To answer your questions in the order by which they were placed: I am working on KB, but some of the bridge scenes for the next chapter are being sticky. I would skip them but there’s important plot points in some of the dialogue and I created this world so it will obey me. Eventually. After a lot of screaming and frustration. XP
I don’t know why death scenes are so easy for me to write for ObiKaka but this is the second time in a year I’ve done this to them. Given that I consider myself allergic to character death it was very odd to wake up today and take a second look at that scene. I mean, I think it’s a successful narrative and it made me cry again which is fantastic for my writing prowess but also aaaaaaahhhhh no my poor babies why?
I posted it less than a week ago, so RRRW isn’t all that old. (The prompts are from back in March though, so oops I’m a bit behind. XP) I’m glad you liked it. ^_^
Madara’s face is going to be a picture when Izuna and Hikaku show up with a cart full of hogtied children (plus their minder) and Izuna’s basically going to pick Sasuke up and shake him like a magic-8 ball until the kid makes with the crazy sharingan murder eyes.
that one meme where the husband and wife are at checkout and the wife was so hot that the cashier thought they were separate and put a divider between their groceries except with kakashi and gai
afterwards when theyre leaving the supermarket gai tells him “its okay, rival. *i* think yr beautiful” and kakashi blushes
kakashi and gai play the newly wed game and theyre asked “whos the more attractive one” and they both write gai
someone once asks kakashi “is it weird dating someone with such…. a discrepancy in levels of uh attractiveness?” and kakashi is like “thats rather rude……” and the guy says sorry and kakashi sighs and says “yeah….. he realy is out of my league”
*ducks back in* Also, I didn’t mean that there’s actually anything wrong with being a delicate flower! I just meant that Sakura was rather naive for a girl whose parents are supposed to be shinobi. It seems like Ino and the other clan kids got talks to about the harshness of shinobi life that Sakura did not is all I meant. Ino knew when to drop the fangirl thing in the face of danger when Sakura didn’t. (if i recall the early manga right) I could have phrased it better tho, sorry. ^__^
The short answer is that Sakura is Sakura and not Ino or Hinata. Children, especially children who have not finished puberty, all learn and develop at different rates. I’m sure that Sakura did get the Shinobi Talk from her parents, but getting a review of Shinobi Life from a pair of career chunin from a small or nonexistent Clan is very different from the talk you get from the Head of a Major Clan as the Heir to said Major Clan. To put it in modern lingo, Sakura’s parents told her how babies get made. Ino and Hinata not only had to take a human biology course, but they also had to take courses on RACK, STIDs, and date rape.
And that, in a nutshell, is why Sakura comes off as being less prepared than the other girls her age at the start of the series.
You know, in context of the canon ‘verse, I can see why people think this. After all, when Hinata thinks about Naruto she tends to think about what he’s done for her (inspiring her, saving her), and about her feelings for him… but to say that’s because she only cares about herself is a gross misinterpretation and due in large part to Kishimoto’s crap writing.
The thing about Hinata is she doesn’t expect anything from Naruto. Her feelings for him are, in fact, about her — because she doesn’t expect him to reciprocate.
She has, at least until recently, always seen their relationship as very one-sided: as her taking inspiration and courage from Naruto’s words and actions, and being unable to give him anything in return. You can see evidence of that in ch559:
“The one person I want to protect no matter the cost… always ends up protecting me instead…”
This scene not only demonstrates her thinking of their relationship as one-sided*, but also proves that Hinata definitely cares about more than just herself. “The… person I want to protect no matter the cost“ is not something you think when you don’t care about anyone but yourself. You also don’t go on a suicide mission to save someone if you care only about yourself.
(* Also in this scene, Naruto makes it a point to tell her that she’s helped him before/saved him before, so perhaps Hinata has gained more from their relationship so far, but Naruto has definitely benefited from it too, whether Hinata realises it or not.)
We see it in her “walking with you” speech in ch573, too:
“Naruto-kun. I’ve always…always chased after you. Even now.. But once this war ends, I’m going to stop once and for all. Next time, I’ll be next to you, holding your hand…Walking with you! Wait for me!”
I’ve always been fond of this speech, even more so than her confession (although I adore her confession too), because this is Hinata making the decision that she wants to be something — be someone — to Naruto. This speech is about wanting to be Naruto’s equal and lend him her strength, to give him strength the way he has always given her strength. This is about wanting their relationship to be more mutual and making the decision that she will be the one who takes that step.
