I Just Wanted To Draw The Girls From Ikuhara Anime

ok in my opinion, many things are wrong with the idea that sakura viewed sasuke only as a prize to be won to boost her self-worth; that when it comes to sasuke, she's forever frozen in time as a 12-year-old girl who can't see beyond his good hair and great grades. this post is my attempt at thoroughly unpacking and refuting that notion

when we meet sakura in part 1, she is obsessed with societal standards and her admiration for sasuke is almost entirely rooted in that. he's the ideal future husband -- from an ancient clan, stoic, intelligent, skilled, and by sakura's own description, "cool" -- these are things that she has been conditioned to want! so this is the sasuke that she envisions, until...

until they get put on a team together, and sakura gradually comes to realize that perhaps sasuke is not what she's made him out to be in her mind. he talks about crying, about being afraid. he's paralyzed with fear in their first mission. naruto may very well be stronger and more capable than him! oh, and sasuke gets into silly fights with naruto all the time. none of that is "cool." suddenly he seems less like the ideal future husband and more like a real person with flaws and baggage of his own.

that sakura's view of sasuke changes is so apparent through how radically her behaviour around him shifts between the early formation of team 7 and the chunin exams (and any point after). sakura goes from being unable to listen to a bad word about sasuke (maybe even the ones that are deserved) to defying him when she deems fit. she even praises naruto at his expense, because societal views are not at the forefront of her mind when it comes to the two boys anymore -- they're just naruto and sasuke. they're her friends! she goes from calling kakashi out for bad-mouthing the uchiha clan because she's doesn't want to risk sasuke getting mad at her, to calling naruto out for a similar statement, not due to personal involvement in the equation, but simply because it's not right.

and people typically agree with me up to here. it's when we get to sakura cutting her hair in the forest of death that opinions diverge, and some people tend to think that sakura should have "gotten over" sasuke to propel her character development forward. i don't necessarily find this reading invalid -- it's certainly a more straightforward direction for her character to take. sakura's goal was sasuke, now sakura's goal is to be strong. the problem is that there was always more nuance to her goal of winning sasuke's heart than people afford it in fandom discussion, and similarly, i don't think that the progression needed to be as clear-cut as "sakura gets over sasuke" to still be meaningful. in this case, i feel like people's expectations about what should have happened following this scene might preclude them from seeing the growth that this moment did produce.

sakura cutting her hair in the forest of death is the critical point her arc built up to for all of part 1. sakura is insulted by the sound nin for pouring so much time into her appearance when her training is clearly not up to par, and she cuts her shiny and perfect hair in a declaration that she will no longer derive her self-worth from the validation that would come from romantic attachment (to sasuke, or anyone else). instead, it will be from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with (or even ahead of) her teammates in battle -- so that she can protect them rather than the other way around. then the flashbacks during her fight with ino make it explicit that sakura has wanted to become a skilled shinobi -- one who could match up to ino -- all along, but since that is not a socially acceptable goal from a girl, she instead declares them rivals over sasuke's heart. the boy is not important here (haha, it always sticks out to me that when she asks him out before the chunin exams, sakura is more bummed about sasuke's assessment of her skills than his rejection). she doesn't even think of sasuke while fighting ino, lol -- she grandstands about how only she can "get him," but that's for the purpose of riling up ino, so that there's no chance she'll go easy on sakura. sakura wants to know, definitively, that she can match up to ino. and she does.

in light of all of this, people often say sakura had "no reason" to like sasuke -- after all, i did spend the entire last paragraph establishing that sakura's pre-series crush on sasuke was an immature infatuation that had nothing to do with sasuke and everything to do with ino. but, again, team 7 spent months together on a team and sasuke and sakura became actual friends! he was a good teammate to both naruto and sakura, if a little rough around the edges. i don't think it's implausible for sakura to develop real feelings for sasuke during this time. and if that is not enough, if you need deeper, thematically fulfilling reasons -- well, i sort of object to that on principle. i think friendship, having fun with one another, being at ease around each other -- these are all perfectly good reasons to fall in love with someone. and you may say that naruto also fulfills this criteria, but if sakura was physically attracted to sasuke and not naruto -- well, i think that's fine too, and it certainly doesn't warrant any moral judgment. people say often that sakura should have ended up with lee or naruto -- the first of whom stated outright that he loved her because she was beautiful, and the latter who introduced her as a "pretty girl" -- but whether their feelings are shallow is not endlessly dissected. (it's not narusaku or leesaku i protest to here, just the double standard)

