#electrasev5n

[electrasev5nwrites]

Aint No Grave (galvanic vitalism) 1/2

part 2

His stumps hurt like a bitch. 

Deidara rolled over and groaned, thoroughly sick of this phantom pain bullshit and tedious revivals. “I have died twice,” he complained to management. “This is unacceptable, yeah. I earned my culmination.”

Why was he back again? No one was commanding him into battle-- and he didn't feel dead, anyway. Aside from a buzzing in his bones he just felt alive. Regular. Total bullshit.

That was weird but he didn’t have the emotional energy to devote to wondering why he had woken up again, after dissolving into dust at the end of that asinine battle for the continuation of humanity with all those Konoha chucklefucks and the zombies. He sulked in the dirt. Ugh. What the hell was it now? Some magical goddamn last-chance heroes quest to clear his soul’s debt and make it into the pure lands? Barf. It was highway robbery to steal his right to leave a final and dramatic mark on the world.

Someone grunted. It was low, dismissive, and very familiar.

Deidara rocketed up, bracing himself with– holy shit, his arms were working. He spent a moment staring dumbly at his gaping palms before he remembered that he had heard someone fucking awful in his vicinity.

Kakuzu gave him a look of pitiless disdain and went back to his work, stitching the lips shut on Hidan’s severed head. An arm flailed angrily from where it was pinned to a tree. The other arm was inching towards the other body parts, but the legs kept drunkenly ambling away from it. Hidan’s legs were still attached to his hips and they were trying to walk over to what was left of his lower torso, a few yards over yonder. This looked like Kakuzu’s work.

That didn't explain anything that he cared about, yeah.

Deidara used all of his years of training to interpret the subliminal message that he should shut the fuck up now. Instead he scowled at the old man. “The fuck is this?” he hissed, and gestured with his working arm, holy shit, that was wild. Some civilian-donated arms had been sewn back on after that buttcrack Hatake wiped his arms from existence, but they hadn’t worked that well for him. These moved like his own arms and they didn’t even smell like human rot. That had been bad enough, to be some weirdo clinging to the past like Sasori-senpai, but to have perfect new arms happen to him again was an unforgivable affront. He squinted at the mouths in his palms. No chipped teeth. They were perfect and undamaged.

He was sort of offended. Deidara waved the arms around a little more to gauge their utility. “Did you do this to me?” Deidara hissed suspiciously. He glanced down at the seam where his stumps ought to end. He frowned. He didn’t even see scarring… There was a tan line. His stump was a little darker than the arms. Ew. He contemplated this perversion. “Looking back on the past with nostalgia is for hacks, yeah,” Deidara said vehemently. “I can make clay with my ass if I have to-”

“Shut up.” Kakuzu’s green and black nightmare eyes flashed with barely repressed rage.

He shut up. Just for a moment.

And then he noticed something weird. “That is an extinct mushroom.” Deidara pointed accusatively at the fungal sack of shit in question. “This is a lame genjutsu.” He huffed. “And that– fucksake, has whoever made this not heard about the post war one land management programs?” He scowled at a growth of mugwort, which had been eradicated in the wild like 30 years ago by the medical industry to ensure patient supply stayed level and no one did any folksy self care. “This is someone’s idiot botanical fantasy,” he complained. “Either that or we’ve traveled back in time.”

Both of the old men were staring at him now. Hidan and Kakuzu exchanged a meaningful look, like they didn’t think he would have noticed the flaws in the landscape.

Deidara rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he said disdainfully. He shook his long hair out and ran a hand through it–wow, okay, he had missed that. He twisted a section together to enjoy how soft and strong the strands were. Maybe having hands again was worth it. He forgave them for being a throwback.

There was a wet sound as Hidan tore his lips apart in an attempt to break the thread keeping them shut. “We’re in the past, ass bucket,” he sneered wetly. The effect was ruined by how weak and weedy his voice always came out when he didn’t have two lungs attached. His left arm finally reached his torso and started pulling it to his legs.

“Shut up, uggo,” Deidara said immediately. And then he had to run from his life because Kakuzu retaliated. He used his new hands to blow up a section of the forest, which brought down an angry nature-freak clan of proof that he was, in fact, in the ancient past.

“Those are fuckin’ Senju?” Deidara accused, three sweaty hours later of chasing around increasingly desperate survivors from a patrol squad. He kicked the closest body. It squelched. It almost sounded like a voice protesting, through the mess he had made of the face. He knelt down to pull at the corpse’s face to confirm it really was dead. Huh. Musta been air trapped in the gut or something. It moved when he touched it, like human skin and fat tissue and not like something Sasori or Orochimaru would have kept around mummified or pickled. He made a sound of disgust. “This is savage,” Deidara complained. “The only good thing about coming back to life is that I was gonna have a chance to see the new Fuyumi movie, yeah.” He kicked the body again for good measure, hard enough that it rolled over. It grunted again.

