Face, Meet Fist

[redbrunja]

Okay, so I'm trolling through devart and finally come across the Sakura-hate of the Naruto fandom.

Someone wrote a comic that blamed Sakura for Sasuke ditching Konoha, joining Orochimaru, and almost killing Naruto. Apparently she's just that annoying. I'm trying to figure out how she could be to blame for Sasuke's dumb life choices... did I miss the panel where she shoves Sasuke's hand through Naruto's chest?

This all came about because I was looking for pictures of Hokage!Sakura because I think that is an awesome idea to play with and did find some good art, mainly these:



sakura-sama by ~yoruichisia on deviantART


Lab rats by ~razieel on deviantART

(Ignore the fanfic author's note think that comes with this - it ruins the awesome that is the fanart.)


Ino - Vector by ~Uchiha-Texugo on deviantART


_aNbU_mIsSiOn_ by ~ladygt93 on deviantART

Also, pro tip, fanartists. Taking a screencap of Tsunade and dying her hair pink does not make her look anything like Sakura at all.

Comments

[fifteenohseven.livejournal.com]

your icon is made of win ^.^

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you. A darling girl made it for me specifically... well, to bitch about Kishimoto, but it really applies to so many things in fandom.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

APPARENTLY NOT!

But no, Sakura's annoyance drove him to it, and bonus point, her powers post time-skip are dumb and lame!

[teh-amazing-one.livejournal.com]

Clearly you don't know anything, redbrunja. Itachi obviously made himself look like Sakura while he was killing everyone! Ans Sasuke has been repulsed by the image that made him an orphan for years!

Everyone knows that, duh!

xD

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

How could I have been so foolish!

[teh-amazing-one.livejournal.com]

It's alright. I'm just glad that I could enlighten you.

[strange_quark]

Ah, didn't you know? Sakura's clearly to blame for all the flaws in Naruto.

Because she has a vagina.

Now that you know, welcome to the slash fandom.

(I would have much less of a problem with slash if it didn't treat awesome female characters as vile obstacles to a person's two men of choice that they want fucking. In fact, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all if it didn't do that.)

[terenewen.livejournal.com]

Note that not all slashers do that. :)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I know, but so many do.

Honestly, when I learn someone loves slash, especially loves slash to the exclusion of het, I assume that she has issues about hating herself and her gender until I'm proved othewise.

[terenewen.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know you don't. Just a note cause the comment above seemed to generalize a little too much for my liking.

Hating women like sexism hating? Or just disliking being a woman?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Both.

From what I've observed, a significant percent of slash fans seem like they've internalized our cultural men>women and masculine traits>feminine traits sexism, and thus have a double standard about female characters that springs from them own issues about being female. So they like slash, because guys are hot and better than girls.

It makes me want to scream and rip out my hair and go 'why the fuck didn't you get Tamora Pierce books at age 12?'

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

That comes uncomfortably close to assuming people who like het to the exclusion of slash are homophobes unless proved otherwise.

Yes, it does. However, it's a hard assumption for me NOT to make, especially since a lot of slash (not all, by any means, but it's there) comes with 'I don't like girl characters they're boring/annoying/get in the way' and 'the boys are just so much more interesting'. I have NEVER seen het come attached in that way with disrespect for a specific gender or bisexual or homosexuality.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

It does that. But I don't know, I kind of see that as more a symptom of fandom and society in general rather than anything particular to slash.

I do think it's a symptom of society, but I do think slash seems to express it a lot more, if only because it's pretty impossible to say good things about women when women in your fics when you're not writing about female characters.

And frankly, I have to say, I very rarely manage to venture into het without encountering a shitload of "just say no to yaoi!" "shounen ai is icky" and "ugh, slash, how could you"... so, yeah. Personal experience, there.

You also go to anti-yaoi comms, hon. It's not really surprising to find people who don't like yaoi and express it there.

[lynnxlady.livejournal.com]

I'm going to agree with you that it depends on the author, and the majority of fanfic authors (whether het or yaoi) seem to have an issue with how they portray women. I think it's just that (from my perspective on it anyway) yaoi authors who come across with having a woman-issue usually seem to have it with *all* the female characters. Meanwhile the het authors are at least okay with *some* women (even if it's only with ones who are particularly nice, feminine, conventional, nonthreatening to their favorite het pairing, etc). Not that I want to read fic that villainizes any female character; fic that makes Ino into a worthless bitch to Sakura's saint, or vice versa, is just as icky as fic that portrays them both as anything more than horny fangirls jealous of NaruSasu True Love!

