#tsurugami

I forgot to post this one here xD

Birthday gift for @tsurugami, her oc Hotaka

a little drawing i did of @tsurugami‘s heckin beautiful oc, akame tsubaki ♡

I wasn’t really sure what you meant by kemono (& i haven’t seen the itachi shinden filler so idk what the cat den is), but im guessing you mean summoning animals. I would guess that they live in another dimension (shared between the different summoning species) like the worlds that can be accessed through time-space ninjutsu. I would say they live in a similar way to humans, since most of them have a near-human intelligence, or at least an intelligence to the point of being able to respond to human commands without the need for training. Even under a summoning contract they have a certain amount of freedom, like Manda being rude towards Orochimaru despite being in his service. The frogs at Mount Myouboku seem to have the more developed sense of community, with family lineages (grandpa + grandma) and a hierarchy not based around power (e.g. Gamamaru is given the utmost respect, when Gamabunta is probably more physically powerful than he; in a normal animal kingdom, that would have put Gamabunta above Gamamaru). Similar to youkai though, it seems that some summons are very happy to remain in the human world (it does make me wonder whether the Naruto universe exists on another dimensional plane than the Real World in a similar way (theoretically ofc)), as they can eat human-made food etc, suggesting that the worlds aren’t that different, or that there is some kind of supernatural influence on their body chemistry that allows them to digest all foods, or make the act of eating unescessary for them in Naruto’s world (for we see the toads at Mount Myouboku eating several times, so they do need to). There does seem to be a stepped level of intelligence in summoned creatures, as some do not speak at all/seem like normal animals, albeit called from a great distance, while others have complete personalities. This might be due to certain summons having more interaction wit humans, and therefor developing a way of thinking more in line with humans, which makes it easier for them to communicate cross-species. It might also be that only certain members of the species are born with a more human intelligence, and are therefor usually the ones to respond to a summoning. 

Of course, considering that we’ve only really seen a relatively small part of the Naruto universe (and the usual Naruto world map we see even obviously doesn’t depict the whole of the Naruto continent), it is entirely possible that these species live in lands either across the sea or far on the other side of the continent, however, I tend to think the landscape looks too alien to appear on the more RL-looking landscape of Naruto.

What are your summoning headcanons?

sketched a couple of @tsurugamis ocs, Hotaka and Tsubaki