#gaara foil

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

https://x.com/captainh4ndsome/status/1774282734288138451?s=46

I saw this series of quotes and why do you think that hat has three stabs from buggy? Is it truly connected to shuggy? Could shuggy really be that important???

so, here are the tweets in question. (one of which is from @goingbuggy! hi there! this is, what, the third time someone’s asked me to talk about your tweets? i guess at least one of my anons is a fan.)

i have wondered a time or two whether in oda’s early planning it might have been buggy who gave shanks that three-slash scar. (i’ve heard that oda originally had a five year plan for one piece, though i’ll admit i’ve never sought out a direct source for that.) in that case, the slashes through the hat might have been intended as foreshadowing.

but since buggy wasn’t the one to make that scar, instead it leads us to draw comparisons between these characters who both have wielded three blades on one hand. and maybe it’s just because they were both written as foils to luffy, but i find comparing buggy and blackbeard very interesting!

similarities:

former warlord of the sea/current emperor of the sea

devil fruit user

served on a big name’s crew back in the day

intentionally went under the radar/overlooked for years

doesn’t really buy into concepts like “loyalty” or “honor,” happy to turn on a crew mate or backstab an ally if it’s to his advantage

used to wield three blades but these days prefers explosive-adjacent weapons

not happy to see red-haired shanks at marineford

differences:

fell into those positions by chance/years of plotting to get into those positions

a devil fruit with zero combat utility (besides avoiding damage)/possibly the devil fruit with the most combat utility? (though, unusually, he can take damage while wielding it)

their reasons for going under the radar (fear of being hunted down/working towards a secret goal)

the consequences for overlooking them (for shanks: losing buggy/losing to bb, or at least taking a very bad wound from him; for others: misinformation on a global scale/the literal paramount war)

buggy is a strong believer in the captain-crew bond, which bb absolutely does not buy into

type of three-bladed weapon (three throwing daggers, suggests flexibility, hidden motives, a preference for distance fighting; claw weapon, suggests light-footedness, straightforwardness—you know when a claw wielder is about to start fighting, he’s gone and put the claws on)

type of explosive weapon (bombs, suggests pre-planning, a preference for distance fighting, maximum damage for minimum effort; guns, suggests a flexibility on distance vs melee range, a willingness to threaten rather than kill outright)

why they didn’t want to see shanks (ugh, that guy pisses me off/i think that guy might literally kill me lmao)

#asked and answered #one piece #buggy #shanks #marshall d teach #*narrative foils #if there’s one thing nart did right it was paralleling most of its chars w the protags & making the protags narrative foils of each other #bc when two characters who are both foils of a third character meet… ohh it’s ALWAYS compelling. the themes of the story just shine through #(see: the gaara-rock lee fight. they had no personal beef but the nart foiling & the sask foiling & the nart-v-sask foiling of it all…) #idk if buggy and bb will ever meet but if they do… i hope oda doesn’t throw away the potential in their contrast for the sake of a joke #anyway to actually answer your question: imo it’s not that shuggy is so important to the story as much as it shows us a pattern #shanks has this character flaw: overlooking ppl right under his nose. & maybe it’ll happen again? maybe this is how shanks will die! #…that said i 100% agree w cap that if buggy had still been around shanks wouldn’t’ve gotten that scar #idk if buggy would’ve taken the hit for him (& been fine obvs) or just seen bb’s attack coming but one way or the other: scarless shanks

[chaosnojutsu]

team gai as a narrative foil for the sand siblings. that’s the post.

#char chats #we already know they’re a foil for team 7 #this is the thought living in my head rent free #probably a post incoming #team gai #sand siblings #tenten #neji hyuga #rock lee #gaara #temari #kankuro

[rythyme]

one thing that i think is so fucking funny about nart is how during the 3-year time skip sasuke is just stewing in his resentment, serving emo cunt but ultimately becoming more obsessed with vengeance no matter the cost etc etc — and then meanwhile over in the sand village gaara is like "yeah i was a serial killer but i worked on myself and i got better ❤️ i grow flowers in my spare time 🌷 also i'm the president now 😌" like. i know gaara is intended to be a character foil for naruto but thinking of him as a foil for sasuke instead is INFINITELY funnier

#gaara and sasuke are both foils for naruto which makes them foils-in-law? i guess? #also unrelated but gaara and shikamaru are brothers-in-law and i think that's fucking incredible #naruto #nart

[soldier-poet-king]

Ooohhhhhh no the end of pt 1 of Naruto????? DEVASTATING. Sasuke childhood backstory w itachi for a FULL volume. The Fight. "What are you" "I'm your friend". He can't kill him. He can't and he walks AWAY.