He glowered for a while. He could feel Hidan and Kakuzu moving his way, probably to whine about his lack of subtlety like the old married farts they were. Well, they could go fuck themselves, he decided, standing and bracing his hands on his hips to lean back and crack his back. 

Hidan came crashing into view. “You!” He screamed. His eyes were wild as he pointed at Deidara.

He raised a blonde eyebrow in disdain. “Yeah?” Deidara drawled.

‘Might have to fly away from this. The two of them are a nightmare.’

Ah. Haha. Shit. He hadn’t prepped any sculptures to blow up. Deidara resisted the urge to giggle when he realized he might be in danger.

“You’re immortal now,” Hidan breathed. He got waaay too close, wafting the stink of metallic blood and rot. “You’re one of us, you were worthy enough to be rejected from the pure lands. It’s a sign.”

Deidara was too busy plugging his nose to listen to the idiot’s words for a moment. When it landed, he laughed. 

Him? Immortal? That was stupid. “I would never,” Deidra drawled. “Immortality is for hacks. Life has no meaning if it never ends— your end is the only meaning!” He declared loudly and proudly to the forest, and was promptly ignored. 

“I can feel it!! Hidan grabbed him by the forearms and brought their faces close together. “Repent and convert,” he breathed, and then kissed Deidara’s forehead. “You have been baptized with death and now speak his tongue.”

Ugh!

Deidara shrieked and blasted a hole in the creep. “Hands off!” He put some space in between them and huffed, outraged. “That’s nasty, yeah, when was the last time you washed the blood off of your- off of your anything?” He spluttered in outrage and shuddered.

Hidan ignored that very good point to start off on one of his religious scriptures. Deidara watched from a safe distance, appalled but willing to take the moment to scoop up some shitty dirt and chakra-treat it to work as makeshift clay. He stuffed it to satiation with explosion release chakra and hurriedly molded it into a shitty fat clay bird. As he worked he tracked Kakuzu’s location. He was probably interested in the bodies that Deidara had left– he seemed to veer towards all of them on his way to intercept Deidara and Hidan’s eventual conflict.

“-have the blessing of our Lord and Savior to see and hear beyond death,” Hidan took a moment to breathe. “Join the holy crusade to convert the filthy fucking nonbelievers and use their blood to paint his will upon the damned canvas of this sinful goddamn world-”

Deidara let it go in and out of his ears until he felt sufficiently armed and his bird’s beak didn’t look so stupid. “You’re cracked, yeah,” he said flatly. “I’m not buying what you’re selling. So you can fuck off.” He gestured for Hidan to leave, shoo.

Hidan stopped talking at least and stared at him, red eyes glittering with malice and something that wasn’t very sane. Kakuzu was close now. He had spent a few minutes with a corpse and picked up speed in a way that implied he was pissed off.

Deidara sensed, in his heart, that it was time to leave. “Don’t call,” he said with a wink, and blew his shitty little sculpture up into the safest size he could manage with such shitty material. He hopped on and lifted directly up.

The impulse was to use the sculpture as a barrier between his body and whatever it was that Hidan was throwing at him– but that would be stupid, yeah, because if this got ruined he would be back on the ground with that asshole, so Deidara leaned over the side to spit shitty clay balls out of his hands. He released them midair in time to redirect Hidan’s scythe. By the time the weirdo had his staff back, Deidara was out of range.

He picked a direction at random, given that he didn’t know what time it was so the sun wasn’t useful for orienting. The geography clued him in before long that he was heading for Suna– oh, shit, for the lands that would one day be unified into Suna.

Deidara considered the soil quality there, hissed, and adjusted his heading to the vague direction of Iwa. 

He didn’t know why he was here, or what he would do. But every situation was enhanced with a large quantity of high-quality clay.

[electrasev5nwrites]

Oh wow someone just liked this old post and brought it to my attention. I had forgotten about this post and the promise to attack me directly next time. Mixel doesn’t miss, even if it takes a year.

@mixelation

It’s so funny to me when people casually mention fic outside of fic communities (like on a YouTube channel otherwise not fic-focused or a blog from someone who doesn’t write or read much fic) and they’re like “oh noooo I just wrote 4k words of fic I’m so crazy teehee”

Like I’m happy you had fun writing. However. There are one million word SI fics out there fgkkncd

[mysanaf]

༄ Weekly Fic Round-Up ༄

Fandoms:

DCU (Batman)

DCU (Batman) & Danny Phantom Crossover

The Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS)

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold

Supernatural

DCU (Batman)

do I dare disturb the universe? by Hinn_Raven

Part 6 of Cassandra Cain Works

Cassandra Cain was falling, and there were stars. When she landed, she found herself stranded in a universe where there never was a Batman. Good thing that she’s a detective.

show me yesterday, for i can’t find today by indent

Then: The year is 2013. Jason Todd is alive, fourteen years old, and about to follow Sheila Haywood, his birth mother, into the hands of the Joker. All he wants is to save her life. Now: The year is 2018. Jason Todd was dead. But now he's a nineteen year old vigilante about to take down the latest C-Lister rogue. Unfortunately for him, its a rogue that specialises in time-travel technology. And what starts as an easy takedown...ends as a time travelling phenomenon. The two Jasons swap places.

