weapon: The Third Kazekage.

We are told the Third Kazekage disappeared a long time ago, no one has any idea what happened to him. It’s implied Sasori may have kidnapped him and killed him, turning him into his human puppet. The thing is, Sasori’s real technique and the reason why he is considered an ultimate genius is that he created this grotesque, unique process to turn humans into puppets, preserving the bloodline special powers they had in life. In this case, the Third Kazekage had the natural ability of Iron Sand. Meaning he could create metallic sand and form metallic giant geometrical things to use as weapons. Badass, am I right?

This is when the fight really happens. Sasori mentioned he was Orochimaru’s companion in Akatsuki before Orochi left the organization. Sakura associates Orochimaru with Sasuke, because the latter left the village to gain power and knowledge from Orochi himself.

This little interaction right here picked many people’s interest back in the day. Including me. Sakura’s goal is not just to defeat him. She wants him to tell her what he knows about Orochimaru. Yeah, she’s thinking about Sasuke but finally having her interacting with other characters beside the nasty crush is fresh for her. Finally we got her on a serious and committed mode, and the Sasuke thing is not even romantic here, because the main theme of the arc is her promise to Naruto about being stronger and useful. It’s to give closure to her little arc.

The fierceness in the way she talks here is just something we didn’t get to see to this point. Kishimoto just did not use her for anything else than a pairing fodder and crybaby for so long that it’s gratifying to see this warrior face of her without the other two annoying boys around. It’s great that a character like Sasori makes her be the best version of herself she has been so far, and without even trying. It’s also hilarious how he ignores her in a bored way and throws kunais at her.

Chiyo stops his attack by summoning Sasori’s parents puppets. They’re not human puppets. Sasori created these puppets back when he was a child to not feel lonely.

Side Note # 2: We’re not shown anything more than this about Sasori’s background. Everything else is speculation, including if he was a baby when his parents died, or if he was already old enough to understand what happened. 

Moving on.

Side Note #3: The way he grabs Sakura with robes to keep her trapped on a poisonous cloud while Chiyo tries to pull her back with her chakra threads looks hot to me, lmao.

“Oh, how can you say that when he’s trying to kill her?”

Number one, he does not care about her. He doesn’t know her. He just fights her because of circumstances. He’s just being practical. Number two, it’s only used to make her look badass one second later:

She makes an explosion of her own to dissipate the poisonous cloud and free herself.

Look at his face though. He is impressed. They’re enemies, he is 20 years older than her. He has tons of experience in combat. And him complimenting her skills continues to happen during this fight.

Side Note # 4: Even if I like this fight and personally consider this arc to be the end of the series, lmao, I have a problem with THIS

He makes iron spikes to crush them both separately, TWICE. Until they cannot use the chakra shields from the puppets to protect themselves. The shields get useless after one use because the iron sand invades them from the inside by contact. So… why doesn’t he use the same technique a third time? Just throw spikes at them again. 

But he can’t do that because he would have won. The end.

So what does Kishimoto do instead?

He makes Sasori create geometrical giant things for Sakura to crash with no problem. For no reason. Why? Why does he change his strategy so suddenly? Because is plot convenient.

Dumb. Makes me angry. Moving on.

The cave crashes because of the constant hitting, so they are now fighting in the daylight. Sasori creates a giant web of iron sand, that covers everything so they cannot escape. Sakura gets hit, Chiyo ends up trapped under a rock and it turns out, the iron sand was poisoned too this whole time. Sakura falls on the ground, Sasori laughs, feeling like he already won. He commands the Third Kazekage to give her the killing blow and…

She used an antidote she crafted during her time on the Sand Village, while she was curing useless Kankuro from Sasori’s poison, and faked being about to die so she could be close to the puppet to crash it.

I didn’t mention it, but this doesn’t come out of nowhere. Kankuro, Gaara’s older brother, tries to fight Sasori first to rescue his baby brother. Sasori kicks his ass and leaves him to die from his poison. Sakura cures him when she arrives to the village and keeps some antidote with her the whole time.

SHE DESTROYED HIS MAGNUM OPUS AND LOOK AT HIM. HE IS JUST IMPRESSED LMAO.

This is the moment we learn why he looks so young. He has turned himself into a human puppet, with the exception of one compact living tissue he keeps on his chest.

