#sakura deserved better

[dchan87]

If it’s one thing I’ve learned from franchises, it’s that nothing gets girls hotter than emotionally/physically abusive whiny emo fuckheads with family issues and a sad backstory that can be barely told in the length of a sentence. It happened with Sakura and now Rey too. Rey even says that she feels "incomplete" without Kylo. You know the same Kylo who murdered millions of people and tried to murder you and your friends? Remember that Rey? God I'm just so done..

[thatsprettylane]

What if Sakura decided she didn’t want to learn Genjutsu after seeing what happened to Kakashi, so she doesn’t tell Tsunade she has the skill for it, and that’s why it’s never addressed again. Then when Tsunade finds out, she convinces Sakura that it’s useful for healing because you can convince someone else they aren’t in pain, and she’s sets up lessons with Kurenai. Sakura becomes the Genjutsu master she should have been.

[pixelatedpeppers]

Inosaku> sasusaku

You may say I'm biased, but Sasuke tried to kill Sakura twice and called her annoying since they were kids. Ino grew up with Sakura and defended her from bullies, and keeps a healthy relationship with Sakura "B-but the chuunin exams! B-but they argue!" Yeah, but they talked it out after the chuunin exams, and other arguments were just harmless rivalries. Literally any ship with Sasuke is toxic.. Even the canon one.

[queen-of-the-fist]

It's been 3 years but my heart finally jumped back to this project and well... the first chapter is up. ♥️ The next two will be up tomorrow and the rest in a month or so. enjoy !

I just wrote a huge rant on why we, collectively, the naruto fandom, sakura lovers and haters alike, sasusaku shippers or not, needed to see a serious sasuke vs sakura. got accidentally erased right before i could post it. have decided to seriously write it as a fixing canon fic because we deserve this. it is also a world in which sakura was properly trained and exploited as a character. stay tuned.

[mixed-match-archive]

THE ONLY CRIME HARUNO SAKURA COMMITTED WAS BEING A WOMAN WRITTEN BY KISHIMOTO

THEY COULD NEVER MAKE ME HATE YOU SAKURA!!!!!!!

[tossawary]

Trying to judge Kakashi for his teaching fuck-ups is hard because everything keeps getting skewed by everything that is wrong with this man and also everything around him. He ends up being graded on the triple wonky curves of: 1) "You know, I'm not sure that you specifically could have done much better." (Child soldier as a preschooler, isolated genius prodigy fast-tracked out of childhood, violently orphaned twice, war veteran, late teenage years and nearly half his life spent in black ops, he's only like 26 years old, etc...)

2) "I'm not sure that the average Konoha ninja could have really done much better in Kakashi's shoes." (Inconsistent prior Academy training for students, little to no apparent teacher training or solid child development resources for genin team teachers, inconsistent oversight from neglectful superiors, promotion exams where it's apparently normal-ish for participants to be either killed or permanently injured, etc...)

3) "I don't think anyone could have handled this situation well, honestly. It was fucked up before Kakashi showed up." (Sasuke.) (Also Naruto if his personality had been slightly different, after 12 years of neglect and shunning. What the fuck.)

[easwan]

The Lotus of Konoha blossoms twice

As a kid I was convinced they were endgame. Made this piece for twelve year old me.

[kxtsvvki]

[sasukesrkive]

Being guilt tripped to accommodate or accept someone's feelings in your life because they cared for you by stalking and hunting you is no reason to romanticize a forced and unnecessary relationship.

And in the same breath being told and made to serve the state that committed the ethnic cleansing of your kin is basically glorifying stockholm syndrome.

Unclench and touch grass at least a little bit please.

[numberonefyodorfan]

I love when people include my little pookie wookie bears sai and Yamato in team 7, because they really did become part of the team 🥀 they're all so important to me ☹️ I love og team 7, I love the extra extended family team 7 as well. They're all my pookie wookie bears, and they all deserve the world ☹️

Like I love how Sai included Sasuke in his drawing of team 7 despite them barely knowing each other, and them not getting off on the right foot.

And I love how Sakura and Naruto learned to welcome sai in the team, at first they just saw him as a replacement for Sasuke and didn't really see him as his own person. But then they did, which is super cool and like sigma of them yk 😕

And then Yamato my little pookie wookie bear silly billy dunken boo boo, I love him.

