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#that I actually kind of like
A symptom of having been in the online Naruto fandom for a few years now and having Sasuke as my favourite character means that I’ve been incessantly exposed (at the very least, on Tumblr) to arguments about Sasuke not receiving his due justice, being condemned by the narrative for expressing anger at the crimes committed against him and his family, and how the ending of the Naruto manga completely dropped the ball regarding any and all of its political plot threads, leaving the status quo intact, and the only change regarding Sasuke in particular is that he is now complacent with it.
These are arguments that I entirely agree with! And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with their frequent discussion, seeing as Naruto is a very popular manga and new fans will take the place of the old ones. It doesn’t surprise me that the discourse hasn’t slowed down, because new people are discovering it and will want to chime in. This is fine and natural.
But for me, from the perspective of someone who’s been here a while and has seen talk of this happen over, and over and over and over and over again, it understandably gets a little... exhausting. Especially since, as far as I’ve seen, the discourse rarely goes outside of “here is how Sasuke was wronged, here is how the shinobi military industrial complex is fucked up”, and so it feels like I’m seeing less interesting conversations regarding it and more parroting the same universally agreed upon ideas over and over.
It’s just... boring. Because even when the discussion goes outside of “this is why it’s wrong” and enters “here’s how it should have gone” territory, I rarely see it go anywhere beyond “Sasuke should’ve remained angry” “Sasuke should’ve never gone back” “Sasuke should have rejected—“ etc, etc. Sasuke and the Revolution discourse rarely goes beyond Sasuke’s personal vindication regarding Konoha. And to me, it’s just... is that really as far as our imagination extends? Is Sasuke’s anger really the most important thing to focus on? Should anger be the main driving force behind changing a world that is undoubtedly unjust?
My answer to all of those questions is, obviously, no. And I’m writing this to explain why, to propose an alternative to the vindication tunnel vision there happens to be regarding Sasuke vs Konoha/Shinobi System discourse, that I believe even the ending of Naruto (barring chapter 700 and onward to Boruto) provides a solid basis for.
First let’s talk about chapter 699, and Sasuke’s decision not to stay in Konoha but to journey around the world instead.
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Now when people talk about Sasuke’s journey, they mostly focus on the part where he calls it a “journey of redemption” and so a lot of discussions concerning whether or not he should have stayed in Konoha revolve around that line and its reasoning. It’s all “he doesn’t NEED redemption” or “oh please journey of redemption is bullshit, stay in Konoha to heal with your friends”.
Which is a damn shame because what he says in the panels above? Before the “you have nothing to do with my sins” thing? Is significantly more interesting. In fact, I consider it a monumental statement for him to make, indicative of his development; it’s the culmination of all he’s been through to get him to this point.
This line is Sasuke recognizing his own limitations related to the volatile emotional state he was nearly constantly in beforehand; Sasuke’s view of the world was incredibly selfish. It was selfish in the sense that his own goals mattered before anything else, that anything slowing him down in his hurry to reach them was an obstacle; it was an incredibly unhealthy view of the world, one that ended up making him hurt himself and others. That his goals are sympathetic and understandable doesn’t really change the reality that he did put himself in danger and was a danger to those closest to him. When we meet him for the first time in Shippuden, at Orochimaru’s hideout, he says word-for-word:
“I don’t care what happens to me or to the rest of the world, so long as I can get my revenge. Nothing else matters.”
And even when the truth about Itachi is revealed to him, this doesn’t exactly change. It’s only his range of targets that expand, and what he did to get to those targets in the 5 Kage Summit arc are unarguably his lowest points in the entire series. While there is a double-standard regarding how Sasuke’s anger and hatred are treated in the narrative, it’s not incorrect to say that his laser focus on them were ultimately harmful in the end, and that to grow he could not continue to rely on them indefinitely.
In fact, Sasuke is always shown to be at his best when he’s not so angry his view of the world is only concentrated on what he alone can see. Sasuke when observant of others is kind, has compassion and understanding and a willingness to prioritize others’ safety: we see this when he protects Team 7 all throughout part 1, and when he protects Team Taka in the Killer B fight. When he’s not clouded by his own rage, Sasuke also has a better willingness to learn: when Itachi left him after their fight against Kabuto, he went out of his way to learn more about the village he’d come to justifiably despise, to understand Itachi’s own point of view, and to learn the point of view of those that had built it. Sasuke in general is someone who doesn’t accept things so readily and is constantly questioning things even when he’s set his mind to them, and he is also someone who does have a clear idea of justice: needless human suffering on a large scale is something he’s disgusted by (see how he reacts to Itachi before he learned the truth and to Orochimaru). When he’s truly of the mind to sit down and listen, that potential is increased tenfold. He came out from under the Nakano Shrine after speaking with Hashirama and the other Hokage seeing the shinobi system as something that causes needless human suffering on a large scale, and though he’s not quite at the ideal point yet, the idea to do something about it (to dismantle that system) is there.