I’m gonna speed up from now on. The fight is still good. He uses 100 more puppets he controls with chakra threads from his chest. Chiyo uses 10 puppets, one with each finger of her hands. Sakura uses her punches. In the end it seems they could trap Sasori inside one of Chiyo’s chakra special tools but it was just his body. The living tissue escaped and migrated to another body at the last moment. He uses the confusion to try and stab his grandma from the back, but Sakura saves her by putting herself on the line of the blow.

I think it is hot how he is just that careless and continues to mess with her, like he isn’t almost out of resources at this point. Again, they’re fighting a fair duel. Everyone is giving their best and this whole scene is just to portray Sakura in a heroic way.

He continues to be impressed with her skills. Nothing to add, it’s just great.

Speeding up to the resolution of the encounter.

Chiyo and Sakura are both fighting against Sasori’s poison by this point. There’s just one antidote. Chiyo gives it to Sakura and Sasori laughs at his grandma for this.

Look, if there’s one spiteful, resentful reaction from Sasori during this fight it’s not against Sakura, but against Chiyo. We’re not shown their history together. We just know Chiyo raised him after his parents’ death and taught him to be a puppet master just like her. He created a lot of puppets while he lived in the Sand Village and, at 15 years old, he left. We know his mind became twisted enough that he started turning humans into puppets so I think it’s easy to assume Chiyo was a terrible parental figure and failed to keep him from following a dark path. And I like Chiyo, she’s easily the best female character Kishimoto ever created.

When Sasori tries to make the killing blow against Sakura, Chiyo uses Mom and Dad to stab him on his living tissue. 

Sasori now is about to die. Chiyo does not have an antidote, so she’s also agonizing. This is when a bullshit plot convenient moment happens. Despite having an antidote for Sasori’s poison, Sakura is about to die from the blood loss. She falls to the ground and Chiyo cures her with a forbidden technique she has been developing over the last years to turn inanimate puppets into living beings. She tells Sasori she planned to use it to give life to Mom and Dad as a gift for him. You’re still a terrible caretaker, but this is cute. 

Chiyo explains the price for reviving someone with that technique is to lose her life, but since Sakura is just unconscious, this is not enough to kill her. The reason for this technique to exist is to revive Gaara at the end of the arc, a happy ending for everyone except grandma Chiyo. It 's not subtle.

His indifference towards life moves her, makes her angry. Makes her care. He’s about to die, she knows that. But she still cares enough to have an emotional reaction to his words. To question his views in life. This makes me frustrated to no end. Why put an effort on making these characters have some type of exchange about their views on life if this is not going to matter? This had potential.

I must repeat myself. This is personal to Sakura, she is angry but she is almost trying to understand why he thinks that way. It’s alien to her but she has empathy. Sasori just answers honestly, like he doesn’t understand the human aspect of the question. It’s one of the last times the dilemma between Ninjas are tools vs Ninjas are more than tools makes itself present in this story. Like many other themes, it gets abandoned eventually because the writing of this series is dumb, and this interaction, while interesting, does not mean anything in the long run… 

BUT SO MUCH POTENTIAL. To me it looks like Sakura would have tried to make him change his mind or show him what she learned back in the Land of Waves on the Zabuza arc, that ninjas are more than tools. 

Chiyo stops the yelling by telling her Sasori is this way because of the traditions and culture of the Sand Village. So, these ninja villages are fascist places that brainwash their citizens to make them heartless tools that serve the interest of feudal lords and rich warlords. Sasori is not a deviant, it’s a product of the system… Another topic that will never be addressed again. Pathetic.

This is the last thing we see that can make us see the potential on the ship. Sasori is the one to bring up the information about Orochimaru to Sakura. He says “I'll do something pointless for you” just as earlier he was mocking the emotional impulse of Sakura as “Women like to do useless things.” The phrasing is curious.

And like that, he gives her information as a gift. Just because he felt like it. He had to be moved by what she did or said in any way to make this decision. Even if he only respected her as a worthy rival. It 's great.

As a last information before we jump to Deidara, Kakashi and Naruto, Chiyo says this: "Sasori saw my last attack... but... Somehow, he couldn't avoid it. It gave him a small opening..."

Sasori chose to die. I don’t know why Kishimoto did this other than to show Sasori as hyper-competent until the end. Even after all these years I’m still not sure if I like this or not. I guess this proves he really wasn’t that interested in remaining on Akatsuki and finishing his task. 