Team 7 is cool, I wish they were real 🥀

[ydsurluvhsm]

sasuke uchiha deserves to be loved out loud (´•̥﹏•̥`) ♡

✧.・゜✿・。.☆ﾟ.･｡ﾟ༓☾☼✩.･｡ﾟ☁︎*.☽✩˚｡⋆✲ﾟ｡⋆*

why is it that when sasuke is angry people call him heartless, but when itachi is silent they call him tragic. why is it that sasuke screams for help with blood on his hands and everyone looks away, but when itachi bleeds quietly, people build him altars. i’m not saying one deserves less love, i’m saying sasuke deserved more. more kindness, more grace, more forgiveness. he was a child. a boy who loved his big brother so hard he shaped his whole world around him. and when that world shattered, no one helped him pick up the pieces. so he held the shards in his hands and bled alone.

you don’t understand how devastating it is that sasuke’s entire childhood was a prologue to his pain. he was a prodigy, yes. but also soft. also kind. also eager. he looked up to itachi like he hung the stars in the sky. and when the stars fell, they crushed him. people say sasuke was obsessed with revenge, but it wasn’t about killing. it was about understanding. about making the pain make sense. about proving to himself that love hadn’t been a lie. he didn’t want to destroy itachi. he wanted him to see him. to hurt the way sasuke hurt.

and then he did. and it broke him again. and still—he kept moving. he never got to fall apart. he had to rewire his entire heart and carry on. and he kept losing people. kept losing himself. kept searching for a version of the world that didn’t hurt so much. he tried the path of light and the path of darkness and found peace in the middle of the ruins. it was messy. it was violent. it was lonely. but it was his choice. that’s why sasuke is so important to me—he chose to come back. not because someone redeemed him. but because he did.

it makes me so emotional that people still talk about naruto as the one who saved him when sasuke had been crawling toward the light on his own for so long. he just needed someone to say “i see you.” naruto didn’t save him. naruto waited for him. and sasuke came back. scarred, burned, bleeding—but alive. more alive than he had been in years. when he smiled after the final battle… i felt that in my bones. that little sliver of peace he never thought he’d get. he smiled like he forgot how and just remembered again. like the world was finally quiet inside his head.

boruto sasuke is probably the most heartbreaking version of him. like... the way he tries to be a father when no one taught him how. the way he mentors boruto with patience and grace despite having grown up without any of it. the way he watches over the village from the shadows—not to atone, but because he cares. he still thinks the only way he can protect people is by staying away from them. he doesn’t want to hurt anyone again. and it’s so painful because all i want is for him to be held. to be told “you’ve done enough.” but he never stops. he loves in silence. in exile. in scars.

and the way he treats sarada… oh my god. you can tell he wants to give her the world but he’s terrified he’ll taint it. like he doesn’t think he deserves to stand in the light anymore so he just watches from the edges. she reaches for him and he flinches because he doesn’t know how to be wanted without being feared. but he tries. he tries. he shows up when it counts. even when he’s bleeding. even when he’s broken. he shows up. that’s love. and it’s the kind of love that costs him everything. but he gives it anyway. because he’s sasuke.

he is not emotionless. he is not selfish. he is a boy whose heart was shattered so many times he forgot what it sounded like when it beat softly. but it still does. it always did. he never stopped feeling. he just got better at hiding it. but if you look close, you see it—in the way he protects, the way he hesitates, the way he listens. he’s all bruised silence and trembling hope. he is grief with a heartbeat. and he still keeps walking forward. still believes he can do better. he’s the kind of character who lets himself be hated if it means someone else gets to live in peace. and if that’s not heroic, idk what is.

sasuke uchiha is the most painfully beautiful character i’ve ever known. he is everything people misunderstood about teenage anger and survivor’s guilt and broken love. he is a mirror of the worst the world can do to a child and the best that child can still become. he’s proof that pain doesn’t make you a monster. it makes you real. and i will never stop loving him for that. ( ´•̥̥̥ ω •̥̥̥` ) ♡

