tbh i'm more concerned with the fact that some people come out of mdzs, the book debating the nuances of morality and mob mentality (which is often very black and white, reductionist, dehumanizing, pointing fingers to find someone to hate etc etc) with the takeaway that This One Character is Morally Right and Everyone Else is Wrong, Actually

purity culture has poisoned people's heads and is doing great damage to current art and media (side-eyes netflix atla) and it's more felt in how some fans express their opinions in fandom

Sqh has to hightail it out of there with a SJ hot on his heels- adrenaline makes it so he runs so fast his legs become a blur, and he gets into his car and that's how the chase around the city starts,

SJ, head out of the window, trying to blow out SQH's tires with his gun: "Stop right there you disgusting rat!"

Sqh: *manages to swerve just in time, screaming out of the window too* "LIKE I WOULD LISTEN TO THE MAN WITH A GUN"

SJ: "I'm going to cut your fucking hands off!! You won't be able to write ever again!"

Sqh: "JUST TRY TO TELL SHEN YUAN THAT, HE'LL BE MAD AT YOU FOR A DECADE!!"

SJ: "You- I'll kill you!"

They go on a mad chase for almost an hour, at least until it occurs to Sqh that he has an ally!! that's!! more powerful and scary!! that SJ!!!

And so he winds up in front of Mbj's mansion screaming "MY KING HELP ME!!" The guard already knows him from the times he's gone there to work on homework with mbj but he can't let him pass without Mbj's say so.

The moment he hears Sqh's voice, Mbj is out of the his window down to the side-ladder he uses to sneak out as fast as a winter wind. He tells the guard at the door to let Sqh's car go though and to close them immediately, and just in time. SJ almost crashed into the gate but he screeched to a stop just before ruining the hood of his very expensive green sport car.

Sqh stays the night, and the night after that. He's not going to sleep at his own house until he's absolutely sure SJ is being supervised and out of the country.

btw: sqh kept calling mbj his king bc he noticed that mbj liked it a lot. And when he asks mbj for something while pathetically whining "My kiiing~" it tends to do the trick. It was true that the way to a man's heart is acting pitiful! (he's not going to think too much about that)

(Cont) and the MCs have zero issue with it because as far as they’re concerned, the villainess’s life is their identity now.

I kind of get the obsession bc fandom and culture in general is obsessed with the concept of identity. But what I don't think many people realize is that identity is something that changes and it's influenced by time and space and many other circumstances. That's is how is possible for this particular character to had been Shen Yuan and Peerless Cucumber and now be Shen Qingqiu. Shen Yuan was the fuerdai with three siblings and a loving family who was waiting around to die because he didn't have a purpose, didn't work and had a comfortable life. Peerless Cucumber is the unhinged version of himself, the genre savvy netizen that spends too much time reading everything popular or that catches his fancy and arguing in the forums and being anti-fan of his most hated/loved novel.

Okay so my theory is that Kishi always knew that the final villian would be a woman because otherwise Naruto's reverse oiroke jutsu wouldn't have worked. And Naruto was seen flaunting his new jutsu (that he practiced more than Rasengan 😏) from the first chapter of Shippuden. But Kishi took care of not showing it to us. Until Kaguya. Because she is a woman and will only be distracted by naked men. 🙄 And even though war arc was written a bit lazily, he must have known that he will have to introduce a new villian keeping in mind that they had to be a woman. And all the existing villians were men. At least, he must have had the barebones of that idea, even if not fully realized at the time. Kishi mindfully created a situation where Naruto would have to use that jutsu, which really speaks volumes, the jutsu as in. It also didn't escape my notice that Sasuke had to comment on the fact that Naruto's kage bunshin jutsu (often mixed with his oiroke, as was the case when he distracts Kaguya), is an attempt to dispel his loneliness. He distracted Kaguya with his oiroke men, many of whom suspiciously look like Sasuke, and Naruto does think he is cool looking (way more than Sai 😤😂). So that brings us to the conclusion that, Naruto must have practiced making Sasuke looking clones a lot in the blank period. Heheh aww. When Konohamaru makes the reverse oiroke with Sasuke and Sai, Naruto is mad. Because he does feel very very possessive towards Sasuke, as was already established. So he can make Sasuke looking clones to distract women but he wouldn't have Konohamaru making a quite explicit looking reverse oiroke of Sasuke. But again, Kishi guised it under comedy, like usual.