So this is the canon material. I think I covered most of it. But as I said before, this is just the base of everything. With the years, I have built my own thing from this. So I’m not your devoted fan that continues to revisit this fight over and over again. Far from it. For me it’s just the starting point.

Side Note #5: I stopped caring about this series from this point on. Starting with the next arc, I consider Sakura to be nothing more than a disappointing piece of filler, and sometimes just a plot device to showcase her male comrades as more competent or more virtuous/evil when Kishimoto needs it. She has very underwhelming “shining” moments from here and there, but she is not a main character anymore. She doesn’t have another arc or motivation after this either. What a perfect point to deviate from canon and build my own thing, right?

My personal story/headcanon/established universe for the ship

Now I can dive into the juicy part.

Back in the 2012’s, my boyfriend and I were going through a tough time in our relationship. He moved to the capital city, in another province to start university. I started university too. We were so young, so full of doubts and fear.  It’s natural to feel intimidated and anxious when you move apart from your loved ones for your studies. Being together long distance was the only option for us, really. We had been together since we were in school, in the same class and we were very close. Still the fear of a break up was latent because long distance relationships are hard as hell. Statistics say the majority of long distance affairs do not last.

I came up with the idea of writing a story together when we had our Skype weekly reunions. To pass the time, to have something to entertain ourselves and not miss each other even more than we already did. I already was a SasoSaku shipper so I said “let’s write a SasoSaku fic together, you write Sasori, I write Sakura and we take turns to write the rest of the characters according to what the story needs”. He accepted and like that, Definiciones Torcidas was born.

The fic is in Spanish, our mother language, but back in 2017’s SasoSaku month, I made a short fan-comic in English that serves as the prologue for our fic. You can check it out here.

The premise of the fic was basically this: “What happens if Sakura, following an irrational impulse, does not let Sasori die at the end of the fight?” and more important than that, “What if we try to exploit the age difference between them to develop every single one of their dynamics and interactions?” 

That was the start, and we took the project very seriously. We wrote Sakura as an inexperienced girl who had little to no experience on making difficult decisions and seeing the complexity of the world. There’s little to nothing explored about her in canon to know her views on anything, but we worked with the pro Konoha propaganda the author seems to spoon feed us constantly as a start. Konoha does terrible fucked up shit like murdering children from a clan to avoid a coup and using other villages with little to no military force as war zones for money and power. But still they’re depicted as the good guys. Sakura starts the story by being a Konoha brainwashed tool on her speech and actions.

Sasori and Sakura have a second encounter in the wilderness around Konoha’s territory after she saved his life, and canonically after she and her team came back from Orochimaru’s hideout and Sasuke walked off again. During that brief encounter, Sasori just asks what she wanted from him and she cannot answer. She gets nervous and defensive pretty fast. Sasori demands to know if someone else gave her the order of sparing his life but does not believe her words when she tells him that’s not true. It’s a tense start. Sakura leaves telling him to piss off and use his second chance in life to not start trouble, knowing he is not part of Akatsuki anymore. Sasori is very frustrated by his new status as a fugitive from the nations and Akatsuki, he even threatens to make some public terrorist attempt to make the public know he is alive, out of desperation because the irrationality of Sakura’s actions do not make sense in his mind. 

Sakura does not believe him, because that would alert Akatsuki that he is alive. But still, she leaves feeling terrible because she believes Sasori is mentally unstable.

She keeps what she did a secret, and cannot stop thinking about how her actions may put Konoha in danger. She ends up making up her mind that she needs to find him before he leaves the territory, and finish him for good.

My boyfriend put a lot of effort by crafting Sasori’s mind and views as pragmatic and not resistant to changes. He decided Akatsuki was not a safe option for him anymore, so he left. He has no weaponry, no way to contact his spies, no purpose in life, but he can recover. Start again. Evolve as an artist. He just sees Sakura’s resistance to listen to him as stupid and a waste of potential. He also leaves feeling frustrated. A few days later, when Sakura finds him again, by following the clues he left behind while trying to create a poison arsenal again (cut herbs, a dead opened snake, etc), he is not that surprised about hearing she comes to finish him again.

