Tag: ask

Hi! Is kurenai as good at genjutsu as Itachi? I’ve heard this on this site before but this site also tends to be wrong about a lot of things. Is this true?

[[ The short of it is: It’s not true. Kurenai’s genjutsu is vastly inferior to Itachi’s. Itachi is a natural Dojutsu user, and Itachi has also been extensively training his Genjutsu since he awakened his Sharingan. Kurenai lost the genjutsu battle badly to Itachi. This is canon, it literally happens on the pages.

The slightly longer version with the hot take is: Trying to argue that the fight wasn’t fair because Itachi is an Uchiha is pointless. So we have to dumb Itachi down and baby Kurenai so she feels good about herself? She was fighting an S-rank criminal and she knows he’s an Uchiha. She put out her very best and it wasn’t enough. Don’t baby Kurenai, they’re just on two different levels. Fights with good guys V bad guys aren’t supposed to be fair, realistic fights aren’t always fair anyways. Kakashi lost to Itachi too, are we going to argue that Kakashi is written badly/written unfairly/got shafted, etc?

The part of it that’s me going on a tangent is: We honestly need to stop acting as if a female character is “written badly” or “poorly” when she doesn’t have canon-shattering strength and abilities. All this does is create a ridiculous expectation that women characters are only defined by their strength and abilities. She’s a well respected and powerful Jonin on her own, she trained a team of skilled trackers, and she raised Mirai with the help of her team and stayed a single mother, and she overcame a Father who was misogynistic. 

Kurenai is a great character, and the people who try to argue her genjutsu is or “should be” just as powerful as Itachi’s are insanely jealous of Itachi and are overlooking the rest of her character. ]]

Is Itachi’s perception of Sasuke faithful and accurate or does he project things onto that as well?

[[ Oh, you sweet summer child… 

For a majority of the series, Itachi does project onto Sasuke. HEAVILY. I’ve discussed it before, I can’t remember exact posts, though. But no, Itachi’s perception/image of Sasuke is NOT faithful, and that is the problem with their dynamic for the longest time. It’s only when saying his final goodbyes to Sasuke that he relinquishes the ideas he has. That he allows Sasuke to be himself. 

For the longest time, Itachi sees Sasuke as a person to protect. Someone who cannot handle certain information, someone who must be guided on a path. It isn’t in Sasuke’s actual nature to be a violent person, yet Itachi wants to keep him locked on the path of vengeance and hatred. Sasuke innately cares about people, and Itachi tries to basically beat that out of him. Itachi has what I’m gonna call an “inner Sasuke”, aka the way he sees Sasuke. This is what he projects upon the real Sasuke. Itachi’s whole plan… dying as a villain, having Sasuke return to the village and play house, etc, that all depended on his inner Sasuke. 

(this actually causes a lot of trouble when viewed as a ship, because Itachi’s inner Sasuke is very dominant and humiliates Itachi, which is what he thinks he deserves, but the real Sasuke is not so domineering and would rather not hurt him if he can help it.)

He admits during his goodbyes that he didn’t treat Sasuke as an equal. As his own person. It’s only then that he really, truly does. ]]

(Cant fimd your blog name because Im drunk.) Orochimaru does the thing where he stares at Sasuke for a minute or two, realizes his own stare at last. He gets up. Goes over to him. Wraps his arms around his neck. Gives him a nuzzle. Whispers, “you are perfect to me,” and let’s go again. He only does this in private. Or else people might think he might be getting soft. The opposite is true. In comparison to Sasuke, he will judge the other people in the world so much harsher.

[[ @kakumeinoshippai u silly, silly woman… New Dimensions AU]]

If this were any other time….Sasuke would’ve found a bit of disgust in the statement. He’d always been some form of perfect to Orochimaru. In the sense that Sasuke was a goal to attain. Perfection to make his own. 

But he understands. Allows the compliment to sink in, and chases Orochimaru’s leave of the embrace with a small kiss to the other man’s temple. He appreciates it. He’s trying. 

Heyy, I once saw a post saying that those Itasasu fics where Itachi rapes Sasuke are believable, cos since Itachi HAS used Tsukuyomi on his brother as a form of psychological torture to convince him that he was a monster, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that he would use sexual torture as well. Do you have any thoughts on this?

[[ Uhhh no. I don’t think Itachi actually raping Sasuke is believable at all. Itachi has never had sex in canon, I doubt– even if he was presenting himself as a monster to Sasuke, that he would ever cross the line into anything like molestation/sexual assault.

He has used Tsukuyomi to explicitly remind Sasuke of the thing he’s done, which is kill their parents/clan and leave him abandoned on his own. This has absolutely nothing to do with sex at all. 

The fics are “believeable” if you’re into rape fics/portraying Itachi as a sexual predator. I don’t mind rape in fiction at all, and I don’t care if people write it, but it’s ridiculous to try to claim it in any sort of canon analysis, because Itachi would not cross that line. Let’s just leave it as the fetish material it is. ]]

Where the FUCK did the assumption that Suigetsu couldn’t read even come from

[[ Unfortunately, there’s a few roleplay blogs (and one claiming to be a shitposting blog?) that share the headcanon that Suigetsu can’t read. 

This isn’t treated like an AU, it’s treated as if it could’ve been canon, it’s used in analysis, meta, so on. 

Now, obviously we’re rolling into the territory of “what? people can’t have their own headcanons now?” but the thing is a headcanon can’t work against canon. Suigetsu has proven he’s easily capable of reading. His databook page lists him as having completed multiple missions, many A and B rank, a shinobi who could not read and write reports to turn in would not have been near Jonin-level. Kirigakure is not a dump of dumb, violent brutes. This also serves to just….prop up Orochimaru. Nevermind Orochimaru experimented on him and captured him…he is nice now, and taught him how to read! 

It works as an AU. Not as a headcanon. ]]

In regards to the last ask, it’s confusing. He has lost his temper once in canon that was not about Sasuke being harmed, and he himself hurt Sasuke without losing his cool, dealt with Orochimaru (who was a risk to Sasuke and likely did harm him in some way) without losing his cool and threatened whoever else represented risk in a quite controlled manner. When does he SNAP?

He has lost his temper once in canon that was not about Sasuke being harmed

[[ He lost his temper at Yashiro and his buddies because they were giving him shit about the Uchiha this and the Uchiha that, and as someone who’d dealt with their verbal abuse since his time as a genin, he’d had enough. That is one, singular example, with a clear buildup to the boiling over of emotions. 

and he himself hurt Sasuke without losing his cool,

Because he was doing it. He saw it as a necessary evil. Itachi did it to get Sasuke to hate him and want to kill him. I don’t agree with the logic himself but there’s something about him personally doing the damage VS someone else.

dealt with Orochimaru (who was a risk to Sasuke and likely did harm him in some way)

Orochimaru wasn’t….literally trying to kill Sasuke. Some of the stuff Orochimaru did Itachi had no real control over (the forest of death) and he had faith that Sasuke would win because Itachi dealt with Orochimaru when he was a thirteen year old. As for during their fight, he had a plan for sealing Orochimaru and weng through with it. 

I’ll say it again…if you want him to snap, kill Sasuke. That’s his reason to live. 

That is when he will snap. ]]