kaede

I finally watched that Sakura purposefully written bad youtube video… and now my page is completely full of them. What have I done…

Narusaku Doujinshi After the war by LadyGT

story by lilmikomiko / prompt by blanket-fictions

(And also my thoughts on SNS as a queer platonic relationship)

Okay, let’s get this outta here first, I do draw fanarts for SNS and write some fanfics, too, so I won’t deny I’m a shipper of SNS, or at least an enjoyer of that aspect for their dynamic. Though when I scrutinise hard enough, I have to admit that I’m not a hardcore fan of them as a romantic couple.

I don’t really have a problem with their connection being viewed through a romantic lens. What bothers me is the widespread tendency to default to romance every time two characters share a connection that is emotionally intense, transformative, or intimate. There’s this underlying implication that once a bond reaches a certain threshold of depth or devotion, it must inevitably be romantic or sexual, and there’s no room for any other explanation or interpretation, as if no other kind of connection could possibly justify that level of closeness.

That frustrates me because it implies that romantic love is inherently superior to all other forms, which I strongly disagree with. That mindset is not only limiting but also reductive. It reflects a broader cultural narration to prioritise romantic love as the apex of human connection, as though it’s the only kind of relationship worthy of narrative climax or personal sacrifice.

Honestly, it’s quite easy to understand why a lot of people think if Sakura “moved on” from Sasuke she would have become a better character. This kind of statement isn’t fully right, since Sakura was able to display a lot of good sides of herself in situations that involved Sasuke(and this notion usually imply that Sakura must have been an emotionless character, a very common idea among the fanon!Sakura fans or she can only be good according who the shippers ship her with). Some of the situations where her progression and growth as a character are displayed and it involves Sasuke are: she called him a coward, in an attempt of making him react to the enemy, when she tried to protect him from a half-jinchiruki Gaara with nothing except for a kunai. Saving Sasuke was one of her biggest reasons/motivation to become Tsunade’s pupil. When she fought Sasori bravely (people praise her a lot for this fight, but easily forget what made she put her heart in battle that way), the amazing teamwork she made with Obito to save Sasuke, etc.

But we can’t deny how a lot of bad situations she was involved also involved him. But it isn’t the core problem, exactly(Naruto have passed for a very similar path - in a lot of situations, they were even more extreme and we didn’t see him suffering from the same problems that happened to Sakura). The problem is how she was stripped of her power to change things to regression to her old self, when she was helpless and powerless. And do you know the worst thing about it? She was portrayed like that only for the sake of the main bond, i.e, sns. She was shited on to Naruto shine. This happened not a few times, but MANY TIMES and this is the problem why she acts inconsistent/ooc in many occasions.

Unfortunately, I feel like few ss shippers considere this topic. I have seen your attempts to start a healthy debate about this topic and some fans just react with mockery “these ppl are expecting a shoujo, this is a shounen” or just invalidating an obvious problem in Kishimoto’s writing, i.e his sexism.

But… To me, as a Sakura Stan who absolutely love SasuSaku and Sasuke, I can’t help but feel very disappointed with how a lot of things between them were handled. It could have been written better. It should have been written better and the writer never had a real reason for not treating Sakura well.

I’ll use as an example the way she was portrayed during the Land of the Iron arc. How Sakura came from a very active T7 member, who refuse to be left behind, an independent woman who do what she needs to do, for a helpless girl who accepts easy that she can’t do nothing, that she did nothing except crying? Another thing that is making me very uncomfortable, is the way some ss fans started to glorious the killing attempts between the two(years ago, it was viewed as a the lowest point of both characters, but now some fans mock the situation and even turn it into something sexual…). Look, my problem isn’t the fact they tried to kill each other. This is exactly the point of the story. People lost in darkness or/and turned into murder machines fighting to death until they get their redemption through forgiveness, love, the power of friendship and all the shounen cliches. Also, even in p1 the author made a foreshadowing about it: when Sakura talked about the shinobi rules while shedding tears uncontrollably upon Sasuke half-dead body or when Sasuke told to Sakura that he wouldn’t forgive EVEN HER, if she she divert him from his path of vengeance… My problem is how Sakura was used as a mere plot device for the T7 meeting, a Damsel in distress, unable of hold her own against Sasuke (Does Kishimoto have idea of how a fight between these two would have been fantastic? Half of Sakura/SS haters wouldn’t even exist).

