#nohara rin meta

[itischeese]

anyways i fully believe that canonically madara and/or zetsu made her do it with a slave seal because the alternative leaves me too salty to mention.

YESSSSS. I'm of the opinion that while the seal didn't fully control her, it wrecked her ability to think rationally and also probably made her mind fixate on the idea that she had to die or everyone else would.

Either way, the seal having an Effect on her that pushed her to do it makes so much more sense than her (canonically incredibly intelligent and compassionate) not considering the danger she would leave Kakashi in, or the fact that their teacher is a teleporting seal master...

[skykashi]

Alright, headcanon's time XD We know that Kakashi likes to honor his precious ppl by adopting some of their habits, right?

Now let's take a look at Pakkun's fur pattern and Kakashi's mask

Kakashi has a strong bond with his Ninken especially Pakkun that he bluntly stated that he's his favorite Ninken, they were together since Kakashi was a child so what if little Kakashi decided to wear a mask imitating Pakkun's fur pattern too? 😁

[jaguarys]

It continues to kill me every day to think about the character that Rin could've been. She had so much to her. In being the normal one. In being the caring one. In being a Jinchūriki. In sacrificing herself. It should have been about her, and yet in the end she's just Obito's incel-y revenge manic pixie dream girl (extra trauma edition)

[sinnbaddie]

To say that Kakashi and Gai’s relationship (talking solely platonic rn) was mostly about him helping Kakashi cope with the loss of Obito is disingenuous to Kakashi and all of his relationships.

Any person is going to be traumatized after seeing someone — much less their teammate — be crushed to death under a rock. Kakashi is shown to be someone susceptible to depression due to 1. His environment 2. His initial beliefs and 3. His genetic line. Of course his life is going to be centered around one of the most traumatic experiences of his life, romanticizing it is so hurtful to his character because it destroyed him - and if Kishimoto actually cared about expanding other character relationships instead of making a “generational duo that falls apart” + wasn’t a misogynistic writer, Rin’s death would be the bigger influence on his life than Obito’s.

Yes, Gai had to help him numerous times in his grief but it wasn’t solely or even mainly about Obito. Rin was an absolute vital point in Kakashi’s downfall into chaos. The self harm he inflicted upon himself, the self hatred, the self shame. He became a whole different person after he was forced to kill her. I would say Kakashi’s father Sakumo is by far the biggest influence on him. He wouldn’t have needed any speech of “your father was a hero” by Obito if it wasn’t for Sakumo. His personality of today is thanks to his father’s own death.

Gai and Kakashi’s friendship is almost entirely about them when they’re in scenes together. Look at the chunin exams, look at any scene in the land of steam arc, look at their race, etc. naturally there will be grief the two bring to the relationship and it’s on them to work it out separately, together and with other people which did happen.

You’re actively ignoring every other character that has shaped and formed who Kakashi is by saying Obito is the biggest and only reason he is who he is. Gai is one of the strongest reasons why Kakashi is as motivated and strong as he is. Kakashi would’ve absolutely died at some point in (general) anbu if Gai didn’t pull him out and he was slipping so far when he was in it because of Rin and Minato.

Kakashi’s heart does not “belong” to Obito because he’s in love with Obito and can’t get over him, his heart belongs to the people he loves because that’s who Kakashi is at his core - a lover. He’s a person who cares so deeply, even for people he doesn’t necessarily like or get along with.

Kakashi is a person who is shaped by everybody in his life, that’s why he is one of the best written Naruto characters. He feels like a real person because real people are influenced by everyone in their life, in every way. It’s unfortunate to see those who call themselves Kakashi fans only to mischaracterize, limit and erase the bonds he was written to have to prop up one single bond for your ship.

Do you care for this character? His themes, parallels, relationships and writing? or is he just a placeholder / self insert for shipping content?

[jacksgreysays]

couragetcd's comment on Further Down Road One: So sweet! I adore Sasuke fan boying over Shikako. If you ever feel like dropping back into this story, could we see Shikako dealing with Sasuke's fangirls? Please?

I’ve been thinking about this question since I saw it, and I do have an answer but it’s not really in fic form… and it maybe goes more into Konoha politics than any actual relationship dynamics, as per my usual, lol. Here we go!

To address the question, there isn’t much for Shikako to deal with in regards to Sasuke’s fangirls, largely because I highly doubt he has that many fangirls in this AU. This AU being, of course, the early betrothal as this Shikako’s (successful) attempt to thwart the eventual Uchiha Massacre by removing one of the main reasons for it--ie, the extreme isolation of the Uchiha clan—via essentially tying the Uchiha to the Akimichi-Nara-Yamanaka alliance which would be MUCH harder for Danzo to get rid of (mostly because there’s more of them, they’re far more blended into Konoha’s administration, and my own head-canon that the Akimichi have direct ties to the Fire Daimyo not just influence in Konoha)

All that being said, it’s pretty well known (definitely amongst the ANY and Uchiha clans, probably also amongst the other major Konoha clans, maybe even the “smaller clans” which I will get into later) that Shikako and Sasuke have been betrothed since they were about 7 years old. And obviously IRL people who are in relationships do still have fans, but there’s a difference between “fan of your music/movies/appearance/etc” vs “fan of you as a person, with the intention to eventually date” which I think the latter is what Sasuke’s fangirls are in canon (considering he, you know, isn’t a content creator). Anyways, known betrothal takes care of a majority of that.

Additionally, because Sasuke is no longer the angsty, mysterious Last Uchiha, I don’t think as many girls would be attracted to him—that’s not even including how overtly devoted to Shikako he is in this AU so early on. Like, don’t get me wrong, Sasuke still looks the same (which, presumably to preteen girls, is devastatingly handsome) but he’s also no longer the only one that looks like that. Obviously there’s Itachi who may or may not be more handsome (hard to tell with the art style) but the ENTIRE Uchiha clan is still alive. And if most of them are Konoha Military Police, I imagine even the civilian-born students are seeing, you know, members of KMP getting puked on by drunken disorderly shinobi and still having to wrangle them into the shinobi equivalent of a drunk tank. Or they’re the ones who are running after Naruto when he pulls his messier pranks and getting paint and glitter bombed by him—it just kinda loses the appeal after all that.

