The event has three category (fluff, smut, angst) with two prompts for each. The event runs for 1 day, the 15th of August (Friday). Early submissions are accepted. Late submissions are accepted only until the 17th of August (Sunday).
Fluff category prompts: Family - Dream
Smut category prompts: Seal - Mokuton
Angst category prompts: Black Zetsu - Legacy
Rules:
Prompts can be mixed and matched.
Any pairings and any ratings are accepted, as long as Kaguya is the main focus
Characters must be of adult age (18+) for NSFW content
New works only - WIPs are fine as long as they are new
No AI works
Any type of work is accepted (fanart, fanfic, gif, video, meme, etc.)
Anyone can participate
AO3 collection
Tag the blog @otsutsukifamily on your work to be reblogged here
Early submissions are accepted. Late submissions are accepted only until the 17th of August (Sunday)
Event can be used with other events, as long as those events also allow it
GongDeng ĺŽŤçŻ palace lanterns, also known as court lanterns, are a distinctive type of traditional Chinese lantern and a hallmark of Chinese craftsmanship.
As the name suggests, palace lanterns were initially used in the imperial palace. They are typically made with a delicate wooden frame, adorned with silk gauze or glass, and painted with various decorative patterns. These lanterns are celebrated for their elegance and regal courtly style. Used primarily within the court.
The lanterns in this post are from the Qing Dynasty and are made out of Zitan (red sandalwood)
It's Valentine's Day! đ Which means is AkaSaku Discord Server Valentine Gift Exchange day!! đ @akasakurevival
My Valentine was @byefolkals so I hope you enjoy it! âşď¸ We've got Modern/Business AU MadaSaku with a Secret Relationship ???Saku (can you guess who she's having an affair with? đ)
my gift for the @akasakurevival 2025 Valentine's Day Exchange (yes, 2 weeks late on the kiss kiss train): a Kakuzu/Sakura canon divergence fic for @frostmarris
thirrin you requested a lot of severely-interesting pairings (believe me my eyes bugged out in excitement at Konan/Sakura) but i wanted to challenge myself with something i haven't tried before, and you've further indicated that Kakuzu/Sakura doesn't receive a lot of attention (among other things*)? đđ talk about inspiration..!! so i picked Kakuzu/Sakura đ¸
timeline wise i really did an L with the late submission, but i'm pleased with how the piece turned out! now to churn out the rest of the stuff i owe...
*sorry i couldn't find a way to make kisame/sakura work but i included him as kakuzu's smack-talking surprisingly-idealist partner đ
the worst of all blessings, the best of all curses
Summary:
The client: Haruno Sakura. The hired merc: Akatsuki. The handler: Kakuzu. The job? Assassinate Lord Godaime Hokage Orochimaru Dai-Sennin.
"It's been tried before. No one's ever succeeded. What makes you think this time will be different?" Kakuzu asks. The 'we'll still take your money' goes unsaid.
Their client meets their gazes one by one. Her eyes are ablaze with a fire Kakuzu's seen before: vengeance. Haruno Sakura says: "They didn't have me."
[Read on AO3]
Excerpt:
The client takes a deep breathâ a wave of tension breaks over the assembled Akatsuki as the air in the room seems to solidifyâ Then, there, on the clientâs forehead: a diamond-shaped marking that wasnât there a moment before, shimmering with condensed power, twin to Senju Tsunadeâs infamous visage.
Konan shifts her weight. Kisame whistles. Pein remains unreadable. Sasoriâs mandibles click and shift. Deidara, shocked into sincerity for once in his life, says, âWith firepower like that, whaddaya need us for?â
This is posted as a stand-alone because lord knows I spent long enough on it, but it's in response to this ask:
This got lengthy, and it could be lengthier stillâit's very easy to imagine doing a full-series breakdown on this like the heteromorphobia one I'm still slowly plugging away atâbut the TLDR is that I think Horikoshi's women are perfectly acceptable as people, but become much more problematic when you start looking at them as characters.
Hit the jump.