All of this (and much more, I just focused in a specific topic) for in the end she accepts passively that the only thing she could do was believe in them and not be aware about the truth about Itachi. Ironically, the fact that she was looking for informations about the Uchiha clan and Orochimaru was just erased. It’s like these things never happened in the manga. People act like the 699 was the worst chapter for her character, but in my opinion, her character was regressed +200 chapters before and that’s sad, due to her immense potential. Everything she was fighting for simply became unimportant and some ss fans think we can’t criticize it because ss isn’t the main bond? For goddess sake! They don’t even consider how much this is due to bad writting (focus only in two characters) and contradict one of Sakura’s character arc and the story itself, since it was supposed to be about FRIENDSHIP and TEAMWORK, but in the end, only the MC is allowed to shine and the heroine’s development is sacrificed for it? Sakura was the first person who wanted to save Sasuke from the darkness. Sakura was the one who are researching about Orochimaru and The Uchiha clan. Sakura used to be very determined in getting stronger to protect her friends and this was lost. This loss impacted negatively in her relationship with Sasuke, because if she couldn’t fight him, even her love can’t reach him and being decisive to her active participation in his salvation, what the hell is the point of including her in all that from the start?

for so long i oscillated between loving and hating the ship, and i was almost always ashamed of liking it bc its a toxic ship right :))? NO!!!!!! sasusaku WAS and COULD’VE been so great if kishimoto kept it on the upwards trajectory from part 2, where sakura was a complex character with agency who both stood up to and grew thanks to sasuke, and where sasuke was appreciative of and responsive to her! part 2 sakura post sasori fight was literally constantly used as a plot device to either boost the sns bond or to showcase how badass a male character is and im Sick and Tired! i love sns but im so bitter that it got developed at the expense of ss (in the sense that the female character’s emotions and bonds were left unexplored and forgotten so that the guys can have their moments)

i’m in the mood to play devil’s advocate tonight cus you sns shippers thought you were safe from my lashings? lol.

anyways, sns fans love to claim they’re not misogynistic when they critique ss and nh, when sns as a ship/dynamic is literally in the same boat and, arguably, even more problematic. (i’ll make a proper blog about this soon.)

the way some of you niggas constantly villainise sakura and hinata just to defend your mid-off ship is actually hilarious.

writing whole think pieces dissecting sakura and hinata just to project onto them and paint them as these evil manipulative women who make naruto and sasuke “suffer so much.”

i’ve genuinely seen some of you put sakura and hinata on the same level as fucking danzo (huh?). i wish they were as villainous as you make them sound, but that would require giving kishi way too much credit. the man can barely write female characters to save his life.

and you really don’t wanna bring up danzo because we all know that if sasuke hadn’t killed him, your status quo bootlicker naruto probably would’ve let him roam around the village the same way he let the elders who participated in the uchiha massacre face basically no meaningful consequences.

then there are the headcanons…

yall make up these weird, misogynistic fantasies about sakura raping or forcing herself onto sasuke (wtf?), while simultaneously kii-ing at kishi’s misogynistic writing where her own motherhood gets questioned. or you insist hinata was just a surrogate or call her an incubator because you refuse to accept that she and naruto actually ended up together and had a kid. then there are all the fics where people get excited over naruto and sasuke cheating on their wives. like… how do you manage to outdo kishi in the misogyny department? you enjoy women’s suffering that much? yall are just as bad as the dudebros you swear you’re different from.

everyone also rightfully criticises sakura’s childish crush, persistence, and “obsession” with sasuke. but the second someone points out that naruto behaves the exact same way (and worse), suddenly it’s excuses you dig out of your fucking ass.

when naruto transformed into sasuke and tried to kiss sakura without her knowledge or consent, some of you genuinely tried to blame her for it. now yall know damn well naruto wasn’t planning to stop. the only reason he didn’t go through with it was because he got diarrhoea. but somehow sakura’s the problem?