#fran reads #IM UNWELL. ABT THIS #these r CHILDREN #lonely children motivated by pain and neglect and im just. HELLO. HELLO #WHO ALLOWED THIS #not to be like. i get it. but maybe the greatest love story of all time. maybe. #theyre parallels and foils and best friends and enemies #and i am going to throw up #dgmw gaara and rock lee are my faves by far #but maybe i get the main conflict appeal. MAYBE. #god. i need a vacation. or a lobotomy. truly this is not normal person behaviour of me. im so tired #like too bad there r no fleshed out female characters but also. its shonen. i knew what i was getting into #not everyone can be christa/historia snk to me #pls pls pls let Sakura have an arc in pt 2 i want to like her so bad

[kawaii-angelanne]

anyone fighting naruto: you don't know how i feel

me watching and knowing his Super Secret Backstory: oh he does

naruto: oh but i do

#《journey to naruto!》 #naruto #okay im enjoying the show dont get me wrong #in fact i love how the characters are a foil to naruto to some degree #rock lee neji gaara #like #symbolism!

[speckledfiction]

Rotating laios/kabru and kabru/mithrun in my head and wondering if I can get to laios/kabru mithrun...

I like kabru/mithrun mainly because the idea of mithrun realising that he desires something is soooooo fun. Like him just having this little lightbulb moment of 'oh no I want this' and then pursuing it. Particularly if it's a queer relationship, and the reason he's able to get there is that it was a desire so deeply repressed when he was part of actual elf society that he never acknowledged it and so the demon never found it. And then you know once he did realise it was there, he'd pursue it with that super intense single minded focus... Extremely good imo. And kabru would be soooooo twitchy and paranoid about it, wondering what mithrun's angle was and what the consequences would be, so focused on everyone else's feelings that he hardly notices his own.

But then on the other hand laios and kabru... They're narrative foils. They complete each other. Kabru has to learn to eat and understand monsters, and laios has to care about people. They spend the rest of their lives together, king and counsellor. They can each offer the other genuine love and care in a way that both are desperate for and have been denied. Kabru doesn't mind explaining to laios the things he doesn't understand, and conversely laios can help kabru to shed unnecessary social constructs and be more himself. You know that when they start smooching kabru would be like "we have to be careful, this could damage your reputation as king if it gets out" and laios would be like "why? Homosexual behaviour is found in the majority of animal and monster species..." (and then talks for like half an hour before kabru can get him to go back to kissing).

And there's a version of this in my head that makes me think of that incredible sasuke and gaara comic, where laios and mithrun are kabru's boyfriends who are not really friends... Except that they do actually have quite a lot in common and I think if they ever sat down and talked they would get on really well. So over time they probably do all grow closer and maybe eventually mithrun is like damn these new desires keep piling up and we get some good three way smooches.

Do you see my vision???

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #Kabru #laios touden #mithrun #Labru #kabrun #kabru/mithrun #Laios/kabru/mithrun #Dungeon meshi spoilers

[tora-the-cat]

The Sasori fight arc really is, for better or worse, one of Sakura's best moments in the whole manga. It is LITERALLY one of the fights of all time. Sakura BITE BITE KILL REND TEAR FLESH LOOK GREAT DOING IT KILL KILL KILL. she's so cool she gets a PERFECT opponent to show off hoe badass she is and make you take her seriously from the jump she is everything. Chiyo is so interesting Gaara is there Sakura saves kankuros life she has a ponytail she literally smashes him to pieces the story is so compelling the narrative is foiling my mouth is foaming. Sasori buddy I'm sorry to say you were doomed by the narrative. It's okay a perfect death means a timeless memory and you would be happy with that I think. More importantly Sakura EATS IT UPPPP rip sasori sorry buddy. Shannaro.

