!!! im also aromantic and in the ace-spectrum and when SQ said that romance was not a thing that’s going to happen in DOS smh i got really happy, i’ve gotten so attached to shikako that i actually headcanon her as aromantic as well and would rather see her in queerplatonic relationships rather than romantic ones (though i can see why the shipping thread in the forums is lively) who do you think would shikako be QPRs with?

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I actually quite appreciate that there isn’t any romance in DoS. Which might sound off considering a lot of my DoS fanfic does revolve around various ships, but I’m relieved that canon DoS doesn’t.

My interpretation of Shikako in canon is also aromantic–though for shipping/fic writing purposes I tend to extend that to demi-romantic. Then again, considering how mild my writing expression of romance is, all of my shipping fic could be interpreted as queerplatonic? But I understand what you’re saying (my Trailblazer character Tetsuki is qpp with Ryohei Sasagawa) so let’s see…

I think Shikako and Ino are one step away from a canonical QPR… but it’s one of those “in a kinder world” sort of situation. Even without the oncoming war, both of them (or, at least, Ino does) have clan responsibilities, and I do think Ino is a romantic at heart. She would want a romantic relationship (not necessarily with Shikako, per se) and while I know QPRs aren’t incompatible with romantic relationships, that’s a lot of people to juggle since I do really quite like the triad of Sakura/Ino/Sai (which is at least 2/3 canonical for Naruto and could very well be completely canonical in DoS?) 

Alternatively the only other character who I think Shikako is closest to a canonical QPR with is Sasuke. But the problem with that is I cannot help but headcanon that Sasuke is in love with Shikako most likely romantically. So while it’s platonic on Shikako’s end, it’s probably romantic on Sasuke’s, and I don’t think she’d be comfortable with deepening their friendship into a QPR for fear of breaking Sasuke’s heart by not being able to reciprocate his romantic feelings.

Who else… I don’t know. I would have considered Kiba before but not particularly recently and not more than Ino and Sasuke… Yeah. Those are the most canonical potential QPRs.

this is weird but i enjoy reading any dos au by you, even if i don’t ship the ship (if it’s about a ship thing) but enjoy the general stuff too!! my favorite au so far is the friendship is a mutual con verse!!

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It’s not weird at all–or if it is, then I must be weird for being flattered! It’s one of those “how much do writers write for themselves or because of their readers” matters: A lot of my readers are here because of my DoS stuff, so they prompt more DoS stuff so I generate more and its a very cyclical, sustained process. If there were less prompts for DoS then I’d probably stray into other fandoms more often or work on some of my original fic–not because I enjoy those more than DoS stuff, but because I have a problem focusing and committing to any one thing at a time unless prompted. 

Anyway.

Thanks, anon! I’m glad you like my brainstorms 🙂 When it comes to ships I think I enjoy them more as the character equivalent of crossovers/fusions than as actual romantic relationships. So more of a “how do these two characters get along” than a “I want these two characters to smooch.” Whether that’s because I’m aro-ace or because I love world-building and “ship-building” is a step away from that, I’m not sure…

Friendship is a (Mutual) Con ‘verse is heavily based on the show Leverage which I cannot recommend more (it’s on both Netflix and Hulu) 

Fake Fic: Bridge Over Troubled Water – Stars Also Dream

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Hm… this has to be an alternate!POV of Stars Also Dream or a prequel of it. Outside!POV of young Jedi!Yoshino, probably back and forth between Bant and Obi-Wan.

I think maybe Bant’s reluctance/pickiness about her padawan has always been a point of contention between her and Obi-Wan. Especially since he almost aged out of padawan-hood, but also because he stepped up and took on Anakin even though he had only just recently become a knight himself.

There are other canonical points of contention in their friendship beside that (Obi-Wan possibly being indirectly responsible for her first master’s death) but I wonder how much Bant knew about the future that was coming.