everyone drags sakura for wanting to see sasuke pee when they were 12, yet we literally see her grow out of that childish, perverted behaviour.

meanwhile, naruto repeatedly acts like a creep, especially in shippuden. he tries to peep on sakura at the bathhouse, constantly uses sexy jutsu to sexually harass or embarrass people, and sakura is treated as unreasonable whenever she retaliates. somehow, i’ve seen people excuse all of this by claiming it’s because of his “repressed homosexuality.”

first of all, naruto isn’t a queer story. it has transphobic gags, and kishi is a straight man. please stop giving him credit that belongs to actual queer writers telling actual queer stories.

second, that excuse is counterproductive because you’re literally defending sexual harassment by suggesting closeted queer people naturally express their confusion through inappropriate heterosexual behaviour. that’s a harmful, homophobic stereotype that associates closeted people with predatory behaviour. but i’m supposed to take these arguments seriously?

what gets me is that you don’t even care that sakura is consistently the victim in these invasive or perverted scenarios because yall hate her that much. then you turn around and act shocked when people call your takes misogynistic.

and don’t even get me started on how quickly you rely on misogynistic talking points against sakura and hinata while simultaneously writing essays about how sasuke is a victim of misogyny.

the real victims of misogyny in this fandom have always been sakura, hinata, karin, and honestly all of kishi’s female cast. both the writing and parts of the fandom constantly reduce them to emotional punching bags or plot devices whose only purpose is to facilitate naruto and sasuke’s story. meanwhile, naruto’s own misogynistic behaviour gets ignored, downplayed, or endlessly excused.

every time i check the anti-sasusaku tag it’s either sakura getting dogpiled because, apparently, she’s the perfect scapegoat. somehow she’s the biggest villain in the series who would’ve personally killed baby naruto if given the chance (that’s genuinely how some of y’all sound). or it’s sasuke getting dragged and reduced to this one-dimensional misogynistic abuser who’s solely at fault for never reciprocating her feelings. and don’t even get me started on the sns shippers… pot calling the kettle black. y’all are just as bad, if not worse.

my actual problem with ss is that they barely know each other, and the writing never gives their relationship the narrative importance it needed. their moments are a mess, and this becomes painfully obvious in shippuden.

sakura never gets to learn the truth about itachi or the uchiha massacre, despite that being fundamental to sasuke’s character and the driving force behind almost everything he does. instead, kishi regresses her character and repeatedly uses her as a victim within an already unbalanced dynamic, to the point where sasuke is constantly humiliating her. meanwhile, sasuke never reciprocates her feelings, barely interacts with her, and never properly learns why she tried to kill him during the five kage summit arc. for a pairing that’s supposed to be romantic, kishi does a really poor job at actually developing it.

part 1 actually laid a decent foundation. yes, sakura was infatuated with sasuke, but she was also willing to call him out on his bs. for example, when she calls him a coward. sure, it was a little ironic coming from her at the time, but the point still stands. then during the five kage summit, kishi finally gives sakura an arc where she has some autonomy and decides she’s going to kill sasuke herself. and what does he do? drops the ball. like he usually does with her character.

sasuke, on the other hand, clearly cared about sakura in part 1. he was willing to risk his life for her, saved her during the chunin exams, and stopped himself from killing the sound ninja because she begged him to stop. right before leaving the village, he thanks her for everything she’d done for him and acknowledges the time they spent together as team 7. those moments mattered.

then shippuden happens.

sasuke becomes almost entirely cold towards her. and whenever kishi does try to show that he still cares, it’s either through crumbs or moments that are immediately overshadowed by the overwhelmingly negative interactions between them. and when i say the negative moments overshadow the positive ones, i really mean it.

the war arc somehow makes it even worse. when sasuke tells sakura there’s nothing she can do, she just… accepts it and sulks. which feels completely out of character. sakura has always been headstrong and stubborn. she has no problem calling out naruto, sai, or literally anyone else on their bs, but when it comes to sasuke in part 2 she just takes whatever he says. and don’t even get me started on the genjutsu. ss fans, i’m sorry, but there really isn’t any defending that.