#haruno sakura #sakura haruno #naruto #sasori #sasori no sabaku #akatsuki #god I love her.

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Something I find funny is that some people/fans say and actually think that Kishimoto didn't know what to do with Kakashi's character after the Pain arc (as if everything that comes after that arc was a last minute invention). It seems strange to me since at no point does the character make you feel that he's in the way or that he's unnecessary in the story. Literally, without him, Obito's revelation would have no weight..

Do people just read/watch with their eyes closed??? Kishi had so many things he had Kakashi doing

Kakashi was the leader of the tactical division in the war with Gai as his second in command

Kakashi was the reason Obito’s big reveal held any real weight. Without him Obito’s reveal would mean little and would have just been better to stay as ‘Madara’

Kakashi was the narrative foil to Obito. Kakashi was the one who lost so much but never gave up, where Obito turned his back to the world upon seeing how broken the system was and what that broken system cost him

Kakashi is the reason Obito got up to fight again, except on the side of the alliance

Without Kakashi Obito’s heart se all would never be destroyed. Chidori is the perfect move for that because it cuts and slices through the body. Naruto’s rasangan cannot do that and a one V One fight between Obito and Naruto wouldn’t have been nearly as meaningful/epic.

Without Kakashi, sasuke and Naruto loss to Kaguya. They were losing. They kept losing. It was Kakashi’s plan that finally allowed them to win.

Without Kakashi, Naruto approaches Danzo about Sasuke and probably gets thrown into a prison cell where he either has to sit his ass down or go rouge to save Sasuke. Kakashi took him out of the village against rules. Kakashi took him to the Raikage. It is because of Kakashi that Naruto got to plead for Sasuke’s life directly to the raikage

If Kakashi had not taken Naruto out of the village Naruto may never have learned the truth of the massacre and subsequently told Sasuke he was willing to ‘bear the burden of his hatred and die with him’

Sakura would have died. Multiple times but most importantly against Sasuke. It was Kakashi who saved her first. Even if Naruto saved her from that, Kakashi saved her from the ten tails attack that killed Neji, the lava dimension, kaguya curb stomping her. Without Kakashi, Sakura is dead.

Without Kakashi, Gai never would have hit his mark when he opened the eigth gate. It was Kakashi who kamuied away a piece of Madara’s shield so Gai could land his kick.

Without Kakashi Danzo becomes Hokage unchallenged, and Konoha is scrambling for a new leader after Danzo’s death.

Speaking of, Kakashi is the only Hokage (before Naruto) who is officially choices not just by those who would follow him (shikaku) but the other Kage’s who would work with him. Kakashi was suggested by Gaara and unanimously agreed upon by every single Sage as someone they could work alongside shortly after Danzo’s Bs was revealed.

Kakashi was made to do so much. Without him the story would be incredibly different. I know some whinners want him to be ‘irrelevant’ or ‘useless’ but he’s not

The story needs him

If Kishi actually struggled to figure out what to do with him, he would have made him a POW like he did with Yamato. He would have simply removed him from the story in some way, rather than giving him a meaningful important role throughout the war arc

[sasukeless]

Wouldn't it make more sense for naruto to be fixed in gaara instead of sasuke considering they have more similar experiences (both are jinchuriki hated by their villages) than he does with Sasuke????

okay first of all yes its true naruto and gaara's situation are more alike than his and sasuke that why they have a special bond after all. however i think people end up missing the point of sns' dynamic because yes its true naruto and sasuke are drawn to each other because of their shared loneliness in childhood. however it doesnt end in there.

the whole manga keeps focusing on naruto and sasuke being foils, literally every one of their steps in the story is meant to be a constrast of the other (naruto being desperate for bonds / sasuke running away from bonds. naruto becoming hero of the village / sasuke becoming a terrorist that wants to destroy said village. etc). However they are meant to be complementary too! (their canon moon and sun tattoos, that also represent yin and yang, sasuke's fire and naruto's wind, their complementary colors and all the other stuff kishimoto pulls from every book with them) this is because when naruto and sasuke look at each other they dont just see their similarities, they also see the things they lack in each other. look at naruto's convo with yamato: yamato is telling him how to beat sasuke yet naruto completely ignores that! he focus in the fact that he and sasuke are a good match and that his wind helps sasuke's fire grow. unironically he thinks of both as a set lmao.

