#STAGGERINGLY clear to me every day how you only wanted babies and you didn’t want us as the messy growing learning imperfectncomplicated

[natsumebookss]

Valka Sparks Voice Lines

Here's my first PN character, Valka! She's a genetically engineered magical girl (called an Actress) from a fictional country called Olympia. I've got a whole novel I'm working on about these girls, so this is kind of a crossover AU, but I've tried to cram as much important lore about her as I can in these lines. I've had her concept since high school, so she is extremely important to me.

Self-Introduction 1: Good to meet you, I'm Valka Sparks. People in my country call me Actress Espoir, the girl genetically engineered to become the worst Witch. I came to Kamihama to avoid that fate, for me and for everyone. I'll help you out with whatever you like, as long as it doesn't involve the other factions. It's best for everyone here if me and the other Actresses just look out for ourselves.

Self-Introduction 2: Call me Valka. I refuse to use the other name that man gave me unless it's on my own terms, and that means using it to make everything blow up in his face. I like to think that's the name I would have had if I wouldn't have been forced into this damned contract...but enough about that. You'd rather know what my crew is doing here, right?

Personal Story

Story Chapter End 1: They're using me to breed the worst possible Witch. That's really all I'll ever be to them?

(NOTE: In the original PN verse, Valka's body contains a dark spirit, created by Star Corporations trying to inject both light and dark magic into her at once. This dark spirit is a Witch in the Magia Record crossover, but is something entirely unique and staggeringly rare in the novel concept. Basically, if Valka were to turn, it would be less like a Witch transformation and more like a possession, where she would still be aware of what was going on without being able to do anything about it.)

Story Chapter End 2: If I'm cast aside by humans and hunted down by Actresses, what even am I?

Story Chapter End 3: I'll give my life to save every Actress who was ever made. That's the only way I can atone for what I am.

Story Select 1: The Firebrands are after my power...it's my fault...

Story Select 2: Is that what hope means to them?

Story Select 3: How can I protect the others if I couldn't even protect Xing?

Story Select 4: I can't let the Manufacturer get to Omega! She has to stay human!

Story Select 5: Aren't humans supposed to dream of loving people who aren't like them?

Story Select 6: I won't fail you again...Omega...

Stats

Strengthening Complete: I tend to prefer brains to brawn, but I could get used to this.

Strengthening Max: I should be able to stave off the new moon better now.

Episode Level Up: Get away from me now before the Manufacturer turns you too.

Magia Level Up: Hopefully, this takes me one step closer to freeing all us Actresses.

Magical Release 1: I was genetically altered to become the worst possible Witch, so I guess that makes me little more than a living weapon to them.

Magical Release 2: Protecting all Magical Girls is out of my scope, but I know I can at least protect my own kind.

Magical Release 3: I do believe a stronger magical girl of hope does exist, though. When she comes, it won't just be for Actresses...we'll all be freed.

(NOTE: Since Valka and Madoka both have hope motifs and Madoka is seen as a Messianic figure in the anime, I like the idea of Valka being a similar, but more minor prophet, like John the Baptist was in the Christian mythos PMMM taps into occasionally.)

Awaken 1: The Premiere Nebula was formed in honor of a fallen friend. For her sake, I must protect it.

Home Screen

Login (first login): You should be careful around me. Star Corporations and the Firebrands can both take advantage of you being close to me. Though I guess that's not a problem since I'm not in Olympia anymore?

Login (morning): You think I'm up too early? Well, since I fought as the Manufacturer's soldier for so long and I'm an athlete now, I guess this is just normal for me.

Login (noon): In Star Corporations, our diets were strictly regimented. Can't have your soldiers falling ill, can you? I still have to keep in shape for my job, but that's why I still like to indulge now and then.

Login (evening): My Witch's power is tied to the moon, so the more light the moon gets, the stronger I am. On the new moon, my Soul Gem darkens and she tries to come out.

Login (night): I'm used to doing patrols right about now, but the Kamihama girls seem to have things handled here. Time for me to turn in for the night.

Login (other): Actress Soul Gems are different from yours, so I don't know how going to a Coordinator would affect me. But if you need to go, I can give it a shot.

Login (AP full): Omega's my apprentice, so I'm still committed to training her even in an unfamiliar environment. These Witches should segue right into today's lesson.

Login (BP full): Fighting copies feels wrong when your country has sentient clones. But if they can duplicate Actresses, we have to put them down.