This next point may seem a little cyclical, but part of what makes someone attractive is that other people find them attractive also. So if the first two reasons above have reduced the number of fangirls Sasuke would have in this AU, then that lack of numbers would further reduce the number of fangirls. In canon, Sasuke was highly sought after by the queen bee Ino, her ex-best friend turned rival Sakura, and, presumably, basically everyone else except Hinata. So not only was canon!Sasuke SO desirable that the trend-setter, leader of the kunoichi pack Ino wanted him, her former best friend (who only stopped getting bullied because of Ino) Sakura decided he was worth losing her only friendship over.

However, in this AU, there’s no way Ino would do anything to 1) jeopardize her clan or 2) upset her BFF Shikako. And, while I think Sakura would still consider Sasuke cute, I think she is probably a bigger fan of romance in general (since a lot of her fangirling over Sasuke in canon was an entirely imagined version of him) and so she would be a fan of the betrothal if anything else. And also, funnily enough, because Shikako isn’t infatuated with Sasuke that makes him even less appealing to anyone else. Like, lol, even his future wife doesn’t have a crush on him, that’s pretty funny. I mean, ideally, she comes to love him eventually (and again, whether that is romantic or platonic is ?????) but there’s no heart-eyes, nervous blushing from Shikako whatsoever, lol.

If you take out the top three kunoichi of their class (top four, including Hinata, who even in canon was NOT INTO Sasuke) then who do you have left who could even be fangirls of Sasuke? It’s entirely possible that there are multiple classes per year (especially considering in this kinder AU, the living KMP are absolutely wrecking Danzo’s ROOT recruitment so there’s just more students) so probably those who aren’t in the same class don’t get the front row seat to Sasuke being devoted fiancé and thus are more likely to be his fangirls. But they also probably have their own “hotties” to fangirl over. Or if they’re already going to fangirl over someone not in their class, why not someone not in their year? Neji’s a year above, still as devastatingly tragic and beautiful as ever. What’s Sai doing? DoS fandom has decided he’s an Uchiha as well and, probably, one that isn’t as OVERTLY DEVOTED TO HIS FUTURE WIFE as Sasuke is.

Backtracking a bit (and this is where I fully went off the rails and weirdly political) the next kunoichi in their class, influence and capability-wise, is probably Ami, the girl who, in the flashback, was bullying Sakura which led to Ino befriending her in the first place. I personally head-canon Ami as a Mitarashi (based entirely on very minimal details of similar coloring, personality, and affinity for tea shops as Anko) and I further head-canon the Mitarashi family as either a “smaller clan” or a family that is trying to be recognized as a “smaller clan.” And depending on 1) how politically savvy Ami is and 2) how crucial/desperate the Mitarashi family are to become an established “smaller clan,” I think Ami would not publicly fangirl over Sasuke even if she were, for some reason, still attracted to this boy, given four of the major clans are invested in this betrothal and she wouldn’t want to risk any political blowback on her family/clan.

Now, what do I mean by that?

THE REST OF THIS HAS NO BEARING WHATSOEVER ON SASUKE OR SHIKAKO SO FEEL FREE TO STOP READING IF MY BULLSHIT POLITICAL NONSENSE IS NOT YOUR CUP OF TEA

Konoha’s social structure is extremely clan based. Or, technically, it is power based but clans have consolidated power versus and individual’s power. Take, for example, the Nara clan versus Kakashi. Except for maybe Shikako, there is no individual Nara who is more powerful than Kakashi. However, if, for some reason, an extremely OOC Kakashi were to kill a member of the Nara clan, there would be hell to pay. Like, maybe this extremely OOC murderous Kakashi would be able to kill every single Nara but all at once? Probably not. With the Akimichi and Yamanaka backing them? Even less likely. With the other clans of Konoha concerned that this extremely OOC murderous Kakashi might very well go after them if they don’t stop him now? Game over. Weird premise, but sort of necessary to set up the next bit.

The above is an established major clan vs extremely powerful (basically Hokage or Hokage candidate) individual, with the established clan winning. However, we’ve already seen in canon what happens when a not established clan—or, what I consider a “smaller clan”—goes up against said extremely powerful individual. In fact, this is canon, and is the same extremely powerful individual.

Because, as far as the Nohara family/clan is concerned, murderous Kakashi is not OOC at all. As far as they know, Kakashi totally got away with killing Rin and faced no consequences whatsoever. The Nohara family/clan—it’s sort of up in the air of how established/recognized they are by the Konoha government, depending on what I feel is needed in any given fic—are, in fanon/my head-canon, made of medics. Not out of any particular blood limit/genetic basis (maybe they tend to have better chakra control, or a higher capability for memorization, but that’s not exactly ground breaking) but a sort of familial culture of study and generational knowledge passed down. A Nohara may have a slight advantage against a civilian born person, but nothing insurmountable. So even consolidated, the Nohara family/clan do not have as much collective power as Kakashi the individual does.

So then we get into the whole Mitarashi thing, which is why I completely tangented away from the Shikako and Sasuke betrothal thing and into this talk of murderous Kakashi to begin with. Because you can parallel the murderous Kakashi getting away with killing Rin with the exploitative/probably abusive Orochimaru getting away with EVERYTHING HE DID TO ANKO.

And, look, what would the Mitarashi even do? I imagine they were, at first, honored that Anko was even chosen to be Orochimaru’s apprentice. At the time, he was not only one of the Sandaime’s students, he was possibly the most likely of said students to succeed him what with Tsunade running away from her trauma and Jiraiya roaming around being an almost literal fuckboi.

Maybe they even rationalized the mistreatment in the beginning: I can’t imagine the Mitarashi had any jounin before Anko. If anything, her being apprenticed to Orochimaru is probably the closest they had to one of their members becoming jounin. And so what would they know of high level training? He said the seal on her would make her more powerful and who are they to refute the possible one day Hokage? It’s an honor, surely?

And while there is further to be said about abuse of authority and, well, other abuse between Orochimaru and Anko, I don’t want to go there in this post even though, again, I’ve already fully departed from the fluffy AU of Shikako and Sasuke’s literal life saving engagement.

Ultimately, getting back to the family vs “smaller clan” matter. I think that while the family/clan’s own power does contribute a lot to what they can/can’t do and what inherent protection they have, there is probably some legislation in Konoha about what rights clans have (with the murderous Kakashi and abusive Orochimaru being exceptions rather than the usual) especially considering during the founding of Konoha so much legislation HAD to be about protecting clan rights in order to get these historical enemies to coexist.