Retrograde Motion by Lysical

All Jason wanted was a case that was simple, clean, and far away from the latest mess in Gotham. Magic wasn't the Outlaws' area of expertise, but they soon found themselves investigating a dark wizard with a penchant for organ harvesting. When an accident on the case leaves Jason as a clueless seven year old with a memory that's spotty at best, what else can his team do but go to his family for help?

ghost story by envysparkler

Jason Todd dies in Ethiopia. Well. Kind of.

The Right Substitution is Key by AddictedApple

Part 1 of The Right Substitution is Key

“The Red Hood has been good for Gotham,” Robin continued. “Crime in Park Row decreased by sixty one percent almost as soon as you showed up, and that’s even taking into account all the crime you commit. Drug overdoses have decreased by twenty two percent in adults and seventy nine percent in minors. Homeless minors are ninety two percent less likely to—” “Kid,” Jason interrupted. “Enough statistics. What the hell is this about?” Robin slowly lowered the tablet with his powerpoint presentation and looked up at Red Hood. “You care about Gotham,” Robin summarised. “Gotham needs Batman. Batman is missing and so is Nightwing. We need you to fill in for Batman.” “You want me to cover Batman’s patrols?” Jason clarified. “No,” Robin said. “I want you to be Batman.” Jason bluescreened. (Or: Batman and Nightwing mysteriously disappear before Red Hood has even started antagonising them, Robin is desperate, Gotham needs Batman, and Red Hood is Batman-Shaped.)

Call to a Lonely Earth by Drag0nst0rm

There are no children left in Gotham. Not until the multiverse spits one out right in front of Batman, at least.

Impetus by Starlightify

Part 1 of to ground

Harley leaves the Joker. Somehow, the entire Justice League ends up getting involved.

Fatherless Behaviour by lemonlimemadness

Tim gets de-aged, and tells absolutely no one. He also, in no particular order, gets therapy, does a lot of crime, channels his inner cyberbully, steals another Batmobile, moves to Metropolis (temporarily), causes an Arkham breakout, gets kidnapped, kidnaps someone else, and accidentally becomes a supervillain somewhere along the way. Parental supervision is for losers.

DCU (Batman) & Danny Phantom Crossover

Housetrained by Redflagship (Electrasev5n)

A summoning nets some Gotham punks a tiny god, wrapped up in the packaging as the sacrifice they tried to feed him: a housecat. Robin takes him home and decides to train him to fight crime. Danny is like, vibing. Turns out that he's really good at being a housecat, maybe the best there's ever been.

The Haunting of Drake Manor by Faeriekit

Prompt from @cyrwrites (And then, I, like, tweaked it a lot.) From prompt: "Tim, as a kid, wishes for a new mom. Desiree didn't know her wishes could turn against HER, of all people. However, Tim's wish had turned her into something resembling a human form and now she felt obligated to take care of the little guy." * Timothy Drake, son of amateur archaeologists, comes into possession of an antique oil lamp. It's plain enough, despite it's historic value— and it takes nothing at all to figure out how to light it. Alone on his birthday and left alone with a flame, Tim makes a wish. *👻🪔👻* Desiree wakes up in the corpse of a human woman.

The Scum Villain's Self Saving System

Perfect Failure by travelingneuritis (archive locked) Part 3 of Heartbreak Industrial Complex

Gongyi Xiao's strong, disciplined cultivator's body has exactly one weakness: it can't stop getting sex-pollened.

Abyss Arc Speedrun (WR IGT NG+ glitch hunter safe strat) by pallas_rose

After the Immortal Alliance Conference, Shen Qingqiu eventually recovered from his grief. A reasonable man, he accepted his limitations. Of course, there were—other options.

never told you what I do for a living by savrenim

【 The System was successfully activated! Bound Role: Wu Yanzi, Demonic Cultivator and Master of— 】 Not his body. He remembered dying. An undeniable System, before it had bugged out. Okay. Okay, he could handle this. Transmigration. Demonic cultivator. Named… Fuck, he hadn't actually caught what he was supposed to be named. …..There was only one piece of media he was familiar with that was about demonic cultivators.

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold

L'oiseau qui vole by hedda62

Aral, in a fit of wickedness, assigns someone to follow Simon everywhere and keep notes, to see how he likes it.

