Cheer Up, Emo Kid (Or, It's A Family Affair)

[redbrunja]

I love it when I'm wondering about some element of a story - in this case, who polices Konoha - and I get an answer almost right away.

I think the idea of Sasuke's clan being the ones who were supposed to police the town and the other ninjas was nicely apropos, and surprisingly enough, I now have a lot of sympathy for Sasuke.

He's still making blindingly bad decisions, and ignoring all the ropes people are throwing him, but I adored how you could see Sasuke's father screwing up Itachi who screws up Sasuke, who goes on to think that his only real option for defeating his brother is to join Orchimaru.

(And he might not be wrong - if you set aside all moral and emotional considerations, chasing after the power being offered him is a clever move. It's not smart, but it's clever. Sasuke just has no fucking idea of what he's losing by doing so.)

Also, Sasuke learning how to make those fireballs, with his puffed out cheeks and little flash of belly button was just about the most adorable thing ever.

The Naruto vs Sasuke fight was very cool, and I loved the headband motif. Sasuke's line about being "more special than you" almost made me do a spit take, it was so hilariously lol-tastic.

I know how many slashers adore Sasuke/Naruto, and I usually don't use this argument, because I'm honest enough to know that if the genders were different, say if Gojyo was a girl, I'd be over Gojyo/Hakkai like white on rice, but this time, I have to:

Why does everything reduce to sex?

By which I mean, I kind of feel that if you watched that fight between Sasuke and Naruto and thought that the subtext was "I wanna get into his pants," I think you missed the point.

Look at the way that the characters interact: when they're interested in someone romantically, they are not subtle about it at all. We all know that Sakura is pinning after Sasuke, and Naruto is pinning after Sakura, and Hinata is pinning after Naruto, and in the case of the first two, they are fucking BLATANT about their affections.

There is no room for confusion about that. And when Sakura starts to think fondly of and respect Naruto, she treats him like a brother or friend - none of the blushing, subservant way she treats Sasuke.

We don't know how Sasuke acts when he is actually is crushing on someone, but look at how he acts with his brother: He wants attention, wants to be as good as/better then, and then he wants to kill his brother.

That is almost the same emotional arc as Sasuke's relationship with Naruto, with the exception that Naruto is the one striving for attention and to be as good as/better than, and Sasuke is the one not giving him attention.

My point is, Sasuke's main relationship are all fraternal, and Naruto explicitly labels his relationship with Sasuke in familial terms. (And wondering if being with Iruka was like being with a father made me wibble.)

In other news, I loved Temari's conversation with Shikamaru in the hospital (though I wish either Neji or Choiji or Kiba would have died, simply because everyone making it out alive stretched my sense of credibility.) Poor Shikimaru, getting tag-teamed by both is father and his girlfriend Temari. I love how cold and ruthless she is, and I loved Nara-senior's comment about how you have to stick around to keep your friends safe.

Seeing Sakura come to Tsunade and ask for training was fantastic, as was Tsunade's conversation about the skills medic-nins have to have but I have to say, I was almost nauseous when I saw Sakua healing the fish. I know that l soon every female ninja sans Temari is going to be getting medic training, which makes me go, 'way the hell to ruin any chance of letting Sakura be special.' Sure, she ends up all badass from her training, but the fact that every other girl is going to be doing the same thing takes away any value. It would be completely different if they were picking medics based on, you know, personality or skill, but the mangaka totally isn't. I mean, Ino? I love the girl, but she (and Shikamaru) are the worst people to work in medicine in the whole manga. What about Choiji or Shino or Rock Lee? (Okay, he can't do the medical techniques so he's out, but you get my point, right?) The idea that Ino could be more valuable in medicine than in information gathering is ludicrous.

*sigh*

End rant.

So... Kakashi gaiden.

wee!Kakashi: most adorable thing ever Y/Y?

That was fantastic backstory for him.