BNHA's Women As People
As peopleâcharacters who act in ways reminiscent of real-life humansâHoriâs women are relatively solid, especially the 1-A students. They have varied personalities and body types,(1) loads of different interests and styles, and outside of the unified front against Mineta, theyâre never really treated like a monolith. That is, no one (as best I can recall) makes big summary statements of Girls Like X or Girls Canât Y that go uncontested by the narrative like youâd see in truly, openly sexist works.(2)
The worst I can say about the Class A girls' characterization is that they're all too nice, but I would contend that that's true of most of the students, which is why I don't care much about Class A: With the exception of Bakugou, they're all too nice, and it leaves them undernourished, dramatically speaking. But the girls at least aren't blandly nice; they do all have distinct personalities beyond, "Pretty and sweet."(3)
They also have trackable, unique relationships. Consider, for example, the difference between Urarakaâs relationships with Tsuyu and Mina, and how different either is from Momo and Jirouâs friendship! Further, theyâre allowed to be friends with boys without it having to be romantic. Yeah, thereâs Urarakaâs whole thing with Deku, and thatâs a chore, but Kaminari and Jirou, or Kirishima and Mina, wherever they may wind up later in life, really are just friends right nowâthereâs no blushing or stammering or awkwardness going on between those pairs at all.
The Class A girls arenât defined by their proximity to the nearest maleâand that much, at least, is also true of the Pro Hero women like Mount Lady and Mirko. Hell, even someone like Nanaâonly in the story because of her relationship with/to menâis actually so important to so many men that Iâd contend that she crosses out the other side and winds up in territory that is far more often populated by male heroes and mentors, people who might be dead but who mattered to a bunch of really important living characters.
Nana may be a Dead Mom, but sheâs not a saintly photo on the mantelpiece, taken down to be remembered fondly by her widower. Sheâs All Mightâs beloved mentor, yes, but sheâs also the reason Kotarou was such a mess, which is in turn a huge part of Shigarakiâs damage. Sheâs the reason Gran Torino is involved in the plot at all. Even AFO seems to be able to make room to be especially vindictive about her compared to the way he talks about most or even any of the other bearers.
All that, and she even still gets to be âaliveâ inside One For All so we get to hear her opinions on things now and again!
Things are spottier with the lady villainsâmostly because there are so few of them, and even fewer who walk out the other end of their arcsâbut even there, I think thereâs room for nuanced reads.
Magneâs motivations, such as we ever got of them, were all about being able to live freely.
Curious may have had that flashback to her blushing in front of Re-Destro, but the takeaway from it is how something he said inspired her to mature as a writer, not her being in looooove with him(4)âindeed, Geten is much more directly motivated by RDâs approval, and both Trumpet and Skeptic pivot entirely into being driven by fear for RDâs life the instant they think it might be in danger. Even now, every single one of Skepticâs appearances from the cave onward sees him namedropping Re-Destro somewhere. So even if RD is Curiousâs Most Important Person, that just puts her in good company with the rest of her peers.
Meanwhile, Lady Nagant is no more âdefined by a manâ than Hawks is âdefined by a womanâ because of the genders of their respective HPSC Presidents. The easy way out with Nagant would have been to have Bitty Keigo play some role in her turnâindeed, loads of people expected exactly that as soon as the audience realized who and what she was. But her President being a man is immaterial; the real entity that victimized Nagant is the HPSC as a governing body; its President was simply the face of that body, exactly the way President Pearls was to Hawks a generation later. Likewise, her turn isnât because of her feelings about Some Guy, itâs because of her own awareness of the discordance between the façade and the reality of Hero Society.
Until either of the remaining PLF advisor women get anything to say, that brings us to Toga and La Brava. And okay, yes, La Brava is motivated entirely by a dude; there's no getting around that. On the other hand, I canât help but compare her backstory to Spinnerâs. Both of them suffered judgment and ostracization because of their quirks, both were hikikomori, and both had their lives changed because of a man they saw in a video who showed them a new world. Hell, Spinner had his life changed because of a man showing him a new world twice.
