“ALL YOU HAVE TO DO (IS STAY)” WHAT THE FFCCKKCK. WHAT THE HECK. I FEEL VERY MENTALLY STRESSED OUT AND EXHAUSTED JUST THINKING ABOUT THAT SUMMARY. (The things we do to Shikako. :( Jfc it tripped me THe fuck up. This precious child. (I actually would lOVE to read this verse because it sounds like so much SUFFERING. (I swear I love Shikako.)))

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😀

Riiiiiiiiiight?!?!?!

Like. It’s stressful but it’s also kind of fun?

I would really recommend reading Watches ‘verse (unless BBC Sherlock is not your thing, understandable, given the way it’s gone downhill, though this fic was written before said swan dive), because it has the same sort of mental gymnastics that really good time travel fic does but… without time travel.

I think I’d put her fourth reality as a Fire Temple monk, though. Just for that well of calm and serenity because four lives in the possible vicinity of Danzo is TOO MUCH, and I also like the idea of the monks figuring out something’s going on with her but not saying anything until it becomes a danger to her. Because monks, or at least the Fire Temple versions (not those awful Jashin monks), are great. And being able to explore the world of Naruto and ninjutsu and militaristic societies from a culture of pacifism might be a fun exercise in world building/analysis.

A pair of titles, if that’s okay? I Am a Rock (I am an Island), and I am a Rock (On Top of the Sand). They’re both references to songs, Simon and Garfunkel’s “I am a Rock” and Mother Mother’s “Wrecking Ball”, respectively. But I was thinking that they’d make a good set of titles for a comparison between Naruto and Gaara, and dealing with themes of isolation and building on unsteady foundations (except that sand is not unsteady for Gaara)?

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…

I probably should have responded to this earlier, anon, but I think this is one of those cases where there’s not much for me to do in response to this prompt seeing as how you already have an idea for what you want for these fic titles.

Sorry, anon.

Don’t get me wrong, I love these titles and the way you’ve set them up as companion character studies between Naruto and Gaara. But I don’t think I can do anything with them.

It looks like you’ve got the beginning of a fantastic series of fics and I for one would love to read it if you go on and write them, anon. You have a pretty clear idea and you’ve put a lot of thought into it. I don’t think I’m needed at all here.

(If you like, you can try sending in another prompt even though the event is closed, and hopefully I can answer that one.)

“all you have to do is stay” – dos shikako-centric team 7 please?

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… mrgh…

I can’t just do a wanderlust!Team Seven, or a wanderlust!Shikako with the rest of Team Seven kind of waiting patiently for her, because I already wrote those and it’s a little too on the nose, isn’t it? So a more abstract interpretation of the title…

I’ve also already done time travel (to different eras, and for different characters and AUs)…

You know for some reason this title reminds me of Watches ‘verse by bendingsignpost. (It’s a BBC Sherlock fic in which John Watson revolves through four different realities whenever he falls asleep. It makes more sense in the fic, and because it was written/finished before season 3 it’s great)

Because what’s better than Shikako stressed out by the oncoming dangerous future? Shikako stressed out by FOUR oncoming dangerous futures. 😀 (My heart’s beginning to beat faster just thinking of it because I’m so horrified by the thought but also, perversely, delighted).

So I guess I’d borrow a little from Reshuffle the Deck for alternative realities mostly because the only thing I can think of that would be Shikako’s most immediate/visible difference would be her genin team.

So one is canon DoS, in which Shikako is on Team Seven with Naruto and Sasuke. One is probably Team Medic!AU!AU, where she is on Team One with Youbirin Nohara and Jiro Watanabe (because this would be a good outsider/baseline/boring reality, I think).

One would probably be the “I’m going to interfere in everything early on” reality–the Cloud v Hyuuga issue, Danzo and the Uchiha massacre, going full on prodigy–to various degrees of success and would thus lead to the most nerve-wracking reality of being on a team with Kabuto.

And the last one would… well, in Watches ‘verse, John has two “calm” realities to offset the more exciting ones and one of them he doesn’t join the army, so I guess I can mirror that in which she doesn’t become a shinobi. Whether that means she goes to the civilian school or the Fire Temple is kind of up in the air. Hm… probably civilian school because that way she’d stay in Konoha? Then again, having the monks of the Fire Temple basically act as her therapists in an alternate reality (and also a surprisingly strong ally against Akatsuki with the heads up) is very satisfying, too. Danzo can’t touch her here. She’s safe.

