#eruditeempress

If he was an animal?

What about weather?

Passing on the bread question to someone who knows their breads 😅 Although: something filling even if it's not the tastiest

Animal: would have to be a creature that's intelligent and fierce and protective of their young/pack/group. Fairly independent, so maybe not necessarily a pack animal, but still socializes with their species. Can be adventurous but not a migrating species. Idk what fits the bill, but maybe some sort of big cat? Anyone have any thoughts on Gale's daemon?

Weather: storm clouds after a drought. The wind has started to pick up and there's a chill in the air. People know that they need to take shelter. There's a weariness as to what the damage could be but also a relief because of the much-needed rain.

Thanks for the ask!

The Defective Uzumaki was such a delight to read! I’m not very good at original drawing but I used a reference and I hope you like it!

Offering to tempt @fineillsignup into writing more. May your days be filled with many muses, MadaSaku among them.

I like your exploration of the Founders era and I found The Defective Uzumaki such a captivating read. I loved it so much!!!!

So given these two songs/soundtracks are very, hm, traditionally instrumental (and, also, the fact that I’ve been reading a lot of Hikaru no Go fic lately), I’m getting a distinctly Tobirama Senju’s ghost–whether literally or figuratively–through Shikako’s life?

And also, you mentioned in our messages the idea of arch-nemesis soulmarks and how, in DoS, Shikako’s arch-nemesis would be Danzo and I kind of…

Let me try to articulate this properly.

The idea of legacies and rivals that aren’t necessarily pre-determined by fate, but marked by fate. So there’s the grander “Will of Fire” being an actual, physical mark on someone–an intangible optimism and determination passed from Hashirama to Hiruzen to Naruto–versus the more intimate mark of Dan on Tsunade to make the Medic Corps, to train Shizune, and be the kind of Hokage that he might have been.

But it’s not always what people expect.

For example, Danzo had Tobirama’s mark and thought that meant he would be Sandaime–literal inheritor/successor of the Nidaime–which is what drove is megalomaniacal desperation for the hat. Maybe instead it was supposed to be Danzo supporting Hiruzen the same way Tobirama supported his brother (the way Hiruzen actually though was happening), or maybe it was his destruction of the Uchiha clan (which a younger, more war-minded Tobirama had wanted once upon a time).

So the possibility that someone else might have the same mark isn’t necessarily a bad thing–after all, people have different goals in life perhaps different goals went to different inheritors–but it’s not very common and much less so a legacy mark from someone who died long before you were born.

Shikako having Tobirama Senju’s legacy mark is, of course, very unusual. And yet. Consider what she’s done so far: she’s a fuinjutsu master in the making, a community leader of sorts, she wields his legendary sword, she’s brokered peace with the Uchiha (sort of, in the sense that she’s prevented Sasuke from defecting) and is slated to rebuild the KMP, she’ll definitely support the next few Hokages in a way that Tobirama would have wanted (the way Danzo should have), so it’s not completely out of left field.

Obviously most everything else is the same except some people have legacy marks connecting them to people who have passed away. For example, most clan heirs are born with the mark of their clan just because that’s how it works–a continuation of the clan leadership all through the generations (which helps in the rare occasions when clan heads don’t have children because then the elders can just look for the child with the clan symbol on it and know that they’re going to be the next clan head). But not all legacy marks are there from birth: some people probably have multiple legacy marks and it’s not unusual for them to develop more as they grow.

I don’t know how the clash should go.

Danzo doesn’t immediately see her as a threat, but there must be a point where he starts to.

Unless the marks are hidden? I mean, I don’t think there’s any actual taboo surrounding legacy marks (why would there be? it’s not something private, necessarily, nor is it something to be ashamed of) but tactically it might be dangerous to so outrightly have certain legacy marks–killing the person with the Will of Fire mark would pretty easily cut the ideal line of Hokage succession.

