♡ Rosie ♡

🇭🇺🇬🇧 | she/they | 24 | aroace 🌻 I love Neji, but be warned, I am a filthy multishipper! Multiple AUs 🌻

[roserinsneji]

I went through a phase.

I was going through my backlog of Nejis I never ended up posting here on tumblr, and I've realised you guys haven't seen my figure-skater Neji, OR my bouldering Neji!

PS:. he wears tenayas, because I wear tenayas. Yes, I'm a rock climber. Yes, I made my blorbo do slab. AND I'D DO IT AGAIN.

[roserinsneji]

I should actually put him on a crimp smaller than my forefinger

[roserinsneji]

no because when I first entered the fandom, I thought I was alone in my sasuneji journey but soon I realized I was not and you gave me courage to publish my sasuneji fic, so thank you! 🫶🥹💖

Omg!! This is so lovely to hear/read 🥺🥺

First of all, drop the link, don’t be shy 👀 I have not seen many sasuneji fics out there in the wild, so seeing a new one is always a sight for sore eyes!

Honestly as much of a rarepair sasuneji is, I think they make so much sense that I found people enjoy the idea lf them enough to entertain it, even if just for a fleeting moment, or the duration of a short conversation. Either way, be crazy, be insane about them! It's what I do personally 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ and so far it has not only made me challenge myself as an artist, but I've been pushing myself more as a writer too.

I wish you the best in your fanfic writing journey, and if you ever want to show me your creation, drop me a dm! 💖

[roserinsneji]

Maybe you've just been really busy with the holidays and whatnot and that's perfectly understandable but regardless I just wanted to say I'm really sorry if I annoyed you in any way.

Hiya! This was a rather surprising thing to wake up to :') I'm not sure who you are, given that the ask is anonymous, but rest assured I'm not annoyed by anyone!

The holidays are coming up and I am indeed busy, as I’m also moving house at the same time, and working still 😭😭 I'm not extremely active at the moment, and my energy to draw has dwindled a wee bit, but I'm hoping to get back to it after I move 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

Don’t worry, nobody has annoyed me in any way :)

[treecitysessions]

Why does everyone think fiction is just fantasy wish fulfillment now and not like an exploration of themes and ideas

[treecitysessions]

People will be like “this movie is evil and gross because it depicts a predatory relationship” and then you watch the movie in question and it’s about how preying on young women is bad and impacts their lives negatively

[treecitysessions]

“Why would they do this instead of just making everyone in the movie nice and normal and good” so we would have this conversation….

[everyneji]

Naruto is a character who makes a lot of promises and he tends to stick the landing -- I think it's interesting how Neji goes from a traditional victim of this to something more nuanced. When your fatalistic foil doesn't give you the traditional hero's narrative you may desire ...

When Naruto wins their fight he also wins their philosophical debate. Neji doesn't dwell on this promise of changing the Hyuga -- he's more concerned with Naruto's valuing of his genius. 'You are too good to restrain yourself to an expected fate.'

Neji's genius is core to his story. His father tells him he must live because he's a Hyuga so blessed with talent. He taught himself techniques of the main line he wasn't supposed to know; Hiashi states that the blood of the Hyuga is strongest in someone who can never be heir. At the end of Part I we see Hiashi training Neji, implying he's bending family rules. In this way changing the Hyuga was down to Neji, for being so exceptional, and for his capacity for forgiveness and love for his family. This is why Hiashi says that Hinata and Neji fighting side-by-side in the war is evidence that their family has changed.

(Now, Naruto's words do suggest further more actionable change was desired, and that does remain frustratingly ambiguous.)

This is all very interesting, but it is, of course, not what Naruto promised. However, the exchange was more complicated than that. He prefaces his promise by saying, "Look, I may not understand the tragic destiny of the Hyuga clan or whatever, but ... if you think it's inescapable, fine! Then stop fighting it already!!" This is a conditional that draws attention to the fact Neji hasn't been as passive as he claims fate demands of him; it's Naruto saying 'If you deny you can, I will, but --' and this is bookmarked by his words to Neji after the KO blow:

"Even a caged bird, when it smartens up, will try to open the cage door with its beak."

This is the root of their relationship, what we can gather from Naruto's last words was implicitly understood by them both, and why Neji works so well as a foil of Naruto's. It's why Naruto beating Neji here means so much to him even years and years later. Naruto thinks very highly of Neji. He thinks so highly of him that it's as important to him as anything that his philosophy won: he can't see Neji as passive, because Neji needs to decide his own fate in order to keep proving Naruto right. It's a well-earned victory.