thats the point of naruto and sasuke's dynamic. they are like two pieces of a puzzle, they both have their own purpose and they are different but you need them together to work as a whole too. so in a way both are individuals but also an entity

this is literally proven when they both admit they feel each other's pain. yk when naruto is monologuing gaara at the end of their fight he says he understands gaara. this shares similarities again, naruto can recognize their pain (and well every villain's apparently too lol 😭) but theres quite the difference between understanding and feeling. its even the way naruto goes on explains that sasuke's pain doesnt just hurts a little to see, it literally hurts him soo much he cant just leave sasuke alone. imagine how connected you and someone have to be to feel their pain as your own in such a visceral way.

so to put it short yes naruto bonds with gaara and all his other friendships over shared experiences etc but the reason why he is always fixed and puts sasuke first is that naruto cant be naruto without sasuke and viceversa. thats where his obsession to chase him to the ends of the worlds comes, thats why sasuke believes he needs to kill naruto to be completely alone in the world

#thats also where the codependency comes etc #sorry to word vomit and all the spelling mistakes theres probably in that text i cant sleep cus my headache so i decided to be silly an #answer this #sorry u had to wait two days too 😭 #mine #sun&moon

[lorillee]

why.... do you..... not like.... obito?

in short? because hes annoying as hell

in long: hes just kind of a poorly written character with a kind of dumb motivation and his place in the story is just a complete and utter mess and i really cant bring myself to care enough to sympathize with him and he seriously needs to stop whining about a girl he knew twenty years ago who didnt even have a romantic interest in him like you are almost thirty whole years old.MOVE ON. i dont care hes traumatized and emotionally stunted or whatever i seriously do not he does not compel me in the slightest. his relationship with kakashi is boring and every time kishimoto tried to tell me that he and naruto had literally anything in common i wanted to blow up the entire show. the most interesting thing about his character is how entirely and completely and bafflingly self-absorbed he is. actually im just going to go ahead and share a long winded complaint i wrote since i think it does a pretty good job explaining why i personally dislike him as a character and why i think his writing is just nonsense:

naruto as a series tends to plays a bit loose with its arc structure, but we preeetty consistently get a antagonist that naruto gets a battle with (see: mist kid whos name escapes me, gaara, kabuto, sasuke, deidara, four hearts akatsuki guy, pain, etc), some of whom are decidedly more relevant to naruto than others. kabuto, deidara, and four hearts akatsuki guy arent really set up as anything particularly personal to naruto and this is fine - it works plenty well within the context of the arcs and everybodys happy. mist kid is obviously a foil for naruto because everybody hated him so much forever and in his desperation for literally anybody to care about him he turned himself into a weapon without any desires or feelings of his own, gaara is a foil for naruto in the sense that everybody hated him so much forever because he's a jinchuriki and he closed himself off and hated everybody right back and lost control, sasuke is .well. sasuke. , and pain is a fellow student of jiraiya who wants to enforce peace on the world in a way that sucks. for the latter antagonists, naruto's battles with them arent just "i need to stop this guy from [blowing up the world/running away]" but also ideological ones, having to do with the running ideas of the horrors of the ninja world/system & keeping your heart open even if you get burned & the importance of love and human connection and a functioning support system and so on and so forth.

