Second entry for @sweetspicybingo - Fairy Lights
Narutoverse | KisaKonan | G | ~800 words
They avoid the road that goes through Fire Country. Konoha-nin patrols are too aggressive. Even though Kisame brushes this off as an insignificant obstacle ("I can handle Konoha, Konan-san." He says, reflexively shouldering Samehada.), Konan knows a premature encounter would be unwise. ("Pein doesn't want to reveal our existence yet.") Instead, they take the long way– through Grass, Waterfall, and Rice Country, crossing the border into Hot Water Country. Konan recalls old Akatsuki scouting reports that Hot Water military is only concerned with tourists, so they stick to the coastline. Admittedly, it's a longer journey. They sleep in shifts during the afternoons and travel under a waning moon cycle. The coastline turns to sandy beaches, flanked to the south by forest.
In the pre-dawn hours, they crest a hillside. And the strangest vision reveals itself to them; a sea with glowing, blue waves. Konan slows to a halt. Kisame, following, anticipates a command. She is, after all, higher ranking. The ocean roars to his left, covering up the muffled words that Konan says under her breath. All he catches is 'of the sea'.
"What's that?" He asks, looking beyond her to notice the blue phenomena himself.
Konan turns back to him, mouth hidden underneath her high collar. She doesn't wear a hitai-ate.
"Ghost lights of the sea." She repeats. "It's a children's story– a warning about following ghost lights into the water. They say the lights are the souls of drowned fishermen."
Kisame huffs. He could slay a village full of fishermen with his eyes closed. Nothing to worry about there. But Konan's reaction is different. She turns back to the sea, taking a halting step forward; debating whether or not she has time to investigate the curiosity. The look of awe in her eyes is unmistakable, almost child-like. Kisame has been mission-focused his entire life. Sight-seeing is a luxury he's never been awarded. That was in Kiri. Now it's supposed to be different. He trots ahead of Konan, leading them to the beach. Permission is something neither of them are used to giving themselves; but the sight is too enchanting to ignore.
Glittering waves lap at the shoreline; water teeming with scrambling, blue lights. Konan steps lightly, not used to feeling sand beneath her feet. Kisame does so also, but on instinct of training drilled into him until his skull broke. He bends down and scoops up a light; feeling the soft flesh of a squid. It's tiny. Five of them could easily fit in his palm. Konan looks on with caution, thinking of poison and traps and–("don't follow them into the sea"). But Kisame seems unaffected, so she mimics him and scoops one into her hand. The animal is dotted with little blue lights, chaotically blinking at her. A cry for help?
"It must be their spawning season." Kisame guesses, before popping it in his mouth.
Konan's eyes widen in surprise. Eating a ghost-light will surely curse you, right? But the look on his face says otherwise; the opposite in fact. She looks down at her own specimen, wriggling. It slips between her fingers and swims off into the sea, meeting thousands of others.
"You know these creatures?" Konan asks, wary.
He shrugs, mouth still occupied with the morsel. "No, but I had a good guess. They're smaller than the ones in Water Country, but they look the same." Swallows. "Tastes better though."
Konan wouldn't know. Rain Country doesn't have squid. But strangely, she trusts Kisame's intuition and appetite. So she gathers a few handfuls of them, sparkling blue in her hands. To eat such a beautiful thing seems a terrible waste.
As if sensing her hesitation, Kisame enlightens her. "They'll probably die soon anyways."
His words do little to alleviate some harbored guilt within her.
They set up a resting spot at the tree-line, listening to the ocean carry the ghost-light squids to shore. They're too small to spear and roast; and they don't have a konro; so Kisame boils them instead. The sun pierces the horizon. It's as good as any time for breakfast. Konan waits and fishes the squid out of the pot after Kisame takes his share. She eats it whole, examining the textures between her teeth. Kisame watches her, curious to see how she finds the delicacy. It's sweet and rich; briny but not overly so. Like a fat shrimp. If he looked hard enough, he'd see her blushing. For something about to die, it certainly doesn't taste like it.
When they're done, Konan puts out the fire and hides any evidence that they were there. A habit from her younger days with Yahiko and Nagato. The beach turns into rocky coastline, disappearing behind them entirely as they approach the border. Today they make for their allies in Frost Country to resupply. If they're lucky, they'll also get clues for their mission. Konan returns to the memory of the luminescent beach, wishing she could tell Yahiko. She'll have to settle for Tendo Pein instead.