Of course, Naruto's strongest foils tend to have the independent streak to challenge him in ways he might not like. Sasuke spent most of the series doing this, and I like how Boruto recently gave us Shikamaru on his #SIGMAMALE grind with his "Naruto probably wouldn't take this route [befriend then betray our enemies] ... but I'm not him." This gets us to Neji's death.

Naruto vows to never let a comrade die; Naruto has seen comrades come dangerously close to death for him. It's a very sensitive subject for him.

He's always been able to pull through -- although there's also often outside factors (Iruka can tank a giant shuriken, Haku didn't really want to kill, Sakura is there to help Hinata) ... then with Neji, we get him interjecting himself into the narrative back-and-forth that's building between Naruto and Obito, by pulling an Obito.

Naruto carries forth Neji's legacy as Kakashi carried forth Obito's. Obito says you can't save your friend, and really says, 'You can't save me.' And so on and so forth. However, Obito "died" with regrets, wishing he'd told Rin how he felt, wishing to go on with his team, while Neji comes across much more at peace. His sacrifice feels both more intentional and more evolved; it is a freedom for him.

People want to sacrifice themselves for Naruto. Naruto has never really had to face it head-on in this way before, however. Either they survive, or it was outside of his sphere of influence. Here, It is theoretically within his power to save Neji, but he doesn't; he has to let Neji follow his own philosophy instead of submitting to this narrative of 'Hero Naruto' that been building through the series, and especially through the war.

Naruto will save the day! ... But Itachi warns him that there's also an arrogance to presuming you have to do everything yourself; of forgetting the comrades who got you this far.

Neji is the one to prove that Naruto isn't infallible. Neji is someone Naruto admires; Neji is someone who says, 'We can decide our own fates? Then I decide one that upsets you.' 'You don't see me as a victim -- then you can't see this as a failure.' Neji's last words are just, "Hinata loves you, and so you hold her life [she will die for you] -- just as you hold my life [I of course will die for you too.]"

If you want to be beloved, accept the consequence of it: your fate, being decided by others. Bonds are what you have fought for your whole life, and they are the greatest thing you can ever have, but they will also cost you. Naruto goes #BEASTMODE when people he loves 'die' because it represents a fundamental loss of control that he has to accept and overcome. 'Love and its costs.'

In this way Neji is answering Naruto's philosophy and not giving him an easy out for it. Naruto's promises can never really be simple promises with him because Neji is too persistent, and Naruto has too high an opinion of Neji to ignore what Neji says, believes, does. This is to the strength of Neji's character -- used in both senses -- and it is the strongest argument for his death working. This is Naruto's story, and in Naruto's story there has to be some kind of sacrifice: but since he insisted he'd never let it happen, Neji takes the choice from him, because only Neji could.

[roserinsneji]

isn’t he the prettiest elf on a shelf

[roserinsneji]

12 months of Neji! I cannot believe I drew this twink every single fucking month this year.

I did 2 drawings in january because I was severely unwell. BOTH OF THEM ARE HIM.

[asktheboysasuneji]

Is neji or sasuke the more clingy one?

Does this answer your question? 🤔

[corvinamora]

The constant moralizing lectures from the story and naturally, the fans are just the worst. Kishimoto deliberately made a genuinely messed-up world, but then the story constantly acts all shocked and offended whenever anyone tries to actually fix the system (Naruto doesn't, he wasn't trying to change anything he literally just wanted everyone to clap for him and validate his existence) and every complex social and political horror is simply waved away as a little "misunderstanding" or gasp a lack of feeling. Unsurprisingly, guys like Sasuke, Nagato, and Madara the only ones raising legitimate, huge questions about the broken world never got any real, coherent answers. Instead, they just got told to "believe in the narcissist MC" or something equally "profound"

[roserinsneji]

oh yearn.

[roserinsneji]

alt outfit is sasuke approved

[roserinsneji]

yeah neji is thinking about “death” right this moment mhm.

[roserinsneji]

some alt outfit nejis

[flowerlandd]

I wanna ask Neji stan out there, if Neji had a kid, what do you think his reaction would be if his child awakened the byakugan?😭

[roserinsneji]

I think, knowing that the byakugan is a dominant gene, he would've expected it, but he'd still have to fight every demon in his body to not be weird about it.

Even when he was growing up, the byakugan, and being a Hyuuga was such a pivotal part of his self-image that he was rarely able to be anyone else, other than the prodigy of Konoha's most revered clan. I'd assume that by the time he reaches adulthood, marries and has a child — or multiple children — he would've learned that the way he was indoctrinated raised was no way for a child to live. So, he'd decide that he would not force the Hyuuga's rigid dogma onto his child, come what may.

