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raeynbowboi · 4 years

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How Kipo Makes Great Villains

I stayed up all night binging the second season of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and I’ll admit. Going into it, my expectations were a bit low. Season One had such a self-contained objective, I didn’t know what the show was going to do with itself with a second season. But the second season of Kipo blew me out of the water. So, now I’m going to rant about why Scarlemagne and Jamack are fantastic villains for Kipo to confront, and what Kipo teaches us about writing antagonists. Obviously, spoilers ahead, but if you’re caught up, prepare to gush over great villains. If you’re not, do yourself a favor and go away, experience the second season for yourself, and then come back and fangasm over how great it was.

JAMACK

Kipo’s first antagonist is a perfect character foil. That is to say, Jamack is the exact opposite of Kipo. When Jamack meets Kipo, they are in exact opposite situations. He’s in a group while she’s alone. Later, when Kipo finds friends and is no longer alone, Jamack is kicked out of his group, forcing him to survive on his own. Jamack is very focused on self-interest and self-preservation, belittling his underlings for minor mistakes. His outlook is cold, cynical, and jaded. On top of that, Jamack grew up in this crazy world where only the strong survive. He’s also a part of the Mob Frogs, which seem to be the only mute culture with internal hierarchy. Other groups have a leader, but only the Mob Frogs seem to have levels of rank within the organization, causing the Mob Frogs to be competitive, even among themselves. So it makes perfect sense why Jamack will stoop to pretty much anything to get what he wants. Because that’s the mentality that allows for upward mobility in Las Vista. Thus, when Kipo arrives and upends the status quo and proves Jamack’s way of living wrong, he lashes out. Initially seeing it as her stealing his life from him, Jamack begins to gradually change. Jamack is on a similar and reflected hero’s journey to Kipo, and as she grows, so too will he. It’s no surprise that Jamack will eventually become a genuine ally of Kipo, even if he’s still hiding behind a Tsundere mask.

SCARLEMAGNE

My god is this a fantastic villain. In the first season, he was genuinely creepy and intimidating, but in season 2, Hugo became incredibly sympathetic. As season 2 went on, I kept debating to myself who is more of the Zuko of this show: Jamack or Hugo. Scarlemagne serves the same narrative purpose as the Diamonds in Steven Universe, about how words and kindness can work through problems. But I think it’s done a little better here, since Hugo isn’t a world-destroying dictator. He’s done some damage, but nothing that was really lasting. His pheremones can wear off. The humans he’s enslaved can regain their freedom. So, Hugo’s actual damage as a villain is much smaller and thus much more forgivable than immortal galactic conquerors. Hugo shows this deeply in that he genuinely seems like he wants to make Kipo happy, but he’s been hurt for so long that he doesn’t understand how to. And this genuine care seems to come a lot more from his core personality, and not just Kipo making friendship speeches. Even Steven didn’t really change the minds of the Diamonds. He just kind of proved he was their sister/nephew, and they suddenly cared about what he had to say. With Hugo, it’s much easier to see that he’s not a monster, just a scared and confused man lashing out to maintain control in a barbaric world. It makes him a character who you don’t want to see succeed in his evil plans, but you don’t want to watch him fail and lose everything he's worked for. You simultaneously want to hug him, and also punch him. It’s that perfect balance that makes Scarlemagne so well-written. He’s officially on my list of top 10 tv cartoon villains. Also, it’s hysterical that Hugo is voiced by the live action Beast, and the second half of this season was honestly a better Beauty and the Beast story than the live action movie. Am I the only one who hears Dr. Animo from Ben 10 when Scarlemagne speaks though?

DR. EMILIA

Talk about bait and switch. I don’t know if it was their intention, but I assumed the woman in the bird mask was Song, Kipo’s mother. It was clear that she and her goons were wearing burrow jumpsuits, and as it seemed more and more like her mother wasn’t dead, so I assumed this had to be her. This was such a great misdirection. Assuming she’s the hero because of our opinions of Scarlemagne, it’s what gives this show such amazing rewatch potential as now you can go back and pay attention to her words and actions and realize what she’s genuinely like. But even on a character level, she’s a fantastic villain. Kipo is a master of Talk no Jutsu, a fan term from the Naruto fandom, as he had a knack for talking literally anyone into becoming his friend, even the ones actively trying to kill him. Steven Universe and Kipo seem to be the other two masters of this technique. But Dr. Emilia will likely be immune to this. She doesn’t strike me as the sit and talk things out type. Because there are times when words won’t stop people, but action will. Dr. Emilia is a villain Kipo can’t reason with, someone she can’t befriend with a good speech. But even on a philosophical level, Dr. Emilia is fantastic because while she’s clearly a villain, her goal isn’t inherently evil. She sees mutation as a bad thing and wants to restore mute DNA to their normal animal forms. Which is a large part of why humans need to live in burrows. She wants humans to not live in fear, and to restore animals to their genetic origins. At least in theory, it’s a benign enough goal. The problem comes when you consider that animal mutes have sentience. they can speak and express desires. Robbing them of that is akin to purposefully mentally disabling a group in order to be dominant over them, which adds to the great themes here because there’s a loose veil of animals as an enslaved species. Kept in cages or as pets, ruled over or hunted by man who views itself as the superior race, the same sort of thinking that white slave-owners used to rationalize their prejudice. Thus it’s also a loose allegory for Dr. Emilia wanting to return emancipated slaves back to their chains. This is why she’s such a good villain. At face value, her goal sounds sort of reasonable, but when you examine what she’s really doing, it’s incredibly dark and cruel. That level of detail and writing is amazing. Talk about a well-written villain. I’m sorry, I can’t stop gushing.

Kipo demonstrates three equally compelling types of villains, and handles all of them amazingly. Jamack is the hero’s villainous foil, on his own mirrored hero’s journey as hers. His situation is always an exact opposite of hers, as was his life experiences, which led to such a stark difference of ideas. Thus, why it takes her utterly alien character traits to kick start his character arc. Hugo is a beautifully flawed and tragic villain whose goal of bringing the mutes together under a single ruler is genuinely compelling, but you still don’t want him to succeed the wrong way. Yet, if he could achieve his goal in a less hostile and evil way, I doubt fans would be upset with him achieving this goal otherwise. It’s just his approach that’s problematic. Dr. Emilia seems reasonable enough on paper, but once you unpack what she’s really doing, you can read a really deep allegory for slavery and racial superiority into her character that really complicates the otherwise black-and-white opinion of her character. Each of these villains shows ways you can make a compelling antagonist, and if you read this without watching Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeats despite my spoiler warnings, do yourself a favor and watch it. You will not be disappointed.

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warsmith-38 · 3 years

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How I would do RWBY Pt. 0

Disclaimer: It is easier to improve what already exist than it is to create something new. Boy howdy do I know that. That being said, I believe that RWBY has more than its fair share of flaws and this is how I would do it differently if I was behind the reigns. This is just a collection of my opinions and ideas which in the end will probably amount to nothing. I felt the need to do this because my brain just decided ‘nah motherfucker, you ain’t thinking of anything else from now on’ and this is the end result for nothing else would satisfy my rage.

I wouldn’t quite call this a complete re-haul, but more rather a rework with some of my own brand of polish. It’s not a compete rebuild from the ground up in a different world with different concepts and themes, but how I would go about a second go around with the series from the base that is already there. If a detail is missing from my musings then assume it is either unchanged or removed, depending on context.

If some of my complaints were addressed after I stopped watching, I honestly don’t much care. If it takes longer than 4 seasons to fix what I view as fundamental problems, then it’s far too little too late for me. I paid scant attention to the series post my stopping point and liked little to none of what I saw.

Please do not take this as a specific attack on anything other than the writing of the show itself. This is not directed or targeted against anyone, regardless of position or feelings on the topic at hand. If you ignore what I just said and decide to take this as an insult, then I say that you need to be more self-secure in your tastes and interests.

Things I would remove + reason why

Silver eyed warriors as a concept- it’s more or less the same concept as dojutsu from Naruto. It’s the fucking sharingan (rubygan). It’s not quite chosen one level, but crap like this is the blight of good protagonists. It’s fucking eugenics that makes you awesome not your own skills or training but on your bloodline. No need for personal development or life-changing hardship when you have a built in power that can be cultivated like a fucking bumper crop.

Maidens- Wasn’t intended originally and only made the overall story more cluttered with power creep and plot device. It’s a similar problem as above. No need for training or anything if people can just kill the person who has the power currently and take if from them. Which, at that point, why do you want that power if you’re already strong enough to kill and take it from the person who has it to begin with? It’s something someone just shouted out and they rolled with it because it sounded cool in the moment.

The Relics- McGuffin dragonballs that serve as plot device and little else. A story can be told without needing to monotonously race for Excalibur or the holy grail. Considering the Maidens, I doubt that the relics were intended in the first place and as such if you can’t tell a story without throwing something in after a few seasons because you realized that you didn’t have a plot, then you’re not that good at telling stories.

Oscar- The show didn’t need more main protagonists when what was already there wasn’t being given enough characterization to begin with. For that matter-

Quite a few characters- The cast is cluttered and convoluted enough as is with seemingly important characters getting the shaft in favor of yet another new character that would barely do anything. Time and effort seems to be put into one-off schmucks that would be better served making the story not need poochie the dog, let alone several. Character integration is not ‘create a character to do one thing and then pretend they don’t exist’. There’s already plenty of characters than can be used wherever.

The overt shipping bait, especially if it’s just going to be taken up or abandoned on a whim- I don’t mean relationship building, I mean the obvious baiting of a relationship that, in the end, might not even happen. All it does is dumb down characters and character arcs, draw out pointless scenes, and make the fans have conniptions one way or another. People are pissed off whenever things don’t go their way with shipping so the only winning move with these people is not to play their game. Looking at you Klance and Zutara. Either don’t do anything or have a fucking plan and stick to it and not make complete swerves when fans get uppity. If it genuinely matters to you, then pretend whatever ship happens at whatever point, I don’t care.

Changes to the world that I think would go over better-

Everyone has a level of aura with a naturally high level generally meaning that they might be able to unlock a semblance. A semblance is unlocked through some sort of specific event, typically a stressful one IE: Yang and Ruby are caught in the woods by grimm and Yang gets frustrated and scared at not being able to defend her sister before getting angry and her rage mode semblance unlocking. Not everyone who unlocks a semblance goes into combat schools but it is a requirement for acceptance into most of them. Having the potential to unlock a semblance seems entirely random but has a higher chance with genetics.

There are two types of semblances: 1 is hereditary like the Schnee glyphs, changing only slightly, if at all, through the generations. 2 is a random personal power like Yang having her rage mode as compared to Raven’s portals. Whichever you get tends to be random with the occasional exception depending on genetics and the specific semblance.

Every 1 in assumedly 10 people who have semblances have the potential to have two semblances, often times, but not necessarily, being one hereditary and one random. The process of unlocking the second semblance involves immense emotional distress and in some cases might not even happen for the individual who has the potential, period, thus skewing data. This gives an enhanced type power but isn’t protagonist exclusive. It shows a higher than average power capacity, but isn’t a gamebreaker to the same level as a fucking kekkei genkai or getting the powers of a fucking demigod. A good amount of characters would only have one semblance and be considerable badasses despite it and even be able to beat a couple of the few that have two.

Establish Menagerie as the official Fifth Kingdom, the newest of the great kingdoms. Maybe not the singularly strongest or most influential, but make it so Menagerie and its people, the faunus, have a considerable role in the world’s affairs, if even from an isolationist standpoint. Don’t have them as even a semi thriving entity that isn’t a kingdom because that only begs the question as to why the kingdoms are so important to begin with then.

Make the White Fang a faunus supremacist group that has very little support, if any, from the faunus people as a whole. Faunus right issues are history for the vast majority of the world and the White Fang as a whole is only using the problems in Atlas with the SDC as a means of trying to gain power. There are actual faunus rights groups trying to make things better for their race in Atlas and other marginalized areas but the White Fang dislikes them on the grounds that they go against their goal and it makes them look even worse.

Fucking pronounce names correctly, I mean, Christ. Weiss, the word, is pronounced like ‘Vice’. It’s an actual fucking word. It’s the German word for white. It’s like saying tor-till-uh not tor-tee-ah. Blake is Bella-doe-nah not Bella-dawn-uh. Shit like that. No you don’t need to put on a heavy accent to say these words but pronouncing things so inaccurately just makes you look like an ignorant rube (no, that was not a pun). I don’t fucking care what your reasons are. Why use these words in the first place if you’re not even going to try to say them right?

Ozpin is order to Salem’s chaos. Ancient demigods of both archetypes vying for power across the ages and the innocent peoples of the world be damned in the crossfire. Neither are entirely good nor evil but both are not exactly helpful to the free peoples on the world and the continued livelihood thereof. Their progenitor god created them to try and guide humanity in a balanced way. That seemed to work at first, but then failed like a bad marriage and they waged war ever since like a bad divorce. The grimm are a creation of Salem’s to test humanity and make then stronger through conflict. Ozpin ranges from the lawman to the fascist fairly duplicitously. The two can only be permanently killed by each other but neither wants to get too close to the other because of that exact same reason. If killed by other means, they will resurrect after a fashion no worse for wear.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Ruby Rose- It is a crime that the titular character has so little actual character beyond just being ‘Hyperactive Anime Protagonist #235’. Most of her (few) character traits are tell not show, and of course she’s got the fucking rubygan bloodline ability crap. She has next to nothing that isn’t allotted by default to most anime protags on the grounds of the stereotype. For the main character to have less character than any of the members of the fucking B-team is a travesty.

1. Give her a clear rebellious streak, a distinct problem with authority, and a headstrong attitude. Daddy doesn’t want her to be in danger, so she decides to become a huntress. She’s told to stay put, so she hunts down Roman. She’s told that she needs to stay home and recover, so she sets out on her own not thinking about the exact consequences. Make her the impetus for the team’s involvement with the problems of the world in the early seasons. Make her a driving part of the plot, not just being along for the ride or because someone else said so.

2. Give her blood knight tendencies. Make her VERY willing to get into a fight with the bad guys, not just fights in general, but fights against bad guys. Nothing over the top, but enough that she has a scene or three where she says “Shut up bad guy, skip to the part where we get to kick the crap out of you,” or something of that nature. Hyper combative characters are fun and ethical.

