#but she doesn't know what happens to this specific clan oops

[mixelation]

i wrote more reborn au help

“It’s five now,” Matron told them grimly.  

A week ago, there had been six shinobi clans in Sound Country. Matron didn’t describe what happened to the sixth one. She didn’t have to. Most of the orphans have already been sent out to see the war themselves. 

Tori picked at a thread on the hand-me-down yukata she’d been given. It was a mustard yellow that probably would have looked lovely on another child but just made her skin look oddly gray. They hadn’t made her do anything yet but help lug water out to the aftermath of a battle once. She was only four. 

“This is why it’s important you train hard,” Matron concluded, before dismissing them into the yard. 

It wasn’t fair, Tori thought as she plodded along at the back of the line, that she had to be reborn into this stupid universe and didn’t even get to be born into a cool family. She would have liked magic eyeballs, maybe, or being taught to read minds. This clan did have a kekkei genkai that involved screaming like a bat, but she wasn’t one of them. She’d been born to a civilian family that had been the tragic victims of the Third Shinobi War, and the clan had taken her along with any other orphan kid they found.

The poor shmuck in charge of orphan training today was a teenager who didn’t seem to have any real plan in mind. He instructed them to practice hitting each other with sticks, and Tori was handed a bamboo pole and paired off with another girl, a couple years older. 

Tori didn’t want to hit anyone with a stick, much less another little girl. She’d rather be taught how to fight alongside a dog partner, and Tori didn’t even like dogs. 

The other little girl was shaking. She was new, and like Tori’s new-timeline family she didn’t even remember, her parents had been farmers. The Matron promised them every morning that they were training to be shinobi just like everyone else in the clan, but the clan relied on parents or older siblings teaching their children individually or in small groups, and the orphans just got whoever was around and free on any given day. This girl had never had to fight anyone in her life. 

(There were barely any children over the age of eight, because eight was the age they decided it was okay to start sending people out into the battlefield.)

“You can come at me first,” Tori offered, squaring her shoulders and holding the pole in front of her the way she thought they’d told them to do it a month ago. 

It additionally wasn’t fair that Tori didn’t seem to be any more physically gifted than in her previous life. She seemed to have the exact same body as before, complete with a head of runaway curls that the Matron seemed confused by, and that meant physical activity didn’t come easily to her. 

The other girl hesitated a few moments, and then half-heartedly smacked her pole against Tori’s. She didn’t even aim for Tori herself. The teenager in charge of them was busily sharpening some kunai and not paying any attention to the hollow thwaps of incompetent children hitting things with bamboo poles. 

Really, really unfair, Tori thought. 

xXx

Medical supplies were perpetually low, and so the welts now across Tori’s knuckles would go unbandaged. They had soap, at least, and plenty of well water. Tori had even gotten to help an ancient kunoichi make the last batch of soap. 

Tori examined her hand as they waited in line for a lunch of plain rice porridge. She must be holding the pole wrong, for a seven year old to accidentally hit her knuckles like that. 

(This was one advantage Tori had over the other orphans: she didn’t mind getting hurt. She preferred not to be hurt, obviously, but she’d lost a lot of the natural human fear of pain.)

They were also short on most kitchen supplies, so Tori had to share her bowl with two boys. They’d just sat down on the edge of the main house’s engawa when a group of shinobi bounded into the yard in excitement. 

“We got one!” one of them cried, holding something over his head. “Where’s the Old Man? We found one!”

Whatever it was, a group was rapidly forming around the shinobi. The two boys Tori was to share with got up to go see themselves, and Tori pulled the bowl into her lap. Their loss. 

Tori ate as fast as she could while she watched the proceedings. The Clan leader eventually appeared, and the crowd parted for him. The shinobi knelt as he presented the leader with… some sort of kunai?

“We were scouting a battlefield of the Yellow Flash, as you commanded,” one of the shinobi reported. 

Ah, shit, Tori thought as horror dawned on her. 

“It has some sort of fuinjutsu on it,” the shinobi was saying as the Clan Leader carefully flipped the three-pronged kunai over in his hands. “If we study it, maybe he can learn one of his techniques.”

Tori set the bowl down on the engawa and hopped to her feet. 

“Excuse me,” she called, approaching the gaggle of people around the Clan Leader. “Excuse me, are you really sure that’s a good idea?”

The Clan Leader looked at her like she was some sort of insect. 

“Don’t speak unless spoken to, girl,” the Clan Leader responded.

Tori ignored the warning. “Doesn’t the Yellow Flash, like, teleport? Do you really want to risk him teleporting here?”

The teenager who’d been in charge of them that morning was commanded to take her to a back training ground and hit her ten times with one of the bamboo poles. He only hit her eight times, all on her back. 

“The next person won’t be as nice,” he warned her. 

Tori had to lay on her belly to sleep, crammed into a room with twelve other orphans. In the morning, she was excused from ninja practice and sent to help the ancient kunoichi who made soap with laundry. Tori considered this a bonus. The soap kunoichi was the only person she really liked. 

“This does need to be wrapped,” the kunoichi diagnosed her back, clicking her tongue. “Why did you speak up, you foolish child? Here, lie down and I’ll help.”

Tori laid down on her belly again, and she twitched only a little as the kunoichi pushed chakra into her back. 