but for the record, i think kishimoto did write in enough for us to understand why sakura would fall for sasuke in particular. i discussed this in another post, but alongside ino, sasuke sparked the most significant character growth for sakura. he was the first to make her reevaluate her treatment of naruto (and by extension, her rose-tinted view of the world), he was the first (and only) of their teammates to express disappointment that she wasn't investing in her own skills, he figured out when she felt insecure and reminded her of the areas in which she was more proficient than the rest of the team. sakura's initial idealized view of sasuke does not endure for a number of reasons, one of which is that the real sasuke actually expects her to hold her own and sees potential in her. for sakura, whose main motivation as a character is to become stronger for her teammates, this must mean a great deal! we mostly lose track of this element of sasuke and sakura's dynamic in part 2, which is a shame, but when she cracks open the earth with only her fist, naruto and kakashi are utterly astonished, while sasuke just smiles -- like it is no surprise, like she's been capable of it all along -- so there is that, i guess.

(and for more on thematically fulfilling, see this post on what i think could have played out if sakura were not relegated to a side character in all but panel presence in part 2. but really, i find it so interesting that sasuke and sakura both repeatedly have a lot of trouble suppressing their compassion to do what is expected of them as shinobi. apart from sasuke, i think sakura is also the only character to express that human life has inherent value -- at least, she says something along those lines when she fights sasori.)

anyway, post-forest of death, sasuke version 1 has pretty much dissipated in sakura's mind -- the only place he ever existed -- and sakura's treatment of sasuke changes further. she stops intruding on his physical boundaries, stops flirting, stops asking him out -- she's there for him, but as a friend first. she hugs him in the hospital, but that's not necessarily a romantic gesture (she's physically affectionate by nature, which is why she ambushes naruto with a hug in the same manner at the end of the pain arc) and sasuke finds it comforting (signalled by many things, chief among which is that naruto leaves the room after observing sasuke's face). and yes, she confesses to being in love with him twice afterwards, years apart, but that is only because she is extremely stressed and panicked and wants him to stay for his own (and the second time around, add in naruto's) safety. her first confession is too centered on her own feelings, while the second is just woefully oblivious (through little fault of sakura's -- she doesn't know why sasuke is so intent on destroying the shinobi world), but neither of them come with the condition of sakura wanting sasuke to stay only so he can be with her. sakura wants sasuke to be safe! she wants him to be mentally sound! she lets him know that she cares about him!

i absolutely need to reiterate: at no point in part 2 does sakura display any sense of entitlement to sasuke. she always pleads with him to stay, rather than demanding anything of him. and even in the privacy of her own thoughts, sakura ponders bringing sasuke back in a few contexts: she wants sasuke to be okay, she is so sorry for burdening naruto, she needs to help naruto, and if sasuke comes back, they can all be a team again. romance does not even enter her mind. it is such a willfully egregious misread of the text to say that she only wanted sasuke back so they could be together.

moreover, it is honestly just nonsensical to me when people say sakura wanted sasuke as a prize, because it laughs in the face of her entire character arc and completely ignores why her pre-series crush existed at all. back then, sakura wanted sasuke as a status symbol. as of part 2, though, he is decidedly not what konoha's society would see as the ideal man. in the eyes of the state, he is a wanted criminal. sakura, meanwhile, is a student of the hokage, one of the most skilled medics in konoha at the ripe age of 16, and one of the most powerful shinobi of her generation (a feat achieved entirely through her own labour). she has stood next to her teammates in battle and helped take down a literal god. she does not need sasuke to feel fulfilled. nevertheless, she chooses, every day, to care about him, even though it would be infinitely easier not to. and if sakura wanted to haul around a status symbol in the form of a boyfriend, if only to bolster her already impressive profile (which she would not. that's the point!) -- naruto, konoha's new favourite traumatized teenager, is like. right there. but sakura loved naruto before he was proclaimed a hero by konoha, just like she continues to love sasuke even though he is very far from the coolest boy in their class.

