Character Roundups Round 1: Sasuke Uchiha

So, now that we are done with Sasuke's story, what I would like to do is talk about the characters relevant to Sasuke's story on the whole. Specifically (because it's always about framing around here) the message I got from Kishimoto when reading the series and how I think the characters would have been more effectively written and/or framed. For main characters with a lot more going on I'll talk mostly about their relationship to Sasuke rather than their entire character. First up is of course the boy himself, Sasuke Uchiha.

How Sasuke is written and framed by Kishimoto: Sasuke was conceptualized as a rival to Naruto, the cool, smart and popular kid to Naruto's failing, attention-starved outcast. There were hints that there was something more going on with him, but who's to say if it was always as in-depth as it ended up being. Sasuke's story outgrew just being a foil to Naruto so much it basically ate Naruto's character and turned his motivation into being completely about Sasuke for the first part of Shippuden. And Kishimoto decided to fix that by forcing Sasuke's character which, once again, had outgrown Naruto to be about being a foil to Naruto again.

Sasuke's is emphasized as the cool, popular kid, the de facto leader of Team 7 when Kakashi isn't around, with hints of a dark and traumatic past. Of course when it comes time to learn about Sasuke's past, what starts being emphasized is that Sasuke was not the genius that his brother was and that he was vying for the attention of his father because Kishimoto can only conceptualize characters being relatable if they aren't "the smart one" for some reason.

After his retraumatizing by Itachi, Kishimoto frames Sasuke's change as a change to the "dark side". Kishimoto had set up the Curse Mark from Orochimaru as the threat for Sasuke "turning" but it truly has more impact on Sasuke's physical well being than mentally or emotionally until the meeting with Itachi happens. After that, he is shown as arrogant and the instigator in his squabbles with Naruto. He gets a talking to multiple times by Kakashi while Naruto gets none despite gladly taking part in their fight. Kishimoto downplays Sasuke's trauma by having Kakashi insinuate he has felt the same pain as Sasuke and therefore Sasuke should not be having any problems and his flashing out is not valid. Sasuke is portrayed very explicitly as villainous for the first part of the Valley of the End fight. Kishimoto gives Sasuke a little more sympathy after his backstory is fully explored, but ultimately Sasuke is framed as someone who is "misguided" and not as someone with full knowledge of what they are doing.

Early Shippuden Sasuke is very much just a shiny object the characters are fighting over until he finally appears again and even so the Sasuke we get leading up to the Itachi fight doesn't seem to have many thoughts or feelings about anything that isn't his goal. It is notable though that Kishimoto makes a point to tell us not to view Sasuke as "evil" since he doesn't kill anyone he spars with and doesn't plan on killing anyone except Orochimaru and Itachi.

After killing Itachi and being confronted with the fact that his family was actually killed by a government sanctioned genocide, we get one nice scene of Sasuke crying followed by Kishimoto doing everything in his power to make us view Sasuke as "evil" and that he has finally fallen from working with established bad guys the Akatsuki to basically every character telling us Sasuke is being evil.

The reunion with Itachi and their fight with Kabuto feels like it should be Sasuke's character self-actualizing and while there are some good moments of Sasuke confronting Itachi and asserting himself, the comments Itachi makes about Sasuke being malleable to outside influence and the fact that it ends with Sasuke going on a knowldge quest makes me feel like Kishimoto wants us to think Sasuke has a whole worldview to sort out rather than him mostly knowing what he wants at this point.

This is further evidenced by the fact that apparently hearing what the previous hokages had to say gets Sasuke to figure out his new worldview and we do a fake-out of Sasuke being "good" and wanting to be "hokage" just to make him look "evil" throughout the war and then rolling out his revolution plan when they win.