3. Give her more traits as a mechanic and weapon nerd. Include scenes of her fixing everyone’s weapons for fun or being able to analyze an opponent’s fighting style based on the type, design, and/or wear & tear of their weapon, make her a polyglot of weapons that can be at least proficient in using just about any weapon. Come to think of it…

4. Anything that could give her actual character traits. They don’t even have to be all that major traits, just give her enough so that we actually have a character with more definition than printer paper. She’s the main character, the titular character at that. This isn’t a video game with a blank-slate protagonist. If the main character isn’t even really a character, like, at all, then what’s the fucking point?

5. Convert silver eyes power into a second semblance for white fire vision that kills grimm like nothing else. Gotten as a hereditary semblance from Summer. Which is also why Summer was specifically targeted by Salem on the grounds that it makes her just a little too dangerous for her long-term plans. This makes it so she isn’t just the fucking chosen one, but still has a clear definitive reason to be involved against the big bad because, y’know, dead mom. Yes, this kinda goes into the whole ‘bloodline is what determines importance’ thing I wanted to be rid of, but it’s only a chance two generations instead of a massive lineage of nonsense and keeps more of the onus of involvement on Ruby herself.

6. Give her a very clear motivation that’s deeper than surface level. ‘Oh, I want to do the right thing’ is a flimsy as balls motivation especially compared to the rest of her team that has that AND an actual reason for thinking that way. Why does she want to be the good guy? What happened in her life that makes her this motivated to doing the right thing? Yang has her desire to find her mother (which, come to think of it, doesn’t necessitate being a good guy), Blake has wanting to make up for being a terrorist, Weiss has her desire to step out from under the shadow of her family’s reputation, even fucking Jaune, the b-team protagonist, who wants to live up to his family reputation, has a proper motivation to be involved in the story. WHY is Ruby involved beyond ‘I’m the main character’ level reasoning? As much as admitting it makes me wish to commit Sudoku, even SAO has better main character motivations. Good god, I need hooch after typing that.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Yang Xiao-Long- Her arc was mostly fine, barring some of the pacing. Raven being a maiden undercut the message of ‘screw that deadbeat bitch, go to your real family’ by making her important to the overall world state and confirming a measure of later relevance but that’s more a flaw with Raven than Yang.

1. Keep her motivation about getting strong enough to find her mother but add in the clear desire to kick her ass for leaving her and Tai. Of course it’s more about just getting the answers to her questions, but the ass-kicking should also be a major component.

2. Amp up the rivalry between her and Mercury. Mercury was designed as an opposite to Yang, I mean for fuck’s sake, look at him. Consider their respective backstories too; both raised in a single father home yet one was supported and loved (if a little neglected) while the other was horrifyingly maimed and abused. Punch vs kick. It works.

3. Make her more protective of her little sister, explicitly going along with her personal crusade to keep her safe (safer, rather). If she’s supposed to be the good older sister, maybe just maybe, something more than lip-service to that idea should be done. Hell, maybe she can be overprotective like their father, or even the exact opposite, not really giving a shit and then learning to give one. That might lead to a little tension and growth between the two of them.

4. Make her semblance consistent. Is she supposed to have super saiyan rage mode or is it energy buildup and dispersal? Is it supposed to be both? Just make it rage mode, for the sake of fuck, and don’t flip-flop. Speaking of…

5. Give her anger issues. Flesh out her being the kind of gal that would start a fight in a nightclub when she doesn’t get what she needed with little justification. This would stem from abandonment issues from Raven, Summer (inadvertently), and Tai and her general thrill seeking personality. This could lead to tensions and dramas until she overcomes it and learns to use her aggressive feelings and not let them use her.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Blake Belladonna- Shitty-kitty is shitty, here’s why.

1. Do something with the hypocrisy of being, more or less, princess of Menagerie, a world power albeit a minor one, and joining a band of terrorists that do more harm than good for the people they claim to represent. It’s like a trust-fund baby joining some charity organization in Africa for a few weeks, doing jack-shit to help, joining some jihadists, and then acting like she’s Mahatma Gandhi.

2. Make her arc less about running away and fighting Adam, more about realizing that running is for assholes and try to find her team to at least apologize for cutting and running like she did. Doing that and stopping Adam are not mutually exclusive. The friend thing should be the priority. As it stands she is almost rewarded for abandoning her team just to focus on her own problems.

3. Make her arc involve going from ‘There’s no such thing as pure evil’ to ‘Okay maybe some people are just too evil to work with’. Some people are too far gone and, despite still having good traits, will only ever continue to do evil things and don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone has some sort of good motive beneath the surface and, even then, does that matter when the only action they do is objectively evil? Still, y’know, save who you can, like Ilia.

4. Have Belladonna not actually be her last name. If she’s the daughter of a the chief of Menagerie, the closest thing the faunus have to a unified racial leader, then how the unholy shit does nobody recognize her name? She is, again, princess of Menagerie, yet nobody recognizes the name in a grander context. Have ‘Belladonna’ be a cover name so she can hide her identity better so that she’s using what should be a very recognizable real name in a tournament that is broadcasted worldwide. Her real family name could be “Nightshade” or some shit like that.

5. If she’s supposed to be ‘The quiet one’ maybe actually have her be quiet and not make big speeches every season or have loud arguments with her team. Just a fucking thought. If she’s still supposed to do that, then make her ‘the opinionated one’ or ‘the kind of mean one’ or even ‘the one who doesn’t shut up’. Blake, as seen, or rather heard, is not the quiet one.

6. Have her actually fucking interact with Ruby. Maybe they have a two-person book club. Maybe Blake teaches Ruby to meditate or something. Anything, anything at all would be fine, anything more than nothing at all. Blake’s whole interaction with the team shouldn’t just be through Yang and cursory scenes with Weiss.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Weiss Schnee- You can’t solve racism with like two scenes.

1. Make the racism thing a much more gradual decay rather than more or less disappearing after a single conversation. Hell, make jokes about it, ‘oh, no, one of my best friends is a faunus,’ stuff. It’s hard to unlearn an upbringing of hate, but she’s trying type stuff.

2. Involve her at least a little with the White Fang plot. It only makes sense that the heiress of the company that still more or less has slave labor is at least semi-involved with the plotline involving terrorists that want that company destroyed. Make her subject to assassination attempts at a young age, or even have her been kidnaped at a young age and held hostage, getting her scar in the process.

3. As evident by some of the intros, her rival was supposed to be Emerald. This could be serviceable, at the very least. The street rat pickpocket that had to learn life lessons the hard way and was taken in by the baddies VS. the rich heiress born with a silver spoon but raised by a dickhead. There’s potential there and it is a crime that it is not explored in the slightest. Even Yang and Mercury had a minor fight.

4. Like Yang, make her semblance consistent. Is it supposed to be summoning or physics altering magic symbols? These are two completely different powers, it’s not like super speed also giving super reflexes or whatever. Just make it one or the other, don’t bullshit us on these things. Or, hell, make it a second semblance she gets during the course of story.

5. Emphasize her loneliness. Make the main onus of her personal arc be about how she goes from this prickly, spoiled, opinionated, brat to a warm and caring friend who only wants the best for everyone. Yes, this might be the main intention in canon, but I feel it could have used a little more refining.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Cinder Fall- If she’s supposed to be Ruby’s chief rival and foil then she needs a lot of work to even be close. She shouldn’t be nothing but the rival, but at that same time she should have that be a considerable part of her characterization and role in the series. I feel the best way to do it is to have their similarities highlight their differences in both character and design. Basically, make her the Vergil to Ruby’s Dante.

1. Make her Ruby’s age. Being the same age as Ruby while initially outclassing her, and even veteran hunters, provides risk and contrast between the two. Throw in an evil sadistic streak compared to Ruby’s happy-go-lucky personality to further the contrast and you’ve got a good little yin-yang thing for them. It also shows just how bad someone can turn out if raised to be a killing machine.

2. Keep her using the bow/twin swords as a comparably simple weapon in contrast to Ruby’s, even in universe, overcomplicated Scythe/Sniper rifle. Both weapons are long range marksmen’s weapons as well as vicious close combat weapons but are still very different in essence. Also make sure she keeps the red with black and gold color scheme is contrast with Ruby’s Black with red and silver. Even minor visual cues can work to the rival schema.

3. Make her one of the people who have two semblances. Pyromancy (pyrokinesis? Fire bending, she has fire bending) and dilated perception (bullet time) so that Ruby’s super speed and the dilated perception cancel each other out, adding a little extra tension to the fights now that both parties’ signature abilities are moot points against each other.

4. Make her competent. She kills Ozpin and Pyrrha and then she either fails or draws every fucking fight she has afterwards baring nameless jobbers here and there. Even before that, she needed help to take down Amber and even manages to fuck that up. The more failures she has and the less intimidating she is. Too much of that and she’s just a jobber that makes you wonder why she was ever seen as intimidating in the first place. When that happens then Ruby beating her is just the status quo and not a triumph of any sort.

5. Make her Ruby’s long lost fraternal twin sister. Incredibly cliché, I admit, but siblings make the best rivals, especially twins. Once again, it’s all about adding the similarities and the contrasts. In this case it creates the ‘there but for the grace of god go I’ idea with the two of them. Ruby seeing it as how evil she could have turned out and Cinder seeing it as how weak she could have been (Eventually becoming how good she could have had it because I’m a sucker for redemption arcs) Who said that?

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Team JNPR- JNPR was fine-ish but the over focus on Jaune and the underutilization of Ren + Nora early on are both issues. B-team should not get jack shit before the A-team gets the lions share.

1. Downplay Jaune’s screen time. I doubt this is a particularly controversial statement. Jaune is not the titular character. This is (technically) a shoujo not a shounen. It’s supposed to be about the girls more than the guys. It kind of undercuts that idea when the guy (the side guy at that) gets the lion’s share of characterization, attention, and growth before the girl (the main girl) does.

2. Make Ren and Nora actual characters earlier on. Comic relief is all well and good, but either extend that to the whole team or make these two characters more than just comic relief in the early parts of the story. Make them, y’know, actual characters. They ain’t gotta be all that important, but they do have to be actual characters.

3. Make Pyrrha’s deathflags less blindingly obvious. We all knew Pyrrha was going to get clipped. The self-sacrificing type, all the musical and visual cues throughout, being based on Achilles, and ‘oh she just confessed to the boy she likes’. Homegirl was waving deathflags like an insecure redneck with the confederate flag. When you foreshadow obvious things that much it’s not a surprise to the audience when it happens and the reaction of the in universe characters seems overdone. If it’s not supposed to be a surprise then, whatever, but that’s clearly not the case if you’re going for just shock value. It’s fine for a character to die, but for the love of Jaysus you got to do something with it more than ‘this character’s sole purpose is to die for the angst and to up the stakes’. Pyrrha was just a plot jobber.

4. Make them a little more independent in the overall plot. Give them their own full sub-plots, have them go on their own little adventures, have them do things completely separate from RWBY that has plot relevance but not overtaking the main story in grandeur or importance. B-team gets B-plots and are cool in it of themselves.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Qrow Branwen- Take or leave this, I just felt the need to include this because reasons.

1. Just make him Dante from Devil May Cry. Just make his personality the same as Dante from Devil May Cry. Make him stylish and cool but low-key a massive dork. He’s too cool to drink or smoke or anything harsher than PG-13. This series could use a guy like that, says I.

2. Make his semblance something that makes sense and isn’t just an angst generator. How do you even quantify ‘bad luck aura’ as a power? Make it short range teleportation as a connection to Raven’s portals. Make it so that he can direct the bad luck at will. Do SOMETHING with it that isn’t just an excuse for mostly pointless character angst.

3. This technically also counts as a Raven change but whatever. Make the Branwen family old nobility and not a loser bandit tribe from nowhere. Or at least make it so they used to rich or something. They come from a family that had a good amount of cash and even a chateau in Mistral. After the money dried up and the chateau ransacked by grimm, the Branwen twins had differing opinions on how to proceed. Qrow fully integrated into the hunter thing while Raven ran away and became a bandit, using it as further excuse to skedaddle on Tai and a recently born Yang.

#RWBY #RWDE #I guess #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Ozpin #Cinder Fall #Tagging this as much as I please #Team JNPR #Jaune Arc #Rewrite #Hate if you wish #How I would do...#Pyrrha Nikos

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kai-keda · 3 years

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So something on twitter got me rambling this to someone who I don’t even know whether or not they’re involved in the same communities as me or not and I kinda just realized this is actually a big problem.

Why are fandom spaces having age wars? Or would it be more appropriate to call it generational wars?

Basically what I’m going on about is how now that I’m 25 years old and have joined and become super involved with a relatively much newer community than any other I’ve been in before I’m seeing a lot of hostility.

Hostility thrown at me by complete strangers.

Okay, so, if you’ve known me for long enough you’d know that I’m used to people not liking me because of actions I did or words I said. Specifically I’m referring to that mega dark time in the Dragon Ball fandom when my mental health was unchecked, I was overly emotional and stupid.

When I say “Hostility being thrown at me by complete strangers” in this context I don’t mean it in that same sense. I mean people who only know my age and that I’m in their fandom.

With my previous fandoms they were things that a lot of adults were in as well because they initially joined said fandom as children themselves. This includes Dragon Ball and Naruto. So I never really had a problem with people hearing my age and running for the hills screaming since they were used to seeing adults. There were also communities with source materials that were geared more towards adults like Trigun.

Heck I was still more often than not on the younger side of any particular group discussion. At most I would be more in the middle of the groups age range and never the oldest.

That is until now.

See I’ve recently gotten really excited, obsessed, hyperfixated or whatever you want to call it with the MCYT content creators. I’m talking of course specifically about the Dream SMP stuff but also the creators individually.

I love the Sleepy Bois Inc group and the Dream Team and Fundy and Ranboo and Niki and BBH and Tubbo and just the whole lot of them in the right contexts honestly.

To me this wasn’t really anything new. I mean, once upon a time I enjoyed Yogscast but I was really young and not involved in the internet’s current world of fandom culture. Also, I never obsessed over them and their story. I was into other things at the time.

When I get really invested in something I tend to immediately go searching for a community to share it with and I’ve started following on tumblr and twitter a lot of wonderful fan-artists and analysts and shitposters and man the lot of you are so great. And I’m also subscribed to a LOT of animators on YouTube. I’ve been leaving as many positive comments ranging from pointing out the finer details of a piece of work to fully emotional responses as I can possibly leave.

And it seems like you guys are really awesome and open and friendly! You guys tend to reply to my comments and even if you don’t (which is totally fair! Don’t feel pressured, my comments are to make you feel good not a trap to make you interact with me!) you’ll leave a like or heck a heart on my YouTube comments to y’all’s animations.

