A/N: Hello peeps! Long time no see! As you can see by the lack of updates thus far, 2017 has not been…gentle to me. Lots of things have happened to me. A lot of them are great things. A lot of them are not so great. Regardless, the result is that I'm probably in the busiest phase of my life. I am happy and in good health though I am also under a lot of pressure and has a lot of things on my mind. This year, I hit 29 years old. Believe me when I tell you it's been a milestone for me. So many things happened to me this year. A lot of laughters. A lot of tears too.
I won't bore you with the details but, in the foreseeable future, I'm not sure if I will have much if any time to devote to my fanfiction. I love the stories I write and my imagination has never once stopped churning out new ideas. But the task of writing them down, giving them solid shapes, and refining them is something that is beyond me right now. So, with much regret, I will have to tell you that all of my stories will henceforth be put on indefinite hiatus until a time when I have the mental and physical space to return.
That said however, I have been writing snippets of future parts of the stories. Some of them are short moments that will act as plot hooks. Some of them are entire turning points or character focus in strategic parts of the stories. I have been posting them on tumblr. Recently, I received a letter from a fan asking me why I don't post these snippets on ffnet where more readers will be able to enjoy them and not just the very small number of people who follow me on my tumblr account. Well, I used to not do that because I did not want to spoil the stories and also the snippets aren't meant to be 100% unchangable. They hold the essence of that part of the stories but until the moment when they are connected to the main storylines, they remain in a semi-draft stage and those reasons are why I don't post them on ffnet.
However, because of this indefinite hiatus, those reasons no longer hold true and I shall now start to post the quite significant number of snippets I have written for the stories.
I hope you enjoy them and will tell me what you think or feel about them, whether they surprise you, and whether you feel that any parts could be improved upon.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
FtGoG Character Focus: Gaara
In the past week since I posted the 3 part Gaara snippet, I have received messages asking me if I hate Gaara or if I enjoy abusing him emotionally. Well, none of those messages were serious, since you know me, and they know me, but I did promise to talk about Gaara in the AN of that snippet didn't I?
So, let us talk about him, about how I feel regarding the canon Gaara, as well as what I have in plan for him in FtGoG.
First of all, I like Gaara. I adore him. He's not my top favorite Naruto character because that spot is already occupied by Tobirama (and the second spot by our titular blond main char of the show), but he's pretty up there. His design is unique. His story is compelling without being over the top. His character is one of the better ones of the series. Still, my feelings regarding the canon Gaara is that … he was shafted. His character arc was cut before it could really take off because he needed to fill the role of being Naruto's reversed mirror image. As a fellow Jinchuriki and the first Jinchuriki we saw aside from Naruto, he was the designated foil for Naruto. He was an example of how bad it could have been for Naruto, how bad it was for a lot of the ninja children in Konoha and in other countries. He was then used as something for Naruto to aspire to. The beast child that broke past his circumstances and became the leader of his people. Once everyone in his village feared and hated him. Now they love and respect him as their Kage. People who once shunned him now held him up as something to admire. He made peace with himself and with his own Biju. He made peace even with the father that created him and forced him into a life he never wanted. By the time Shippuden rolled around, Gaara's life was basically what Naruto dreamed he had. And all of that is great, but at the same time it also feels incredibly forced.
Think about it for a second. Back in 2002-2005 when Naruto was published to only around the Chuunin exam time and the immediate aftermath, Gaara was the poster boy for psychotic child in the fandom. He was hardcore fucked-up, a killer, a sadist, and incredibly messed up in the head. He was the dark child of the series. Sasuke ain't got shit on him. This is how fandom portrayed him back then (those of us that are old enough to already be in the fandom and fanfiction game that is). And for good reasons too because remember back then, Gaara had absolutely no compunction against killing people. He crushed that genin team from Rain like a child stomping on ants. He literally smeared the wall with the blood and flesh of those two Konoha chunin who got on his way when he was about to step into the arena in the last part of the Chunin exam. He was unhinged most of the times and not all of that was due to Shukaku's prodding either. This is the boy who stated by words and actions that violence was the only way he could prove his existence and only the thrill of killing those whom he felt was a threat to him that made him feel alive. And yet even seeing him at his worst, a significant part of the fandom still adored him in his blood child form back then, because his backstory was compelling and it made sense. He was severely traumatized as a child. He was raised more as a weapon than as a human being. And so the way he was when he was 12 years old, violent and psychotic, makes sense. Who would expect a child raised in such a way to grow up into a normal, well-adjusted person? He's very much a product of his upbringing.