And I have to say, Obito, Kakashi must have really liked you, because you're whole, 'Your father was a hero' *two panels pass* 'Your father was even lower scum!' was... not an argument that I would have listened to.

But I adore the whole 'sharingan as a gift' and when Kakashi is crying out of just that eye.

I totally need a wee!Kakashi icon.

Also, when do we learn that Kakashi was in ANBU and how Rin died? Because what Kakashi was wearing sort-of looked like an ANBU uniform, but I didn't see a tatto and it was never mentioned, but I thought this was around the time he was being sent out on assassination missions? Or was that after he mastered his chidori?

Speaking of, Sasuke has three 'comets' in his eye and Kakshi has two, correct? And do you think the Sharigan 'remembers' things it has learned? By which I mean, if it was passed on, does it/new person use jujitsu that had been memorized before, or does the new person have to relearn everything?

So now I'm on to Shippuuden! Where Sakura wears awesome boots and rivals Toph for earthbending, Temari is a jounin and Kakashi continues to be awesome!

Comments

[pikabot]

Also oh my god I am having such a love affair with that Hiyori icon. I need someone to stop me before it's too late. XD

[pikabot]

Does there really need to be?

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

The flashbacks for Sasuke did give me a lot of sympathy. I lost it when we got back to the fight, but I felt for the younger version.

"More special than you" has been a running joke in anime fandom now as a result of Uchiha Sasuke. It's the epitome of whiny me-monster.

By which I mean, I kind of feel that if you watched that fight between Sasuke and Naruto and thought that the subtext was "I wanna get into his pants," I think you missed the point.

I agree with you there. I'm actually kind of neutral about Sasuke/Naruto. I'm okay with it if they're much, much older, where you feel like enough time has passed for them to get acquainted with the idea of an "unconventional" (in the Naruto universe) sexuality and how rivalry can be an attraction as well as a repulsion (aka late teens or adulthood) AND provided that Sasuke has gotten over himself enough to be believably reformed. But when they're kids? It's all friendship and brotherhood. Attraction isn't even on their RADAR. It's not romantic love, here. Even twelve year olds know the difference.

That is almost the same emotional arc as Sasuke's relationship with Naruto, with the exception that Naruto is the one striving for attention and to be as good as/better than, and Sasuke is the one not giving him attention.

I completely agree, except that it's more of a two-way street with Naruto. Although Sasuke is the one holding back on attention, Sasuke feels the resenment "I want to beat you" for Naruto as much as Naruto does for him. He didn't at first, but I think Orochimaru being stopped by Naruto in the forest and then everything else that happened gave Sasuke this extra edge of jealousy and resentment where Naruto was concerned. Reflecting his resenment for his brother.

I know that l soon every female ninja sans Temari is going to be getting medic training, which makes me go, 'way the hell to ruin any chance of letting Sakura be special.'

Oh that bugged me too. I thought it was lessened somewhat with Hinata, but at least with Hinata we saw her give Naruto medicine in the chuunin exams so you could believe she had an interest. But Ino? I read that and I was like "fuck that, what a cop out". Obviously the mangaka can't think of anything women are good for except healing.

I know some people complained when Katara got the healing trick as being a default "female" gendered power to give a cahracter, but I was impressed with how they've handled-- or in most cases not handled-- it since. Yes, Katara has learned some healing, but when asked to choose she chose fighting hands-down. Katara is a warrior first and a healer/medic second.

But I adore the whole 'sharingan as a gift' and when Kakashi is crying out of just that eye.

I loved that gaiden, and was terribly sad when they skipped it in the anime. I was hoping they'd use the filler to do gaiden for all the teachers, but sadly they just filled it with random cliche plots instead.

Because what Kakashi was wearing sort-of looked like an ANBU uniform, but I didn't see a tatto and it was never mentioned, but I thought this was around the time he was being sent out on assassination missions? Or was that after he mastered his chidori?