Seeing my positive energy getting returned with positive energy gave me the courage to join some discord servers and I started, of course, with the official ones. Wilbur Soot was the content creator of this group of people that I watched first so of course by this point I was subscribed to him on Twitch. I was also subbed to TommyInnit so I joined their servers. I’m in a few other servers including SAD-ist’s server and Techno’s members only server.

I started out joining vc’s and chatting in text channels but it’s been quite a long time since I’ve done either of those two things (not including a stray opinion here or there being thrown into the DreamSMP Boundaries discord).

I’m pretty sure it’s been since early December since I’ve really interacted in ANY of these servers - including the much smaller non-official fan ones!

Why is that?

Honestly, I got tired of the hostility thrown my way at any mention or reminder of my age.

I’m 25 years old and when people in these servers hear that, a good chunk legitimately feel really awkward.

I was asked not once, not twice, but FOUR TIMES in a single night from FOUR DIFFERENT PEOPLE in the SAME VOICE CALL “Why are you in a fan server for a sixteen year old Minecraft streamer (referring to TommyInnit) if you’re 25?” with NO trace of irony and with complete seriousness and out of all those times only ONE PERSON defended me because they were in the call for the third instance only for them to leave, someone else to join and it to happen again.

And each time, the call went quiet and everyone waited silently for my answer. They were all legitimately concerned for the fact that I happen to be a fan of a streamer who happens to be younger than me.

And when I pointed out what I THOUGHT was obvious which was “90% of the other streamers he’s with and openly calls friends are also adults including Wilbur who is only one year younger than me and Philza who is seven years OLDER than me” only a portion of people responded with “yeah that’s true.”

The rest said “That’s not the same.”

I tried again to “explain myself” (we’ll get to how shitty THAT is in a minute) by detailing how I just genuinely think Tommy, and Tubbo as well, are fun to watch. They’re entertaining, they’re funny, they’re energetic, they work well off the other streamers and I also find them adorable the same way I find puppies and kittens adorable. Heck, I love referring to Tommy as a Chihuahua because he’s a tiny little child with a really loud bark. It’s funny and cute and that’s the appeal.

That got a few other people to relax but there were still some people who at this point just said “well, I still think it’s weird but whatever.” and continued on only with an awkward air of nervousness around them.

Alright so it’s really important for me to stress that being a fan of a content creator does not equate wanting anything romantic or sexual with them in any capacity and therefore there is nothing inherently “creepy” or predatory about an adult being a fan of a content creator who happens to be a minor. I get that that seems like a hard concept to grasp but it’s true.

I’m sure there’s plenty of musicians and actors y’all absolutely adore who you don’t want to marry and/or bang. Heck, I’m positive there’s a good chunk of you who love Miyazaki films. You love his work, you’re a fan of what he does, of his content and you’re a fan of him yet you don’t want to marry and/or bang him. I’m sure a lot of you also have really close platonic friendships that you enjoy.

Assuming I’m only a fan of Tommy to get closer to him and his fans who are minors for some gross reasons is really shitty. NEVER assume the worst in someone like that. Be cautious around adults on the internet in general, sure, but this particular attitude I’ve described is disgusting.

Anyways, beyond that though this rabbit hole goes deeper.

It’s not just people being concerned that an adult is a fan of a content creator who is a minor. People have actually openly shamed and mocked me for being 25 years old in these other servers. Including the one you have to pay monthly to get into in the first place!

And now I go on twitter and I see a post pointing out how silly it is for minors to push adults out of fandom spaces that are based on content created BY ADULTS and the replies are people arguing FOR THE EXCLUSION OF ADULTS?!?!

HELLO?!?!

Are you guys okay?!?!

How is me being a fan of Philza and wanting to interact with other fans of his weird and creepy?? THE MAN IS LITERALLY SEVEN YEARS OLDER THAN ME AND MARRIED WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!

I heard that there’s been a lot of drama in the JoJo fandom recently where minors are trying to say the whole fandom needs to be purged of adults??? That it’s meant to be a safe space for children and teenagers?? THE ANIME JOJO’S BIZZARE ADVENTURE?!?! DO Y’ALL KNOW HOW OLD THAT FRANCHISE IS?!?! IT’S OLDER THAN SOME OF YOU!!

Should teenagers have safe spaces in fandom where they don’t have to worry about strange adults if they’re uncomfortable with that? Absolutely.

Should adults be shamed and kicked out of fandom as soon as they become an adult? Should “20” be the age where fandom must stop? Absolutely fucking NOT!

I want so bad to make friendships and be a part of a community of people who enjoy these dorky Minecraft streamers as much as I do. It kills me to open Discord, see all the activity in these servers and shy away at the last minute from joining in because of my age.

I’m rusty on this quote so forgive me if it’s not exact but this has been my life motto since I became an adult and accepted my place in fandom. I think a lot of you guys can learn from it:

“When I became an adult I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

- C.S Lewis

#long post #mcyt #might as well tag the fandom in specifically talking about the most #you guys seem like so much fun to talk and hang out with #i want to be a real part of this community #y’all are so nice and awesome until my age is discovered or brought up #fucking hell #and don’t say oh just don’t mention your age #cause then I just feel dishonest and like I’m being fake #fandom #discourse #I guess #Kairi Yajuu rambles #Kairi Yajuu rant

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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A (wind)blast from the past...

So.. lets talk about Dobson and anime.

No, I am not meaning in the way that I am going to dissect his biased spiteful opinions on Japanese animation and comic culture on general (believe me, we are going to get there one day) but in regard of something that even got me by surprise when I learnt of it the day before.

You know Rumiko Takahashi? Mangaka of work such as Ranma ½, One-Pound Gospel, Mermaid Saga and most famously Inuyasha? Not only is this woman one of the most popular and richest mangaka on the planet with multiple awards under her belt (including the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême in 2019) but if you know anything about Dobson at all, you know that she is one of his idols. Meaning of course he plagiarized her wacky tone of humor, certain characters and overall style in his earlier works, primarily Formera and Alex ze Pirate.

Honestly, growing up with Ranma ½ myself (and being disappointed in the ending even today, though the ride was entertaining) I can confirm just how much he was “inspired” by her. Be it by the fact that Perry the Pirate acts like Happosai if he had the genes of Brian Blessed halfway split into him, that most of the wacky sledgehammer humor his characters can engage in is way too similar to what Akane Tendo would do, to Altea being everything Miroku from Inuyasha would be, if you removed his redeeming qualities.

Well, here is the thing: Although Dobson likes her work, for reasons he never elaborated on, he can’t stand Inuyasha.

Which I assume is related to the manga being less “wacky” than Takahashi’s previous work (though she did also write darker stories like Mermaid Saga before that) . I can’t however say so for certain. All I know is that the manga (in my opinion) ran for longer than was necessary and that Naraku got off easier in a way than he deserved, even if he was killed by the end of it all, which are like two major criticisms I can think of.

That said, I would be lying if I said I did not adore Inuyasha back in the day and see why other people liked it too. It was one of the first manga I followed regularly and while I can look back at it and see all the cheese to it, I genuinely liked reading the adventure of Inuyasha, Kagome, Shippo, Sango and Miroku, with Sesshoumaru, Jaken, Rin and Kouga as flavor adding side characters. I have fond memories of listening to “Change the World”, I still own the third movie on DVD cause I really like it and the anime and manga is always good for a read down memory lane. But I digress. This is not about me self indulging into my weaboo past, this is about Dobson potentially changing his opinion about Inuyasha soon.

Why? Because it gets the Korra/Boruto treatment now. In short, there is going to be a girl centered sequel.

To elaborate: Last month (May 2020) it was announced that Sunrise, the same studio that did the first Inuyasha anime adaptation, would release around autumn (though that is more or less an estimate) a new series by the title of “Hanyou no Yashahime”, which roughly translates into “Yashahime: Princess Half Demon”. And not just that, Rumiko Takahashi herself will work as character designer on it and anime scriptwriter Katsuyuki Sumisawa, who collaborated with Takahashi on the scripts of all Inuyasha movies and has credits on many other popular Shonen Anime of the 80s, 90s and 2000s, is in charge of scripts.

Here is a link describing a bit more about the show

And here is a description of the plot, courtecy of livechart The daughters of Sesshomaru and Inuyasha set out on a journey transcending time!

In Feudal Japan, Half-Demon twins Towa and Setsuna are separated from each other during a forest fire. While desperately searching for her younger sister, Towa wanders into a mysterious tunnel that sends her into present-day Japan, where she is found and raised by Kagome Higurashi’s brother, Sota, and his family.

Ten years later, the tunnel that connects the two eras has reopened, allowing Towa to be reunited with Setsuna, who is now a Demon Slayer working for Kohaku. But to Towa’s shock, Setsuna appears to have lost all memories of her older sister.

Joined by Moroha, the daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome, the three young women travel between the two eras on an adventure to regain their missing past.

I am not gonna lie, I am baffled, excited and a bit concerned about this. Baffled because it has been over a decade since the manga ended and half a decade since the plot was also wrapped up in animated form. Add to that also the fact that this is the first time Takahashi actually does a sequel to one of her previous works and it is quite a surprise.

Then obviously, I am excited as someone who liked the original story and I kinda want to see where this is going, even if I was okay with the story ending in the first place. See, I am one of those people, I do not need endless continuations of some plots because I have nothing else going on in my life than one work of fiction I can never let go off and call others nazis if they do not agree with me mindlessly consuming it (*cough* Start Wars *cough*)

And Inuyasha is one of those things where I was overall still happy with the end. Ater all, Kagome and Inuyasha together, the villain defeated, Kohaku back to normal, Sango and Miroku busy being parents. YAY! So I do not need a sequel outright.

In addition, I am not necessarily a fan of the entire “sequel series about an offspring of character X” hook that Naruto for example went for with Boruto, because it feels like just doing the same shit over again with a new paint job instead of trying something slightly more original. That and quite often a sequel is only possible by the writer going for “happy end override” where the struggle our original heroes went for is essentially made pointless and their happy end taken away, so that a new conflict for the sequel can even happen. (again, Star Wars, or as one example in videogames that really stunk for me, Golden Sun for the DS).

Which are in the end the things I am actually worried about. That this sequel may turn the end of Inuyasha more tragic than it needed to be. But hey, we still have till autumn. So who knows, perhaps the show will be quite upbeat in its own way. Hopefully at least as “good” as the original. And if not, I can still perhaps enjoy it in a “so bad its good” way.

But independent of how I may perceive it, I am curious if Dobson, that is, if he even hears of this thing existing, will be interested in it. may do so. After all, on one hand it would be a sequel to a work by his favorite mangaka, who he likes so much, he feels even guilty about inflating characters by her.

On the other hand, he does not like Inuyasha for never really elaborated reasons.

Then again, this will be a sequel involving the offsprings of Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha. And knowing his boner for lesbians that went so far as to hint he looks regularly even on incestuous shipping art for the characters of Frozen…

Who knows? Perhaps this will “cure him” of the notion that “homosexual shipping” in anime is creepy and he will join the group of Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha shippers via offspring proxy (sarcasm).

After all, it is”less” creepy when they are cousins, aren’t they? And even if it is “incest” it would still be progressive because it would be two girls. And even if they are not going to kiss and cuddle like the precious tiny little lesbians Dobson likes to imagine a lot of women as, he can still ship them because there is nothing wrong about shipping, as long as he does it.

Can you tell that I am not a fan of his hypocrisy?

Look, in all honesty, I am curious what he would think of the show and how he would “perceive” it. Primarily because it may give additional insight in how far his hatred for anime as well as his lesbian obsession goes.

And on a geekier note to end on,, are Towa and Setsuna supposed to be Sesshoumaru’s daughters? Congratulations on getting busy, you old white haired pretty bo- Wait. They are half demons. Sesshoumaru mated with a human. But the only human he ever even showed a slight level of affection to was…

Oh…. oh, no!

youtube

For the love of god, please let her have been aged up enough! I know she was already aged up in the last chapter of the manga, but considering he was like her father figure... well, that is if Rin is the mother, but... come on, who else?

#andrew dobson #tom preston #syac #inuyasha #inu yasha #anime #manga #rumiko takahashi #sequel

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7team7 · 4 years

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I'm twenty when I'm with you: chapter one

Chapter title: Classmates

Summary: Soulmate AU: Soul marks appear on the skin at age twenty. Sasuke and Sakura meet at age eighteen.

They continue crossing paths after they start as classmates.

Rating: T

chapter two / three / four / five / six

A/N: yes this is just me being indulgent with one of my dumb ideas but aren’t all my pieces like that?? Modern day written in the US context by the way

Looking back, Sasuke felt bad because he honestly wouldn’t have noticed Sakura if it weren’t for two things: that curious pink hair and her stellar grades—which were even better than his. At the time, this was a bit of a sore spot for someone as prideful as Sasuke, but these days he’s just proud to call Sakura his girlfriend. And his soulmate, of course.

But again, when they first met he hardly paid attention to her and never expected her to play such a large role in his life, let alone become his most precious person.

The Uchiha family moved to Konoha right before Sasuke’s final year of high school. His father had been recruited to be the head of the police department and Itachi had landed a job at the local university. He would start out as a teaching assistant, then hopefully become a full fledged professor of anthropology. Sasuke’s mother was excited to start working in a plant nursery again, and Konoha offered great land for her to garden in.

His mother’s best friend, Kushina, lived in Konoha too, so the move was an easy choice for the family to make. His parents were soulmates, so no matter the circumstance, they would have gone anywhere together. Sasuke looked forward to having someone he could rely on like that, even if he still thought it was gross when his parents kissed in front of him.

Sasuke never particularly cared about forging friendships beyond mere acquaintances, so keeping to himself at a new school for one more year seemed easy enough. He was busy with schoolwork and he always had his family to go home to.

But Naruto, his childhood best friend who pestered him no matter the distance from Oto to Konoha, was determined to get Sasuke integrated into their school’s social scene. Naruto’s overwhelming presence was enough to make him hardly notice anyone else, let alone a girl who generally kept her nose in a book.

On Sasuke’s first day, Itachi dropped him and Naruto off before heading to Konoha University across town. Even as Sasuke was nearing full fledged adulthood, Itachi always liked to keep an eye on him. And he wanted to make sure Naruto was on time too, Kushina and Minato had complained about his oversleeping at many family parties. Itachi was grateful to Naruto for being by Sasuke’s side even when he could not be. He was comforted by the idea that in a few years, Sasuke could meet his soulmate who could take care of him and understand him even better than Itachi. He wondered what type of person they would be.