Supernatural

The Love Story of the Runner Up by Margo_Kim

“So you saw a white man in a trench coat pop out in an alley,” Paul says, “and you thought, what, ‘I want to see where this is going’?”   “If you get hung up on details like that,” Miguel says, “it will take a very long time to get through this story. For a very weird era in his life, Miguel dates an angel who is in love with another man.

[shamelesslymkp]

REC: Electrasev5n - Ghost Driver

URL: https://ift.tt/sDG4U6w by @redflagshipwriter After Jason leaves for his ill-fated confrontation with the Batman and the Joker, he goes MIA. Danny can only wait so long. He decides to go and find him. Unfortunately, Danny is, hands down, the worst secret operative that Gotham city has ever seen. (Words: 2,764; WIP) | Part 2 of Getaway Car !!!fandom, !!fic, |site:ao3, +fandom:batman.-.all.media.types, +fandom:danny.phantom, ::rating:teen.and.up.audiences, ~author:electrasev5n, relationship:danny.fenton/jason.todd, ::category:m/m, \no.archive.warnings.apply, ~ao3:dead.on.main.-.freeform

[ao3feed-jaytim]

Stray Cat Slink

read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/50427592 by Redflagship (Electrasev5n) Tim Drake is the first to put together that the Red Hood is Jason Todd, who he had been totally normal about most of his formative years. So normal. He can't leave him alone. He's doing this to help him, promise. Meanwhile, Jason Todd is just over his head with a crush on this horrible little cat. Four-part story for Kinktober with a series of encounters. Words: 916, Chapters: 1/4, Language: English Series: Part 1 of redflagship kinktober 2023 Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: M/M Characters: Tim Drake, Jason Todd Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd Additional Tags: Size Difference, Leather Kink, Latex, Costume Kink, Lap Pillow, kinktober 2023, Tim Drake is Catlad | Stray, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Tim Drake is a Menace, Jason Todd is a mortifying teenager, Selina is Sir Not Appearing but very much important to the backstory, Bruce Wayne is Lost in Time read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/50427592

[tozettastone]

Ha! This kind of question became a lot less frustrating for me (personally — I'm not saying this is true for anyone else) when I realised that it was readers exposing a failure to understand their own reading preferences and not really anything to do with me doing my hobby "wrong."

That is, they don't actually want to read a WIP provided on an as-is basis. But instead of avoiding them via the site filters, or slapping it in a bookmark tagged "read when finished" (as many sensible readers do — I have seen them) they just read them anyway.

It's kind of the same as people who read fics tagged "graphic violence" who are later uncomfortable to discover they do contain graphic violence. I no longer feel like they're inciting me to violence, just that they're a bit oblivious about their own preferences and have made a mistake. (Although god knows enough silly mistakes will still achieve a critical mass eventually.)

...But thank you for calling my response classy anyway. (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

Will you ever finish your Naruto fanfics?

89% (rounding down) of my Naruto fics are complete so I think we can safely say I do finish them sometimes.

But there's also a filter for that on AO3? If you go to filters > more options > completion status and then check the "complete works only" box, you can use that to avoid reading works in progress in future.

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

How (not) to meet a man

by Redflagship (Electrasev5n) Jason accidentally sets off a romance novel plot by getting too close to a magical ring that is absolutely dying to hook him up with the other half of his soul. The magic is insistent enough to drag them together right then, despite being states apart. If Danny had been intangible at the time, it would have just been a funny story right away. Words: 5377, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Danny Phantom, Batman - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: M/M Characters: Jason Todd, Danny Fenton, jasmine fenton, Bruce Wayne, Vlad Masters Relationships: Danny Fenton/Jason Todd Additional Tags: Dead On Main - Freeform, Soulmates, a bit of body horror via https://ift.tt/J8yt57V

[ao3feed-peterparker]

Reassembly

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/LvZx84i by Redflagship (Electrasev5n) Peter wakes up far from home, still hyperventilating at the feeling of his limbs slipping away on Titan. He's really, really far from home. How is he going to get home from this weird alternate universe? How is he going to blend in? Words: 2965, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb), DCU (Comics), Batman - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Characters: Peter Parker, Kon-El | Conner Kent, Tim Drake read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/LvZx84i

[electrasev5nwrites]

I read this while drinking a fucking litre of cold coffee in my reclusive hideaway and suddenly felt better about both my career choices and my dreadful lack of social media presence.

circling back around to the issue of writers being expected to do all their own goddamn marketing via social media these days, because it completely nixes the possibility of writers being weird shut ins, off-putting eccentrics, or misanthropes. 80% of the literary canon was written by weird shut ins, off-putting eccentrics, and misanthropes. if you weed out everyone who’s the wrong kind of insane to maintain a twitter presence, who on earth is left

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ain't No Grave (galvanic vitalism) 2/2

part one

Deidara spent about two blissful weeks in perfect solitude, making a decent kiln and digging out clay. He really took the time to process it nicely, achieving the best ratio of chakra and clay for his work, and created a few types of clay to work with using varying levels of local minerals. 