Her confession was selfish in the sense that it was solely about her. It was about her finally voicing her feelings and finally thanking Naruto for everything he’d done for her, even unknowingly, and that is not a bad thing. In fact, I really like that about her confession, because as much as her confession is about romantic feelings, it’s not about a romantic relationship. It’s about Hinata’s development as a character. It shows her coming full circle and finally outgrowing the shy girl who couldn’t reach out to the one she admired, and becoming someone who stands proud and gives voice to her most secret feelings without fear or shame.
The confession was the end of an era and a new beginning in the same way that Sakura’s iconic hair-cutting moment was.
It’s also, in part, because Kishimoto sucks at writing women.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore all the girls in the Naruto ‘verse. There’s a great diversity in their personalities and strengths and weaknesses and even their pasts, and I love that… but, while Kishimoto might be good at creating female characters, he’s pretty shit at writing their stories and letting them grow and flourish into three dimensional people. (I have a lot more to say on this, but there’s another ask in my inbox right now that’s along these lines, so I’m going to save my rant for that response.)
But, the reason that NaruHina seems so skewed in Hinata’s direction is, in part, because Kishimoto has written her character and her story to hinge on his. Her development and her panel time centres on him, while Naruto is allowed to have a much broader range of interests, motivations and in-depth relationships. Of course it seems like his feelings for her aren’t as strong as hers for him (and, well, they’re not, really, but the difference isn’t really as enormous as it seems), because while Naruto is a whole character on his own, Hinata is written so that half her character (or more) depends on Naruto.
And despite being a NaruHina shipper, I hate that. I know that Hinata cares deeply for her team and Neji and more than likely also for her sister and father despite him being a monumentally shitty parent, but we so rarely get to see evidence of that because Kishimoto does her a great disservice with his writing.
That said, Kishi does show — has always shown — Naruto benefiting from his bond with Hinata, and I think he’s been making an effort recently to make things more mutual/balanced between them, with Hinata actively lending her strength to Naruto in the hand-hold scene, etc.
tl;dr
Hinata most certainly does not care only about herself.
In the manga canon, NaruHina definitely comes across as being “all about Hinata” to a degree but it is undeniable that Naruto benefits from their relationship too, and any shipper worth their salt ships it because they see it as mutually loving, supportive and beneficial.
I have deliberately avoided answering Boruto questions on this blog any longer due to the fact it gets me heated.
However despite this, I still am sent questions regarding this shithole series and people are still curious about what I think of it now, 40 something episodes in. To the person who sends me continuous information on the series: I don’t care and never have. Please stop. To everyone else: I haven’t always been entirely honest about how I really feel about Boruto, sarcasm aside.
So here you go.
Warning: This answer is not pointed towards you individually (anonymous). Please don’t take everything I’m about to say personal or as a direct attack on you.
Naruto might’ve “ended” fifteen years ago, and people who are still angry have every god given right to be. Because when you “end” a story in a mediocre, anti climatic, unsatisfactory bullshit way, it’s going to piss a lot of people off—as it rightfully should. Because when you disrespect your own characters the way Masashi Kishimoto did, a lot of people who spent most of their childhoods invested in the livelihood of the characters only to be told at the ending “I don’t actually give a single fuck about these characters or what they were primarily intended to represent” is a huge bitch slap to the face to the people who supported the creators work and art after all that time. It’s disgusting, it’s triggering and it’s horrifying. Sasuke’s character is primarily so popular due to how savage his creator treated him. Kishimoto started this universe off with a child suffering from traumatic loss by someone he adored with the essence of his existence—to end it by making that character not only a dog to the system that betrayed his entire clan, but rooted him to character that understood him the absolute least of all people. As an invested reader (as many of those were) this is disrespectful as fuck to do to a character. Kishimoto spent so much time reiterating to us about this broken, fucked up system only to have the one character going against it suddenly lay down and accept it, no more questions asked, silenced forever. If Sasuke Uchiha was at least handled and written correctly, people might’ve accepted the ending far easier, in time. However, this was not the case. Sasuke Uchiha represented oppression and injustice yet the ending made him even further ostracized. As in; his problems weren’t solved, his trauma wasn’t mended and his heart was still crushed. This hurt very many people, as it should. Your favorite character at the end of the story doesn’t even have a last word.