Naruto hopped out of the car and bounded up the front steps, not even bothering to look behind him to see if Sasuke was following. He wasn’t.

He was still in the car (shotgun because no, Naruto, get in the back) with his eyes closed. This was going to be quite the trip, wasn’t it? Itachi merely patted him on the shoulder and locked and unlocked the doors again, signaling that Sasuke should get out. “Have a good day.”

One dark eye cracked open, “I’ll try.” With a sigh and much grumbling, he got out of the car to join Naruto on the steps before the blonde started yelling. It really didn’t take much to set him off, and he was extra excited to have his best friend finally with him at school.

“Hurry up! You have to go to the office and stuff and then I wanna take you to meet everyone!”

Sasuke followed Naruto through the main entrance and he made his way to the office to get his papers in order. The walk to the office should’ve been a simple affair, but instead Naruto stopped them every two seconds to yell at someone, “HEY! THIS IS SASUKE! HE’S NEW HERE AND HE’S MY BEST FRIEND! OKAY, TALK LATER!” as Sasuke dragged him away. He didn’t care about Naruto’s other friends, really he didn’t.

Sakura and Ino were chatting by the office doors Naruto had disappeared into before he could even greet them. The other set of best friends exchanged a look.

The guy with Naruto had to be new, there was no way they would’ve overlooked someone so hot. At least, those were Ino’s words. Sakura kept looking at the door, hoping he would appear again. She just got this feeling in her chest when he walked by, one that she wanted to feel again.

“Forehead? Are you even listening to me?” Ino waved her hand in front of Sakura’s face. Sakura blinked and shed her blank expression. She wondered which classes he would be put in.

Inside the office, Sasuke briefly wondered if this school allowed students to dye their hair such a vivid shade of bubblegum.

It turned out that Sasuke was placed in all of Sakura’s classes, so she didn’t have to wonder. For some reason, Sakura felt like it would’ve been a mistake if he was in any other classes but hers. What if his old school went at a slower pace and he needed her help catching up? What if he got lost on campus? What if he forgot his lunch? What if he was her soulmate?

Sakura tried to shake away those kinds of thoughts; it wouldn’t do to pine over someone who could very easily have a soul bond with someone who was, well, not her. Soul marks blossomed on the skin at age twenty, so she would probably never know who Sasuke’s soulmate was. Sure, a girl could dream, but nothing more. She shouldn’t waste precious studying time on a boy. At the moment, getting into college was far more important—at least, that’s what she told herself when her thoughts wandered to a certain dark haired classmate.

But despite genuinely wondering if he needed any help transitioning to a new school, Sakura spoke to people who didn’t share a single class with her more frequently than she spoke to Sasuke. He was smart and studious, and already after the first week she could tell he wouldn’t need her assistance. Beyond academics, Naruto took up a considerable portion of Sasuke’s social life. He was just so excited to have his best friend with him, he could hardly stand to let Sasuke out of his sight. Group project? Okay, Sasuke, you’ll do all the work and I can do the bibliography? Bathroom break? Naruto swore by the buddy system, so let’s go Sasuke! Lunch? Naruto would have ramen with a generous side of Sasuke, please!

Senior year was going to fly by, so Sakura assumed she would miss out on making a new friend out of Sasuke. Even with her days jam packed with senior activities, she found herself looking around to see if Sasuke would show up. Wherever he was, how was he doing? Was he having a good year? (Later, Sasuke would reveal that he was just shy. He felt it was a pity that their assigned seats were never as close as he wanted them to be.)

To say she was surprised when he sought her out at the end of the year would be an understatement.

“You’ll make a good valedictorian. I don’t like speeches.” He placed their final graded math test in front of her. The red ink of their teacher’s pen wrote, “What happened?” with a big circle around a clearly careless (and costly) mistake. Grades didn’t matter for college anymore, only for final class rankings. For his year’s worth of smug looks when he earned a higher score, this was certainly unexpected. Had Sasuke purposely thrown his math grade so Sakura would be number one?

Sasuke walked away with his hands stuffed in his pockets before she could respond. She looked cute when she was surprised, but he knew she would look beautiful when delivering her speech. He noticed that her eyes sparkled when she spoke about something she was passionate about.

He just wasn’t quite sure why he cared at all.

A/N: I got a request to post my stuff here too instead of just ao3 and ff, so I’m starting now! hope you like it :) working on a master list!

#my writing #sasusaku #soulmate au

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madara-fate · 6 years

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Sakura only had development in strength, but mentally, her relationships with other characters, it's the same, that's what I don't like about her. She punches Naruto in both Naruto and Shippuden. She is obsessed with Sasuke in both Naruto and Shippuden. She is a bad friend to Ino in both Naruto and Shippuden. To me, strength doesn't mean much if a character has a shitty personality.

I apologise for my bluntness Anon, but that’s an utterly stupid argument, I’m not even gonna bother sugarcoating the silliness of what you just said because the fandom has been getting on my nerves lately, and this isn’t helping.

I could go on for ages giving example after example of how Sakura’s relationships with many of her peers improved greatly over the course of the series, but I’ll limit it to just the three people you mentioned.

NARUTO

You’re literally basing your entire argument on the fact that Sakura still sometimes hit Naruto in Part 2, which is already enough to discredit your entire point. This is a very common trope that’s played for laughs in shounen anime and is never to be taken as an accurate depiction of their actual relationship. I would have thought this would be common knowledge but I suppose not. I myself absolutely despise the trope, I don’t find it funny at all, and it is indeed one of the things that I don’t like about Sakura’s character, but I can at least acknowledge that it’s not at all used to signify anything regarding the strength of her relationship with Naruto.

In case you’ve forgotten some of the very obvious ways her relationship with Naruto improved over the course of the series, let me give you a reminder.

She went from flat out stating that she hated Naruto:

To sincerely worrying about him and trying to cheer him up because she though the nerves of the Chuunin Exams were getting to him:

She went from rudely treating Naruto as nothing but an obstacle she had to manoeuvre around in order to get to Sasuke:

To being willing to put her own progression as a ninja on hold all for Naruto’s sake, because she didn’t want to see his dream get taken away from him:

She went from thinking that Naruto ruined everything, enjoyed tormenting her, and how she didn’t want to be anywhere near him:

To recalling that very moment, regretting her words deeply because she knew how close Naruto and herself had gotten, and thanking him for all he had done for her, because she now knew that Naruto did indeed understand her:

Why? Because their relationship had improved enough for her to be able to see and acknowledge this.

So no Anon, there was far more to Sakura and Naruto’s relationship than simply her hitting him for laughs when it wasn’t warranted.

SASUKE

If you honestly think that the genuine desire to save your loved one from a very dark place can only be considered to be an “obsession”, then I think you need to re-familiarise yourself with the term. What exactly demonstrated that she was “obsessed” with Sasuke? Please elaborate, because I can already see how easy it’s gonna be for me to disprove whatever answer you choose to formulate.

Something also tells me that regardless of your answer (if you even choose to give one), Naruto is gonna be far more guilty of it than Sakura is, and yet Sakura is somehow always the one who is labelled as obsessive, despite Naruto chasing after Sasuke a lot harder, but that’s a separate issue.

The issue here is you thinking that Sakura’s relationship with and her feelings for Sasuke stayed the same. In which case…

Please explain the apparent similarities between Sakura staring at Sasuke with hearts in her eyes:

And her risking her life to protect him without an ounce of hesitation:

Please explain the apparent similarities between Sakura barely being able to contain her fangirl tendencies:

To her having stayed by Sasuke’s side everyday, helping to nurse him back to health, and demonstrating sincere concern for his well being, and relief when he finally woke up:

Please explain the apparent similarities between Sakura shouting how cool Sasuke was with hearts in her eyes once again:

To her demonstrating to him that she took his words regarding the pain of loneliness to heart, and not only signifying to him how that was the last thing she wanted for him, but also that if he were to leave, she would also experience loneliness:

So no Anon, Sakura’s relationship with Sasuke most definitely did not remain the same throughout the story, nor should it be considered an obsession.

INO

Now what exactly do you constitute as being a “bad friend”? Sakura and Ino were rivals at the beginning of the series so they obviously weren’t going to be on the best of terms. However, before you go and tell me the typical nonsense about how Sakura “abandoned their friendship over Sasuke”, I’ll save you the trouble and say that no she didn’t. What Sakura did was distance herself from Ino because she no longer wanted to be under her shadow.

Ino knew that Sakura had the potential to bloom into a flower more beautiful than the cosmos, but she had become too conformable with the dynamics of their relationship - with her being the undisputed alpha, saying things like how Sakura was still just “a bud”, and it was these sentiments that eventually led to Sakura deciding to step away from Ino and allow herself to grow as a person:

Their rivalry over Sasuke only gave Sakura more incentive to do what she had already wanted to do for a while. She said it herself, she was no longer her little tag along, and Ino knew exactly what she meant, because the rift between them wasn’t about Sasuke and it was never about Sasuke. That’s why she thought to herself that she got it:

But even after they made up following their fight in the Chuunin exams, their rivalry would of course still continue, because that’s just their relationship; It’s vitriolic in nature, but there’s no malice, only endearment. “Forehead Girl” and “Ino Pig” will always try one upping each other, but that doesn’t mean that one of them is being a “bad friend” to the other:

I can only assume that the only reason you think Sakura was apparently a bad friend during Part 2 was because she was looking forward to hearing Sai say something that would get Ino riled up when they were getting to know him, but that was just another example of them trying to one up each other for bragging right purposes. There are plenty of other examples in the story of both of them trying to do this, with an example from Ino’s side being shown in the image above when they were getting flowers during Part 1, and she stated that she didn’t want to let Sakura get a leg up on her.

However, despite the best friends being vitriolic on the surface, they were still indeed best friends, and they spent a lot of time together following their reconciliation as an indication of this:

And this continued throughout Part 1, Part 2, the Novel arcs and even well into the New Generation. They may bicker, but they’re the best of friends:

So no, Sakura wasn’t a bad friend to Ino at all.

I’ll even give you a bonus example, just because I can…

LEE

Sakura went from being made to cringe at the sight of Lee winking at her, and making fun of his hairstyle and eyebrows:

To deeply caring and worrying over him as he was pushing himself too far on the road to recovery:

So much so that she went out of her way to also get him a flower in the hopes that he would get better soon:

So please Anon, I’d ask that you reconsider labelling all of Sakura’s relationships with her peers as having been stagnant, and downplaying her as having a shitty personality because in terms of the growth of her character, she went from being obnoxiously ignorant towards the beginning, to a very caring person, and this was before even halfway through Part 1. By no means was her strength and her skills as a Kunoichi the only things about her that developed over time.

#Sakura Haruno #Naruto Uzumaki #Sasuke Uchiha #sasusaku #Ino Yamanaka #Rock Lee

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greed-the-dorkalicious · 6 years

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yeah it was a serious bc i've like heard of it?? like a lot but its confusing and i genuinely don't even know what the genre or plot is

Ok sorry for getting to this so late, I was out all day, but I’ll try my best to explain

Basically, Jojo is a generational saga about the members of the Joestar bloodline. Idk what genre it would be considered, maybe like… urban fantasy or something? Like, it doesn’t take place in a fantasy world or anything, but there are fantasy elements, so it might be (to choose an arbitrary example) Regular Ass Florida In 2011 but everyone has magic punch ghosts and also vampires are real.

The series has been going since 1987 and is divided up into (currently) 8 fairly self-contained “parts”. Each part features a different setting, protagonist, and plot, and doesn’t always have a lot to do with the other parts, but they’re all tied together by common themes: Occasional recurring characters (for example, the protagonist of a previous part coming back as an adult supporting character), basic concepts like hamon, stands, and vampires, and of course bloodlines. And the Hirohiko Araki Certified Major Character Death Formula™.

Tbh one of the things I really like about Jojo is that even though it’s a Long Ass Manga like Naruto or DBZ or whatever, because each part tells a different story and is only loosely connected to the others, you don’t necessarily have to start at the beginning and read all the way through. It also doesn’t suffer much from things like filler, writer burnout, or “quick how do we make this villain a bigger deal than the last big deal”- most Jojo villains aren’t necessarily “the Strongest Ever” or trying to take over the world or anything, so much as just causing problems for a specific set of people. The main villain of part 4, for example, is a serial killer who operates within one particular small town.

The main important fantasy elements in Jojo are vampires, and stands. Jojo Vampires function a little differently from traditional vampires, but I don’t have to explain them much, because they’re vampires. Stands, which the series is probably best known for, are a manifestation of a person’s “fighting spirit” that can take various forms depending on the person; Main characters generally have stands that appear as vaguely humanoid spirits that can fight, and usually have some sort of gimmick, like healing powers or pyrokinesis or the ability to turn into string. Other stands might appear as less humanoid things, or just plain old superpowers. In general (there are exceptions), stands can only be seen by other stand users, can only be affected by other stands (though they can affect non-stand objects), and any damage dealt to a stand is transferred to the user.

Jojo is also known for ridiculous fashion, ridiculous poses, ridiculousness in general, and references to western rock and pop music. It’s a very fun series with some really great characters, but if you decide to check it out, I will give you some things to keep in mind:

Don’t come here expecting Fullmetal Alchemist. Jojo is, frankly, pretty poorly written in a lot of ways. This doesn’t necessarily make it a bad series, but you have to understand this and come into it ready to just relax and laugh at it without expecting a literary masterpiece.

It is NOT for kids, for sure. I mean, it’s not exactly Higurashi, but it can get gory at times and there are some dark themes and, especially in later parts, sex jokes. I wouldn’t say it’s the sort of series you necessarily need to stay away from if you don’t like straight up horror, but I REALLY wouldn’t recommend it to anyone under the age of 17 or so.

Anyone can die. Seriously. It’s not one of those shows that just slowly picks off characters one by one until everyone’s dead (…well. for the most part), but do expect that for any given part, generally about three or so major characters will die. This isn’t always true, but in general with Jojo it’s safe to assume that if you like someone, they’ll probably die. I mean, they might not, but don’t get too attached and expect them to live.

