Sasuke's childhood/family/ goddamnit why are there no social services in Konoha. D:

[askerian]

book_people: Because Sasuke sort of has this thing about blood family, don't know if anyone noticed...
askerian: yyyyeah. >__>
askerian: and okay, people non-related to him whom he likes AND loves is great, BUT!
book_people: Indeed
book_people: I've been thinking about that recently. Like, what is it about blood family that makes it more important than family-you-choose? Is it the "you have to love me because you're related to me" thing?
book_people: more important for some people, I mean
book_people: and Sasuke in particular
book_people: Okay, aside from the part where they all up and died on him...
askerian: childhood imprinting. :-P
book_people: *sniff* That only explains "mommy" or possibly "daddy."
book_people: u.u
askerian: XD
askerian: in sasuke's case, being an uchiha didn't only mean being dad and mom's son, it was the structure and underpinnings of most of his world
book_people: very true. However, when that vanished, many people would look for a new structure. He never did.
book_people: Particularly since he was so young! When someone offered, one would think a normal person would jump at it. You think it's because nobody offered soon enough? Nobody insisted? Was it the fact that people expected a traumatized kid to choose instead of just telling him "this is what will happen because it's good for you?"
askerian: eight is a real bad age for that sort of thing
book_people: meh
askerian: if he'd been older he would have started to look to his peers for structure, to want to grow away from his parents and more into someone accepted by his age group
askerian: if he'd been younger he wouldn't have remembered so much
askerian: at eight he's old enough to be aware of the Pride of the Uchiha and other heavy stuff like duty, and still totally wrapped up in being An Uchiha
askerian: and since he lived amongst many, many people who were, it wasn't like he had any concept that it was something he might want to grow out of, anyway, since a lot of the adults he knew were fine as Uchihas
book_people: and then it was all taken from him before he could get some perspective on that, so he just built it up into something big and grand and necessary in his head with no hope of learning the realities?
askerian: yeah, i think so
askerian: he's still in the idealizing stage, and then it all gets fixed and fossilized in his head by the tragedy
askerian: because gaining some perspective can only happen by stepping back, away from them
askerian: and that's a betrayal
askerian: which is exactly what itachi did.
book_people: ugh.
askerian: they're only alive and unsullied in his memories now, he can't afford to let them fade away
askerian: also konoha's children services sucks.
book_people: Hm. And even though he's now old enough to realize logically that they couldn't have been perfect, because the world they lived in wasn't perfect and nobody can be, it's still sort of a cornerstone of the way he looks at things.
book_people: ahah
book_people: yeah, they really do
askerian: they were proabbly seeing him too much like The Uchiha Scion/default clan heir and not enough like a kid who needed help even if he couldn't see/realize/accept he did.
askerian: so when he said "no, fuck off" no one told him "no, sorry, you're a kid, you don't get to make that kind of decision yet, and let's get you a tutor."
askerian: he probably had someone who dropped by regularly to see how he was doing, but. dude.
book_people: yeah. Someone who, you know, mentioned that you need to occasionally clean the mildew out from between the tiles in the bathroom...
askerian: XD
askerian: "are you eating alright/doing well in class?"
"yes."
"okay, everything's good, then."
askerian: maybe someone would have asked him if he was sleeping well, but he'd have stonewalled them like a motherfucker
askerian: like he's gonna admit he has nightmares all the time.
book_people: and/or lied like a rug
askerian: yeah XD
book_people: ...*sigh* It strikes me that so much could have been averted in this universe if someone opened a bloody foster home in Konoha
book_people: granted, there wouldn't have been much of a story, but still
askerian: another solution to sending himl to live with another family (and thus abandon his) would have been to have a live-in caretaker but. Not An Uchiha, in his house?
askerian: also why the fuck did no one make him move out, how the hell did anyone imagine anything but another breakdown would happen from there.
askerian: haha, that'd make for a good AU
book_people: An adult would have done poorly in that house. What were they thinking?
askerian: i wonder if anyone even bothered to sand down the blood all over the wooden floor in his parents' bedroom. I mean obviously someone removed the bodies, but.
book_people: ...bet nobody noticed, or they figured he'd call someone to do it. And of course he didn't.
book_people: because he was eight
askerian: Wonder if he did it. Or if he just left it all as-is as some kind of fucked up tribute.
book_people: I could see that. Like, the bedroom is exactly how they left it, plus about an inch of dust on everything because he's sure as fuck not going in there.
askerian: oh god, and itachi's bedroom.
askerian: never ever opening it again, but he'd still have to walk past that door every time he goes to his own, unless they're in opposite sides of the house
book_people: which they probably weren't
book_people: more likely both the kids were in the same wing
askerian: probably on the same corridor.
book_people: XD
book_people: ...maybe he had the exact opposite reaction? He told whoever came to just empty the room out, he doesn't want any of that stuff?
book_people: no, that would have been almost rational. What am I thinking?
askerian: pff.
askerian: also there's the fact that sasuke seems to view this as an internal matter to the uchiha clan (thanks, itachi, for telling him it was his responsibility to fix it) and he wouldn't air the clan's dirty laundry in public
book_people: I bet he never moved anything. Like, he even left the pots where they were, even though he needed a ladder to get to them because his mother was obviously taller than he was
askerian: ;__;
askerian: I don't think it ever occurred to him that maybe it was someone else's job to help him/get itachi captured/punished
askerian: like... actual adults.
book_people: ...seriously. Foster home. With a certified foster parent. Would solve so much.
askerian: *nodnod*
book_people: It also doesn't help that nobody actually did go after Itachi. Like, if they had done it for him, he'd have been upset at the time, but he would have eventually moved on since he didn't have the crutch of "Must Kill Itachi" anymore
askerian: someone needs to write it for us. *starts plotting out way to con f-list into helping*
book_people: XD
askerian: XD he might have never forgiven them, and without an obsession to cling to he might have spiraled into depression instead, but yeah, that'd have been a different set of problems.
book_people: one that's sort of surmountable, comparatively
askerian: XD comparatively.
book_people: Also, if he spiraled into depression, I feel like someone would have noticed and, you know, stuck their nose in
book_people: can't have wee children committing suicide, it's bad for Konoha's image
book_people: meh
book_people: he wouldn't have been Sasuke, though, and that would have made me a sad!Adi
book_people: so instead, I will advocate that someone write about somebody opening a foster home



shewhoflies: ...did Sasuke still live in his parent's house? I never saw that in the manga .__.
askerian: it's not clearly mentioned, but yes
askerian: when you look at childhood flashbacks in his bedroom, and at the bedroom he was living in when he leaves konoha, it's the same room from a different angle
askerian: when i started teamwork i assumed that any sane people would have MOVED HIM THE FUCK OUT but tadahh! turns out they didn't. dude.
shewhoflies: um. wow.
Askerian: yeah. The hell, Konoha. For people who rely on interrogation skills they obviously ned to learn more about mental trauma and psychology


*I saw a point by point comparison once, taking into account stuff like the ceiling light and the ... idk, window frame and whatnot, and yeah, it really did seem like Sasuke was still in his childhood bedroom by the time he left Konoha. There was a recent-ish flashback chapter with Sasuke on the floor playing with his toys that really cinched it, as it showed the same window as in the "tilting the team picture face down" scene.