Tap 1: You guys don't have Cielflight around here? I guess you could say it's like air hockey, except you play on this big magnetic field. It clears my mind, even though I'm up in the air like always.

Tap 2: Omega and I are reserves on a Cielflight team. She plays defense and I play offense. Unfortunately, that means she still tries to shield me in battle, even though she's still a newbie...

Tap 3: Io always calls me "Valvi-nee," but I don't mind. Battle has turned us into sisters, and besides...I never really did have a cute nickname like that growing up.

Tap 4: Since my magic ebbs and flows with the moon, strategy's the name of the game for me. If I didn't have my wits, there's no way I'd be able to beat someone like Alarice on an off day.

Tap 5: What would I have wished for? Probably for my dad to be president. He campaigned when I was little, worked hard...but still couldn't beat the Manufacturer's influence.

Tap 6: My last ex abused me for being an Actress, so love isn't really a thing for me. With the way my powers are, I'm even too weird for Actresses...though sometimes I wish that wasn't true.

Tap 7: Yachiyo Nanami interests me. She's a lot like how I used to be, and I've gotta say...sometimes I'm jealous of how much support she gets from everyone here. The Nebula's all I have back home.

Tap 8: The Manufacturer wanted me to be his beacon of hope. But now I want to be that same light for the Actresses. If I can do that, I feel like that would make up for everything I've done.

Tap 9: My dad was single, so he asked the Manufacturer and Star Corporations to create a baby for him. That's where I came from, and why they still think they own me.

Battle Start: Okay, so here's the plan...

Battle Victory 1: I believe that's checkmate.

(Since she loves strategy games, I had to use this one even though it's similar to Oriko's.)

Battle Victory 2: As long as Star Corporations sees me as their chosen one, I have a reputation to keep.

Battle Victory 3: That's how it's done! Remember this for next time, Omega.

Doppel: *strained* I have to...keep it together!

Dying: The Manufacturer will never win now.

#magia record #premiere nebula #my post

[sir-severance]

connective tissue - mlandersen0

this is my piece for the fantastic Slenderverse Zine (2019). this was a pleasure to write, and i am honoured to have been a part of such a wonderful project. you can check out the zine here, and read this fic on AO3 here. 

a quick disclaimer - i hope it's quite clear that i do not support the views which the character Shaun Andersen expresses in this fic. this is an exploration into mental health stigma, the entitlement of neurotypicality and the damage which can come about from both sides of any relationship within which someone is suffering because of mental illness. i am not interested in any discourse. please take this fic for what it is, and if you disagree, feel free to write your own. likewise, please heed the content warnings.

thanks, and i hope you enjoy <3

cws: mental health, mental illness, ableism, sickness, anxiety, depression, blood, twins, abuse, therapy, gore, terror, horror

Shaun’s parents often address him in the same breath as talking about Michael, as if the two are immutably connected, their meaning solely defined by virtue of each not being the other. But the parental Andersens could not always retain this facade of equality in front of their youngest child. No, Shaun found the documents when he was ten, long after Michael’s departure.

At the time, the words he found staggered him with polysyllabic ambiguity:

Monochorionic.

Parasitic.

Anemic.

But one phrase unfurled its roots and lodged itself into the squishy whorls of his brain.

The night of the discovery, little Shaun Andersen ran screaming into his parents’ bedroom, tears and terror marring his face the way fresh understanding of horror always does. When his mother hushed Shaun, held him close and begged him to explain what was wrong, the boy’s answer made the colour flood from her face.

All too soon, Shaun found himself confronted with yet more walls: walls so staggeringly bleached that, to Shaun, the paint served not as a reminder of cleanliness, but of spores and fungi and bacteria, swelling into turgid contaminants ready to burrow through his skin and pick his bones clean.

“Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome,” the therapist reads from her notes. She smiles at Shaun, with too many teeth. “Where did we hear such big words, hm?”

Shaun keeps quiet. In the time since Michael left, the value of silence impressed its qualities upon him. The art of disquiet is something everyone knows about, but few possess the gall to produce. Shaun maintains fixed eye contact with the therapist, while revelling in the security offered by his glasses. There’s a plastic quality to her dimples: an artificial construction of pleasantry that only a child could see through.

She doesn’t care about you.

Shaun believes there’s relief for both of them when the light goes out of her eyes.

“It’s okay, Shaun,” the therapist says. Her voice quavers noticeably. “I think you’re a very smart boy. You’d like me to tell you the truth, wouldn’t you?”

