#'i used to think i didn't have bonds - but then i met you and iruka sensei'

[panharmonium]

do you ever just sit and think about this

mizuki telling iruka that naruto is going to take revenge on the village for lying about the fox, and iruka replying “no...naruto isn’t like that” orochimaru telling kakashi that sasuke is an avenger whose heart desires only one thing, and kakashi replying “you think you can take advantage of that?  not sasuke.”

iruka thinking “naruto...he’s just like i was back then”

gai thinking “he reminds me of you, kakashi...when you were young”

mizuki manipulating naruto for his own benefit (“he used you to get the scroll for himself, for his own power!”) and using a big reveal (“they’ve been lying to you your whole life, naruto”) to damage naruto’s trust in the person who’s actually trying to help him

madara doing the exact same thing with sasuke

kakashi telling iruka “actually, you are the only one who can reach naruto’s heart/i believe if you can just hang in there a little longer, you will find the way”

kakashi later being put in a position where he’s the only adult who has a chance of getting through to sasuke...the only adult who even bothers to try

kakashi telling iruka that reaching naruto is “your personal ordeal,” the task he’s meant to complete, the task that he isn’t allowed to quit, even when he goes to the hokage to try and resign 

sakumo telling kakashi “it seems you have unfinished business waiting for you back home/there must be something you’re still meant to do” as kakashi gets yanked out of the afterlife, because kakashi is living out his own personal ordeal now and he isn’t allowed to quit either

i know you have your reasons, but as your teacher i can’t just walk away

i know that’s how you feel, naruto (i *do* know how you feel)

i’m in charge of this child’s safety (i’ll protect you with my life) 

he’s going home with me.

i think about this a Lot.  in particular, i think about the ways in which the ability to make (or not make, as the case may be) a connection to a single trusted adult has such a dramatic effect on the trajectories that naruto and sasuke’s lives take later.

naruto finds “his” grown-up - someone who’s lived the same life he has and who can understand him in a way that others can’t - and that in turn leads him to more connections, more adults to look after him, an entire surrogate family to believe in him/support him/make him feel like he belongs.  sasuke, for his part, also finds “his” grown-up - but in his case, the situation is much more complicated, and he’s never able to reap the attendant benefits.  events conspire to send him running before he can become truly connected to a loving community, and so he never has a chance to build the larger support system that naruto does.  he never finds a jiraiya or a tsunade or a yamato or a bunch of animal sages to give him guidance or a class of peers to fight for him or a village to admire him and protect him.  he has no support network.  every adult he’s met since leaving the Leaf has been someone who’s trying to exploit him, and the instant he realizes that he might be starting to feel the faintest connection to taka, he ditches them.  to this day, the only friends he’s ever made (and i use that term loosely, because even when sasuke was still in the Leaf his relationships weren’t a first priority for him) are sakura and naruto.  and the ONLY adult he’s ever had a true connection with, post-massacre, is kakashi.

sasuke’s going to need all three of these people if he’s going to survive, but i’m focusing on kakashi in this particular piece, because if ever there were a kid who desperately needed a trusted adult to help them navigate their life, sasuke is it.  sasuke has been left to his own devices for years and years (everybody remember that time when a seven year old who witnessed the mass murder of his entire extended family was allowed to wake up ALONE in a hospital room and walk out of the building and revisit the crime scene without anyone noticing he was gone?  i do!).  he has never had an adult to take care of him or help him process the things that happened to him in a semi-healthy way, and nowadays he’s a disaster driving itself off a cliff.  he has zero coping skills that aren’t completely self-destructive.  he won’t accept advice or assistance from anybody who doesn’t understand what he’s going through (and understandably so - why should he listen to anybody who isn’t feeling what he’s feeling, who hasn’t lost the way he’s lost?  what can they possibly have to offer him?).  he needs somebody who can come to him from a place of credibility, someone who can say “i *do* know how you feel” and not be talking out their ass.  that’s what naruto gets from iruka when they finally make their connection - a relationship with an adult who accepts him and believes in him and (most importantly of all) understands him.  that’s naruto’s first step on the way to him reaching the place he inhabits now, where the lonely and shunned orphan he used to be is beloved by everyone, blessed with multiple parental figures, and supported by innumerable friends both at home and abroad.  meeting an adult who could say “we’re the same” and have it genuinely be true instead of just empty talk is what allows naruto to finally feel like he isn’t alone.  it’s what enables him to eventually become part of a community.  