A lot of people also liked this blood child Gaara because they saw him as a strike back to the violent culture of the ninja world. Unlike Naruto who was unrepentantly fanboyish towards his culture and community despite all their faults. Pre-Shippuden Gaara called them out for the messed up society that they were. What sort of culture groomed their pre-teens to become soldiers? What kind of parents designed their children to become weapons of the state in the womb? This is not something only Rasa and Karura did. In a way, Minato and Kushina arguably did the same thing, only their actions and reasoning were dressed up in a more sympathetic way than Rasa and Karura. And not only Minato and Kushina either, but also Fugaku and Mikoto (both of whom were perfectly ok with using their teenage son as a double agent and soldier for a military coup they were planning. Like fuck?! What sort of fucked up parenting is that?), and the Hyuuga clan, and so many other clan parents too. People lambast Rasa for doing what he did to Gaara, but when you think about it, this is very much a wide scale cultural thing. Rasa is in no way an outlier in this society. For every Rasa and Karura, and Minato and Kushina, or Fugaku and Mikoto, there is an entire society behind them that validates their actions and their rationality, that tells them that it is ok to do that to their own flesh and blood. Children like Gaara, like pre-Shippuden Neiji, are the products of this society. And out of all the characters in the series, Gaara alone is the one who called them out on this. And that made him unique and compelling.
Now, fast forward 3 years, and suddenly this violently volatile 12 years old boy has become… a 30 years old man in the skin of 15 years old boy. Shippuden Gaara was everything Chunin Exam Gaara was not. He was calm and wise beyond his years. He was stable. He knew himself, knew what he wanted out of life. He had the trust of many of people. He was Kazekage (which also beggars belief by the way, because really why him? Certainly he is a powerful shinobi, but pre-Shippuden exhibited absolutely zero leadership potential or experience whatsoever and the Kage post is, you know, all about leadership), literally the most powerful and influential person of his community. He had made peace with himself, and even with the man who made him into the monster child that he was. Now instead of talking about murder and mayhem, he talked about love, about friendship, about wanting to make something better for the future. The people around him, who we were told he used to terrorize back in his murder baby days (remember he was the murder baby of Suna back then, first because he was bad at controlling his own sand and later on because he just plainly didn't care for anybody beside himself), all just… forgot about all that and be kosher with Shippuden Gaara. It's like almost the entire village of Sunagakure (with the exception of the anti-Gaara crowd who are, of course, the antagonists in every Naruto materials be it manga, anime fillers, or light novel of dubious canonity) suffered memory loss and woke up one day to adore the new Gaara who was no longer murder baby…
In just 3 years, this hardcore blood child who killed and maimed at the slightest provocation basically became… a unicorn. Seriously one of these days I expect a rainbow to appear out of nowhere around Gaara (and that's totally not because I ship Gaanaru).
Isn't that so amazing that it makes you sort of want to check either your head or your eyes? A lifetime of trauma, abuse, cultural brainwashing, and mental conditioning… wiped clean (or nearly clean) in less than 3 years… Does that sound realistic to you? Like seriously, think about it for a second. Gaara has issues, lots of them. He has this thing with his daddy and mommy. He has this thing with not being able to meaningfully connect and bond with people around him. He has abandonment issue. His mother abandoned him since birth (via dying). His father abandoned him through neglect. His uncle betrayed his trust and then abandoned him. His brother and sister shunned him out of fear. Certainly it's not that simple, but from the eyes of the child Gaara, every person that he trusted walked out on him and left him to fend for himself. When you think about this, it makes perfect sense for pre-Shippuden Gaara to proclaim that he lived only for himself because he could not trust anybody else to stay, could not trust anybody else to not abandon him the way his mother, his father, his uncle.
When you apply this knowledge on his relationship with Naruto, suddenly you see extra dimensions to the way their friendship played out. I remember back years ago, a lot of people remarked on how devoted to Naruto Gaara suddenly became. Certainly Naruto played a pivotal part in Gaara's life, being the one catalyst that made him want to turn his life around and be a different person. But the fact is that these 2 boys met for about a handful of times before Shippuden and outside of 2 battles (Konoha crush and arguably the chase after Sasuke one), they didn't really have any sort of bonding experience to speak of. That level of devotion while not completely impossible is highly unusual. But when you factor in Gaara's abandonment issue, it suddenly becomes a little clearer why he behaves like that, why he suddenly becomes Naruto's biggest fanboy. People who are emotionally lonely, who fear abandonment have the tendency to try that much harder, to devalue themselves and overvalue other people in a bid to find acceptance and validation. That's how I see the relationship between Naruto and Gaara. It doesn't change the fact that their friendship is a beautiful thing, but it certainly adds dimension to how that friendship came to be.
