I think it’s important not to equate age with experience – even an adult is going to have problems with ‘I made a mistake and now my brother is injured’. Even experience probably wouldn’t change that, but an experienced mission leader would probably have been able to react to the situation and handle the aftermath better. And experience, unfortunately, only comes with doing the thing.
In the General Forces a specialty is assigned based on the skills a person has – Shikako gets made Special Jounin based on her ability to sense things specifically. There are Sp Jounin in kenjutsu or code breaking or interrogation.
In ANBU the designation is much more output focused – so the individual is as faceless as possible. That means you have specialties like ‘sabotage’ or ‘acquisition’ or ‘infiltration’ instead. They’re all broad categories that require multiple skills, while giving mission assigners a brief idea of what ANBU are capable of.
For Shikako, she’s got a very broad range of skills and Tsunade knows that Team 7 is good at adapting and reacting to new situations on the fly. and that their missions are liable to go sideways And of course, as Shikako herself says: It’s the official terminology for ‘ruins everything I touch’.
(This is from an ask meme from ages ago, about what gardensverse you would write by picking out a line from a given song as the title of that verse/fic.)
God, I’ve been sitting on this for how long now? Like a month? I’m sorry. The problem was that you were so right to pick this song. This is SUCH a me song. Or at least the types of things I write. Honetly, I had trouble narrowing my thoughts down because every single line was at least one Mood of some kind. Especially Uchiha and Warring Clans era. Like.
“Cut out your heart to make being alone easy” is such a Tobirama or Kakashi mood. Ninja in general, ofc, but like. Those two in particular. Maybe a verse where Kakashi has outlived his team. Kakashi’s only pushing on because he swore to one of them to Finish things, so he took up the Hat and has been having to lead post-war to get that peace his kids died for. Or because he got trapped by Rule One, or something like that. But he’s just. Pushing on, leaning on Anbu Hound, and maybe Tenzou or Gai if they’re still around. Kako showing up, even just temporarily to affirm that he’s doing a good job and is allowed to be happy is. SO important to him.
“Crushed what you’re holding so you can say letting go is easy” is like. Every Uchiha ever. But would definitely be good for a verse like my Walk The Line fic or that Dark!Konoha I once suggested where Team seven (and extended allies) kinda go evil after their Shikako dies, and then the tension is in Gardens!Kako slowly figuring out how fucked up this Konoha is and how to get away from them when all they want is to keep her locked up and alive and with them.
“You break the bridle to make losing control easy” is probably another crazyObsessive!Uchiha mood, but also a jinchuuriki mood. Maybe a verse where naruto succumbs and just. Lets the kyuubi take over? Lean in full Edgelord with that dark!Naruto trope.
“Burn all your things to make the fight to forget easy” could basically go for canon Shikamaru. He and Kako are SO much at the point where they’d each just like to forget what they used to have and how that’s changed and become a fight between them. But for gardens!verses this is SUCH a Jerk!Shikaku verse. The Nara’s daughter is DEAD, and this interloper with her face is not welcome to swoop in and make them all remember and grieve again. Shikaku and/or Shikamaru just. Shove their feelings about it right into their shadows, leaving just cold calculation that this thing that upsets them needs to be gone, whether that’s run out of the village or hidden away in Root. They just. Don’t want to see it, don’t want to be reminded.
Yeah, so none of those are really coherent verses, but my mind kept running after squirrels of different meanings for those lines, because they’re all such ~feels.~
Cheloneuniverse 