I think you want to tell me the truth and not have to deal with me, Shaun thinks. The therapist continues on regardless:

“Sometimes, when people have babies, things can go wrong. The baby might come out sick, or a bit different.”

The therapist watches him for a response. Shaun tries his best not to blink. Her mouth twitches.

“When a mom has a baby inside, the baby gets their food from an organ called the placenta. It’s kind of like a phone charger — it gets plugged in to the wall of the mommy’s tummy, and when she eats, nutrients from the food are transferred to the baby. These nutrients are transferred by blood. Do you understand?”

You’re talking to me like I’m an idiot. This doesn’t feel professional at all, is what Shaun  Andersen understands. How old does she think I am?

“With twins, sometimes they share one placenta, instead of having one each. And sometimes, blood gets passed between the twins.” Her face creases, like she’s recalling something unpleasant. “This can mean that one twin doesn’t get enough blood — they’re called the ‘donor’ twin — and the other gets too much blood, making them the ‘recipient’ twin.”

The therapist actually looks away before going on, and Shaun is sure it has more to do with practiced decency than genuine upset.

“Michael received the blood your other brother didn’t get.”

It sounds like she’s reading from a script. Maybe she prepared this. Wanted to scare me and  take me off guard so she can get into my head. I’m not going to say a damn thing. Fuck her.

“I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did, Shaun.” The therapist’s mouth twists in a grim approximation of sympathy. “But it’s just a fact of life.”

A fact of life that Michael devoured his twin in the womb.

It’s only now that he’s in some lightless attic, face-down on the floor with his skin prickled against the cold, that this wash of memories coats Shaun with their accusatory foam. There’s a peculiar, pickling scent prodding at his gag reflex; this room reeks of mold and misery. It’s as if the air itself is frothing from an unseen mouth. For Shaun, this triggers a memory encased in nausea. A taste identical to the sour pills the therapist gave him that day spills onto his palate: anti-anxiety medication.

Shaun vomited the first batch he took, so he ceased taking them all together. Instead, he replaced each pill in his medication box with chalky, pastel candy, and made a big show of swallowing one in the morning and one in the evening.

He’s just like Michael, really. As long as there are witnesses, he’ll put on a show.

Splinters impale the meat of Shaun’s mouth, and sawdust cakes his tongue. He hacks and coughs, and writhes on the floor. His knees manage to find purchase in the gloom, but his muscles tremble and quiver with the effort of kneeling. He’s been bashed and bruised, dragged carelessly and tossed aside like a used rag. Tenderised meat before the slaughter.

And Michael’s going to be the same.

Shaun’s breath pulses out in panicked bursts. He can just about see his exhalations curling away in the freezing cold. No, he can’t be this weak — he must shove it back, quash the feeling. He’s worth more than this. If he goes back on the things he said to Michael now — horrible, hateful things — then he’ll never be able to live with himself.

So Shaun breathes steadily, working his way around the anxiety attack the way his therapist never showed him. As his heart rate steadies and adrenaline drops, all that energy and fear circumvents his guts, and heads a frontal assault on his brain. This leads to a conclusion burning through his mind with perfect clarity

This is all Michael’s fault.

Shaun never knew the name for whatever disease ravaged his brother’s mind. Not that he ever asked. The less he knew about Michael’s... abnormalities, the better. He remembers phrasing it that way to his parents, when he finally said no to another trip to see the remains of their estranged son.

Each week flowed the same way: stilted conversation between siblings, and pained platitudes from their parents. All meaningless little words of encouragement deliberately skipping over the elephant in the room — or, rather, the room containing the elephant, with its queasy walls and claustrophobic bars on the windows. No one in there ever used words like crazy or sick — in fact, they gave you a sheet of words to refrain from using when in the presence of the patients. All the relatives and guests of the inmates were expected to behave in this fashion.

This nauseated Shaun. He knew his brother was still in there. And he knew better than anyone how Michael liked to play his little games.

Regardless, Shaun tried his best to make Michael talk, and find something recognisable in the muddy depths of his eyes. But every visit, the dark deepened. No matter how many toys he tried to share, no matter how many stories he’d try to tell, and no matter how many times he affirmed to Michael that they were best friends and one day he’d get out of the hospital so they could play again... he stayed the same.

The final straw comes one dismal, rainy Friday afternoon. Shaun and his dad sit next to each other, opposite Michael with a table acting as barrier between them, saying nothing.