So on top of being reincarnated from a different world, Shikako’s got another secret of rotating through different realities. On the one hand, quadruple the amount of things to keep track of, but on the other hand she can use the different realities to plan ahead. Ironically, I now realize that one of the repeated phrases in Watches ‘verse is that John “no longer dreams” and DoS is titled… well… Dreaming of Sunshine… so… O_O

Anyway, here’s the summary:

All You Have To Do (Is Stay)

She wakes up in a different reality, in a different body, in a different life. She goes to sleep thinking she is dreaming–or tries to, anyway.

She wakes up, and wakes up, and wakes up, and realizes she will never dream again.

“Hanabi loses some dignity,” lol. I feel like Hanabi has dignity coming out of her ears, losing a little basically doesn’t hurt her at all. Like, she hates it, desperately, and mourns every little shred of dignity that is cruelly torn from her grasp, but usually gains something a little more useful to her than a little extra dignity in a child who could shame the pope with regards to how dignified she is.

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Oh, yeah, her losing some dignity is actually a good thing in this case. She has, if possible, too much dignity. Has this child ever laughed out loud? No, she’s too dignified, too much pressure from the Hyuuga clan. But you know what? That’s not the way of Konoha.

Also, I kinda like the idea of Hanabi ending up like covered in paint or something and everyone stares at her worried she’s going to explode in anger, but she just starts laughing.

fake fic title – the homework. may it involve iruka somehow.

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I know I’ve already referenced The Hangover over in this fake fic title brainstorm but just the title alone for this one feels more Hangover-esque.

So I’m thinking pre-graduation for Team Ebisu (Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon) and Team Hana (Hanabi, Chiyako, and Ranmaru) on a field trip / survival training / group project of sorts with Iruka-sensei as the bewildered chaperone.

And while they’re not on par with Team Seven, these six are a heady mixture ready to blow. So maybe it’s something like six soon to be genin are sent on a D-rank mission–considering rising tensions and potential war on the horizon, official genin are being used on more critical missions and students are being transitioned into proper mission etiquette, etc. etc.

Anyway, temporary Team Iruka shenanigans. On the one hand, Iruka is very responsible so he shouldn’t lose track of his team (like a certain elite jounin who will not be named), but on the other hand the six students he has on his temporary team are very… strong-willed. And powerful.

Poor Iruka. He probably thought he was done with the chaos when Konoha Twelve graduated. -_-

I’m not sure what D-rank is… I mean catching Tora the cat seems like the obvious choice, but with a Hyuuga and an Aburame and four other to-be-genin, it would be overkill wouldn’t it? Then again, that’s the only D-rank mission iconic enough to be shenanigans-filled so…

Yeah. I mean, its the Inuzuka that really make catching Tora a cakewalk, and since this is without Hana as jounin sensei, it would be enough of a challenge. It’s not as if the Hyuuga train to specifically tell different cats apart, and I feel like Chiyako’s hives are a little more combat specialized than tracking specialized. I mean, still some tracking because kikaichu, but not as good as Shino.

So catching Tora. This damn cat has gotten especially wily over the years and its not like Konoha bystanders are going to help temporary Team Iruka with it (its a right of passage, and no one else wants to touch that hell cat) no matter how fond of Iruka-sensei everyone is.

I don’t know what else specifically I want from this story. So here’s a summary to finish things off:

The Homework

Team Iruka receive the mission to find Tora the cat with the biggest stakes on the line:

No, not impressing the Fire Lady, passing the class!

(Or, Konohamaru accidentally spends a day with his uncle, Moegi fights her fears, Udon learns more about himself, Ranmaru makes a new friend, Hanabi loses some dignity, Chiyako takes a chance, and Iruka-sensei can’t catch a break.)

Ahh! Your last post was so sad! Is Haru watching over them? Was she able to move on?

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Thanks! Sad is what I was going for (sad seems to be what I go for a lot…) 😀

I think Haru was very careful to make sure she wouldn’t end up a ghost–there’s a reason why she was so surprisingly successful/got away with so much in life, and that’s because she was one of the most (if not, the most) powerful medium in Japan. Hikaru’s ability, while stronger than her grandfather’s hazy sight, was still passive and so there’s no guarantee that someone would be there to help her move on if she died.

She might have done a final ghostly goodbye, but she didn’t linger on for too long. Also, seeing as how she dies because of Kira, she wouldn’t want to stay around a shinigami (as human she didn’t like it, much less as a ghost.)

Fic title: The Bustle In A House

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I had to google this to figure out what it was a reference to because despite my love of the written word, English was my least favorite class in school. Then again, Emily Dickinson wasn’t covered in my English class anyway so…

The poem by Emily Dickinson of the prompted title is about a family immediately after the death of a loved one who still have to keep going–keep on doing their every day actions, or do the funeral arrangements for said loved one–before they can properly break down and grieve.

