#themastertactician

[mokutone]

If you’re still doing the ask game, can I get stuff about Shino? I love your brain 😍

ahh sure, sure

favorite thing about them —i like that he's so annoyed when people forget about him, and yet he doesn't really go out of his way to interact with people. he does things on his own terms and at his own pace but he still considers the people around him very affectionately, and is hurt when they don't seem to reciprocate his quiet attentions.

least favorite thing about them — he has bugs living in his body and in his bones. i don't want to think about that!!! i don't think of myself as somebody who is bad with bugs, but if there's more than 7 of the same kind of bug in one place, i will start to wig out a little

favorite line —

brOTP — HMMMMM hinata and kiba both. i've said before that i think their team is really well balanced, you have somebody who is quiet and terribly insecure, you have another who is quiet and very secure, and then you have a loud one. I feel like between them all they make up a very well balanced group, socially.

OTP —i do not think much about shipping

nOTP —i do not think much about shipping

random headcanon —the aburame family is very tight knit, very supportive, and generally very good at reading each others moods and intentions. they're not a very talkative family but they all pay a lot of attention to each other, and most things are left unsaid or in implications. growing up in this environment, shino's an incredibly indirect kind of person. as he's gotten older he's gotten more and more blunt, because the effort of going to indirect effforts to commuunicate with people who do not seem to know how to pick up his signals, is fucking exhausting. he just says shit now.

unpopular opinion —ah...i don't know if i have any unpopular opinions about him. i think a friendship between him and kankuro would be hilarious. is that unpopular? both of them are relatively lonely and quiet, but also okay being alone. i feel like they would each think theyre doing the other person a favor by hanging out with a known freak like them.

kankuro might especially be like "this guys scary and his bugs are awful but you know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer!" and so he starts hanging around shino to get info on the bugs and how to deal with them. and he pretends to be interested in shino and his bugs and makes overt gestures of friendship, and shino, who is often forgotten, is flattered by the intention. and is like "well. i suppose i should introduce you to my family. and also to my team"

and kiba is like "fuck yeah lmfao this dude is sooo easy to trick" but as shino and him talk more hes like "wuh oh this dudes lonliness is a harsh mirror to my own! girl help, i'm empathizing with the bug guy!!!!"

anyway. this conversation happens:

shino: what if the black ant used real ants kankuro: you disgust me. kankuro: but. that would be kind of cool honestly shino: yeah. kankuro: yeah.

for what it's worth, shino is on the other side of the friendship like "this suna kid is so fucking desperate for friends; his flattery is intense. and his manners are maybe worse than kiba's (is he a feral child raised by puppets?) clearly he needs it and i mean he's not horrible company. i will indulge him."

so they both lend up pointing at each other like. "i am doing this for you, because you clearly need it," but truthfully they make the friendship for themselves, because they dooo need it.

song i associate with them —Boys Will Be Bugs by Cavetown bc i mean.

I'm a dumb teen boy I eat sticks and rocks and mud I don't care about the government And I really need a hug I feel stupid (stupid) Ugly (ugly) Pretend it doesn't bother me I'm not very strong but I'll fuck you up if you're mean to bugs

i don't think that shino struggles w/ toxic masculinity all that much tbh which is what the thrust of the song is about, but i do think he probably struggles with trying to understand social conventions and which ones he has to adhere to and which ones he's only expected to adhere to

n there are lines in there like

"Ain't that how it's s'posed to be? Though it isn't me Boys will be bugs right?"

which i feel is better suited but still not all the way there. anyway, a song for a teenage boy that wants to protect the small and innocent alien things which remind him of himself, but is grappling with the expectations he feels are being demanded of him. this is a very obvious pick for shino but i hope it's not boring because of that.

favorite picture of them

i like when he hides his whole self. personal privacy icon.

[iguanodonwildman]

Lara Croft: i’m a (archeologist? grave robber? tomb raider?) r-researcher...

[estradiol-dyke]

Hey just FYI, you might have more luck getting money on reddit/charity or other groups specifically set up for people to get mutual aide. Best of luck!

thats not true in my experience. there are plenty people on here who are very eager to help out others and take part in mutual aid, it’s honestly humbling

if i had a reddit account id try it but i dont, so since im here

[askplantyamato]

Would you be willing to draw something where everytime yams sneezes, pollen spews out of his flower? I’m so sorry about your mother! I hope everything works out!

Be sure to cover your sneeze.

[It sure took me a while wondering about this whole mother thing, then... I realized it’s ME!][Thanks for the concern and nice messages.][I’m physically fine, just following order to stay home.][If I can get some support that would be helpful.][More importantly, everyone please stay safe and take care!]

[moderndayportia]

I know you’re dealing with a lot of fandom wank, and I just wanted to let you know that I stand with you on this. I’ve always admired the lengths that you go to to find the source of artworks and get permission to post them. The art thieves will always lose!

Thank you for your support. It’s been a DAY.

You and a bunch of lovely people have been awesome in helping me through it.