SO, that means there is incentive for large/cohesive enough families to be formally/legally recognized as a clan in order to have those rights—maybe it’s land or reduced taxes or something where the murderous Kakashi and abusive Orochimaru situations don’t completely violate those rights? Or maybe it’s that the clan CAN enact THEIR OWN retribution without repercussions from Konoha but because, again, the consolidated power of the Nohara and Mitarashi vs murderous Kakashi and abusive Orochimaru are negligible, that’s how those situations can happen without them outrightly being violated… which maybe explains the issues in the bleak Primadonna Girl fic? Oh snap, did I back myself into figuring it out in this completely unrelated post? Whoops.

Regardless. Because there is an incentive to become a formally/legally recognized clan, there have to be some prerequisites in order to qualify. Which, apparently, I’ve gotten into before in this care!Kako/reverse Gardens AU ficlet: “Establishing a clan requires three active-duty shinobi who share a bloodline and sponsorship from two other clan heads”

Although, now that I’m properly looking at it, that seems too easy. I mean, for that particular fic’s sake, I needed it to be that easy for, you know, feels. But in a practical “how would Konoha actually function” I think it needs to be a little more robust than that. I do think a minimum number of active-duty shinobi who a share a bloodline is necessary. It should probably be more than three, and/or there should be rank requirements. So it’s not just, for example, three genin siblings getting launched into clan status out of nowhere. I mean, the sponsorship—or, probably what I actually meant was endorsement—from two other clan heads would probably prevent that, but, again, we can’t leave these things to chance.

So if I were to come up with more robust requirements for formal/legal clan establishment, it would be:

X number of active-duty shinobi who share a bloodline

Y% of the X number must be at least chuunin rank

endorsement from at least Z other clan heads

I don’t know what numbers/values X, Y, or Z would reasonably be, but it would, again, justify why the Mitarashi family would turn a blind eye or, at least, not look TOO closely at Anko’s apprenticeship with Orochimaru if they were trying to meet those unknown numbers/values in order to qualify for established clan status. And, to weirdly circle back to the top of this tangent, would explain why Ami wouldn’t publicly fangirl over a betrothed Sasuke because that theoretically could risk the endorsement part of the requirements (even though none of the clans involved would be that petty? but when you’re not yet established, it feels like every potential misstep gets exaggerated into something dire)

Anyway, sorry for going so horrifically off the rails on this one. I did start ideating on what a “Shikako reacts to Sasuke’s fangirls” fic would look like, but to be honest it was mostly **shrug, go back to whatever she was doing before** while SASUKE is the one who is upset at them since they might make him look bad in front of his fiancee. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cerberussyndrome]

on catalysts

summary: meta not!fic about Team Minato being the big turning points in each others’ character arcs.

cw: canon-typical violence + child soldier-ing, canon compliant character death

Rin is Obito's, Obito (and before him, Sakumo) is Kakashi's. (Obito might also be Rin's, who knows. Minato's kind of a blank canvas in his early years.)

The boys fixate. The boys mourn. The boys idealize. The boys, to an extent, polish their memories into something that reflects what they need more than what the other person was. This comes with problems.

For Obito, Rin is the first person who believes in him and his dreams.

He's the Uchiha black sheep, the perpetually-tardy laughing stock of his graduating class. For fuck's sake, the kid loses to Guy because he's eating candy.

Rin is his best friend, his constant support. When he opens up about his personal and often-mocked dream of becoming Hokage, Rin's response isn't to laugh, or to tease, but to encourage him. Yes, she says, let's end the war. Let's change everything. She says, don't pretend with me. And he's in love with her, of course. He's young, in the middle of a war, and in love with her, and the intensity of those emotions felt like they stretched to encompass the entire sky. She is his most precious person. (They are going to survive the war, he thinks, they are going to win.)

And then the rocks are falling, Kakashi is falling, and it's not even a choice.

(He gives Kakashi his eye — you're a great jounin — like proof, like rebellion. Here is a thing that says I lived. His last request he spends on Rin: keep her safe. His last thought is only a quiet wish for more time.)

Obito wakes up in the dark. Half his body isn't his fucking body anymore, and he's imprisoned in some weird-ass cave with his creepy ancestor(?) and some inhuman plant-thingies. He can't move. He's a ninja and he can't move and his team probably thinks he's dead, and there's a war on. There's a war on, holy shit what if they die and he's stuck here in this fucking cave and he never even sees the sun again?

So he trains.

When he's tired, and lonely, he thinks about them — Rin and Kakashi and Minato-sensei. He dreams of them, even.

He gets out of the cave and he's running, he's running, his team is in danger, Rin is in danger, where the hell is Minato-sensei?

He comes into the clearing and the first thing he sees is Kakashi's hand through Rin's chest.

(When Obito was younger, when faith was a solid thing beneath his fingertips, he thought that life was good, people were good. Sometimes he looked at Rin, laughing, joyful, and tucked the sight of it away in his chest. It was a warm ember that burned bright even when there was shame in his stomach or fear in his throat. He screamed as the rocks fell, as his team ran for their lives and he was left behind in the dark. When he woke up in that cold cave, he warmed his hands on that memory of love and smiled.)

His eye burns. Like broken promises, like blood between his fingers, like the full moon overhead.

Rin is dead.

Rin is dead, his team's betrayed him, the whole world must've felt like it was ending.

Madara offers an alternate solution. Obito turns away from his childhood dreams, his childhood faith in other people — what good was that, was good was he then? — and embraces a dream world in its place.

Afterward, Rin is less a girl than she is a memento, all that was good in the world and all that he lost, proof that his theory is indeed correct. It doesn't matter, later, that Rin's death was her own choice, a sacrifice, an act of heroism. Everything that was good about Konoha was personal, for Obito, because everything that was good about Konoha was in Rin. In the coming years, Obito believes the entirety of the world is worthless, the entirety of the world is hell. There is nothing worth saving here.

In death, Obito turns Rin from a soldier to a shrine, as if she were the only thing untouched by the sins of the mortal earth.

—

For Kakashi, Sakumo is everything: not only his father, his precious parent, but the sum of Kakashi's expectations of the world. He is a clan child and a prodigy and there is never doubt that he'll become a shinobi — and the White Fang of Konoha is the epitome of a shinobi.

Then his father comes back, turns distant, turns cold, turns strangely, terribly sad. Kakashi clings. When that doesn't work, doesn't retrace time back to before, Kakashi trains. His father is everything in the world — Kakashi will make him proud if it kills him.