An aide took them both aside before they entered the main facility, and explained that Michael is being trialed on another type of medication. The visit is going as miserably as the weather foretold.

Michael looks barely human. Something is altered in the familiar shape of his body, like a bent coat hanger hastily reformed into an approximation of its original structure. The older Andersen brother slumps back in his chair, his skin several shades whiter than the wall behind him. His mouth is cracked with dehydration, and his hair is tangled with sleeplessness and grease. But worst of all are his eyes. They sit listless and devoid of comprehension, with blank pupils gazing aimlessly at his family, through them, and beyond them. A candle snuffed out before shrinkage of the wick.

Shaun remembers the emptiness of his therapist’s eyes. The glee in outwitting her. The pleasure of looking into those sad, brown depths.

There is no joy in peering into Michael’s skull.

Without warning, Shaun’s temper seizes him with all the ferocity a young boy’s hormones could. He slams his clenched fist down on the table, rattling metal. All conversation in the room ceases, a veil of corpselike silence.

Michael, however, doesn’t react. He doesn’t even acknowledge the sound.

The words jump from Shaun’s mouth like oil from a sizzling pan, murderous in their venom.

“You’re such a freak.”

Before the aides can reach him, Shaun’s dad grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him out of the room, into the hallway. Shaun can tell he’s furious, but there’s so much anger pumping through his blood that he just doesn’t care. He needs to do something, anything, to puncture the film over Michael’s eyes. Anything to make him so much as flinch.

But Michael remains unaffected.

As expected, the facility removes them both immediately, and Shaun is given a one-month visitation ban. This doesn’t bother Shaun in the slightest — in fact, he feels victorious, and righteous in his fury. There’s no way he’s coming back. Not this time. Michael squandered his last chance.

Even so, he’ll never forget his last view of that room, before his father pulls him away.

Tears spilling freely down Michael’s stony face.

From then on, the pre-trip talk with his parents is a minefield to navigate. They try so hard to make everything light and cheery, to speak about Michael like he’s still a part of their family, but Shaun overhears them speaking about their visits when they think he’s not listening. Now, more often than not, Michael’s arms are bound throughout their visits. Other times, they’re only able to converse with their son from behind a pane of tough glass.

Sometimes, they came home early.

‘Oh, Mikey’s feeling a touch under the weather today,’ their mother chirps. ‘But he says he misses you lots and lots!’

Her happy tone belies the true quality of their visit. It doesn’t matter. Shaun never asks for further details. Eventually, Shaun is old enough that his moods are ascribed to the terrors of puberty, and he is left to his own devices.

In retrospect, the seven years between Shaun’s Michael-detox and their first meeting as adults seems superfluous. The difference the years wrought upon Michael shocked Shaun.

Where once there existed a timid, chubby little kid with the brightest of smiles, now stood a gangly, hollow-looking man, with eyes like pits of coal. Though the corners of Michael’s mouth upturn upon seeing him, Shaun doesn’t register any warmth.

Somehow, this infuriates Shaun more than his brother’s tears ever could. He’d always assumed that even though his brother is older, Michael would remain the same size — adulthood somehow being barred for the mentally ill. Resentment boils away in Shaun’s stomach seeing how much taller his brother is, how clean-cut his features are. But this isn’t the thing which incenses Shaun the most.

It’s that, in those eyes, those chasmic clefts gouged out in his pale flesh, Shaun saw quiet patience.

Intelligence.

Forgiveness.

Just the mere hint of any kind of pity from his brother makes Shaun’s thoughts curdle with rage. How dare he be okay? He’s supposed to be sick! Isn’t that the whole reason why he got  locked up in the first place?

Shaun knows these are irrational and angry thoughts, but would rather cut out his own tongue than internalise them as ‘unfair’. He slaved away the better part of his life playing second fiddle to his parents’ worry and concern, always visiting Michael, paying more attention to Michael... all while their favourite son plays the part of a theatre dummy.

So Shaun makes the decision there and then. He is under no obligation to take care of this man forced upon him by blood — but he will. He will be the most selfless, compassionate human being his brother has ever seen.

Then they’ll see who has the right to forgive.

The walls of the attic Shaun can’t see feel like they’re closing in on his aching body, dragging themselves closer with hidden, noiseless claws. If you hadn’t lied about seeing the  Tall Man, he wouldn’t be as sick as he is, his thoughts hiss, and he thinks that the walls are growing mouths and speaking to him, indicting him, readying to pluck his head from his shoulders and smack it on a pike.