La Brava calls her feelings love, while Spinner calls his devotion, but itâs the same story, just wearing a different costume. At the very least, then, you canât say that that plot is one Hori only gives women. Rather, I think it just ties into the broader theme of how the public consumes people they see on TV, for better or for worse. You could tie that to a lot of stuff in the series, including Dekuâs own heroic aspirations as embodied by that iconic video of All Might he saw as a kid, Canât-Ya-See-kun's fannish opinions about Endeavorâs heroic persona and his later attempts to reject Dabiâs video, the refugee civilians having to wrestle with the reality of heroes as opposed to watching them from the couch, and so on.
Meanwhile, Toga is so fascinating because, yes, her concerns and interests are stereotypically feminineâher appearance (both in the sense of cosmetic things like A-line coats but also her transformation quirk), cute things, talking about boys, relationships in general, her prioritization of her own inner landscape as opposed to big worldly ambitions.
On the other hand, Horikoshi really commits with Toga. Sheâs stereotypical in some waysâthe predatory bisexual being a big glaring oneâbut she is in no way a shallow stereotype. The reader canât just write her off as being a collection of tired tropes because of the degree to which the story insists on her being specific and deserving of attention. Sheâs not Like That because, for example, thatâs what Horikoshi thinks of all bisexuals. Sheâs Like That because of an array of factors in her nature and nurture, her societal conditioning, her lived experience, othersâ reactions to her, and so on. Bisexuality is really only the tiniest fraction of who Toga Himiko is. Thatâs my feeling, at least.
(As an aside to Anon's suggestion about Toga being polyamorous, while that is clearly the case in the sense that she freely falls in love with multiple people, rather than having monogamous affections, her being interested in poly relationships is much more in the air. As she is now, her idea of fulfilling love lies in becoming the object of her affections, not being with them. I feel like if she could find someone into bloodplay, sheâd do just fine with that without having to get to the point of murder, but as it is, it doesnât seem she or anyone sheâs met has considered that an option. That being the case, we donât know if sheâd be willing to limit herself to taking only safe and consensually given amounts of blood, or if her desire to become the people she loves can only be satisfied by murdering the other party. If the latter, it rather takes romantic relationships off the table entirely!)
To sum up: As people, Horikoshiâs women are generally just fine. He was a wide variety of them and they all manage to stay pretty distinct! There are some that look more stereotypical than others, but even those still tie in well with the storyâs overarching concerns or feel like sincere explorations of the stereotypes they represent.
Horikoshiâs problems with his female characters come in, to me, much more when you start looking at them as characters, instead of as people.
BNHA's Women As Characters
Consider the female characters in BNHA. Do their stories contribute in a major way to the narrative as a whole, or are they just side color? How much focus do they get? Are they granted comparable interiority as their male counterparts?
Given the storyâs nature as a shounen battle comic, how many big wins do women get compared to the dudes, and are they fighting those battles against equally dangerous opponents? Do the women always and only fight other women? Do they only ever beat other women, but lose to men? How much would be lost or radically changed if they were removed from the story?
Mount Ladyâs a fantastic example of the characterization/attention dichotomy. Iâm inclined to agree with Anon that sheâs probably Horiâs best lady-type Pro Hero, allowed to have real flaws, enough backstory to get an idea of where sheâs coming from, and a startlingly clear character arc. However, unlike e.g. Endeavor, whose arc is taking place entirely in the foreground, given lavish amounts of time and attention, Mount Ladyâs is all background. We donât know what her crux point was in realizing that she needed to get her priorities in order, if she indeed ever had one. Itâs possible sheâs simply matured over the course of the story without ever quite clicking into Endeavorâs mode of self-reflection.
People like Ryukyu fall even farther behind. Sheâs been heavily involved in the climaxes of two major story arcsâthe Shie Hassaikai arc and the War arcâyet we donât know the first thing about her away from the job. Same with Mirko: She gets that huge blowout against the Near High Ends, but as far as what she wants, why she became a hero, what she thinks about this huge collapse sheâs witnessing? Total blank slate.
And sure, thatâs true of plenty of male heroes tooâlook at all Mount Ladyâs teammates, for exampleâbut we donât have any female heroes equivalent to Endeavor, Hawks, or even Best Jeanist, the latter of whom has gotten ample room to espouse his ideals and a variety of his beliefs about heroes, even as we donât know anything about his personal life.