naruto has these opportunities because he finds His Person - a mentor and caretaker who can say with complete honesty “we’re the same.”  sasuke found someone like that, too, and in truth he still has that person chasing after him, but circumstances being what they are, he hasn’t been able to benefit from that relationship the same way naruto has.  he was removed from kakashi’s supervision at the exact moment when he needed it most (and at the exact moment where they had just broken new ground in their relationship), and because of that, he’s remained incredibly isolated.  naruto has steadily accumulated friends and comrades (and five different people to be his dad), but sasuke has connected with no one.  he’s completely alone.  he is - as neji aptly put it - in the darkness right now, and he’s in there all by himself, without friends to support him, and without the only adult who can point him in the right direction.  

honestly, the only thing that makes me feel better about this is knowing that sasuke still has these people waiting for him whenever he comes home.  it’s high time he was able to have his own iruka and benefit from the same network of loving connections that naruto was able to build.

#naruto himself acknowledges this! #he tells sasuke 'i could have been like you' #'i used to think i didn't have bonds - but then i met you and iruka sensei' #naruto ALWAYS cites iruka as the first person to believe in him and acknowledge him #even many seasons later when we haven't even seen iruka recently #that relationship changed his life #and i LONG for the day when sasuke will be able to benefit from his relationship with kakashi in the same way #this is like...i just have very very very strong feelings about the way kakashi's life forged him into the right adult for this kid #every single thing about who he was and how he struggled and what happened to him #it's...like it was all planned #not that all these tragedies happened for a reason exactly - but that they're finally going to MEAN something #i cannot tell you how compelling that is to me #naruto #meta #he's like me

[ravysu]

Sannin headcanons and thoughts

The last thing I would like to post for the sannin week. It is still 24.04 here! :D @sannin-central

This is long. Spoiler alert. Mostly Orochimaru, some Tsunade, a little of Jiraiya (because his story is pretty clear and spoken and idk what I can add). Also I recommend to read this meta about Orochimaru, it has influenced me a lot and has some good points. Sorry for any posible grammar mistakes. Also I really should put here a lot of references to the manga or anime but it was something that was piling up for a year and I'm soooooooo lazy. After all, those are just headcanons. Also: Im not excusing Oro's bad stuff here, Im trying to understand the reasons.

Ive already posted some hcs, here, here and here.

1. First if all, the chronology pic of sannin lifetime based on the info i found on naruto wiki and also some statements about wars from this post. It was tough considering what a mess naruto’s chronology is.

2. Sannin story shows what it cost to be a legend. They're like Team 7 but more realistic. Tsunade literally carried the war but left with nothing and developed a ptsd and have problems to just live on. Also anger control issues. I think she can be pretty bossy and stubborn which is not always nice. Jiraiya is the hero of the day but also very idealistic and can ignore some important details in the real word whether its the fight (he always injured during flashbacks maybe because each time he took too much to handle and on the one hand it's heroistic but on the other is a mistake that can lead your team to situations like in that Iwa cave) or your friends issues (I bet he saw what's going on but thought it's fine until Oro actually got red handed and left). He lives in his world and may have problems to get out to see it through someone else's shoes. As for Orochimaru, it seems like he was a normal guy for 20+ years (I mean, he didn't do crazy criminal shit and had something good in him and it was stated somewhere that it was his teammates influence. It is obvious they considered him as a friend, I don't thinks it was for nothing) but we mostly know his darkest side. Despite being a moster he is a human that have empathy and some ordinary human traits (man just decorates every bit of an environment he is in lol).

3. Tsunade was the leader of team Hiruzen.

4. Tsunade sometimes hit Jiraiya for some stupid things he did or said but never touches Orochimaru even if he did something same. Jiraiya complained about it once and almost got another hit.

5. Jiraiya had problematic parents that didn't care about him much and a lot of time he was wandering in the streets.

6. Judging by the look of Oro bangs and hair, he sometimes cut it off. A stress relief huh? And the fact that he doesn't do it now in Boruto..