It’s the way that the Boruto series despite branching off into its own supposed direction and storyline continues to rob and borrow ideals from its predecessor in horrendous ways. In a way, I’m glad Boruto happened. I’m glad that the world sees something like Boruto because it highlights in clear depiction everything the studio and the “people” care about; ships, ships, rehash, ships, rehash. These are the people who watched Naruto and Naruto Shippuden to see Hinatits collapse while talking to Naruto, to see Sakura regress significantly when Sasuke is present—Boruto: Next Generations is aiming for those people and the studio damn well knows it and they are bringing what those people want to see, what’s going to get them to keep coming back. Because who cares about a child shinobi system highlighted as brutal in the original series? Not them! Let’s romanticize missions. Who cares about the Hyuuga Clan branch system? Not them! Let’s make sure we show everyone how important Hinata truly is. Oh and Neji? Yeah let’s never mention him again except for comedic relief. Who cares about punishing criminals and imprisonment? Not them! In fact let’s continue to bring in the main villain and even better let’s give him a child that he openly experimented on and portray him as a good parent! Who cares about all of those things? The true fans did. It’s the way they wash these important issues under the rug and never mention them again. It’s the way the issues that were tackled and prevalent in Naruto are no longer even discussed or mentioned. Because that was Neji Hyuuga, Sasuke Uchiha and Yahiko’s duties. Guess where all of them went. Notice that Sasuke is never seen in the village. Want to know why that is? Because he would challenge the system. Nope! Can’t have that—twelve years out on the hunt for a make believe villain you go Sasuke! The creators seem to not understand that the series can most definitely thrive if they were not continuously shitting on the old one; they could have created this universe in the Naruto realm that everything still exists without destroying the previous characters development. Naruto and Sasuke struggling against a battle with a weak minded villain with foolish ideals was atrocious—not to mention Sasuke goddamn Uchiha couldn’t dodge kunai. If the creators had actually paid attention during the original series, they would know that the Uchiha clan were one of the clans to master weaponry. So to have Sasuke—a Uchiha—struggling against them was a massive “fuck you” to his character and everything he made of himself. It definitely shows. Then they had Sakura attack the weak minded villain with a sneak attack, despite his entire cranium was shrouded in eyeballs and not seeing that attack coming. They really want us to buy this? Oh but wait—Boruto: Next Generations can’t have logic in it, people can’t read that deep into it. It’s a show for the new generation, it needs to be kid friendly. Maybe we just won’t notice, right? Yeah. Let’s pretend we don’t notice. In another way I’m glad Boruto happened, it reiterated to us significantly how unoriginal their ideals were as well as the incompetence of Kishimoto as a writer. Want to know a secret, my friend? We could have excused shitty writing if the story was satisfactory. We could have excused improper and rushed pairings with shitty writing, if the ending were justified and believable. Oh..but..that isn’t the case. In fact, the ending outright proved to us just how shitty of a writer Kishimoto actually is. So guess what? We’re pissed. The bullshit excuses of him being a young mangaka at the time is insanely inexcusable—it’s your profession to create stories and content and you fall back on discrediting your profession as undermining your own ability? My favorite outlandish lie that Kishimoto spoke was when he admitted he could not write romance—but Naruto was a series he wrote about the essence of the budding relationship between Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuuga.
Wait—excuse me? But Kishimoto, you just said you are not very good at writing romance. My god..so why did you aim to write a romance story if you cannot write romance? Is it because…that isn’t what Naruto was about, perhaps? It’s the way that the authors intended dream for the protagonist became so undermined that he had to change his entire wording in order to make us believe that..it made sense. Yeah..believe it! Get this: Naruto Uzumaki an orphaned Konoha resident is ostracized due to harboring a demonic beast within him that wreaked havoc on the village years prior. Despite the sour looks and disdain of others, he perseveres on the journey to becoming Hoka—marrying Hinata Hyuuga. How fucked up would that make you feel? An average reader in the beginning would not derive that bullshit notion upon first picking that manga up. Could you imagine Masashi Kishimoto using that as his pitch? They’d throw him out the door quicker than Rock Lee’s downfall of being a relevant character. It’s the way that the own creator contradicts himself with his own wording. Stating he could not write romance and goes on to develop multiple—mutual—ships that take a back seat to underdeveloped asspull pairings. It’s the way that Boruto also fleshed out his inner shitty writing abilities by creating light novels. Here’s the thing about Light Novels; they are intended to explain situations, storyline or anything that does not initially fit in the manga itself or did not have time to be explained or developed. They are meant to help the reader themselves understand certain aspects or criteria that otherwise they wouldn’t have found in the original/initial material. Masashi Kishimoto decided now was his time to help everyone understand just how it was Naruto Uzumaki’s dream of becoming hokage was actually a fluke—it was to marry Hinata Hyuuga instead. Now this is after the disaster film of The Last. We’re still asking questions and here comes our Lord and Savior Masashi Kishimoto about to deliver us some tea! What the—there isn’t anything? There’s just Naruto boinking Hinata and..creating two children? Fine. You know what—you win this round Masashi Kishimoto. As a reader, we’re still confused about Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, though. The Last showed zero development between them—we’d like to understand how it was they got together. Bless us with your Light Novels Kishimoto. Deliver us answers!