And let's be real the revolution plan is just "Sasuke has gone down the evil route and is being difficult so Naruto has to beat it out of him". Naruto himself explicitly says that and if you don't want to believe him then believe it based on the fact that there is no one in or out of universe saying that Naruto beating his "friend" into submission was wrong or a bad solution. As for Sasuke's plan, it no longer has anything to do with the Uchiha clan, they are no longer mentioned, apparently Sasuke didn't learn anything from his entire final interaction with Itachi, and now Sasuke wants to be hokage to the entire world and live forever. Of course, Sasuke is just a silly, hurt child and needs Naruto's love beaten into him until he realizes people cared about him so he shouldn't care about what happened in the past. Also Naruto is a really nice guy and all the villages that hate each other will get along now. So Sasuke may have to go on a redemption walk forever, but he'll marry Sakura and have a kid and be Naruto's best friend and isn't that a nice, happy ending.

How it should have gone: I actually think most characters in Naruto need very little changed. What actually needs to be changed is the framing. And that is true for Sasuke. He's pretty much set until the end.

If we are coming at the manga from Naruto's perspective, setting him up as the cool, popular kid is fine. But as soon as we learn about Sasuke as a character I don't think that should be the focus and Naruto should definitely have learned that being the cool, popular kid is not how Sasuke sees himself so he should stop talking about that whenever they meet if Sasuke is indeed his best friend. But more than that I think instead of focusing on Sasuke has someone ~seduced by the power Orochimaru offered~ or ~ungrateful for his friends~ it should have been framed as Sasuke being someone newly retraumatized, very hurt, and felt like he was out of options because no one was supporting him. That framing doesn't even necessarily have to come at the time things happen, but at least in retrospect someone could have realized they fucked up in how they were interacting with Sasuke.

The biggest thing for me though would be after Sasuke learns the truth, stop pretending like he's super evil and "in the darkness" and just say he's having a mental breakdown. That's what it looks like and the only thing that makes me know that's not Kishimoto's angle is because everyone keeps saying Sasuke is evil and we never reevaluate his behavior again after this. Hell, Kakashi and Naruto know what Sasuke knows and Naruto's still thinking they should probably just fight each other to the death to solve this and never have an updated opinion on that ever.

Lastly, I feel there are two possible options that would have made sense writing-wise, I think one is a good idea and one is bad, but I wouldn't have critiqued the story telling if either of these were used. But they weren't and instead we had Sasuke's character just stop making sense so we could have Sasuke be in the wrong and have a big end fight with Naruto. Option one (the bad option) is to have Sasuke, after hearing the hokages' stories, agree that his clan should have been wiped out for the good of Konoha and fight in the war, not having a fight with Naruto at the end because they are in agreement that ultimately sacrificing an entire clan for a village is the best decision. Option two (the good one) is Sasuke goes to fight in the war but once they deal with this Kaguya bullshit Sasuke once again wants his revolution. This time though Sasuke is upset about something that is congruous with what actually happened to him, his whole family being killed by his brother who was manipulated and threatened by village leaders, while also incorporating what he learned from the hokages. Maybe something about how people with power and money are the ones hiring ninjas leading to generations long animosity between clans and villages causing one to eventually stamp out the other for "the good of the village/our continued existence/whatever" (good time to call back to the time Suna wanted to destroy Konoha because their daimyo was using Konoha ninja because they were cheaper) and also maybe he's also just mad that the government killed his family and his brother was disgraced and no one knows about it. That means Kishimoto would have to just admit Konoha was wrong for that, and if there's a fight with him and Naruto then Naruto would look bad. But there doesn't even have to be a fight at all perhaps Kishimoto could actually give Naruto an arc instead and they team up to change the ninja world. Wild idea I know.

The main point I want to get across about Sasuke is what this whole blog has been about. Sasuke should have been treated sympathetically and someone who was very hurt, very troubled, and didn't always do the right thing but at least he wanted the right thing, not as someone bad or a "sulking friend who needed to be punched to snap him out of it".

DRACULA DAILY SKETCH ROUNDUP- NOVEMBER

In which our tale reaches its conclusion.

I did this on ig, and thought it would be fun to do a little round up of the arts I’ve made of their punk and cheerleader years here, too.