“I was right,” Tori mumbled into her arms. “That kunai is dangerous.”

The kunoichi sighed. “Always too clever for your own good, girl. Of course it’s dangerous. Trust your elders to know how to contain dangerous techniques.”

Tori craned her neck, turning her head to look at the kunoichi. “Really?” she asked. “How?”

The kunoichi clicked her tongue again. “No technique a brat like you will understand.”

“I understood the soap,” Tori countered. “Didn’t you tell Matron once, that a failure of one person to explain isn’t a failure of another person to understand–”

“Oi!” the kunochi countered, moving her hand to pinch an unblemished part of Tori’s side sharply. “The mouth on you!”

She did explain, though. The clan possessed a special chest, which was adorned with a special seal the clan had spent generations developing. It made the chest unbreakable, and so the kunai was harmless as long as it was inside. 

Tori doubted this, but she also doubted Minato would have a reason to come attack this little clan specifically. Then again, what did she know? She knew the date this war had ended in another timeline, and she knew at some point before that date the five Sound Country shinobi clans would unite as one village, but she didn’t know if she could expect things to proceed as they had before. She didn’t know what she’d changed, if anything, just by being here. 

One problem at a time, Tori decided, getting to her feet to go find some clean rags for the kunoichi to dress her wounds.

[spongyspingy-rising]

IF you are currently rotating a dragon around in your head like a microwave, tell me everything about them! If not then just tell me everything about the dragon you love the most at this moment ^^

I lost my first version of this when my iPad died OOPS

anyway.... hard question, but I think right now it's gotta be Sana! he doesn't even have an outfit & im not sure I'm going to give him one, but. okay everyone already knows this about me already, I STARTED AS A CAT ARTIST.... for like a decade! way before I ever started drawing/rping humans. so I'm still having fun with my gijinka lore, but I've been playing around with a little offshoot bit of lore that's just completely self indulgent cat isekai.

the premise of this 'subclan' is based off the cat world in A Whisker Away (or like The Cat Returns— same idea!) where there's... either it's going to be a tavern (classic) (sorry wilde) or some other kind of pocket dimension, where when you have to be turned into a kitty to enter/when you enter. I'm either gonna do a similar idea as the talismans that Astramor uses, or play with a mask thing like the movie.

Anyway, Sana!

Sana (he/they) married into the family/clan that runs the kittydistrict, or at least largely influences it, their surname is Tailurus but they're referred to collectively as the Tailurians. there's a couple aspects im still waffling on, but basically they're a family of savannah cats!

I have a really old bunch of concept art here, I'm just recycling it:

(the blind one in the top left is a design I'm gonna be basing off to make Sana's other kid)

they married for love, and kind of had the thought that this could overcome anything— which was a REALLY big assumption to make, and did not really work out. the stress of constant harassment from the family & the alienation eventually took too big a toll on their relationship, and they split up. Sana is now dating Cooper (they're not married— Sana doesn't really want to do that again) and his ex-wife is... well, she's not particular in a better position, but I'm not sure either of them are, despite that Sana maybe has it better off.

Cooper (he/him— he's trans) has always loved Sana, they're longtime friends, and he still kind of has the impression that he loves Sana more than they love him. which isn't true, obviously, but it's a small weight on their relationship that Sana can sense and it scares him a bit. being loved is a huge responsibility, and after what happened last time, they kind of have the habit of holding on very lightly in case everything goes to shit again. which, doesn't help Cooper's feelings. particularly.

their (eventual) kid doesn't have a name, but I want to make these two a breeding pair I draw/design art for while I'm breeding for the specific colors I want. I also have Sana on a nest rn for his kid(s?) from his previous relationship, which I MIGHT make designs for and sell. hav not decided yet.

they make real good kids too.

[sp1resong]

in which i ramble abt mistystar, my rewrite, and deadly poisons

before we begin, i would like you to know that:

I did not read River.

I'm really just winging it with the way things work here and ignoring information that's inconvenient/doesn't work with the plot.

So. Mistystar.

She sure did die.

Presumably of a heart attack, but given that these are cats in the woods, there's no way to know for sure.

But that's not convenient, because for rewrite purposes I need her death to be intentional. So. Here's roughly how the rewritten scene goes:

Most things stay the same at the beginning, but Mistystar is eating at the time.

Cats are yelling at her, she's (poorly, semi-incoherently) trying to defend herself--

and then she collapses, has some kind of seizure, and fucking dies. Oops.

the Clan panics, because oh shit what why how that wasn't supposed to happen we kind of thought she was IMMORTAL what the FUCK

Mothwing declares her death to be the result of a sudden illness caused by her old age. Frostpaw is basically like 'that doesn't sound right but i don't know enough about medicine to dispute it'.

Of course, Mistystar didn't die of being old. She was murdered, because that's far more fun (and makes more sense with the story i plan on telling). Specifically, she was poisoned with foxglove.

Foxglove is very much poisonous, as you may know. This might be common knowledge, I really don't know how much of the shit i know is known by everyone else.

But just so we're on the same page, foxglove poisoning can cause. A lot of things, but most relevantly seizures and heart failure.

The reason neither of the healers recognized it was because Frostpaw doesn't have nearly enough training, and Mothwing--

That's spoilers, you'll see.