My point is… Gaara has many issues, none of which is the type to be easily resolved in just under three years. In our real world, this kind of baggage during a child's formation years leaves life-long scars. Realistically speaking, any of these issues should take decades to be truly and completely resolved. Children from abusive household need decades to make peace with themselves, and even then not all of them succeed, because dealing with emotional scars is hard. You don't just shake off a violent and abusive upbringing since your birth in just under three years. It's not realistic. It feels forced. It feels cheap. It feels incompletely and cheaty. It feels like reading a book about a cancer patient and for 90% of the book you are hammered by the fact that this patient has an infinitesimal chance of survival and recovery, and then in the last 10% of the book, woala, suddenly he is cured and healthy and happy and everything is right in the world with next to no explanation what so ever. You get my point?
Now, I have to clarify. It's not that I don't want for Gaara to recover from his pre-Shippuden stage and make progress. I think it's a beautiful thing for someone who was put through so much like him to eventually find self-healing. But the way it was done was just… not good at all. The way it was done, the implied ease of it all just cheapens what Gaara went through, the enormity of his pain and the mistakes of his past. Remember, this kid murdered perfectly innocent people in the past. He got away with it back then because he was the son of the Kazekage and the Jinchuriki. But for a Shippuden Gaara, don't you think that he wouldn't think about it, wouldn't think about the people he hurt in the past, the mistake that he made, that he wouldn't want to atone?
Gaara's characterization in canon, when you think about it, was cut before it could even start. He was not allowed the time to actually resolve his issues and find atonement and self-healing. He just one day miraculously appeared new and whole and all shiny, the 15 years old wise man who led his people and lectured the other Kage on not being pompous old geezers. He skipped through the entirety of his puberty as well. Shippuden Gaara was supposedly 15 years old at the start and 17 years old at the end. But did he feel like a teenager who was learning about his identity and who he was in all of Shippuden? He couldn't have any of that, any actual character arc or maturation (both mental and sexual), because narrative-wise, he is locked into his role as Naruto's foil. Naruto is emotional and rash. So Gaara must be calm and rational. Naruto is a teenager struggling to find himself amidst this tumultuous world, struggling with his future, his identity. So Gaara must be wise and sure of himself. Naruto is a genin and is only now learning the ropes of leadership, who is struggling to find respect and acknowledgement from people outside of his circles. So Gaara must already be the leader of his people and the voice of command even to ninja of other villages. Naruto is still a child in many ways. And so Gaara is not allowed actual childhood or adolescence at all. Instead, he must be the adult to Naruto's child, the grown man in the skin of a 15 years old boy. In Shippuden, he appears almost sexless as a result (I'm also pointing out the many, many fans who view Gaara as asexual because of his apparent lack of any puberty or adolescent signs whatsoever)
The truth of the matter is that in canon, Gaara's characterization arc was shafted so that he could function as the foil for Naruto and enrich Naruto's own character arc.
In a way, I understand the necessity. After all, despite his popularity, Gaara is still only a tertiary to secondary character of a story with hundreds of named characters. He can't have too much screen time devoted to him. But on the other hand, it doesn't make me feel any better about it. Gaara's character arc in canon is… not bad, but it's not what it can be, nor what it should be. And for a Gaara fan who cares a lot about good characterization, it's kind of a bummer thing to have to accept.
This is what I have always felt since years ago. So I made a resolution that if I ever write Gaara in any prominent position in my stories, that I will take the time and effort to give him the character arc he should have. And… well… that's what I want to do. I want to portray him as a child growing up into teenager, struggling and finding himself in the process. I want to emphasize the pain of his past experiences, his struggles, but also want him to slowly and eventually find self-healing, find peace with himself the way it should have been in canon. I want to see him as an actual child behaving like a child, and as an actual teenager behaving like a teenager (getting into troubles, stumbling into his budding sexuality, finding his sense of self, his identity, stuff that we all go through in our teenage years) and not a sexless grown man in the skin of a teenager.