7. It was shown that Tsunade and Orochimaru was acknowledged before they become a team. Maybe they did just before, or maybe some longer time before. I prefer the second option and hc that they met because both had no real friends - Orochimaru seemed weird and scary for everyone and Tsunade was Senju so everyone wanted to hang out with her but didn't really care. They weren't seen as what they were - people put the labels on them. But they didn't care about each other's labels and actually saw each other in true lights.

8. Tsunade knew it was an accident and it's not right but still she blamed Orochimaru for Nawaki's death for some time. It was something that seriously damaged their friendship and the team. Orochimaru was mad but also guilty, after all, he was responsible at least as a shinobi since Nawaki was under his watch. So he started to act cold and emotionless and was trying to distance himself from his teammates.

9. Jiraiya was in Ame while Dan died.

10. The whole his orphans mission was a bit irresponsible tbh. They already fought Hanzo and as he stated the conflict between Konoha and Ame is going to an end with Konoha's win. It's weird to stay here for three years in the middle of the war while there were other lands to fight. He left his teammates for some idea. Maybe that caused another crack in their team friendship.

11. If Tsunade would have find a way to live on with her trauma and follow the will of fire and stuff it would affect Orochimaru as well just as her grief affected him. It's like he would get an example that you can live on with this pain. So death isn't above human capability and we are not just the slaves of mortality (sounds stupid but i dont know how else to describe sorry). But as we know what he actually saw is that it broke her crucially to the point she couldnt be herself again. And so the death is above everything.

12. Oro wasn’t just acting as a cold pragmatic bitch in that cave but also tried to save Tsunade. Jiraiya knew it and that’s why he showed this sign to him like "I see what youre doing here" and that stunned Oro because he would prefer to look rather like a cold pragmatic bitch hehe

13. Just a thought. People in the village probably treated Oro as a foreigner or just wouldnt accept him because he looked so differently and had a weird attitude. That's why he sometimes didn't feel that Konoha is his home. After the wars where people were treated as means and tools, even the children, he himself developed this view on people - he dehumanized them and used as the means to his goals, just as his village did. Funny thing some people were straightly dehumanizing him too like Ibiki thought that he was a demon (tho he was a child). And he probably weren't the only one. Anyways the point is that it's logical that Orochimaru don't care about anybody but some few people, he's the product of his era. He's like Naruto that would chose the hatred way. But naruto had some good and understanding people around him and.. Orochimaru had them too, but match how Iruka treated Naruto and this Hiruzen's "I sAw tHe mAliCe in This cHiLd fRoM tHe BegGinNinG". And oro didn't even have a big ass evil fox in him. sry i hate hiruzen

ANYWAYS the moral of the story is not "go criminal if they hurt you" but always treat people like people. Waving my hand to Kant.

14. The reason why Orochimaru didn't pick some good morals to stick with through the hard times no matter what (like, idk, Jiraiya or Naruto) is because 1) I think he is/was pretty depending on people around him 2) the war fucked him and his friends up too much (Nawaki incident + Tsunade) 3) twisted addictions (though I don't think he's that sadistic, we never saw him torturing randoms just for fun, it was always some science experimental shit. He tends to get fun out of cruelty only when it's personal) that maybe developed as a way to sublimate anger and sadness caused by his parents loss (that's what they share with sasuke - unlicke naruto, they knew their parents and it's other kind of pain. Sasuke developed a revenge issue and Orochimaru - cruelty pleasure which... is kinda the same but less epic and more occasional lol).

15. Speaking of that, Orochimaru cared for Sasuke because he saw himself in him.

16. Oro hold grudges against Hiruzen for not choosing him to be Hokage not only because he was ambitious and/or egoistic, but also because Hiruzen was some kind of a father figure for him and his approval was important tho i doubt he was aware of that. He also probably could tell that Hiruzen was suspicios about him when he was a child and that led to many conflicts and was hurting as well.

17. Tsunade knew things weren't pretty with Orochimaru after the wars but she never expected them to be this bad. During the week that she was given in her arc she thought not only about how much she wants to see Nawaki and Dan again despite how wrong would it be but also was trying to bury all the good memories she had left of Orochimaru so it would be easier to kill him.

18. She poisoned Jiraiya exactly because she knew he would not let her do it. Jiraiya was always hesitant to kill and inclined to forgiveness, while Tsunade, as mentioned by Orochimaru, could be merciless (so much so that he was not surprised when Kabuto suggested that she wanted to use Jira for Edo Tensei).

