desertgourd
ι wιll noт ceaѕe тo eхιѕт.
Gaara of the Desert
a roleplay blog
10857 posts
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Last Seen Blogs
proloreblog
Untitled
fracturedestiny
Finding A Better Use For This Account
joanriversofficial
jack✨
dreaming2dream
Rêverie
Text
Asuma is shorter than he is, and her family fights for a living. This retort perches at the tip of Gaara's tongue, his furrowed brow mirroring hers, before he decides that inane arguments do not interest him. She is right about one thing, however; school fights are a scam designed to sell more - something. Detention?
"I didn't want to fight him. He knocked me down intentionally. Would you have just sat there?"
"My point is tha' you should'a never swung." said the kettle. Noisy, nosy and steeped in hypocrisy. "There can't be anythin' worth fightin' over at school." Their education took precedent or something- thought the B average student.
Tap. . . Tap . . . Tap . . .
"Angry kids." Her head tilts, features scrunch as she looks at him. There was no sugar coating it, and her abrasive manner of speech didn't make it any less bitter. A lack of malice and a lack of delicacy, Asuka Kazama, in a nutshell. "Short ones wit' a shorter fuse. Always got somethin' t' prove."
It hasn't even been half an hour yet.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Gaara woke for the second time to soft sheets, whistling birds, and a complete sense of disorientation. Late afternoon sun cascading through the window suggested he had not been out long. Otherwise he was at a loss, from his metaphysical leap between the forest and an unremarkably dressed bedroom to the source of some richly foreign aroma.
He jumped to his feet, gulped down the water by his bedside in three desperate swigs, then located a thin hairpin on the bureau, which was the closest item in the room resembling a weapon. This he pocketed before slipping out the door.
The smell led him to the kitchen, where a woman with her back to him busied herself at the counter. He now recognized his surroundings, though as if from a dream, and knew at once this was the same woman who pulled him unconscious from the threshold.
"Hello?"
His accent was like biting into a sharp, sweet fruit; like gold-marbled jadestone. He stood in a wide stance, more cautious than aggressive, a wild gazelle poised to bolt. The hairpin stilled at his side.
"Do you live here?"
Niamh had been chopping vegetables for her lunch when the front door suddenly slammed open. She whirled around, brandishing her knife, ready to defend herself. Instead the stranger collapsed on her floor the instant he was inside.
She let out an undignified squawk of surprise. Hurriedly setting down her knife, she rushed over to him and knelt down, rolling him onto his back. It was a young man, who smelled like he'd taken a dip in the sea. The scent of sea salt stung Niamh's nose. She checked his breathing and was relieved to find that he wasn't dead.
Unwilling to just leave him on the floor, she hooked her arms under his armpits and carefully dragged him into the room where she had her small, spare bed, and somehow managed to get him onto it. He was taller than her, so it was a bit of a struggle, but she managed.
She didn't notice any obvious, dire injuries. Niamh wasn't sure if she should check under his clothes for any while he was unconscious, but she saw no blood stain on his clothes, at least. She went and got a pitcher of water, along with a cup, so he could have some when he awoke.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
@intothewildsea
Gaara came to in fragments: Hardpacked sand digging into his shoulder blades. A splitting headache. A sharp all-over ache, as though a giant's fists had wrung him out to dry, bones and all. Within it all, at the center, the steady pulse of the force keeping him alive. His protection; his damnation.
Shrieking wind, the bowels of the ship lurching to and fro. Rolling thunder smothering the rapid thud of footsteps. An ear-splitting crack; the world tilting sharply on its axis. Icy cold. Panicked screams. Then, nothing.
He rolled over, retched, rinsed his mouth out in the tide, and retched again.
Pulling himself to his feet was a Herculean task. He blinked against the sun branding his vision a hot red-white, and from it emerged a world entirely foreign to him. To one side, a looming cliffside vaulted sharply up the coast. Further inland, a forest sprawled thick and dark as far as the eye could see. Then, of course, the ocean which stretched for eons before him: Dazzlingly blue and deceitfully calm, not a splinter of driftwood or shred of metal hull dotting the shoreline, not a scrap of cloth or waterlogged corpse half-buried in the surf. He was alone.