Then he comes home one day and opens the study door and his father's blood pools around his feet.

Afterward, he looks for something infallible to hold his faith.

(Sentiment led to his father’s fall. Conversely, a shinobi with no emotion would be the perfect tool. If Sakumo hadn’t loved his team, perhaps he’d be alive.)

Obito is the antithesis of a soldier. He's loud, emotional. He's the opposite of a shinobi, Kakashi thinks, and all Kakashi wants these days is to be the consummate shinobi (not like his father). He was never all that nice in the first place, given to honesty over flattery, and Obito stands in opposition to everything Kakashi is and wants to be. It gets under his skin. They argue. They compete. Kakashi beats him; thinks, there. Thinks, is that enough proof for you? Thinks, get your act together before you get us killed.

They take Rin. And Kakashi knows, deep in his gut, that this is it, this is his crucible, this is what he has been waiting for; this is how he will prove he is better than his father.

Obito says, The White Fang was a hero.

Kakashi tries to run. He tries to leave them behind, this wreck of a team that's always been a burden, but his shoulder twinges. He thinks of Rin, Rin's careful hands and cool chakra, thinks of Obito, his ironclad loyalty, thinks of Minato-sensei saying, teamwork.

He goes back. He loses an eye, gains infinitely more precious things in its place: trust and faith and being part of a greater whole.

The rocks fall.

The dust clears.

It is Obito in the dirt, Obito crushed and bleeding. Kakashi knows in his bones that it should've been him.

Obito gives him his eye. Kakashi swears in turn, gains purpose in this frenzied war other than the drive to survive and climb the ranks and bring glory to his name. At Obito’s grave, Kakashi can admit that he was wrong. The things he thought mattered — rules and records and his name decoupled from his father's — never had. He has a second chance now, and he won't waste it.

Rin jumps in front of his Raikiri, and there is something blank in Kakashi's head, something disbelieving. Then there's only darkness. He wakes up to white hospital walls and the smell of antiseptic. Even though his hands are clean, he can't get rid of the feeling of Rin's blood between his fingers, like grief, like failure, like accusation.

(What would Obito say to him now?)

(His father had been many things, but he'd saved all his teammates.)

A couple years later, war come and gone, Kyuubi come and gone, everyone who Kakashi loves is dead. In the mornings, he spends hours in front of the memorial stone, looking for atonement at first, then just something to ease the loneliness. In the meantime, Obito's turned from dead-last burden to aching regret — a martyr to friendship and misplaced faith. Kakashi polishes his memory of him into something unreal and perfect. Sometimes in his darker moments, he warmed himself with the shining memory of him. He spends his life trying (and failing) to live up to his own impossible standards.

Obito becomes the sum of all his regrets and mistakes and failures, everything he might've had if he'd only gotten over himself, if he'd only been better.

tl;dr In the process of becoming a villain, or something like it, Obito memorializes Rin, disregards everything she died for. In the process of becoming a hero, or something like it, Kakashi idealizes Obito, tries to embody everything he died for.

[huskymaine]

Kakashi Has No One to Blame for His Suffering?!

A.k.a part of this post, but with more elaboration on one of the point. 

So recently I went to Reddit, a toxic site I know, someone posted about a good video that they made. It’s the conversation between Kakashi and Sasuke before Sound Four came with some addition of Kakashi’s backstories because as the video maker said “wanted to highlight Kakashi's point of view, after we learn more about him”. The video post is so good and not offensive at all, but it quickly turned into pain wars, because reddit is full of . In the middle of the mess (not really, it’s one of the top comment actually), I found this comment.

This is... something that I wanna talk for so long, because that statement is somehow popular but IS UTTERLY WRONG.

[long post below]

This comment has 30+ upvotes and perhaps more because in Reddit downvotes will reduce the upvotes and I am downvoting the hell of this comment. Meaning that there are at least 30 Naruto redditors who is legit humans in this world who has the same mindset. Or they’re bots, since that statement is so heartless. Borrowing Obito’s words, 

“WHAT CAUSE ME TO DESPAIR IS THIS WORLD ITSELF! THIS COUNTERFEIT WORLDS!”

Because by Gods, it’s so painfully incorrect. I have no idea what they had in mind to write that. Maybe they want to undermine Kakashi’s struggles, but it's like saying that soldier's family shouldn't blame anyone for their grief because "soldiers were ready to die anyway".

For those who read this post and are soldiers/polices and/or having soldier/police loved ones, I am deeply sorry for the insensitiveness of that statement. Hope you and your family stay safe and if something bad happen, you have people who will sympathize with your anguish.

Like seriously, Naruto is a story about shinobi world. Where shinobis kill each other in the name of mission, grieved each other, and bore hatred toward each other. Heck, the main theme of that anime is to “break the cycle of hatred”.

So the mentality of “no one can be blamed for shinobi’s death on a mission” is like demeaning the core of the anime itself.

If no one can be blamed for shinobi’s death because “they were ready to die anyway”, what about Chiyo, who attack Kakashi because of his resemblance with the man who killed her grandson’s parents? 

What about Obito, who massacred Kiri nins and manipulate Yagura to Kiri’s ruin because of Rin’s death on a mission? 

What about Nagato, who destroyed Konoha and even at first has prejudice to Jiraiya because he wears headband with the same symbol as those who killed his parents after they attack those ninjas first? 

What about those shinobis who fights with others from different villages before Gaara’s speech because of their shinobi loved ones’ death? 

What about those who hates Kyuubi and Bijuu for the losses of their loved ones on Bijuu’s rampage? 

The heck, what about Sasuke? Itachi is a shinobi who readily accepted massacre order and its consequences you know? In what logic Kakashi has no one to blame on 13 years old Rin’s death but Sasuke has the whole village to blame on 13 years old Itachi’s suffering?

I am in no way demeaning their pain. They are wronged. Their grief is valid. Their loved ones were ripped apart from them in a tragic way because of the cruelty of the world. My point is, if we sympathize with them for hurting because their loved one will not return, why the hell Kakashi somehow should expect that his loved one will not return to him? If they have someone to blame on their suffering, why Kakashi had no one to blame? 