I think Momoâs the clearest example of this issue on the student side. Virtually all of her development is narrated by other characters, mostly male ones, rather than the reader getting to see Momoâs own thoughts directly the way we do with buckets of male characters.
Momo contributed the tracker that got Deku and company to Kamino, but was given no contributions to the action of retrieving Bakugou. Sheâs ultimately the one who organized the students into dosing Gigantomachia,(5) which did eventually take effect some chapters later, but in the moment it happened, it looked like a failure, so instead of it being a big triumph for her, we had to see her and the rest on their knees in what seemed like a moment of total defeat.
Momo lost two mentors in the warâMidnight and Majestic. What does she think about that? Who knows? Weâre just not privy to it. Momo spent her entire arc learning how to be more decisive and better at overseeing resources. Where is she now? Popping out industrial goods for a girl who doesnât even know her name.
Meanwhile, we have things like the ludicrous disparity between Gran Torino, a shrunken geezer in his 70s getting punched through the chest by the final boss and surviving, and Midnight, a young and healthy 32-year-old getting merely jumped by a third-string PLF guy who hasnât even gotten a name yet and then dying off-panel. Donât get me wrong; I love Hose Face, and I donât even mind that Midnight died as such. I mind that it was so ignominious compared to the fates of all the similarly important male heroes who took part in that battle.
Star & Stripe? She is alleged to be the strongest woman in the world, yet her arc could be removed from the story with zero consequences whatsoever. Everything she brings to the story is new for her arc; she doesn't resolve or remove anything save that which was introduced in her own set of chapters.(6) Her accomplishments are arbitrarily defined, and could be equally arbitrarily redefined without her.
Thatâs just a few examples of story structure issues, which is where my main concern lies, but you could certainly look at surface stuff, too.Â
Consider: Does the way women in the story dress match their personality? In movement and at rest, does their body language match who they are as people? How does the âcameraâ view them? Are they introduced as people or as collections of attractive body parts? Are they allowed the same range of expressiveness men are, or are they more limited because their anger or pain still has to be attractive to the presumed audience and/or the artist?
Some of this Hori does okay withâMirkoâs doing some fantastic angry glowering this week, and Toga can absolutely tip over into horror manga expressions sometimes, ones that are very clearly not intended to be sexy or cute. But he does sometimes let his women down on this front, tooâspeaking of Mirko in this weekâs chapter, WOW, that sure is a boob hanging right there front and center at eye level, when it would have been so easy to just have ShigAFOâs hand-o-rama wrapped more fully around Mirko's torso.
Toga is a bit more complicated to me, in that, taking it at face value, I actually donât really mind her frequent goopy unclothedness. Her posing in those scenes stays pretty true to her personality and the situations at hand, and she's drawn with what seem to be to be decently realistic curves and weightiness. Rather, the issue with Toga's nudity goes to another frequent problem with the way the women in the series get treated, and thatâs the inconsistency between how men and women's quirks interact with clothes.
The go-to contrast here is Mirio and Hagakure. Neither of them can affect clothes with their quirk, but for some reason, Mirio can get a costume made out of his own hair and thus stay respectably clad during all his fights. Hagakure, by contrast, is noted more than once as fighting completely nude save for her glovesâwhy doesnât she get the haircloth fix? If thereâs an answer to this, itâs arbitrary.
Togaâs quirk would seem to be based in DNA, in that she requires blood to use it, but DNA certainly wouldnât explain her ability to shapeshift clothes. Itâs easier for the story if she can shapeshift clothesâitâd be a lot harder for her to impersonate specific costumed heroes if she didnât have ready access to their costumes!âbut it doesnât make much sense as a blood-based ability. Taking it a step further, if she can shapeshift clothes because Magic Wand That Says She Can, why canât she just change the shape of her own clothes? If her goop can change her body, why canât it change her clothes? Because Magic Wand Says Then She Couldnât Be Nakey When She Changes Back, thatâs why.
For a contrast to Toga, consider the Hassaikaiâs Mimic, whose power is to merge himself into objects, including ones much, much smaller than he is. Yet somehow he doesnât have to strip before he merges or lose his clothes to the ether when he exits.