Yet, as his fear increases, tiny increments of light make themselves known in Shaun’s vision. Eventually, he’s able to zero in on a shape just out of each — something large and mostly crimson, with a long curved blade extending from its middle. Sickly, distended panic courses through Shaun like a white-hot fever when he recognises the shape.

It’s a fucking chainsaw.

The enormity of the situation crashes into his nervous system. He’s being laid out, prepped and ready for consumption. Oh God, he drugged me to tie me down and cut me open, and then he’s gonna go find Michael and do the same thing-

Keep it together! Express some reticence, for fuck’s sake. You’re not going to break down. You’re not going to give in. Michael’s the one who hurt you, kept hurting you, all this time. Without him, you would have a real family. A home. A future. Not biting the dust spilled on some dank  basement.

The attic betrays nothing but the acrid stench of death. People have died here. People have been tied up and carved open like autopsy specimens, all for the gain of their sadistic owner. Shaun, despite his terror, continues to squint at the weapon.

You’re about to bite the dust anyway...

When Shaun sees the blood staining the steel, he screams.

Another flashbulb memory comes searing into his head: his brother’s wafer-thin form keeling over in the snow. That chokehold of panic throws Shaun into immediate action, forcing him to run and cradle the body of his brother. He’s so desperate and terrified, not knowing if this is really Michael, what this body could be capable of...

And yet Shaun grabs hold anyway, all grudges suddenly forgotten, and oh fuck it must be Patrick, because his nose is bleeding and his limbs are as heavy and wet as the white beneath their boots. Shaun hauls him the best he can, inwardly cursing his lack of strength, and as he drags Patrick over to the frozen table he can only pray his mental fortitude is made of stronger stuff.

“I came here to apologise.”

“Really.”

The sarcasm pours out of Shaun without a second thought, so heated it almost scorches the icy air. But there’s no way he could ever dam this wave of fury.

‘There’s still a lot you don’t know...’

It takes everything Shaun has to not to let his poker face flicker, but the rage beneath makes him want to seize Patrick by his lapels and bash him against a wall. How dare he. This freakshow of a bodysnatcher can’t even keep his brother’s body alive and well long enough to stand up while having a conversation, and yet has the nerve to patronise him?

Shaun hears, ‘I’m sorry for Stormy,’ as if from the other end of a tunnel. All that’s brewing in his head is the conundrum sitting in front of him. Two personalities, one body. They’re interchangeable now, one and the same. Twice the twin, half the skeleton. Michael, playing patient zero to a contagion which wrecks and wrings until bloodied flesh is all that’s left behind. Patrick, a disease forged in the womb and soaked into the being of a boy who could have been something different.

Should have been.

Never will be.

No one could reconcile the two but Shaun.

So it must be a sickness, an illness, a disease. And everything bad that ever comes from sweet Michael’s mouth is a result of his condition.

If that’s the case, is it so awful to want to be as far away from them — from him — as possible,  whoever — and whatever — he is?

Patrick is only sharing the broken-down condo which remains of his brother’s body.

Taking back his stolen property.

And where does that leave Shaun?

As the unspoken martyr, of course.

There’s only so much room in my head for bullshit, Shaun seethes. I’m not going to live my  life cleaning up after him — not for Michael or Patrick.

And that’s it - that’s the one thing that people never let him have. The realisation which hits upon their return to the motel, where Michael cowers beneath the words spat from Shaun’s molten mouth. He always possessed a thought process blessed by rapidity, but a tongue cursed to be silver. Shaun is nothing but a host to a panoply of pain as essential to him as his own veins.

As essential as the blood flowing between Michael, and the brother he never met.

When Shaun storms out into the cold, determined to be somewhere, anywhere that puts great distance between him and the entity Michael/Patrick Andersen, he feels the full force of the Virus, nesting, breeding, multiplying beneath his skin. There’s no room for guilt and worry and pain — just the cure.

To never be near his brother again.

When Shaun saw Patrick’s nose bleeding, he had to swallow back bile. He knew in an instant that their brother never left, not really. Once, connective tissue held the bonds of their brotherhood fast. The transfusion continues. The real question is — who is the donor, and who is the recipient?

Even his own family emphasised the importance of their blood-bond, unable to comprehend Shaun’s behaviour.

“He’s your brother, Shaun, and he needs your help,” his mom tells him one night, barely holding back the tears. “I know he can be difficult to deal with, but this isn’t his fault. He didn’t ask to be sick.”

