#Whirlpool village

[numbuh-7-knd]

Random Naruto AU musings/fanfic ideas incoming:

OK so, I was listening to Naruto theme songs in my room via speaker to drown out the sounds of my mother/housemate having a private appointment downstairs via zoom. (As you do)

And I started to think of how Asuma's death kind of represented a turning point where the konaha 12 are not kids anymore, things are getting serious, main ensemble members are drying, ect.

And I thought, the other thing like that in the original series was the death of the third homage. Exept even that didn't hit as hard because he was old and stuff. Then I realized one big opportunity lost with his death: the person was likely to maybe someday tell Naruto the truth of his parents, especially since he's the one who made it classified in the first place.

Here's where the AU comes in: I was trying to think of scenarios in which the third would have allowed Naruto to know about his parents during the time before the thirds death, and had a thought: there's a bunch of fics out there of Wave having some connection to hidden Whirlpool village, Uzushio, either neighbors or even that they were protected by/allied with Uzushio before the village destruction.

So what if, during the wave arc, Tazuna and the other villagers reacted when they heard Naruto's last name, being overjoyed to hear that at least one Uzumaki survived. Being hush hush about it because they don't want Gato to know because having an Uzumaki present threatens his standing.

Eventually they get Naruto alone with some of the older villagers who express their relief and exitment that there are still surviving Uzumaki after the destruction of Uzushio.

Naruto is so confused, poor kid. These old people are almost acting like he's some long lost relative or something, something about his last name, the destruction of some place called Uzushio? And what's this about asking about his family? Are all these old people senile and mistaking him for someone else?

The villagers confirm his last name is Uzumaki, and that they are talking about his clans home village of Uzushio, which was destroyed during the last war. What do you mean you've never heard of it? Is your ancestral homeland surely your parents would have mentioned it.

And then they learn that he's an orphan left all alone in the world, nothing of his family save his name and the symbol on his back. He tries so suggest that maybe he's not related to those Uzumaki, only to be rebuffed by a team of geriatrics, each pointing out some innocuous feature they swear is an Uzumaki trait, from his speech pattern and large amount of Chakra, to his ears and his chin.

By the end a group of Wave villagers old enough to remember Uzushio in its prime have mentally adopted Naruto and started telling him stories of Uzushio and the Uzumaki Clan, even trying to determine who he might be related to.

Eventually an old woman remembers a friend of hers, who's daughter was sent away to Konoha years before the attack, to be a Konoha ninja. they figure that must have been his mother, and naruto puts together that he was born around the same time as the nine tails attack of the village and they come to the conclusion that his mother probably died in the attack, weakened from childbirth, maybe even dying to protect her baby, and that he must not have had a dad in the picture for him not to be claimed afterwards.

Maybe they even introduce him to a village elder who's actually an Uzumaki and married into Wave decades ago, even long before the attack, and as she took her husband's name and wasn't a ninja, no one caught on. Maybe it Turns out to be his great aunt or something.

I'm imaging the bridge being named something representing the return of the Uzumaki clan.

Also, when the missions over and is time to return to Konoha, the entire village of Wave tries to fight for custody, especially his Great Aunt, who insists on accompanying them back to Konoha to interrogate the Hokage as to her grand nephew's treatment.

Maybe his newly found great aunt or distant cousin decides to move to Konoha, maybe with a bunch of her kids and grandkids giving Naruto a bunch of cousins. Or maybe he just gains a single elderly Uzumaki refugee from Wave.

I feel like Sasuke would be pretty mad/offended on narutos behalf over having the knowledge of his family hidden from him, since at least Sasuke has his memories and his clans belongings.

It'd be pretty funny if however many Uzumakis end up in the village, they all more or less adopt Sasuke as well as Naruto.

[nardo-headcanons]

that music headcanon question and post was genius! can you do that for the rest of the villages pretty pleaseee 🩵

oh my god, that was quick lmao i just had to do it. two minutes after posting, goddamn. here's a music headcanon i have for you, anon.

tagging @danceofthexdragons because she was the one who made the initial request c:

Music In The Narutoverse

I think in Kirigakure, most music that can be heard originates from either the union of fishermen or monks, as many cultures have been. wiped out due to their ongoing political unrest. As for the fishermen, some popular instruments are steel drums, which can sound like this or like this. Gamelans are often played near the temples up high in the mountains, the wind carries their sound across the village. Radios aren't really used.

Iwagakure's traditional music is very percussion heavy, using various kinds of drums and gongs. They have fallen in love with the guzheng, aka the moon guitar. Another instrument originating from there is the erhu, which Kirigakure citizens also really enjoy listening to and consider a high class/fancy instrument. These are the kind of songs Iwagakure ninja can hear in their radio, Onoki's favorite is this one. High up in the mountains, sounds like these can be heard. These horns are used to communicate between different valleys.

As a stronghold of trade, Kumogakure's music has been shaped by many cultural influences. One of the more traditional instruments in Kumogakure is the cowbell/agogo bell. Kumo citizens enjoy music from all across the shinobi world, including songs in foreign languages. As a rather technologically advanced village, it is not uncommon to hear electric guitars and synthesizers be used in their music. Here are some songs I think could be heard on the Kumo radio. As for Killer Bee, here are some of his faves.

In Uzushiogakure, an instrument that could often be heard in traditional music is the anklung, as well as the t'rung. Music was often performed for the whole village, and everyone was invited.

As for many western instruments, those have originated in the Country Of Knights. This country was only mentioned in the movies, but for the sake of it, I will consider it canon as well. While their traditional music sounded somewhat like this, sounds like these here weren't uncommon as well. It was popularized by immigrants from the country of knights.

As stated before, Madara Uchiha was a skilled pianist, his sharingan allowed him to read sheet music while playing, here are some of the pieces he played. Madara often played this piece for his siblings to make them laugh.

[spacealligator]

Uzushiokagure Headcanons

I did a similar post about Kiri and a anon ask got me thinking about making one for Uzushio too! Here are some world building headcannons for Uzushiogakure:

Geography

Uzushio is located in a place with high temperatures and high humidity

likely to be hit with tropical storms, hurricanes, monsons

constant singing of the cicadas as if it's always summer

scorching sun coupled with heavy rain that doesn’t appease the heat

there are no defined seasons, it’s always hot, sunny and rainy

the seas around Uzushio are very hard do navigate, it makes it hard to get to them

the island is located close to the forests of Fire Country coast, so they also have lush green vegetation in Uzushio

Architecture

houses have to be built to withstand recurring natural disasters

subterranean shelters for the tornados, though those also get flooded during the storms sometimes

heavy building materials like stone and concrete instead of wood for example, to withstand the storms

stone also helps with cooling the temperature inside the houses

streets are not paved in anyway to help with drainage, so it's nostly grass and dirt

circular and rounded buildings as a reference to the whirpool also help them withstand the strong winds

People (the Uzumaki Clan)

big chakra reserves, great lifeforce, a lot of energy, long lifespans

they are like that because they are so close in lineage to the Sage of Six Paths

during the warring states era the Uzumaki were known as the people close to the heavens and blessed by the gods

Uzumakis are mostly extroverts and fiery, like Naruto, Kushina and Karin, but Uzumakis like Mito and Nagato, that don’t follow most stereotypes still have that fire burning inside them, they won’t settle, they know what they want, are strongwilled, strongheaded, a bit stubborn and passionate, so really, it’s not because they aren’t loud mouths that they aren’t Uzumakis where it matters

big sense of community and family

even after the massacre of Uzushio, Uzumakis tried to flee together and stick together, building their communities and helping each other wherever they went

Religion & Spirituality

since they have so much chakra and are so close to the gods and the Sage of Six Paths, they're deeply religious people

tons of temples and shrines and little altars spread around the city for a variety of gods

there are small altars inside people's homes too

a lot of rituals bring the Uzushio people together, there are seasonal festivals, parties in honor of the gods, start of harvest season banquets, offerings, weekly meetings on the temple, there are several recurring events linked to temples and gods that make up for most of their social lives

because of that the city is always decorated for some sort of festivities, it’s always very bright and colorful, and even if someone doesn't worship that particular divinity or is not involved in that event, they will still go to the event and celebrate together

Economy

since they're so isolated from a geographical standpoint, trade is not big on the region

no merchant marine or trade routes established with other countries

very closed economy, meaning they had to become self sustained

a lot of farmers between them, since the climate and soil favors tropical vegetation

even if it’s an island, their economy doesn’t revolve around fishing only, because the Uzumakis like their meat, so they also have a lot of cattle, mainly pigs, goats and chicken

they are hired by different villages and people at a very expensive price because their shinobi are very skilled, and an Uzumaki shinobi is never on low demand

shinobi activity is what drives the city's economy

in second comes money from services linked to the temples such as talismans, exorcisms, blessings, burials and others

the money from shinobi missions are reverted to the civillians too, but in general there are no conflict between what civillians want and what shinobis want

Politics

the Uzukage is always chosen by combat, they must be the strongest shinobi in the village at any given time

democratic system of sorts, since at any time anyone can challenge the Uzukage, because they should be able to hold his own, otherwise, they weren't fit to rule the village any way

the challenge is always public, always in form of a battle and always needs to be accepted or you lose by default

there are no main families or branch members like the Hyugas have, the Uzumaki stand in equal footing with each other

but of course there are different groups and parties, with people trying to connect themselves with a poweful shinobi, hoping for them to achieve the position of Uzukage and do their wish

for example, when Uzushio alligned themselves with Konoha there were people in favor and against it, at the time Mito was the second strongest shinobi in Uzushio, so she chose to help strengthen the bond by marrying Hashirama

local politics are not based on blood or lineage, only in power and political opinions

regarding international affairs, Uzushio spent a lot of time defending themselves from attackers

it's mostly an easy thing for them, since Uzumakis are strong and the way to Uzushio is long and hard but there are always constant ruckus on the borders

Culture

wear a lot of traditional clothing due to their religious traditions

people refer to others by their first name, since most of the population comes from the Uzumaki clan, and also because everybody is close and not very shy

they have great handwriting from practicing writing seals and talismans so much

very wary of spirits and respectful of the desires of the land and its creatures

not afraid of ghosts, or the dark, or haunted houses, they are very serious about leading a life in harmony with all the forces at play, including spiritual ones

big on oral tradition and not so much on the written records because: first everybody knows stuff, knowledge sharing is common and encouraged, and second, the elders and professors would live very long, so they can teach the youth themselves, instead of writing it for posterity, and that’s why after Uzushio was attacked, a lot of knowledge was lost

a lot of nursery rhymes, lullabies, supersticions, old wives' tales and popular sayings are passed down to the new generations

they also read cards, stones, tea leaves, stars, palm lines, whatever there is to draw their luck on

big eaters, all that chakra and boundless energy means they need a lot of food to fuel themselves

their cuisine is all about abundance, a lot of protein and fat, always a big volume of food, a lot of seasoning, spices, condiments, and such, loud flavors

they don't focus on veggies, fruits and baking as much as i meat, warm dishes, broth, and of course lamen

they put a lot of meaning and importance in getting together for a meal, it's a core moment for the familiar and comunal lives

the city closes during lunch so everybody can go back home to have lunch with their families and/or friends and be together in quality time

festivals often have banquets or traditional dishes linked to them, along with competitions for the biggest eater, and Uzumaki are very competitive

they're also big in games: card games, mahjong, shogi, go, dominos, bocce, drinking games and so on

there are also games that are linked with specific festivals and times of the year

they're great drinkers because of their big chakra reserves

Shinobi World

shamanism and shinobi activities blur, priests and priestesses make for great shinobi and vice versa

most of the shinobi are sensors, even some civillians are sensors

specialized in sealing

focused on research knowledge about minor gods and yokais, that's why they have things like the reaper death seal and can summon shinigamis and spiritual beings

they hunt for yokais like goddamn pokemon, and the tailed beasts were just an extention of that

when Hashirama sealed Kurama in Mito, the sealing of tailed beasts were already under research by the Uzumakis and she was the one who volunteered for it, they just needed someone like Hashirama, the god of shinobi to activate the seal

[uzumakichcined]

the only way for Karin to be a mom is with test tube children. no one can convince me otherwise

she really said "repopulate my clan? alright, but I'm doing it my way"

proceeds to create a near army of uzumakis from splicing and mixing her own DNA in various combinations and possibly from donations to add genetic diversity but still keep them as mainly uzumaki as possible

[crispyeagleenthusiast]

Whirlpool W11158455 Dryer Overlay | HnKParts

[hnkparts]

Whirlpool WPW10285180 Dishwasher Control Electronic | HnKParts

[bamboozledbird]

𝕚𝕗 𝕚 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕚 𝕨𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 // stiles stilinski imagine

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, fem!reader, Theo Raeken, Lydia Martin, Scott McCall Pairing(s): Stiles x fem!reader, Stiles x you (no use of y/n), Theo x fem!reader, Stiles x ofc Word Count: 7k (bbygurl got away from me oops) Tags: Hurt/a little, itty bit of comfort, angst is my lifeblood i fear, let's play a game of who can find all the noah kahan lyrics Warnings: Underage drinking/drug use (at least in america rip, they're all 19+), suggestive language, some light cheating, i think that's it?, sad girl summer :'(

Request: “You think I like being like this? Every time someone fucking touches you I want to rip their hands off!” for stiles please and thnk you!!!

