; ( I Hate A Lot Of Things And I Don't Particularly Like Anything ) Headcanon - Blog Posts

Growing out his hair is a tricky thing for Sasuke. It was very common for Uchihas, especially the ninjas who were notable warriors, to grow their hair long and to keep it long, but Sasuke mostly kept his short growing up from age 7 out of spite.

But as time went on and the truth of the Uchiha clan came out, and he decided that distance from the village was what was best for him come post war, growing his hair quickly changed from a choice out of hate and spite to a choice out of personal safety and mental wellbeing. The first time Sasuke's hair had grown long enough to touch his shoulders, he took one look at his reflection in a nearby creek and ... blanked out. All he can remember is the tight feeling in his chest, of being unable to breathe as he grabbed his kunai and hacked away at his hair until it was choppy and short; hands shaking all the while.

He can hardly take the mere mention of Itachi without retreating into himself, so looking into any mirror or reflective surface and seeing a sight that looks almost just like him? Unbearable.

Honestly --- someone asks him something innocent like 'Well, what's your favorite color' and he freezes because he just doesn't know: he's never felt safe and comfortable enough to stop and wonder such idle things about himself --- it was always survival mode and throwing himself around as a weapon for almost ten years straight.

Sometimes when I'm making myself sad I like to think about the fact that for the entirety of part one Naruto and over half of Shippuden, the only Sasuke that we know is a Sasuke that has been manipulated by someone to do what they want him to do / be a weapon on their behalf.

There was no point in Sasuke's journey leading up to him learning the truth of the murder of the Uchihas - and honestly also for a very long while after when the goal simply switched from Itachi to the Leaf - that Sasuke thought he'd continue living on after his goal was completed.

He fully intended to die along with Itachi, or at least very soon after. ( And was fully planning on sacrificing himself just to take out the leaf village. )

Ways the Uchiha were discriminated against / othered within Konoha.

These are more my personal thoughts / headcanons / lore building for Sasuke, since Kishi is just ... really really fucking poor with details and loves to just throw curve-balls where they don't make sense. ( aka I still think the twist with Itachi came from nowhere given how we were never shown anything on the Uchihas being discriminated against before the 'truth' of the massacre; aside from them living in a compound and the police force being exclusively Uchiha. And even then, those weren't really foreshadowing. ) A lot are expanded upon from 'canon'.

The Uchiha Compound was located up against the outskirts of the village, removed notably from the rest of the village. Therefore when Sasuke started attending the Academy, he had to get up particularly early in order to make his way there on time; since it was significantly further away.

While villagers didn't actively keep from selling to the Uchiha in the marketplace, it was more begrudgingly. At some points, depending on the merchant, prices were even raised when they noticed it was an Uchiha they were selling to.

Most parents kept their kid away from Uchiha children; as they felt like the close proximity would rub off a 'curse' onto them.

Whispered stereotypes among the villagers were 'blood thirsty' and 'attack dogs'; many saw the Uchiha as harbingers of violence, and didn't believe they were capable of anything but such.

Piggybacking off of that, it was unspoken that the only career path for an Uchiha was either training to be a ninja or training to join the police force ( or both ). If you aspired to do anything else such as become a school teacher, the obstacles that stood due to the stereotypes and discrimination made it virtually impossible, although they'd always reassure that it wasn't because of blood.

Fire jutsu is seen as taboo to teach young genin not just because of the mastery of chakra that it requires, but because it's a staple jutsu in the usual Uchiha's repertoire, and due to that there's a stigma surrounding fire based jutsu in the Leaf.

Following the genocide, many treated Sasuke with a distant sort of pity; not intervening to help him in any significant way, but also silently toting him as 'one of the good ones', especially with him becoming the most promising genin of his class. Sasuke received a lot of distant praise, but it was always conditional, ready to be revoked at any wrong move.

It’s really tragic to think about what kind of person/kid Sasuke could of been if the massacre hadn’t happened. Especially when we get flashbacks of a baby sasuke from the ‘before’; all bright and happy and energetic. The trauma from the genocide really made him revert into himself so severely, to the point where he felt his only safe emotions were frustration, irritation, smugness, jealousy, and stoicism.

If the massacre hadn’t happened, I think that genin / teen sasuke would of been more... well, happy obviously, but more transparent about it. Quick to laugh, much better at teamwork than he was, shy, a bit more anxious/more eager to please and prove himself, a little more outwardly doubtful of himself, and kinder. Of course, Sasuke has always been kind: even with his canon self. It’s been hinted at numerous times in canon about Sasuke being ‘soft’; or just kind, especially in shippuden with his ‘no killing rule’, and numerous other lilttle things that he’s done in interactions with others. But no genocide Sasuke would of been more generous with letting it show and wearing it on his sleeves.