… you didn’t specify a fandom or characters or anything, newyn1, and I know most of my followers are here because of my DoS stuff and that I’ve also specifically seen your username over @dosbysilverqueen​, but I kinda feel like this would fit better in a different fandom.

I mean, the only thing I can think of in a DoS would be Shikako’s steady but inevitable immortality in which she outlives all of her family members because of her burgeoning godhood. And like, at first she doesn’t think much of it–outliving her parents is sad but not surprising. Outliving Shikamaru is kind of like just a flip of a coin statistics game, and women of Asian descent tend to have longer lifespans than men of Asian descent anyway.

Except maybe there’s the added she’s not aging as quickly as everyone else. She still looks in her twenties when Shikamaru looks in his forties (or something like that). At some point, Kino-chan starts to look older than her.

And then she really realizes it when Kino-chan dies before she does–he lived as peaceful and safe a life as a shinobi possibly could and yet–or when she starts to be confused for Shikadai’s cousin instead of his aunt, etc. etc.

So it’d be about Shikako coping with outliving and having to grieve for her family. Being the one to grieve because, eventually, she’s the only one left to do so. But then that’s something that I’d probably throw in along with these other prompts of Shikako’s immortality/godhood so…

My alternative fandom take on it would probably be in my Hikaru no Go/Death Note ‘verse (En)Closure with a similar sort of set up. Not because of godhood, though.

So Hikaru’s POV when his grandfather dies, when Sai asks Haru to help him move on, and then when Haru dies because of Kira. And the thing is, because it’s Hikaru and Hikaru no Go, of course he would be playing go. His grandfather dies and he plays go, because even though it’s because of Sai that he started playing, he never would have met Sai if it weren’t for his grandfather’s love for the game.

So at his grandfather’s memorial service, maybe he gets recognized as a professional go player by his grandfather’s friends–who are all amateurs but passionate–and they pester him into playing with them and they do a whole bout of “when Heihachi was younger” stories. Hikaru’s reputation as a troublemaker go player is not entirely new.

Hikaru is older when Sai moves on (because having two seers makes the ghost stay longer) and Sai chooses to move on, so he doesn’t go into a downward spiral like in canon, but it’s still something to mourn and he does fight with Haru about it here and while they do stop fighting quickly enough, probably they don’t properly make up with each other until they play a game of go. Even though Haru is awful at it.

And maybe they official shut down the Netgo account (which Haru also did for Sai since it doesn’t take a genius to put a stone where he points) and while they don’t disclose who Sai was they do inform the greater go world that he has passed on. I don’t know.

After Haru dies, because of Kira, Hikaru is hollowed out. Because she and Sai were his best friends and the only reason why he didn’t spiral after Sai’s death was because of her. But now it’s just him who knows the truth. He probably does take some time off, trying to see if he can find her ghost (because that’s what tied them together, the ability to see ghosts, but no matter where he looks he can’t find her).

And he comes back to the Institute where Kuwabara-Honinbou challenges him to a game (just like how the story between him and Haru start) and they both mourn for her together because even though she wasn’t part of the go world, she was part of their world. And also no grandparent should have to outlive their grandchild.

(No summary, sorry, but two in one brainstorm so it evens out?)

shikaara, “call on your angels”

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Anon, this was one of the more difficult yet compelling prompts I have received during this event. It’s such a seemingly simple phrase and yet evokes such specific imagery that I could not figure out what to do for a good three days. Like a nice mental puzzle I could ponder on while things got slow at work.

Angels, anon. Angels! Unless you meant the Charlie’s Angels franchise, then there’s only really one other reference that could be. And it’s not all that compatible with the culture of the Naruto world, so I know the fake fic has to be either an AU of some sort and/or a metaphorical “angels.”

And the Shikaara aspect! I will be the first to admit I am a Shikaara shipper, anon, but it’s a surprisingly tangling part of this prompt. In order to stay… not in character, but accurately relative to each other… Shikako and Gaara have to be from different places. Whether that be countries as in canon or in various AUs–schools, teams, departments, etc–and in my head I’m just like:

Are they enemies that can summon and battle each other with angels? Is one of them the guardian angel of the other and gets frequently summoned to do battle on their behalf? Why am I thinking about battling angels? I mean, actual legit angels are frightening flaming wheels of millions of eyes so that might be cool and horrifying to watch do battle. Wait. What?