Part II: after many requests, here’s the happy ending: part two A/N: i am well aware theo is way too nice, and me personally?? could never forgive him for hurting scott mccall, the light of my fucking life. but it's for the plot. the things we must do for the plot of it all. i might make a part two? but this was already long, and i liked the conclusion enough to stop. lemme know if that sounds interesting to y'all. ps: listen to strawberry wine and the view between villages for vibes.

That first night, you drove home—207 miles in less than 3 hours, sobbing the entire way. Didn’t matter that you were right in the middle of finals. Didn’t matter that you had Math 19 at 8:00 in the morning. Nothing mattered except for the ringing in your ears, the blistering echoes of, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ over and over and over again until you stumbled into the house you grew up in—the house he practically grew up in. He was all over every room, all over your entire goddamn hometown, all over you, and you had this desperate, crawling urge to scrub your skin raw. Strip everything away with turpentine until the shadows of his hands and mouth were gone, until you couldn’t smell cedar and 15 years of summer nights and Sunday mornings. 

That night you cried so hard it scared your sister. She spent most of the night with her back slumped against your bedroom door, fingertips poking through the little crack underneath, just like she did the first night your parents brought you home. She had to know that you were breathing, had to make sure that your little chest was rising and falling in your sweet bassinet—if you were inhaling in-between your fractured sobs. You eventually cried yourself to sleep—like a baby, like a broken heart—and thrashed around sweat-damp sheets and dreams of him kissing someone else on his couch. 

Months later, you finally realize it’s a bit self-involved to think that the universe cares enough about your short, temporal existence to conspire against you…but it certainly feels like it when you tie it all together with red string. After Stiles stopped wanting you, everything just…decayed, rotted, died—so quickly, too quickly for you to bury any of the remains. You’re still grieving Allison, constantly, and currently failing at least half your classes, and, oh yeah, battling literal demons at least three times a week—but mostly, you’re just tired. You’re just so goddamn tired of it all.   

To put it plainly, you’re drowning. 

That must be why the neat lines of text in your Math 20 textbook are swirling into indecipherable whirlpools. It’s just so…frustrating. You get math. Math is your thing. Derivatives shouldn’t ever send you into a bout of angry tears—but you are, you’re angry. Angry at the numbers for blurring into something unrecognizable, angry at yourself for not recognizing them, for becoming a person you don’t know or like. Your lashes clump together, and few mascara-tinted tears drop onto the glossy pages. At least, the cloudy text isn’t a hallucination now. 

 “Are you okay?”

The library is quiet, so quiet that you should’ve heard him coming, but you jump at the sound of Theo’s voice. You don’t know him that well; Theo isn’t really the kind of guy you’d talk to, at least not before everything you knew slipped through your fingers. It’s not like you ever disliked him; it’s just…he’s always been everything you’re not—focused, organized, completely in control. He’s confident but not cocky, smart but not arrogant, ridiculously good-looking but just charismatic enough that you can’t really hate him for all the maiming and scheming he pulled last year. He’s been punished enough, you think, and sure—maybe a part of you feels that way simply because Stiles doesn’t.

You haven’t spoken to Theo much, not really. Scott does most of the talking when he shows up to the occasional pack meeting, and Lydia won’t let him within ten feet of you anyway. Frankly, you don’t realize that he knows your name until he says it. His voice is soft in a way that you know isn’t just because of library conduct. It’s his eyes, you think—they’re warm with a concern you aren’t sure what you’ve done to deserve.

You nod and then blink at the fuzzy pages of your math book, eyes almost vacant, “I just…I don't understand.”

Theo sits down next to you and leans forward, scanning the text briefly, “Which part?”

You flush, “...all of it.”

He doesn’t laugh or roll his eyes like you thought he might. Instead, he pulls his chair closer to yours and reaches for a pencil. “Most people will tell you that derivatives are the ‘instantaneous rates of change.’ That’s what the book says, and it’s kind of true, but you’re right—that doesn’t actually make any sense. Things can’t actually change in a single instant, right? Obviously, change happens between two instances, so what they actually mean is a derivative's the rate of instantaneous change measured as precisely as possible.” Theo’s voice is soft in your ear as he drags his finger across your textbook, connecting the vague definitions to numbers that actually compute through your teary haze.

You sit back and just watch for a minute, a little in awe, as he makes all the squiggles into numbers again—and you haven’t been found more than a few feet away from him ever since. You guess it’s because you’re hoping, against all odds, that he can do the same for your life. At least in some small way, maybe.

It’s definitely easier to show up to Lydia's party with his hand in yours. 

You’re all back in Beacon Hills for the summer, and it’s nice. It really is. During the school year, you’re spread all across the state for the most part—you, Theo, and Lydia at Stanford; Scott, Kira, and Malia at UC-Davis; Liam and Mason, the babies, about to start their senior year of high school (it makes you want to cry if you think about it too long); Derek in…wherever he ends up for a season (it was fun to visit while he was in New York, and you secretly hope he makes a return in the fall); and, of course, there’s Stiles. He’s all the way on the other side of the country for his Quantico internship, and you still can’t escape him. His hands are all over your scent, all over every important moment of your life since pre-school. Sometimes, you think that you’ll always be one breath away from choking on the memory of him. But it’s easier, you remind yourself; it’s easier to be a minute away from home with Theo standing next to you. 

The music is loud in Lydia’s front room, thumping through your chest and sharpening the anxiety crawling through your veins—gnawing at your corneas until all you can see are flashing lights through a haze of vape and weed: pink, blue, green, red, and then pink again.

Theo tightens his grip on your hand and gently pulls you into the kitchen. It’s still loud, but the air is clearer here, and the crowd is thin. There’s a couple you vaguely recognize from high school making out on the granite countertop, too enwrapped in each other’s tongues to notice the mixer-sticky surface, and a couple boys who were on the lacrosse team gather drinks for another round of beer pong behind them. 

“You’re psychic,” you hum, resting your chin against the little dip in Theo’s sternum so that you can grin up at him, “tell the truth.”

He laughs easily and wraps his arms around your waist, the solid weight releasing some of the vague unease stubbornly clinging to your synapses. “I solemnly swear that my supernatural abilities end at claws and fangs. I just know you; that’s all.” 

You hum as he sways with you a little and shake your head, “It’s only been a few weeks. You’ve gotta have some help from the other side.”

Theo shrugs and lifts you onto the counter behind him—a non-sticky patch, thankfully—and brushes your hair out of your eyes, “Maybe I’ve been paying attention for a little longer than a few weeks.”

You tilt your head and purse your lips into a pout you hope is even half as cute as the wicked gleam in Theo’s eyes, “How long?”

He shrugs again and ducks down to murmur in your ear, “Maybe since the first grade.”

His breath is warm against your cheek, but you know that’s not the only reason your face feels hot. You push against his chest, pulling a little face, “Shut up.”

Theo laughs and grabs your wrists, kissing your knuckles, “I’m serious! You were so cute with your little pigtails and missing teeth.”

You whine a little, embarrassed as you are as pleased, and hide your face in his neck. It smells good, a little citrusy from his cologne and a little sweaty from the sheer amount of grinding bodies in the house—like a man, like he can and will take care of you. “Stop it. I hated those bangs.”

He pinches your sides a little, “And the way you’d always shoot your hand up first—with the right answer, of course—I was smitten.”

You pull away from his neck and arch your brow, “Was?”

“Am,” he concedes with a soft smile, cupping your cheek and thumbing along your lash line, “am completely smitten.” 

He dips in to kiss you, lips barely an eyelash-width away from yours, when a prim cough pulls him away from his spot in-between your legs. You peer around his shoulder and roll your eyes, albeit fondly, at the stern look on Lydia’s face. She’s always been protective of you, even more so after Allison and the whole Stiles debacle, but you’re a bit tired of the Theo Raeken witch hunt. 

You slip down from the counter and rock onto your tiptoes to kiss Theo’s cheek—mainly to see the pinch in Lydia’s perfectly tapered brows. “Can you put this in the coat room,” you hum against his skin, shrugging off your baggy leather jacket. He knows the real reason you’re sending him away—of course he does, sometimes it feels like he knows everything—but he goes with a smirk anyway because, despite Lydia and Stiles’s suspicions, he’s trying his absolute hardest to redeem himself. 

“You could be a little nicer, y’know,” you reach for a hard lemonade from the ice bucket dripping a puddle of water onto the tile floor. You uncap it on the lip of the massive island and fold your arms over your chest, “He’s been nothing but the perfect boyfriend so far.”

Lydia matches your stance, brows curving, “Boyfriend?”

Heat crawls up your neck to your ears. You haven’t actually discussed labels or exclusivity—you think it’s too early; don’t want to scare him off, but Lydia doesn’t need to know that. “Boyfriend.”

Her curls trickle over her shoulder like the strawberry wine in her cup as she tips her chin and purses her lips into a flat line, “Stiles is here.” 

You try not to react—aren’t entirely sure why you do—and hide your complicated frown behind a sip of lemonade. It’s extra bitter going down. “Okay?”

Lydia shifts her weight from one Jimmy Choo to the other and sighs heavily, “He’s not going to like it.”

A flare of irritation sparks in your gut that you chase with a tip of your bottle. “Okay?” you mutter, wiping the excess liquid away with the back of your hand. A smear of nude lipstick is left behind, and you feel the sudden need to leave some on Theo’s neck for everyone to see. 

“I’m just warning you; it’s going to be a whole thing,” Lydia waves her hand in the air as she takes a dainty sip from her cup. Her pink manicure shines under the lights, and you wonder briefly how she can make every color look good with her red hair.

You hum and lean forward, grin a little sloppy as you sidle up to her side, “That you’ll be on my side for. Obviously.”

Lydia watches you carefully, eyes heavy, and tucks some of the hair falling in your face behind your ear. “Obviously,” she takes your hand, squeezing it tightly, and you feel a little less giggly and a lot more tender. 

You let her pull you into the crowded front room for a dance. It’s a good song, you think. Happy, lots of bass to jump to, and you’re shiny-faced and giddy by the time it’s over. 

Meandering towards the back patio for some fresh air, you pull your tank top away from your torso, gauzy material sticky with sweat and someone’s body glitter. You aren’t entirely sure where Theo ended up, but you take it as a good sign that he’s mingling with your friends—which, bless his crooked little heart, is all he’s ever wanted. 

The night breeze is so nice against your clammy skin that you feel a little lightheaded. You collapse on a padded deckchair and kick your feet up onto a keg, empty, most likely, based on its current state of abandonment. After a moment of hazy tranquility, a red solo cup filled to the brim with an unknown, potent liquid blocks your view of the winking gold embellishments on your boots. 

“You look like you need a drink,” Scott smiles at you from his slight bend over your head.

You take the cup from Scott eagerly and down about half of it to soothe the rawness in your throat—asthma is a bitch in hotboxes, makes you almost consider asking Scott for the bite. “I need about ten,” you hum, licking the little dribble of cherry-something from the corner of your mouth. It’s too sweet, but the ice is easing the beginnings of a headache forming in your temples. 

Scott sits down next to you, and you grumble a little as he nudges your side with his elbow until he has enough room to stretch his legs out too. “You look happy,” he grins at you, eyes crinkly and sweet. “Been a minute since I’ve seen that.”

“I feel happy,” you lean against his side and rest your cup against your cheek. The condensation gathered on the plastic is a godsend against your flushed face. “For the first time in…way too long.”

“Good,” Scott's voice is sincere, in the most genuinely empathic way that only Scott McCall can be, and he gently nudges your foot with his, “I’ve been worried.” He pauses and looks down at the contents of his cup, watches the ice slowly melt into whatever he poured for taste alone—you don’t like the pensive squint in his eyes. “You know I want to trust Theo, right? I really want to believe that he’s changed.”

You sigh a little, but because he only ever wants the best for everyone and, well, because it’s Scott, you say, “But?”

He gives his hands a small frown and taps his finger against the side of his drink, “Not a but, exactly. I do think he’s different now.” The mostly goes unsaid, and you watch him closely, waiting for him to finish. “I just want you to be careful, that’s all. I don’t want you to…rush into anything after, well,” Scott scratches the back of his neck a little and winces, “you know.”