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it sucks how much queer sex/expression in art gets sensationalized by the general public to the point of making the actors themselves uncomfortable when all they did was portray queerness, like as a queer person observing it happen in real time it always feels so othering when people can't just be normal about it
oh my god yeah. i’ve been thinking about it all day and obviously it's all speculation as to whether or not that's the reason barry's kind of distancing himself from saltburn, but the way people have been acting about jacob and barry after this movie is fucking crazy.
it's so annoying that straight characters get to just be characters who live and die inside of the story that they were created for. but for some reason, portraying a queer character is regarded as a sort of admission of the actor.
i think you're so right in talking about the sensationalism of queerness and i think it largely comes from the belief that queerness is something to be hidden and unveiled when the time is right. which means that any peak into a person's relationship with queer identity (in this case, barry playing a queer man and then extending this act to the pr surrounding the movie) opens them up to a line of questioning that they very well might not want to talk about. it's none of our business whether or not they're dating, and frankly it's delusional to assume that they MUST have a something romantic or sexual going on just because of the way their characters acted in saltburn.
the inability to draw lines between what's real and fiction and the pushing assumption that queerness is owed to us by people who play queer characters is so concerning. actors act. it is their job. not allowing them work-life separation is immature at best and harmful when taken to this extreme.
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I was compelled to draw the stupid old people dslfkjgnsd.
Anyway, AU where the profs actually stick around and eventually become teachers at the Academy I guess. My dumb wild brain idea was that Clavell had the bright idea of "Since the time machine project is dashed y’know what we should do? We shgould all go work at the Academy.” Jacq was pulled along on similar train of thought (I think he only joined the tera orb project a little later as a trainee, but wasn’t close enough to the profs to hear about their time machine thingy unlike Clavell).
Clavell and Turo are very much on the same page of being old men who are shit at modern day culture. Sada on the other hand... she revels in their dumbness. Poor Arven lol. I’m thinking they might be teaching assistants/only teaching part time. Maybe working on experiments that eventually lead to Koraidon and Miraidon being lab created rather than time machine pulled.
They basically take up the currently empty other half of Clavell’s office, the labs! And yes I ship all three of them together lmao. Imagine the chaos lkjsdfg. Also the shenanigans to be had there after school hours, if you get my meaning lol. I’m sorry lsdfkjsd. My nsfw twitter account will hold more poly junk in the future I guess (No minors please.)
Also FYI I’m running with my idea that the AI professors we see are actually just their youthful appearances frozen in time. In present day, the actual profs would be aging, sort of looking like this.
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Why do you ship sonadow (I ask this in a way so I can hear your analysis on them ❤️)
Hi!! That's a great question and this might be too long of an answer but I tried to keep it reasonable! 😋
When I started shipping Sonadow I'd just gotten back into the fandom after some... idk... 20 years away. Netflix had added Sonic X (which I'd never seen) and I was like... ooo what's this, my favorite character from childhood!? Imma check this out! And I started watching it and then asked myself the age old question 'I wonder if there's fanfic of this?'
And sure enough....
I started with Sonamy fics until Shadow made an appearance in Sonic X. I had no idea who he was. I'd never heard of him before, but I was immediately swept up in his and Sonic's dynamic. The connection they had was deep and instantaneous. It didn't need words or confessions. There was just something there, some sort of inherent understanding. They understood each other in ways no one else ever could. They were equals, so evenly matched that they constantly pushed and challenged the other to be better, and when it really came down to it, they were there for each other. They fought, bickered, and taunted, but in the end they trusted each other, even with little to no reason to.
Sonic and Shadow don't hold back with each other. Each is exactly what they are in the other's presence. For others, they may be softer, more patient, more reserved, but with each other they don't have to alter themselves. Shadow can take what Sonic can give and vice versa. Shadow, for one, wouldn't want it any other way, in fact, he'd take it as an insult if it were. And for Sonic it's incredibly refreshing to be around someone who doesn't put him on a pedestal as a hero. Sonic's a worthwhile opponent, steadfast in his beliefs and understanding of what's right and wrong, and even though both of those things may irritate Shadow from time to time, he respects it.
In a nutshell, I ship them because each is what the other needs and what no one else could provide. They fit together, like yin and yang, and the amount of beauty in that balance in something that makes my writer heart very very happy. 🥰
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