Did she know that Anakin would lead to the downfall of the Jedi? Did she know that Obi-Wan would be indirectly responsible for an even greater tragedy than just Master Tahl? Did she know that, one day, far in the future Obi-Wan and Yoshino would be two of the last few Jedi in existence? That Obi-Wan would get to see her padawan as an adult, as a knight, as someone who had grown beyond Bant’s own reach while Bant herself only gets Yoshino for a few scant years. How unfair that Obi-Wan and Anakin get over a decade and ruin it for everyone else.

Alternatively, maybe Obi-Wan has visions about Yoshino. And because he can’t comprehend the context–of a Yoshino crash landed on a hidden planet post Order 66 and rise of Darth Vader–all he sees is Bant’s little, sweet faced padawan as an adult covered in blood and without a lightsaber.

Are both Bant and Obi-Wan suspicious of the others’ padawan?

And while Yoshino was starstruck by The Hero With No Fear, I wonder if Anakin might have also gotten Force feelings from Yoshino during their one meeting. She’s not going to be his downfall, but he can’t destroy her.

Which he shrugs off because, first of all, why would he even try to destroy this tiny padawan (ahahaha… haha… goddamnit Anakin), second of all, how could said tiny padawan possibly withstand the full power/ability of Anakin?

Basically, a bunch of criss-crossing suspicions in the not-really-but-kinda Jedi family of Bant and Obi-Wan as siblings and Yoshino and Anakin as cousins.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Bant stands on the edge of loss, looking down. Anakin takes, uncaring. Obi-Wan suspects the wrong people. And Yoshino doesn’t know yet that she can lose everything.

I don’t know how the timing of Ahsoka as Anakin’s padawan would match up in all this. Then again, she and Yoshino might have been initiates at the same time so… 

!!!!! Feel free to ignore this but none of my friends or siblings read DoS and I just!!!! This latest chapter!! My poor baby Shikako!!! She needs warmth and hugs and hot chocolate please.

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OMG, tell me about it, I love reading DoS but I also get secondhand stressed out. Shikako! Just… just stay put for a little bit, please. Just. Have another spa day with Ino, please. I am so concerned. So concerned.

Have you checked out the We’re all just Dreaming of Sunshine forum? Everyone can gather and be worried for Shikako together 🙂

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Hi anon, welcome! 🙂 Chapter 131 is pretty compelling isn’t it?

I do take prompts here (though less frequently outside of a specific ask box event) but not really like that. Hm… how do I put it… it’s more like AUs or canon divergence or hypothetical futures. I’m not really much one for companion pieces especially not when they’re meant to be canonical but outside!POV.

Mostly because I’m hesitant to do anything very close to canon, but also because my flights of fancy tend toward world building and outside!POV in a canon setting doesn’t give much opportunity for that.

Although, I’m sure there have already been some ficlets cropping up in the forum, so I’d recommend checking that out. Or Heliocentrism which is the community for DoS related fic.

as for a title how about something like: You can only hold a smile for so long (after that it’s just teeth)

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Monster Smiles (blood in my teeth)

Loyalty, teamwork, and the Will of Fire–all just pretty words to hide the truth:

The foundation of Konoha’s strength is child soldiers.

And some children are stronger than others.

Mashing up your title offerings since they’re both kind of long but I did like their vibes. So for your prompt in which child genius shinobi reluctantly (or sarcastically?) say “I require an adult” I’m thinking an anthology of various adults of the Naruto world during their time as frighteningly deadly children.

And I know you suggested Kakashi, Itachi, and Tenzo, but technically–seeing as how average graduation age is twelve (in peacetime, nine(?) during war)–all shinobi were child soldiers at some point.

I’d definitely want a scene of basically the Worst Night of Young Shizune’s Life. Because even though she can kill or heal a person in over a dozen ways, life outside of Konoha with Tsunade has a lot less to do with fighting or healing and more to do with finding her shishou in sleazy bars or avoiding debt collectors. Which is made more difficult when, according to civilian standards, she is too young to enter either establishments.

