Or, alternate funny version to the previous: any combination of Uchiha watching Tobirama fight and discussing their observations (gossiping/oogling shamelessly), after peace exists and they SHOULD technically probably help him, but... Tobirama can clearly handle it, no need to get in his way
I once read that a drabble is 200 words or less. I will never beat those allegations.
The ability to share memories with the sharingan really isn't meant to be used this way, but that's never actually stopped anyone.
"I swear to you," Says Madara with a snicker, "He slapped himself in the face with a water whip. Acted like it never happened, but I saw it."
The scene is a bit more endearing than that, when Madara shows it. Tobirama is sparring with his students and one of them can't quite dodge in time. That jutsu can break skin and cut through muscle if it hits right, but rather than hurt one of his students that badly, Tobirama jerks it back. He breaking the whip's momentum but loses a good portion of control and, indeed, slaps himself in the fact with it. He looks rather akin to a wet cat.
Madara and Izuna both break out into another fit of laughter, but Hikaku just shakes his head fondly.
"I've seen him do that on purpose, actually." He says after the laughter has died down a bit. It's not exactly the same -- the memory he calls up had been recorded on accident. It had been in those early days of peace, when seeing Tobirama move water about had made him call up the sharingan on instinct, back when they'd be so concerned that he'd break peace that he wasn't allowed to go off on missions alone.
I'd been rather rote mission -- dealing with bandits who had thought they could take advanced of the disorganization of a new village. It had had been hot, the summer temperatures soaring high and uncomfortable, and they'd both been sweat soaked and sticky by the end of it.
"Excuse me" Tobirama had said the moment he'd cause sight of a source of water. He'd let himself jump in ankle deep instead of standing on top, raised an arm, and proceeded to dump an honestly excessive amount of water over himself. Of course, his mastery over water let him pull water out of his clothes until he was just the right amount of damp without any effort-- Hikaku had been and still is jealous over it -- and even back then, eyes lingered on where wet clothes stuck to well-defined muscle.
Thankfully no one comments. The sharingan's tendency to show the exactly what was seen means they've all shared unintentionally embarrassing moments. Plus, Hikaku knows he's not the only one who's done that exact thing.
"Oh, sensei will do that for us, if we ask!" Chimes in Kagami, thankfully too young and oblivious to understand why his cousins are giving Hikaku the side eye. He launches into a memory of his team begging and pleading to be allowed to train on the water on another hot day. His sensei had crossed his arms, unimpressed, and said he knew that the lot of them had all mastered water walking already…
…But that if the lot of them managed to prove they could do their D-rank mission without complaining, he would think of a way to cool them all off. In Kagami's young memory, the cool mist Tobirama had raised from the pond of the garden they'd been weeding had been the most refreshing thing he'd ever felt.
"…He's too soft on you." Madara says, without any real heat.
"He's something." Izuna responds dryly. "Sometimes I forget, none of you have ever seen what it's like when he really wants to get something done."
Without warning, Izuna calls up the memory of a fight. No… A spar, but a bloodthirsty one. Probably one of the first ones they'd had since they were allowed to again, after peace was called. A mixture of pent up frustration and the fact that they were no longer supposed to kill each other had both of them showing off -- Izuna was prone to do it, regardless, but this was the first time he'd seen Tobirama opt for techniques that were more flashy than practical. A water dragon with mutliple heads split apart into multiple, chasing Izuna through the trees, each one eating one of the multi-fireballs Izuna hurls out to counter them.
Tobirama did not hesitate, leaping out from the steam and twisting his fingers. The droplets of water in the air shimmered and twisted until everything was an indistinct haze.
Not that it stops a sharingan. But something about the scene -- the way the light hit the mist, haloing Tobirama with a sort of rainbow -- or maybe the way he's smirking -- makes Izuna pause.
Oh, he thinks.
Oh, thinks everyone else.
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Thoughts on toxic yuri?
One of my very favorite storytelling concepts, I love it when women make each other worse. <3
I do think it's important, for me anyway, to note the difference between a dynamic that's toxic in one direction versus something that is mutually toxic. The first one doesn't really interest me a whole lot, usually because it means one character suffers constantly without being allowed to do anything else--at the very least, it will come across as the more ""normal"" character not really being that into the relationship in question. I need BOTH parties to be unhinged.
The important thing for any fictional relationship (though we're specifying toxic yuri here, obviously) is that it's interesting. If there is no limit to what the women can do within a dynamic, then there are an infinite number of ways for that dynamic to go. And while you can learn a lot about a character through examining their values and positive qualities, you can learn just as much (if not more) by considering their flaws. And those flaws really come out in the case of toxic yuri; characters get to show the uglier parts of themselves in this context, which I am always a fan of. A fraught, complex relationship, when written well, can be a really great way to psychologically explore the characters: what inspires them to act this way? why do they think this behavior is acceptable? if they don't think it's acceptable, why do they keep doing it? what do they think about the concept of love as a whole? how far would they go for intimacy or to be understood? how do they view other people in general? and probably most importantly, what led to them developing the beliefs underlying their actions in the first place?
From a more "psychologically, why do people enjoy this" standpoint, mutual toxicity often goes hand in hand with extreme obsession, extreme jealousy, and a willingness to forgive a whole lot of horrible shit. Which, yeah, in real life you don't want to be in a relationship like that. But I think there's a lot of emotional resonance in exploring those feelings. The idea that someone will never leave you. That they think so intensely about you specifically that they'll break anything and anyone to stay with you. That even if you're the worst version of yourself, someone will still want you because that's still you. Someone knows exactly how to fuck you up because they genuinely understand you. Things in fiction that we would never want in real life can be incredibly interesting or even cathartic to witness from a distance. I think we all feel things that scare us sometimes (or even simply feel an innocuous emotion so intensely that it scares us), and looking at unpleasant feelings within fiction can help identify, parse out, process, and successfully cope with those feelings. And I think, at the end of it all, a lot of people want to matter to someone, in some way. It makes sense that some creators would take that concept-of meaning a great deal to another person, of affecting them deeply-to its absolute extreme through writing.
(And also, consider. That I am very gay. And that horrible women are very attractive.)
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