That being said, I think outwardly, he’d be supportive. Teach the baby how to use their ability, but never push for something they don't want; I think in adulthood, he'd value giving his children that freedom he was never privy to. There is a lot to be said about a parent that had to suffer, that then decides he will never do that to his children; and I think Neji falls into that category.

He would want the child to be proud of their lineage, but never carry it as a responsibility they never asked for!

[asktheboysasuneji]

Who is the big spoon? Who hogs all the blankets? Who swears he doesn't snore but absolutely does? Who has a complicated 15 step face care routine and who just washes his teeth and goes to bed? Many such questions

I loved drawing all of these!

[roserinsneji]

Neji and the symbolism of his death - Why he didn't die "free"

Hewwo! I've seen this discourse flying around a lot on both TikTok and Twitter, and I have always been very vocal about my opinions with regards to the matter; however I realise I haven't ever gone out of my way to summarise these opinions, so here we go.

DISCLAIMER: This will be a long ride, so sit down, grab some snacks, and enjoy my cokerant.

First and foremost, to understand Neji's death, we need to understand his past.

What we all know is that Neji is from the branch clan of the Hyuuga family - which essentially means he is socially inferior. This isn't a system Kishimoto invented, this is pretty derivative of Japanese history:

It's, in many aspect similar to an aristocratic household structure called "ie", fundamental in the Heian period onward. This structure hit peak rigidity in the Edo period.

Within this framework, a single honke (main house) carried the family's prestige, authority, and inheritance rights, while subordinate bunke (branch houses) existed to support and preserve the primary lineage. Sound familiar? Thought so!

With this out of the way, we can slowly start tying similarities back to the Hyuuga, and understand Neji's position.

Kishi basically adapted these structures to fit his narrative (which further solidifies my suspicion that the Hyuuga were meant to be an old money family or aristocrats), intensifying them through the invention of the curse mark, or as Neji likes to call it the caged bird seal. Now, obviously no historical parallel exists for a literal, controlling mark placed upon a subordinate lineage, because jutsu and chakra and shit don't exist in the real world, the seal functions as a symbolic dramatisation of real social constraints imo.

So this being said, in this context, Neji’s conflict reflects a long-standing tension embedded in Japanese familial ideology: individual vs household. His worldview when we first meet him, his hatred/anger toward the main house all mirror the pressures historically experienced by those born into subordinate lines, whose lives were shaped by obligations to a lineage that did not fully value them.

Neji's father, Hizashi was in a similar position. He deeply regretted being born second, and he expressed this regret to his son multiple times throughout the flashbacks, telling Neji how much value he has, despite being of the cadet branch.

He wishes Neji himself was of the main house of the Hyuuga, so he wouldn't have to bear the consequences of being inherently "socially inferior".

That being said, Hizashi never failed to tell Neji what his duty was above all else.

I need you all to look at this image and burn it into your eyeballs now. It will be relevant.

After the whole altrecation with Kumo, where Hiashi killed Hina's kidnapper, the Hyūga elders chose a solution that preserved the main house: they would offer Hizashi instead. Hizashi was expected to die for a crime he did not commit, for a brother’s actions that were not his, all because the branch house existed to absorb consequences.

Now, Hizashi’s death is often framed within the narrative as an act of self-determined sacrifice, but read realistically, it reveals far less individual agency than the story claims. Kumo’s ultimatum was a political pressure point, and the Hyūga elders had already settled on the branch family as the "expendable buffer" to protect the main line. Even without Hizashi's "supposed" consent (because god knows it was only the illusion of a choice, not an actual choice, be so fr right now), the outcome would have been the same: the clan would have ordered him to serve as the replacement.

As soon as you look at it through a realistic, political, human lens rather than a Kishimoto-copium one, the wholeass "voluntary sacrifice" angle crumbles fast. The Hyūga hierarchy operates by manufacturing the illusion of a little something something I like to call "willing compliance". It's obedience that looks voluntary only because true resistance is impossible. Lol. His supposed "choice" was a psychological refuge, not genuine autonomy, and the narrative's insistence on framing it as noble self-determination obscures the brutality of the system that engineered his death. Also, gang, I plead with you, STOP TAKING THESE CHARACTERS AT THEIR GODDAMN WORD. BRAH.

To summarise: Hizashi's death was retconned so Hiashi and the Hyuuga elders didn't look like the absolute pieces of shits they were; and it also set up a convenient ending for Neji's story so it could easily be discarded. (Yes I'm already setting up my conclusion in the first section of this essay, I like a dramatic SEE??!?! moment, shh.)