Regarding Obito. his position of relevance in this arc is really frankly just kind of bizarre. his existence prior is pretty much entirely a reason for why kakashi is the way he is and is never brought up in any context outside of kakashi staring at that dumb memorial. and then he gets brought back to be a main antagonist of the 4th ninja war arc …?.? ?? for. reasons? his motivations are obviously relevant to the horrors of war and the terrible awful system that runs on it but the crux of it is entirely focused on rin and really makes it look like his epic genjutsu world peace plan is less about the circumstances that made everything happen the way it did and more about omg rin…… rin rin rin……………… rin?!? rin. rin . did i mention rin? in case you forSorry.got. rin. like i imagine the intention is supposed to be that the rin thing is supposed to be a lens through which to view "wow this system sucks balls and obito wants to change that" but also im really not sure if thats even the case because again. its litreally just always rin rin rin. which i think is a significant barrier to making naruto's whole thing with obito relevant also because like. okay. obito and naruto have no direct connection, and their mutual connection of kakashi is literally entirely irrelevant. if anything SASUKE is more relevant to obito by virtue of both being uchiha and also that obito was involved in the uchiha family slaughter. but kishimoto decided he didnt really care enough to bring this up so WHATEVER. I GUESS. obito's weirdness in the plot is further excaberated by again the fact that he's set up as kakashi's personal baggage and i still think its super tremendously bizarre that kishimoto decided that naruto teaching him the value of friendship was the way to wrap this up despite the fact that. it just does not fit. it doesnt fit. at All.

like. instead of dealing with the actual connections naruto (or sasuke, but hes really not contributing too much on this front) has to him through other characters, kishimoto decided what he wanted to do with obito was make him a parallel to naruto and sasuke simultaneously and did. A REALLY BAD JOB. ive already complained extensively about this so im not going to bother repeating it but this is very very very intentional as kishimoto WILL NOT LET YOU FORGET OR MISUNDERSTAND and through this attempts to shoehorn in his thematic connection and ideological clash.

(note re: having complained about the parallels thing extensively. this is a slightly edited for clarity direct message to a friend referring to a previous conversation so you cant actually find anything on this blog about it but actually while we're here i'm going to go ahead and paste my complaint on kishimoto's inability to understand what makes a foil or even just a normal parallel work as it relates to obito:

the finale as it has been its not like worlds worst but it also kind of feels strangely divorced from the. well honestly a lot of things but imo the biggest problem here is that obito has no actual genuine connection to naruto, either personally or narratively. like because what this is supposed to be is naruto is to sasuke as hashirama is to madara as kakashi is to obito except also the reverse simultaneously neither of which kind of doesnt really work beyond a really tremendously surface level view especially with kakashi and obito because they were never like even friends until the 2 minutes before obito "died" in the first place but this is mildly off topic. but anyways i have to assume kishimoto's vision was like well since sasuke and obito are like parallels (THEYRE NOT.) naruto has a narrative connection to him so it works (IT DOESNT.) like because kishimoto loves foils in concept but more often than not hes kind of bad at pulling them off because he doesnt really understand what makes a foil work. like the whole thing with omg obito and naruto are literally just the same is NOT EVEN TRUE. NOT EVEN TRUE. NOT EVEN TRUE AT ALL.

like in the extended obito flashback they take the most surface level things and then completely divorce it from any of the context its in so we can be like omg………… obito just like naruto……… when it srsly does not apply at all. like omg obito was an orphan… and wanted to be hokage…… and he cared about other people………… SO HES JUST LIKE NARUTO! and its like NO???? WHGHUG???? like sasuke and gaara work as foils for naruto specifically because they had similar circumstances growing up, and those circumstances significantly contributed to how sasuke&gaara were consumed by loneliness and hatred and shut everybody out and wanted to blow up the entire world forever and ever whereas naruto did not because he found companionship and love and never gave up or in and all of this has. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH OBITO. LEGITIMATELY NOBODY ACTUALLY DISLIKED HIM EXCEPT FOR KAKASHI WHO THOUGHT HE WAS KIND OF ANNOYING. this is straight up completely incomparable to the isolation that sasuke & naruto experienced and to act like they're similar enough for this to work is kind of an insult to what naruto & sasuke have been through. obito's villain story is that some tremendously horrible things happened to him and he saw the girl he had a crush on when he was like 12 use the guy who he gave his eyeball to and asked to protect her as an instrument for her suicide and decided he hated everything forever and that love is impossible and we're all meant to be miserable forever and you cant be happy in reality and again absolutely none of this has anything at all to do with what naruto or gaara or sasuke went through. at all. like these situations are not even in the least amount comparable and its actually baffling. KISHIMOTO WHAT ARE YOU DOING. <- end discussion of badly attempted parallels)