“After Stiles dumped me because, ‘he needed space,’ and then started dating someone new two weeks later,” you finish for him flatly. He hadn’t even been subtle about it. His new girl was all over his Insta within the month—and she’s still fucking stunning in his flannels weeks later. Your stomach turns, but you swallow another mouthful of your dri—rum and Cherry Coke, you finally place the flavor, smiling a little at the memory of getting tipsy on the same drink at Senior prom with Scott, Kira, and…Stiles. It’s a good memory, you decide. You won’t let him take it from you.

“Yeah.” Scott sighs into his drink and then takes a long chug, “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again, you know? None of us do.”

“I know,” you smile at him fondly and kiss his cheek, “and it’s very sweet, but I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.” 

Scott smiles, bright and puppy-like, and then his head cocks with his little sixth-sense tick—also puppy-like, you think with a smirk. Scott’s grin fades and he murmurs, “Three o’clock,” against the rim of his cup.

Your eyebrows furrow, “What?”

Scott laughs, but it’s strained, and then nods towards something across the pool, “To your right.”

You turn your head, expecting to see one of your friends doing something stupid, and freeze momentarily when you meet Stiles’s gaze. His eyes are a little unfocused, murky with whatever’s in his plastic cup, but they sharpen when he sees you. He backs down first, and you polish off your drink, craving the sweet burn in your throat. “I need another drink.”

“You need to talk to him,” Scott says, and he takes your empty cup away from you, like he’s worried you can magically refill it with the simple power of desire. “If you can’t do it for him, do it for me. His brooding is really getting out of control.”

You don’t bother bringing up that Stiles is the one who ended it or that he brought his new girlfriend home with him. “Maybe,” you shoot Scott a sly grin and try to snag his drink from his hands, but your clumsy fingers are no match for his werewolf reflexes, “I do love and cherish you very, very much.”

Scott laughs and ruffles your hair, approaching noogie territory. “Should’ve gone out with me.”

You can’t help but look for him through the fog rising above the heated pool. Stiles’s face is pale in the reflection of the lit water; the shadows ripple across his cheeks when he tugs his girlfriend into a sloppy kiss—Chelsea, you recall, proud that there’s only a little bitterness coating the thought. “Don’t I know it,” you finally say. It’s the churning reflection and the smell of chlorine, you reason; that’s why you feel a bit like throwing up your last couple drinks.

Scott frowns when you don’t swat at his side or make fun of him, like you’d usually do in the face of such ridiculous teasing, and follows your gaze. “But that was never going to happen, huh,” he says quietly. “Not with the…” he trails off, face scrunching as he searches for the right words, “throbbingly in love since birth thing.”

You laugh through the stabbing sensation in your chest. “Throbbingly?”

He waves his free hand as he takes another sip of his drink, “You know what I mean.”

“I really don’t think I do,” you say, a small smile twitching on your face as Scott spills most of his red drink onto his white t-shirt.

He sighs and pulls the soaked material away from his chest, head darting around as he looks for something to mop up the mess. “You guys were just like…always ahead of everybody from the beginning, you know? Brains, love, all of it. I swear you both were actually born like 30—okay, it probably has more to do with the…” 

“Early on-set trauma?” you fill-in for him, sparing him the unpleasantness of bringing up dead mothers and mental illness.

Scott nods and licks his bottom lip before continuing, “I remember this kid had a huge crush on you, like way back in elementary school, and even at nine years old I knew he didn’t have a shot. It was just obvious, you know? It was always going to be the two of you. It was just always gonna end up that way.”

You almost laugh at the sight: Scott dabbing at his shirt with a pink beach towel and oh-so casually confirming that your worst fears aren’t only valid but in fact a reality. Maybe, you really can’t love someone else, not the way you loved him. Maybe, you’re just kidding yourself when you talk about it in the past-tense. Maybe, it really is just the two of you, even if it’s all in your head now. 

“I’m definitely not drunk enough for this,” you try to sound flippant, but your words are as shaky as the hand you're raking through your hair. It’s already a mess, but you can’t stop. Your hands need to do something. 

“Then you’re really not gonna like what’s coming next,” Scott says as he jerks his thumb towards something behind him.

You turn your head, and your eyes widen when you see Stiles trudging towards the two of you with his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets. The chair’s metal frame squeaks with Scott’s shifting weight. He clamors to his feet, mumbling something about cleaning his shirt, and you give him your most intimidating glower, “Scott, if you walk away from me right now, I swear to fuckin’ god, I’ll never—Hi.” Your tone is clipped, short and to the point, when Stiles stops in front of you.

“Hey,” Stiles’s voice is dull, void of emotion, and so is his face. He stares at you, and you wish you knew what was really flickering behind that burnt umber and citrine honey. There was a time when you would’ve known—when you always knew. It’s so strange, you think, so strange how quickly someone can become a stranger.

You clear your throat and tuck your legs underneath yourself, tugging on the hem of your short skirt to maintain some semblance of modesty. His eyes still dart to your upper thigh, lingering on the strip of skin that’s bared when you sit upright. It’s only for a split second—but it’s enough. He’s seen it before, after all. Felt it with his long fingers and open palms. Dragged his lips across it, and left wet, open-mouth kisses along every inch—but he still looks like he wants to sink his teeth into the supple flesh one last time. 

You swallow, hard, and stand, “So…how’ve you been?”

“Fine,” he replies flatly. “Obviously not as good as you.”

Your lips purse as your eyes narrow, “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“First Theo Raeken, now Scott McCall: True Alpha, God among werewolves, Messiah of Beacon Hills. I’m genuinely impressed—bottom of my heart, babe. I mean, s’quite the body count if we’re talkin’ claws and body hair alone,” he spits. Despite the slight slur in his words, his consonants are barbed and serrated at the edges. They prick your skin and sting long after he finishes, and you know they’re going to follow you all the way home.

“Don’t be a dick,” you snap, wrapping your arms tightly around your biceps. The chill isn’t so pleasant anymore.  

“What? I’m just giving you the props you’ve so clearly earned. You’ve got the magic touch.” Stiles cants his head in a way that distinctly reminds you of someone else—a monster who stole the face of the boy you loved a lifetime ago. “I’d ask how good the sex is, but I already know. It’s that thing you do with your tongue, right? When you’re givin’ head? That’s how you get ‘em, huh. Suckers—” his drink spills on his shoes when he lets out a sharp chortle, “suckers. Didn’t even mean to do that.” 

You stare at him, eyes burning, and try to determine exactly how drunk he is. “Stop it.” You do your best to look more annoyed than devastated—the last thing you need is to start crying like you still care. He can't win; you won’t let him, not like this. “Just stop. It’s pathetic—you’re pathetic.”

Something complicated rolls over his face, and Stiles clenches his fists, “Whatever. Guess it’ll be too late to say told’ya so when he rips your heart out and broils it—or whatever the fuck psychopaths do for fun these days.” 

Your face crumples a little—not because you think Theo would ever actually hurt you but because Stiles sounds so ambivalent about the possibility. Sometimes you hate him, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot—but you’ve never stopped caring, not once. You never stop worrying about if he’ll make it out alive, if he'll survive with all his breakable bones and fragile skin intact. You find yourself staring at the ceiling until the sun rises, dwelling on all the horrific, life-or-death situations he’ll end up in when he graduates from the Academy years from now. Stiles was your best friend years before he was your boyfriend. Did all that really not matter now? Just because of something as stupid as a breakup? It’s just so…high school. You really thought it’d been…more. 

Everything. You used to think it was everything.

“Stay the fuck away from me, Stiles,” you shove past him, stumbling a bit over your boots’ chunky heel and a little too much rum. 

He doesn’t follow you, and you should be glad. You should be happy that he isn’t there to witness the black smears under your eyes or the snot you’re trying to hide with a few discreet sniffles. You should be grateful that he doesn’t see Theo pull you into his side and take you home, grateful that he can’t ruin the soft kisses Theo rains down on the crown of your head and the way he doesn’t push to come inside after you say your parents are gone.

But you aren’t, and you hate yourself for it. 

You barely manage to wipe off what’s left of your makeup with a damp towel and throw on some clean clothes before you tumble into bed. You’re still sweaty, grimy with tears and a night of dancing, but the rum is hitting hard, and you just want to go to sleep and forget he ever existed.

You’re halfway between sleep and consciousness in the early hours of the morning when you hear a loud thud against your bedroom window. The thudding continues, and with a great sigh you slip out of your sheets, hissing when your bare feet land on the cold floor. You slowly shuffle towards the bay window, trying to forget it's where you had your first kiss, and kneel on the cushioned bench. You have to rub at your eyes a few times when you see Stiles trying to break into your house. You only unlock the latch after you convince yourself that you’re going to push him off of the roof into the rose bushes two stories below, and then, of course, you sit back on your heels so that he has room to crawl through the narrow opening. 

“When the fuck did you start locking your window?” Stiles stumbles into your room and catches himself against the floor with his palm, feet still dangling over the windowsill. You take great pleasure in shoving his legs off of the window seat and watching him fall face-first onto the carpeted rug. He grunts when he lands and rubs his jaw as he sits up, “Guess I deserved that.” 

His lips part when he gets a good look at you, backlit by the moon and all his worst mistakes. You’re in an old t-shirt from middle school, bleach stains all along the left shoulder, and a pair of baggy sweatpants with ratty holes around the hem from years of dragging against the ground. Your face is still tacky with tears, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, and Stiles is pretty sure he’s never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life.

You shift uncomfortably, pull your knees to your chest, and shiver as the night air drifts through the open window, “Still drunk?” 

“Not so much,” he holds up a mostly steady hand.

“Still a fucking asshole?”

“Probably.” Stiles bites his lip and shrugs, “Definitely.”

You stare at him, sniffling quietly, hoping that he can’t hear how pathetic it sounds, “Stiles, what are you doing here?” 

He drums his fingers against his thighs and shrugs again. You want to smack him. And hold him. And maybe drink some more liver poison until the school year starts again. “Dunno, just started walkin’, n’ I ended up here.” Stiles closes his eyes, and his lashes are so strikingly dark against his pale skin. “I always end up here,” he whispers like a vow, like a prayer, like forever. 

You dig your toes into the bench and swallow a hiccup. “Don’t,” your protest is weak, and you blame it on your sore throat. “You can’t say shit like that. It’s not fair.”

“I know,” Stiles rubs a hand over his face. He’s in need of a shave, you notice, or…maybe not. You kind of like the stubble the more you get used to it—your tipsy, sleep-deprived mind stupidly wonders what it’d feel like between your thighs. Stiles sighs, returning your attention to far more unpleasant thoughts, “But I just want to.” He leans onto his palms and tips his head back between his shoulders, shaking his head at the ceiling. “I just wanna say it all, all the things I thought while you were gone. Knew I would the second I saw you.”

“You’re—” your tongue is thick as you struggle for words over the conflicting emotions wrangling each other in your throat, “you’re so fuckin’—you can’t just come here and act like—” You rub aggressively at your eyes and push yourself to your feet, “You need to go, Stiles. I want you to go.”

Stiles stands with you and cards his fingers through his hair. It’s long, curling around his ears, and you turn your gaze away from him, staring at the wall and digging your fingers into your forearms to stop yourself from reaching for him. “Can we just…talk?” he whispers, whether it’s for his sake or yours, you’re not entirely sure. He looks small, scared, but you can’t tell if he’s afraid for you or of you. “Just for a little bit. I need…I just need another minute. That’s all, and then I’ll go. Promise.”

I need. I need. I need. It’s always what he needs on his time. You cross the floor with wild eyes and snap, “What do you want to talk about? Huh? How you left me for someone else, or how I’m such a fucking whore for moving on?”

He grits his teeth and grabs your wrists, long fingers overlapping around the delicate bones when you try to yank away from his firm grip. “You think this is what I want?” He doesn’t yell. Somehow, that’s worse. “You think I like being like this? Every time someone fucking touches you I want to rip their hands off!”

You thrash in Stiles’s arms, and his pained expression is blurry through your wet glare, “You had me! I was yours! I was so fucking in love with you, and then you—you just ended it and moved on, like it was nothing.” Your chest heaves, a stark contrast to the gentle quiver in your bottom lip. Your voice drops to something almost inaudible; it's the only way you can get through this while you're crying, the only way you can force the words through your tender throat, “Like I was nothing.”

Your cries turn into sobs when Stiles pulls you into his arms, and they wrack through your entire body when he kisses your hair and whispers sweet nonsense in your ear. You struggle for a moment longer, and then there's nothing left. You've given him everything. You sag into him, legs sinking with your full weight until he wraps his arms around your waist and presses you tighter to his chest. “I got scared,” Stiles whispers against the crown of your head when your cries peter into hiccups, and your next whimper shudders through your shoulders. He rests his palms against the small of your back and inhales the sweet scent of your shampoo, ducking his head down to kiss your forehead, “You were so far away, and so, so perfect, and I missed you all the fucking time.”