#Anonymous #Asks

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kopfkinoes · 6 years

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I’ve been a Naruto fan for like 13 years now but after the manga ended I pretty much left the fandom because I anticipated the vitriol that was going to follow after the ending. Every once in a while I stumbled upon a Naruto post that made me realize I had been right and I didn’t interact. But at the end of 2017 I came back and…nothing has changed. I honestly think this is one of the worst, most immature fandoms out there. I feel like so many of the people in the fandom are perpetual twelve year olds. And it kind of bothers me that Sasuke and Sakura, my absolute favourites since day one, are still disrespected as fuck. Now, mind you, I’m not talking about the ship, I’m talking about them as individual characters although I do ship them. I’ve multishipped for a long, long time but not anymore.

They are the first ones I shipped because I had a feeling stuff was bound to happen between them but then I discovered the wonders of the web and instantly moved to ship Naruto and Sasuke. I never once hated Sakura and Hinata though and even in the later years when “feminist” rhetoric moved into fandoms, I took the “these women are strong and powerful and I love them, they don’t need no man” thing to be good. But after the ending, and now seeing how many of the people who ship Naruto and Sasuke are downright anti-Sakura and insult and disrespect her in so many ways I realized “Wow! I had been an idiot all along. These people never gave a shit about Sakura, they were saying all of that stuff to get her out of the way.” I don’t see people talking about how Naruto and Sasuke’s bond diminishes their battle abilities, I see none of the shippers implying that their development would be flushed down the drain if they ended up in a relationship. Yet, that is apparently true for the women. Right.

Sasuke is a character with a lot of potential. But he was never able to evolve. And do you know why? Because of Naruto. Sasuke was created in order to be the opposite of Naruto and, for the most part, that is all remains to be. I’ve been staning Sasuke forever but this is the truth. He exists in order to be Naruto’s rival and in order to be pissed that he, a guy coming from a clan of prodigies, keeps falling behind the class clown and loser (who is anything but that when you think of it, Minato was anything but a weak guy and Kushina, while we don’t get a good look at her abilities, has loads of stamina and healing powers and her abilities were considered exceptional even among the Uzumaki, not to mention how easily Naruto masters everything new he tries). In the end, he is subdued by Naruto and the Will of Fire.

Even after all of this, he is still not allowed to be around his family. Why? Simply because he needs to be the opposite of Naruto. He needed to point a sword at his own daughter and it was Naruto who had to comfort and reassure her. Sasuke will never be an overly affectionate person, I don’t think he will ever realistically go back to his pre-massacre personality (he wasn’t exactly super bubbly as a child either, he was reserved around other people but very happy around his family) and frankly, he doesn’t need to. He wouldn’t ever be a husband who does grand romantic gestures or a super cuddly father but he’s loyal and devoted and these things shouldn’t be brushed away for some mission or for creating angst just to prove that Naruto is a better, more understanding person that he’ll ever be, even when it comes to Sarada. Like, for fuck’s sake, does everything Sasuke does need to happen right before Naruto waltzes in and puts him in his place by being a better person? Can Sasuke not be a person in his own right without the constant comparisons to Naruto?

What I also find interesting is how often I see Sasuke becoming completely OOC when paired with Naruto. Of course everybody says Sasuke is OOC when paired with Sakura but frankly I’ve rarely seen Sasuke presented as lovey dovey around Sakura, people usually want him to be proud of her but he stays his usual tepid self. Because that’s Sasuke’s personality, he’s not a conventionally affectionate person and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why it bothers me when I see Sasuke made to be a soft, sensitive, pastel boy aesthetic. He’s not that and he wouldn’t be that even if he were gay. I mean, I understand headcanons but don’t root them in the “seme and uke” dynamics, please.

Moving on, I have a particular kind of contempt for people suggesting Sasuke cheated on Sakura with Karin. It makes absolutely no sense character-wise and it just shits all over Sasuke by assuming he’s a disgusting fucker who would cheat. Are you telling me that the dude who didn’t even consider taking advantage of even a single one of the girls who were fawning over him would have a face-heel turn and cheat? Yeah, right. I don’t understand how you can call yourself a Sasuke fan and genuinely support cheating. Why would Sasuke wait to be with Sakura in order to have sex with Karin when he and Karin had so many opportunities to bang prior to this while they were travelling together as a team? Why would he have a child with Karin and just dump the child on Sakura’s head? I don’t even want to hear superiority arguments that go along the lines of “Karin is an Uzumaki so she has superior genes compared to Sakura who doesn’t come from a clan” because…arguments like these are disgusting. I don’t think it was ever even slightly implied that Sasuke (or the Uchiha for that matter) held beliefs like this. If anything, these guys didn’t like being othered and set apart from the rest of the village. I don’t think Sasuke ever implied that he believes some vaginas are not genetically pure enough for him to get into so please don’t put these shitty beliefs on him. Sasuke was described as “pure”. It’s simply the way he is. I really don’t care that you think he’s not a “True Hetero Guy” unless he cheats and/or has sex with loads of women.

I always see people saying fans who ship Sasuke and Sakura are “disgusted” by the thought of Sasuke having sex with someone else. But do you know how many people I’ve seen saying how grossed out Sasuke must be by being around pussy (specifically Sakura’s) and how he probably cries and is traumatized by the experience? I’ve yet to see people talking about how Sasuke must be super disgusted by dick.

Moving on to Sakura, pretty much 100% of the vitriol I’ve seen thrown at her comes from misogyny. People always like to say it’s not misogyny and yet it always is. It comes from Kishimoto himself and his ideas of women. He constantly described Sakura as “not cute” and “a hard woman”. And it’s true, Sakura’s not demure or submissive and doesn’t appear to be very suited for domesticity. I don’t believe that just because she is loud and outspoken she would make a dreadful wife and mother. She was very shy as a child (mostly because she was insecure) but she grew into herself. About her not being cute, I’d say that’s debatable. Kishimoto said she’s not cute in the beginning and I see a lot of haters talking about “that ugly bitch Sakura” but let me tell you this, Naruto and Rock Lee had pretty intense crushes on her and Jiraiya compared her appearance to Tsunade’s (although the man’s trash when it comes to women but you get my point). What do people base their opinions on when they say she’s ugly? On her exaggerated anger expressions? Because Sakura is not drawn as prettier or uglier than any of the other female characters. Is it based on the fact that people love to bring up time and time again, that she doesn’t have big breasts? Yeah, she doesn’t have breasts as big as Tsunade’s or Hinata’s or even Ino’s but what does that have to do with anything? Nope, this is rooted in misogyny because, just like in real life, when you don’t like a woman you insult her based on her body and appearance because you believe that’s where all the worth of a woman is. Besides, don’t you think there something wrong with focusing so much on the body type of a girl aged 12 to 17? Because I think there is.

I always feel like laughing at people who call her stupid because Sakura is a nerd. This is why she was paired with the more battle prone Naruto and Sasuke because she was too much brains and not enough brawn. I know that it was Ino, Shino and Sasuke that graduated top of the class but, according to the Databooks, none of them beat Sakura in intelligence, she is equal to Shino and higher than Ino and Sasuke. People love to say that her being able to do the written part of the Chunin Exam all by herself doesn’t prove that she’s actually smart, buddy, it does. The fact that she’s smart doesn’t make the rest of the students who cheated idiots. That was the point of the test, the questions were too difficult for 12 year old genin to answer. The fact that Sakura could, however, isn’t bullshit. You wouldn’t call an exceptionally gifted kid who can answer really advanced academic questions “not that smart really, it doesn’t prove anything”. Freaking Sasuke commented on her analytical abilities, she’s an extremely skilled med-nin, she is able to put pieces of information she’s previously learnt together in order to form a present opinion, her hobbies are trivia games and memorizing medical ninjutsu material for God’s sake.

I definitely don’t think comparing her to Hinata achieves anything. Hinata does represent the ideas Kishimoto seems to have about women. She is soft-spoken, she is never confrontational, she never wants to offend anybody. Sure, Hinata also has her insecurities and doesn’t place much value on herself (we have her father to thank for that) but even after getting out of that shell and discovering she has some iron at her core, she is still mostly soft. That’s not a bad thing at all, it’s simply who she is as a person and it doesn’t make her better or worse than Sakura. I know that Sakura fans have always been bullied online, from forums to YouTube to tumblr to any other comment section of blogs and stuff, people have always thrown shit at Sakura, saying she’s useless, a whore, an idiot. The amount of times I’ve seen people wish violent, horrible deaths on Sakura (for the sole reason that she didn’t spread her legs for Naruto being the catalyst in pretty much 100% of the cases) is immense. The amount of times I’ve seen people wishing Hinata would kill Sakura “for what she did to Naruto” is huge. So based on this, I understand why Sakura fans feel the need to get defensive. I don’t agree with putting Hinata down but I understand why some people might do it. I’ll never put down someone’s fav (especially when the fav is as unproblematic as Hinata who honestly did nothing wrong) but I definitely understand why some people will do it.

Naruto is a shonen, battle manga. We will never get 100% healthy relationships in this because the manga is not focused on romance. It is why the relationships between Sasuke and Sakura and Naruto and Hinata were not greatly developed and why there was an overemphasis on Naruto and Sasuke’s bond which is basically “we’re forever competing to see who’s better”. Kishimoto based it on his relationship with his brother but I’m pretty sure he took it up to eleven in the manga. Because Naruto is a manga for whom the target audience is boys, female characters will never be 100% appreciated. Most of the boys watching identify with the downtrodden outcast, guys such as Lee or Naruto. It’s a thing, associated with the stereotype of the Western man who watches anime, a stereotype that is proved to be correct in most cases, sadly. How many of these guys think they’re gems, that they’re precious souls to have around and girls just don’t see them for what they are? Both Naruto and Lee are very loved among male fans and they are both rejected by Sakura. (I could also say something about the stereotypes Western anime watching men place on Japanese women, namely “the pliant, submissive wife, who would do house chores all day, would never say no to sex and worship them as the much better versions of Japanese men that they are” but I’m not going there.) Never cruelly though, she remains friendly with both of them. Her bond with Naruto is very strong and they’re actually a pretty rare example of a good male and female friendship (the violence that is played for laughs doesn’t really mean much to me).

However, for the male fans that is never enough. How many times did I see stuff like “She chose Sasuke although Naruto never left the village” or “Naruto did so many things for her yet she still chose Sasuke”. Dude, there was never a competition. Sakura loves Sasuke, plain and simple. You can disagree with that if you want, you can disagree with how she expresses her love for him but there was never competition. Sakura has always loved Sasuke, what she feels for him is true love. Many people don’t believe it exists but it is what it is. I find it funny (and by funny I mean idiotic to the heavens) that people always say her development was crushed because she didn’t give up on Sasuke but Naruto’s was improved by not giving up on Sasuke. This is bias and misogyny at its finest. Sasuke is not just a crush to Sakura. People always want to say Sakura was a fangirl to Sasuke and nothing more and that she simply needed to get over her obsessive crush. She wouldn’t have said all she wanted was for him to acknowledge her if he were just a crush, she wouldn’t have suffered so badly over him. Many of the village girls had a thing for Sasuke and I doubt all of them cried over Sasuke at night after he left. Only Sakura anticipated when he was going to leave. People always say that Sakura maturing would have meant her understanding that her and Sasuke are just not meant to be a thing. The thing is, she wasn’t holding on to the idea that her and Sasuke would be “a thing”. Kakashi made it pretty clear (to Sasuke and to all fans who just can’t get it in their heads) that Sakura only wanted to help him, not to get into his pants.

People are also super quick to judge the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura as abusive. Why though? All the times they were violent towards each other (and there weren’t even that many times) they weren’t dating, they were combatants on opposite sides of battle. There is nobody in this series that Sasuke is more violent towards than Naruto and yet I never see this relationship classified as abusive, instead it is considered romantic and heartfelt that he wanted to sever his bonds with Naruto in order to make a martyr out of himself and be consumed by darkness. Like, yeah, that’s super healthy. I see the same thing being said with Karin, that Sasuke impaled her simply because he wanted to cut all of his bonds, not because he actually wanted to kill her. Which is…stupid to say the least. Like, cool story, still murder. He knew that impaling her would result in killing her but damn, was he willing to make that sacrifice. The reasons why Sasuke wanted to murder the people in his life are not important. In truth, all the murder he wanted to commit was because people were getting in the way of killing Itachi and, after killing Itachi, people were getting in the way of his goal to be completely alone in order to destroy/reform Konoha. Sasuke is not a psychopath who murders for fun but that doesn’t mean he was in a good place.

I shipped Sasuke with Karin but I never saw their bond as overly emotional or true love. I’m not saying Karin doesn’t care about him but I do think her feelings for him are more in the realm of sexual than the romantic. She does care for his well-being, she wants him to be happy, she is impressed by him and wants to be around him but it’s not romantic. Does she suffer when she thinks he’s dead? Naturally. Because she cares about him and she does love him but, again, not romantically. Karin’s sexual feelings for Sasuke are not bad, they don’t make her a whore or whatever. But it’s quite silly in my opinion to mistake them for some sort of pure, true love. They’re not that and it’s fine that they’re not. We see Sakura wanting to be alone with Sasuke but she never thinks of how she’s so excited she can barely stand it and how she wants to “ravage Sasuke like crazy”. We don’t see Sakura’s reaction, upon seeing Sasuke arrive on the battlefield to be “I want to lick Sasuke all over right now”.

People always like to remind everyone that Sakura ended her friendship with Ino over Sasuke. However, we never see Sakura and Ino be hostile to each other. Compare their rivalry to the one between Sasuke and Naruto to understand what I’m saying. They had a mild dislike going on but we see them quickly overcome it in the Chunin Exams. Sakura and Ino never really gave up on their friendship, their rivalry was mostly played for laughs, I never took it seriously because I don’t think it was presented in a way that was saying “you need to take this seriously, this is the real deal”. Mostly because it dealt with who has prettier hair and who can get the seat next to Sasuke first. Nope, not serious.

Back to Hinata, this is the reason why so many of the fanboys prefer her. Look at the opinions Shikamaru, another character the fanboys adore, has about women. He is downright misogynistic but that gets overlooked in fandom time after time because of his 200 IQ. Instead, I see people saying it is Sasuke who hates women when there is no indication of that, except, you know, people who think he’s gay and because he’s gay he MUST hate all women and consider them absolutely gross (except for the, sometimes OC, self-insert in fanfiction). Just like his father, Shikamaru has this thing that women should be sweet, soft and tender not headstrong, demanding and even harsh (women like his mother, Yoshino, Ino, Temari, Tayuya). He hates receiving help from women, he is frustrated when he has to fight women. He sums up his views of women himself by saying “C'mon. You know what they’re like. You can never figure them out. You never know where you could stand with them. The smallest things could put you in their bad side. Always playing little mind games with you. Trying to make you do what they want. They’re just a big pain basically.”