Basically, it was what he had tried to do before Itchia shithead Uchiha had come by and kidnapped him into bringing the average intelligence and competency of the Akatsuki up a few percentage points. It had been a total waste of him that he could have been spending studying animals for his art, obviously.

Deidra took advantage of it now, on his stomach and staring with narrowed eyes at a lizard. The reptile moved once, jerkily, then froze again. He committed its proportions to memory. The movement… He could replicate that. Deidara prodded it with a finger to see the reaction. He crossed his legs at the ankle and let his bare feet sway and extend into the air.

When he wasn’t studying live models, he used all the free time to contemplate his life and his mistakes. He had lived through a lot of life and mistakes in 17 short years. What could he do better, going forward? Where had he gone wrong?

His real regret, Deidara decided, was that he hadn’t stomped the miserable remnants of the Uchiha out. What was the lesson to be learnt there? He had certainly tried, so it certainly wasn’t any shit about lacking passion and intention. 

Did it mean he should spend more time preparing and thinking through his goals? Maybe he hadn’t had enough TNT. Maybe he had made a mistake by engaging before detonation so that his enemies would know who had killed them– that was a little cocky, he had to admit it, but it just felt so much better than assassinating some bingus with clay that looked like a boring rock underfoot. Deidara sighed, woefully weighing his artistic values and pleasure against his professional development. 

“How would I feel,” he mused to himself, “if those fuckers were dead, but they hadn’t known it was me? Would I be more satisfied?”

It was, overall, just what he had wanted when he had run away from Iwa at age 14, although at that time he had expected to watch a lot more movies and eat in restaurants to save time hunting and cooking. Before that Uchiha dickhead had come and folded Deidara up into the Akatsuki, Deidata had been looking for an opportunity for artistic solitude and intellectual growth. 

This brief time was probably the lifelong peak of his mental health. So of course those dickweeds came to ruin it for him. Deidara sensed them kilometers away, but he was busy with some fiddly detailing on a frilled lizard sculpture that was going to be able to eat humans and blow up with them inside its distended belly, so he sighed and waited. He didn’t want to have to outrun them. There wasn’t a world in which those two freaks gave up without having the conversation they wanted, so he might as well get it over with. 

“Don’t care what they want, yeah,” he mumbled rebelliously to himself. Deidara wiped clay off of his face and scowled. “I’m never going to be tricked into misusing my art for a stupid quest for someone else again. I am only winning from now. I am self realized, yeah. I know myself and with that I cannot be led astray from my purpose and benefit.”

With that pep talk, he was a little more ready to talk with those assholes.

Kakuzu hummed, low, when he entered the makeshift studio clearing. Deidara had been using his cloak to keep water off his workspace and sleeping in the mine where he’d been digging out clay. “This is a lot,” he commented, with no opinion on the art visible. His gaze swept dispassionately over labeled mounds of clay in the process of curing, and the smoke from the kiln that Deidara was heating for the day. A lot of work and technical expertise was on display here. He itched for someone to talk about it intelligently.

Hidan snorted contemptuously. “But what’s it for?” he complained. He scuffed his feet on the ground, clearly considering giving a sculpture a good kick. Deidra silently hoped that the fuck would do it. It would probably take him a week to reform from that.

“It’s for my art, yeah,” Deidara said through his teeth. It was such a simple concept. He talked about his interests enough. He seethed in polite resentment for his shithead former coworkers. He knew about their interests, he thought. Kakuzu liked money and control, and Hidan liked tying up intestines and making people beg for Jashin at the end. The both of them stank, of course, like offal and human rot. Deidara eyed them for signs– Hidan’s fingernails still had blood under them, yeah, and Kakuzu had what was probably a body on his back. It was wrapped in bandages like it had come from a grave. Hm. Deidara eyed it. He was hearing some kind of faint sound from it, like whispers.

‘Surely it’s not alive, is it?’ he wondered dubiously. ‘Not like Kakuzu at all.’

“What a dumb way to use the time,” Hidan said blithely, poking a sculpture. Deidara tried to kill him. Kakuzu stopped him with a tentacle and wide, crazy eyes that said something like “hands off my boyfriend.” 

“Ugh,” Deidara said, but backed off for the moment. He glowered. “What are you bothering me for? We aren’t friends and we don’t work together anymore,” he challenged sulkily. The whispers were getting louder.

“We could,” Kakuzu said. His tone might have been idle, coming from another old man. Coming from him, it was a subtle threat.