And Patrick didn’t ask to die, Shaun wants to scream. No one blames Michael for  cannibalism, do they?

Now he’s facedown in the wood, sawdust clinging to the hot streaks his tears leave behind, and that mortifying image which plagues his nightmares comes looming large from the recesses of his mind; two twin boys, floating without care in a shared amniotic sac, their umbilical cords respectively attached to the same fleshy hunk in lieu of a beating heart.

Shaun feels like his foetal never-brother. Severed. Shrink-wrapped in his own sac, the very thing keeping him alive. And then eventually swallowed whole.

It’s time for Shaun to cut the cord for good.

Why couldn’t you just be normal? The tears start for real now, fat and salty and rolling down Shaun’s face in a tempest. His internal monologue is louder now, drowning out the background noise of his softer (yet much more insidious) conscience.

Stormy would still be here if you weren’t so fucked up... I could have had a normal life if it  weren’t for you...

There’s no time left for forgiveness. Because of Michael... Patrick... because Shaun willingly exposed himself to this pathogen again and again, he is going to die here, in this glacial attic, with no one around to know or care.

But, as the lights are turned off, and a dark, unfamiliar laughter fills his every sense, a set of horrid thoughts riot in the screeching crowd of his brain; the thoughts that could never quite be buried.

Michael didn’t know what he was doing... Michael didn’t know what he consumed…

Shaun once made the mistake of asking his mom what his other brother was going to be called.

No-one ever asks to be infected.

Shaun’s eyes shut against the darkness for the last time.

“I always liked the name Patrick.”

#mlandersen0 #the andersen journals #slenderverse #michael andersen #shaun andersen #patrick andersen #slenderversezine #quinnwrites

[elenathehun]

reading is emotional, part 13

So I read volumes 11, 12, and 13 several months ago, at the end of September, and then real life basically interrupted any attempt to write a reactions summary. So in lieu of that, I'll just pull my initial impressions from a Naruto group chat I participate in:

Jiraiya's intro is horrible - why is he a fan fave again? - but it also overpowers the most important thing in that scene: a foreign seal had been placed on top of Minato's work and was interfering with the original. I mean, wow, so many stories should come from just that. What haven't I seen this utilized by fandom more often? Orochimaru had access to Naruto as a baby, for one.

[One chat member points out that Orochimaru placed his seal on Naruto during the chuunin exam] When did he have time to do that? [another chat member points out that Orochimaru hit Naruto in the stomach to get him out of the way] Is that all it takes to apply a seal? Dammit, that's lame.

Anyway, is it just me, or does it seem pretty clear that Jiraiya was basically MIA in part 1? It doesn't seem as though Sarutobi knew where he was, given that jounin were supposed to report seeing him to command...

Meanwhile, an unstable jinchuuriki is just killing people all over the place - and our one sacrificial jounin is tasked with watching him. Dammit, I forgot how annoying this arc is. There is no chain of command in Konoha. No one seems to know what anyone is doing, ever.

[Chat member asks how Konoha has not fallen apart with no chain of command] I honestly assume ROOT has an actual purpose aside from fluffing Danzo's ego, and that is acting like an actual military. But seriously, nothing about how Konoha is portrayed makes a lick of sense. There should have been teams set to just watching the sand nin, especially Gaara. Jiraiya should have immediately reported for duty to Sarutobi.

Also, it's sort of horrifying how bad a teacher Jiraiya is. I mean, Kakashi is a bad teacher, but at least he never claimed to be good at it. [chat member asks if I'm at the point where Jiraiya throws Naruto off a cliff] Right now he's just trying to help a 12-year-old boy with shit control over his own chakra learn to use demonic chakra instead. In a lot of ways, Jiraiya is actually worse as a teacher, because it's clear that he's able to accurately assess Naruto's weaknesses as a shinobi. He's just uninterested in helping him get better at using his own chakra and not the fox's. I guess I'll have to re-read the early part 2 section, but aside from summoning and the Rasengan, what the hell did Jiraiya ever actually teach Naruto?

Anyway, in the next scene, we get an up-close and personal look at how incompetent Sarutobi was. All these jounin look pretty worried, and for good reason! One of their number is dead, and the Hokage is saying they're going to wait and see. This is a massive disaster in leadership.

Anyway, cut back to the hospital, where Sakura and Ino only show up to play spectator to Lee. It's infuriating. Why even bother having female characters, Kishimoto? I would have found it less insulting if he'd just decided to portray a totally gender-segregated society.