Stiles pauses, but it’s not for you. It’s a stall; you can feel his knee bounce and his fingers twitch. You wait, face buried in his collarbone, too busy trying to breathe to even think about speaking. After a moment, could’ve been seconds, could’ve been hours, he squeezes you—almost until it hurts, and it feels like he’s terrified that you’re just another one of the shadows on your bedroom walls. “I couldn’t ask you to transfer from Stanford to some fuckin’ state school in Virginia, so I fucked everything up ‘cause I guess...at least then it was my choice—and I know that just makes it worse. I know that. Because that means I chose to ruin it, I decided to hurt you…and I’m so fucking sorry. Just so unbelievably, life-ruiningly sorry.”

And there it is. The apology you’ve been waiting for, dreaming of, fantasizing about in every shower, in every cafe line, in every early morning class—and it’s just so…hollow. It sits between the two of you, heavy and horridly inadequate. “You found someone else,” you whimper into his shoulder, clasping at his t-shirt and wetting the white collar with your tears and runny nose—and you wish, more than anything, that this could be enough. “How could you find someone else that quickly?”

Stiles freezes, stops rubbing your back and rocking you from side-to-side, and it’s just jarring enough to remind yourself how dangerous it is to be in his arms. You step back and wrap your arms around yourself instead, and Stiles watches you with something hopeless all over his face. “I was just trying to prove that I didn’t make the biggest fucking mistake of my life,” he says, but he says it to his shoes. You wonder who he’s hiding from: himself or you. “Didn’t work, obviously.”

You just stare at him, arms limp by your sides, and shake your head a little. “What are you doing here, Stiles?” your voice is clotted with mucus and defeat, and it breaks halfway through along with your knees. You lean against the wall and close your lids so that you don’t have to see his eyes: so vast, so deep, so damn pretty—you’re suffocating in them. “What do you want from me?”

He’s relentless. Stiles steps forward, and there’s nowhere for you to go. “I want you.” And that’s the thing, isn’t it? There’s the rub. It’s always hunger, no sating. No happy ending. 

“Nothing’s changed.” You tilt your head and wring your fingers in the hem of your t-shirt, tugging every so often, “I’m still going back to Stanford, and you’re still going back east in the fall.” UPenn. Criminology, obviously. You never got the chance to congratulate him. 

“I know,” he’s right in front of you now, waiting for you to push him away. You don’t.

The back of your head hits the wall as you tip your chin up to look at him, “And I have Theo, and you have…her.”

“I know,” he braces his hands next to both sides of your head, watching your lips move without any shame, breath hot against your skin. 

“Stiles…” you plead with him through your lashes, asking for mercy, on hands and knees begging him to turn around and leave.

“Tell me you don’t want me.” Stiles rests his forehead against yours, “Tell me it’s over, and there’s nothing I can do to fix this.” 

“You already know,” you close your eyes and shake your head, nose rubbing against his, “you know I’d be lying.”

“You love me.” It’s not a question. He knows. He’ll always know.

You shake your head again, and Stiles can taste the salt on your lips, “Doesn’t matter.”

“I love you,” Stiles whispers, carding his fingers through your hair.

“Too late,” your lips brush against his, feather-light, and catch on the chapped center of his mouth.

He kisses you, cups your jaw like you’re ineffably precious, and you feel like you can breathe for the first time in months. Stiles tilts his head a little, and his tongue is gentle in its prodding, almost sweet—but he grabs onto your hips like he wants to eat you alive. You just might let him, you think, when you feel his stubble scrape against your neck as he trails a balmy line of kisses towards your collarbone. 

You wind your fingers in his hair and tug to keep yourself on your feet. “We ca—ah,” he licks along your pulse, on purpose, and you shiver, “we can’t do this.”

Stiles hums against your cheek. “And yet, here I am, sliding my hands under your shirt, trying to cop a feel.” His fingers dip under your shirt. They’re cold on your bare stomach, and you flinch a little. Dizzyingly, you remember where you are, who you’re with, and who's going to text you in the morning to make sure you’re okay.

“We really can’t do this,” you whisper, slipping your hands from his hair to his arms. You pull them away gently and tip your head back from his persistent mouth, “I’m not going to hurt Theo the way you hurt me, and I’m not going to let you do this to someone else.”

“It’s not the same,” he says, words gravelly and thick. He turns away from you, paces the length of your room a few times and throws his hands around like he can change your mind if he gestures hard enough, “You know it’s not the same.” Stiles stops abruptly and shakes his head, seemingly at nothing—and then he’s back in front of you before you can catch your breath. He places his hands on your shoulders and then slides his palms to your biceps, just holding onto you. Not clutching, not squeezing, just a light touch that you can’t seem to break away from. 

“You’ve been my best friend for 15 years,” Stiles licks his bottom lip, and you watch him with wide eyes and a blitzing heart, “and I’ve loved you for well over half of ‘em—just plain wanted you even longer.” He slips his hand down your arm to your hand and tangles his fingers with yours, lifting them to rest over his skittering heartbeat, “You’re mine, and I’m yours. That’s how it is. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how it should be.”

You want to say it back, you do, but you just can’t. Not with all the unresolved details wriggling in your ear. “You brought her home, Stiles. You can’t just…just introduce her to your dad and cheat on her all in the same day.”

“Technically, cheat on and then dump,” he tries to smile, but it’s not convincing. Not with the guilt dimming his eyes.

“That’s not funny,” you snap, but the guilt is good. He wouldn’t be the man you know, the boy you grew up with, if he didn’t feel at least a little guilty about the whole thing.

“Dad’s out of town,” Stiles admits quietly, and for some reason, that means more to you than his apology, than his kisses, than his hand in yours. You didn’t realize how much the thought had been bothering you until now—destroying you one post at a time. “I only brought her because I knew you were going to be here with…him.” He shrugs a little, “Frankly, I think she knows. She aced behavioral science.”

You roll your eyes and huff, “You’re an asshole.”

“I know,” he concedes and kisses the back of your hand, continuing along the row of your knuckles, “but I’m in love with you, and it’s become abundantly clear that I always will be.”

Your bottom lip trembles with the desire to give in to what you want, but your hand twists away from him with what you know is right—even though it feels so horrendously wrong. “I can’t do this to him, Stiles. He’s been through so much, and he’s been so good to me, and he’s trying so hard to—”

“But you don’t love him!” Stiles hisses. It’s the loudest he’s been all night, but you don’t flinch from the volume. It’s the truth of it all, the vile honestly you can’t hide from that makes you recoil.

You look at the ceiling through your lashes, an old trick to fight the tears welling in your tear ducts. Some girl in middle school told you about it in the bathroom, and you try to remember her name and what cloying body spray she was spritzing instead of thinking about how easy it would be to let Stiles crawl into your bed and make you forget about everyone and everything that isn’t him. “I should,” you finally murmur throatily, biting on your lip, “maybe I could…someday.”

Stiles whips his head towards your face and takes a little, stumbling step backwards, “You don’t believe that.” You’re sure he wishes that he sounded more confident than he really is, but he wavers with the hand rubbing the back of his neck, “Say you don’t believe that.”

“You need to go, Stiles.” You clutch at your arm with your other hand and step back towards your bed, further away from him and the wet film over his eyes. “I’m serious this time. I need you to leave.”

He opens his mouth and then scrubs his arm over his face, wiping away the incriminating wet gleam on his cheeks with the sleeve of his flannel. “Okay,” his throat bobs with the strength of his swallow, “yeah, okay.”

You wait until he reaches your bedroom door to crawl onto your bed. You curl in on yourself like a child, press your face into your legs, your knees to your chest, your back against the headboard—but he pauses before you can really fall apart.

Stiles rests his hand against the doorframe and chews on his cheek, on his words, on the thought of you, and then he says, “I’m still breaking up with her. You don’t…you don’t owe me anything—that’s fucking putting it lightly, I know—but I’m still breaking up with her.” He lifts a shoulder and smiles, a little sad but so true, “There’s no one else for me. There’s never going to be anyone else…just thought you should know.”

He’s gone by the time you look up from your kneecaps. Good. You were this close to giving in. This close to throwing yourself off the edge for someone who’s dropped once before, and you’re still cleaning up the mess he left behind. You should be proud of yourself, happy that you weren’t weak enough to say yes, yes, a million, billion, trillion times yes.

But you aren’t, and you hate yourself for it.

[ltwilliammowett]

Ekke Nekkepenn - the merman

In short, Ekke Nekkepenn is a merman who lives with his wife Rahn at the bottom of the North Sea and plays pranks on sailors and inhabitants of the North Frisian islands.

The best-known realisation of the Ekke-Nekkepenn myth today can be traced back to Christian Peter Hansen, who condensed and reshaped various sagas from the North Frisian region into his own continuous narrative in his Sagen und Erzählungen der Haidebewohner auf Sylt (Sagas and Tales of the Haide Inhabitants on Sylt), published in 1858. The first section of this tale is entitled ‘Der Meermann Ekke Nekkepenn’.

The story begins with Ekke Nekkepenn asking the wife of the captain of a Sylt ship sailing to England in a storm for help with the birth of her child. The beautiful and helpful captain's wife is led by the mariner to his wife Rahn, who lives at the bottom of the North Sea, and returns to the surface after a successful birth, richly endowed with gold and silver. The skipper and his wife are able to continue their journey in fine weather and later return safely and soundly to their home in Rantum on Sylt.

Many years later, Ekke Nekkepenn remembers this incident and decides - in view of the fact that Rahn has become ‘old and wrinkled’ in the meantime - to take the captain's wife as his wife instead. One day, when he spots the Rantum captain's ship, he persuades Rahn, who is sitting on the bottom of the sea, to grind salt, and the Sylt skipper and his crew perish in the resulting strong whirlpool.

On his way to the captain's wife, Ekke Nekkepenn, who has transformed himself into a handsome sailor, meets her virgin daughter Inge on the beach near Rantum. Against her will, he puts a golden ring on each of her fingers, hangs a golden chain around her neck and declares her his bride. When the girl tearfully begs him to release her, he replies that he can only do so if she can tell him her name the next evening. But nobody on the island knows the unknown stranger. As Inge walks along the beach again in despair the next evening, she hears a voice singing from the mountain at the southern tip of the island near Hörnum:

Today I shall brew; Tomorrow I shall bake; The day after tomorrow I want to get married. My name is Ekke Nekkepenn, My bride is Inge von Rantum, And nobody knows that but me alone.

She then runs to the agreed meeting place and calls out to the stranger arriving there: ‘Your name is Ekke Nekkepenn and I'll stay Inge von Rantum.’ Ever since that time, the man of the sea, who has been coerced in this way, has harboured a great rage against the islanders of Sylt and is always up to mischief when he feels like it. He destroys their ships in storms, causes them to sink in Rahn's maelstrom and damages the Sylt coastline with the tides he unleashes.

This myth is particularly prevalent on Sylt itself, because as soon as it storms, Ekke is said to be angry and he is once again angry with everyone.

It is not entirely clear what the myth itself is based on, but it is clear that Hansen has worked with two things: Nordic mythology and its sea god Ögis or Ekke as he is called in Frisian. In his ‘Materials for a Frisian Mythology’, published in 1850, Hansen writes: ‘The god of the sea was called Ögis by the Germans, Eiger by the Danes, Eie or Eia by the Frisians, also Ekke or Nekke. […] His wife was the goddess Ran, who blessed the beach, pulled the shipwrecked into her nets and after whom the old beach and dune village of Rantum was perhaps named. Incidentally, in Norse, Rane means to rob. According to a Frisian legend, Ekke once went to a woman from Rantum named Inge, but was given a basket.’ The problem here is that it is a pure invention by Hansen himself, this kind of Nordic mythology does not exist.

The second is Rumpelstiltskin. The Rumpelstiltskin variant used by Hansen belongs to a widespread complex of fairy tales and legends. In most of these tales, a dwarf or other creature helps a girl spin a certain amount of flax. The original North Frisian form of the story - which Hansen follows in his composition - does not contain precisely this element. This means that it belongs to a relatively small group of forms, which includes sagas from Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Tyrol, Lower Austria and Schleswig-Holstein. However, here he uses the verse often found in Rumpelstiltskin, except what is a merman doing on a mountain?

Apart from what Hansen has probably used here to give Ekke a story, it is more likely that this myth has been around on the islands for a long time and only in different versions and without a real name. It can therefore be assumed that Hansen was just trying to give it a unified story and a name.