But that Sasuke died from the moment he stepped onto the compound that night.

The sad thing about Sasuke is - aside from literally everything about his character - that if he was in present / modern times, he would go under the radar in a school setting / in society because:

a) he’s a ‘perfect straight a student’ with a lot of raw talent and unfiltered genius.

b) he’s a bit of a ‘problem child’ at the same time because of how easily he insults and undermines authority.

and those on their own cause adults to ignore cries for help in younger people, but i feel like a mix of these two would really make people be like ‘i don’t want to deal with him; besides his grades are fine so he’s fine anyway.’

Canon Divergence

Following the end of the war, Sasuke is forcibly taken back to the village where he is imprisoned. The amount of time he’s imprisoned varies - a couple of months minimum to about a year - but when he’s finally pardoned, he has no desire to stay within the village. There is too much pain and trauma that lies within his place of birth and even with the people who resided there alongside him.

He knows the people don’t trust him -- whether it’s because he’s Uchiha or because of his past actions or a mix of both, there’s discomfort from being watched almost everywhere you went without respite.

So Sasuke decides to leave: not so much on a journey of ‘redemption’ as canon calls it, but more so to find himself -- to discover who he is without the hatred and trauma and need for vengeance. It’s something he’s never known, at least not since he was a child before things went so wrong. All he knows is taking the pain away... surely there has to be something more.

He does not come back to be the ‘shadow kage’ of the leaf village. While he keeps in vague contact with N.aruto, S.akura, and at times K.akashi, he’s virtually cut all ties with the village and is more or less a wanderer/traveler. Unless there isn’t any notable change made within the village and it’s structure, he refuses to come back.

With how Konoha is, sometimes I wonder if had shit not gone down after the chunin exams and the fact that Sasuke’s sharingan being awake and active was taken into account; would they have tried more invasive methods to try and maintain control over Sasuke. I mean, by that point Sasuke was fighting for the leaf villiage, but that didn’t stop them from their racist treatment of the Uchihas before the attempted coup--

I revisited an AMV from a handful of years ago, and saw the creator make a comment like ‘Sasuke is so stupid he just keeps believing anything people say to him’ concerning like how he feel in with both Orochimaru and Madara, and just---

... I wonder if people like that really watched the same series as I did jdsogkodsgko

Cause in both instances, his insecurities and fears and trauma were preyed on in order to manipulate him. With Orochimaru, all he had to do was cause his trauma to resurface and be like ‘remember when you were too weak to save your family? I can change that and help you find peace’ and coupled with that encounter with Itachi, Sasuke was in the palm of his hand. With Madara -- if anything, Sasuke believing Madara was far from a stupid move.

Cause not only is this another Uchiha, but this is an Uchiha who comes carrying history and information that Sasuke never knew about. And he tried to shut him down by saying he was lying, but he literally provided all the context to tell him that what he was saying about the genocide and Itachi was the truth. With, effectively, shattered his world and led him into his ‘infamous’ mental breakdown.

Sasuke is far from stupid. It’s just that when it comes to his trauma, tied in with his family and the clan in general, it’s easy to sway his judgement and then manipulate him. There’s a reason Itachi said he was a ‘blank canvas’ that people keep trying to paint in their colors. We won’t mention how he was doing the same thing, but--

Out of all the versions of Sasuke we’re given over the course of Naruto, my favorite has to still be genin. ( With Shippuden a very close tight second. ) Aside from the fact that I grew up with this version and fell in love with this version first and foremost, there’s just… still so much I wish they could shown us about Genin Sasuke’s psyche and mental state. Cause he’s still just a child - only 12 - and we get a lot of glimpses of him being just that: a child. Childish.

We get scenes of Sasuke genuinely smiling, scenes with him having fun and goofing off with his teammates, teasing Naruto ( before their rivalry became vicious ) and just… we experience him starting to heal. It’s in bits and pieces and of course Orochimaru intercepts that and feeds into his trauma so he ends up abandoning the place where he’s healing and goes to him, but… It’s there. We catch glimpses of Sasuke healing, even though the narrative at that point is still trying to paint him as just the ‘bad egg’ on top of him being a child protegee.

I feel like if Orochimaru didn’t influence him, Sasuke would of stayed in the village and possibly had been healthier mentally for it. I’m still at odds with that idea because of Konoha being a racist ass village who would of probably molded Sasuke differently compared to his peers because of the fact he’s an Uchiha, but— he would of been healthier. He deserved to know the truth of his clan’s death and Itachi, but if he didn’t it wouldn’t of caused such a mental break like the one we saw in Shippuden.

It’s definitely a double edge sword here, but the idea of a genuinely happy Sasuke will forever warm my heart.