Gaara picked his way through the trees with rubber legs. His clothing, dried stiff with salt, stuck fast to his sunburned skin and tore each time a bramble caught on the fabric. The sharp coastal breeze dwindled somewhat, shielded now by the densely packed trunks, the air less sharp on his tongue.
By grace of some forgotten god he did not have to walk long: At once he emerged into a clearing, and in its center sat a cottage so picturesque he thought it must be a mirage.
It was with the last bit of feverish strength in his possession that he pushed through the door, only to collapse at once across the threshold.
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
@fighterbound asked ⮩
Naruto slings an arm over his friend's shoulders, he throws up a peace sign. Accompanied with that peace sign is his rare dimpled grin. "Me and this awesome guy are goin' out to lunch! Kay bye before we get hangry!" He stops recording and looks over at his friend, sunny smile still in place.
"Ya mind if post this? I know I just shoved myself in your face buuut if you don't want your face online, I totally respect that." He has a few friends and coworkers that wanna stay out of his videos.
Gaara raises his hand in some gesture that might have resembled a wave, feeling utterly like a bewildered cat thrust into the frame by its overly affectionate owner. It's jarring, this online world from which he has intentionally excluded himself, while Naruto, handsome and aggressively outgoing, has transcended into celebrity-esque stardom.
As they head out the door - Naruto's hanger, after all, was nothing to kick rocks at - he asks:
"I don't mind. Do they even want to see me, though?"
1 note
·
View note
Text
@ceruleanbender || x
A set of bright, hard eyes pierced her through. These, and a few stray crimson wisps, were all that escaped from beneath his colorless wrap, which engulfed him just as the rolling dunes swallowed the terrain from one horizon to the other. He stood there like a statue, like a root thrust up from the earth, the embodiment of the desert itself.
"Gaara. Of Suna, to the west."
He did not sense ill intent, and she did not seem entirely a fool. Still, the Si Wong was a cruel mother even to those who called it home. Traveling it alone was a death sentence.
"You'll die before you make it, if you do not know the way."
0 notes
Text
Gaara sketch dump with a couple photo studies that I'll be adding to over the next little while~
His square neckline tunic (???) outfit is highly underrated in my opinion
Hope you like 💕
238 notes
·
View notes
Text
"Who else would I say it to?"
Carefully neutral. To this day Gaara struggled with navigating complex emotions within himself, much less others. What would Temari say? For the life of him, he did not know.
He frowned. She would need a medic-nin for antibiotics. Something told him now was not the time.
"You're still alive."
@desertgourd asked :: ❛ well done. ❜
Her gaze was dull when she finally looked up, arms wrapped around bent knees in an automatic defensive move. "Not the one you should be saying that too." The words were toneless as she returned to watching the barely healing wounds on her hands.
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
i'm okay with:
starting over - are you a little overwhelmed with where our thread is going? let me know, and i'd be happy to start a new one with you!
pausing - if you're feeling one thread more than another we have going on, that's perfectly fine! you're welcome to let me know if you'd like, but it's not a necessity.
multiples - if we have a ship that you love and you have many ideas for them, always feel welcome to throw them at me no matter what! while it may affect my reply speed due to having more, it doesn't affect my interest at all!
regrouping - maybe we initially had an idea that didn't pan out but you don't know how to say it? just shoot me a message and let me know you'd like to plot further/something else.
anything else - have we not talked and you want to? shoot me a message! send in a meme if you don't know where to start! ask for my discord! i may not initiate too often myself, but i love being able to love our threads together!
#ooc#I'm also totally happy with reminders#maybe I didn't respond to an ask meme you wanted to continue#or you wanted to continue that plot/au in some other way#I'd love to know!
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
The delicacy with which Itachi spoke of Gaara's assassination was unnecessary. There was no shying away from the fact that he had likely spent more time around the jinchuuriki dead than its walking, talking, Shukaku-free counterpart. The day to air that grievance was not this one.
"The spirit of my mother resides in my sand. It is her chakra that mingles with mine."