[the-winter-spider]

The View Between Villages: Part One

Word Count: 4.9k

Pairings: Bucky x reader, TASM!Peter x Reader

A/N: I had this posted forever ago, buut i decided to rewrite and make the story better cuz it was bleh before. I had this idea obvs watching NWH and i loooove Bucky but i alsp loooooove Andrew Garfields spiderman so here we are LOL

Masterlist

—

You were out of touch with the world and everything going on in it—which had to be a lot; it was always a lot.

Finally, you mustered up the courage to leave your new home—scratch that, apartment. Nothing and no one was ever going to be “home” to you again.

You were done. Done with trying to see the brighter side of things, like Tony always told you to. You should’ve listened to Natasha. Love was for children, and you were so young when you fell in love with him. But neither of you were children anymore. Life was hard; you always knew it would be, but never in a hundred years did you expect your path to twist the way it did.

How did you get it so wrong? You couldn’t stop thinking about that day—the day you mustered up the courage to talk to the boy next door. Maybe you shouldn’t have. Maybe you should have just let it be, and you wouldn’t have been sucked into the whirlpool that became your life.

Maybe then you would have found a husband, had a couple of children, and died at 80, like everyone you had ever known did.

But instead, you found yourself here, in a world that wasn’t your own. The day you appeared out of thin air, you knew—deep in your bones—that nothing was right. Nothing was where it should be. And when that door in the white room opened, and Steve walked through, you couldn’t help but laugh. Did you really die of heartache and go to heaven? Because that made more sense than it being 2011, when you could’ve sworn it was 1945 just two seconds ago, and Steve was dead.

You waited anxiously for Bucky to follow Steve through that door. If Steve was here, then Bucky had to be here too, right?

But you were wrong. So very wrong. This wasn’t heaven. It was some safe house on the outskirts of New York, occupied by a government agency called SHIELD. Bucky was still dead. Steve wasn’t. And neither were you.

You could never have imagined that the war would follow you into the future, that the ghosts of your past would walk the streets of a world you didn’t recognize. But here you were, alive in a time that shouldn’t have been yours, surrounded by people who were only half the versions of themselves you had once known.

Steve tried to tell you it would be okay, that the world had moved on and so could you. But what did he know about moving on? His world ended in 1945 too, just like yours. And just like you, he was a relic of a time gone by, a ghost haunting the present.

But unlike you, Steve had a purpose. A mission. He always did. You, on the other hand, were just trying to survive, to make sense of the shattered pieces of your life. And every day, you couldn’t help but wonder—was this all that was left? Just an endless loop of waking up in a world that didn’t feel like yours, surrounded by people who didn’t really know you?

You used to believe in fate, in some grand design that connected all the moments of your life. But now, all you saw was chaos—a mess of broken dreams and lost futures, tangled together in a web that you couldn’t escape from. And yet, there was no going back. No undoing the choices that led you here, to this place, this time.

But there was one thing you were certain of: as long as you were alive, you would never stop searching—for a way back, for a way out, for a way to make sense of the senseless.

For Bucky.

Because even after everything, you couldn’t let go of the hope that somewhere, somehow, he was out there, waiting for you to find him.

—

Flashback - 2011

“We’re going to be okay, y/n/n, I promise.” Steve’s hand reached out to squeeze yours, a familiar warmth in an unfamiliar world.

You forced a smile, but it didn’t reach your eyes. “How is any of this okay, Steve? I have no idea how I’m here or why. I just went out for a walk after that woman told me about you, and the next thing I know, I’m here. And you’re here—you’re supposed to be dead.” You were standing now, pacing, as the rain hammered against the window. “And he’s still gone. How is that fair? How is this okay?”

Before Steve could answer, the door burst open, and a man you didn’t recognize stormed in. “If you don’t calm her down, we’re gonna be under water here in a few seconds.”

Your eyes shot back to Steve, panic setting in. “What’s he talking about?”

Steve sighed, standing up from the chair he’d been sitting in. “I haven’t told her yet, Stark.”

The man rolled his eyes and adjusted his stance to face you more directly. “Look, Sleeping Beauty, I know this is a lot to take in. I get that, I really do. But we’re beating around the bush here.”

“Stark,” Steve warned, his tone firm.

The man—Stark—waved him off, his brown eyes locking onto yours. “You have powers. Yes, superpowers.”

A crackle of thunder boomed overhead, rattling the windows.

He gave you a reassuring smile, pointing towards the storm outside. “All that? That’s you. You’re doing that.”

Your mouth parted in disbelief, your head shaking as you turned back to Steve. “He’s telling the truth, y/n,” Steve said softly.

“I always am,” Stark added, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

You took a hesitant step towards the window, staring out at the storm raging outside. You could feel something inside you, something new and terrifying, pulsing with the rhythm of the thunder. You closed your eyes, taking a deep breath, and suddenly, the image of his smile flashed behind your eyelids—Bucky’s smile.

You felt them both standing behind you, their presence grounding you. Stark’s voice was closer now, softer. “Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

When you opened your eyes, the rain had stopped, the clouds parting to reveal a brilliant rainbow stretching across the sky. You stared at it, a symbol of hope in a world that made no sense.

Steve smiled down at you, his arm coming around your shoulder as he leaned in close, his voice a whisper just for you. “For Bucky.”

And for the first time since you found yourself in this new world, you felt a flicker of something—something that might, in time, grow into a reason to keep going.

—

You weren’t sure how you felt about that memory. At the time, you were so grateful to have at least one of your boys back in your life. And you were happy to have a new one—Tony. He meant so much to you, quickly becoming one of the best people you’d ever had the pleasure of meeting in your century-long life.

But of course, that didn’t last long. Nothing good ever does.

Tony used to tell you that this was it, the big fight, the one that would decide everything. You believed him. You thought maybe, just maybe, you’d be able to pull a win out of thin air, like the team always seemed to do, even in those desperate last-second efforts.

But then, on that barren planet in outer frickin’ space, you watched everything unravel. You watched as your friends—your family—slowly turned to dust, one by one. You held onto Peter’s hand, trying to offer whatever support you could, but when he was gone, you started to feel it. The hollowness. The creeping despair.

It was as if the universe was collapsing in on itself, taking with it all the hope you had left. You were supposed to be the strong one, the one who had lived through so much loss and still kept fighting. But in that moment, you felt as fragile as the dust slipping through your fingers.

The silence that followed was deafening. You were alone again, surrounded by the echoes of those you had loved and lost. And this time, not even Steve or Tony could pull you back from the edge.

Back on Earth, when the world should have been mourning, you couldn’t. There was no time for grief. You had to keep going, keep fighting, even though you felt like there was nothing left of you but a shell. Every day was a battle against the overwhelming urge to give up, to let the weight of everything crush you.

But you couldn’t. Not yet. Not when there was still a chance—however slim—that you could bring them back. That you could bring him back.

The thought of Bucky was the only thing that kept you going. The memory of his smile, his laugh, the way he always knew how to make you feel like you belonged, no matter where—or when—you were. He was the constant in your life, the one thread that tied your past to your present. And now, that thread was frayed and fragile, but it was still there, still pulling you forward.

You didn’t know what the future held. You didn’t know if you could ever truly find your way back to the life you once knew. But as long as there was a chance, you would keep fighting. For Steve. For Tony. For Peter. For all of them.

But most of all, for Bucky.

Because after everything, after all the loss and the pain and the heartache, he was still your reason. And as long as you had that, you had something worth fighting for.

—

Flashback - 2018

“Tony,” your voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.

He looked up from the spot where Peter had just been, his eyes wide with disbelief. Your hand still hovered in the space where Peter had slipped away. “No,” he breathed, shaking his head as if he could will it all away.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, the weight of the words heavy on your tongue.

Realisation hit him like a punch to the gut. His face crumpled as he leaned forward, grabbing your hand, holding on as tightly as he could. “No, kid, not you too. Please, not you too.”

You looked down at your hand, watching as it began to turn to dust, dissolving right before your eyes. “It’s okay,” you murmured, trying to comfort him even as you felt yourself slipping away. “It’s okay.”

Tony’s grip tightened, his desperation palpable. “No, it’s not okay! You’re not—” His voice cracked, his heart breaking all over again. He couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

As the dust spread from your hand to your arm, you felt a strange calm wash over you. Maybe it was acceptance, or maybe you were just too tired to fight anymore. “Tony, it’s okay,” you repeated, though this time your voice was softer, fading with each word.

Tears filled his eyes as he tried to hold on, as if he could keep you with him by sheer force of will. But you knew it was too late. The universe had made its choice, and all you could do was let go.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered one last time, your voice barely a breath. And then, like Peter, you were gone, leaving nothing behind but a handful of dust and a broken man clutching at the empty air where you had been.

Tony sat there, numb, his hand still outstretched as if you might somehow reappear. But you didn’t. He was alone now, surrounded by the echoes of what had been, and the unbearable silence of what would never be.

And for the first time in a long time, Tony Stark had no idea how to fix it.

—

While you were dusting away, you weren’t sad. Deep down, you knew they would find a way to bring everyone back, to win.

And they did. You came back—everyone did—but at a high cost, one that you weren’t sure was worth paying. Your home, the compound, was in ruins, and you lost members of your family along the way. Yet even then, you thought maybe, just maybe, the light would stop flickering with tragic, horrible things. Maybe it was time for it to stay on. But you were wrong. You always were.

Now, as you walked down the dark, rain-soaked streets of New York, you weren’t hurt or heartbroken. You wished you were; it would have been an honour to feel something, anything. But instead, the rain hit your skin, not with the calming or joyful effect it once had, but as another weight added to the burdens you carried.

A hundred years.

One hundred years is a long time to be alive, a number most people never even get the chance to see—but you did.

People would ramble on about how you and Steve should be so grateful for the chance to live as long as you had, how lucky you were to experience two such different decades. But you didn’t feel lucky or grateful. You felt betrayed, like your chance at ever being truly happy had been ripped out from underneath you.

You didn’t care for the powers you were burdened with. You wanted to go back—to a time before Steve was Captain America, back to when Bucky was on one knee in front of that stupid oak tree outside your parents’ old house, with lanterns scattered across the lawn. Back to when the ring was on your finger, not buried in some drawer, gathering dust.

Back to before you risked your life for the sake of your boys, only to be blindsided by them later.

Back to before Steve went back for a woman you’d never even really known until she was on your doorstep, telling you about Steve and the crash.

Back to before you fought so hard to get the love of your life back, only to have him call it off because neither of you were who you once were.

You had never felt more alone.

Had never felt more betrayed.

And then Steve left.

He didn’t just leave, though. He went back—to a life you could never touch, to a time where you didn’t exist. It felt like a final blow, the last thread connecting you to anything familiar, severed. He didn’t just leave; he chose to leave you behind.

You knew, deep down, that Steve had a right to his own happiness, that he’d earned it after everything he’d sacrificed. But it didn’t make the pain any less sharp, didn’t make the loneliness any less suffocating. You had spent so many years fighting beside him, fighting for a future where you both could find peace. And now, it felt like you were the only one still fighting.

What was left for you? The world had changed, twisted into something unrecognisable, and you were left to wander it alone, a relic of a past no one remembered, in a present you didn’t want.

The rain kept falling, soaking through your clothes, chilling you to the bone. But you kept walking, each step heavier than the last. You didn’t know where you were going, or if you’d ever find your way back to anything resembling a home. Maybe you didn’t have a home anymore.

The weight of a hundred years pressed down on you, each memory a stone in the ever-growing pile on your back. And as you walked, you couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth it—if any of it had been worth it.

You thought of Bucky, of that ring, of the life you’d dreamed of and never got to live. You thought of Steve, and the life he’d chosen, one that didn’t include you. And for the first time, you wondered if maybe it was time to stop fighting. To let the past go, to let it rest.

But the question remained—if you let go of the past, what was left?

You didn’t have an answer. And that scared you more than anything else.

-

Flashback - 2023

“You’re what?”

Steve sighed, the weight of his decision heavy on his shoulders. “When I put the stones back, I’m going to stay. I’m going to find her, and taste a bit of the life Tony kept telling me to get.”

“You’re just gonna leave us? Just like that?” Your voice trembled as your hand ripped out of Bucky’s grasp. You were standing now, your heart pounding in your chest. “W-when we finally have a chance at being happy, like before?!”

“Doll—” Bucky reached for your hand again, his voice gentle, pleading.

But you stepped further away, your breath hitching as you tried to process the betrayal unfolding before you. “I can’t believe after everything—you’re just going to leave me again? What if something happens, and you’re not here, and we fail, Steve? What then?”

He tried to speak, to offer some comfort, but you couldn’t hear him over the roar of your own despair. You felt as though the world was crumbling beneath your feet, the ground giving way to a chasm of loneliness you’d fought so hard to escape.

Steve stepped forward, pulling you into his arms as your resolve shattered, and you sobbed into his chest. His embrace, once your source of comfort, now felt like a cruel reminder of what you were about to lose. You clung to him, knowing this would be the last time.