Okay, well so far this prologue is looking promising. Looks like we’ll be given answers regarding Naruto and Sasuke…okay, then..
What the devil….okay. So this is Sakura and..Sasuke’s relationship? He just—returns. And says he’s back. I mean this would be acceptable if he just returned from grocery shopping but haven’t you been gone for years, man? Okay..let’s uh..see if Sakura’s provides some insight about this..relationship.
(couldn’t find pictures of her novel, I’m guessing because it was absolute trash, but here’s a video that goes through the story with hilarious commentary: https://youtu.be/_xBCABYy3qk)
For a summary, at the end of Sakura shinden, we are not provided answers regarding Sakura and Sasukes relationship in the slightest. Throughout her book she’s constantly..wet over him, that’s primarily all. In short, Kishimoto didn’t deliver us with answers to shit, except exposing his piss poor writing abilities. But wait! Wait, I forgot something! Oh that’s right—Gaiden! God how could I forgotten about Gaiden!? Maybe he provides some answers there for us?! Yeah to save you the trouble—he doesn’t. You’re welcome, I won’t torment your eyesight with the images. Kishimoto in Gaiden went on further confusing the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura. The point I am making here is that the reason those Light Novels and Gaiden became so popular was that people were expecting to read the material and gather information or answers that supported these relationships. To provide hindsight to their explanations or to at least give light as to how they started to develop that perhaps wasn’t in the manga. And the creator disrespects his fans so much that he doesn’t even give them that. He doesn’t provide answers, he doesn’t further explain information, he downright doesn’t do anything except appeal to what people want—I actually am not even sure what that exactly was for the Light Novels themselves, it all seemed like a mass of bullshit to me since they didn’t go on to explain particularly anything. People supported that man from beginning to the end and they were punched in the face repeatedly with the nonsensical explanations. Rightfully so, people should be pissed.
It’s the way the creator robbed a vast majority of people their time and investments to provide nonsensical endings with illogical pairings to support his work and art. People are pissed because he doesn’t care and all the evidence points to..he never did.
As I’ve stated previously; it’s not that we hate Boruto (the character included) it’s that we hate what it did to Naruto (the character included) and Sasuke for the sake of fan service and shipping bait. None of the questions we have were answered and absolutely nothing for these poor souls were justified. They are, instead, making a mockery of our childhood.
And that is what’s utterly disrespectful most of all.
the same bandits that got destroyed by 12 year olds were able to impersonate the Daimyo’s most trusted servant and kidnap his son, with the entire shinobi world being extremely lucky they just wanted money otherwise the Daimyo would probably be dead by now.
a new group that I affectionately refer to as the “Akatsuki Lite” has been formed that was able to raise, in their own words, enough money to buy an entire country for a “vessel” of some sort. said vessel has now been lost by these idiots, and I don’t think I need to explain why something so expensive being let loose is going to end up killing a bunch of people.
i’m also 99% sure that this “vessel” is Kawaki, because the Akatsuki Lite members have similar tattoos & stuff but he wasn’t present at the meeting. Kawaki is the gentleman that, according to the first chapter, will destroy the Leaf village in about 3 years (because that’s what’s trendy these days) and will “send Boruto to the place he sent the Hokage.” it also looks as though Boruto is the only person that can stop him because 100 Healings Sakura, Eight Gates Lee, and fucking Sasuke (?????) are all just absent for whatever reason or possibly dead/in the same place as Naruto.
and from Sasuke’s own words, we know that “the crisis in this world” still isn’t over.
all of this has happened in 16 chapters or arguably 6 considering how about 10 of those chapters were just retelling events from the movie.
this isn’t even some alien nonsense that these guys understandably can’t control. these are ninja, participants of the shinobi system causing chaos in whatever way they can, on a way larger scale than some petty bandit, pretty much restarting the “Cycle of Hatred” Naruto swore he’d end by making some important friends. this is the Naruto world on the same bullshit they said wouldn’t happen ever again.
none of this even addresses what’s been going on in the Boruto anime because I honestly don’t watch it, but considering how they apparently had a 7/8 year old also try to destroy the village (yeah that was a thing for a while) I doubt things are any better over there.
all I’m trying to say is Boruto’s dad flopped and lied to Nagato and all of the other people he promised world peace to.
Cheloneuniverse 