I'm still not sure when kakashi became Anbu. In the gaiden he'd just become jounin, and that was before the Nine Tails attacked. Given that Kakahshi is 14 years older than Naruto, in that one or two year period between losing Obito and the Nine Tails being stopped is presumably when he became ANBU. I like to think Rin died during the Nine Tails nightmare, but I don't think that's actually been revealed that I know of.

Speaking of, Sasuke has three 'comets' in his eye and Kakshi has two, correct? And do you think the Sharigan 'remembers' things it has learned? By which I mean, if it was passed on, does it/new person use jujitsu that had been memorized before, or does the new person have to relearn everything?

Isn't it the other way around? At least in the "modern" timeline. Sasuke and Kakashi both started out with two, but by the time Team 7 is formed Kakashi has three. Itachi has the stage past three.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I forget...how far into the manga did you get? At some point(a few volumes after the manga and anime completely part ways) it just reaches entire new levels of awesome. It and Claymore are the only manga I follow in scanslations because I can't wait, as opposed to being up to date with the various plotpoints as the rest of my friends. It's hard to explain, because the anime's world's better than most anime (especially anime based on manga...anime-original stories fare better in that regard) in terms of plot, character and character relationships, but it doesn't never reaches the points the manga does. (The manga actually makes Hohenheim as a character much much interesting, and Rose in the manga is downright fun.)

(Honestly, if you can. track down vol 15-its self-contained and is the flashback story of Mustang, Hawkeye, Hughes, and Armstrong in the war-and see what you think.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure I understand the question.

[pikabot]

What difference does it make if something's "actually there" as opposed to it being "wish fulfillment"? The resulting fanwork is the same either way, and since what's actually there is based on a subjective interpretation, there's nobody to arbitrate what is and what isn't there. So what difference does it make?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Ah.

Well, I'm thinking mostly in the context that 99% of the internet fandom always seems obsessed with shipping(something I really don't get) and if you remove authorial intent and textual context, then it seems that what you're mostly left with is character type ideals, which removes everything that makes the characters interesting(IMO, at least.)

There's also a difference between "what I like, and think would be fun" and "what the property encourages me to think/want" and most seem to miss that. The first is fine, as long as you remember and realize there's a difference, but more often, I see the latter. A lot of character hate, for example, often seems to be directed at a character being in the way of what a reader/viewer wants, even if the speaker doesn't put it that way. Look at the Bleach fandom(or other fandoms with two females in the "main girl" role.) Large chunks of it seem to think that you can only like Rukia or Orihime, and that they have to be in competition as lead female/Ichigo's love interest, even though the manga doesn't put them in competition, or really imply that Ichigo has strong romantic feelings for either one. Or look at the Avatar fandom. I never heard one negative word about Mai, but as soon as the trailer with Mai and Zuko kissing got out, I suddenly saw how horrible and wretched she was and how the idea of Mai and Zuko was terrible, before the episodes had even aired.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I've had too many authors pull things out of left field, or decide things that made to sense to trust them on knowing or understanding what they're writing, so I have a really hard time with the idea that only the story the author is fully conscious of writing is the only one with meaning.

[pikabot]

...and that's not at all what I said!

[pikabot]

I disagree on the first point. Well, not disagree so much as I think you're arguing at something that doesn't exist. If you remove authorial intent and textual context, yeah you wind up reducing the characters to their archetypes, and that sucks. However, most fanon shippers don't do that. They see the authorial intent, they see the textual context...and then they say 'I like the idea of these other two characters together'. That's something completely different from disregarding the intent and context. It's something based off of their own reading of the text, with their interpretation of the subtext, so you can't very well tell them that their interpretation of it's wrong based on your interpretation of it.

The second point, though, I agree with very strongly. I hate when fandom morons forget that it doesn't really affect their fandom activities what is and isn't canon, and how shipping is not a fucking contest. I doubly hate the character bashing that comes out of that, and triply so as it almost invariably focuses on the female characters.

