used to think it terribly silly (and kinda funny) when fantasy or sci-fi stories would have people refer to major recent historical events as The Flood or The Incident or The Revolution, and im sure historians fucking hate that because it's not helpful or descriptive, but we sure do be calling it The Pandemic
Sakura Haruno (Naruto) vs. Joan Watson (Elementary)
Sakura Haruno
Joan Watson
Remaining time: 2 days 23 hours
Propaganda below the cut:
Sakura Haruno:
NUMBER ONE MOST HATED FEMALE CHARACTER FRRRR AND FOR WHAT. FOR WHAT! FOR BEING A 12 YEAR OLD (WITH THE EMOTIONAL REGULATION & INTERPERSONAL SKILLS THAT ENTAILS) CHILD SOLDIER WHO WAS KINDA MEAN TO THE PROTAG AND BOY CRAZY???? BC KISHIMOTO CANT WRITE WOMEN?????!?!?!?! Everyone hates Sakura soooo much saying she's useless, doesnt add to the plot, is annoying, etc to the point where even ppl who have never watched naruto know about how hated she is. What was her crime except being a girl in a shounen series and being "underpowered" compared to the powerhouses that are her teammates? She literally still wipes the floor with 90% of the cast let's be real here, she literally got a hit in on a fucking alien goddess but GOD FORBID a woman be emotional bc now she's a horrible person who only knows how to whine and cry and stands by while the heroes fight (even though shes a healer and it makes no sense for her to be a frontline fighter when she's much better used as a support 😭). sakura hate is so goddamned prevalent and feels like the blueprint for a lot of hate OTHER female characters get in shounen series 😭😭😭
Literally theeeee strongest kunoichi to ever exist with no kekkei genkai, clan name, or Anything helping her get a foot in the door. She's civillian-born and still stands shoulder-to-shoulder with her peers who are reincarnated gods (or close to it), one of whom has a sacred bloodline and another who has a tailed beast and also clan blood… In the history of the series only one other person would be comparable in achievement and strength (Minato), and her prowess as a healer 100% eclipses him. She's kind and empathetic and strong and deserves so much more than the slander she got from the fans!!!!!
she suffers from being written by a man who hates women but instead of realising this fandom instead decides that she's evil for being 12 years old. many people forgive dogshit writing choices for their male favs as dogshit writing choices but for sakura no shes an evil bitch i guess
shes literally one of the main characters & thee main characters best friend & yet she's constantly less popular than other male characters or treated in a way thats so incredibly misogynistic. she broke open naruto's chest to manually beat his heart with her hand. she was a fully fledged doctor at like 14 years old. she has super strength. she has a homoerotic rivalry. its not her fault she got miserably heterosexually married to sasuke 'homosexual' uchiha we all need to unite against our common enemy (the author) here
One of the main trio of characters we start and then go through the story with, achieves incredible fits in her own field, yet all the fandom has to say about her is how "useless" she is. Because boys. (Also the fact that the anime apparently added plenty anti-Sakura scenes and people don't care for her actual manga characterization does not help.)
Despite not being as super-duper-special as Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura kept up with them with her own power-ups. She succeeds Tsunade. She becomes an incredible healer. She supports her friends through and through. She believes in best in people and she's loyal to a fault. She lands a punch on a god-like big bad in the final battle, despite many not being able to touch said being. She is, actually, a multi-faceted character, and sometimes being a supporting friend of a super-duper-special hero is not any less impressive and strength-demanding than being said hero. The story wouldn't be the same without her, and that's the point. She deserves SO much better from both the fandom and the anime adaptation.