His voice had softened. This was a revelation less known to others, given that Gaara himself did not discover it until his reincarnated father's dying confession. The former jinchuuriki, not known for speaking at lengths about the victim of his first murder, moved on as quickly as Itachi had from the discussion of Gaara's corpse.
Gaara informed Itachi: For the comfort of others, he did not often use his sand for recreational purposes. In pursuit of scientific discovery, however, he would make an allowance, provided they moved to the training grounds for civilian safety and peace of mind. Off they went.
On the grounds, they were of similar mind, and wasted little time on pleasantries. Itachi would hear the soft pop of a freed cork, and the slow shift-slither of fine particles through the air.
The rope of sand struck without warning, like a viper at an unsuspecting meerkat. He aimed for a leg, pouring energy into speed rather than a genuine harmful force. It was a standard move; boring, even. What might have confused Itachi were the thousands of granules darting in the air around it: Some stopping short of Itachi's arms or torso, some rumbling in Konoha's dry earth, some whizzing about with no direct target whatsoever. A shinobi with standard eyesight could pick out the real threat at once. Could Itachi?
«I've had the opportunity to learn a bit about your sand.»
ㅤWhich... was not a lie, but it was worded as nicely as possible. The unadulterated truth having to do with the one time when Itachi himself and Kisame had been tasked with stalling pursuing teams from Konoha after Gaara's capture and whilst the sealing of the respective tailed beast was processed. A not-so-happy tale, perhaps best saved for a different moment; not to be forgotten, however, because Itachi did intend to properly apologize for it at some point.
ㅤChoosing to focus on the topic at hand, the Uchiha nodded at the unspoken prompt and activated his sharingan, irises promptly shifting to the very characteristic tone of blood-red. Indeed, just in time to catch glimpse of the minute movements Gaara was hinting at. «How fascinating,» he murmured with a small smile, more to himself, «If I didn't know it was sand, I wouldn't be able to tell - however, I can clearly follow its motions. Also, the nature of the chakra is similar to your own but different enough.»
ㅤAnd, inevitably , of course, it brought the image of Mikoto to his thoughts. How could it not, when the topic was related to a mother's love? Yet something else to be pushed out of current focus. Fortunately, the Kazekage seemed interested enough in their joined semi-investigation of sorts.
ㅤ«Try to have your sand touch me, anywhere. Let's see
if my reflexes are still up to the challenge.»
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
Detention afforded its captives three activities: Homework, silent reading, and staring blankly at a wall. Or, in Gaara's case, a secret fourth option: Antagonizing the girl who landed him there in the first place.
"I only hit him once. You should have minded your own business."
Thanking her was naturally out of the question. The knuckles of his right hand were raw and red, bruising at the cartilage; he flexed them gingerly, then turned his sour gaze back upon her.
"What does that mean? 'Kids like me'?"
@desertgourd asked :
"You of all people shouldn't have an opinion on /me/ fighting in school." Frankly, Gaara considers it entirely her fault he was given detention at all.
The school did have a zero tolerance policy on school violence but to punish all parties was a bit much in her opinion. Asuka tapped her nail against her pen, ink gathering on a single point on her notepad. Blank homework sheets, doodles on the desk and the sounds of the after-school sports clubs having fun while she spent her evening trapped in a room with no phone. Time passes slowly in the cruel confinement of detention.
At least she wasn't alone.
It ain't good t' fight all the time.
He was right, she had absolutely no right to judge him for fighting in school. Not when her hobby included knocking heads together on her way home. This was... Far from the first time she'd gotten in trouble for this kind of behaviour. Surely, her dad and aunt had some choice words for her. Maybe... maybe her uncle would bail her out a little.
... Nah.
"Kids like you shouldn't be fightin' people like tha'..." she sighs, her eyes followed a bird soaring onto a nearby tree branch. Idly rocking her chair back and forth while the teacher took care of business outside of their prison. "A simple 'thanks' would be nice, though."
Damn, that bird sure is far away...
↳ unprompted asks :: accepting !