And now here we are, chapter 699: Sasuke’s anger is no longer his main driving force, and he is learning to accept love back in his life, and what does he say? That he’s going to look at the world, now, with new eyes. That he’s going to take advantage of this new healing state of his, to properly observe the world because his perception of it isn’t obstructed by his unhealthy vengeance fixation anymore. Sasuke, who already has the capacity for compassion, who already has a sense of justice, who knows how to listen and observe, is now going to take the time to use these foundations to build himself a more expansive perception of the world. He’s showing willingness to look outside of himself!
Now before I talk about the point I really want to get to, I want to talk about anger. I know anger is often portrayed as something awful in many stories (including this one), as something that is a personal failing next to those who can just endure what is thrown at them with little complaint, and that it’s a narrow view of it. Anger is a very useful emotion, and sometimes a necessary one: anger helps you perceive injustice done to yourself or others, anger can help you prevent people walking all over you and help you to recognize that you’re not getting something that you deserve. I’ll never condemn anger.
And I don’t condemn Sasuke’s anger! I am very firmly in the “Sasuke was right” camp; I don’t think he has to kiss up to a government so cowardly it wiped his people from the face of the Earth in the dead of night, I think a system that can justify a crime that outrageous while it continues to perpetuate itself needs to be entirely dismantled. And I believe that though there are limits to how seriously you should take this shounen animanga, the fact that these plotlines were introduced in the first place as well as every other time shinobi militaristic violence was clearly shown as being evil but were given shitty resolutions means that it is both normal and in fact encouraged to point out that these introduced plotlines were given really, really shitty resolutions.
Though while anger and pointing out how wrong things are are incredibly useful, when you really want to start talking about revolutionary action, incentive to change the world, I think that anger alone is insufficient.
Specifically in Sasuke’s case, as I’ve said above, Sasuke’s anger is ultimately selfish. He sees how he himself was wronged, and that’s great, but like... he’s also not the only one who suffers under the shinobi system. He’s not the only one it’s brought incredible wrong toward. Even when he demonstrated growth during the 4th War and was willing to expand his own knowledge to better understand why Konoha exists as it is, he wasn’t sharing what he’d learned with others, he wasn’t reaching out to build connections, to build solidarity— he was working on his plan entirely alone.
(And yes, we can talk about how the narrative purposefully makes the villain characters seem more unreasonable though they have justified feelings on why the system cannot continue as is, but again, as I’ve said at the start, we’ve had those conversations at length already.)
I believe genuine change, the desire to see a better world, has to fundamentally come from the desire to see people in a better place, not from vengeance. I think to get there, you need to see how other people live aside from yourself, you need to work at helping them see their lives becoming better as well. “No one’s free until we’re all free”, etc. I think your outrage at injustice has to extend to everyone outside of yourself, and your fight against the injustice be also a fight for them.
As I’ve demonstrated, Sasuke in chapter 699 in the space where he can actually work at doing that, to work at doing direct, radical action. Travelling as he wants to do will introduce him to more people, to more perspectives, to more ideas on how to meaningfully combat the injustices of the shinobi system and to directly help people to escape suffering the worst of it.
Recently I watched the Sasuke Shinden anime, and though it was still incredibly imperfect in its politics, it introduced the idea of Sasuke doing the closest thing to everything I am saying right now: it introduces shinobi being forced to fight in a human trafficking coliseum, and Sasuke being told by one of the characters, Chino, that being an inactive third party to injustice makes you just as guilty to it, which leads Sasuke in the end to free all shinobi forced to fight in the coliseum.