1. When he’s trying to convince you to hang out with him instead of going to the game after-party

2. The Datsun! Time to set a plan of escape into motion.

3. Sneaking out with Sully, Georgie and Dee on your 16th birthday.

4. Being chased by a monster and oh by the way I think I’m transgender. He is unfazed.

5. Nap time after defeating said monster

6. Can’t cut your hair cuz your parents are insane but you can wear his hat and oversized hoodie for now

7. Can’t go to Seattle Pride but he brought some of it back for you

8. Took you to Seattle anyway later, and of course it rained.

9. Everything is going to be ok, we still have the sun.

10. Until we don’t. I love you I love you 💔

Carrie and Sully are the highschool version of my characters Caro and John from my webcomic, Mil-Liminal

dandelion and clover (the weeds)

drew a few more jwqs characters as i imagine them (qijing ver)

WANTED - DEAD OR ALIVE

@roxroxtbm @radiant-vulpine @glitch-the-artist @ralk-is-peeved @mercair @4444pi come pick up youre children

october fourteenth

What if we started drawing our ocs in stills from The Exorcist?

That'd be pretty neat.

Credits:

Woostern by @mercair

Raily by @glitch-the-artist

Outdraw by @ralk-is-peeved

PULLY

@glitch-the-artist heehoo I’m not done yet :3c

Wow, I haven't made sprites for him for like long time, anyway, some random sprites for Hatner because i was board + a Sprite for Iris (by my friend @glitch-the-artist )

Character Roundups Round 12: Tobirama Senju

Shock and awe, Tobirama gets the treatment most of the characters in Naruto get from me. I don't have a problem with his character, I have a problem with the framing.

I probably could have done with more actually seeing Uchiha and Senju members killing each other so we better understood why everyone was so stuck in their ways besides Hashirama and (kinda) Madara because otherwise it's like why can't everyone be chill about it and try to change like they did? Like I've said the founders era flashback could have been a hundred chapters long and got really into the nitty gritty of it and I would have lived.

But that's so we can understand Tobirama's character better, other than that the character does his job. He doesn't get over his Uchiha bias, is a weird eugenicist over it, it causes a shit ton of problems, horrible things come from it, the entire Uchiha clan is wiped out which he probably did not intend but that's what his actions led to. What? Am I going to be mad a character is effective in their role? No. It's a story. Also Madara and Tobirama have a "the girls are fightinggggg" Real Housewives of Konoha vibe in the flashback and I think that's an amusing dynamic.

The problem is OF COURSE the framing. Fucking Orochimaru calls out one specific thing Tobirama did wrong and the narrative is still like "well, it still got to that point so I guess the Uchiha deserve to die." All of his eugenics sounding bullshit is just brushed off as "oh, Tobirama you scoundrel" rather than a real concern. Also according to the narrative Tobirama's theories are correct so fuck realistic and compelling storytelling I guess. That's the problem here. Not Tobirama's character, but the framing of him.

It's funny to me that fans get mad when you don't take what Kishimoto tries to feed you at face value and point out that Tobirama is wrong because really despite the fact that I think he sucks I want better for Tobirama's character really. It's vaguely there during the war arc (I'm not sure to what end because Kishimoto), but what if we really emphasized Tobirama working with Sasuke during the war arc? What if he saw this kid not putting the village first like he wanted, but he's still putting the sake of the world first and that means something? I'm not saying this like Tobirama needed a redemption arc because that's not what a redemption arc is, just that what if we added some layers? What about even if you can't do shit about it maybe you can start to wonder if perhaps you were wrong about a group of people? What about more understanding about the distrust between the Uchiha and Senju clans, what about reckoning with the fact that Tobirama was saying and doing some shady shit, what about that despite the fact that he's weird about the Uchiha clan it was inadvertent that he spread his bias against the Uchiha clan to his students and set the clan up for failure. He had an Uchiha for a student what about pointing out how having this one student you think is "one of the good ones" doesn't preclude you from having bias against a group? Isn't that more interesting? Wouldn't that make the character and story richer? That's what I think anyway and I want that for this manga because there's some good stuff there. I wouldn't bother talking about it so much otherwise.

DRACULA DAILY SKETCH ROUNDUP- AUGUST

In which I get way too into crosshatching the Demeter ends its fateful voyage, Lucy's dreams grow stranger, and Mina is finally reunited with her beloved Jonathan.