Then I thought, hm, what about that reverse/remix of Stories of Ancient Gods–aka, instead of Final Fantasy VII being the distant past of DoS, DoS is the distant past of FFVII. Shikako’s Gelel stone means she can be summoned in the future to help stop Sephiroth/Jenova, whereas the bijuu are the WEAPONs and the jinchuuriki their humanoid avatars. But then that kind of got away from me and it just didn’t sit right.

And then I considered something like the Inuyasha-esque fusion–fully aware of the irony–but with Gelel instead? Like canon!Suna people are in the Gelel Empire and Shikako travels back in time to that era while researching the Dead Wastes and it’s Shikako displaced in time. Which led me to a slightly tweaked version that became Atlantis: The Lost Empire featuring Milo!Shikako and Kida!Gaara–and the rest of Konoha Twelve as the crew of misfits.

So… yeah. An AtlantisxDoS fusion… Never mind that I’m pretty sure Uzushio is the Naruto world equivalent of Atlantis… anyway.

Call On Your Angels

Shikako and her crew of destructive but lovable misfits brave the Dead Wastes in search of the Lost Empire of Gelel.

Action! Adventure! Romance! Betrayal?

I think, instead of Shikako being conscripted onto the crew and being caught off guard when their mercenary ways are revealed, there’s a bit of Ocean’s Eleven mixed into it? Or Inception.

Like, Haido (Orochimaru?) drops major funds on Shikako’s research and she goes and recruits her friends because THIS IS A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY, GUYS, COME ON. And, well, even if it turns out to be looking at a bunch of rocks that is a lot of money and they could use  a distraction etc. etc.

Except, you know, instead of rocks it’s an entire slowly dying nation because the secret behind the Gelel stones have been forgotten.

Like in Atlantis, Haido/Orochimaru does also hire an entire division of soldiers (nameless thugs with either Temujin or Kabuto as second in command) who do the whole “seize the power crystals/princess and auction the livelihood of the nation off to the highest bidder” thing. But I mean. A bunch of nameless thugs versus Konoha Twelve? Come on.

Sorry anon, I know it doesn’t really match the title, but I just really love that movie and this fusion was the only thing that even vaguely satisfied the constant poking and prodding at your prompt.

apart from shikako and tetsuki, who do you think would be in qprs in the dos verse (or any of your aus) i also agree with the qpp you chose for shikako and i think it would work in an au not decorated with daily death or alive situations. maybe shikako would be in a qpr with both ino and sasuke but ino and sasuke themselves are just friends (or at least until they get to know each other better) if she considered it. (my second choices for shikako’s qpp was essentially naruto/gaara because (1/2)

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maybe not necessarily in dos canon, but in your aus focusing on their relationships, it is easy to interpret their relationship as “more than friendship, but not less than romantic, just something different” (and there i would talk about alterous attraction but i haven’t really explored that term myself a lot more) (2/2)

Oh! I did not know about the term alterous, but I think that’s how I interpret Shikaara–as an ambiguous mix between platonic and romantic. Of course, not in canon but in a canon adjacent AU such as Dreaming of S(omething).

I think Naruto and Shikako are very platonic. Even in my post-series Waking Up Starstruck (which is my attempt to do a Narukako ship) it’s still not all that romantic. And not even because of my interpretation of Shikako as aro/demi, but because I cannot for the life of me understand Naruto’s character. He and I just are not simpatico. :/ I love him but I do not understand him. I don’t know if they would even have a QPR or maintain their less intense friendship.

Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship is too steeped in canon for me to disentangle (SasuNaru was one of my “Baby’s First Ships”) so I don’t know if they would have a QPR or a romantic relationship… But I do think Naruto and Haku would have a fantastic QPR in a canon adjacent AU, so at least I know him that much, right?

Let’s see, who else…

As Ino’s co-spouses, Sakura and Sai are not romantic with each other, but they do develop a sweet QPR which is very nice for their triad marriage.

I imagine Team Gai are not romantically interested in each other, but they are the closest thing they all have to family which would easily translate to QPRs. Especially when they’re older and their personalities have matured.

Actually, yeah, if I’m not restricting myself to canon. Then in a canon adjacent AU, that Kiba+Shikako QPR would definitely exist.

Oh, in the Team Medic!AU (Team One with Sakura, Youbirin, and Jiro passed with a combat medic jounin sensei)–or, at least, the How To Adult Properly series based on it–Team One definitely have QPR because they have no boundaries with each other.

I don’t know who else, this is a big question. There are so many characters that’s like an infinite number of combinations so…

But I do appreciate your question, so thanks for asking, anon 🙂