Kakashi is hurting too, by the death of his father, Obito, Rin, his Sensei, and perhaps more. He’s a shinobi since the age of 6, but in no way he was ready to lose them all, especially in such a tragic way. He literally said that he also thought his world was a hell because of the death of his loved ones (who were all shinobis). He even said that Obito’s path maybe is not really mistaken, ya know, the whole brainwashing all people in the world under happy delusion, making it the most illogical statement that Kakashi ever said in the whole anime.

Konoha, Kiri, Iwa, Kurama, he can blame them and we’ve shown many other people do that. Heck, Kakashi can hate the whole world like Obito and Madara. Kakashi has so many people to blame for his sufferings, just because he doesn’t blame anyone doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. 

Although, I can’t fault people much for thinking that way. When we project into Kakashi’s inner self, we can’t find people whom he hold a grudge. But why we can’t find anyone despite the fact that conditionally Kakashi is wronged by so many people?

I can’t find any reason except that Kakashi from the bottom of his heart chooses to not hold a grudge or hatred.

At least from what we saw in anime, Kakashi chooses to not blame anyone for his suffering. Kakashi chooses to not pursue revenge. Kakashi chooses to not have prejudice toward his opponents (past or present). Kakashi chooses to treat Kiri-nin Haku with gentleness and fulfill Zabuza’s last wish. 

Kakashi chooses to console Chiyo (who declared herself as his father’s enemy) when she had doubt with herself and made her laugh (I spoke about it more on this post). 

Kakashi chooses to trust Kurama (the one who killed his sensei and his wife), accept Kurama’s help, thank him, and even say that he was relieved to be captained by him. 

(Humain note : “We can stroke each other off after we’ve kicked its ass!” I’M HOWLING some fan scanlation is amazing. KakaKurama shipper this is your content).

Of course that doesn’t mean he never hates anyone. In his teen on Kakashi ANBU arc he was cold-hearted, had no mercy to Iwagakure shinobis and became “a being that produced darkness”. Kakashi ANBU arc is indeed not manga-canon material, but it was concepted from Naruto 4th Databook so at least the idea came from Kishimoto’s brain (and that’s why it’s the best filler arc, at least for me).

I think that’s how he gets his “obsessing with revenge made you feel empty” speech. During his ANBU era it’s easy for him to blind himself in killing spree and felt empty afterward. As he grew older he has no problem to stand side by side with Kitsuchi the top-tier Iwagakure shinobi that high possibly participated in planning Iwagakure’s movement on Third War.

He also has Iwa shinobis on his squad but at no point as squad leader he was shown mistreated them or threw them on frontline as human shield because of his hatred, although he has the authority power to do so.

Tl: dr = I am not a soldier/police and has no soldier/police loved ones but if I have one, I hope that every time they went to a mission, the first thing on their mind should be that “they have to return” instead of “they might not return”. 

[enquiringangel]

Kishimoto retconned Kakashi being a chuunin at 6 and here’s why

Kakashi and Obito are the same age in part 2 of the manga/shippuden (31)

They were in the same academy class, but Kakashi apparently graduated in just one year at age 5. This is meant to show what a genius student he was. He’s meant to have become a chuunin at 6.

…Yet we saw him take the chuunin exams with Obito and Rin. Which would’ve meant they must have also graduated the academy early, along with Gai’s team, Anko’s team and everyone else. Perhaps they were all rushed through their education as a result of the war, though this undermines Kakashi being an exceptional child genius who graduated early because he was too good for school.

The databooks said Obito and Rin graduated the academy at age 9, which would mean they have to be 3 years older than Kakashi, except we have just established that Obito and Kakashi are the same age.

So even if we discard the databook information as not canon, something does not quite match up here. Mad respect to authors who write works on this big scale, but this is why you need to take notes. The Naruto timeline is fucked.

My guess is that Kishi simply forgot about the fact that he had Kakashi be a 6-year-old chuunin/that Obito and Rin were originally older than him in favour of more closely paralleling Obito with Naruto by having them be in the same academy class. He wrote the Kakashi gaiden years before the Obito flashbacks. The gaiden was published in like 2004, while the reveal of Obito’s face behind the mask was in 2012.

(All this information can be found on the wiki.)

[georgieenkoom]

Rin is a key element of Obito's motives for becoming evil, but isn't the only element

Months ago, I wrote a Quora answer dealing with the infamous debate in the Naruto fandom : Did Obito Uchiha start the war over his late best friend and crush Rin Nohara or not?

That question helped me realize how both some Obito fans and detractors had either a lack of understanding about Obito's character or only a partial one.

I believe that Obito isn't the hero some of his most hardcore defenders believe he is, nor the incel his detractors reduce him to, but a more complex character that deserves more nuanced analyses.

[sirdiabolical]

Kakashi’s timeline doesn’t make sense but I need it to for my fics

I’ve decided I’m going to formally figure out and write down Kakashi’s early life timeline so I can stick to a cohesive script when writing his childhood, specifically what age he is in relation to others. Once I have it all figured out and sorted neatly, I’ll post the final version onto my main.

Important Note: I do not have all the facts and these are my live workings out. Maths is not my strong suit and I am liable to get things wrong.

Here’s the foundation of my workings out.

Kakashi Canon: Genin at 5, Chunin at 6, Jounin at 9, ANBU at 12(?)*

Obito Canon: Genin at 9, Chunin at 11

Rin Canon: Genin at 9, Chunin at 11

Minato Canon: Genin at 10, Dead at 24

*I don’t have hard evidence of this, it’s just what people say.

The anime tends to portray Kakashi, Rin and Obito as the same age, yet I believe they supposedly competed in the chunin exams together? And if Kakashi did graduate before them, did he have a previous team?

I’ve seen fics tackle this in multiple ways. But before I tackle it myself, I’m going to establish a baseline. Assuming that Kakashi, Rin and Obito all graduated at the same time, we have: A four year age gap between Kakashi and the other two genin, and a ten year age gap between Kakashi and Minato (the latter which I think generally works).

Which leads us to Timeline A:

Genin Kakashi: 5, Genin Rin: 9, Genin Obito: 9, Sensei Minato: 15/16 (I haven’t accounted for birthdays and their placements in the year)

Chunin Kakashi: 6, Genin Rin: 10, Genin Obito: 10, Sensei Minato 16/17

Chunin Kakashi: 7, Chunin Rin: 11, Chunin Obito: 11, Sensei Minato 17/18

But Wait…

Didn’t they compete in the exams together? If we follow that rule, then Kakashi has to graduate a year later than Rin and Obito.