She's always getting brutalized in fanfics for sasunaru, called stupid and useless etc
In a series that likes to present itself as being about the value of hard work and eschewing destiny she is the only one that’s actually self-made and accomplished. Sakura should’ve been Hokage
she's sidetracked or turned into a homophobe for the popular yaoi, treated as annoying and unredeemable for being literally 12, and straight up ignored by half the fandom while the other just goes "girlboss who has the braincell!!!!" and then does nothing else with her character
She was the strongest shinobi in all of the verse im not taking any objections she did ALL OF IT without ANY HELP FROM ANYONE also one of the most interesting arcs in the anime
I don't even watch the show and I still know that the writer never giving her anything to do and making her lose every fight was interpreted by the fandom as her being useless and widely hated, including seeing her as "getting in the way of" yaoi stuff. Again I don't even go here but she looks cool and sounds nice so I hope she's respected by people somewhere.
sakura has been the butt of "useless" jokes her entire entire life and everyone is so quick to push her aside and give her less prominence when she's genuinely a really interesting character with complex emotions and drivers and of course everyone calls her annoying (derogatory) too as if the other twelve year olds she was introduced with weren't also annoying but sasuke and naruto are considered annoying in a positive way if theyre considered annoying at all. she gets left out of merch all the time thats not the fandom thats like official. and she's a main character!
sakura is genuinely so interesting and has a character arc and has to struggle with not having innate birthright power and being compared to the boys on her team and when sasuke leaves (sorry for the spoiler?) her reaction to it is so interesting especially contrasted to everyone else's like the way she views sasuke's absence is so different and so human and so characteristic! a character doesn't have to be physically strong to be interesting but of course thats the metric shonen fans are going to use and even on that front sakura SHOULD be stronger than she is it is plain misogyny that she doesn't get as many interesting power developments or specific fights. and is shafted aside to be a healer as is the fate of all women in naruto. anyway. but the fights she gets are genuinely really good and dynamic and they all push sakura to be a more self actuated and confident person! i think only so much can be accredited to the authors misogyny because he does take care to give sakura complexity and depth and it's the fandom that loves to scrub it away and blame it on the someone else. also i just find it personally compelling that she sees the actions her loved ones take and even if she understands them objectively she still takes them personally. i think it is very difficult to undergo what team 7 has and not take things personally and it is easy for a fictional character to be purely selfless and noble but sakura is very much selfish and she knows it and it makes her feel ugly inside but haven't we all felt that way!? being ashamed of our own feelings and reactions???
Sakura Haruno is my "In the trenches" character here, and hiding behind the author's misogyny has become a MASSIVE issue over time in the naruto fandom. Initially fandom was perfectly comfortable calling her useless, saying she was the worst person ever, saying she was so stupid for continuing to chase after Sasuke (but also praising the male main character for doing the exact same thing ofc) etc but then it became a lot less socially acceptable on tumblr to say all that openly. So NOW you get people just hiding behind "kishimoto is a raging misogynist and can't write women" to say the exact same things they always were. And look, Kishimoto isn't a great writer and he absolutely has problems with how he writes female characters. But I've come to feel like that's something people are using to completely write the character off without examining her any deeper than that. (and you esp can't escape the shipping discourse with her, it is some of the most accepted "female character is bad because she's in the way of my mlm ship" misogyny I've ever seen in any fandom.)
The Sakura anon who was talking about people hiding behind the author of Naruto's misogyny made a really great point, I think. Yes, in some cases the source material itself is misogynistic towards a character, but that does not cancel out the misogyny from the fans. I've seen a few times people saying a character "doesn't count" because it's the *show* that was sexist, but I think show and fandom misogyny often go hand in hand. Yeah, Kishimoto didn't really care that much about Sakura, but he's not the one who wrote torture fics about her for the crime of "getting in the way" of two boys
Piggybacking off that last Sakura ask/propaganda by saying the fandom not only hides behind the authors misogyny but they also like to hide behind other liking other female characters, that the same sexist author wrote, when they were shown much less than Sakura. Of course Kishi didn't fuck them up or fuck them over. They had the luxury of not being the female MC.