my feelings on chapter 699 are... mixed, because the way things resolve for sasuke is just so sad, but what we see play out between him and sakura is: 1. sakura asks to come with him 2. sasuke is 100% comfortable saying no (how do the "sakura forced sasuke to be with her" truthers reconcile with that one, lol) 3. sakura appears mildly disappointed but like. she'll survive. that's it. then he thanks her, taps her on the forehead (but promises he'll see her soon, in an inversion of what that gesture meant from itachi), and we leave them in a pretty hopeful place, all things considered. there's room for reconciliation, for growth, for love. (and i don't want to hear about post-699 because i don't care. i don't consider it canon, and pretty much no one on tumblr does either, except to occasionally shit on ships they don't like)

this ended up being way too long, but i want to say: if you don't like sasusaku, that's your prerogative. i'm not here to change your mind. i certainly think they should have been written better in part 2 (but i'd argue that, like, 99% of those issues are just a natural consequence of sakura being continually sidelined by the narrative, rather than problems inherent to the relationship itself). regardless, i think too often people let their opinion of a ship impede character analysis. to claim that sakura relentlessly propositioned sasuke and that she saw him as a prize does such a huge disservice to how much she has grown and what she has accomplished over the course of the series.

i feel like its easy to forget or miss that the exact reason sora was so emotional here is bc his subconscious briefly came in contact with the memory of aqua telling sora to keep riku "safe". then sora is ripped away from this by the very person who took riku away from him. hes plunged deeper into sleep because his light (riku) was stolen. its not hard to see just why hed be feeling so emotional and delighted to see riku "safe" from harm. even outside of riku risking his life to wake sora up, i feel the fact that sora is near tears and throws his arms around riku was a bit of a nod to there being more at play here. and the reason they show riku waking up here and not sora is because it was more important for sora to see riku waking up this time. and narratively yknow "the world was freed from darkness but has yet to wake from it". at this point, riku is finally no longer trapped in a never ending nightmare of things never getting better for him and sora gets to be the one to personally greet him upon waking from that nightmare.

hes awake and hell be okay.

sora needed to have this moment. he needed to see that.

Trigun Stampede | s01e07

“Something he’d never forget. Right.”

Stitch's Media Mix

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Problem With Preferences

Outside of the fandoms for Japanese media (anime and manga primarily) or the powerhouse Korean pop music Real Person Fiction (RPF) fandoms,

Stitch lays it out thoroughly, as usual, so there's no commentary I could add that would be better than just quoting what she says. I definitely recommend reading the whole thing, but here are a couple excerpts to give you an idea of the gist.

Excerpt 1:

Let’s return to the myth of preference. In fandom, as with online dating, folks think “preference” is a neutral word that shields them from the mere potential of having to interrogate why they seem to “prefer” white people as their faves. The thing is that this “preference” for white dudes isn’t all that neutral. A “preference” for white men is tied into centuries of racist propaganda that portrays whiteness as an ideal to the point where even people of color have trouble finding themselves or other people of color attractive.

[...]

Of course, that translates to fandom because fandom isn’t born in a vacuum. We don’t leave our ingrained prejudices in “the real world” when we log on to Tumblr or go for a scroll on the AO3. In fact, because many people in fandom curate their timelines to only show them their like-minded faves, they’re more likely to surround themselves with fans who think like they do and fanworks that reinforce the validity of their interests.

Excerpt 2:

Fantasies are just that – fantasies. On their own and in our heads, they can’t directly hurt people, and they provide the pleasure of partaking in the forbidden or the denied. For many people – especially marginalized people in unsafe or unhealthy positions in their daily lives – fantasies are all they have, and that’s important. However, in fandom spaces, fantasies don’t stay in people’s head, and they’re never on their own no matter what nonsense we fed about fandom and fiction not influencing/being influenced by reality. These fantasies come loaded with expectations, prior knowledge, stereotypes, trauma, politics, and a whole bunch of other stuff from the person fantasizing as well as other people who are aware of the fantasy. They get turned into fanworks that get thousands of views and hundreds of readers. After all, nothing we do or like or create is formed in a vacuum. In fandom spaces, fantasies that either exclude people of color entirely or reformat them as stereotypes for easy consumption (erotic and otherwise), are harmful because they are put forward without any awareness to a potential audience of thousands.

oh wow! um, thank you for the new follows and reblogs/likes. i barely have the time/energy to draw souharu lately (grad school+depression lolz) but i have been thinking a lot about getting back into drawing my fave free characters (esp since ka effed up their dynamic again AND ruined continuity...idk how i feel with a new free series....) anyways, hi!! you can find me on twttr and curiouscat.me mainly @aomine_ebooks if you want, but no pressure to follow! i just thought if anyone wanted to idk chat and stuff i'm down with that :) feel free to message me here as well

the concept and idea of “you can always start trying to be a better person” is extremely important to me both in media and irl and i continue to be deeply deeply disturbed by the trend on this site pushing that these ideas in media are bad writing or even morally reprehensible

because theyd rather someone stay terrible or just straight up die than become a better person 

from a compassionate point of view it’s deeply distressing and from a pragmatic point of view it’s outright frustrating

it’s fucked up. 

