#sns fandom

SNS WEDDING PT 1 🗳

🦊🧡

Sns shippers with this take make me roll my eyes. It's so stupid because it's so out of character for Naruto to take that path. Naruto's entire character and themes are about upholding the establishment and his alignment with Konoha. His entire storyline is fundamentally linked with wanting acknowledgement and the highest political position in the village. He is Konohas no1 defender. Why on earth would he suddenly decide to dislike the village in the end? It makes no sense.

At the end of the day, Naruto doesn't really care about how the village wronged Sasuke and his people. His sympathy was so surface level and so self centered that whenever Sasuke expressed himself, Naruto always found a way of making it about himself and his feelings. Stop being delusional about how Naruto is the only one who understood Sasuke and he's his sunshine and so on and so forth.

And it's just so funny and sad. Because SNS is the one ship where you don't need any sort of crutches. Canon speaks for itself. The story is proof. I have said a hundred times that fans don't have to rely on interviews to prove SNS's legitimacy, whether fake or real, because the story is supposed to be proof. Period. Full stop. End of story. And there are other credible SNS blogs that actually talk about that, the story, the characterization, the tropes etc etc. It's so evident that not only are they smart, but also inspired. By the STORY. By SNS. Emotions and storytelling.

But the blogs that get visibility on other platforms are these other blogs that are as non sensical as those SS and NH blogs that pounce on any puny, sad little indication of romance, no matter if it's canon or not. Just shipping for shipping's sake, who only know to talk of the 'smutty' stuff.

Not to be prudish but that's reductive as all hell. SNS is so damn much more than that. It's an emotion, nay, it's a convergence of a hundred larger than life emotions, so much so that every time I think of them, it attempts at simply bursting violently out of my heart, like a spirited river that cannot be contained within the dam-like walls of my rational mind. It's hard to put in words.

Headcanon: Sasuke will never admit it but using a cell with just one arm is a nuisance; he hates using the keyboard especially when he’s lying on the couch. Playing games is a bitch. He inwardly grumbles since he can't play games on his phone. Games like Fortnite and Among Us need both hands, not to mention that he wants to play Genshin Impact. He knows how popular Genshin is, it's impossible to play on the PC without both his arms .. the only way he can try to play it is if he puts his phone down; but it’s still not enough hands. The most annoying aspect? Whenever he walks and needs to text it's an issue of balancing the phone and his fingers being too large and clunky to type as he walks.

Naruto realizes this and comes to the rescue!! He and Sasuke use synchronized typing as they walk and at first it was a hassle because their fingers would collide. Naruto's arm is like a symbiotic appendage in tune with Sasuke's body. Whenever Sasuke wants to play a game, Naruto is happy to help him play it. Sasuke acted aloof at first, not wanting Naruto to think of his missing limb as a weakness and he didn’t know how to veil his embarrassment; but Naruto pretended to be so into the game without drawing attention to Sasuke's “burst support” as they cutesy named it, that Sasuke let him be his other arm. They spend hours on Sasuke's phone, playing Genshin (Sasuke pulled Itto and lost Ayato thanks to Naruto using up all the primogems when he failed to pull Alhaitham; they bickered over that until Zhongli showed up and Sasuke is convinced he is an Itachi kin). When it comes to playing on game cartridges SNS like to coordinate controls and that gets messy and competitive, bordering on screaming matched at each other over games like Super Smash Bros and Skyrim where they have to think fast. Naruto loves to play racing games with Sasuke on the same controller just to piss him off when he crashes against other vehicles.

When they’re loafing in bed they both like to watch Youtube and forget about violent video games and so they instead opt for podcasts and synchronize chatting with the rest of the gang in the Discord group chats. Naruto pushes Sasuke’s fingers away and quickly types lewd messages to the group, and by now the group chat knows who is saying what.

Bonus:

Whenever he can Naruto slips his new arm around Sasuke’s waist to bring him closer as they coordinate phone usage, and instead of pushing him away Sasuke furloughs any responsibility to lean into him, and their heads touch. After a while Sasuke realizes that Naruto is glued to his phone, without breaking contact, and both of them yield to the fact that they are left to using just this one phone between them.

(Disclaimer: I’m speaking in extremely general terms and there are exceptions amongst ships/shippers. I’m also not trying to devalue or insult ships, or claim that one ship/shipper is somehow better than another. This post is meant to be an observation, not a judgement.)

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, at least amongst the most popular ships in the Naruto fandom, many ships have very little to do with the dynamics between two characters and more to do with one character getting their “happily ever after.” This is most apparent when you pay less attention to what a shipper is saying and more to how they’re saying it. A lot of ships are described using character-centric language.