I just don't get why some people feel it will somehow invalidate their preferences if they aren't canon.

[enderxenocide.livejournal.com]

*laughs* It never gets old, that we rarely see eye-to-eye about these sorts of things, but that we can talk about it rationally and not get into huge fights. I looovveee you, dear.

Also, I'm totally blaming Hakkai for my rather unconventional view on "sibling bonds" now. :)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I had a very long reply typed up, and LJ ate it.

A lot of this has to do with where you hang out online. Most of my experience with fanon shipping until recently(and still some of it) has been taking one element in canon, looking at it one specific way, and then disregarding the twenty elements that, when looked at almost anyway, directly contradict the interpretation of the one element.

There's "I like this idea that's in the text," "I like this idea that's not in the text, but that's ok, the text is fine, too" and "I like this idea that's not in the text, and I want to find a way that the text supports this idea." Outside of pure crackshipping, most of my experience is people completely ignoring the middle part. More often than not, what I've seen is people doing one of 2 things:

1) Seeking authorial validation for fanon
2) Believing that the fan knows better than the author(have you seen all the "how dare JK Rowling actually have people state how they feel?" comments the last few months?)

Until a couple years ago, I literally thought I was the only female anime/manga fan in the world who didn't hate (much less liked most of) every female character in the genre, didn't slash in every fandom with more than one male, regardless of canon sexuality/relationships, and didn't especially hate the love interests. Now, of course, I know that's far from the case, but the first few years I was into anime and manga, that was all I encountered. Even now, most still seem to let whether or not the female canonically interferes with their shipping affect their judgement, even if it isn't stated as such. That most character hate seems to be directed at female characters, and especially ones who are either implicitly or explicitly involved with a popular male, is something that I find to be extremely telling. (Partly, I think, because so many seem to approach fiction as the male is the hero and the female the love interest, and the female seems to mostly be judged by perceived worthiness as a love interest, and not her value as an independent character.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yes. We are queens of rationality and sanity.

Oh, sure, blame Hakkai. *snerk*

And how did you last final go?

(Also, shameful confession - I recently spent just under a hundred bucks on Kakash/Sakura doujinishi. *blushes*)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I know, I'm sorry, I answered that one really badly.

What I MEANT, and failed to articulate, was that first, I don't have a problem with the 'this is how I see it.' 'Oh, I see, and respect' that conversation, especially since usually you can find some middle ground, if not on, say, a shipping point, on another character, or something else.

Secondly, I disagree that 'The only real and meaningful discussion that's possible is trying to suss out which interpretation is the author'. If you're trying to PREDICT what's GOING to happen, yes, you want to try to figure out what the author is doing, but if you're just enjoying the fandom, and then see hints of something that makes you go "Shiny!"... I don't think that has inherently less value than agreeing with whatever the author says is right, especially since, as I mentioned, I have so, so little trust in authors at this point.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Excellent point.

[pikabot]

Oh, no, I enjoy those sorts of conversations greatly as well. There's nothing wrong with them, and they're not of less value or anything. What I meant by 'meaningful discussion' is a conversation with actual back-and-forth arguments, with room for persuasion, much like what we're doing right now. Once both sides have stated their interpretations, there...really isn't anywhere for a conversation to go except to describe them in more detail or move on to describe other interpretations you have. You can't really have debate over it.

Well, not without winding up on fandom_wank, anyways.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

Oh, it does vary a lot from relationship to relationship. Some transition better than others, but even a slight nuance can utterly change how people see a relationship. Take for example Avatar, where I’m pretty sure that if Aang were two years older and an inch taller than Katara, the complaints about how she is too much of a mother to him would evaporate.

As for Sasuke and Naruto… I tend think that if one of them were a girl it wouldn’t really change much.

Kiba’s hair… I don’t think so. From what I remember it’s as unruly as ever.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I'll be there!

I may be a bit late, though. (I got lost on the path of life... and then there was this handsome, handsome man who needed help with his pants....)