What do you think Kishi's intent here was, throughout? I feel like he played it very cleverly.

Heeeeey! Sorry for the wait, I had a lot going on these past few days.

From my point of view, the author's intent is not so easy to discern. In any piece of media we’ll be reading their work through our very particular perspective, no matter how much we try to be impartial and analytic about it. In the end is going to be OUR reading of the work in question, which often enough aligns with others but not always. Naruto fandom is a pretty good example of that. There are things you can establish as facts (Example: Naruto and Sasuke are important to each other. That’s a fact. Now, the way any fan chooses to interpret the nature of their relationship differs even between fans that ship them romantically) Art is already polysemic, allowing different interpretations of the same work, and I think that in NARUTO’s case Kishimoto tends to be a little (a LOT) ambiguous about some things, be it to have plausible deniability or to touch on themes that he can’t write explicitly.

Kishi mindfully created a situation where Naruto would have to use that jutsu, which really speaks volumes, the jutsu as in.

I’d say that he always had the Sexy Reverse Harem jutsu in mind and was just waiting for an opportunity to put it in the manga. The Last was announced in 2012. Already at that moment in War Arc he had to know how his story would end, and that there would be a sequel and all that entailed. He had plausible deniability if he wanted to try anything “funny”.

As for Kaguya, I really can’t say if he always had her in mind. She’s the most underdeveloped villain in all Naruto, besides maybe Gatou. But hey, he had to create her to make sense of the sequel. Doesn’t mean he can’t take advantage and put something as “questionable” as a bunch of naked men in a shonen manga. And make Naruto say he had practiced it a lot. But of course he’ll never explain that, and will use the plot to distract the reader from those little things he drops now and then. And it works, right? Because the most casual audience has never stopped to think: hold on, is it a normal hetero behavior to obsess over sexy naked men to create a jutsu that Naruto just got to use against one enemy??? Naruto, who wasn’t very good at transforming into other people in the beginning, who failed that first test to become genin, was able to transform himself into Sasuke perfectly in chapter 3? What does it all mean, really? -shrugs- But most people aren’t interested in that part of the story. So Kishimoto can get away with putting very ambiguous stuff into his story as long as he uses a distraction to take the attention from it.

I think the fact that Kishimoto was so insistent on drawing this scene speaks volumes about how relevant he thought it was, or at least how much fun he had doing it. It takes you back to the beginning of the manga, when Naruto used the Sexy Jutsu against his teachers. Sometimes you spend so much time on a story you need to remind yourself why you love it.

But as I was telling you, I don't know to what extent everything was planned that way. Sometimes readers can notice more connections between parts of the story than the author himself, and being a 15 years old manga, we can’t say that something Kishimoto wrote for chapter 3 was intended to have an impact beyond the first arcs of the story. But regardless of Kishimoto's intention, it’s a fact that Naruto spends time and effort on things that interest him, that matter to him in some way. And the fact that he put so much effort into pulling off a reverse harem jutsu with different types of men, all very attractive and different (despite the fact that some have that sexy dark haired look lol Naruto has a type), unlike his sexy harem jutsu which is just clones of his female version, shows how much attention Naruto pays to how other men look NAKED. Does that mean he was ogling guys at the onsen? Did he buy magazines with pictures of sexy men? Did he observe men in the village and practiced how to transform into them? It was something he did frequently, if his comment about how he practiced it more than Rasengan says anything.

It also didn't escape my notice that Sasuke had to comment on the fact that Naruto's kage bunshin jutsu (often mixed with his oiroke, as was the case when he distracts Kaguya), is an attempt to dispel his loneliness.