however. because the bulk of obitos beef is not with the system but rather with the fact that rin died, it kind of puts a massive damper on the ideological clash side of things. like naruto is no stranger to the horrors of the ninja system and is also a personal victim of the way it functions and what it does to the people he loves, but he and obito arent so much clashing over what should be done about it (aka exploding reality and mind controlling everybody into a dream that sucks vs actually doing something about the damage thats been done and tearing apart destructive systems of abuse) but rather the importance of human connection. and like the latter isnt bad in a vacuum it can literally work fine, but obito and naruto do not share a similar ground on this front. this topic is important and relevant to naruto because the village threw him under the bus and backed over him 57 times in a row and he grew up almost entirely on his own and hated by everybody and it works for situations like gaara because theyre the same on this front, but this is NOT THE CASE FOR OBITO. obito's situation is ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT to this particular topic - yes he was apparently an orphan or whatever but literally everybody thought he was fine except for kakashi who thought he was annoying. his situation, on the other hand, is extremely very very wildly relevant to the konoha war machine both in the sense of getting sent out to war at the age of 12 and rin dying, which naruto understands maybe a bit less through his own personal experiences but intimately well through those of the people he knows and loves and who have had their entire lives upended by this. and this entire thing wouldve been exponentially improved imo if either a) a significant part of obitos downfall was a lack of connection or a refusal to open up his heart again or b) if the ideological clash was about the konoha war machine and what is to be done about it. but instead we just get this weird thing that doesnt really work for two characters who arent really relevant to each other and i seriously just want kakashi to kill that guy.BUT ITS WHATEVER .

also for additional context for the "lets tear obito apart with a pack of dogs" posts i have literally like Just finished shippuden and i was making those posts while me & my friend were watching the obito episodes. also also if you disagree with anything ive said here thats great wonderful go make your own post about how im wrong and how obito is the most understood character in naruto or something idgaf

#ask #anon #also the fact that he was running around with naruto and sakura and kakashi for so long at the finale genuinely drove me insane like LEAVE #it just doesnt make any sense at all for this to be team 7. and also this guy who sucks. FOR SO LONG #like he seriosuly shouldve died and given kakashi his sharigan WAY EARLIER IN THIS FIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTT LIKE WHAT IS THISSSS #but whatever.TCH!

[jacksgreysays]

I'd like to know if there's anything you'd like to do with Aburame Chiyako, even if it's a project that's infeasible for you? (she's my favorite character to come out of DoS, bar Shikako herself)

Hi loveelemental! :D

I also love Chiyako: she is one of those parts of DoS that just really hit home about how much consideration and detail SQ put into making Naruto into a full and expansive world. And also she is very cute.

(,,> ᴗ <,,)

I did write what’s behind (and what’s before) which is Chiyako-centric, but that doesn’t really lend itself to further expansion/installments. Or, at least, none that interest me at this moment in time.

As I mentioned before, I would maybe want to do a Chiyako POV in the bleak!Primadonna-verse, mostly because it would be a lens to do further political shenanigans—what with Chiyako being the heiress to the Aburame but also, now a fully fledged adult jounin with a team of genin, some of whom would ALSO allow me to frame political shenanigans. But I suppose, just being able to write that team would be fun even without the bleak!Primadonna-verse.

A but to that but, though, is I don’t really know what that plot would look like—if it’s a mission fic, what mission is it? Or if it’s a time/dimension travel when/where do they go? Or, are they the “hosts” receiving the wayward travelers? In which case, who are those travelers? Since it’s Chiyako, I would assume Shino and Shikako because I will forever, forever, love JohnBurtonLee’s I Got You their dynamic in that is SO GOOD. SO PERFECT. A+ fic forever, forever. However, for symmetry’s sake, maybe it should be a different Team Eight—either the canon one we see with Team Kurenai, or my headcanon Team Hana with Chiyako, Hanabi, and Ranmaru.