Worse yet, ppl also cherrypick when to blame kishi's writing and when not to while pretending to be objective when they do so. They exaggerate the shit out of her flaws & acting like she's this oppressive psycho with the whole cast as her perpetual victims. Any positive thing that is said or constructive criticism about Sakura that doesn’t involve holding her to a different standard than other characters is seen as "erasing" majority of her character. Her flaws define her 100%, but other characters, are allowed to have their redeeming moments/qualities exist alongside their flaws. Or just have them ignored entirely & it's accepted fandom wide. But not Sakura, never Sakura. In fact, when someone says “hey Sakura isn’t that bad” or “okay, maybe she is that bad, but she didn’t write herself. Other characters are terribly written as well” There is a visceral, “burn them at the stake” reaction from people. This fandom gets such a haughty attitude with ALL Sakura fans because they personally don't like the character, so no one should. For any reason. I always thought that Sakura antis got away with being unhinged, and hypocritical it pissed me off. I just had to leave the fandom for good. Sorry about this. I just wanted to rant/vent 😅
I finished naruto recently and tbh I didn't like sakura a lot, but it was because I felt the plot did her dirty, erased potential that she certainly had and displayed (ex sakura vs sasori) and took away a lot of her character traits and development just to make her obbssed with sasuke. I don't hate sakura, I'm js not a big fan of her, and if other people don't like her due to constructive and unbiased reasons, there's nothing wrong with that. HOWEVER. ever since I went into the naruto fandom, ive realized the hate for sakura is insane. Rather than actually critiquing sakura for real writing issues, some fans literally insult sakura for no good reason. I've seen fans hate on sakura a lot for saying the things to sasuke about orphans (I never really considered that a big deal and also I thought that scene was rlly funny lmao) and of course for getting in the way of sasunaru.. (ochaco🤝sakura). The worst thing I've seen tho has to be the people who insult sakura because shes "ugly" and fans who harrass sakura fans by calling them the r slur. This is actually disgusting and has nothing to do with writing any more. Smh
Joan Watson:
In Joan's case the fans that attacked her were mostly from another fandom, BBC Sherlock, who were mad that a woman was playing Watson. Sometimes they were racist also since she is Asian.
Joan is the best adaptation of Watson out there and a great take on the character. Never forget when Sherlock smashed a plate in anger and then Joan smashed a plate and was like Well look at that that didn't solve anything. Or when she outsmarted Moriarty.
the level of hatred and disdain people had for the character Joan Watson and the show elementary (which also spilled over to the real life actress Lucy Liu) even though they never watched the show was absolutely wild. And literally the only reason was because they turned John Watson from "white dude with just enough characterization to be gay shipped with Sherlock" into a self-confident, genuinely complex Asian woman. People back then ate up EVERY Sherlock adaptation or AU… but somehow the only adaptation that was considered to be universally hated trash was the one where your fav is adapted as a woman 🤨
I’m so glad I stayed off the internet enough back in the day that I haven’t personally seen any of the smear campaign against Joan Watson my beloved. It’s sad though that I immediately knew it was because of Johnlock and the fact that Lucy Liu is Asian. The bright side is that every single person who I know in real life and online who has watched this show knows that making John Watson into Joan Watson was genius. She’s hated by people that have never watched a single episode.
What’s sad is when I think of a race or gender swap in modern media I think that nobody has done it better than Elementary.
this woman is BRILLIANT. just becoming a surgeon is an incredibly challenging career path!! One that takes resilience and study and not only was she great at it, she was the top of her class.
Elementary never lets her fall into the "woman in a masculine field so she must reject all femininity and softness", Joan is playful and and wholly herself and KIND. And her kindness isn't a weakness. It helps to solve a case literally the first episode, she's not even a detective, just a decent person with a lot of compassion.
And she also had boundaries! They're not always perfect but they're also hers. She defines what works for her and her life. She doesn't ignore what other people want for her (she had a family who loves her, they don't always understand her but their bond is real and important to her and when they're concerned she hears them out), but she also makes it clear that what she wants for herself is what matters. And boy oh boy, her relationship with Sherlock! He's a bulldozer of a human being and she resolutely does not let him pull that shit with her. She changes because she knows him, but it's a change she chooses. And knowing her changes him, too! She's not his nanny or his keeper, what they have is a real friendship with a lot of push and pull.
She goes through a lot of hardship and her grief is given space and compassion. She left her first career because she was devastated by the death of a patient. Her bio father was homeless and mentally ill and his absence was tangible for her. A guy she was seeing died (in a poisoning where she was the target) and that loss changed her.