then we get chapter 699. sasuke apologises and gives sakura the forehead poke. yes, it’s a nice moment in isolation, but there’s barely any build up for it. especially when you consider that the forehead poke was an incredibly personal gesture between itachi and sasuke. we’re never really shown, from sasuke’s perspective in part 2, how his feelings towards sakura actually changed. it almost feels like kishi forgot about team 7’s interpersonal dynamics during the war arc.

and i genuinely don’t know what kishi was smoking when he wrote gaiden because it was such a disservice to both of their characters.

the uchiha have already been explored extensively throughout the manga, so he easily could’ve taken a more interesting direction with sarada’s story by focusing on what it means to be one of the last surviving members of her clan. instead, what do we get?

we get sakura’s motherhood being questioned for cheap drama (which was just misogynistic writing, like wtf?), and sasuke, whose entire character revolves around family and the loss of it, gets turned into an absent father. then, instead of sarada having those important conversations with either of her parents, she gets them from naruto.

you honestly can’t convince me kishi doesn’t constantly position naruto as the character who “does things right,” while using sasuke and sakura as contrasts to reinforce how correct naruto’s methods and worldview supposedly are. it genuinely starts feeling like a self insert fantasy.

what kishi should’ve done was have sasuke and sakura actually participate in each other’s character arcs while naturally developing their friendship and eventual romance throughout shippuden. instead, he keeps them emotionally disconnected for most of the story and then expects the audience to accept the relationship because he says so.

and honestly, this isn’t just an ss problem. it’s a consequence of kishi dropping the ball with almost all of sasuke’s relationships outside of naruto and itachi.

his dynamics with sakura and kakashi lose their narrative importance, while his bond with taka gets sidelined too, all so the final fight can happen and naruto can become sasuke’s end-all be-all. and you can’t tell me that was always the intention because part 1 proves otherwise. og naruto worked so well because characters like sakura and kakashi actively moved the plot forward, highlighted sasuke’s positive qualities, and helped build towards the VoTE 1 fight. by shippuden, almost all of that gets sacrificed.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

the congress president mallikarjun kharge said in parliament: "students have been beaten. the government is attempting to stifle dissent." samajwadi party mp dimple yadav said "today will be remembered as a black day for democracy." even some of the police who carried out the orders apparently looked ashamed. that's how wrong this was.

and through all of it the prime minister has not held a single open press conference in over a decade in power. not one.

what you can do right now:

if you are not going to the protests — and most of us can't — please send an email. right now. it takes two minutes.

[email protected]

[email protected]

demand the resignation of education minister dharmendra pradhan. you don't have to write anything long. "i am writing to demand the resignation of dharmendra pradhan over the NEET paper leak and the violence against peaceful protesters on july 20, 2026" is enough.

if you want to support the people on the ground: volunteers at the protest site need supplies. you can send things through blinkit to the jantar mantar / kerala house area, or get in contact with someone there and coordinate directly. the local gurudwara has been housing and feeding many of the protesters — donations there go directly to people who need it. you can also donate to

sachkhandfoundation4073@icici

students were beaten to death at a peaceful protest in delhi.

let that sit for a second.

they weren't throwing anything. they weren't rioting. they were sitting in the scorching july heat asking for one thing, accountability for a leaked exam that destroyed lakhs of futures. and the government sent in police with batons.

minors were beaten. children. women. civilians.

sonam wangchuk is on day 24 of a hunger strike. our government forcefully detained him in front of everyone.

we are not okay. india is not okay.

racism against indians is at an all time high globally. we get mocked for how we live. britain spent 200 years extracting wealth from india. our own government spent the last decade doing the same thing, we are mocked for the poverty that was built for us by the people who now look down on us for it.

our media won't cover any of this. it was bought. the ruling party owns the narrative and anyone who challenges it gets raided, jailed, or beaten.

they declared themselves gods (literally they did, their faces edited over gods). they are using violence against children to prove it.

i am asking international media to look at india right now.