19. That was one of her traits that scared Jiraiya and fascinated Orochimaru.

20. Remember how Oro grabbed Jiraiya's neck when the latter was trying to cover with hair jutsu? On the snake, in Tsnade's arc. Orochimaru could have easily kill Jiraiya by pulling the sword out of the mouth (arteries are right there) but he didn't. As well as he could kill Tsunade when she was still shaking - just aim for the neck or the heart. Instead, he just injured her lung and kicked her which is not a big deal for the kind of shinoby like her at all.. Also he helped Anko not accidentally kill herself but it would be way much profitable to let her do it. "Orochimaru has no feelings".

21. The reason he suddenly wanted to kill Tsunade instead of forcing her to heal his arms as it was planned (which is weird since it will not going to get him heals and he kinda said that he wouldn't want to kill her just minutes ago) is that not only she refused to help him (he thought he could work it out) but she also prefered the village over him (from his point of view). Out if everyone she was the closest to being able to understand him since the village caused her painful losses too but nevertheless she agreed to be on it's side.

22. He wasn't fighting her back in the end partly because he thought he deserved that. Somewhere deep inside hahah.

23. Tsunade got a fear to develop deep bonds so they probably weren't very close with Shizune (also the way she knocked her down in this hotel.. oh).

24. Orochimaru will be here when she'll die.

25. Orochimaru's eng dub to Tsunade: "I often wondered what it would be like to ring that pretty neck yours". No comments.

26. Orochimaru is either bi/pan or ace. Anything or nothing lmao

27. Hiruzen knew about at least some of the Oro’s illegal experiments and was okay just as he was okay with the Foundation all the time. Because it’s useful. Then he has discovered he went too far OR he knew everything and oro just became too inconvenient because of his methods. The way Orochimaru tells Sasuke about reasons they are well treated as the criminals is based on in his experience with Hiruzen.

28. As you may know the lyrics in Orochimaru’s music theme goes “don’t talk with the silence of the heart”. It was taken from one Indian song that also had lines like “don’t question life too much”, ”pain arose somewhere in the chest”, “don’t speak to the wounds of the heart”. Though I’m not sure 100% because I was translating it with some hindi dictionary with like zero knowledge of hindi

29. I like to think that this “silence of the heart” theme and the fact that he called his village a hidden sound village are somehow connected. The hidden sound is the possible explanation of all things waiting to be listened to but the truth is silent and you know it deep in your heart and it bothers you. The world is silent just like the life is meaningless but people can only hear. *Sigh* anyways

30. Orochimaru’s journey is the one about accepting death. When he saw Karin released her chains while was trying to get to Sasuke he understood that the death is a part of human’s strength.

Can’t wait to feel that everything I wrote is wrong or not enough or stupid and obvious lol. Anyways, it’s something that I wanted to share until I move to some other fandom.

#sannin week 2021 #orochimaru #tsunade #jiraiya #sannin #naruto #naruto headcanons

[mickey10213]

Sakura and Sasuke are not good parents. Sakura didn't tell Sarada anything about anything, so of course she's going to doubt and question everything. She doesn't even know anything about her own husband. Sasuke didn't even recognize her, nearly killed her, and was still so cold after he realized it was her. Neither of them listen to her and disregard everything she asks them. Was the umbilical cord thing even cleared up or does Sarada still think Karin is her mother?