It also introduced the idea (and I was genuinely surprised that anything Naruto-related was actually willing to go there) of the Uchiha Clan, and by extension Sasuke, being victims but also being perpetrators of the same system that got them killed. In Shinden, they were hired by a feudal lord to deport another oppressed kekkei genkai clan called the Chinoike (that Chino is apart of) to a land unsuitable for any human to live in, and rather than help the Chinoike escape this fate, they simply carried out the mission order, which caused suffering for the clan. While I don’t think that that plotline was handled as well as it could’ve been, it really hammers in the point of it being important to learn about the position and suffering of others and to do something about it, because despite your own suffering, your participation in the system that perpetuates it still makes you complicit. And Sasuke accepts this! When he learns about the Uchiha and the Chinoike, he relates it to when Chino told him about being an audience to injustice making you just as bad if you don’t do anything about it. I think Sasuke Shinden is a good, if imperfect, snapshot into the very potential I’m talking about.
In fact, all of this is why I really believe it to be important that Sasuke travels and works outside of Konoha rather than within it; because as we’ve seen with Nagato and Amegakure, being apart of the Hidden Villages themselves, fighting in their wars and participating in their ranks, makes you complicit in the crimes they commit against the other smaller nations. Everyone we’ve seen fight in the wars, the Sannin, Kakashi, everyone in allegiance with Konoha and yes, including the Uchiha Clan, share responsibility in the crimes the village commits, even if they’ve personally suffered at its hands as well. Nagato, Konan and Yahiko are certainly justified if they don’t care that your war buddy died in front of you since you both had a hand in the destruction of their village for your military village’s interests.
This is also why on my blog, I am constantly advocating for the potential Team Taka represented. They were all shinobi working outside of the framework of the Hidden Villages, with little allegiance to them, and given that Sasuke in the ending is open to apologizing for his behaviour and accepting bonds again, they could’ve easily travelled together again in the ending and done just exactly everything that I’ve been talking about in this post. And they could’ve become closer than ever!
I think it’s telling, in a way, that what finally got to Sasuke in the end was genuine empathy; acceptance to realize there are other people around like him, that might share what he feels, and this is done through Naruto, someone who saw his own loneliness in him but that Sasuke rejected because he felt (understandably) defensive that anyone should get how he felt at all. Sasuke healing in learning that he can understand people other than himself, safely, is a big step into learning to properly observe and accept others, and then that’s another step that could lead into genuine revolutionary consciousness.
My conclusion here isn’t that any of this was something Kishimoto was actually going for. It’s that despite everything, there are already interesting building blocks in Sasuke’s canon characterization in place where you could create a meaningful story about resisting oppression and fighting for change, one that doesn’t surround a myopic, vengeful idea of it. I dont think of that as an interesting path for Sasuke’s character, especially since he already spends most of the series with nothing but vengeance in mind. I think he has the potential to do better, and we have the potential to write fix-it stories in which he does better than that.
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ot3 · 7 months
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i dont like the idea that kids these days are doing their fandom rps with ai chatbots. that's how you're supposed to make lifelong friends as a weird really online teen.
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inkskinned · 9 months
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because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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gibbearish · 6 months
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love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking
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egophiliac · 1 month
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bring back zooterkins, the best 17th-century swear word
I don't normally do Just Characters Swearing, but. ...this kind of wrote itself and then wouldn't leave my head. it comes from both a piece of character-writing advice that has always stuck with me, and also my conviction that Leona is 1000% funnier as a character if his dialogue has to stay G-rated. let Kalim say fuck, but don't let Leona say bastard.
(I'm sorry)
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084392 · 2 months
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had never heard of "mlp infection aus" until this month and ngl i still dont know what they are but. it made me want to draw some of them getting taken over by their cutie marks or something......
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refugeed-kim · 2 months
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YES YES I NEED THIS SIGN IN EVERY SINGLE PARK PLEASE
This is my daily struggle, I had so many arguments with people with off-leash dogs (in a mandatory leash area!!!). Thanks to this behavior I'm struggling with Kim being anxious/aggressive with other females as she often gets involved in unpleased interactions with free females while on leash. And every single time that I ask for the dog to be at least recalled, I'm being called names and insulted of course.
Also 9 out of 10 their dog isn't really that friendly at all.
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p0nyr0ni · 2 months
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counting-stars-gayly · 4 months
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I’m actually LOVING how Rick Riordan, and the other writers of the show, took his initial concept of a Percabeth rivalry fueled by that of their parents and kind of turned it on its head?
Now, instead of Annabeth being wary of Percy because he’s a son of Poseidon, he’s wary of her because she made a callous impression on him. They get off to a rocky start even before finding out who Percy’s father is, and when they finally do, Annabeth doesn’t care. Instead of them fighting because of who their parents are, they’re fighting over their own opposed worldviews.