I imagine there’s a lot of Tsunade drunken shenanigans and Shizune having to outmaneuver these DUMB CIVILIAN LAWS and she ends up maybe breaking up an illegal animal fighting ring? And she finds TonTon who was SUPPOSED to be the reward for two dogs (bears?) but is now Shizune’s pet. Basically, the story of why the honorable Godaime Hokage and her first apprentice are banned from one city in particular for eternity.

I would like a section for… aw, I’m already making myself sad… Aoba. Because can you imagine how much of a chatterbox Gossip King Aoba must have been as a child? Just. The most talkative child, so nosy and curious and NO AOBA DON’T TOUCH THAT. (He probably had a saint of a jounin sensei, let’s be real.)

I think maybe his path to Cryptography started early on. He’d play the part of lost child to infiltrate the place, memorize the layout and guard rotations of the place, and for all that he’s annoying he’s also weirdly endearing? Aaaaand then it turns out he’s the vanguard for the REAL mission which may or may not include burglary at the least all the way up to assassination.

Hm… who else would I want to do…

I have a vague horrific idea about Ibiki’s first encounter with torture. He is heartbreakingly young and the last living member of his team but he keeps quiet, keeps his village safe, and manages to gain some counterintelligence while escaping by the skin of his teeth. He crawls his way back to Konoha/the nearest war outpost (because this is probably wartime right?) and is just like. Super professional but bleeding out “I need to speak to the commanding officer,” aka an adult. And everyone’s trying to usher him to the healing tent and he’s just like, no way I have to give a report, my team died and I got tortured for a week, I can handle a few more hours of dying this information is important.

Uh. But yeah, that’d be it. Riding that line between childhood hijinks and the dawning horror of what shinobi childhoods are actually like. 😀

are you still doing the fake fic challenge? if so, how about dos shikako/sasuke, “we were the kings and queens of promise”?? thanks!

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Here’s the thing, anon: I cannot help but automatically relate that song to the Chronicles of Narnia.

Literally, cannot unstick that connection in my brain. It’s on my Once Then Always fanmix for a reason.

So this prompt is definitely Team Seven in Narnia fulfilling the prophecy to overthrow the White Witch. I already touched on it a little over here but I suppose I could go in more depth about this.

Then again, that’d just be me rehashing Once Then Always but with DoS Team Seven instead of the Lost Kids from Descendants and at that point it’s just a matter of tweaking minor details to better match Team Seven, how do they get to Narnia, who (if anyone) would be the betrayer for power, what are their presents from Father Christmas (if any), who gets to be Magnificent vs Gentle vs Just vs Valiant (the answer to that is, in this order, Shikako, Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto) etc. etc.

And that’s kinda… tedious.

Alternatively, the title does invoke King Arthur vibes in the sense that in the hour of the Elemental Nations’ greatest need they will return. Which had also been briefly touched on here.

I guess I can tweak that into BBC Merlin fusion/crossover? Except that chakra and ninjutsu are basically magic and that would get pretty problematic quite easily. And how would that even–Sasuke as Arthur and Shikako as Merlin? But that doesn’t really work?

Um…

Sorry, anon. I know this took me a while to get to and I didn’t even fill it properly :/

(I know I said the ask box is closed for this particular event, but if you want to send in a different prompt and hopefully I can do that one justice. No cheating, everyone else, just this one anon. The event is still closed.)

an important question about the gems!! since in the canon su, singing is a part of expressing their… feelings? (or something like that) and they actually do it irl – so does that mean tourmaline, obsidian, and naruto (and maybe kakashi) would be singing a lot? (for the whole day i couldn’t keep my head off the two SU openings reimagined as dos!su au smh)

jacksgreysonLeave a comment

Hm… I think that’s more of a medium thing–in that, music and singing is frequently included in children’s cartoon, whereas a written fic could just do these are character thoughts directly–and a SU specific thing because Steven was raised by his rockstar dad.