It was a fun combat to write. Sakura is out of focus, she tries to hit but she really does not show the templance and cold mind she demonstrated in their first fight. Sasori messes with her constantly. He says she is a stupid brat, she could accept his offer of an alliance or working together at Konoha’s back. But Sakura is fully committed to prove herself she’s loyal to Konoha. Nothing else matters. His mind games are starting to affect her, though. She becomes more aimless, more distracted, more confused. Sasori does not waste the chance he had created and uses his poison and the cutting blades on his disposal to make her lose the fight. The intention is very clear, he wants to see the broken will in her eyes. Something that reads as “I should have accepted his offer”. In the deep of his mind, he is resentful because he couldn't have an eternal, unbreakable will. In their first fight, he could have won but he had a weak mind and instead chose to die in the last second. He wants to prove she is not different from him. That people are all the same, they all show their will is not unbreakable at the doors of death. Only eternity matters.

But that doesn't happen. Sakura spits on his face and tells him to go to hell. She tries to hit him one last time but she’s really hard on drugs by that point, so she fails. Sasori is really, really impressed by the end. He won, but still it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right because he just saw an eternal will being showcased in front of his eyes. And according to his definitions… that’s art… that’s beautiful.

Sakura opens her eyes, hours later. She finds out she is bandaged and there’s no more poison nor drugs on her body. She was treated, by who? She sits on the ground and she sees Sasori watching her. He answers coldly that indeed, he saved her.

It’s pure irony that now, Sakura is the one that demands answers and Sasori is cold honesty by saying he couldn’t let her die because she carries beauty with her. He does not give it more importance than that. “I allowed beauty to exist. The end.”

Sakura feels disgusted, she cannot understand those motives. She tells him he should have let her die, so she shouldn’t have to face her defeat with her village. Sasori just laughs and says if she wants to die, she can try by herself, he’s just not going to help with that. He considers himself to be an outsider of the system by this point, a player that uses the system in his favor. So he cannot stop mocking her for her nationalism.

Sakura starts crying and tries to step up to hit him but she falls against his chest. She cannot make herself look him into the eye. She 's furious, humiliated. Sasori does not do anything other than lean to her ear and say “This is why I let you live”. 

So he leaves her to cry and defeat. He believes he did the right thing. He’s at peace with his personal values… for the most part. From this moment there’s gonna be what he describes to be a “losing piece” inside his mind, that he cannot name nor accommodate. He’s going to meditate a lot, and try to find himself again on his artistic path.

During her loneliness in that remote forest, Sakura realizes she woke up in a smoother place than the dirty ground. She goes back to her waking point and discovers Sasori’s black travel tunic. He just left her another clue to find him with one of Kakashi’s ninja hounds. They’re gonna meet again. And the chaos of their interactions and getting to change each other’s perspective on things has just begun. The story is +60 chapters so it’s a slowburn construction of their relationship.

We started publishing it in 2013 on ff.net and not only we put a lot of effort and hours of our lives into crafting that story. But the publication process also coincided with a turbulent time in our relationship. We had to adapt to being apart for most part of the year. Seeing each other on vacations, dealing with communication issues while we were apart from each other, emotional problems and tough shit. We were still growing into mature adults. We had many childish behaviors that were hurting ourselves and each other. So, while Sasori and Sakura’s relationship progressed on paper, our relationship grew and matured in real life. We ended up putting so much of our experiences, thoughts, fears, learnings on these two characters, that, even if they are fictional creations separated from us and that have their own arcs on their own fictional universe, have become like a reflection of our relationship. 

Sasori ends up calling Sakura by her first name in chapter 17 for the first time. They are having a heated argument for the 10th time about how Sakura does not trust him to not go into a murderous rampage while trying to understand what’s different about himself, when she suddenly says “How can I believe you see me as a person, when you have never called me by my name? I have a name, you know?”

He shuts up, tries to cool down a second, and says “Sakura Haruno… that’s your name.”

She starts trusting him a little more after that.

My partner also wanted to add his piece to this essay. Quoting his message from last night:

“If I were to explain it in a short version.

We wrote a fic in which we contrasted a young Sakura with little experience in the real world, who lived her entire life being fed only by pro-konoha propaganda and we made her share time with a supposedly dead Sasori, who is without any ally but who has a lot of experience about the world. There’s not a romantic context between them initially.

We made Sakura learn from the grays of morality and reality, and from there we progressed the characters over a long time in-universe to the point where Sasori is giving space in his existence to things other than his art (because he can't practice it anymore) and Sakura is becoming a Root spy (because the Konoha tale is no longer bought by her).

And from there, the ship happens.”

Side Note #6: My boyfriend and I are working together on a BruDick fan-comic. So the BruDick fans, and DC fandom are going to have a first hand grasp of our cooperative work in English!