3 Things Naruto Fandom Needs To Stop Doing

[redbrunja]

Stop giving Sakura make-overs.

That red top she wears? Looks awesome on her.

The normal "redheads should not wear pink" rule does not apply in this case and I'm really sick of reading about her getting new outfits because 'omg the red just looks so bad on her and she never really liked it.'

Does anybody get all uppity about Naruto. A ninja. Wearing. Orange? No.

She's worn the same shade and the same symbol on her back since the beginning of the series; I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's clearly important to her.

Also, stop acting like Sakura nees her gloves. Read some of the latest chapters and pay attention to how Tsunade fights.

Sakura's gloves are clearly either a.) there for the psychological effect or b.) (my personal fanon) they keep her hands clean.

After all, medics need clean hands at all times.

Additionally, Sai is not mean. He is not malicious and does not take every opportunity to be hurtful to Sakura.

(And I will have a picspam up later tonight showing how ridiculous writing him like that is.)

Comments

[numara.livejournal.com]

I always figured that Sakura wore her gloves so that when she goes all SAKURASMASH™, her knuckles doen't bleed/get cut.

Writing Sai mean is just as OOC as writing him happy, or sad, or any other emotion, really; if he doesn't have a firm grasp of what it means to express his emotions, why would he purposely be an asshole? He's so impressionable, I doubt that he really knows what he's doing.

Naruto!fandom keeps me entertained. Most people just treat it like it's their own personal novel and change up character's looks and personalities when it suits them. It's crazy. :/

[cherryfruit.livejournal.com]

I sooo agree with the clean hands thing - I rp her a lot, and that's my headcanon too. Why would she NEED them to punch, anyway? It's not like they're magic or something.

I saw a purple prose-y Sakura RP sample once where she was wearing a teensy strappy sundress that was described as showing an indecent amount of leg (the excuse was "it was hot out") to go ON A MISSION. A mission where she was leaving the village, to boot. She was about to run through the forest for god-knows-how long in a minidress. WHY.

I think a lot of people fail to understand that Sakura is painfully practical. Just look at her casual outfit! It's extraordinarily plain! I know everyone wants to make their character look ZOMGGORGEOUSANDPERFECT, but dressing up in cutesy clothing (especially in a professional environment) seems to generally be the last thing on Sakura's mind.

[nimblnymph.livejournal.com]

You speak such lovely truths. I get reeeeeeally tired of people going, "ZOMG!!1!!!1! sakura is in blak wit blak nales n ZOMG!" *rolls eyes* Sakura is cute enough as is. Period. I love the fact that she's such a girlie girl... but she's a girlie girl who can kick your ass faster than you can finish giving her such a stupid makeover.

Also... big red truck on Naruto's jumpsuit onesie. *snorts* Don't see THAT ninja coming a mile away.

But really, Kishimoto as always had certain colors sort of cast for certain characters. ALL manga-ka do that. I don't remember the specifics but there's something in Japanese culture that has to do with color association. I'll have to see if I can find that article again... somewhere. Regardless, red/pink is Sakura's color. Deal with it. Give her going out clothes and such. But she wears red when she's gonna hand someone their anus.

Personally, I always thought Sakura's gloves were a necessary thing for her training. As in, she needs them to keep her hands from getting too cut up while busting rocks and such. She's still very much a novice, after all, so it stands to reason that Tsunade, who's been doing this for YEARS, has either a) calloused her knuckles up or b) has gotten so good at the chakra use that she doesn't need gloves. So... maybe think of the gloves as shin guards or something. They don't actually give her power or anything, merely protect her from scrapes.

And yes, Sai is NOT purposely malicious or cruel. He's just incredibly socially awkward and got some reeeeeally shitty advice from some craptastic self-help books.

[strange_quark]

Aside from the fact that, for some bizarre reason, Kishimoto draws clothes that don't quite properly fit people (at least in my opinion), I'm in agreement on the clothes bit.

As for the gloves, I personally think the function is twofold. One reason is to keep them from getting banged up. Not that she necessarily needs them to prevent bruising and scraping, but it's an added layer of protection for long, difficult, hard fights. Second, and more prominent, is the psychological. Gloves off: healer mode. Gloves on: fighter mode. This is my personal fanon, at least.

Clean hands I'd buy if I didn't already have to suspend my disbelief quite a stretch with regards to medicine. Not only does all of the doctor need to be clean to perform surgery, and the tools, but the environment needs to be sterile, too. Battlefield medicine is something a hospital doctor would cringe at. People died of infections most often after such procedures. It seems to not be much of a concern, so I make the assumption that either a medic can prevent infection with chakra or ninja are, for some reason, more resilient to infection.

It just seems strange to me for a medical specialist to care about one thing not being sterile, and not everything else.

[mzminola.livejournal.com]

Not getting into the Sakura thing because 1) I agrees, 2) all the other wonderful commentators agree, 3) playing dress-up is best in fan-art, not fanfic when no matter how good a description you give of the clothes, in a few sentences your readers will mentally default to their normal picture of the character.

Does anybody get all uppity about Naruto. A ninja. Wearing. Orange? No.
This is why it's probably good I stay away from the Naruto fandom- I have no problems with ninja in bright, shiny colors. It's their headbands I object to:
Ninja are best when one doesn't know they're a ninja, yes? The all-in-black is a theater thing; dressing them like the stagehands gave them a creepy "do not notice until too late" edge. In real life, dressing in all-covering black would actually be pretty suspicious. Real life ninja, in the past and if there's some now, I'm fairly confident would dress like civilians.
But the headbands! If all the ninja wear those metal headbands with the symbols on them, then all one has to do to identify someone as a ninja is look for the shiny, distinctive piece of metal.
Naruto-verse ninja are more like...Magical Mercenaries. Which are still cool.

This ain't an objection, it just amuses me.

Sidenote: I keep meaning to link you to this: Ino and Kiba silliness. (http://ormsqueak.deviantart.com/art/KibaIno-silliness-sniff-sniff-34495482)

[digthenym.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Sakura makeovers annoy me, unless it's something believable (her wearing a jonin vest in a future fic for example). But the worst offense? Sakura growing her hair long . Ugh! It makes me want to punch things (with gloves on!)

Sai is such an awesome character because when he's mean, he's mean with absolutely zero ill-intentions (actually, if you've ever read/watched Ouran High School Host Club, he kind of reminds me of Haruhi...). The most you could peg him with is apathy, and even then he's just the guy who says what everyone else is thinking. It's more of a lack of a mind to mouth filter/tact/concept of social norms than being a jerk.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

Additionally, Sai is not mean. He is not malicious and does not take every opportunity to be hurtful to Sakura.

THANK YOU. Honestly, I go to read Sakura/Sai to cheer me up, and I come away distraught at characterization.