“You’re not going to fail, Y/n/n,” he whispered, his voice breaking as he held you tighter. “The world has you, and you have Bucky.”

His words, meant to reassure, only deepened the wound. How could he say that? How could he abandon you, abandon the fight, when you needed him the most? The man who had been your rock through a century of war and loss was now choosing to walk away, leaving you to pick up the pieces alone.

“Steve… please,” you choked out, your tears soaking into his shirt. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave me again.”

But even as you said it, you knew it was already too late. His mind was made up. The man who had always been by your side, who had fought with you through every nightmare, was choosing a different life—a life without you.

“Doll, he’s right,” Bucky’s voice broke through the haze of your grief, but it felt distant, like it was coming from another world. “We’ll get through this. We’ll keep fighting, just like we always have.”

But the words felt hollow, empty. How could you keep fighting when the person you’d fought hardest with was walking away? How could you believe in a future that didn’t include the one man who had always been there?

Steve pulled back slightly, tilting your chin up so you had to meet his gaze. His eyes were filled with sorrow, with regret, but also with a determination you couldn’t break. “You’re stronger than you know,” he said softly. “You always have been.”

But that strength felt like a curse now, a burden you didn’t want to carry anymore. What good was strength when it meant being left behind, over and over again? What good was it when the people you loved the most kept choosing to leave?

“I don’t want to be strong,” you whispered, the words falling from your lips like a confession. “I just want you. I just want us.”

He closed his eyes, his own pain etched into every line of his face. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

And with that, the final thread between you unravelled. You felt it snap, felt the emptiness rush in to fill the space where Steve had always been. You stepped back, slipping out of his arms, the cold air rushing in to replace his warmth.

Bucky moved toward you, his face etched with his own heartbreak, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to take comfort in his presence. Not now. Not when the wound was still fresh, bleeding with the knowledge that Steve had chosen a life that didn’t include you.

You turned away from them both, unable to bear the sight of their faces. The betrayal was too sharp, too deep, cutting through everything you thought you knew. You had fought so hard, given so much, and in the end, it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

The door closed behind you as you walked away, each step echoing in the hollow silence that filled the room. And as you disappeared into the night, the tears fell freely, the weight of a hundred years pressing down on your shoulders.

This time, you weren’t sure if you could keep going. This time, you weren’t sure if there was anything left to fight for.

Then Bucky left, and he took the last part of you with him.

Flashback - 2024

“I just feel it’s for the best, doll,” Bucky’s eyes were pleading, searching yours for a trace of understanding, for some sign that you’d see where he was coming from. But you didn’t.

“I don’t understand, Buck.”

He reached out, his hand trembling slightly as he tried to take yours. But you pulled away, placing your hands in your lap before he could touch you. You saw the way he swallowed hard, fighting back the heartbreak that threatened to spill over. “It’s just… this is the first time in 70 years that I’m free and—”

“You want to be free from everything that reminds you of the past, and that includes me?” Your voice was laced with betrayal, each word like a shard of glass cutting through the fragile remains of your heart.

His mouth opened, then closed, as if he couldn’t find the right words. He shook his head violently, desperate to make you understand. “No, not at all, doll. It’s not like that. I just need some time—time to figure out who I am now.”

You nodded, the numbness settling in as you pushed your chair back. The sound of it scraping against the floor echoed in the silence that had fallen between you. The silence of an ending.

“Don’t go, please,” his voice cracked, desperation seeping through the cracks in his resolve. “I love y—”

But before he could finish, you reached up, your fingers trembling as you unclasped the necklace from around your neck. The necklace you’d worn every day since you got it back. A single ring hung from the chain, its weight a constant reminder of what could have been. You placed it on the table beside his gloved hand, the sound of metal on wood like the final nail in the coffin of your relationship.

“You kept it?” His voice was barely a whisper, filled with disbelief and pain.

Licking your lips, you looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “I waited for you. I fought for you. It was supposed to be you, Buck. I thought it was going to be us.” You took a shaky breath, the tears you’d been holding back burning in your eyes. “I was wrong.”

Bucky picked up the ring, turning it over between his fingers as if it were a precious artifact, as if it held all the memories of what you once had. “Please, keep it,” he pleaded, his voice breaking. “It’ll always be yours. My heart will always be yours, doll. I just need some time.”

You shook your head, the pain in your chest almost unbearable as you stood up and put on your coat. “I’m tired of waiting, Bucky.”

He opened his mouth to say something, to beg you to stay, but the words never came. He watched as you turned and walked away, the ring slipping from his fingers, landing on the table with a soft thud.

You didn’t look back. You couldn’t. The weight of all those years, of all the promises broken, was too much to bear. You had given everything you had to Bucky, waited for him through a war, through decades of heartache, through every battle that followed. And now, all that waiting, all that hope, had been for nothing.

As you stepped out into the cold night air, you felt the final piece of your heart shatter. Steve had left you, and now Bucky had too. The two men who had been your world, who had been your everything, were gone. And you were alone.

You walked through the empty streets, the world around you feeling as cold and unforgiving as the emptiness inside you. The pain was overwhelming, a grief so deep it threatened to consume you. But you kept walking, each step taking you further away from the life you once knew, from the love you had lost.

You didn’t know where you were going, or what you would do now. All you knew was that the life you had fought so hard to hold onto was gone, and the future you had dreamed of was nothing more than a distant memory.

And as the night stretched on, you realised with a hollow ache that there was nothing left for you here. The life you had once shared with Steve and Bucky was over, and the person you had been with them was gone too.

You had always been a fighter, but now, for the first time in your long life, you didn’t know what you were fighting for.

—

That was six months ago. Bucky had tried to call you—more times than you could count—but you never answered. Sam had shown up more than a handful of times, but you never opened the door. When Steve passed, you watched from a distance, hidden in the shadows, watching Bucky search for you in the crowd, his eyes filled with an emptiness that mirrored your own.

Were you really that bad at making choices? So bad that you’d never be anyone’s first choice?

Your fingers traced the old oak tree, the one with a heart engraved into its bark, marked with “Y/N + Bucky = Always & Forever.” What a lie. What a cruel, empty promise.

Your hand gripped the tree, nails digging into the rough bark until they bled. The pain felt like the only real thing left in this world. You let out an agonizing scream, a cry so raw and broken that it seemed to tear the very sky apart. The rain began to pour down rapidly, the wind whipping through the trees, the sky echoing your torment with a thunderous roar. The roots of the oak surged up from the earth, cracking the tree down the center, splitting the heart into two jagged pieces. Just like yours.

As the tree splintered, the buzzing in your pocket yanked you back from the edge of despair. You prayed it wasn’t him—Bucky. Maybe, for once, luck was on your side. As raindrops blurred your vision, you squinted at the screen. “Peter Parker” was written across it.

You exhaled the breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “Hi, Pete.”

“Y/N, I—I need your help,” his voice trembled, frantic and filled with guilt. “I messed up so bad. I’m sure you have a lot going on, but I just…I need help. P-please.”

The rain eased up, the storm in the sky quieting as the storm in your heart shifted.

You pressed your forehead against the broken bark of the tree, the rough surface grounding you. “Of course, Pete. Whatever you need. I told you, I’m always here for you, kid. Where are you?”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you—” You could hear the relief in his voice as he exhaled. “That safe house, the one just north of where the compound used to be.”

The one where you woke up after you lost everything.

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Do you need me to bring anything?”

You were already on the move, fast-walking down the street, waving desperately at any taxi that passed until one finally screeched to a halt.

“Just be ready for anything.”

A fight. He was preparing you for a fight.

“I’ll see you soon, Pete.”

“Bye, Y/N.”

You hung up, sliding into the backseat of the taxi. “Just drive straight. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

You rested your head against the cool leather, your thoughts racing as fast as your heartbeat. The driver glanced at you through the rearview mirror, his eyes wide with recognition. “You’re that Avenger, right? The one who can, like—” He hesitated, making awkward gestures with his hands. “Control the earth or something like that, right?”

You sighed, closing your eyes for a moment. “Something like that, yeah.”

As the car sped through the rain-soaked streets, you wondered what fresh hell awaited you at the safe house. But whatever it was, it had to be better than the torment you’d been living in. At least, in a fight, there was something to focus on, something other than the pain that had been gnawing at you for months.

You could feel the shattered pieces of your heart stir, not quite mending, but realigning. This wasn’t about Bucky, or Steve, or the past. This was about Peter, about keeping the promise you made to him, and to yourself.

You weren’t sure how you’d get through this, but you knew one thing for certain—you wouldn’t let Peter down. Not like you’d let yourself down. Not like you’d let Bucky go. You’d fight, because that’s all you had left to give.

[silviastoll]

Okay, but militaristic dictatorships and child soldiers are besties, right?

Like let's be real, any successful militaristic dictatorship gets them young and then sends them off to war. Case and point, the systematic isolation and abuse of so-called "weapons" as seen in the majority of "chosen one" stories. Harry Potter and Naruto.

I'm going to talk about Naruto though because it's almost perfect how they took a nuke, put it in a child, starved the child of love and affection and then told him that if he was good and did what the government said was the right thing, he would be loved. I'm not sure if that was what Kishimoto was going for when he wrote Naruto's storyline, but its actually impressive how well he managed to capture the essence of how a weapon can be successfully programmed to behave a certain way.

Naruto was never given any support in the village and anyone who would have given it to him was blocked because he was a nuke and thus an investment and government property. By telling him the only way for him to be acknowledged and loved was to become Hokage they basically guaranteed his cooperation, can't be Hokage and thus loved if you don't become a ninja, and you can't be a ninja if you leave Konoha.

Does anyone think it's weird how Naruto had an entire other side of his heritage from his mother, an entire village for which he was named for by his mother (Naruto mean Whirlpool) that is never mentioned, never addressed? Despite it being Konoha's sister village that was somehow allowed to be toppled by a combined assault by Kiri and Kumo? How was it never mentioned in school, the chunin vest has Uzushio's symbol on its back! Simple, to make sure Konoha was all Naruto ever knew. To make sure their nuke was loyal and well trained and fully indoctrinated into the propaganda Konoha pushed. bc, personally? I think if Naruto knew he had connections, REAL CONNECTIONS to a fallen village of seals masters who might be related to his mom, he would have started asking some inconvenient questions. And you can't have your nuke asking questions when you point and aim him.

I'll tell you what, it worked, Naruto would do anything for just the sliver of a chance that the people of Konoha would love him, he took the abuse, fought their battles, won them wars all for them to move on like it was always his duty to them to win them wars. And it was, it was always his duty to win them wars, because he was nothing but a weapon to them the second Minato put that fox in him.

[evolutionsvoid]

Name: Great Serratodus

Title: Razor Jaw Wyvern

Species: Piscine Wyvern

Element: Water

Status: Bleed

The Serratodus are small monsters that dwell in tropical environments where water is plenty, swimming through flooded zones and marshy areas. In most cases, they don't draw too much attention to themselves, just another piscine lurking in the waters. They seem to mind their own business, only nipping at those who get too close. However, this calm facade of their melts away the second a drop of blood hits the surface. At the faintest whiff of blood, the Serratodus are thrown into a frenzy. They leap, thrash and gnash their razor jaws in excitement, eager to taste prey. The waters will boil with their frenzy, as they rush to the source of the smell in hopes of a meaty meal. Serratodus are seen as ravenous scavengers, feeding on the dead and bringing down those that are close enough to dead. Any sign of weakness or injury shown in their waters is seen as an opportunity for food, and they will assault the wounded beast with a whirlpool of sharp teeth to finish the job and strip the corpse clean. Though they have a powerful bite, Serratodus do not target healthy prey, only the dead and dying interest them. However, situations are quick to change if the Great Serratodus is around. Though their younger brethren hesitate to feed until blood is spilled, the Great Serratodus chooses to draw first blood for themselves.

The Great Serratodus are full grown adults of the species that have proven themselves in size, strength and ferocity. While the younger ones are confined to the waters, they have developed a strong pair of legs that allows them to stalk onto the shore. Big, bulky and with a nasty jaw full of blades, the Great Serratodus is on the hunt for prey. They tend to stick close to the waters, with the aim to wound another large monster and drive them into the waiting jaws of their lessers. While the Great Serratodus is not the most powerful beast in the ecosystem, they can quickly gain the upper hand with sheer numbers if foes are foolish enough to remain in the water. The scent of blood drives the Serratodus wild, and they will converge upon the wounded beast and pull them into a maelstrom of gnashing jaws. Other beasts hardly stand a chance against the relentless assault, all while the Great Serratodus knocks them about with their bulky body and tears into them with tooth and spine. When enraged, the Great Serratodus will unveil rows of razor sharp teeth on its bulbous head, as well as spines that will protrude from open slits. These teeth are anchored to strong muscles, that will use small rapid movements to vibrate them at high speeds. With this, the Great Serratodus is able to cleave through flesh and bone, using powerful blasts of water from its gills to launch itself forward and disorient foes. These same gill blasts also help knock off other Serratodus who may bite into their Great's hide when lost in the bloody frenzy. 