And anyway, I enjoy the idea that Tobirama’s legacy mark is very understated. Like… given that Tobirama’s fanon summons are snow leopards, maybe it’s a few leopard spot on the forehead. It kind of just looks like bruises, really, easily hidden by bangs or headbands or BANDAGES (-_-).

So maybe it’s just that unless it’s something very obvious or very personal, people don’t necessarily know who the legacy marks are from. And unless the mark is very obviously a a symbol or a picture or a word maybe no one even knows it is a legacy mark.

Danzo knows what his is, of course, Tobirama was his sensei. But as far as Shikako and her family are concerned she just has an awkwardly placed birthmark. It’s hard to report legacy marks if they’re so ambiguous, so Danzo just doesn’t hear about the Jounin Commander’s daughter also having Tobirama Senju’s legacy mark. (And probably Danzo has been hiding his for so long that no one except people of an age with him remember what it looks like anyway).

And maybe there’s a hint of self-fulfilling prophecy in this as well.

People can share legacy marks without any conflicts–but it’s not until one party MAKES it a rivalry that it becomes one. Maybe fate decided that Danzo wasn’t properly fulfilling Tobirama’s legacy (or only fulfilling the most twisted versions of it) and so it gave Shikako the same legacy mark to correct that. If Danzo had just done it properly, there would be no need for that. Or if he had bowed out and accepted that he was already fulfilling it, then there would be no clash.

Sorry, I’m not sure if I’m conveying the idea fully or if I’m just going around in circles.

So, well, except for a few weird birthmarks on her forehead, Shikako’s life in this strange world would pretty much be the same as canon DoS. Her legacy mark wouldn’t become relevant until Danzo makes it so and given we haven’t yet seen a in person Shikako vs Danzo interaction (only his Big Brother-esque monitoring of her research on the Uchiha post-Tsukuyomi and, of course, his attempted kidnapping after the Land of Hot Springs) it could still be easily slotted into a canon plotline.

There’s just something about the Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack in particular that makes me think it would be a good battle not between different ideologies but rival executions of the same ideology. That one ideology–in this case, Tobirama Senju’s–can be so twisted in one direction but still technically be the same as the original.

~

Science Fiction AU.  Since Boruto is trying it’s darndest to ruin mechas, I’m going to kidnap it for my story.  It a dystopian future where there are safe cities and there are unstable cities.  A supervirus (bc why not) was released and it actually ended up effecting the canine population, accelerating their growth and overriding their domestication. 

The unsafe cities are more “everyman for himself” which means that food/water/goods are not guaranteed, but you have freedom.  There just comes the risk that a pack of Supercanines come around to get you.  The safe cites are walled in (like Attack on Titan) so they can reach you.  

The trade of is The Tithe.  Every person born into the safe cities is obligated to pay 10% of their life (8 years) to serve the city.  That means you climb into a mecha, go outside the walls to farm the food in the fields, check the dams that bring in the city water and always watch your back for the dogs the size of moose.

The Tithe is selected at random, the government officials decided that they wouldn’t pull from a certain age range so they wouldn’t demolish a particular age demographic.

In this years Tithe?

*throws Home is Behind at you and runs away*

Title: Spring and Storm

Author: EruditeEmpress

Summary: Things fall apart. Spectacularly, devastatingly but quietly.

Pairing: KakaSaku

Type: Drabble

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It wasn't the hurt he felt, the utter betrayal at the denigrating whimsy of fate that led him to approach her after that fateful afternoon.

She had noticed his distance, in that guileless affectionate nature of hers. She assumed it was to accomodate him in her life. But then that was how she was, always looking at the people beneath the mask.

She always put other people first, but it was in a brusque, overbearing way that left people with no clue about her actual intent. He noticed. He noticed what she was trying to do in that sly, no nonsense way of hers.

He did not like him, the one who stood by her sight as though he belonged. He didn't.

Kakashi loved her. He loved her laughter, her compassion, the length of her hair that sparkled with a vivacity that defined her. She seemed almost crafted for the sun, the lush color of spring and the intoxicating bloom of first love.

He was shadow, faded and wispy and belonged completely to the darkness.