civilians of the narutoverse do not idolize their military services members like we so often do. instead they find them, their petty interpersonal disputes and their climate restructuring ways of setting them, a bit of a pain in the ass. ninja and civillians live side by side in hidden villages but they participate in two seperate culture. with technological advancements in the civilian world the gaps between these cultures are just getting wider. here are some ninja headcanons loosely related to that idea.
there's a law or something prohibiting ninja from using certain civilian technology such as headphones and smartphones because of the way headphones damage the hearing and because of the way smart phones can be addictive and damage the attention span. [i think this makes the conflict in boruto regarding technological advancements more compelling because ninja have a preexisting stigma surrounding technology.]
in the days before the ear piece ninja would communicate over long distances using scrolls and fūinjutsu (sealing techniques fyi, that one doesn't come up all that often).
each squad member would be assigned a scroll. each scroll was marked with a bloody thumbprint connecting all of the scrolls together (like summoning scrolls).
when a squad members had the opportunity to communicate they would use a shorthand or morsecode type of writing and seal the message in the scroll.
once the message is received the seal on the exterior of the scroll begins to glow.
upon opening the scroll the message sealed by a squadmate will appear on the parchment. then squadmates can jot down responses and seal them in the same manner.
it was not the most reliable system for communication at all. ninja didn't always have the time to write and seal their messages let alone read any previous messages to track the movements of their squad.
one pro to this system was that squad leaders did not have to write up entire mission reports. they could simply submint a copy of a communication scroll.
perhaps the worst part of this whole scroll business is the protocol for if a a mission is compromised. when a shinobi mission fails or is compromised ninja were expected to swallow their communication scrolls whole to prevent any confidential information from falling into the wrong hands. so that scroll swallowing thing orochimaru does is not just him being a creepy old man but a hold over from when scroll communication was common practice in ninjustu.
uchiha clan used a unique type of shorthand to encode their messages further. Its vocabulary and sentences structure was based of Uchiha spiritual beliefs, folktales, and saying. so you had to be well versed in the clan culture to decipher a message. It was made further esoteric as it was written in a way only able to be deciphered by the sharingan. yeah those people like to keep to themselves. or maybe they just didn't like swallowing scrolls idk
for clandestine close range communication ninja used and to this day use a type of tactical sign language.
the signs differ from hidden village to hidden village but not dramatically.
ninja are really good at signing fast and deaf ninja often get complaints from their civilian friends that their signing is illegible because they are moving to quickly.
in the modern era, ninja ear pieces are permitted but the volume is of course notoriously low. ninja love to throw civilians dirty looks for the sound leak from their earbuds.
in general, ninjas find civilian to be obnoxious, helpless, and lacking discipline. the feeling is mutual, civilians are generally more impressed by samurai and think ninja are contradictorily uncouth and uptight. its generally frowned upon for ninja to marry or date outside of their profession by all parties. on the other hand if a civilian pulls a samurai their social status gets bumped up a few notches. i mean samurai do tend to be a LOT richer than ninja so fair i guess. ninja do not share the civilian sentiment about samurai. they think samurai are prissy weaklings with pitiful chakra reserves who rely too much on basic taijutsu, kenjutsu, and worse, civilian technology. samurai think ninja are mostly just jealous that they're not the ones who get the big daimyo bodyguard bucks, and maybe if they stoped fighting over who has cooler eyes and start organizing their forces more effectively they'd get more than just mercenary gigs too. they also think ninjas are showoffs which is fair.
there is an unfounded belife amongst civilians that if you concive and raise a child in a hidden village they are likely to have a higher chakra reserve
civillian parents despite their preconceived opinions of ninja practice this superstition as a form of social climbing
if you have a kid with higher chakra reserves they are eligible to become a samurai or at least work their way up through the ninja ranks and tranfer into samurai work
this is probably what sakuras parents were trying to do with her