Also, to be fair, I don't really get into slash pairings. There's a few exceptions with either amazing chemistry or a dynamic that I really love seeing with some sexual tension thrown in...I just like girls too much and want them in the sex I'm reading about. So I dabble in yaoi at best, and sometimes it's easy to be scared away before you get a chance to uncover the good stuff when you run into enough of Girls Are Gross. So I only read slash by fanfic writers who I know wouldn't DO that, while I'm willing to wade through more crappy het fic.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I just like girls too much and want them in the sex I'm reading about.

That, in a nutshell, is why I'm all about het.

[strange_quark]

I know they don't. I was over-exaggerating to make a point. It just happens a lot and it drives me up the fucking wall.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Same here.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, those damn girls with their lady businesses! They're to blame for everything!

And the girl!hate is one of the many, many reasons that I don't like slash.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

*facepalms* Leave me to die in a ditch. I'd rather not ever face that.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

It's a scary, scary thing, fandom.

[korinacaffeine.livejournal.com]

lol, is that Ino picture a print? Can you even MAKE prints from fanart?

Anyway, Sakura-hate pisses me off. I posted some AkatSaku picture nonsense on an Akatsuki community here on LJ, and just about everyone flipped their shit. (Why? Because everyone either A. hated Sakura or B. hated the Akatsuki paired with anyone BUT the Akatsuki.)

Eh, but I'm over it.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Well, people at Cons do ALL the time.

And agreed about Sakura hate. And that strikes me as insane - isn't there like a comm dedicated to Sakura x Ataksuki? People in fandom are so weird sometimes.

[korinacaffeine.livejournal.com]

There is, but I posted the picture way before that comm ever came about.

I was actually glad for some of the crit they gave me, haha, even if most of it was just blatant "You suck, go away."

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I'd almost be tempted to repost now that fandom is in a more accepting place. And I'm glad you got some worth while concrit out of it. (Although personally, 'you suck go away' is horribly unhelpful.)

Do you happen to have a link to this picture? Because I'm curious.

[korinacaffeine.livejournal.com]

I deleted the comm post because I don't like the picture anyway, lol, but the picture itself is still around.

http://korinacaffeine.deviantart.com/art/FYI-We-Love-You-58290425

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, cute!

[teh-amazing-one.livejournal.com]

You suck. Go away.


Forget that this is your journal or anything.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

It took me a minute to get the joke. For a while I was just staring at me inbox going 'bzwhat?'

[teh-amazing-one.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I tend to make jokes that people don't get, or are unfunny to them.

I'm a selfish joke-maker; I only think of my own funny fufillment.

[terenewen.livejournal.com]

Fandom is so stupid sometimes. I don't understand how, in a manga/anime that has such a great ensemble cast, someone could hate someone like Sakura who is a) integral to everything and b) FUCKING AWESOME.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I mean, I can sort of see it in part 1, but that was so clearly Kishimoto's writing fail that I have a hard time understand hating her PERSONALLY.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I can't tell WHAT they are trying to say.

Hokage Sakura is a whole barrel of Do Want.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I think they ARE on Sakura's side, but what did poor Kankarou (or however his name is spelled) do to deserve being painted as a woman hater?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Frankly, it just looked like bad writing to me.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I can too, except for that fact that it's so clearly Kishimoto's failures are a writer that make her character frustrating, and not her character herself. (imho)

[lynnxlady.livejournal.com]

See, I think what makes Sakura so Damn Awesome is because she used to suck so bad (despite being an interesting, if often not very likeable - to me - character anyway, and having the occasional moment of Awesome, like the fight with Ino and deciding to go study with Tsunade). Not that Kishimoto went into her development from Point A to Point B enough, but the fact that she developed from pre-timeskip Sakura (who did have potential) into post-timeskip Sakura (hey, potential actually took bloom!) makes me love her a hundred times more than if she'd just been badass from the beginning.

[kaneko-chan.livejournal.com]

since you like Sakura so much, I have a link to an awesome Hokage Sakura posted recently: http://bagel-san.deviantart.com/art/Sakura-rokudaime-103677581 done by Bagel-san

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, that is awesome! And did you see Shikamaru needs money?

[anat-astarte.livejournal.com]

Wow! Great pics!

I am really loving the Hokage Sakura one :D

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Hokage Sakura is my favorite. I love the little smile she is wearing.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Just finished my kakasaku exchange fic. It's kinda weird, and I think it might be OOC...but justified OOC. Interested in skimming it? I wrote most of it between 12 and 2 AM and and I never trust my coherency at those hours.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Sure, I'm game. I warn you though, OOC is something that is really hard to sell me on.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

will send an email!