(Disclaimer: I’m not saying don’t listen to what’s being said ever, otherwise you’ll never understand their thought process, I’m just saying that you can learn just as much about a ship by listening to the language used.)

SasuSaku is a Sakura-centric ship where Sakura gets the man she wants while simultaneously winning against all the other girls fighting for his hand. This is why in the retsuden Sasuke is so out of character and is sometimes referred to as “whipped for Sakura” by fans.

NaruHina is a Hinata-centric ship where Hinata marries the man she’s pined after for so long. This is why the last focuses on Hinata so much and Naruto is treated as an incredibly dense knight in shining armor.

NaruSaku is a ship that goes either way approximately 60-40. Naruto-centric shippers want Naruto to anchieve every dream he’s ever had and Sakura-centric shippers want Sakura to settle down with the person who’s been so dedicated to her. (I say either instead of both because I very rarely find shippers that vocalize the benefits for both parties.) This is (one of the reasons) why so many NaruSaku fans were surprised that it didn’t become canon; they think that Naruto’s wants weren’t prioritized or that Sakura’s character arc is incomplete.

SasuNaruSasu I’ve also seen go either way but it is largely a Naruto-centric ship where Naruto saves the man he spent so much time chasing after. This is (one of the reasons) why SNS fans think that the ship would’ve been canon if it were straight.

(I could go on, but that would take a while and I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure the rest out or do your own research.)

Why does the Naruto fandom often use the words “deserve” and “earn” despite that not being how relationships work? This is why. Why is one character more frequently used as a self-insert than others? This is why.

This is also where a lot of NOTPs stem from. There are a lot reasons why people don’t ship something or viscerally hate a ship, and this is one of the big ones. “Anti-” shippers often don’t like a certain character and don’t like any ships that favor that character, and they certainly don’t like any ships that favor that character over their favorite. This is why many Sasuke fans hate SasuSaku and SNS. This is why many Naruto fans don’t care for NaruHina. NaruSaku again is a slight exception in the way that some “anti-” shippers hate Sakura and don’t want Naruto with her or hate Naruto and want Sakura with someone else.

This is why I have personally blacklisted many anti-[enter ship here] tags. They’re full of character bashing.

*Screenshot is deleted because I just now realised how insensitive I was for attaching this post with it*

"He was crazy, Sakura, you know that." ☹️

Err... I can't believe that sentence came from a sns fanfic. I was, uh, repulsed. Maybe it's the ooc-ness of the whole thing or maybe because I couldn't visualize canon Naruto to be this stupid (he's never this dumb in canon, no), but honestly, can you see Naruto (canon Naruto) describing Sasuke like... like that to anyone, to Sakura, to himself? If you can then, sorry, you're (perhaps) a lost cause.

It's just baffling because it's not just this fic. The fandom itself is divided in their 'opinions' of both Sasuke and Naruto. Some fanfics only favour Naruto and diss on Sasuke (and therefore Sasuke is forced to cater to Naruto's demands because he's 'sinned' or has hurt the precious boy so Sasuke needs to show remorse and apologise over and over or something like that😝), some only revere Sasuke and shit on Naruto (this is kinda rare I think, but when it's like that, Naruto is shown to be a puppy-eyed sunshine boy who needs constant protection and validation, so in the end Sasuke is coerced to cater to Naruto's needs (wait, this shits on Sasuke😣), and then there's some where it's written that Sasuke doesn't really care about Naruto or he cares about him but it's the same level of care as he has with the rest of team seven, urgh, I mean, what, so then Naruto has to beg for Sasuke's love and attention... kinda like Sakura, but worse, and there's also where they erase Naruto's personality and replace it with a 'bamf fanon naruto' one or 'too insecure, weak-minded, too jealous, and pathetic' one, just so that Sasuke can stay true to his character). Where am I going with this...? My memory of the fanfics I've read are hazy and unreliable, I read too much of them lol.

What I wanted to ask the fandom is: why sns fandom? Why? Why degrade Naruto's character like this? Why do you ship sns if you don't see Sasuke as he is? I think you don't truly ship them if you stomp on their character like this. Perhaps it's time to backtrack and re-read the manga to get to know their character? 😓

Just so you know I read that fic from start to finish and... well, I bookmarked it because I could see that the author had put a lot of effort writing and posting the fic so even if I disliked some parts of it, I still wanted to show some support. Maybe one day the author would write Naruto and Sasuke better, like more honest, nuanced, and true to their canon characters (or close to it) in the future. I can only hope.

To sns fanfic writers: You can do better!