[mokutone]

That are you reblogged from biuro is stolen. Just wanted you to know.

good to know, ty, i'll delete it

[mokutone]

On the subject of dog nose kakashi, there’s a headcanon I’ve seen that the reason he wears the mask is because it helps block out smells so he can focus. I like that one combined with him hiding his fangs to protect his mother’s identity for whatever reason and to hide his ethereal beauty because it makes him stand out too much lol and now to also hide his dog nose!!

i have seen a lot of these headcanons, and they are cool and valid!

my personal take is honestly less that he wants to hide any one specific feature of his face (whether inherited clan attributes like teeth or nose) or facial differences, ethereal beauty, etc,

the one i give most personal credence to is probably the blocking out smell, but even then i'm sometimes wishy washy on whether i go for that hc depending on my mood

but here's something interesting and dog related, i got it from another stanley coren book "How to Speak Dog" again, i have mixed feelings on his writing, but his studies and conclusions are interesting and worthy of note if anyone is interested in dog science and communication. anyway here's the fun tidbit, it's talking about why dogs tuck their tails as a gesture of fear.

"In essence, the dog is making its presence less obvious by preventing the release of the odors that identify it as an individual. Some scientists have suggested that the tail-between-the-legs action is the canine equivalent of an action seen in insecure human beings—especially children—who hide their faces when brought into the presence of a dominant or potentially threatening person."

(worth noting that stanley doesnt use dominant here in terms of the weird stupid wolf hierarchy thing)

anyway. my point is that i don't really see kakashi trying to hide his face as anything specific to his face at all—his students certainly do, and all theorize about what could be so "horrible" beneath his mask that he "needs to hide it", but imo what he's hiding is not physical, it's emotional, hiding his face because he is ashamed/insecure, etc.

i know this might seem a little odd since he's worn this mask since he was a kid, before his fathers death, before obito, rin, etc, and he may have seemed outwardly arrogant as a child, but Sakumo was clearly somebody who carried a lot of shame and guilt, not just for the one incident but as a matter of course, and children can often take on that worldview. similarly, arrogance is also usually a protective mechanism to keep the individual from having to confront the inadequacy they fear, etc etc

[mokutone]

@themastertactician asked via submission: Do you have any ideas/thoughts/meta about Tenzou and Itachi, especially post massacre? I love your meta. <3

thank you, and not really! i don't really like itachi, and i don't find him a very interesting character, so i tend not to think about him very much at all. if i do, it's usually just to get annoyed @ kishimoto about what i view as his failures when writing itachi as a character.

i think itachi was probably a subject of much debate between kakashi and tenzō, because by the time that itachi (age 11-13) joined anbu, tenzō would have been about 17-19, and kakashi would've been about 20-21. so like, they're both young adults in charge of this barely-teenager, in black ops. I think their values would come into conflict on what to expect from itachi.

Kakashi is generally a fairly protective person, in many ways he's very soft, and if he can prevent somebody he views as less deserving or less able to handle it from getting hurt, he will.

Tenzō tends to be very practical, and while he intellectually understands that people value childhood and think that kids need to be protected, I think he would, at this point in his life, generally disagree. Protection, especially from a commanding officer, given in the form of orders or direction, I think he would see as something which limits the autonomy of an individual. (having already had substantial issues with his own autonomy being limited, and having kakashi self-sacrificing hatake as a commanding officer, I think this is something he might feel strongly about)

I think they would get in frequent discussions (not quite arguments, because Tenzō trusts Kakashi's judgement ultimately) where Tenzō would express concern that by going to efforts to keep Itachi from the more dangerous or upsetting parts of the mission, they might be disrespecting him as a shinobi, or limiting his ability to make his own choices about his abilities and what he can handle.

If they get very much into it, Tenzō might even suggest transferring Itachi to another squad, in case its less that he's a kid, and more that he's an uchiha about the same age as Obito was when he died, and that the possibility of double-failing Obito might be weighing on Kakashi's mind.

Kakashi largely reacts to this with "well, that's all fine and good, but he's also the youngest anbu Konoha has ever taken on. Better to be safe than sorry, isn't it?"

Which Tenzō would largely agree with. These are only minor concerns, after all. He figures they can have a larger conversation when Itachi is slightly older and Kakashi's protective stance becomes less acceptable.

After the massacre, Tenzō starts to think that maybe Kakashi was more correct than he'd anticipated, and perhaps more should have been done.

Itachi and Tenzō aren't particularly close, in anbu I don't think. They're professional, Tenzō is very respectful of Itachi, and very direct. He's also very guarded though, and does not openly disagree with Kakashi in front of Itachi, unless Kakashi is clearly teasing Tenzō for a reaction. Itachi doesn't think particularly highly of Tenzō—because of Tenzō's quietness and unwillingness to argue with Kakashi in front of him, it's easy for Itachi to just let Tenzō fade into the back of the scene, imagining him more as another part of Kakashi than as his own person.

Given Itachis history with adults or people in positions of power manipulating him, it's unsurprising that he would view Kakashi and Tenzō's interactions through that lens. (That is, assuming that Tenzō simply does what Kakashi says, and does not question his superior officer, out of sheer blind loyalty) He does not bring it up because he's young and cynical and thinks Tenzō is probably too dumb or too lost in the sauce to see it.

Like. At their oldest, at their most familiar. Itachi is a thirteen year old. It doesn't matter if Tenzō is 19 and has known Kakashi for longer than Itachi has been able to hold a kunai, he's a thirteen year old and he's only going to be able to interpret the relationships he sees with the tools he's been given—and socially, he hasn't been given a lot of tools as far as we can see.

Anyway. during the period of shippuden, Tenzō probably thinks of Itachi as a tragic casualty, long before Sasuke actually kills him.