I feel like I’m not being fair to her. Because god knows I’ve spun off at least a half dozen varying concepts around Aoba, for example, but it’s like… she is one of the rare cases where meeting Shikako has given her stability in her life? Like… most other characters when meeting Shikako are thrust into wild situations and are forced to either adapt or submit to the chaos pretty quickly. But for Chiyako she: has a cool new role model, doesn’t get bullied anymore, a regular invite to the kunoichi club, playdate/training sessions with several of her classmates (and possible future teammates) who seem to like her back. There’s not much drama there…

I mean, there’s clan politics that could be interesting—but I also feel like the Aburame are so logical/steady that there’s not much drama there either?

Ooh, I guess there could be like… a Chiyako-centric fic (feat. Hanabi) which nominally is a Team Hana fic but is actually about how Chiyako and Hanabi are foils for each other. Heiresses to their clans instead of their older siblings, but with vastly different relationships with said older siblings. Their respective clans themselves are similarly foils of each other: the Aburame reviled externally but internally warm with each other, the Hyuuga with their pretty privilege and position of being Konoha’s current most powerful bloodlimit allowing them to get away with a literal slave/torture seal. And of Team Hana they do have the sun-coded vs moon-coded vibes of the team.

Hm, yeah, I think something exploring Chiyako and Hanabi’s dynamic would be the most compelling to me—whether that is in a “canon” fic or a warring clans era AU or the bleak!Primadonna-verse or…

Okay, so this may be because I’ve been reading a lot of trash manhua lately, but I think that dynamic would be best displayed in that one unnamed royalty/nobility Shikaara AU (in which the tabloids have made minor-nobility!Shikako and youngest-brother-of-the-Sand-Queen!Gaara literally bumping into each other during Temari’s coronation the sort of fairytale romance of the century). BUT instead it would be about, a different aspect of the AU in which two young duchesses-to-be maneuver the difficulties of being nobility and teenage girls and also, unfortunately, paparazzi exist.

#jacksgreyson #loveelemental #ask box advent calendar #dreaming of sunshine #chiyako aburame #hanabi hyuuga #fanfiction #brainstorm

[everynart]

what are your thots on naruto ships. like do you ship everything in your header?

I'll be honest,,,,I really only ship naruto with sasuke. SNS is my all time favorite naruto the series ship, and while I enjoy other ships, including other sasuke ships, SNS is the only naruto the boy ship I actively engage with.

however, that doesn't mean have a problem with naruhina, narusaku, narugaa etc. there's nothing wrong with liking those ships, it's not like there's incest or age gaps in any of them. this blog is for everyone who loves naruto the boy and the header is meant to reflect that.

I'm just not interested in any of those ships. my general feelings on each of them are:

naruhina - they're certainly cuter than sasusaku, I at least understand why people ship them. like naruto is nice to her and seems to enjoy being around her, which is not something you can say for sasuke with sakura. and good for hinata for scoring the man of her dreams ig? plus her design slays severely. but I personally see hinata's character as very shallow and dull, the only aspect of her character that kishimoto consistently focuses on is her admiration of naruto which is...problematic for a female character. ultimately that's why I could never get into NH.

narusaku - I understand this one more in that naruto canonically shows interest in sakura romantically and wants to get to know her, he actively tries to be around her. sakura is obviously less than interested, but she comes around to naruto and the two of them are shown to mutually care about each other. if naruto was going to end with a heterosexual pairing, narusaku would've been my pick. however, I always liked that naruto and sakura were able to have that type of relationship without it being romantic. overall I see them as a brotp, not an otp.

narugaa - I have less to say about naruto x gaara. it's cute that naruto was the first person to reach out to gaara, and they've got the whole character foil thing going on. both naruto and gaara are jinchuriki who grew up hated by the village, but they chose different paths. even so, I see their relationship as very one-sided, like with naruhina. gaara clearly cares so much about naruto, but naruto has so much other shit going on. I'm very ambivalent towards it.

#ask #not everynaruto

[birdswithlegs]

i LOVE narrative foils where characters are mirrors of each other but took different paths in life. Naruto and gaara. Where one orphan still had love and support from at least one person and grew stronger because of it, whereas the other didnt experience true love or have any refuge and grew stronger out of necessity to protect himself.