This would give us Timeline B:

Academy/pre-academy* Kakashi: 4, Genin Rin: 9, Genin Obito: 9, ??? Minato: 14/15

Genin Kakashi: 5, Genin Rin: 10, Genin Obito: 10, Sensei Minato: 15/16

Chunin Kakashi: 6, Chunin Rin: 11, Chunin Obito: 11, Sensei Minato: 16/17

*We don’t know how old Kakashi was when he entered the academy

???

We know Minato graduated at 10, but I don’t know much else. If he developed at the same rate as his students, that would put him at Chunin around 12 or so. He’d have to be a jounin to teach so perhaps he became one at 15/16 and was immediately given a team due to a war time and any other justifying head canons.

So we have two main options: Rin and Obito were in a different genin team for a year, or Minato took on Rin and Obito without Kakashi (and perhaps with a third irrelevant member) for a year before Kakashi.

That would bring the age gap between Kakashi and his two peers up to five years.

I don’t like the idea of a ten year old Rin infatuated with a five year old Kakashi as it doesn’t make sense, even as far as ten year olds having romantic feelings go. So to maintain this timeline, I’d need to head canon that Rin had a more of a ‘wow look at this little guy, such a cute baby ninja’ with possible sibling esc tones that frustrate Obito not because he sees Kakashi as a rival for Rin’s love, but more generally Rin’s attention.

HOWEVER! I have not, and likely will not, watch the part of the anime where they compete in the chunin exams and cannot confirm how they went (I’m too tired to look it up right now) and our first time line could maintain its integrity easily by having Kakashi graduate the first time around while the other two have to have another go. However, they would be without Kakashi and the exams seem to work with teams of three somewhat exclusively, so decisions would have to be made there.

———

I’m going to leave my workings out here for now, but so far we have:

Timeline A: Straight Canon, No Context

Timeline B: We All Ace the Chunin Exams

More timelines to come, such as ‘Actually, we’re all the same age (title subject to change)’.

[skykashi]

How Kakashi's mental health negatively effected his strength and why he was getting stronger and stronger throughout the story.

Have you ever wondered why Tsunade was surprised that Itachi defeated Kakashi and was so angry that she scolded him for losing?

That's because Tsunade personally knowing Kakashi's power level as a Shinobi and that he shouldn't have lost that fight ... Then what happened?!.

Aside from the things I explained in the second half of this post, Kakashi was actually rusty, after Hiruzen got him out of Anbu and before he gets team 7, Kakashi's mental health was at it's lowest, he lost the Anbu missions which despite not being good for him and was actually making his depression worse, it's was the only thing that was keeping him busy, so now he had too much free time, he was failing all of the students he got and apparently he wasn't being sent to S or A ranked missions and according to his own statements he stopped training too

And here in his fight with Zabuza he states that it has been so long since he had a fight like this

And here he once again confirms that he hasn't had a fight like this since he left Anbu

Now, remember when Kakashi was teaching team 7 to walk on trees and was explaining chakra control? Kakashi explained that the physical AND mental energies combine to form chakra.

And this is why having a bad mental health can effect the Shinobi's overall strength greatly.

Then Kakashi gets team 7 and slowly things starts to get better gradually especially in Shippuden when he tells Naruto this

And then he got to meet his father and forgive him and know that because of it his father too can now move on and can finally join his mother.

And then during the war he got the chance to properly say goodbye to Rin, Obito and Minato and then later they even get Sasuke back.

He finally gets to move on.. even the Sharingan that was a constant reminder of his pain and failures was gone. When he says "As of today Kakashi of The Sharingan is no more" it holds a much more deeper meaning than just losing the Sharingan. "Kakashi of the Sharingan" was the man who had the weight of the whole world on his shoulders, who was always burdened by his guilt, his failures and everything he lost, that sad broken man who used to be called "Kakashi of the Sharingan" is no more. The new Kakashi gets to have a new beginning with all of the friends and precious people he still has, who has filled the hole in his heart, in a new era of peace, the peace that they all fought so hard to get and now they finally have. And this is why Hokage Kakashi is much much more stronger than he ever was. The current Kakashi has a perfect mental energy combined with a perfect physical energy (especially after losing the chakra drain of the Sharingan and the great toll it used to put on his body) and he is even training and learning so many new powerful Jutsu and inventing new ones like it's stated in Kakashi Retsuden. The new Kakashi finally gets to use his full potentials without all the emotional baggage that used to hold him back 🥺❤️

[jaguarys]

Thinking more about Rin. About her being twelve and being so scared because she doesn't have the same bond that the other teams do. Being scared because she's twelve and suddenly she can either choose to die or choose to destroy everything she cares about because she doesn't think there's any other option. Because she's twelve and she has already seen a teammate die and she knows there's nothing left to do but die, sometimes. Because she's twelve and she has been told all her life that she should be prepared to become a martyr. Because she's twelve and she's cornered and she thinks her only option left is to die because she's not powerful enough to be saved

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I've yet to read Finishing the Hat (though I am reading Sundance Kid right now) and wanted to know your views on Obito and maybe even the Obito/Rin pairing (since it's tagged in FTH), if you have any?

Oh man, you go for the lulzy one first. I like it. For reference, anon is referring to Finishing the Hat and Eru Lee and the Sundance Kid.

Where to start...

Pairing Tags

Well, first a bit about me and pairing tags. After the debacle and a half that was October, I have decided to treat pairing tags as trigger warnings. If there's any hint of a given pairing in the fic: doesn't matter if it's endgame, doesn't matter if it's unrequited, doesn't matter if it's a completely minor part of the story that happened ages ago: that shit gets tagged.

If the very idea of Obito/Rin would cause you to vomit on your shoes, you're now warned, you can never come to me saying, "MUFFIN HOW DARE YOU SLANDER AO3 WITH THIS FILTHY OBITO/RIN AND NOT WARN ME!" Because I can just point to the tags.

So, that's the deal with the tags.

In Finishing the Hat, Obito/Rin and Lee/Minato are both great, unrequited, loves that drive a good deal of character development. However, neither ever goes anywhere, and they parallel each other in not working out.

But that shit's in the story so that shit's getting tagged.

Now, onto the rest of your ask.

Obito Uchiha

Obito fascinates me though I was recently reminded by a reader that the Obito of my fics is a character I've completely made up. Having never gotten nearly so far enough in the anime to see Obito even remotely on screen, he is a collection of half-impressions from a wiki article.