Taken as a whole, Hizashi's life and death demonstrate that Neji was born into a system where freedom simply did not exist for people like him. The branch family's role was predetermined before birth, enforced not only through tradition but through the literal mechanism of the seal.

And because I've seen this bullshit so damn much it makes me rip my hair out. No, friends, Naruto did not save Neji or Hiashi. Or the Hyuuga as a whole. Naruto punted Neji in the chin, which was enough for him to start questioning if the path he chose and the role he decided to play was one he wished to continue with, for the rest of his life, until he was finally granted the relief of death.

He said this, and did nothing! Yay, talk no jutsu!

Naruto defeated Neji, which shook his worldview, yes. That moment of doubt was not freedom. It was not healing. It was the first sliver of awareness that the story he had been told about himself might not be entirely closed. Neji did not walk out of that arena unchained or enlightened. Not yet, anyways.

The conversation between Hiashi and Neji, presented as a moment of revelation and emotional closure, functions less as a meaningful apology and more as a narrative sleight of hand. In this scene, Hiashi (conveeeeniently) introduces the idea that Hizashi “chose” death to "spare Neji from growing up consumed by hatred."

On the page, it is framed as a "compassionate truth", or even a gesture of paternal openness meant to guide Neji toward forgiveness. But if you examine this critically, really use the ol' thinker for a moment it's really rather convenient that Hiashi chose the moment Neji became a problem he couldn't ignore anymore, to finally bring this up.

Also, Hiashi is not revealing a hidden truth; he is offering a reinterpretation that very comfortably absolves the main house of responsibility for Hizashi’s execution. Inchresting, isn't it?

By claiming Hizashi's death was motivated by love rather than coercion, Hiashi reframes an institutional cruelty as a noble parental sacrifice. Let me say this again:

By claiming Hizashi's death was motivated by love rather than coercion, Hiashi reframes an institutional cruelty as a noble parental sacrifice.

Just so we're clear, this is even more chilling when you think about who really benefits from this "reframing". Neji gains no material freedom, no altered status, no protection from the seal’s threat. The only thing that changes is his emotional stance toward the main family.

It's not an apology. It's damage control.

Hiashi's explanation asks - nay, begs - Neji to abandon resentment, to relinquish his anger, and to reinterpret his father's death in a way that pacifies him.

And what I've seen many people gloss over far too easily: Neji’s circumstances remain exactly the same. He still wears the seal. He still exists within a hierarchy designed to limit him. He still has no autonomy or guarantee that he will not be sacrificed just as his father was. Hiashi’s words provide emotional comfort without structural change, closure without justice.

The series treats this as growth, but realistically, the scene is a textbook example of how oppressive systems maintain themselves.

Don't worry, I didn't forget about the fact that after this, Hiashi chose to train Neji himself!

Hiashi indeed "takes Neji under his wing", which also includes teaching him main-family techniques normally forbidden to the branch line. On the surface, this is meant to be read as a gesture of goodwill, a bridge between the two houses, but more specifically, a more practical apology for the ways Neji had been wronged.

But in practice, it demonstrates something much worse: Hiashi always had the power to grant Neji access, respect, and opportunity. He simply chose not to until it suited the political and emotional stability of the situation. He left Neji, a five year old Neji grow into a hateful teenager before he chose to take action, and he only did so after Neji spilled clan secrets all around the shop, for the entire village and visitors to hear.

Hiashi teaching Neji is not proof of unity. Instead, I'd say it's proof that the main house could have empowered the branch family long ago but deliberately withheld that power.

Now, for the finale.

Neji dies. In the panels leading up to it, Neji stands between Naruto, Hinata, and the incoming barrage of Ten Tails spikes.

In the moment it happens, we do not see a free man choosing a path of his own making. We see a branch family member fulfilling the exact role he was born into. The panels make this unmistakable. Neji hurls himself between Hinata and the bijuu's attack.

You could argue that Neji was protecting Naruto, but I do not believe this was the case. His last words make it pretty clear; he mentions Hinata. He did this for Hinata.

Neji’s death is not a subversion of Hyuuga fate at all. It's the exact script that was written before he was even born. The branch protects the main house. The branch falls so the main house may stand.

Neji died for the main house protecting it, as he was supposed to.

Neji died. For the main house.

As he was supposed to.

The same way his father did.

[asktheboysasuneji]

can i ask which of you two fell first ? my votes on sasuke

sasuke didn’t speak to him for a week after this btw