#i gotta learn to be more succinct jesus XD;;

[ahkaraii]

'headcanon rant for another day' oh please when its another day tell me :DDD

HEE okay, the comparative biologist in me that I truncated when I deviated towards medicine is excited af about Naruto world genetics and how the heck chakra works in the human body.

If you look cross-sectionally at the expression of chakra in all the existing dojutsu (ex. Uchiha’s sharingan, Hyuuga’s byakugan; possibly the Yamanaka’s characteristic generation-spanning pupil-less eyes that may facilitate their mind-share technique) and genkai kekkei (Yamato and Hashirama’s Wood style release, Haku’s ice mirrors, etc), there’s definitely an emphasis on certain powers being strictly genetic, not something you can learn. Like, you literally express it uncontrollably after a certain trigger (epigenetics yo!!! gotta modify those histones to activate the genetic expression), and only then train it once its manifest.

You can, however, “transplant” body parts that contain the style -- like Kakashi with Obito’s sharingan, or Yamato being genetically modified with Hashirama’s cells as an infant -- and bypass that required pedigree. You just have to work super hard to “master” it, and it will be taxing to your body that wasn’t born to express that technique. (In fact, I like to believe these transplantees are more prone to autoimmune diseases and/or infections due to graft-versus-host disease).

Canonically there are others that are explicitly stated to be learned techniques that are simply “secretly” passed down generation to generation and have little to do with your genes (the “Hiden” techniques, like the Nara shadow stitching), but we never really see any non-clan characters learning techniques from other clans, so it’s hard to say. I think there’s a specific chakra pathway you must be born with to learn specific Hiden techniques. Like, Nara are genetically predisposed to have chakra pathways that facilitate their shadow stitching. So while a random stranger could theoretically learn after years and years of practicing, some -- like our chakra-less Lee -- would simply fail no matter how hard they try because they don’t have the proper chakra setup.

This all got me thinking about the clanless/bloodline limit-lacking characters that look phenotypically similar to clans or characters possessing dojutsu and/or genkai kekkei. Folks like Anko, who has the characteristic Yamanaka pupilless eyes but instead of pale green they’re brown, suggesting she’s a Yamanaka mutt-mix that, due to a combination of a poor genetic lottery and no teacher, failed to develop the Yamanaka mind share technique entirely. She’s still a Torture and Interrogation nin tho, suggesting she was either raised around the Yamanaka (who all ultimately seem to end up doing jobs in T&I lol), or was taken pity by a Yamanaka in T&I who realized she was probably of their blood and never claimed and gave her a decent job. We all know how Konoha treats their clanless orphans, yeah? :(

I like to think certain “mixes” are unviable (else there’d already exist characters with it in canon, yanno?), or just a really bad idea (congenital defects-wise). Like Hyuuga and Uchiha. The Hyuuga academy teacher I doodled in my comic is an OC of mine whose backstory is she -- scandalously! -- had a kid with an Uchiha and their kid was born with a lot of genetic defects centering around the face and eyes (specifically holoprosencepahly).

Another character that looks Yamanaka-like and actually manifests Yamanaka-like chakra techniques is Tsunade’s old boyfriend Dan Kato. His power is the power to astrally project himself -- much like the Yamanaka! -- and possess others -- very much like the Yamanaka. Now, of course, one could butt in and say the Yamanaka mind body technique is probably a Hiden technique, not a bloodline limit, and thus Dan is entirely capable of learning it despite not belonging to the clan, but I like the chakra genetics headcanon and I’m sticking to it, so the Kato clan is an offshoot of some branch Yamanaka that specialized in the mind-body technique since the mind-share technique is probably only taught to the Main House.

Unlike the Hyuuga, whose Main and Branch houses take the toxic hierarchy to its extreme, the Yamanaka are more chill with their families expanding and marrying whoever they want, so not everyone has the Yamanaka last name. The Ino-Shika-Chou formation ensures that at least one kid is born and raised to have all their desired techniques, so the rest of the family’s kids can be born doing whatever. Presumably they gotta learn about the Yamanaka family history and all that pizzazz, but they aren’t enslaved to the family like the Hyuuga (or arguably the Uchiha).

That’s why Shizune Kato canonically uses poisons and healing techniques, and has no ability in the astral projection her uncle Dan so famously had. She just wasn’t born with the chakra pathways for it, and that’s okay. She’s not gonna get kicked out of the family for it like other characters are (like my Hyuuga OC, who never manifested the Byakugan, or her husband, who never manifested the sharingan. It’s why their baby managed to be born at all and not entirely stillborn -- neither of them were *rolls eyes* ““pureblood””).

Other clanless characters I think are probably mutts are:

- Ebisu, whose use of sunglasses suggest to me he’s a main branch Aburame bastard who was never implanted with bugs (I hc most if not all Aburame have severely impaired vision, hence the sunglasses -- they use their bugs to “see”) but was raised knowing it, so that’s why he’s a snooty asshole about Clans and gets to train the Hokage’s grandchild and other high ranking kids. He can’t inherit the title of Aburame Clan Head because he doesn’t have bugs, but he does get a cozy high ranking job without having to really work for it.

- Aoba, whose sunglasses and liberal use of fire techniques and crows could mean he’s got Aburame and/or Uchiha blood in him. 

I definitely think the Naruto world’s necessary emphasis on genetics and purity of blood for the sake of your bloodline limit expression has damaging effects on people’s health, congenital defects wise. For example: I headcanon Hayate Gekko has cystic fibrosis! It’s why he’s always coughing and sick. The Senju clan has a defect in a tumor-suppressing gene, which explains why they were of the few clans to have multiple kids (Hashirama had 3 brothers! how rare in the naruto world of being single children or having only a single sibling! lol) and yet the entire freaking clan was reduced to only Tsunade in three generations of peace. Let’s face it: Hashirama absolutely died of some form of cancer -- Hashirama cells are Naruto world’s HeLa cells, after all. Plus, it would explain why only he could do the wood release and no other person until yamato has managed it -- you HAVE to have a defect in a tumor suppressing gene, and to wood release you have to selectively induce a second insult to cause your cells to divide like crazy. But you also have to have the ability to combine earth and water release, and also chakra mold, and also a bunch of other crazy shit which made it super hard for Orochimaru to re-create it. It’s a miracle Hashirama didn’t die earlier, tbh.

I headcanon Tsunade totally got uterine cancer (she can’t have kids) and breast cancer (her breasts are so large because they are fake :V) and it’s why she’s the only Senju alive -- she has kept herself alive using her insanely OP healing skills. Its how she knows how to keep herself young-looking, too -- she was always replenishing her cells. I HC her brother Nawaki had leucemia and it was only sheer chance that a landmine got to him first before his own sickness did. That’s why Orochimaru is so knowledgeable about Hashirama’s cells in the first place, to the point where he was recruited to ROOT! Orochimaru was Nawaki’s sensei and was actively helping Tsunade find a cure for the Senju Clan’s propensity to develop cancer to save Nawaki and the Senju line as a whole. After Nawaki’s passing, Orochimaru kind of went crazy and decided instead to focus on curing death....

ANYWAY I could keep going but I’ve lost track of what I was originally answering lmfao. I have too many headcanons XD;;;;;

#ask responses #karaii's headcanons #i gotta learn to be more succinct jesus XD;; #fluffyfoxtales