So, keep in mind, what I describe is apparently the Obito Uchiha of my imagination. Is he from canon? I really don't know, you'd have to tell me.

Obito is this mixture of a good deal of cleverness and an utter ruthless stubbornness where he does not balk at challenging the world order. Not even simply the world order, but the very gods, the very universe itself. And he somehow pulls it off, both thanks to his ridiculous blood limits but also just, again, through sheer cleverness.

And it doesn't matter to him that his plan is utterly mad, that it will turn the entire human race on its head, he's going to do it anyway and destroy dozens of shinobi villages in the process.

Watching Obito's like watching a train wreck. You just can't help but sit and watch him burn everything.

"Finishing the Hat", "Eru Lee and the Sundance Kid", and a number of other stories are pretty much my treatise on Obito. So, I think the best way to get my opinion is to go off and read them then come back and tell me what it is I think of him.

Obito/Rin

Again, I never actually got this far in Naruto, so I could be entirely making this up, but I never saw Obito/Rin actually working out. First, it seemed that Obito made it very plain where his affections lay, and for whatever reason Rin never went for it.

That probably means she's not interested.

More, I imagine even Obito before the bridge was intense.

This is a guy who, later, annihilated Kiri from the inside out for an entire generation, not to mention turned a bijuu on his own village, and massacred his own family.

Obito doesn't do half measures and he certainly doesn't date casually.

I imagine Rin hesitated to ever get involved with that. And I don't blame her because dating Obito is... dating a lot of baggage. A lot. And I don't think as she became an adult, even had she lived, that she would have ever gone for it because of that.

Personally, though I can't speak for canon, I think an adult Obito would be more likely to end up with Kakashi. Though, of course, this is if he hadn't spent quality time in a cave with Madara (or else had been rescued from said cave).

[shammikorn]

what’s your interpretation of rin’s personality? i love your comics about her and it sucks that in canon she’s just Nice Girl

that's a great question, anon! and the one i've been asking myself for several years now.

first thing first: root!rin theory is an invention of @ahkaraii, and it’s the most important thing in naruto fandom.

i may be overthinking but i always thought there was something off about rin - she is not just nice girl™, she is creepily nice girl, and she is way too convenient for one certain uchiha nice girl. as i see it, writing a stereotypical love interest is not a complicated issue for a shounen author - there are a bunch of cliches and tropes that you have to combine to get such character right. rin? she is...not quite this. rin rather looks like someone who tries to be that ideal love interest (or, honestly, to be just a normal shinobi/human) but tries too hard and it spoils the impression.

if we look at rin's databook profile, we can see the formula - «kind, intellectual, devoted», and it's almost absurd that something like this is used as personality description.

what do we know from her canon appearances?

1) well, she does come off as sweet and kind, and i want to believe she was.

2) rin is quiet and reserved most of the time, and when she does speak out it's only generalized and mostly positive stuff. in childhood filler (unfortunately, it’s the only one i remember well) she also pauses before speaking or reacting in general.

3) rin often sounds way too mature for her age (plus, she must be an experienced ninja or at least well educated - in gaiden she comments on enemy's strategy and then on kakashi's usage of chakra). sometimes (mostly with obito but he totally buys it) she says things that seem kinda fake- almost like if she was taught to tell it.

i could say it’s just kishimoto’s writing but there are heroines who got little to no character development and yet still felt like, you know, human beings. rin at times seems like a completely ephemeral creature. to me, at least.

4) rin is obsessed with obito (despite narrator and then obito suggesting she was in love with kakashi). she is overwhelmingly caring - she seems to know constantly where obito is, most time she is around him (even when obito is unaware of that - i’m not sure if it was in the manga but anime has several moments like this), she is in charge of things i wouldn't consider quite normal for a childhood friend to be (like? bringing obito's documents? finding him and leading to a meeting point?). honestly, i can’t read this as simply display of friendship and affection, and i don’t see the same pattern in other relationships in the franchise. there is also an extra emphasis on the fact that rin liked kakashi both in gaiden and in war arc (as well as implementations that kakashi might have liked her back), so it’s not like kishimoto forgot about who was rin’s crush.

if i recall correctly, there is no information on how rin and obito originally meet and what was the foundation of their friendship outside of obito's aspiration to become hokage. therefore the reasoning behind rin’s obsession is unknown.

5) rin emulates obito's reactions, it's shown several times and, i would say, highlighted:

6) rin's reaction to obito's «death» seems much more reserved than kakashi's, and she quickly cuts off any visible display of her distress once obito asks to transplant his eye.

7) rin is clearly not afraid of fighting. she normally doesn’t engage in combat (i assume, the end of third war must have been the time of endorsing tsunade’s iryo-nin reform, thereby rin must have belonged to the generation of medics that followed hime’s rules to the core + rin is stopped from getting into combat by kakashi), however, both time rin was cornered by an enemy, she showed full readiness to fight.

now this is not about her personality, but:

8) rin is placed on future hokage's team, alongside the genius son of one of the strongest ninjas and the uchiha (who could actually keep up with the said genius and, as we see later, surprisingly well adjusted to hashirama cells implanted into him).

9) speaking of her abilities, rin's got a solid 4 in intelligence (among shinobi her age i can recall only shikamaru and sakura scoring 4 or higher), 3.5 in ninjutsu (shino with the same score was about to be put in the root; similar score was obtained by sasuke and neji) and 4 in hand seals, whatever that could mean. overall she's got 21 (while most of konoha11 got less than 20). impressive for a ninja coming from «a very ordinary household» [fourth databook].