For the most part, many fans linked Sakura to Kushina because of her fiery personality. Minato kinda sealed this comparison when saying Sakura reminded him of Kushina. So a lot of people, while calling Sakura an ugly bitch and a whore who needs to be raped and die, still wanted her for Naruto and believed she will ultimately change her mind and go for Naruto. Personally, I don’t care about that because so many characters in Naruto are carbon copies of people who came before them, enough similarities are enough. This idea that a guy should marry a woman just like his mother is weird for many reasons to me. It’s only men that have unhealthy relationships with their mothers that want a woman exactly like their mothers. Then the ending came so Hinata, being the embodiment of what a woman “should be” became more appropriate for Naruto in the eyes of so many fans. The fact that she fits these patterns doesn’t take away or add to Hinata’s character in any way. It just is. However, fanboys will use it in a sexist way. I definitely don’t agree with the criticism for Hinata that it’s wrong her motivation for becoming strong is Naruto. The motivation of pretty much all characters in becoming stronger is in order to protect others and there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself because you feel that would put you on more equal grounds with the one you love. This manga places great value on the power of unity and community and people who seek power for power’s sake, for revenge or for evil don’t do well. They are either defeated or they change their minds. Great emphasis is placed on the “you only become strong when you have someone you need to protect” mentality. And women are allowed to make connections in this life, they don’t have to live “lone wolf” lives in order to be “truly strong”. Loneliness is an enemy in and of itself in Naruto.

Kishimoto’s views on women are not necessarily progressive but they’re not exactly bad in my opinion. It all has to do with how fanboys twist his ideas and make them bad. Because I don’t think he ever blamed Sakura for not hooking up with Naruto. I know there are people who believe that he’s holding onto the belief that people (and women especially) must forever be with their first love. I think it just so happens that Naruto and Sasuke were Hinata’s and Sakura’s first loves but, more important, they are their true loves. Ino moved on and I see people saying she shouldn’t have. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t I guess. To sum up, I’ve yet to see dislike for Sakura that’s not misogynistic. I’m not even talking about people who think she’s weak. She is the only one who’s not from a clan and yet she managed to surpass Tsunade, a Sannin. She was impaled by Madara and shook it off immediately, she saved Naruto’s, Kankuro’s, Hinata’s and Karin’s lives, she saved Sasuke from an infinte desert, she saved Obito from a sea of acid, she punched an alien all-powerful goddess in the face.

People saying shipping Sakura and Hinata with the guys they’re canonically in love with proves their fans are selfish because they just want them to look cute next to Sasuke and Naruto amuse me. That if you really cared about them you’d ship them with guys who “actually” care about them like Lee or Kiba or whatever. Dude, people love who they love. And a woman has no obligation to be with a man who was friendly and nice to her, not even a man who has a crush on her if she’s not attracted to him or doesn’t love him.

#my post #not even going to tag this because not only am i not trying to start a fight i don't want any #these are simply my thoughts #i never thought i'd be this involved in this fandom in my 20s #mind you i don't think either of these relationships are abusive #like i said this is a battle manga with battle situations #combatants fight it's the way it is #but if you're gonna consider one abusive based on standards you made up #might as well not be a hypocrite and consider all ships abusive #even the ones you like #honestly all the pseudo arguments i've read are baseless #just admit you don't like certain ships and move on #no need to give justification #because you're tying yourself in knots and just soundind like a jerk

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furiouskanekicollector · 7 years

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LGBT+ Representation in Voltron and Neil Kaplan's words

I don't expect literally anyone to read this, but I needed to say it. Out of all the discourse that Voltron has generated, the LGBT+ issue is the one that is nearest and dearest to my heart especially since a lot of the discourse surrounding it is focused on ship wars and age discourse. This has nothing to do with whether I want Klance to be canon or if I think Shiro should have sex with Keith.

Rather, representation is something that is very important to me and Voltron is another show that seems to be dropping the ball. Now, we don't have the entire show yet and yes, I know there are likely many seasons to go in the show. But, it bothers me that numerous people involved in the creation of Voltron have declared that we will have LGBT+ representation and avidly supported LGBT+ causes outside of the show, yet for two seasons all we have is heterosexual representation. Which, some defend and say it is not a show that focuses on sexuality or romance. Ok, fine, I agree, but we still have the following:

1. Lance flirting with every female and I mean every female (except Pidge).

2. Depictions of hetereosexual marriages (Pidge's family)

3. Hunk and Shay as the only real, main canonical romance so far.

Even for a show that is "totally not about sexuality and romance" we have numerous representations of heterosexual romance and sexuality.

Because that is seen as normal and acceptable for a kid’s show. LGBT+ characters are not. And, I fully believe that Voltron will eventually have representation. But, I am less confident that it will be anything particularly compelling. Like, they will have Coran be gay and show five seconds of him with a guy not even holding hands. Or, Pidge will turn out to be a lesbian, but it will be such a subtle reveal that I don't even realize it until after the show on Tumblr. Or, they will declare someone gay after the show has ended.

Which is perhaps unfair of me to assume the worst of them, but, again, for two seasons we have had heterosexual romance and sexuality front and center (Lance and Nyma was basically an entire episode of Lance trying to get in her pants. That was literally the basis for the entire episode) and pretty much nothing LGBT+ except fan hopes and dreams and possibility. Like, did Pidge hesitate at that bathroom for a reason other than confusion over the alien signs? Did Keith hold Lance's hand for a second too long while helping him up when Lance got injured?

See how subtle those are compared to Lance constantly making sexual and flirty comments toward females or Hunk and Shay being adorable together?

What if Shay had been coded male? Or if Hunk went after Rax? Or if Lance flirted with aliens coded male and female?

Which leads me to Neil Kaplan's words. I love Neil Kaplan, full disclosure. He is brilliant as Zarkon (and Madara from Naruto). He is hilarious on twitter. Which, is why today disappointed me.

Using his own words-

https://twitter.com/NeKap/status/849667576082780160

Here, he states that this person chose to believe a character wasn't bisexual when that person could have imagined a character to be bisexual. He says not doing so is not believing in "free thought"

https://twitter.com/NeKap/status/849667576082780160

and then, I literally laughed out loud at this one

https://twitter.com/NeKap/status/849670649970778112

He asks the same person if they ever asked anyone if it is ok to not be straight and imagines a possibility where they say "yes its ok!!"

I have no idea where to start, so here goes.

Good representation is not telling LGBT+ people to imagine characters who are coded straight as possibly being bisexual. It just isn't.

As a child, I didn't even realize that bisexual people existed. Literally, no idea they existed. I say this as a bisexual person. Bisexuality was never represented anywhere. I lived in a conservative area where homosexual individuals were only spoken about in whispers, let alone bisexual people or transgendered individuals. All I knew was that I had feelings that were wrong, reinforced by everything around me, including the shows I watched where there was no representation (I am even including homosexual representation in this-I cannot think of a single LGBT+ character from my childhood).

I was sad, I was lonely, I was in denial, I hid from myself for a long time. Every relationship I saw was straight, in cartoons, movies, books, in real life, you name it. As a child, all I knew was that I was alone and wrong.

The first time I saw a healthy representation of a homosexual relationship, I cried. It was life-changing for me.

I think back on what a difference it would have made if there had been even one bisexual or homosexual character for me to look up to, telling me that what I felt wasn't wrong. That it didn't make me a disgusting pervert or pedophile or slut who wants attention (all stuff said to LGBT+ individuals).

Representation matters. Positive representation matters. This is something that is quite literally scientifically proven. For example, there are heaps of studies done about representation of black individuals in shows geared toward children-how damaging it can be when all the good people and pretty people and princesses are white while all the bad people are black (or there are no black people).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkpUyB2xgTM

One easy example. I can provide literature though (like, peer reviewed studies).

Representation matters. Actual representation-not telling children to "imagine" representation in characters that only ever express interest in the opposite sex.

And then, the last tweet I linked. Oh boy. So, it is on children to ask people if it is ok to be gay or bisexual and then he imagines that person saying it is ok? Am I reading that right? Please tell me if I am not.

Because we still live in a world where gay kids get booted out of houses and conversion therapy where they electrocute us exists. Or, the church we go to every week tells us we will burn in hell for having perverted urges like wanting to hold someone's hand that is the same sex as us. Who exactly do you see these children approaching about this, exactly?

I like Voltron a lot and I still like Neil Kaplan. I think he is dead wrong here, but I am hoping that perhaps someone more eloquent than me can explain these things to him one day. I can't imagine what type of background he has in life and I don't know his journey, but I am imagining someone telling children and confused teenagers just to "imagine" representation where it doesn't exist and exercise free thought probably doesn't live in a world where they are taught their feelings will send them to hell or their parents might beat them or throw them out of the house for having those feelings.

Because that is what some people have lived through and are living through as we speak. And that is why representation matters so much to me now as someone who is older and can and does imagine anything I want now. This isn't about Klance. This isn't about a ship. This isn't about Shiro or how old he is. This is about the kids that I know are sitting at home watching this show, scared to death because they have realized that they probably aren't straight. Terrified of how their parents will react. Scared of going to hell. And how life-changing it could be to have one character who makes you feel normal and safe. One character that isn't straight who is accepted and loved anyway. I wish I had that as a child. I wish children now could have that.

I hope Voltron comes through for them. I really, genuinely hope it does.

#voltron: legendary defender #Voltron #VLD #lgbt #I'm sorry #Discourse

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sarazanmai · 7 years

Text

Thoughts on the “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” English dub. Episode one.

hello again. this is going to be an interesting experience because while I have read all of Jojo I have not actually watched every episode. also when the dub was first dropped I remember just hating what little I heard of it apart from Patrick Seitz as Dio. I think now that the dust has settled and I’m over the fact that Jonathan and Joseph sport British accents its worth it to actually look at it and judge it appropriately. because let’s face it you can’t gauge how a dub is by watching three short clips from it

I also think its going to be good going back to Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency because honestly PB is very underrated within the fandom and while I still think BT is the weakest plot wise it still contains some of my favorite characters in the series as well as some very great moments. I am of the firm belief that you cannot skip Jojo parts. you cannot start with SDC, I don’t care if you think Hamon was stupid or find the idea of PB and BT boring. you have to at least watch this because otherwise you will not understand why Jonathan is so important, you will get none of Dio’s development as its all confined to PB, and you’re missing out on a large reason why Joseph is such a great character (he’s more than an old man shouting “OH MY GOD”).

I don’t think this is me being unfair. I’m not saying you have to go read all eight parts of Jojo within a span of a month or anything. I just think you should start from the beginning and progress forward. if you’re most excited for SDC or DIU that’s okay, but you can’t use them as a starting point because contrary to what some have claimed all Jojo parts are interconnected

anyhow let’s go

so its interesting that Dario of all characters is the first one to talk

he’s voiced by Steve Kramer, you know Wiseman from Sailor Moon and the Third Hokage from Naruto

his accent is kinda inconsistent, but to be honest I’m going to do my best to not nitpick everyone’s accent too much

holy shit is that Dio’s mom?

why isn’t she blond? I kinda always headcanonned her as blond. then again I should be happy she’s here at all

also I am trying to comb Jojo wiki, but I can’t find who voices her

and there’s the Stone Mask, it sure is....stoney

hello Jorge, I don’t like you to be honest because you were a dick to your son

he is played by Marc Diraison who was Guts in the Berserk dub and voices Ging Freecss in the HXH dub

okay so Jonathan and Dio sounding so old at the age of twelve, the Japanese version did the same thing and its weird things like this that kinda give the series its charm

same goes with them not looking twelve at all, Araki has never been good at drawing children so just roll with it

Dio who holds a book like that?

I like how fandom likes to claim Dio has no reason for being the way he is when that’s actually wrong. he hated his father for what he did to his mother and for keeping him in destitution because his drinking was more important to him, ironically some of his father’s hedonism still rubbed off on him

guess you shoulda read the Phantom Blood!

who gives a twelve year old wine!?

ERINA

she is voiced by Michelle Ruff and WOW people love having her play romantic interest to Johnny Yong Bosch’s characters don’t they? too bad Rukia and Ichigo weren’t a thing in the end

“I’ve never met her, but I’ll fight for her all the same!” I love Jonathan

so....did the anime just skip over the fact that Dario abused and worked Dio’s mother to death and sold all her belongings despite his son’s protests stating “what use to I have for some dead bitch’s things” which instigated Dio murdering him?

JONATHAN JUST WANTED TO BE A GENTLEMAN FUCK YOU DIO

okay the anime should have kept the stuff about Dio’s mom and the fact that he murdered Dario because if I didn’t read the manga I just would have assumed Dario died of illness

aaaaaand pose

“you must be Dio Brando, right?” Jonathan if I were you I’d take Danny and run

said it before, say it again, if you are sensitive to dogs being hurt don’t watch Jojo

“you will treat him as you would my own son” but you sure won’t you piece of shit

one of my favorite things the fandom convinced non fans was that Dio killed a dog in self defense, like guys....

I never understood why Dio tugged on his earlobe like that

literally the worst thing about Jonathan was that he was a sloppy eater, he didn’t deserve any of this

“tch what an oaf” well at least he didn’t die from a deus ex machina

Johnny’s doing a better job than I remember

“damn that Dio, its terrible. he’s ruining everything he touches” you have no idea

I.....hate that the anime make Danny anatomically correct

people make a big deal about Jonathan feeding Danny a grape, but I genuinely don’t think Araki knows this is a bad thing to do to a dog

this is one of my favorite Dio outfits

KISS

okay....he’s gonna say it in three...two...one...

“you thought your first kiss would be Jojo, but it was I Dio!”

I think my favorite thing about Patrick Seitz is when he was announced as Dio he memed us, he took that picture and wrote “you were expecting Dio, but it was me Patrick!” like sir

and Erina washes her mouth out with mud because she’s a BAMF like that (also because Dio’s breath probably smells like death)

did Jonathan jump over a fountain?