People would like to beg to differ, but the facts are there and they just deny them. Yes, you can say that Sasuke was on a “mission” - and I use that term loosely since he was off on a hunch long before Naruto became Hokage and made his hunch an official mission - for all of Sarada’s life and that’s why he’s been a bad dad. But then what’s Sakura’s excuse? Why didn’t she tell Sarada ANYTHING about her father? Because Sarada doesn’t need to know that her father was apart of a criminal organization??? People who defend Sakura’s actions towards Sarada only focus on that fact alone, but then that makes me believe that they only think of Sasuke negatively and that Sakura would have absolutely NOTHING positive to say about her so-called husband. Yes, Sarada doesn’t need to have the mindset that her father used to do bad things with terrible people, but why is that the only thing that people seem to think Sakura can say about Sasuke? Can she not tell Sarada about how Sasuke looks? If he wore glasses to satisfy her curiosity about where her bad eyesight came from? Can she not tell her about her relationship with Sasuke, at least the good parts since it mostly was negative up until the Last happened? Can she not tell Sarada about her old missions with Sasuke and how he and Naruto used to get into it like crazy? How she fawned over her father and their bonding and how he saved her many times? HOW EXACTLY THEY GOT TOGETHER??? Like, is there ABSOLUTELY NOTHING POSITIVE ABOUT SASUKE AT ALL IN SAKURA’S MIND THAT HER FANS DEFEND HER BLATANT DISREGARD TOWARDS SARADA BY USING SASUKE’S BAD SIDE TO DEFEND HER??? Like, come on people! Stop defending Sakura with bullshit like that because you just end up making their relationship look even worse by thinking that Sakura can say nothing positive about the man she obsessed over and married. And it’s also even more degrading towards Sasuke’s character because he’s so much more than just his Akatsuki revenge phase. Yeah, he left the village to be with Orochimaru; and yeah he linked up with Suigetsu, Karin, and Juugo to help him on his quest, but how is all of that just simply negative? He killed Orochimaru before, eliminating a threat. Sakura could have told Sarada that, making Sasuke appear strong. She could have told her about Itachi and Sasuke’s fixed relationship since Sasuke cherishes Itachi so much. She could have told her about how Sasuke’s old comrades helped with her birth instead of keeping them a secret, and ultimately leading Sarada (and the fandom) to question who her real mother was because Sakura refused to tell Sarada a single damn thing other than “he’s on a mission and will be back when it’s finished” or “our feelings are connected” or even better “I’ll tell you next time *forehead poke*”. The fandom just pisses me off with their bullshit even more because I just realized how much worse Sakura’s actions were thanks to some of them using Sasuke’s negative reputation as a defense. It’s stupid. I mean, if Naruto can tell Sarada as much as he did about Sasuke, then why can’t his goddamn wife???

And after that long rant there, once again, some will disagree with me on this, but I believe that the incident with the umbilical cord was not really solved until we get confirmation that Sarada has met Karin and Suigetsu and they told her the truth about who her mother really is. I will forever believe until that day comes that Sarada will believe that Karin is her biological mother simply because she has never met Karin to hear her side of the story and she only has Sakura’s word on it, and mainly because of Naruto’s ability to talk-no-jutsu. I know you said you don’t read the manga, but I highly recommend reading the Gaiden manga since the anime sugar coats a lot and makes Sakura and Sasuke seem a lot more caring and understanding than Kishi made them out to be. In the manga after Sarada and Suigetsu do the umbilical cord test, you can clearly see Naruto use his own story about having no real blood family, but rather having a family through the tight bonds he’s made like with her father and Iruka. He makes her believe that while Sakura may not be her mother by blood, Sakura IS her mother because of the connections they share, which is the whole theme of the SS family. Sakura has always taken care of her and been there for her so that’s what makes her Sarada’s mother in Naruto’s terms instead of Karin, who they both think is her real mother. People will harp on and on about how I’m spewing false facts simply because at the end Karin tells Suigetsu that the umbilical cord is between Sarada and Sakura and that she helped deliver Sarada since Sakura chased after Sasuke and got pregnant. But what they don’t seem to understand is that while Sakura can harp on all she wants about Sarada being her child, Sarada still won’t know if it’s by blood or by connections until she hears it from Karin since she saw the results from the cord which everyone thinks is Karin’s. I mean, Naruto and Suigetsu, who both know Sasuke very well, automatically assumed that he would either cheat on Sakura with Karin and have Sakura take care of her kid, or that Karin managed to seduce Sasuke and have his baby and Sakura was willing to take the child and marry Sasuke in the end anyway and call the child hers. Honestly, the whole baby-mama drama that Kishi created is complete bullshit and made the fandom twice as dumb and toxic since many of them will try their damnedest to twist the obviously negative facts about their ship into something romantic and pleasant and curse anyone under the sun that disagrees with them. On a scale of 1 to 100, I say there is probably only 30% positive notions in Gaiden going for Sasuke and Sakura as a ship and a family, and that’s me being generous. 

#naruto #boruto #boruto next generation #anti sasusaku #pro sarada #pro sasuke #anti sakura uchiha #anti sakura