"Beefcake" Stream Event: Commission Roundup

Last week, I wanted to draw some beefcakes. <3 Thank you so much to everyone who submitted their lovely muscular sweethearts for me to depict!

Slots for this stream event included:

Sublimenol's lioness knight Corinne D'Acier, enjoying a stretch out of her armor,

Powerfactor's scarred superhero Yve, posing post workout,

Rilgon's Roegadyn Warrior of Light (also named Rilgon), doing some blacksmithing work with his hammer,

StrayWisp's Arcanine lady Heather, showing off her lovely back stripes,

Seriva's centaur barbarian Khara, ready and raring for a fight,

and Aether718's handsome centaur Thunderhoof, simply letting his impressive physique speak for itself~

19/08/23

Fic recs

@prolix-yuy Decoherence A Jack Daniels/Westworld AU

@djarinmuse Your Majesty Manda'lor Din Djarin x fem!reader Some Sort of Holy Rite Din Djarin x fem!reader

@missredherring Year of Wishes Maxwell Lord x plus size female reader Genie AU.

My Writing

New series

Summer Schooled/Adult Education

Needing some cash before college, you start babysitting for Mr Miller and Mr York. When you decide to spend the summer teasing them. They decide you need to be taught some lessons.

And It Just Keeps Getting Better

After ten years of pass, you decide to revisit the past and one summer in particular.

It Could Be Better

A down on his luck Max Lord gives male escort work a go. It changes his life even more than he could ever wish for.

After a brief but very successful stint as a male escort. Max hatches his most ambitious business scheme yet. A motel for anyone looking to have their sexual wishes fulfilled.

Series Update

The Watchtower

The Last of Us Magical Western Au

Joel Miller begrudgingly accepts the task of escorting a woman across an America that is fraught with danger from an illness that ravaged the land. The dangers come from the creatures the illness created, as well as the humans that seek to control the powers they wield.

More of Us

Too many late nights playing The Last of Us alone give you one hell of a dream. That's all it is, a dream, right?

One shots

Cleansing Fire

A drabble based on the video for Sia's Fire Meet Gasoline.

Author's note: I'm trying to find a balance between not tagging people and tagging them too much, so I'm going to start just doing a Saturday round up.

Tags: @kirsteng42 @prolix-yuy @thegreenkid2 @hquinzelle @fangirl-316 @gracie7209 @jedifarmerr @doommommy @scorpio-marionette @sturkillerbase @harriedandharassed @aynsleywalker @mswarriorbabe80 @rise-my-angel @adancedivasmom @kinda-nobody @movievillainess721 @munsonownsmyass @mandoloriancookie @faceache111 @elegantduckturtle @manazo @simpingcowboy @pedrit0-pascalit0 @yourcoolauntie @pedrostories @geekrenaissance @its-nebuleuse @sherala007

honestly i know a lot of people were upset with mays discussion w jay abt jayson, thought it was too… sympathetic, pointing to redemption etc, but i liked it for the depth it gave him (as well as may, who’s characterized further then as a kind of tragic “i-can-fix-him” type who tries to give everyone the best she can even if it’s ultimately just at her detriment, but that’s not the point)

may says that jayson acts the way he does because he’s ultimately just desperately seeking approval from his commander and mother.

i don’t think it anyway excuses his actions (making your daughter execute one of her best friends and all that is pretty fucking unredeemable), but it contextualizes em. it doesn’t make me sympathize with what he’s done (especially since it’s implied he’s been fairly abusive even since jay was a little girl) , but it sure makes me pity him.

he’s changed then from just An Asshole to a tragic asshole— we know what caused him to change and spiral, the fatal flaw that drove him to worse and worse actions all in an attempt to finally achieve something that, frankly, I doubt he’d ever truly receive (validation, love). it doesn’t make him right. there were countless paths he could’ve taken, ultimately what he’s done is on him and him alone, but. you know why he’s done it. yknow?

this is a man driven to the extreme on a search for something that he can never have, and the tragedy lies in that he doesn’t know that. so he’s kept going and going further and further until he’s discarded so much of himself in pursuit of this thing that to give up now would be to give up everything. might as well go all the way, you’ve got to be so close to getting it now… right?

september ninth