✧.・゜✿・。.☆ﾟ.･｡ﾟ༓☾☼✩.･｡ﾟ☁︎*.☽✩˚｡⋆✲ﾟ｡⋆*

(♡°▽°♡): just a lil reminder: sasuke is my broken boy, but we have to talk about how he’s not the best husband or father. his trauma impacts every relationship he has, and that’s why he struggles to connect with sakura and their daughter in the way they deserve. i love sakura so much, but honestly, sasusaku makes me really uncomfortable. sakura deserves someone who sees her as the amazing, strong person she is, not as second best. also, sakura is a huge victim of comphet—she’s been pushed into a straight relationship with sasuke when it’s clear they don’t have the chemistry that should be there. comphet forces women to conform to a heteronormative narrative, even if it’s not what they want, and sakura deserves someone who truly understands her. (*≧▽≦)

[faeriegirl]

The Matou's Holy Grail

[oifaaa]

I finished my naruto rewatch now I'm sad

[gaoau]

would rather kms than make my only winbre post be about Suo's stupid ass, so it's time to talk about Nirei cause i love him. i read a post and my blood started boiling i dont fuck around so now i gotta defend him with my life. also cause im sick and tired of him not being deemed marketable enough to be included in merch and collab illusts when he's a whole—if not the most important—third of the main trio. (theres something to be said about Tsugeura too, considering they don't use him but love using Kiryuu, but that's a different conversation.)

anyway, on Nirei and the exceptionality of being ordinary.

manga spoilers btw also disclaimer im not eloquent at all i just say things.

there's something about Nirei that just simply isn't special and i think that's wonderful. not in a mean-spirited sense; Nirei is the most regular out of anyone in Furin, so much so that he had to buy an ugly shirt he didn't even like to stand out. he's just a kid with a notebook and a simple backstory trying to follow a hero's example. he's nothing extraordinary, especially seeing the people he's surrounded by. physically, he's very limited, which he knows and doesn't ignore at all, so he can't do much in fights. no one is more acutely aware of his own limits than Nirei. i was reading the first couple chapters again and it breaks my heart to hear his efforts be dismissed as "playing hero," because Nirei is the biggest hero in this whole manga.

it's true, yeah, he can't fight. he's more like another average citizen of Makochi than he is a Bofurin member sometimes. he lacks fighting abilities, his diplomacy isn't particularly the best, and he's two seconds away from going into cardiac arrest at almost all times. but it's not like he gives a shit. every single time he gets beaten into the ground, he picks himself back up immediately. he takes hit after hit, time and time again, because no matter how battered or defenseless he is, his drive to stay and protect the town is ridiculously strong. he does go down when he can't take any more (keel), but it's with improvement and training that he manages to throw his first—albeit useless—punch (noroshi or whatever this arc is called idk). improvement that, mind you, comes from recognizing his own limitations.

some have called him reckless (Suo), but i disagree, because Nirei is right. i know the kids would rather look out for him and have him uninjured by the end of a scuffle, but he doesn't need to be coddled. everybody else jumps into a brawl and gets a broken nose regardless of their fighting skills. Nirei isn't any different. he knows he's limited, he knows he can't fight, he knows he's nothing special. he risks it all anyway, because even though he wasn't built for fighting, he's more than prepared to try over and over again until his efforts are enough to make a difference. he's looked at Sakura's back and thought he couldn't match him, that Sakura gets back up even when he's almost fully tapped out, that he's not needed because Sakura's stronger and will be okay without him.

maybe he's right about this, too. i'm inclined to disagree, but i understand where he's coming from. Nirei chases, Nirei can't stop running because he'll fall behind all these phenomenal beasts that can hold their own. i'm so glad the conclusion he reached was "okay, i gotta step up my game," but i'm not really surprised. this is Nirei Akihiko we're talking about and, i think Suo put it best, he wants to become stronger more than anybody.

he's been at a disadvantage this whole time, "playing hero" rather than being an "actual" hero, but he has a goal. if he has to tear himself apart to stand next to Sakura, he will. he doesn't have to, of course, he's already more than useful the way he is, but when you're so ordinary that you get lost in the crowd, standing beside someone so exemplary makes you want more.