KER SMASH

“Dio’s crying” I love this song

goodbye Danny, you’ll be referenced in SBR as a rat which is kinda a downgrade but still

who is this narrator anyway?

he’s David Vincent who voices Robin in Fire Emblem and Smash Bros

Dio you never learn to master your temper, I think it actually gets worse

I’ll be the rooooooooundabout

tune in next time where Speedwagon enters coolly and Jorge bites the dust

#angelina reads jojo

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l3nsman · 7 years

Text

My Right Hand Part 3

Part 1/Part 2 FF Link

As I said, the third chapter was half-written so I finished it a lot quicker. The next chapter is going to be done from scratch so it will probably take me a bit longer to update. I will try to provide regular updates, I really love this setting, but, as always, I am not making any promises. It will depend on the response I get. If you like this story, please reblog it. It will give me drive to write more.

See, the reason I don’t update my fanfics very often and I choose to focus on other projects is that it takes a lot of time to write a 4000+ word chapter and more often than not, I feel like my time is wasted, especially now that the NaruHina train has slowed down considerably.

So if you like it, support it.

Before I start, a big shoutout to @entous-art (aka @entou) who inspired this and @sasaki-nh for allowing me to use her beautiful artwork in FanFiction Net.

“dialogue”

‘thoughts’

flashback/ messages

Nine months ago…

Naruto came back from his scheduled trip at the hospital to find some bags hanging on his apartment’s door handle. There was a note pinned on the door. He recognized the handwriting immediately.

My dearest Naruto-Kun,

I prepared some food for you. I hope you enjoy it.

Hinata.

He grinned widely. It had become a sort of a routine for him. Every time he came back home, either from the hospital, or from a mission there was some food on the door waiting.

He didn’t know how she did it. One would expect that her schedule would get in the way. That she would be on long missions, that she would want to take a freaking break from making food for him every now and then. But no, that bag full of food was always waiting there for him, always hanging on his door handle.

He looked forward to receiving it in fact. It somehow felt special to have somebody like Hinata cook for him. It was the first time somebody was doing something like that for him

He lowered the bag on the ground as he picked up the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. He inwardly felt a small sense of satisfaction as he realized that he was now able to do it a lot easier.

“I’m home…”

There was no response…

He sighed and slumped as he went inside…

Of course there wasn’t a response. Hinata merely helped him until he got his prosthetic. It wasn’t like she was his girlfriend or wife or anything...

For a moment he imagined what it would be like if he had actually heard her voice.

‘Welcome Back!’

He could actually picture it. Her lovely smile warming his heart as her lips formed those magic words. Her scent permeating everything inside his household. The thought of her waiting for him made his heart flutter.

Sadly, this wasn’t meant to be. She was his friend, his precious comrade. She was the person who held his hand in the war and kept him from the darkness. She didn’t see him that way.

Did she?

She did tell him she loved him.

But in what way? As a friend? As a comrade? As a fellow citizen of Konoha?

The possibility that she could love him in a romantic way, was something that he rejected right away.

Seriously, who could love him in that sort of way?

Naruto had long ago accepted the fact that romantic love would forever be out of his reach. He could become the most renowned and acknowledged shinobi in the world, he could become the one hokage to surpass all other hokage, but he would never find somebody to love him the same way his mother loved his father. He had accepted that this was the one dream, he would never be able to achieve.

Contrary to popular belief, Naruto’s childhood wasn’t entirely friendless. He might have been the nine-tails jinchuriki, he might have been considered a nuisance and people might have shunned him and told him to stay out of their freaking way, but he wasn’t abused, he wasn’t chased around by angry mobs and there were actually boys around his age, like Choji and Shikamaru, who seemed to actually like having him around and even played with him.

The girls on the other hand...

...The girls around his age really didn’t want him to be around them. Ino treated him like a leper, putting her nose up high and telling him he was beneath her, TenTen threatened him that she would use him as a target practise if he ever approached her again, while Sakura… well... the less said about the way Sakura treated him back then, the better. She eventually came to see him as a friend and comrade, but deep inside he knew that she never had and never would develop any sort of romantic feelings for him…

...When she told him she “loved” him back in Iron Country, he didn’t buy it for a microsecond.

As for Hinata...

...It’s safe to assume that she felt the same way as the rest of the girls felt about him. After all, she never approached him and she never talked to him back when they were kids. And whenever he happened to be close to her, she just turned red and looked away from him. She didn’t insult him, threaten him, or hurt him like the rest of the girls, she just… seemed uncomfortable around him...

...She probably considered him a nuisance too…

...Then why did she tell him that he was a “proud failure”? That she got an intense feeling in her heart whenever she saw him? Why did she tell him during the chuunin exams that she “didn't want him to disappear”?

All the other girls at that thime most certainly seemed to want him to disappear…

A loud growl from his stomach interrupted his train of thought.

“Oh, right. I need to eat something.”

He sat down in front of the table and took out Hinata’s bento-box from the bag, placing it directly in front of him. A heavenly smell hit him as he opened it and saw the food that she had prepared for him: Chopped Pork with vegetables glazed with what he came to recognize as her “special sauce”.

Vegetables… Funny...

If you were to ask him a couple of months ago about what sort of food he despises, vegetables would be at the top of his list. Kakashi-Sensei at some point tried to get him to eat them more regularly but it didn’t stick. He made it look like a joke and Naruto simply wrote it off as one of the many things his sensei deliberately did in order to piss him off.

But with Hinata it was different…

Maybe it was the way she pleaded with him to get him to eat them.

Maybe it was the way she prepared them trying to make them as tasty as possible.

Maybe it was the way she seemed to actually care about him.

Whatever the reason was, he was now, for the first time in his life, eating vegetables regularly and enjoying it.

He never thought he would enjoy eating vegetables…

But, then again, he never thought she would actually go through with her promise and stick with it!

And yet she did! After that first day where she showed up with Kiba and Shino and cleaned his apartment, she’s been making food for him and looking after him ever since.

As he placed some more of Hinata's delicious cooking inside his mouth, his mind went back to girls.

They certainly didn't like him back then, but how about now?

Ino, Sakura and TenTen didn't blatantly tell him to get out of their sight anymore,which was an improvement, but he could tell that they weren't interested in him either. They liked him as a person and a friend and nothing else.

As for the girls who seemed to be interested in him…

He first found out he had “fangirls” a few days after he got out of the hospital, about a week after Hinata showed up to clean his house. He bumped into a bunch of them on the way home from the hospital who told him that they “loved Naruto-Senpai” and that they wanted to spend some time with him.

So he took them all out for ramen and out of curiosity asked them why they liked him so much. He wasn't fishing for compliments, he genuinely wanted to find out why would someone, anyone be interested in him.

The girls proceeded to talk about how dreamy and good looking he was, about what a capable and strong Shinobi he was, about being the person who defeated Pein, who sealed Kaguya, who saved the world, who… who… who…

Who the hell were they talking about?

Because the person that they were describing seemed to be quite a different person from whom he actually was. A caricature of sorts with all his good parts exaggerated and all his bad parts overlooked. It soon became apparent to him that they weren't interested in the real Naruto, but rather the ideal Naruto that they had formed in their minds.

He had a feeling (or rather a certainty) that if those girls were to know the real him, the prankster who vandalized the Hokage monument, the screwup who farted his way out of the preliminaries in the chuunin exams…

...The weakling whose incompetence got one of his best friends killed during the 4th Shinobi War…

...They would be severely disillusioned and disappointed. Those girls didn't love and could never love “Naruto the failure”. Rather, they loved “Uzumaki Naruto”, the perfect Knight in shining armor, the fearless and infallible warrior…

...The “Hero” with a capital “H”...

He scoffed and snorted in disgust.

Him… A ”Hero”... What a joke...

Naruto looked once more at the gift Hinata gave him on the day she first visited his house. It was a Naruto-shaped “Chopstick Helper”. It was orange with spiked hair and was wearing a Konoha headband on its forehead. It had whiskers on its cheeks and it was forming a ”ram” seal, as if it was about to perform the “Shadow-Clone Jutsu”.

Naruto couldn’t help but resent it somehow…

Part of it was because Hinata didn’t feed him anymore now that he had it, but there was also something else…

...something deeper...

There was a time is his life when he was shunned by everyone in the village. When people actively feared him and loathed him for being the Nine-Tails’ jinchuriki. But through his struggles and his actions in the war, he became acknowledged not only by his own village, but also the rest of the villages that comprised the newly formed Shinobi Alliance. He was now the most recognizable face in the whole shinobi world. There wasn’t a day that didn’t pass by when somebody didn’t stop him on the street and didn’t thank him or congratulate him. Kids were now calling him ‘Naruto-Senpai’ and asked him to teach them his moves...

...And shops were now selling merchandize in his own image...

...Because he was now considered “a Hero”.

Somehow he couldn’t look at himself as a “Hero” anymore. Not after people fought wars, put their lives on the line and died trying to protect him. People who never seeked glory or recognition, but rather sacrificed themselves for what they thought was right. For their friends... for their families…

People like Neji…

The real heroes of this world will never be as famous as him. They will never get their faces on a shirt or their images plastered on an action figure. They will never have a “chopstick helper” shaped after them. They will never be recognized and they will never be acknowledged. At most they will be honoured and remembered by the people that loved them, the people who lost them, the people who cried for them...

People like Hinata…

The person who lost her cousin because of his weakness, pulled him out of his despair and was now helping him get back on his feet by literally becoming his right hand. The person who made the meal he was enjoying right now.

Why wasn’t she considered a hero? Why didn’t anyone acknowledge her? Why didn’t she have a “chopstick helper” shaped after her? Yeah! A purple one with long hair, a Konoha headband on her neck and…

...and what the heck was he thinking? How did he go from thinking about the war to imagining what a Hinata-shaped “chopstick helper” would look like?

Lately it seemed like his mind kept coming back to her. No matter what he did, no matter what he was contemplating, he would always think about her in some way, shape or form. Whenever he saw a flower, he would think about smelling it with her. Whenever he was eating something he would fantasize about eating it with her. And whenever girls tried to talk to him he would think about what it would be like to talk to her instead.

It was as if… as if she was becoming a part of him.

It’s probably because she was now helping him with his hand and all that…

Yeah… That was probably it…

Still… it would have been nice if a Hinata-shaped “Chopstick Helper” actually existed. He would buy it in a heartbeat!

He smiled as he took another bite from the food she had prepared for him. It tasted great!

Hinata was incredible, wasn’t she? She was a great cook, she was kind, she was gentle, she was soft spoken…

...she was beautiful…

...she would make a great wife to someone, some day...

...a great... wife… to someone...

An image of Hinata in a wedding dress flashed in front of his eyes. She was happily walking down the aisle holding a bouquet of flowers. She was smiling and she was happy as she approached the man who was about to marry her. He couldn’t make out the groom’s features, he could be anyone. But he was with her, he was making her happy and it wasn’t him!

Naruto felt his eyes get wet. Why did the mere thought of Hinata marrying someone make his chest hurt so much?

Hinata is a wonderful person! She deserves to find someone that makes her happy! Right?

Right!

The tears… They kept coming out! Why couldn’t he make them stop?

He heard a knock on his door. Who could it be at a time like this?

“Naruto-kun, it’s me. I am going out on a mission soon and I’ve come to check up on you, before I go. Do you need my help in anything?”

No! Not now! Not when he was like this!

“Uh… No! Ev-Everything is fine! Th-Thank you for asking.”

“Are you sure? You don’t sound fine.”

Why was he stammering? Why was he choking?

“I-I said, I’m fine! Please go away!”

“Are you… crying…?”

“N-No! I-I’m…”

“Naruto-kun, please open up! I need to see you!”

He quickly went on the toilet and splashed some water on his face before approaching the door. He quickly wiped his face, took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. He needed to appear as cheerful and happy as possible before facing her.

“I’m fine! See? All’s well!”

“Naruto-kun, why is your shirt wet?”

Crap! In his panic he hadn’t thought about changing his shirt. Not that he would be able to put it on quickly with one hand anyway.

“And why are your cheeks all puffy and red?

“It’s nothing, OK? Please, let me be!”

He felt her arms wrap around him as she pulled him into a tight hug.

“Hinata, what are you doing?”

“You don’t have to tell me what happened if you don’t feel like it. I just want you to know that I will always be by your side when you need me. I will always be there for you. No matter what.”

He allowed himself to melt inside her arms, using his right hand to pull her closer. He wanted to feel more of her, to be closer to her. He was afraid that if he let go of her now, he would lose her forever.

“Hey, Hinata, can I ask you something weird?”

“What is it?”

“Can you please repeat what you just said’?”

“No matter what?”

“No, the other part, before it.”

“Why?”

“Please… I need to hear it.”

“I will always be there for you.”

“Please, one more.”

“I will always be there for you.”

“One more.”

“I will always be there for you.”

He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent as she kept saying it. It felt intoxicating. Her touch, her warmth, made him feel…

...he couldn’t quite describe it! But whatever it was, he hadn’t felt anything like it before.

“Please… say it to me one more time…”

She bought her face close to him, looked up at him and gave him her warmest smile. He felt like his heart was going to rip itself out of his chest!

“I will always be there for you, Naruto-kun! No matter what!”

Her lips! They looked so… inviting! He wanted to…

A voice was heard from below.

“YO! BOSS! THERE YOU ARE! I WAS LOOKING ALL OVER KONOHA FOR YOU! I’VE GOT THIS SUPER ULTRA PERVERTED JUTSU I NEED TO SHOW YOU, KORE!

The realization that they now had an audience in Konohamaru snapped Naruto out of his trance and made Hinata jump in shock. They instinctively pulled away from each other and turned their backs on one another. Hinata put her hood on and pulled her jacket’s straps to hide her face as much as possible while Naruto pretended to focus on something that was apparently stuck on his door.

“Thanks for checking up on me Hinata! As you can see, I am all right now! Hahaha!”

“Y-yeah! I’m glad you’re okay now, Naruto-kun! I have to go on my mission now! Bye!”

Hinata jumped on the roof and dashed away from Naruto as fast as her feet allowed. Naruto on the other hand jumped down from his apartment landing right next to his protegee.

Konohamaru looked at him curiously.

“Uhm… Boss… Did I come at a bad time?”

Naruto mentally chastised himself. If Konohamaru hadn’t showed up at that precise moment he would have tried to…

“No, your timing was perfect, in fact.”

“Uhm, really? I didn’t interrupt anything?”

What would have happened if he had actually tried to do it? If he had actually pressed his luck and tried to take this further?

Naruto looked over at the direction of Hinata who was now a small dot in the distance. The fact that she was now running away from him as fast as she could told him all he needed to know.

She would freak out. She would be gentle in letting him down, sure, she wouldn’t be as violent as Sakura or as cruel as some of the other girls whom he asked out in the past, but she would still reject him.