Midnight and Momo both have quirks that emit material from their skin, nominally justifying why their costumes are Like That. Okay, sure, but where are the equivalent male heroes who just have to wear skimpy or easily shredded costumes for reasons of quirk utility? Wash and Bubble Girl both emit bubbles from their bodies, but for some reason the dude wears a cartoony washing machine costume,(7) while the woman is saddled with an underboob-exposing crop top.Â
Suneaterâs another easy referent; he transforms parts of his body into much larger animal parts, yet he still manages to have a costume that covers up everything except his feet. Even his arms are covered, when his arms are his most frequently transformed limb! He might have a bare spot on his back for his wings, but if so, the reader never gets to see it because Suneater wears an enormous hooded cape that covers that area right up.
It makes sense that Mirko would prefer to leave her legs bare, given her all-kicking fighting styleâbut Deku switches to a kicking style and just gets heavier, reinforced shoes. (To say nothing of All Might and other punchy heroes still having full sleeves, when you'd think the same reasoning would apply as does with Mirko's bare legs.)
Eriâs power only works on âpeopleââexcept that it totally works on clothes, too, otherwise weâd have to see a dude naked when her power separates Overhaul and Nemoto.
And so on and so forth. I donât hold any of these individual examples against Horikoshi (except maybe Momo, who runs afoul of the âdoes this costume match this personalityâ critique pretty hard), but it really does become a bigger problem in the aggregate.
BNHA's Women In the Aggregate
And thatâs kind of how I feel about a lot of it. I think Hori means wellâyou are never going to catch me out there yelling about how Horikoshi is just slobbering all over himself to brutalize his female charactersâand he legit is doing better than a lot of other manga Iâve read. But then, Iâve read a lot of manga, you know? âBetter at feminism than manga that say straight to the readerâs face that women will never understand a manâs desire to win,â is not a high bar.(8)
Regardless of Horiâs good intentions, though, I think Shounen Jump is not an environment that is challenging him to think more critically about his women, nor one that is pushing him to include them more or give them better material. He could absolutely do better, though, and yeah, Iâm as tired as everyone else of new female characters who show up for a handful of chapters and then get obliterated by a villain or put on a bus to imprisonment and obscurity by the hero who defeats them.
If nothing else, Iâve got to hand that to Mirko. Down two limbs and that rabbit is still going strong, and not for one single second is there a suggestion that prosthetic limbs are going to slow her down or force her into retirement.
Thanks for the question, Anon, and sorry for taking so long with the reply!
---FOOTNOTES---
1: Not a huge variety, and the adult women have less than the high school cast, but Iâve read plenty of manga across all demographics that are far worse at having female characters you could distinguish by bald silhouette.
2:Â For some really clear examples, see e.g. everything the Death Note guy has ever written.
3: I might make an exception for poor Hagakure, who never had a chance to establish a personality because she needed to stay a viable candidate for the Traitor Plot. Definitely the most Generically Peppy of the girls, but at the very least she's balanced out some by male students like Ojiro, Sato and Koda in never getting enough attention to transcend their characterization shorthand.
4:Â And speaking as a writer, let me tell you, a critique like the one Rikiya offers in that flashback is absolutely the kind of thing that would leave me red in the face, but definitely not because I was internally swooning.
5: And even that isn't entirely her moment, given that it stems from her being ordered to do it by Midnight and ends with Kirishima getting the final move, a move he gets at Mina's expense.
6: Wow, a Reflect quirk! Neat! Wonder why that hasn't come up anywhere before? Regardless of the three sentence back-and-forth I could get into on that subject, Reflect is the only named quirk New Order destroys, and it was nowhere to be seen at either Kamino or Jakku.
7: Assuming, of course, that Wash isnât a washing machine heteromorph. Juryâs still out on this.
8: See again a lot of Ohba's work, but the same sentiment is why I ragequit Megalobox in the first episode. Likewise, I will love Eyeshield 21 until my dying days, but I super could have done without that late-series swing at, "Mamori will never understand Sena's Man Feelings about Sports because she is A Girl."
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