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
"Sunagakure's medical staff are primed to speak with you first thing in the morning," Gaara said. "I believe they have some questions for you, too, about some type of venom from a reptile native to the Land of Fire." Some rogue shinobi from the Land of Rivers had concocted some particularly nasty paralytic blowdarts from the stuff, he had been told. The team had made it back from Suna alive, but the chemical agent had stumped their medic-nin; one unfortunate chunin had spent two weeks in the hospital nursing locked-up leg joints and a chronically infected wound site.
Enough tragedy. Journeying through Wind's stifling heat could drain even the most competent Konoha shinobi. Her work could start tomorrow.
"I'd be happy to join you. She's been talking about a new barbecue stand all week."
Sakura smiled. "No trouble at all." Even as sunny as Konoha tended to be, however, the sun in the desert was not kind to her. She was tired and itching to get a bath and a nap. Still, complaining to a host (because he was, technically, considering he ran the whole place) was not in Sakura's nature.
"I appreciate the offer, but there's nothing more that I'd ask from you than to be welcomed in Suna." Perhaps she'd even take an extended stay. It had been a while already that she'd been travelling, her research and samples weighing in her backpack and a yearning for home weighing in her heart. Sakura had travelled practically everywhere she wanted to go. Suna included. "And, if you and your medical staff don't mind it, I would like to have a chat with them soon. I'm very interested in learning more about Suna's poisons and medicine." Since healing Kankuro and fighting Sasori, it had been in the back of Sakura's mind. She found it best not to bring those memories up in conversation.
"Though if you find yourself with some free time tomorrow evening, Temari-san and I were talking about dinner. I'd be honored if you would even consider joining us."
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
𝚆𝙷𝙸𝙲𝙷 𝙷𝙾𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁 𝚃𝚁𝙾𝙿𝙴 / 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙼𝙴 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝚈𝙾𝚄 ?
━━━━━━ meat as horror
meat hooks and conveyor belts and cold metal. the warm eyes of a stupid animal, completely unaware of the watering mouths that await it. "cut here" lines drawn on the body, slabs of steak that bleed and bleed, unrelenting. are you hungry? would you kill to stay alive? you feel like prey, or maybe like predator. sinew is stuck between your teeth, and gore dribbles down your chin. don't chip your teeth on the bones. you feel like the top of the food chain, and don't see the eyes gleaming behind you.
tagged by: @osteus
tagging: @solarfreckled @shellcrack @ephemeralkatsun @thecopynin-kakashi & you, if you're reading this
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
ooc: meet the mun
NAME?: Desertgourd or dg is fine.
PRONOUNS?: He/him
MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)?: Gaara is my only muse.
RP PET PEEVES?: Purity culture; related, inability to separate fiction from reality, and inability to engage in or explore complex topics with any amount of nuance. Excessive ooc posts - whether it's negative, or constantly hopping blogs, or drama/callout, etc.
EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS?: I've been writing Gaara for about 15 years. That's nearly half of my life, come to think of it. Terrifying. I began roleplaying in general a year or two before that.
FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT?: Oh, angst. Give me angst all day. I used to do fluff more, but my fluff partners have since left the scene. I'm fine with smut, though I don't write it just for the sake of it; it needs to fit into a plot (...preferably an angsty plot) for some greater purpose.
PLOTS OR MEMES?: Plots, typically. However, some of my best IC and OOC relationships have come from random ask memes, so I definitely don't discount them. Memes are a fantastic way to throw new ideas at a wall and see what sticks - especially when muses are interacting for the first few times - though they always tend to trail off. Plots are fantastic for building a more concrete storyline once a baseline relationship has been established between two characters.
LONG OR SHORT REPLIES?: Largely depends. I'm most comfortable in the roughly 1-4 paragraph range. Any longer than ~4 paragraphs or so becomes a little one-sided. When two characters are trying to interact, to build something together, too many paragraphs in between just a few lines of dialogue grows stale and overindulgent. Of course, there are exceptions.
TIME TO WRITE?: Depends. My 'real life' keeps me pretty busy. I do most of my brainstorming at night before bed. Everything I post typically goes through an initial rough draft, several editing sessions, and a final polish, spaced out over a few days. I'm a big fan of physically writing down responses on notepads as life allows - while in a waiting room or in a car, for instance.
ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?: Well - let's just say there's a reason I've stuck with the same muse for a decade and a half, and leave it there.
tagged by: @solarfreckled
tagging: @zealctry @un1awful @claratenebris @kiigan @ceruleanbender @osteus & you, if you're reading this
9 notes
·
View notes
Note
As an adolescent, before the chunin exams, what did Gaara do to pass the time?
He didn't do much of anything, anon.
Seen as a tool to ensure the future prosperity of Sunagakure rather than a true human child, and given the grip of fear his jinchuuriki status held over his village, young Gaara had no playmates and was not introduced to non-training activities or hobbies. From the time he could walk he spent the majority of his day - every day - training either directly with his father or practicing drills alone under the eyes of hidden ANBU, who provided Rasa with regular status updates. When not training, he ate or rested.
The majority of his free time otherwise was spent in the worst way possible: Brooding silently, in his room, alone. On more restless nights he would brood on the streets of Suna, lord help whatever passerby might catch his eye the wrong way.
Although leaving the village borders without accompaniment was strictly forbidden, Gaara would occasionally abscond into the desert in the dead of night. Here he would wander until dawn, occasionally yielding to Shukaku's demand for bloodlust should he happen upon an unfortunate traveler or pack of wild dogs. Only Suna's meteorologists would know if the vicious sandstorm in the distance was a natural phenomenon or the young jinchuuriki crumbling beneath the One-Tail's urges.
It was not until after the chunin exams that Gaara learned to cultivate any real interest outside of training.
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
Gaara's track record in battle afforded him few opportunities to reconcile thereafter. Most of his victims returned not to their own homes but to the earth. More often than not they were honored with no more than a grave marker guarding an empty plot, having no identified remains left to bury.
Meeting Kimimaro was like seeing a ghost. Gaara had aged in the years since: His shoulders broader, his face lengthened and hardened beneath the burdens of leadership and war. Now reincarnated, Kimimaro had barely crested adulthood, so young he was when he perished in his forest of bone mere meters from a killing blow. For weeks after Gaara had dreamt of it: That massive osteopathic auger drilling through his skull like a shuriken through jelly; Lee, too, perishing in the aftermath; the gut-wrenching weight of his own failure even in death.
"It hasn't," Gaara said in a manner so point-blank that any reasonable person would have taken offense had they not known their Kazekage had spent the first twelve years of his life as a socially isolated recluse. "We both performed the tasks required of us at the time. Likewise, I feel no resentment for you, and I'm grateful for this opportunity for a fresh start." Everyone deserves a second chance. He would know.
"If you have spare time between your work with our medical researchers, Kankuro was interested in meeting with you. He had said something about incorporating bone into his puppetry."
[ @desertgourd ] 𝙱𝚄𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙸𝚁 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳 > "Kimimaro … I'm sorry our first meeting ended the way it did." <
What a surprise it was to know the man that had killed him became the Kazekage. It was somehow shocking, somehow very surprising and yet Kimimaro held no grudges, even in death his devotion for Orochimaru had remained strong. So strong it had allowed him to be revived, and to live by his lord for the rest of existence. Dying by Gaara's hand had been a necessary step to this, and thus, in someway, Kimimaro was thankful.
❛ There is no need for apologies, Kazekage-sama, ❜ he responded, respect and formality in his gentle but hollowed tone. They were no longer in the same hierarchy, Gaara above him by status now. ❛ I do not resent you, and I hope my death has not weighted heavily on you. ❜ Despite not being close to the red-haired man, Kimimaro did not wish to cause him needless distress. Especially not when they had been invited to Suna and welcomed so well.
❛ Thank you for welcoming Orochimaru-sama and I so well, ❜ political meetings after the war were happening much more often, and Orochimaru hardly ever left Kimimaro behind. ❛ While we are here, I am too at your service should you need it. ❜ he hoped to be of use, unaccustomed to being idle.
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
"I really like the colour of your hair. It looks great!" She stated, giving a thumbs up.
His.. hair? Gaara fingered a stray wisp. It was an unusual color, he had been told, which had never been meant as a compliment.
" ... Thank you."
1 note
·
View note