While the lessers typically cause no issues for villages as long as folk are careful, the presence of a Great Serratodus usually calls for hunters to come in and dispatch it. These larger specimens will target beasts of burden and livestock who get close to the water, and any evidence of injury will lure one in. Woe be to any trade caravan carrying fresh meat with them, as the scent will certainly grab their attention. Hunters often put out bounties on these monsters as well, due to their tendency to take advantage of other hunts. There are few things more frustrating than putting in the time, energy and effort to wear down a target monster, only to have a Great Serratodus barge into the battle and tear it to pieces. Many hunters share frustrated stories of their kills being stolen, or never having the chance to carve their reward after a target perishes near the water. All it takes is for one quest to be spoiled by one of these monsters, and then the bounty is immediately slapped onto the quest board. 

Though many hunters would relish in the idea of taking down the beast that devoured their bounty, the Great Serratodus is no easy prey. On their own, their bulk makes them quite powerful and their razor sharp teeth and spines can easily slice through armor and flesh. To make it worse, their gills releasing blasts of water allows them to zoom across the zone, evading attacks and blindsiding hunters with charges and rocketing bites. And once the Great Serratodus draws blood, the hunt gets much more chaotic. If a hunter is inflicted with bleed, the lesser Serratodus in the area will go absolutely berserk. They will whip themselves into a frenzy and descend upon the wounded hunter in a ravenous horde. Though a single Serratodus is an easy foe to fend off, having a dozen of them launching themselves at you is an utter nightmare. Wounded hunters are forced to fight or flee when faced with these hungry fish, and it isn't easy when the Great is nearby dishing out even more pain. When it is enraged, its head full of teeth will cause an even higher chance of bleeding and allows them to rip through the environment like a saw. Their protruding spines also cause simple attacks like hip checks and tail whips to have a chance to inflict bleed as well. And if it has fed recently, its watery gill blasts will take on a crimson hue...

While the Great Serratodus and its horde can be daunting, there are ways to mitigate the frustrations. Though the Serratodus are hungry for blood and meat, they will not pass up food that doesn't resist. Dropping raw meat or slaying small monsters will create a new target for the fish, who will turn their attention upon this meal instead. Flash bombs can also be used to blind the swarm, making it harder for them to coordinate an attack. For the Great Serratodus, it is advised that hunters drive them to dry land, where they are more awkward and slow. Meat can also be used to entice them, and a wise hunter would leave those tainted with the likes of poison and paralysis to weaken the target. Using the presence of other large monsters can help with the fight as well, as the piscine will spend more of its energy trying to bring down the bigger meal. With bleed being an issue, stocking up on items to cure it is a must. Lifepowders are also highly recommended to aid those being pursued by the swarm, as they do not have time to stop and heal. Like the Great Serratodus itself, the use of teamwork and numbers can help win the day. Thankfully, your fellow hunters aren't liable to start chewing into you the second you fall over...   

---------------------------------------------------

"Great Serratodus"

You know what month it is, and thus what time it is! Indeed! Mer-may! The time of the year where I post anything aquatic related to make up for the fact I haven't drawn anything mermaid-like! So get ready for fish, whales and sea beasts, because I always fail to prepare for these things, so enjoy what I hastily pull from my posting folder!

And you know it ain't a Monster Hunter fan monster if it isn't a Piscine Wyvern! That and crabs, it's all I make! For now....

[steakosaur]

As an expanding of previous post about how fucking confusing Luffy is, if only because of the languages he speaks, which are extremely random for a seventeen-year-old pirate from a lost corner of the East Blue :

On the Strawhat crew, you don't ask questions about the others' pasts, that's the most important unsaid rule. You can ask about the crew though, so Robin, between the events of Thriller Bark and Sabaody, decides to get to know the others better, as well as the mechanics of the crew, especially those of the Romance Down trio and East Blue group.

Her investigation begins backwards, from Sanji, to Usopp, to Nami, to Zoro, to Luffy.

From Sanji, she gets the story of how their captain destroyed part of the Baratie, worked there for a single day, encouraged a fight between Hawkeye and Zoro, as he himself fought against one of the big shots in the East Blue, some armoured guy with an enormous fleet who couldn't survive Paradise.

Usopp tells an unusually under-romanced story about this ex-pirate turned butler who was planning on killing his lover Kaya for her money, and how Luffy and Zoro saved them all from the tall butler with poops drawn onto his tailcoat.

Nami tells her about meeting Luffy and Zoro in Orange Town, planning on robbing them dry for a map to the Grand Line, escaping Buggy the Clown, fleeing by herself to go back to Arlong and hopefully buy back her village, Luffy freeing her (she got to wear his hat, Robin notes with attention).

Zoro grunts about a planned execution in a Marine base, something about killing wolves and eating sugared rice balls, and, the most surprising of all, how Luffy, accompanied by the small pink-haired Marine they saw on Water Seven, seemed to know about him beforehand and deliberately wanting to recruit him (he's the only one of them Luffy got out of his way to specifically recruit before even meeting them).

Luffy's story makes less sense. Robin can't get him to tell where exactly he'd been sailing from, and tales of getting sucked into a whirlpool and meeting a big pirate lady are overlapped with descriptions of foods he got to eat and bugs he got to see on his way from wherever his native island is to the Marine base he found Zoro in. With how thick his accent is, she hoped to pin down his island, but the only other time she's heard it was in Vice-Admiral Garp's mouth, and she also doesn't know where he's from further than the East Blue.

Before she can get any more specific, toeing the line of prying, they get to Sabaody and Robin can't ask anymore questions.

What she gets to see and hear on the archipelago doesn't help : with this place being a gathering point for travelers and merchants from all seas, every languages known to her and some she doesn't know are spoken. Her Eastern crewmates struggle a bit, only knowing their native tongue and the most basic version of Grand (even if Zoro's accent hints to him speaking something else entirely, and by having been born in the North Blue Sanji understands one specific Northern dialect, even though he managed to erase all traces of it from his accent), but Luffy gets the strange Grand variation that points to a pirate having lived in the New World, and the vague noble they cross paths with, he can decipher their stuck-up tongue and posh accent, which surprises her a lot.

The New World Grand she can pin down to Luffy having spent, from her understanding, quite a bit of his formative years alongside a New World crew, Shanks' one.

The noble tongue, she can't link to anything. There's nothing that associates Luffy and the nobility, especially with who his father is. She tried asking the others about Ace, who could have given some type of hint, but all the feedback she gets on him is about how polite he was towards them, how affectionate towards Luffy, and how strong towards the Marines.

When Luffy punches the Celestial Dragon at the auction house, she can see that even if the fact that he wanted to buy their friend Camie infuriated him, that punch seemed a bit too personal, only adding to the mystery : why does Luffy speak a noble tongue if the Celestial Dragons are the only people Robin's seen him hate on principle ?

[nardo-headcanons]

Hi, I never get tired of saying how creative and talented you are ♡♡♡ I wanted to know if you would write about the Senju Clan. I know it's strange, since I haven't seen you writing anything like that and usually I don't see anything like that. I like the way you write, you're the best

Sigh. I have let this sit in my inbox way too long. I am so sorry. Thank you so much for your kind words, nonnie. I have some thoughts about the Hyuga as well, let me know if you would be interested in hearing that.

Also please note that I will change around some canon things and all of this is fanfiction/headcanon.

tagging some people i think will like reading this post: @narutobrainrotstuff , @the-real-sasuke-uchiha , @spookyphilosophertaco , @danceofthexdragons

cw for mention of genetics, racism, religion, genocide and human experiments

The Senju Clan

People

Compared to the Uchiha clan, who are phenotypically rather monotonous, the Senju clan had a very diverse population with a wider range of skin tones, eye and hair colors. There were generally very little restrictions when it came to marrying into the clan and becoming a part of it. The only traits most of the Senju shared were that of fine, straight hair whilst the Uchiha had thick and dark hair with curls not being uncommon.

The reason the Senju died out were two sides of the same coin - with many of the clan's members birthing less and less children, and those who did marrying outside of the clan to the point where there are many Konoha ninjas nowadays who are part Senju but may not even know it.

Traits and Abilities

The Senju were rather unspecified, wanting to hone their skills in all three fighting styles, though I like to think that Taijutsu was one they particularly excelled in. Once one's movements were fast enough to be evaded by the base sharingan (Mangekyou sharingan was, depending on the source material, either extremely rare or nonexistent), the Senju had an easier time fighting the Uchiha. Many of them became weapons and taijutsu specialists, making me think that Tenten might be part Senju and her idolization of Tsunade was a way to connect with her roots and get to know a fellow Senju.

Another skill of the Senju was wood style, which was a skill many Senju before Hashirama posessed, but they rarely ever utilized it in battle. Said ability was caused by a point mutation in the exome, prompting Orochimaru to later carry out experiment's on embryonic DNA to artificially induce said point mutation, killing dozens of newborns in the process.

Religion

While the Uchiha followed the way of Shintōism, most of the Senju were buddhists, like their distant relatives, the Uzumaki. Initially, the people living in the country of fire were engaging in both buddhist and shintōist practices, but with the continued rise of war between the shintō-believing Uchiha and the buddhist Senju, these two religions were more or less divided.

The Senju and the Uzumaki

The establishment of Uzushiogakure in the whirlpool country was received with mixed feelings from its inhabitants. Most Uzumaki, although practiced in the arts of combat, preferred their pacifistic lifestyle of teaching their ways on paper, and not on the battlefield. This instability made it easier for the hidden mist village to send colonialist forces, killing most of the Uzumaki in fear of their congenital abilities. And with the Senju living more and more decentralized and being too occupied with themselves, Uzushiogakure lacked the manpower compared to Kiri's extermination force.

The Senju's Legacy

Nowadays, after Konoha was founded, the Senju started living more and more decentralized, therefore there wasn't such a thing as the "Senju compound". The language of the Senju was adapted as Konoha's official language, causing the other hidden villages to adapt it as well. (You can read more about my thoughts on language in the Shinobi world here.)

There were shrines for both buddhist and shintō believers in the village, but once Hashirama became the first hokage, more and more citizens adapted the Senju's religion of buddhism, with the shintō believers dwindling in numbers. Tobirama's segregation policy did not help in the slightest; although the Uchiha, who believed in family unity and support, lived closely together, being redlined and pushed into the same profession felt patronizing. But even though the Senju as a clan is no more, their legacy continues on, in good ways, and in bad.

[drconstellation]

I Know Where I'm Going

Aziraphale's Edinburgh Journey: Part 5

Episode 3 of S2 is named after a black-and-white 1945 Powell and Pressburger film, which is in turn named after an old Scottish folk song. It's a delightful film, which I'll discuss further below the cut, that strides headlong into the theme of fate vs free will, among other things.

This is the last major piece we need to tie things together, after starting this journey with The Clue in Episode 2, which lead Aziraphale to make the journey to Edinburgh in the first place.

Fate vs Free Will

I Know Where I'm Going, both the film and S2E3, is about not ending up where you expected to be, so this how Aziraphale went expecting to find the answer to one question, but found the answer to an unexpected question instead. So part of the problem we have is that while we end up getting the answers to two questions, one expected and one unexpected, I feel people really aren't recognizing the questions that raise them in the first place.

Not making sense? Let me describe the film.

Joan is a confident young (25yo) lady on her way to the (fictitious) Ilse of Kiloran to marry a rich older industrialist. This involves a journey by train then several ferries to the ultimate destination. However she gets stuck on the Isle of Mull, the penultimate stop, as the weather turns, and has to stay the night, then several days, as a bad gale blows.

She meets a fellow traveller, Torquill McNeil, a naval officer home on leave, who invites her up to one of the local mansions. Joan meets some of the delightful and slightly eccentric locals (the pack of goofy, soft wolf hounds of the Lady of the house, Catriona Potts, are a highlight of the film, imo) including a retired colonel who's into falconry who keeps going on about a lost golden eagle that he's training. (The eagle is a metaphor for Torquill, it turns out.)

We find out Torquill is actually the Laird of Kiloran, and he is renting out Kiloran to Joan's husband-to-be for money while he's off in the navy seeing the world. Torquill knows all the locals, and the locals know him, and they are all kind of bound together as one big happy family, in a way.

The next morning Torquill takes Joan to the hotel in another village to talk to her fiance via radio, as they still can't get to the other island. The fiance (who we never see) recommends visiting another house nearby. She does, and we find out they are also rich from new money, and care nothing about the locals and the local environment. And this is where we start learning there is a bit of divide between the old and the new, the rural out door life that is connected to the land, and the new wealth that cuts itself off from its surroundings and other people. And Joan is going to be a part of that - in her dream on the train, the same dream that gives us the tartan clad hills, she marries a corporation, not a person - so impersonal!