“...We could?” Deidara repeated, as neutrally as possible. He wasn’t really interested, yeah.

‘On the other hand, he might be able to point me in the direction of someone who would be worthy of my art. A stockpile like this shouldn’t go to waste.’

Kakuzu grunted. “There is an opportunity here,” he said, and then stopped like that was sufficient. Deidara let his eyebrows raise up to their limit and waited for more words to struggle out of that steel trap. “...I have eliminated our most likely competition.”

“--despicable low born sellswords, grave robbers and infidels…”

Ugh. The body was definitely talking. Behind Kakuzu, Hidan began to laugh like a hyena. It put the hair up on the back of Deidara’s neck. His eyes were wide and crazy as he reached over and patted the prisoner. The smell got even worse, somehow.

“What’s that mean, yeah?” Deidara asked suspiciously. “What’s funny?”

Kakuzu rebuffed him with a sneer. “None of your concern.” His face twitched, once, before he smoothed his expression out. “You can make accurate clones from your clay, sustained for days independently of you.”

“...If I care to, yeah,” Deidara admitted. “I don’t like to work with color, but I can mix pigments and paint them onto a sculpture that I animate-”

Hidan cut him off with a fart noise. Highly offended, Deidara started thinking that it might be worth detonating everything here, take them all back to hell, wouldn’t that be funny–

“curse from my ancestors–”

Kakuzu grunted, ignoring the complaints from his back as if he didn’t even hear them. He shouldered off the prisoner on his back. He hit the ground with a wet squelch that told Deidara he was wrong– that was a dead guy. What the hell? He reeled in confusion. What the hell was he hearing a third voice for, then? 

“Recreate this man,” Kakuzu said. “It will lead to havoc.”

“Havoc?” Deidara asked, intrigued despite himself. He took a glance down at the body and immediately decided he didn’t care to know how it was talking. It was not fresh.  He wrinkled his nose. “You dug that up?” Deidara said judgmentally. “Gross, yeah.” He knelt to examine the body, using a stick to poke at the features. The skin was grey and beginning to slip, but that nose… Deidara felt a sneer wrap across his face. “Looks like that Sasuke guy.” He ignored the offended sounds that the corpse issued somehow without moving its mouth. Some kinda kinjutsu, probably, he didn’t care. He jabbed it  in the side with a stick. Heh. Stupid fucking Uchiha. He was dead and Deidara wasn’t, so who was the winner here? It wasn’t as nice as seeing Itachi’s body would have been, but it wasn’t half bad. Deidara smiled viciously as he tore into the soft flesh with his stick. Take that, loser. He jabbed the stick in the throat almost absentmindedly and left it– maybe that would shut it up, yeah.

“I don’t like Senju Hashirama,” Kakuzu said. It was as close to serenity as Deidara had ever heard from him. It was creepy, yeah. Deidara gave the old man an alarmed glance, but Kakuzu was clearly lost in his thoughts. “No one has a higher bounty. After his clan formally subsumed their rivals, there are many people who will pay for his death and the failure of his ambition.” The corpse grunted once, as if to say it agreed. 

“...I don’t really care, yeah,” Deidara pointed out, wiping his hands off. He cocked his head to the side. “What’s in it for me?”

Hidan laughed again and barreled over to cling to Deidara’s side, an arm carelessly thrown over his shoulder. Deidara tried to squirm away but it was fruitless. The smell of rot was hot in Hidan’s breath when he crooned, “Wouldn’t you like to blow up the Senju and Uchiha clan heads? All that power and potential, gone!” He threw his hands up for emphasis.

“Curs!” the corpse shrieked.

Deidara took the chance to step away. He could have run– but he bit his lip. The Senju… They were dregs by his lifetime, yeah, but that Tsunade… She was a very impressive woman. What must her forefathers be like? And how would they react to his art– to a life model of what must be an Uchiha noble defeated in battle, returned from the dead? He felt a rictus smile pull across his features at the thought. It would be exquisite, yeah…

“What if I blew myself up?” he asked wistfully. “I want to see them, yeah.”

Hidan made another lunge for him, but this time Kakuzu grabbed the idiot and restrained him. The old man’s creepy green eyes glittered as he made eye contact. “That’s the idea,” he said. “You watch. When the Uchiha arrive and see that Senju Tobirama has defiled their beloved dead’s grave, imagine the scene.”

Deidara staggered. “Havoc,” he agreed worshipfully. “Blood, yeah, blood and fire and guts.” The first village founding was a historical event. How cool would it be to blow that up, yeah?

“Blow up Hashirama,” Kakuzu proposed, “and then Madara will murder Tobirama.” He looked… happy. “No hidden villages, no competition and no international regulation and cooperation.”

The corpse was silent now. Perhaps this was too horrific for it to contemplate.