I mean, you could very well imagine the gem-ified Team Seven singing if you like, but I don’t know how I would write that in a fic without it getting cheesy.

“You are blood and earth, not theory and chalk.” In reference to sealing in the naruto-verse (preferably dos)

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blood and earth (not theory and chalk)

Once they dared to rewrite the universe, but their fires have long gone cold, their legacy turned to dust.

Shikako walks in the footsteps of titans and listens to their echoes.

Sorry, did you mean ALL of my Uzushio feelings?

I have so many Uzushio feelings, wildtabbykat, so many. And the barest traces of fuinjutsu is all we have left of Uzushio. An entire culture that thrived and believed in the impossible but got killed off so ignobly. T_T All my Uzushio feels.

Aaaaanyway, that’s what this is about. Because in my head the journey of fuinjutsu MUST include Uzushio. Either the beginning–when some enterprising Uzushio citizen first even fathomed the possibility of translating their sense of will and imagination into reality–or the climactic middle–Uzushio striving for sustainable peace or reaching too far (but how far can be too far considering the Uzumaki are canonically allied with the Shinigami?) and being struck down for their hubris.

And Konoha as it’s end: the sporadic existences of fuinjutsu masters impressive only when Uzushio has been forgotten (in Uzushio, seals were taught alongside letters and numbers, as vital to understanding the world as language and science. In Uzushio fuinjutsu mastery was as common and expected as fluency in the native language. [Maybe I am over-romanticizing Uzushio. But you can pry this unfounded love for a dead fictional civilization out of my weak, squishy, un-moisturized hands.])

Surprisingly, despite the fact that it’s completely feasible and canonically possible for Shikako to travel in time and see Uzushio in all its not destroyed glory, I think this would be a more traditional pilgrimage. Learning about Uzushio via epistolary and archaeological methods.

If they were aiming for sustainable peace decades before the rest of the world considered it, then I wonder if this would help with Shikako’s understandable PTSD. She originally goes as a research trip for fuinjutsu, obviously, but she learns more. About their way of life, their culture, their ideals and morals. How they soared and why they fell.

Closure for herself and Uzushio.

All my feels T_T

in the dc!dos au, would there be an organization that’s the equivalent to justice league of some sort?

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Hm… not any time soon. Insuperable would be from when the three of them first start off as heroes, taking on the scourge of Konoha. And it’d be very Konoha centric if all three of them are on the Justice League.

There are heroes in other cities (and the other Amazon bijuu champions disperse there as well) but there aren’t really many crises that go international…

Within Konoha there eventually develops a more official organization of the heroes–the way Batman goes from a single person into the Bat Family into Batman Inc. in the comics–so there’s something like that, yes.

how would tourmaline feel about kyuubi? would it be in the same light as DOS? (yknow making her powerless, and chakra sensitivity and what not) and would naruto have a human friend that would be trained by tourmaline/obsidian/kakashi in a “do it for her” fashion?

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Tourmaline!Shikako doesn’t have the same background with the Kyuubi as DoS!Shikako does, so mostly she’s just very confused by that weird glow in Naruto’s gemstone. Given her powers and her specialty, she make be able to sense the Kyuubi within his gemstone, but until Sasuke makes the connection between that ominous energy and the horrific forces that caused Home World to flee, she doesn’t know what it is.

Arguably, Kakashi is the human that trains himself to protect Naruto.

That being said, given the bijuu are Earth phenomenon, and humans are also Earth phenomenon the Konoha Twelve may have abilities of their own to help them fight though they aren’t nearly as powerful as their DoS versions. Also, I think they’re friends with Naruto. It’s probably because of the size of Beach City and the fact that he isn’t in school for some reason, but Steven seems awfully isolated. Naruto–raised only by Kakashi and his millions of dogs–is definitely enrolled in school.