Also, TOTALLY RANDOMLY, I forgot to say earlier, but if you're a fan of Kakashi, i'd reccomend reading the gaiden for him -it's just a couple of chapters, and it's really good.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Maybe... I don't know, they have a lot of 'Katara mothering' that's explicitally written into the dialogue, so I think it would still be there, especially if Aang was still as goofy as he is. But having him look and be older would probably help a lot.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

That's true to an extent. I mean, further down enderxenocide explained how she viewed this fight as a Sasuke/Naruto shipper, and now I can see where she's coming from it. (Admittedly, she's way more sane than 99% of the fandom.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I got to volume 9.

I really want to get catch up, but I love the anime so much, I have a hard time believing that it could be better. (Plus, there are some significant differences between the two, where I love what the anime did SO MUCH, it's hard for the manga to compare.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I have serious issues with a few parts of the anime(specifically, the handling of Hohenheim, Ed's attitude towards Winry later on, that hideous Rose arc at the end, and the Ishbalans turning on scar) all of which are different and handled just how I'd want in the manga. For that matter, manga!Rose is completely awesome. There are also a couple twists regarding the homunculi that you could never see coming, including dealing with a foreign OTP who are basically Mustang and Hawkeye in training, but with swords.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

"More special than you" has been a running joke in anime fandom now as a result of Uchiha Sasuke. It's the epitome of whiny me-monster.

What made me lol so hard was the fact that I have come across the running joke LONG before I actually started reading Naruto. LONG before. Which just added this whole special level of... sweet jesus Sasuke, listen to yourself.

I thought it was lessened somewhat with Hinata, but at least with Hinata we saw her give Naruto medicine in the chuunin exams so you could believe she had an interest. But Ino? I read that and I was like "fuck that, what a cop out". Obviously the mangaka can't think of anything women are good for except healing.

Yes. See, Hinata makes sense, but Ino? As I was saying to someone else, her talents are MADE for espinage. She couldn't be MORE the perfect spy if she had 'sydney bristow' tattoed on her ass. And he thinks she should be a healer? *incredulous*

I like to think Rin died during the Nine Tails nightmare, but I don't think that's actually been revealed that I know of.

That seems to be the consensus. I wonder if that was something the mangaka said in an interview or something.

Isn't it the other way around? At least in the "modern" timeline. Sasuke and Kakashi both started out with two, but by the time Team 7 is formed Kakashi has three. Itachi has the stage past three.

Okay, is that how it works? So having the three isn't the thing you need to kill your best friend for, but just a normal progression?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Sasuke, no matter how big of a jerk you may ever be, I am confident you will always be the world champion of inadvertently and appropriately punishing yourself.

Yes, exactly! He's like Sokka's dark and much less awesome twin! *snerk*

Incidentally, yeah, I do agree with you about the frustrating tendency of all relationships to be reduced to sex by fans.

In a lot of ways, I'm just as guilty of this as everyone else, but I do try not to be, and I always have my platonic OTP, where I'm gaga over the friendship or the parental relationship. (Or both).

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Srsly. Let's see...platonic OTPs I heart in Avatar...

Sokka&Katara, Iroh&Zuko, Aang&Katara (I know, I know, Kataangers wanna eat me for this, but I fangirl them LIKE CRAZY, just not as a couple), Aang&Appa, Hakoda&Sokka, Sokka&Toph (I realize she has a crush on him, but while it's cute, it's their dynamic as the "guys" of the group that really amuses me), Sokka&Aang, Toph&Aang, Katara&Toph, Mai&Ty Lee (Fire Book, why you do this thing? ;_; ), Aunt Wu&Katara, Katara&Hama (hey, I can fangirl amazing dysfunctionality), Bumi&Aang, Gyatso&Aang, Jet&Smellerbee, Cabbage Man&Cabbages...

...I think I OTF more people than I OTP, actually. XD