10) rin is good as iryo-nin, but like...not outstandingly good, like sakura or tsunade or shizune. she carries a large rucksack (and is the only one who does that out of her team, so it's not part of common equipment) - she probably has to use more civilian methods. however, rin is able to transplant an eye with sharingan and keep its functions without any tools besides maybe her kunai; considering ophthalmology is a way too narrow specialty for a field medic and uchihas tend to keep their secrets secure, this seems pretty damn cool (and gaiden was written before eye swapping became a common thing and iryo-ninjutsu could easily heal any injury). if i don’t say suspicious. plus - rin instantly agrees to perform surgery, no second thought, no hesitation, as if she was trained to do it.

it’s also interesting that kakashi gaiden is the only part where rin is shown not from her teammates' perspective- and in gaiden she is a quiet and determined soldier who can put her duty above her feelings. when we see rin later on, mainly from obito's memories and therefore from his perspective, she is depicted as that constantly smiling and good-hearted girl most folks remember her as. it goes to the point where in the second databook rin is described as serious and capable medic-nin, while in the fourth the main focus is moved to her relationships with kakashi and obito.

i don’t want to try and get any conclusions about her personality from the circumstances of her death- i don’t believe in her voluntary death for the village, not after madara told obito about the seal.

so, what do we get from this? as i said, i've tried to sum these traits up: for a long time i pictured rin as a civilian-background girl with fascination for the shinobi world despite not quite fitting in it (which results in her overly perfected but distant behaviour). but this can’t explain her skills or her obsession with obito, and this is where the root theory comes to rescue: she then becomes a root operative, chosen by danzo for her friendship with obito + civilian background, but with personality not completely ruined by lord shimura (she probably wasn’t seen as useful enough outside the whole obito thing). the original aim of her mission was probably to keep safe and then awaken obito’s sharingan (loving the irony), not to actually steal it. rin did like (in a platonic way) obito even before the recruitment, as well as she grows to like kakashi (in a romantic way) later on, but her real, untouched by shimura and his orders personality must have remained mostly a mystery to them both.

[unbreakablehorselegs]

every day i think about how nohara rin could have had so much more depth in her character

even if we were to keep the whole her being a medic-nin thing stemming from most of the girls having support roles in naruto, there STILL could have been exploration of her life. even if we didn’t rewrite her to not be existing solely to die and fuel male trauma, she had so much potential for depth that wasn’t taken because of misogynistic writing!

if we’re sticking by the idea that she had a ““normal”” life (growing up with parents with no major traumatizing events or deaths of loved ones or friends before obito) there STILL could have been major depth. this also extends to sakura as well but mainly rin considering the environment rin grew up in.

rin’s generation grew up during a war period, where the child soldier system was bolstered even further. kannabi bridge was a mission being led by a 12 year old linked to the war. this was a normal.

the average age that kids graduated from the academy was 12 years old during naruto’s generation - in comparison, children were being allowed to graduate as young as 6 (kakashi) and 9 years old (rin and obito). konoha needed more fighters, so the training process was sped up so they could go into the field faster.

even if rin grew up “normally,” the normal of konohagakure and the shinobi system was terrible already. she wasn’t “not traumatized,” because in this system there’s a baseline amount of trauma expected already - it’s just that kakashi and obito had a lot of extra trauma on top of that.

rin’s character could have been an exploration of the system’s effect on kids, and that even without major events or being an orphan, everyone is still impacted in a negative way

(continued under read more)

one thing i think about a lot when it comes to rin is that during obito’s death, she had to transplant obito’s eye into kakashi’s eye socket (and likely clean out the old, destroyed eye)

the time it takes is ridiculously short and obito is still alive by the time kakashi busts out of the rubble to kill the enemy ninja. the eye is fully functional and the amount of time it took was short enough that obito didn’t end up dying just yet despite half of his body being crushed under a boulder, and he didn’t end up bleeding out from his eye, either - the shot we get of obito post-operation, his eyelid is closed over the socket and there’s minimal mess.

this is, in short, pretty fucking amazing!

and also horrifying!

it’s likely rin, as most shinobi are encouraged to, suppress her trauma (the fact that she just got kidnapped, the fact that her friend was dying in front of her and she would have to leave him, the fact that she had to operate on him in the field) and “suck it up” so she could get things done.

it’s likely she grew up repressing things due to how kakashi and obito were absolute goddamn messes, and SOMEONE had to be put together on the team aside from their jounin leader (plus minato didn’t really know what the hell he was doing anyway) and it’s horrible that she would’ve had to do that in the first place!

her life and the things that happened before she died could have been a window into yet another person majorly affected by the shinobi system. hell, if you still wanted to use her death as a plot device in the end to fuel kakashi’s trauma or whatever, even then, before that, there was so much opportunity to explore her life and trauma.

i hate that she was used as a plot device and had little character aside from being The Girl of the group to parallel naruto’s team 7 and to be The Sakura (but Nice and Sweet). i hate that the fact that she was isobu’s jinchuuriki for a bit was shucked aside and essentially never talked about again.

but even if we didn’t rewrite her role in the plot that stemmed from misogyny, exploring nohara rin’s life and trauma could have added so many layers of depth and world building. things like seeing ways how minato interacted with the team post-obito’s death to help rin and kakashi, especially since he was also coping with losing a student who was just 12 years old.

the same applies to sakura, as someone growing up as a child soldier, but it’s especially prevalent with rin because she died before anything could be learned about her for the sake of playing a large role in obito and kakashi’s trauma.

tldr; rin could have been a lot more than she was allowed to be by the narrative and it makes me smad, also because i really love team minato as a whole

[huskymaine]

Obito is NOT a simp. I am tired of people particularly Kakashi stan degrade Obito's motive to be just for a girl he likes although Obito himself said otherwise. If Obito truly a simp he would reanimate Rin, but Rin's death is just a trigger to show how shitty his reality is and his desire to bring peace to the world, albeit indeed with a wrong method

Okay, I assume it’s because my latest reblog, then I just wanna say, yes Obito is a simp, and nothing’s wrong with that. Forget Tobi Obito for a while, kid Obito is still a simp. What is simp? Quick Google search tells us that simp is  “ someone who shows excessive sympathy and attention toward another person, typically someone who does not reciprocate the same feelings, in order to win their affection.” It’s, not a bad thing. Kid Obito has bulletin board of Rin’s photos, he cares for Rin’s opinion, he saw that Rin was attracted to Kakashi so he trained in the middle of the rain to catch up to Kakashi, he cried because of her affection, and many more. And if you watch Detective Conan, Takagi Wataru is a lovable simp. He’s clumsy, timid, bashful, but he cares for Sato (the woman he likes) so much and tried to be better police because of her. Those two (at least kid Obito) love their girls dearly and it became their positive driven force. That’s why I said that they both are simp (affectionate).

Simp is not a negative connotation, at least the one that I meant. Obito is simp for Rin, but he also cares for her opinion and want to be stronger for her. Obito loves Rin deeper than mere crush is also the reason why Obito didn’t reanimate Rin (Rin’s body would be 13 years old girl, it’s creepy). If I want to criticize Obito, I would call him not simp but delusional, because he literally blurred the line between dream and reality.