That's what always happens in capitalist societies. They say that if you don't want to be poor, there's a certain thing you have to do. But then everyone does it, so it's no longer effective. The system depends on making sure that there's always a supply of poor people to exploit.

You're a dark toothed liar

And you're caught up in smoke

after seeing misguided assumptions like the above littered in the sheith tags, i decided to impulsively conduct a survey. it’s a fun experiment to test the hypothesis: "Are Sheith Shippers Cis Straight White Women?"

bear in mind the pool was 300 responses, ergo do not wholly reflect anything, but there are apparent patterns which arise from the results. some data is expected to be skewed, as the respondents were not required to sign-in so as to maintain anonymity. the same respondent could have responded more than once to this survey

the survey’s questions/instructions were the following:

Do you ship Sheith?

Select the age range you fall under: 

Have you created and/or are creating fanart and/or fanfiction for this ship?

Do you ship other people with Keith or Shiro? (i.e. Are you a multishipper?)

Are you cis(gender)?

Are you straight?

Are you white? (If you are white-passing, you are NOT white)

Do you dislike Lance as a character? (This is a common assumption made about Sheith shippers)

Cont. from the above question: If you picked "yes" or "neutral/apathetic", please briefly explain. Character bashing is not permitted.

Do you think Sheith Fandom has a colorism problem?

Do you think Klance Fandom has a colorism problem?

Do you think VLD Fandom as a whole has a colorism problem?

Do you think you are treated unfairly within fandom because you ship Sheith?

Cont. from above question: If you picked "yes", please briefly explain/share your experiences. All responses are anonymous.

the results more or less poked holes through the hypothesis

the choices were “Yes”/“No”. 283 out of 300 respondents chose “Yes” and were directed to the second portion of the survey. 17 out of 300 respondents chose “No” and were directed to the submission page

the choices were “Under 15″/“15 - 17″/“18 - 20″/“21 - 29″/"Over 29″. 160 out of 283 respondents chose “21 - 29″  73 out of 283 respondents chose “18 - 20″ 25 out of 283 respondents chose “15 - 17″ 20 out of 283 respondents chose “Over 29″ 5 out of 283 respondents chose “Under 15″ 

the choices were “Yes”/“No”. 170 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 113 out of 283 respondents chose “No”  i was curious about whether or not a sheith shipper was also a content creator

the choices were “Yes”/“No”. 185 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 98 out of 283 respondents chose “No” i was curious about whether or not a sheith shipper was also a multishipper

the choices were “Yes”/“No”/“Questioning”. 159 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 90 out of 283 respondents chose “No”  34 out of 283 respondents chose “Questioning”

the choices were “Yes”/“No”/“Questioning”. 228 out of 283 respondents chose “No” 28 out of 283 respondents chose “Questioning” 27 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 

the choices were “Yes”/“No”. 151 out of 283 respondents chose “No” 132 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 

the choices were “Yes”/“No”/“Neutral/Apathetic about him”. 185 out of 283 respondents chose “No” 69 out of 283 respondents chose “Neutral/Apathetic about him” 29 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes”

Free Responses

the choices were “Yes”/“No”. 256 out of 283 respondents chose “No” 27 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 

the choices were “Yes”/“No”. 163 out of 283 respondents chose “No” 120 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 

the choices were “Yes”/“No”. 142 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 141 out of 283 respondents chose “No” 

the choices were “Yes”/“No”. 150 out of 283 respondents chose “Yes” 133 out of 283 respondents chose “No”

Free responses

my conclusions? don’t assume anything about someone based on their shipping preferences. ship wars should not condone ostracization and hostility

thank you for responding! i was pleasantly surprised by the turnout. the most illuminating part of this survey, personally speaking, was the free responses. if you have the time, please look through those. i deeply appreciate the ones who shared their experiences; it can’t have been easy disclosing them (cw for emotional manipulation, bullying, harassment, mentions of csa and racism)

please remain respectful in the comments/tags, and don’t hesitate to share constructive feedback and thoughts regarding the results.

you can contact me using the following avenues: https://twitter.com/aomine_ebooks | https://curiouscat.me/aomine_ebooks

What's that bro? You began interacting with a media from a different country than yours and/or was made in time period different than the recent present day? Haha that's sick bro! Keep expanding your horizons bro! You're remembering to take into account that sociocultural norms, gender roles and genre expectations are different from what you are used to and meeting the story halfway, instead of forcibly superimposing your ideals into the story, right bro? Right? Right?