At the end of the day, he was important to her but she didn’t love him.

Not in a romantic way at least.

Honestly, who could?

“Nothing that should have happened anyway.” said Naruto with a sigh.

“Huh? What’s the heck is that supposed to mean?”

Naruto gently ruffled Konohamaru’s hair and gave him one of his patented grins.

“Never mind that! Why don’t we go somewhere private and you show me that awesome new jutsu you developed!”

“All right boss! I have developed an awesome new perverted jutsu that can defeat Shinobi and Kunoichi at the same time!”

“Okay, this I’ve got to see…”

About a few miles away from the perverted jutsu specialists, Kiba and Shino were wondering why Hinata still had her hood on and why she refused to face them directly.

“Did something happen between you and Naruto?”

The white-eyed kunoichi got even redder under her hood. She couldn’t believe what had just happened! She hugged Naruto! His face was so close! She could practically feel his breath on her lips!

He looked so handsome! She wanted to kiss him! To lower his face down and bring his lips down to hers. Why, oh why didn’t she take that opportunity when she had the chance?

Images of lips connecting and tongues twirling flashed in front of her eyes.

And did she really feel something emerge from Naruto around her waist area?

Her face was practically sizzling. Shino swore he saw smoke rise from her forehead.

“No-Nothing happened!”

‘Unfortunately.’ she thought silently.

“Uhm… Shino, Kiba... do we pass by any waterfalls on the way to our mission destination?”

“I think so, why?”

“I need to go train under one for a few hours.”

“Are you insane? It’s the middle of the winter! The water is going to be ice cold right now!

“Good!”

Naruto’s entire body was filled with a strange warmth as he felt the angel’s arms wrap around him.

“Please don’t ever leave me. I need you.” he told her desperately.

He felt the angel’s lips move through his shirt.

“What did you just say?

“What do you think of my ‘Shinobi-Gone-Wild Jutsu’, boss?”

“Huh?”

Naruto came back to his senses to see Konohamaru standing in front of him.

“I said what did you think of my new ultra perverted jutsu?”

“Uhm… It was quite good, Konohamaru! Keep up the good work.”

The young ninja looked at his one-armed master concerned. Naruto was the inventor of the Sexy Jutsu, and the Harem Jutsu. He inspired him to create the “Reverse-Harem Jutsu” which, he later found out, was instrumental in defeating the rabbit goddess Kaguya and saving the world.

(Okay, it didn’t really defeat her, Kaguya recovered nearly immediately from it, but Konohamaru was never one to let facts to get in the way of a good ego-boost.)

For him to be so out of focus while he was performing his newest ultimate technique was…

“Hey boss, is everything OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, Konohamaru, everything is fine.”

“But, you are not screaming enthusiastically, you are not having nosebleeds like you normally do. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”

Naruto sighed. Seriously, what was wrong with him? In the past, he would not only pay close attention to Konohamaru’s sexy techniques but also give him perverted pointers on how to improve them. He would then try to one-up him by coming up with something even more perverted, at which point Konohamaru would swear that he would defeat him, and they would both go practising what they developed on unsuspecting civilians and shinobi. It was their thing.

This time though he couldn’t get into it like he used to. His heart just wasn’t into it for some reason…

He was still thinking about Hinata. His body still remembered the warmth of her embrace. How can you perform perverted techniques when your mind is fixated on a girl’s angelic smile? Her kindness, her concern, her generosity?

“It’s nothing Konohamaru… I guess I am just… growing up…”

BONUS SCENE:

Naruto stared blankly at the distance. He now knew what true hell, what true isolation was. It wasn’t being stranded in a desert, it wasn’t being trapped in the mindscape, it wasn’t even sleeping alone in an empty apartment where nobody was there to wait for you and welcome you.

No, true isolation what being surrounded and stuck with people that made you feel isolated.

Such as the fangirls that were talking in front of him right now.

He tried to tuning in back to their conversation…

“Blah, blah, blah… and then you did that move that... Blah, blah, blah…”

Oh, they were still talking about his fights... Okay...

He knew in his heart of hearts that those girls were not bad people. But the way they talked about him and idolized him, like he was some sort of deity made him feel uneasy.

When they asked him to tell them a story about his childhood, he honestly didn’t know what to tell them. His childhood was painful and lonely. It was a very sensitive subject for him. He wasn’t very comfortable in sharing his pain with anyone…

...except Hinata.

So he lied. He told them a bunch of tall tales that he pulled out of thin air and told them that everything about his childhood was excellent. That he was the top student in his class, that he had lots of friends…

...and they bought it. They believed every word he said. Because he was their precious “Senpai”.

Naruto hated every minute of it. He hated himself for doing this.

So he stood silently, spoke as little to the girls as he could and prayed for the sweet release of death.

Taking them out at Ichiraku’s for ramen was a really bad idea.

Thankfully Teuchi picked up on this and made sure that Naruto’s table got served as fast as possible. He could sense that he didn’t want to spend more time with those girls than what was required to be tactful.

Naruto looked at the generous serving of ramen and reached for the chopsticks.

One of the girls grabbed him before he did, and approached him as seductively as she could. She looked at him with “puppy-dog eyes” while taking extra care to give him a generous view of her cleavage.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“It must be hard to eat with one hand Naruto-Senpai. Why don’t you let me feed you?”

He grabbed the chopsticks from her hand and then placed them back on the table. He then grabbed the “Chopstick Helper” that Hinata gave to him, held it with his mouth and placed the chopsticks inside it.

“I appreciate the offer and all, but I really need to do this on my own.”

“Oh…”

“Uhm… Could you please sit a little bit… further? I don’t want to get any ramen broth on your clothes.”

“You’re so thoughtful, Naruto-Senpai!”

Naruto exhaled with relief as the girl went back to her chair and he placed a generous amount of ramen in his mouth.

He was certain she meant well and all, but the thought of a girl other than Hinata helping him out and feeding him somehow felt…

Wrong!

It felt wrong to have a girl other than Hinata by his side.

How long before she comes back from her mission, he wondered…

He wanted to hang out with her again!

Side Story: How she did it.

Tsunade looked at the documents that were lying in front of her desk and then at the kunoichi that was currently standing in front of her. She had to do a double-take and reread the whole thing because she couldn’t believe what she was actually reading.

“So let me get this straight, Hyuga Hinata-san…”

“Yes, Hokage-sama?”

“You wish, to turn down your promotion to jounin?”

“That is correct, yes.”

The fifth Hokage took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. So she didn’t read the documents incorrectly.

After the end of the 4th Shinobi War, all of the kids that previously comprised the so called “Konoha Twelve” (actually Konoha Eleven now that Hyuga Neji had sadly passed away) minus Naruto and Sasuke had received a jounin promotion. They had proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were all strong and capable shinobi and that they could handle themselves quite well under pressure in times of peace and conflict. The acting daimyo felt that they didn’t even need to take an exam for it.

Hinata’s record during the 4th Shinobi war was especially impressive. She was able to operate with her byakugan activated for days, and endured in battle when even her cousin Neji was getting seriously fatigued. When the juubi awakened and her own cousin died during the war -her cousin being a person to whom she was especially close- she composed herself and kept Naruto from giving in to the enemy. And when push came to shove and she needed to directly protect Naruto from falling to the enemy’s hands, she combined her own Twin-Lion Fists technique with the ancient 64-Palms technique of the Hyuga clan and took out a great part of the incoming enemy’s forces. She was practically a shoo in for jounin…

...and she was turning that down!

“May I ask the reasons why you are turning down such a promotion?”

“There’s someone who needs me… I need to be there for him.”

There was no doubt in Tsunade’s mind who that ‘someone’ was. Hinata’s love about Naruto may have been ‘Team Eight’s S-Ranked secret’ but everyone in Konoha knew how she felt about him…

...Everyone except Naruto that is…

“You know, his hand is going to be ready in a few months. He is probably not going to keep you around after that.”

“I know. And I am still planning to stand by him during that time. I gave him my word and I am not going to go back on it. That’s our ninja way.”

The acting Hokage felt a migraine coming. She furiously rubbed her temples and then threw a non-chakra-enhanced punch on the table.

“You overly-sentimental, lovesick idiot! This isn’t something minor you are turning down, it’s the freaking jounin position! It’s something shinobi struggle to achieve all their lives! Most of them don’t even get a chance to get it!”

She got off the desk and approached Hinata furiously. The poor girl needed to get through to her skull that she was making a grievous mistake.

“Do you even realise what turning down this promotion means? It means that you will be the only person in your class who will never be promoted! It means that your teammates Shino and Kiba will outrank you and that you will become their subordinate! It means that you will be a chuunin and receive no higher than B-Ranked missions for the rest of your life! Is this what you really want? Do you really want to sacrifice your future for him?”

“Yes.” Hinata said simply.

Tsunade sat back down on her desk and slammed her face on it. The poor girl was hopeless.

“You want something else from me, don’t you? Or else you wouldn’t request an audience with me, you would just send me the rejection by mail.”

“Yes.” said Hinata again.

“What is it? Spill it out!”

The white-eyed chuunin approached the desk and addressed her boss. There wasn’t any threat or malice in her voice, but the acting Hokage could tell that this was something that was extremely important.

“Please synchronize Naruto-kun’s schedule with mine.”

“What?”

“Every time that he comes out of the Hospital or is back in Konoha from a mission I need to be there for him. Please arrange my mission schedule in accordance to this.”

The acting hokage grabbed herself by her hair and looked up at Hinata intently. She attempted to stare her down, but the white-eyed kunoichi was so determined that she could outstare the sun.

“You know this is a big favor you are asking me to do.”

“Yes.”

“And you are just asking me to do it like this? You are not going to offer me anything in return? Some sort of bribe or compensation to motivate me to do this?”

“I sincerely apologize. I believed that the fact that we both care about Naruto-kun was motivating enough. Nevertheless, if you wish for me to get you anything or do something for you in exchange for this, I will be more than happy to oblige.”

A wide smile formed on Tsunade’s lips. She laid back on her chair and exhaled.

“I will see what I can do Hyuga Hinata-san. You are dismissed.”

“Thank you Hokage-Sama.”

The young kunoichi stood up and bowed gently as she exited the room. She then gave Tsunade one of her warmest smiles and closed the door.

“Shizune!” she yelled to the lone woman who was standing outside. “Cancel all my appointments for the rest of the evening! The Hokage’s office is closed for the rest of the day!”

The young secretary scrambled in panic and started going through the Hokage’s now-cancelled schedule. She had a long day ahead of her, both inside her office and outside of it. She picked up the phone, took a deep breath and steeled herself for the incoming rage and verbal abuse that was inevitably coming her way..

Inside the Hokage’s office, after making sure that nobody was watching and that no ANBU members were going to approach her for a while, the fifth Hokage reached for the bottom drawer of her desk. She took out a key that she had placed on a special necklace around her neck and carefully unlocked it.

That place in her desk, that drawer was sacred to her. She didn’t want anyone else to know about it and desecrate it. She had already made arrangements with her successor to get its contents specially sealed and sent to her personally. It was going to be the only thing that she would take from her office back to her civilian life.

It contained Jiraya’s letters, a copy of his only non-smutty book “Tales of the Gutsy Ninja”, the gifts that he had given her over the years, and a picture of him smiling and giving her the victory sign in his trademarked outfit and kabuki makeup.

They were her anchor, her strength, what kept her going when her schedule became overly packed and she had to spend inhumanly long hours inside the hokage’s office. They were what motivated her to stick through thick and thin, to face danger and adversity and protect the village and its people when all seemed lost and a powerful enemy invaded. They reminded her that, no matted what happened, she always had someone who cared for her, and loved her!

And then she sent him in a dangerous mission in Rain Country and got him killed.

She wasn’t quite the person she used to be after that.

Jiraya’s picture was placed on her desk as she took out a bottle of sake that she always kept in the cupboard behind her and poured herself a glass.

“For someone to love and sacrifice so much for him… without expecting anything in return… Your student is really lucky to have someone like her in his life…”

The sake burned as it went down her throat. It left a bitter taste inside her mouth.

Come to think of it, that girl’s situation was similar to Jiraya’s, wasn’t it? Sure, she wasn’t a pervert, at least not a covert one like Jiraya, but she also went through extraordinary lengths to support the person she loved. She put her life on the line and made sacrifices for someone… without expecting anything...

...because she loved that someone…

...Just like Jiraya loved her.

Why didn’t she appreciate what he was doing for her while he was still alive? Why did she always chastise and belittle him whenever she saw him? Why did she always dismiss him as an ‘old pervert’ whenever he attempted to flirt with her and get closer to her?

Why did Jiraya have to die in order for her to realise that she had feelings for him?

Because she was a moron, that’s why. Just like…

“I… I just hope that gaki comes to appreciate what that girl is doing for him. To come to accept her feelings and cherish her before he hurts her or he loses her. Or both. I hope... they don’t end up… like us!”

She drank another glass of sake and fought back the tears. She was too old to cry. It was too late to cry.

She placed Jiraya’s picture back inside the desk and the sake back on her cupboard. Now was not the time to get drunk and break down. She took out Naruto and Hinata’s mission schedules from the filing cabinet and placed them right next to each other.

“Now… Let’s see… What do those weird star symbols mean again?”

She contemplated this for about five seconds.

“Screw it, I’ll just copy the one over the other.”

Whew! That was a long one! I really hope I didn’t bore you to death and that you enjoyed the bonus scene and the side story.

I found it odd that Hinata was still a Chuunin in “The Last” movie, so I made the Side Story to explain why she is the only one from the “Konoha 12″ that didn’t get promoted. I hope you enjoyed that particular headcannon.

I really wanted to delve into Naruto’s psyche in this chapter. I wanted to set up his mindset and his conflict early because it’s going to pay a huge part into what happens later in the story (provided that I get to update it, of course). I wanted to give him a better motive for not getting together with Hinata than what is commonly harped “he didn’t realize he was in love with her”. It does temporarily play a factor to this story, but there is something much more traumatic at play here that I wish to explore.

Do you like my interpretation of Naruto’s psyche? Do you agree? Do you like the direction this story is taking? If so, please reblog, tag and/or comment. I really appreciate it and it drives me to write more.

#NaruHina Week Day 6 #NaruHina Week #NaruHina #uzumaki naruto #hinata hyuuga #Hinata Hyuga #fanfic #fanfiction #jiraya #tsunade #konohamaru #amputee naruto #unawareness period

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