“That’s not interesting to me, yeah,” Deidara managed. He was still a little breathless. “Yeah, alright.” He swallowed down a grin. “I just need to start making paints.”

“How long will that take?” Hidan asked. He picked up the hem of his robe and squeezed. “I have red.”

Kakuzu sneered. “Time is of the essence,” he said suspiciously. 

Deidara waved him off. “I’m an expert, yeah. I just need primary colors and white. I can make it today if you go get the materials.”

“Can we not–”

“We are not purchasing art supplies for my creative climax, shithead. Start gathering herbs or just kill me.” Deidara crossed his arms, ready to die on this hill.

There was a long moment where Kakuzu clearly considered it. His lips flattened. The light went out of his eyes, leaving them cold and pitiless. He grunted. “Begin the sculpture,” he commanded, as if he was someone’s boss. His cloak flared behind him when he turned. “Hidan!” Kakuzu barked. “Find oak acorns.”

“What is this preschool quest bullshi- fuck!” Hidan bellowed, steam coming out of his ears in outrage that Kakuzu had pushed him through a tree. His ribs were flattened out, every one of them clearly broken. “Fine, fuck.” He plugged his bleeding nose. “I’ll find duh stubid fuggin acorns. Bitch.” Kakuzu stalked away without acknowledging any of that.

“I want kariyasu grass and suoh wood,” Deidara called out absentmindedly. He was already crouched over to give the corpse a good investigation. Height, musculature… “Yeah, I can use one of my clones as a basis, you’re about my height,” he muttered to the body. He gave the poofy hair a companionable pat. “We are gonna do great things together, yeah. Gonna get rid of all the Senju.” 

The corpse said nothing, of course, but he couldn’t help but grin wildly at the idea that he was going to use an Uchiha to kill both the Senju. The bastard was probably shrieking up at him from hell now in outrage for his precious alliance. How angry would he be that his clan head was manipulated into attacking Senju Hashirama?

Haha. It wasn’t that different from the bullshit Itachi was always doing, confusing people about who was their friend and what way was up. But this time, it would be Deidara, yeah!

Deidara felt much cheerier now.

‘It’ll be my big victory against the Uchiha,’ he thought, already feeling vindication. ‘They would hate this so much.’

The body of Uchiha Izuna had nothing to say about this. He didn’t want to ruin it.

[drdiabolical]

Fanfics From Reddit - Politics

I made an enquiry on r/narutofanfiction asking for political fics. These were the recommendations.

u/liristorm

Compass of thy Soul by Umei no Mai

Direct thee to Peace by Umei no Mai

The Medic-Nin’s Guide to Casual Revolution by spideywhiteys

These are all SIs so far which I do not read but I will give them a look.

u/radical-dreamer-57

Kazua Densetu by ProfessorPalmarosa

Appears to be Post-Hashirama’s death which isn’t precisely what I wanted (I’m gathering recommendations so that I can look into other people’s takes on shinobi politics before I write my own Minato-Centric political fic) but I did say I wouldn’t mind them. 

u/Jatnight

The Scorned Son by Calanor

The first user to give me their own thoughts: “It's on hiatus, though, but I found the inner work of the village's politics very interesting. It's not focused on Naruto, but it's on that timeline, dealing with what having a spy so ingrained in their midst that they would be an academy teacher(Mizuki) really implies and goes from there.(Also interesting to see the elders being portrayed like real people.)”

I think I’m looking forward to reading this one the most.

u/ertzer

Great Lakes & Expectations (previously pull down your dreams) by Electrasev5n

Vapors by Electrasev5n

Clarity by Electrasev5n

More SI and OC. This user also gave a comment: “This has a bit of a slow start with the OC not knowing japanese. It might be a bit off-putting to some but once she's established in Konoha it really takes a hella interesting spin on the political climate in Konoha with an intricate exploration of shinobi and civilian life. And, I mean, it's Electrasev5n. They know how to spin an intricate plot and the devil is in the detail.Also the sequel to Vapors that they have is also pretty politically geared but more in the focus of village politics vs the rest of the world.”

u/bibliomaniac15

Mythos of a Shepherd by Swiss Army Knife

Vainglory by kzusu

Uneasy Lies the Head by Hiiraeth

Five (or, a lot can change in a year) by Karaii

The Girl From Whirlpool by SilverShine

These are more what I was after, I think. Five is a web comic as well which is interesting.  

u/Lightbringer34

Redemption in a Worthy World by Lightbringer34

It’s a self recc and the user was a little self deprecating but it’s a time travel I haven’t read yet, looking forward to reading it

[shamelesslymkp]