Then, instead of them arguing over which of the gods is cooler and who was right in the story of Medusa, they realize that, just like Medusa, Annabeth is a victim of her mother and that, unlike Medusa, she is a far kinder and stronger person, unwilling to repeat the cycle of hurt. They realize that, like his father, Percy often acts without considering potential consequences and that, unlike his father, he is a far kinder and stronger person, willing to step up for someone he wronged and whom he cares about.
Instead of Percy and Annabeth’s rivalry being focused on that of their parents, it’s focused on who they are, themselves. But the path to friendship is still the same: a realization that they have each other’s backs, no matter what, because they’re not their parents after all.
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acorviart · 2 days
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not to sound like a boomer, but I need some people to learn how to write emails in a semi-professional (at the very least) format so you're not cold emailing a business/potential employer/any other stranger about formal matters in the exact same way you'd DM a close friend on instagram
the formality/language can loosen up in the email chain once you've established a rapport and you match the other person if they're being less formal, but please don't have the very first email you send a stranger be written in all lowercase ultra-casual sms slang with no greeting or signature and a billion emojis
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mumblesplash · 4 months
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(teaching my art class)
me: and what’s the number one rule when designing characters with wings? …well?
a handful of students, sighing reluctantly: no good fa-
me (interrupting them): NO good-faith attempts at realism, EVER. you want all the bird dweebs and physicists jumping ship as EARLY AS POSSIBLE so they’re not around to cinemasins your ass when you get to the cool parts of your story, and…ugh, what now, gerald
gerald (my least favorite student): why not just do some minimal research instead of-
me: listen you little shit i can and will singlehandedly tank your 4.0 gpa
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ink-the-artist · 7 months
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Video game I saw in a dream. It was in this low poly style like an older video game. You play as this character I think was meant to be a lamb, or maybe a weird mix of a lamb a mouse and a rabbit, (while not really looking like any of those things) and you’re running away from a wolf. Your objective is to last as long as possible before the wolf catches and eats you.
The house you’re running in is endless and bizarrely put together like most building interiors in dreams are (like the infinite toilet dream dimension on Reddit lol) the layout of the house is pretty detailed, you can stop and hide in places like closets or bins while the wolf looks for you, you can go up and down stairs and into rooms etc.
You never actually know where the wolf is or how close it is to you until it appears in your line of sight, it makes no noise and the game gives you no way of knowing where it is, and it’s pretty unpredictable it doesnt move at a consistent pace. When the wolf catches you there’s an animation showing it eating your character
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ministarfruit · 3 months
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day 15: haunting ♡
(femslashfeb prompt list)
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paxopalotls · 4 months
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The fanfictions are infecting me with brainrot oh my god have some au doodles before I explode
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stuckinapril · 4 months
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friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me
#It’s just so different#even though it’s public it still feels secret and safe. i feel comfy sharing a lot more on here than I do in my actual day to day life lol#in my head I’m also just speaking to myself 90% of the time which helps#if a friend off tumblr saw my thoughts I’d feel so weird ab it#esp bc they might get the vagueposting about certain situations and tell mutual friends#no thank u. this is for me. I’m not about to start censoring my thoughts bc someone I know knows my tumblr#u guys literally saw me have LIVE BREAKDOWNS#meanwhile I’ll have the worst fucking day in history and tell no one about it. I’m already cripplingly private but way more so in real life#this is basically a low stress journaling outlet for me. it’s so important for me to maintain the separation#like this is actually my diary & has been so handy for letting out emotions / articulating thoughts / staying on track !!#& I’ve met so many kind people on here who actually get me. which is so hard to find irl bc I’m surrounded by pre-med gunners/overachievers#who are by standard not very good w emotion & can be competitive/judgmental. or at least it’s hard for me to be vulnerable in front of them#and I’m part of that crowd so I reserve my emotions only to a handful of very close friends#it’s nice to hop on here and express negative emotions!! or positive emotions!! just whatever I want and it’s low stress and people get me#I don’t have to worry about judgment or competitiveness etc etc#like everyone on here is so kind & nice & understanding. & just a breath of fresh air from the types I run w. it’s just nice to have this#so idk that’s why I think I’ll always be strict about keeping the worlds separate. it just works#p
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egophiliac · 7 months
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just something I wanted to try! (tumblr please don't absolutely destroy this, thank you)
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