Anyway, I do appreciate that relationship we see between Sarutobi and Anko. I think it's clear that whatever his failures as a leader in the present, he was quite charismatic previously. But god, new leadership is absolutely necessary from a military POV.

...and Jiraiya threw Naruto off a cliff. I think it's safe to say that Tsunade was clearly the best teacher out of the lot of them.

Baki travels back and forth between Sand and Leaf with no chaperone. Because that makes total sense.

And Temari makes the same argument against war and for peace now that kid!Tobirama did 600 chapters later. It's a shame she didn't become Kazekage, but her vagina disqualifies her. [Chat members begin discussing the viability of a Kazekage Temari AU] If Sand's Kages all come from the same family, why the hell would you choose the nutty, psychopathic 12-year-old over his far more stable siblings? I understand it's not a democracy, but there's still an element of choice here. [the chat then considered Kazekage Kankurou] Kankurou's too sensible. Only nutcases become Kage - if half the men in your family had died on the job, you might pass too.

[chat member asks why Jiraiya is so keen on using the fox's chakra when everyone else is adamantly against it] He's an irresponsible weirdo in-universe. Given what we know in part 1, it was staggeringly incompetent: the only other example we see of demonic power is a boy who has killed about a half-dozen people on-screen. The real reason, of course, is that Kishimoto didn't want to do the hard work of developing Naruto's abilities organically, so the unearned superpower it is.

[Same chat member asks how I feel about Sasuke so far] He's not dumb. He actually has a survival instinct of a sort. And call me crazy, but there are a lot of Sasuke = Tsunade parallels there. He's lost literally everything, and there is a deep skepticism of Leaf propaganda that Naruto and Sakura haven't developed yet, and maybe never will. Like Tsunade, he is the scion of a founding clan - the very definition of the insider. That that hasn't saved either of them from tragedy and loss.

Anyway, reading the Neji/Naruto fight was actually the worst because I don't like Neji at all, but Naruto doesn't really deserve to win. Why couldn't Sakura beat Ino in the prelims and then go on to fight Neji? Anyway, I can skim a lot because Kishimoto's fight art isn't very dynamic.

O hai, Kabuto is still at large, still killing ANBU mooks. I definitely have to write the story where Team 7 gets involved with Kakashi's investigation of the mysterious traitor instead of participating in the chuunin exam.

anyway, Naruto shows he has a bit of a brain during Neji's fight. It's a shame this only happens every so often when dictated by the plot, instead of growing organically as part of his character.

What is the point of the Hyuuga? I mean, they have that nifty seal, you'd think the village council would really pressure the main house to ensure the branch members were able to use the entirety of the gentle fist skillset. If I were Danzo, I'd be maneuvering in that direction: hundreds of sealed Hyuuga with the full power of the gentle fist would really augment Leaf's manpower. I can understand the main house keeping the branch house down with superior knowledge of the gentle fist; I can see the main house using the seal to quash rebellion in the branch house; I can't see both, not in a world where the Hyuuga are part of Leaf and have a manpower requisition of some kind they need to fill. Leaf needs soldiers, and deliberately handicapping the ones who serve the village...yeah, if I were Danzo, I would force the issue.

OK, more of Kabuto just wandering around the stands, randomly healing Hinata.

Anyway, time for Neji's monologue. Mostly what I got from this is that Neji actually has no idea what really happened. Apparently, Cloud's Kage came directly to Leaf for the peace treaty, and Hiashi is strong enough to kill a Kage-level opponent. This doesn't even count the fact that the Kage of Cloud is actually in the stands right as Neji is telling Naruto his tragic story. Given that Neji was about 4 when his father dies, that makes sense - he probably cobbled his story together from household gossip.

Anyway, what I got from this is that Gai should have ensured that Neji got the crap beat out of him at least once by a social inferior. This is not the sort of lesson you want occurring during an international event open to the public, and honestly, Neji's overconfidence could have gotten him killed very easily - and not just by his opponents. Talking about Konoha's internal politics in front of outsiders is the sort of thing that involves the secret police...

Anyway, Naruto uses dangerous demonic power to beat up a 14-year-old boy. Jiraiya did not clear his training plan with Sarutobi ahead of time, looking at the unhappy surprise on Sarutobi's face. Also confirmed: the Byakugan can see demonic chakra that is invisible to the regular human eye. Would have been nice to have multiple Hyuuga guards on Gaara, right?

