Reason by Hoppspindel (NSFW)

[sylvaine]

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Hidan/Kakuzu
Content Notes/Warnings: male nudity, explicit sexual situations, alcohol, violence, blood, gore, death, dark/horror elements
Medium: Pencil, ink, copic pens
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: hoppspindel | hoppspindel | immortal-assholes (just KakuHida fanart)
Why this piece is awesome: I honestly have a hard time articulating reasons for reccing this piece, as it is one of my favourite doujinshis ever and I have overwhelming feels about it. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to formulate some sense-making rec! This is a comic about the slowly developing relationship of Kakuzu and Hidan from their canon platonic partnership into a sexual and romantic relationship. It starts after their canonic "death" and thus could technically fit seamlessly into canon. The first chapter, in black & white, is 72 pages, while the second chapter, in colour, is 64 pages. So really lots to sink your teeth in!

On the less artsy side of things, I really appreciate that the author/artist got their characters write - they bitch and moan at each other and fight a lot, but they also do actually clearly value and appreciate each other. And unlike a lot of authors of this pairing, they don't woobify the characters or really emphasize the (barely canonical) height and power difference. Plus, it's finished! A finished comic! IDK, I think that's super cool.

On the more artsy side, I really admire the way the artist consistently managed to keep the panels interesting and have lots of different expressions for the characters while still managing to make them look like themselves. Plus, character and background actually look like they're part of the same world rather than separate layers of picture pasted onto each other. While the characters very occasionally look a little wonky, the art is solid from the start and only improves over the course of the comic, which is something I always love seeing. The first chapter, in black-and-white pencil shading, is already super cool - the artist manages to convey a lot of depth and variation in colour just through that. The second chapter, in colour, is occasionally absolutely visually stunning (the autumn panels!), and always high quality.

If you can handle the warnings above, and if you know the characters or don't mind reading up on them or being a little lost at first (I don't think canon knowledge is strictly necessary to read and understand the comic, since it takes place pretty much entirely removed from canon events and the two main characters occasionally seem very much in their own little world of two), I highly recommend checking out this comic.
Link: reasonch1 (Chapter 1) & reasonch2 (Chapter 2). Both tumblr blogs have a link in the first or second post where you can read the comic chronologically, but I wanted to link to the tumblrs themselves as the first few posts also contain summaries and ratings and such.