#naruto #gaara

[synergysilhouette]

Been on a Naruto streak lately, and I wanted to list some changes I'd have made to Sakura Haruno's character, mostly based on personal preferences, but partially from "what ifs" I've seen online with people speculating aspects of her growth. Namely:

Tone down her aggressiveness towards Naruto. I don't mind if she occasionally blew up at him for not taking things seriously or being disrespectful, but keep the physical abuse to a minimum.

Flesh out her relationship with Sasuke. While I was happy for her, the ship felt forced on Sasuke's part, as they have random intimate moments in the series that feel like they come from almost nowhere. I could imagine her crush starts out shallow at first, and then she becomes a good friend who just listens if he ever has to verbally state his feelings--serving as a counterpart to Naruto, who he uses to physically express his feelings. Eventually the crush turns to friendship which turns to love. During the interim, you can see her feelings shift and change, possibly considering returning Lee and Naruto's affections at different points before she realizes Sasuke is more than a crush (this would be especially apparent after she cuts her hair, symbolically untethering herself from her obsession since she heard a rumor that Sasuke likes girls with long hair). Make Sasuke see her as someone just as important as Naruto because of her love and empathy for him. And honestly, I'd be fine if she offered to join him at the end of the rescue mission, playing the lovesick girl, and Orochimaru lets her stay to distract Sasuke, sending Kabuto to kill her, but she incapacitates him as Sasuke absorbs Orochimaru, and they form Hebe together, with Sasuke planning to use Sakura as an aid if he needs help with dispelling Itachi's genjutsu. She's the only one he trusts to prevent him from being re-traumatized.

Make her a stronger fighter and give her more opportunities to do more. Her fight with Ino, the sound ninja, Gaara, and approaching Sasuke were some of the times when we really could've seen her let loose. It'd be cool to see her train with Kurenai to make use of her genjutsu potential, which would also make her go well with Sasuke, both as a team member and a rival/enemy. She could've tried to stop him before he went to join Orochimaru (either at the gate or joining Naruto in battle). I'd also be fine with a draw between her and Ino at the Chunin Exams, but if she won, maybe we could've seen her face Dosu (who would fight her before he died), or possibly Shino or Shikamaru (seeing as Kankuro forfeited anyway, he could've been the one slated to fight Dosu; Temari could've gone a similar route).

Give us more details into her family/background. Her parents (only seen in an anime movie) thinking she can't make it as a ninja is PERFECT. They'd show up during the Chunin Exam arc and essentially try to make Sakura reconsider because they think she's not strong enough, making her push herself to be stronger. Plus it'd be cool if she had a family jutsu similar to Ino-Shika-Cho and the Uchiha clan. Maybe her power could involve an Inner Sakura genjutsu, making her and Ino's fight even better. Her family having no expectations of her makes her a good foil to other prodigy characters who come from renowned families. In fact, she'd be a great contrast to her team, being the only one to grow up with both of her parents up to this age. This could be used to make her represent the family that Team 7 makes while the other members represent what she stands to lose if she became a kunoichi.

#naruto #naruto shippuden #sakura #sakura haruno #sasuke uchiha #Team 7

[sagemoderocklee]

Hi!! I just wanted to let you know that I recently read "return to sender" and I absolutely loved it! I know he wasn't the main focus obviously, but I loved how you wrote Gai and your take on his and Kakashi's relationship. I thought that the melancholic, introspective feel of it was especially well done.

(I would also like to say as I do reblog orochimaru content, my sincere apologies if this oversteps your dni. I just really wanted to let u know that I liked your fic)

thank you so much! i appreciate that so much. i rlly enjoyed taking a different approach to gai than usual and enjoyed being able to bring in that complexity that i think would exist within his and kakashi's relationship, and how it worked as a parallel and foil to lee and gaara's. very happy to know that part of the fic was so successful! and always grateful to know when people like my writing! especially as a (RTS not withstanding) slow updater!

and thanks for being respectful of my boundaries, as well. it's much appreciated!

[thatrandombystander]

Gaara is the narrative foil to Naruto that Sasuke WISHES he was. Gaara didn't even overstay his edginess, my guy decided to do some introspection and have character growth to become a ninja president while Sasuke stewed in his edgy hatred for another couple of years and accomplished nothing

#i may or may not have watched all the naruto + shippuden openings instead of going to sleep #ramblings of a bystander #naruto