Ugh this Hyuuga bullshit is infuriating. I'm tabling it for another day until I can finish editing my Hyuuga rant post.

Moving on, Raidou's little "shinobi must be punctual" speech makes me think the blatant favoritism we see in canon wasn't appreciated by the Joe Schmoes around Sasuke. Kakashi can do that crap because he's basically been active a million years and is good for it in the clutch, and his co-workers still hate it! Sasuke doesn't have that leeway.

Ah, Shikamaru: one of Naruto's many out-and-out chauvinists.  

Anyway, it's pretty annoying that the matches have been set for a month, but not one of these dumb children bothered to do research on their opponents.

Kishimoto again devolves to show, not tell: Shikamaru is apparently the reason the rather weak Team 10 survived the Forest of Death, although how he did so is never explained. It would have been nice to see it, you know?

Oh, that's right. Shikamaru is a genius, who apparently never does shit unless dictated by the plot. So in real life, he'd be like one of those weird child prodigies who end up hermits in Montana, but this is Naruto, that ain't going to happen here.

The group chat had pretty divergent opinions on the tunnel Shikamaru was using to spread his shadow. For the record, I thought it was a pretty amazing asspull, but that's been my feeling the entire time I've been suffering through this arc, so go figure. I'm still sort of salty about how Shikamaru went from "maladjusted fuckup" to "GENIUS" in the space of one freaking battle. Every time Kishimoto talks about the "ideal chuunin psycho profile", I get an eye tic. In what universe is Shikamaru commander material at this point in canon?

OK, time for Kakashi's dramatic entrance, which is very dramatic.  

@hiruma-musouka proposed a while back that Kakashi is a fundamentally avoidant personality, and I can't stop thinking about canon in light of that. So an alternate reading of Kakashi's tardiness for Sasuke's match - Kakashi was actually hoping Sasuke's match would be forfeited due to tardiness, and Sarutobi's weak will foiled his cunning plan!

Gaara casually kills two mooks in plain sight. Where is Leaf's internal security? The only thing I can reconcile is that the Uchiha did all internal security, and given their deaths and the fact that Leaf still seems to be a largely pre-literate society, no group managed to fill the vacuum afterward.

How has Sasuke gotten so much better in a month of training? I don't care if your fancy eyes allow you to mimic moves and see very fast movement, you still need to build up the muscle to actually go fast yourself!

A moment of silence for the people of Sand, who are so familiar with the Ichibi they can tell right away when Gaara lets it possess him totally.

Those panels where Sarutobi and the "Kazekage" are looking at each other are actually pretty good. Ramps up the tension.

The invasion starts, and there is absolutely no coordinated response from the Leaf-nin.

Anyway, Shikamaru pretending to sleep through the invasion of his village is a massive black mark on his record. Like, God save the Nara clan level of black mark. He's technically an adult, he's the heir, he ought to be representing his clan...him trying to sleep through an invasion is a mark of cowardice, and would have terrible repercussions on his family. This is, in fact, the sort of thing that starts complicated succession disputes.

...and we end on Sarutobi, ready to fight all the time.

Anyway, reading this part of the manga sort of solidified why Naruto is a bad character for me, from a writer/author POV. Naruto spends so much time talking about how he understands the villain's pain. The problem is, Naruto's tragic life history never really shows up as a tangible issue in the plot! He's a lonely kid, but good lord, everyone in Leaf is lonely. People are jerks to him in a general way because he's an orphan and poor and stupid, which sucks but happens a lot in real life too. And even though people are jerks to him, we never really see them be cruel to him because he's got a demon in him. Iruka treats him like a wayward student; Sakura is basically his friend in a few months; Kakashi is a sadsack teacher, but he's not singling Naruto out with his awful teaching, and he does trie to find someone competent to instruct him; Sasuke isn't nice to him, but he's no crueler than the rest of Naruto's classmates. Basically, when Naruto talks about how he feels the villain's pain, I'm very meh. Contrast this to the chick version of Naruto, where lots of little girls beat the shit out of each other in the name of friendship: Nanoha. Fate Testarossa is a deeply tragic figure, and you are really, really, rooting for her to move to a better place by the end of that show. Or geez, just the first two episodes of Michiko and Hatchin, which features some truly awful child abuse.

Anyway, I'll post my long-awaited (?) Hyuuga rant later this week, and then I guess it's back to the old grindstone to try and knock out a reread of Naruto volume 14-16 before the new year begins!

#naruto #reading is emotional #fuck you kishimoto