And you combine that two things, Naruto practicing the Sexy Reverse Harem Jutsu with his clones, his Kage bushin Jutsu being and expression of his loneliness, with this panel from the Road to Ninja Oneshot

it's like the superstition of when someone is talking about you you sneeze but Sqh is waking up in a cold sweat two-three days in a week with the feeling that something is really wrong. He may have to prepare to flee the country. Better to have that as a back up plan!

Oh yeah ZZL definitely goes daily to the host club. He and SY will end up locked in a closet (bc ZZL was comforting his pet snake yet again). When Lbh finds them (rather fast, he's been keeping an eye on ZZL) he yeets ZZL out of the closet and locks himself with SY inside. For reasons!

"Yuan-ge I think Zuzhi-lang is a dangerous person. Please stay away from him."

"..." SY stares at him blankly.

Having his senpai's undivided attention, he blushes a bit but pushes out his chest valiantly. "Don't worry, Yuan-ge, I will protect you."

"... I think something is crawling up my arm."

Knocking from outside: "Shen-xiong, I think I left something-"

"Don't worry Yuan-ge, I'll kill that thing for you. Don't move."

"No, Binghe, don't kill it- AHHH IT GOT INSIDE MY SHIRT"

"Shen-xiong, I already said she's fond of you. Please open the door."

"BINGHE DON'T- WHY ARE YOU HUGGING ME RIGHT NOW!?"

"It- it's to kill the snake, Yuan-ge!"

"But I don't want you to ki-"

The door blasts open. On the other side stands Liu Qingge, lowering his leg, with a thunderous and disgusted expression.

"What are you two doing."

Sy: "..."

Lbh: "..." He stubbornly keeps his arms around SY.

Sy: "Ah... the snake..."

"Shen-xiong?"

Sy, voice strained, "It got... inside..."

"INSIDE!?"

Snake: bits Sy's thigh

Sy: Passes out

lbh: "YUAN-GE!?!? YUAN-GE WAKE UP"

ZZL: "it's not poisonous-"

Lqg, pulling out a sword from gods know where: "Someone explain to me what's going on NOW"

I did say Shen Yuan had more damsel in distress situations that all of CQ High's female students combined lol

And the snake is nor poisonous, he'll be fine! In fact...

Shen Yuan president of the unofficial book club!!!! He probably brings up a different book or manga every week, and he'll read almost any genre. In fact, I think it was because of his fans that he first read BL. Maybe one of them shyly told him about the plot of certain story, he perked up in interest and asked the name of the story. She readily loaned him the book, and he began reading it on the way home and finished the first volume that night. At 3AM he was setting an online purchase for the whole series. And the following days he could be seen only lifting his head from the book to drink water and eat something. When he reached the third volume, he raised his head in befuddlement. Then, the next day at the club:

"Why none of you told me the protagonist was gay?!"

hello anon! :D Yes ZZL is coming and it's with ulterior motives, hehehe

I think in this AU SJ would be fond of NYY as well and one time when he visits her he happens to go to the library of the Ning family while NYY is speaking with her father. There's a shelf where all the printed copies of Lmy and co.'s bl manga AND two books of Sqh's "original" novel. It catchs SJ's attention bc he wouldn't expect NYY to read such weird titles (Night lessons with Senpai, Midnight tutoring, Let me in, Senpai...) and when he opens one of them immediately knows.

He gets a bad feeling about the novels innocently placed next to the manga.

Have you ever felt the rumbling before an earthquake? It was exactly like that. It's a miracle he didn't shredded the damn books right then.

He doesn't say anything about it to NYY, bc he's already losing enough face, but later when he gets home he starts to look up the names of the authors. He can't find them, but that keeps him in a frenzy and tempestuous mood that Yqy can barely get him out of at night.

And that's the beginning of She Jiu's subplot of hunting the disgusting bastards that are defiling his brother's image, fictionally. Will he ever found them?