The source material casts Watson as either bumbling or as the filter through which an 'ordinary' person can understand the 'extraordinary' Holmes. But Elementary lets her be extraordinary, too. Her life is unconventional. She's exceptionally gifted and extremely determined. And she's able to pull one over on the one person that beat Holmes.
guy on the subway with one ear pierced, little gold hoop. other guy on the subway very quickly and subtly googling "which one is the gay ear". it is not the gay ear. visible disappointment on his face as he puts his phone away.
Visiting family for the weekend, including my seven year old niece, who is obviously the most special and incredible child on the planet
Anyway, she really, really loves it when I tell her stories. She loves stories anyway, and at first this manifested as "stories about Tad-Cu Bryn", aka my father (her grandfather) who died before she was born. This has been a lovely way to keep his memory alive, and she adores every story - she has her favourites, which she will request.
Then it became apparent that she specifically loves me telling her stories. She'll happily ask others for them too, but from me she just wants any anecdote at all; which of course is wonderful and demonstrates that she is a child of impeccable taste and wisdom and brilliance, but also she has ADHD and the energy reserves of a seven year old and so this gets Tiring very quickly
Yesterday, in the car on the way back from the wildlife centre, she asked for one of my longer stories, and I was like hey, how about we try something different?
And she was like, no, tell me a story about Tad-Cu Bryn
And I was like, this will be a brand new story and you get to play it and help me tell it
And she was like, explain
So I gave her three characters to choose from. The first was a warrior with a sword she could name, who was nonetheless dyspraxic. The second was a gymnastic elf who could commune with trees but was afraid of heights. The third was a dyslexic witch whose spells sometimes go wrong when she spells the words wrong.
She picked the witch. I pulled up an online d20 on my phone. I went to start, and she insisted my mother had to play as the elf.
So I told them that the new queen of the kingdom had called for them, because their palace treasury had been robbed - specifically, a single enchanted coin that brings luck and wealth to a ruler's reign had been stolen. And tales of enchanted coins were suddenly emanating from across the land, so each one needed investigating until the right coin was found.
It turns out kids who like stories will absolutely lap this shit up. She was enthralled. It was the simplest story - they had to get into a bank, revive some unconscious gnomes, then enter the vault, find the coin that had been deposited into it, then get back to the queen. Enough to fill a half hour car ride, basically, but she managed to fill it with all the wacky hijinks you get from a ttrpg, particularly when she tried to smash a door down with a hammer but rolled a 1.
We finished with the queen saying it wasn't the right coin, and then my niece demanded we go again, this time with her playing as a sapient reticulated python. That time we made it all the way to the final boss fight, which was a sorcerer who created a big coin monster out of loads of coins; I asked my niece what she wanted to do, and she described graphically how she wanted to constrict and eat the sorcerer and immediately rolled a 19. So, sure! Okay. The sorcerer is now very dead. The coin monster, though, was still there, and as my niece tried to say she would do the same thing, I was like, no, you're a snake and you just ate. You're now immobile.
At this point, my sister advised her to regurgitate the sorcerer.
Great! said my niece. I'm going to do it at the coin monster.
And rolled a 20.
So she projectile vomited a dead sorcerer into the coin monster, and won the day.
Anyway, today she immediately demanded we play "the game with the story where we choose", and my brother in law is now asking me how he can do this with her ("Are you making it all up as you go along??"). But yeah, turns out, this is a fantastic way to entertain a seven year old. Vague ongoing quest, then three steps: get into (place), resolve (minor puzzle), boss fight to finish. Boom. Easy.
So far I've done a bank, a tavern, and an art gallery (it featured an exhibit that was just a room full of slippery banana skins). I'm going to do a pirate ship next
That feeling when you go to a local theater performance and then you see the actors walking around afterwards like normal people when in your brain that's A Celebrity now.
first half of count the rice is funny because everyone’s threatening violence to sam or living their best lives in losers island while ify and catherine look like this
neverending praise to the editors of count the rice, that is some truly insane shit you pulled off!! incredibly cohesive and easy to follow AND so much fun with the transition cuts!!! like truly incredible story telling out of what must be dozens of hours of footage!!!
catherine went from screaming like a conspiracy theorist and happily losing over and over again to fighting her way to the top in this episode and i think i fell in love with her for it
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