Joan is desperate to get across to Kiloran (she knows where she's going! She thinks...) After repeatedly bumping into Torquill over the next couple of days and it becoming evident there are feelings growing between them, she bribes a young local boatman to take her across to her fiance and expected marriage on Kiloran to escape this, even though the gale is still blowing strong. Torquill finds out at the last minute, and jumps into the boat with them. They get caught in a squall, and the motor cuts out. The tide drags them towards the infamous local whirlpool, and they only just escape due to Torquill's expertise.

Joan is chastened when they return to safety. That was the point of not risking the crossing in the gale in the first place, explains Torquill. They could have sent a rescue boat out if they got into trouble, but it puts more than just the rescuers at risk, it puts their families at risk, and then that extends to the whole island. Doesn't she see how the whole island is interconnected? She finally realizes how selfish she has been.

The next day dawns brightly, and the gale has finally blown out - the sea is a calm and a ferry crossing will be no trouble today. The colonel finally catches up with his golden eagle, and brings it home to roost.

Joan and Torquill say their farewells on the road, and there's a Great Big Kiss before they part and go their separate ways.

Torquill walks past the ruined castle that he is fated to be cursed if he enters as Laird of Kiloran. But he decides to risk it, and he goes in and explores the ruins, and we hear the whole story of the curse and finds that it isn't such a bad curse after all - in a metaphorical way! The next thing he hears is bagpipes - it's Joan returning up the road with the pipers that were supposed to be at her wedding. She has decided she wasn't going where she thought she was going after all and has come back to be with Torquill, her new love.

That's the basics of the story, but if you would like to watch it, I would recommend you do, as there is a lot more in it than that.

(I did watch "A Matter of Life and Death/Stairway to Heaven" before finishing this post, seeing as the book that features in it also appears in S2xE3, which is the main episode around the trip to Edinburgh, but more in relation to Gabriel's situation I think. It also deals with a character trying to escape their intended fate, but they do so by attending a formal trial and pleading their case. Other ops have reviewed the film here and here if you want to find out a bit more. I wasn't as impressed with that film, sorry to say, but I will probably watch it again to reflect on certain features and points in it relevant to GO, there is a lot. And to work out which minor character a very young Sir Richard Attenborough was playing!)

Lunatic Behaviour and Lethal Traps

Some ops have pointed out that Elspeth and Wee Morag act as parallel characters to Crowley and Aziraphale. While some would argue there are various ways to interpret this, the music indicates that Elspeth aligns with Crowley and Wee Morag with Aziraphale.

Elspeth is the one trying hard to engineer the pair's escape from the poverty trap they are in, even if it is by nefarious means. Wee Morag is the one scandalised by Elspeth's illicit actions, and concerned about doing right by Heaven. Crowley takes up Elspeth's side of the argument against Aziraphale, that its not as easy to escape poverty as one thinks (i.e. just working hard will fix things) but he also tries to warn Wee Morag that things don't work the way she thinks they do in the afterlife either.

So what's the price one pays for going down the path of body snatching as an escape from poverty? You have to get past the lethal traps of the grave guns that have been set, by not tripping the wires. And again, its the wealthy privileged ones that have the advantage.

Acting in haste was a disaster. They got split up, never to see one another again. One more body may have got them out of short term trouble, but what about the long term?

Escape is a nice dream, but a harsh reality.

Elspeth was going to use the laudanum as another form of easy escape, until Crowley prevented it, then acted as a daemonium ex machina to assist her in escaping properly good, using Aziraphale's money, as that was really the only way she was going to escape for good.*

Joan tried to escape Torquill in I Know Where I'm Going, but only cast herself and her companions into danger. If she had been more patient and less selfish, she might have had everything she wanted without suffering on the way. But that wouldn't have made as good a story then, would it? And she wouldn't have gotten to know Torquill and fallen for him, either.

If Aziraphale ran away to Alpha Centauri with Crowley, like Crowley had been urging in the present, would they be free? The inference is its unlikely, that they wouldn't be able to escape their own "poverty trap," the alarms would be raised, and the trouble they caused would be too deep to pull themselves out of. Luck hasn't been on their side so far.

The View from Above

By now we should be alert to characters trying to avoid their fate, or perhaps ending up in places they weren't intending to. Fate has a weird way of biting you on the backside, as the trope goes.

Giant Crowley did end up somewhere he wasn't intending to be, and perhaps accidentally ended up playing God and deciding Elspeth's fate. There are mentions of angels as tall as mountains, or tall as the sky in the Bible, so him ordering Aziraphale to give all his money to Elspeth while looking down at them shouldn't really be out of place for those familiar with the book. Crowley also took Elspeth's fate into his own hands when he snatched the laudanum away from her and drank it down, an action akin to absolving her of her sins.

Aziraphale also tried to change Elspeth's and Wee Morag's fate, by changing his mind about the morality of the body snatching. That didn't end up the way he hoped or expected, either.

Mr Dalrymple was of aware of two fates he could meet, he just didn't know which one it would be at the time he was s talking to Aziraphale and Crowley.

DALRYMPLE: I either end up with a knighthood or condemned as a resurrectionist and hanging from a rope.

Sadly, we find out through Aziraphale reading the pamphlet he picked up outside the pub that it was along the lines of the second one - he might not have been actually condemned for a crime, but he condemned his own conscience and then his soul.

If you would like a contrast to this, come back to S1xE2, where we approach a young Newton Pulsifer in his bedroom, about to short out the electrical works for his whole neighbourhood yet again. God is narrating at this point, and the camera view pans down from the sky...and bumps with a visible jolt and audible noise into the window frame of his bedroom. (I wasn't able to find a GIF for this.)

Newt is a Crowley-parallel, they are both on the side of free will and choosing one's destiny. This is not a place for God, the decider of Fate, to trespass. There will be no crossing of this threshold, Frances!

I would just like to take a step back here to Part 4: Judgement Day, if I may, and reconsider this view of the missing cross in the statue of Gabriel's arms:

This is the only point of view that we don't see the cross from. It's still seen from between Gabriel's and Beelzebub's shoulders, and Crowley stills see it in 1826, so it's not invisible to demons.

So I would like to ask, could the missing cross view be God's point of view?

The viewpoint is similar to the one in the Job minisode, as seen from where Aziraphale and Crowley are witnessing Job listen to the Almighty speak to him.

So, perhaps if God isn't seeing the cross, they aren't the one who has so-called Ineffable Plans for the Second Coming in mind.

Yeah, so there's the Great Plan, and the Ineffable Plan, but are they the same plan...and who is pushing so hard for the Great Plan to come to completion, then? Not Gabriel or Beelzebub, that's for sure.

66 Goat Gate

Just before we attempt to wrap things up, we should have a look at the address on the Clue, but it doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know.

We know the address of the pub in Edinburgh appears in two places, once on the record single Maggie gives to Aziraphale and once on the matchbox that held the fly. There is a difference in the way they are written, with an comma on the record, and also Goat Gate written as two words, whereas it is one word on the matchbox.

Gate was old name for a road, so one interpretation could be that it was hinting at a demon road, or an underground road (demons live in Hell, which is underground, and demons are also associated with goats) and that ties in with the resurrection and Judgement Day theme we have going on, and perhaps should alert us to the presence of at least one demon being involved with Gabriel. On the other side, a goatgate is a relatively modern term for someone who talks a load of shite, so to speak. If we use Strong's Concordance to add the 66 to it, it becomes a wild or fierce mouth. Which kind of suits the Leviathan referenced in the verse from the Book of Job. The first version then looks like a wild underground road to Hell on the way to the Second Coming (the Harrowing of Hell in the Passion, anyone?) Don't forget the number 6 is associated with Hell as well.

Piecing the Elephant Together

There is a famous parable about a group of blind men meeting an elephant for the first time. They each go up and touch a different part of the huge beast, and subsequently give a different description for each part of it, but collectively they can't describe it properly as a whole.

That's kind of how we tend to look at Good Omens - its such a huge, complicated beast of a story, with each of us picking out one strand to analyze that might be our specialty, but we don't necessarily have all the other pieces nearby to aid our understanding as to why it was placed there or what it is doing and how that aids the purpose of the story.

To sum things up:

Aziraphale's trip to Edinburgh in the Bentley is a parallel to Crowley and Muriel going to Heaven together to find out about Gabriel, but Aziraphale is actually going to Edinburgh to find out about Beelzebub (he just doesn't realize it.)

Gabriel was there in the pub, and met with a "Mason" in a regular black-coloured suit that the barman was used to seeing Masons dressed in, because he noted that Gabriel's light grey suit was different.

We are shown many clues to the looming Second Coming

We see parallel scenes to S1, which at the same time sets upparallels for S3, which are about starting Armageddon. Again.

We also gain a lot of interlinked information for other parts of S2, and parts that link up with S1 and maybe S3, such as:

Aziraphale's main parallel in S2 is Beelzebub, with Maggie a parallel blend of the two of them.

Mr Dalrymple shows us that something needs to be cut out to save the innocent, but we also need to learn what it is before we can do that.

Elspeth and Wee Morag show us that running away is not as simple an option as it seems, its more a fatal trap than anything.

The Masonic symbols appearing in S2 remind us that life and death is a cycle, but also sometimes thoughts need to be turned around.

Aziraphale thought he knew where he was going, but he didn't really; fate gave him answers that he wasn't expecting. Did he ask the right questions?

There is not just a single purpose for Aziraphale to go to Edinburgh, there were several.

I also think Aziraphale didn't have enough time to stop and think about it, or talk it through with Crowley. They both had to leap from one thing to another until it was too late.

I was going to finish this off with that quote about history repeating itself until you learn from your mistakes or something, but then I found this one:

*Slaps this beast on the backside to move it along so it can go roam free in the wilderness.*

*This is actually something that is well researched but not well known, and is called the Success Paradox. You can watch a good explanation of it by one of my favourite science vloggers Veratisium here. Women are probably most aware of it intuitively, because of inherit sexism in our patriarchal society, but it also exists in the attitude "if you work hard you can make anything happen." What most people don't realize is how much luck factors into their success. Lucky they were born into a wealthy family. Lucky they met the right person on the right day. Lucky they were chosen over another etc. Before you argue otherwise, do stop and think about it.

The other posts in this series can be found here:

Part 1: Detective Aziraphale Part 2: Aziraphale-Beelzebub Parallels Part 3: Stocktaking in the Basement Part 4: Judgement Day

[mixelation]

some reborn au chunin exams rambling

kushina and minato are like "okay, the PR move is that we want you to show off fuinjutsu to potential clients during the tournament" and tori goes and assesses which of her fuinjutsu can be used in combat and she comes back and is like "okay, either i can make a barrier, OR i can use this medical fuinjutsu that turns you inside out" and they're like ".....don't do that second one" because they want to appear cool and fun. konoha will NOT massacre your village. they are nice and friendly :) look at this cute and nice teenaged girl you can hire!!

tori: i can trap someone in the barrier but then i don't have a good game plan for how to actually knock them out to win

tori: i HAVE always wanted to see if i could use temperature differences to make a vacuum though

kushina: hey uuuuh after thinking it over

kushina: maybe instead of you being... creative... with your jutsu

kushina: i just teach you one of mine :)

because it occurred to me that uzushio probably had a lot of jutsu which would be super fucking useful in a coastal village like kiri?

i'm still rotating what tori actually learns (maybe.... make a whirlpool?!), but i decided because the mood is "everyone is approaching this super casually but tori" that instead of an intense training session, kushina and minato are like FAMILY BEACH TRIP!!! so they go to a beach for the day and Minato and Naruto are just. there. hanging out. kushina works with tori for like two hours and then gets distracted by her family mini vacation and abandons tori to practice on her own

entire Uzumaki-Namikaze family: (organizing a hermit crab race)

tori: (drowning in the background)

MEANWHILE, IN KIRI,

i think mangetsu thought tori was interesting for like six weeks and then there was no news about her for a while and he forgot. but then kisame makes the fundamental error of being like "oh, she's on the entrants list" and mangetsu is like "oh yeah, her," and tori spends her first few days in kiri being like "i can't believe? the boy i led on relentless for a month? did not meet me at the gate???" but he DOES come bitch at her at some point

but i think tori's move in the survival portion is that she's like "oh god, i have NO foreknowledge on any of these kids, i have no idea who to look out for" and then she goes "what would orochimaru do?" and then she does something Insane and On A Large Scale to see how people react in order to make her tier list of entrants to watch out for

and now mangetsu is interested again and kisame is like. w h y

[crispyeagleenthusiast]

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