honestly, Nirei's fucking wild. lil bro's actually crazy. we've seen characters go apeshit, but no one in this entire manga is nearly as insane as he is. i appreciate Suo telling him to slow down and chill out, cause he was fully intending to kill himself learning how to fight with zero foundation. my guy was more than ready to actually fight Endo. he meant that. it's a good thing he's properly learning how to defend himself, considering he probably lacks the muscle to go on the offense. those are his limits and he knows that. it frustrates him, but it definitely does little to stop him, because look how big his back is. i hope somebody tells him, after all of this is over, that he's doing more than enough, more than great.

to be fair, fighting isn't even where he shines, and that's okay. he's not strong enough to beat anyone's ass and he doesn't need to be, either. he doesn't need to be a leader like Sakura or a devotee like Sugishita or mimic whatever the fuck Suo's got going on. in the words of my favorite pink curse, the real heroes are the ones who support from the back, and that's exactly what Nirei does. he's said it himself, he wants to guide Sakura all the way to the top and he can, because he thrives in being another citizen of Makochi. he's a regular person and i think that's what makes him so compelling and important.

there's something so fascinating about his simplicity. he really is nothing more than just an ordinary kid. put him in a normal high-school classroom and he'll pass his midterms with a 75. he recognizes what he's good at, of course, he knows the town inside out and it's very useful, especially to Sakura. he's amazing support. it really doesn't seem like it and people love to completely dismiss him, but i wanna be outrageous and call him the backbone of these kids. he was Sakura's first friend and he continues to be the one pushing and prodding to make sure he stands back up every single time. he's more necessary than anyone gives him credit for. i have no doubt in my mind that, if it weren't for him, Sakura wouldn't be able to do half the things he's managing. even Suo, who's out here acting like he knows the secrets of the universe, has to stop and reorganize his ideas when Nirei talks.

if Suo is the heart (debatable, but okay, whatever bro says) and brain, i'd like to think Nirei is the spirit and the soul. there's no chance the kids would work so smoothly without Nirei around—which, yes, arguably the same could be said of all of them, but i've seen Nirei be dismissed as a Zenitsu looking ass gag character and i've never had to hold back a kys so hard. idk for sure what the general consensus on him is cause i've only ever seen him used in the context of ships and never on his own, which honestly makes me a little sad. especially after seeing the popularity poll cause he didn't even make it into the top 5 with not even 1k points personal offense tbh i need a word with the voters. what i've gathered is that aint nobody gaf about his ass im devastated Suo has to fuck off (13k votes is crazy gang come on). which i don't understand. take him out of the equation and everything falls apart. Sakura's the sword, Suo's the strategy, and Nirei is the ambition, the desire, the force, the feelings.

there's much to be said about how he's treated, not only in-universe, but also by the people consuming the media and the pr team. i don't fuck with shipping, but when i'm scrolling through my timeline, Nirei only exists in the context of somebody's favorite ship. and don't fucking get me started on the mischaracterization. look me in the eye and tell me Nirei doesn't have more conviction than any of these dumbass kids. yes, he gets scared and he's fucking horrified most of the time, but motherfucker he's fighting. he's out there in the frontlines, making himself useful, biting more than he can chew and then some. i dare you to treat him like wittle baby that needs protection.

if not for his uniqueness, look at him for his regularity, because i find it endearingly wonderful. i think there's something so special about the ordinary. he deserves a lot more than what he's getting so these mfs better put him in all collab illusts cause if i have to see Kaji in his place one more time i will personally book a flight. okay thank you thats all i promise ill never come back here have day.

[garbean]

Team 7!

Bonus naruto with all my hcs

[punkeropercyjackson]

Sasunaru is treated as some kind of holy grail of gay media culture and it's really wack considering the lack of not just canonicity but also nonexistent chemistry.It turns both of them into unlikable characters and Sns stans do them even worse than canon and i'm refering to Sasuke's alleged misogyny amongst the many other points.Sasuke's not an emo twink who's 'so misogynistic he's gay',she's a punk trans lesbian who was screwed over by every man in her life with Sakura as her only consistency and if Sasunaru is 'the bible for gays',then it's a good thing i love sacrilege.Also Naruto's not a jock,he's scene.Any modern au that dosen't put him in a Gir hoodie is fake