REC: Electrasev5n - Shadow Bruises

URL: https://ift.tt/KgNQB84 by @redflagshipwriter Tim realizes that the dead Robin was his soulmate. He doesn't tell anyone, which leaves him in a bad position when he starts to suspect that Jason isn't all that dead anymore. The dead Robin takes a lot longer to catch on to the situation. Prompted by a request on Tumblr, for pride month. Premise of soulmate connection that varies depending on your personality. (Words: 16,631; WIP) !!!fandom, !!fic, |site:ao3, +fandom:batman.-.all.media.types, +fandom:batman.(comics), ::rating:mature, ~author:electrasev5n, character:jason.todd, character:tim.drake, character:bruce.wayne, character:dick.grayson, relationship:tim.drake/jason.todd, ::category:m/m, \graphic.depictions.of.violence, \major.character.death, ~ao3:hurt.no.comfort, ~ao3:hurt/comfort, ~ao3:soulmates, ~ao3:romantic.soulmates, ~ao3:lazarus.pit.mad.jason.todd, ~ao3:protective.jason.todd, ~ao3:angst.with.a.happy.ending

[ao3feed-jaytim]

Get Even (and mad)

read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/50431663 by Redflagship (Electrasev5n) Tim comes to Jason asking for help tracking down Batman in the timestream. Jason has a counterproposal. One of them is over their head, really fast. Words: , Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 2 of redflagship kinktober 2023 Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: M/M Characters: Jason Todd, Tim Drake Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd Additional Tags: Boot Worship read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/50431663

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

The Proposal

by Redflagship (Electrasev5n) Jason is compelled by a ghostly instinct he doesn't understand to make a series of offerings to a grungly college freshman he has never even spoken to. It's really awkward. Based off a Tumblr prompt developed by Faeriekit. Words: 2731, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, The Joker, Bruce Wayne Relationships: Danny Fenton/Jason Todd Additional Tags: all tagged characters aside from pairing have minor roles, such as bringing a pan, complaining about a bad smell, dying off screen, or being optimistic about a phone call, Dead On Main - Freeform, midwestern food, do not think this is a safe place for midwestern food slander btw, these are all from my grandma's repertoire, tw American food lol via https://ift.tt/apnzwrd

[electrasev5nwrites]

I saw this and it made me want to write a little more of my Gaara. It's set after the AIC verse, but all you need to know is that Gaara is living in Kirigakure along with Karin as wards of a ridiculous ass woman.

It's Been One Week (since you left and made me ½ the Mizukage)

It was pointed out to me that when Aiko left AIC verse, she didn't actually tell everyone she was leaving forever. Christ, what an ass.

From that thought, this short story emerged.

Part 1 of 2

"She didn't tell me anything." Karin crossed her arms. She immediately uncrossed them. It looked too defensive. 

Her "brother" gave her a doleful stare. She ignored it, because all of his stares were like that. She began to pace in the kitchen, circling the island like the world's reddest shark. Her hair fluttered behind her. "I'm starting to think she's really not coming back this time."

"That is what her assistant said," that asshole Suigetsu said. He grabbed a peach out of the dwindling fruit basket and gave her a toothy grin. "You're going to have to be responsible for yourself now!"

"Shut up!" Karin scolded. Her jaw cracked. "Speak for yourself, you overgrown ingrate." She huffed. "I'm responsible for a whole lot more than myself already! I revitalized the arboretum!" Calm, calm, she needed to stay calm. He was trying to provoke her. Because he was a jerk.

Even mad, she was smarter than to admit she'd also exposed and killed a traitor. That was over Suigetsu's clearance. It was probably over his head entirely. She lifted her nose.

"I don't know what those words mean." Suigetsu gave her a nasty little wink and sailed out the door. 

Karin gritted her teeth. She deliberately unclenched her fists. She took one, two, three calming breaths.

"In Sunagakure, before Aiko-sama became my new mother." 

She stared. She didn't dare move for fear it might stop the rare swell of unprompted words from Gaara.

He looked up at her finally, a line pressed in place between his brows. "I always knew I was the most fit to inherit, if Temari did not kill me first. Which one of us has become the Mizukage?"

"Well, I'm not killing you," Karin said, appalled. Then she thought about that and quickly amended, "and you're not killing me either." She resumed her pacing. When the answer appeared, she whirled back on her weird brother. "Both of us," she hissed victoriously. "If we are confident enough when we walk in there, no one is going to disagree."

It had always worked for Aiko, after all. She'd done much weirder things.

Gaara looked at her for a long second, weighing her words. He nodded solemnly. 

So that was what they did. On Monday morning at 5:00, they entered the office of the Mizukage and started the coffee machine. 

That took some doing, as neither one of them had operated a coffee machine in the past. But it had to be done. Aiko had talked about it often enough - I need to get in and start the coffee, oh we ran out of coffee early, etc etc. 

What they made was…

"Bracing," the secretary said politely. He ushered them into their new office. "Here you go, welcome to the office."

"Our office," Karin said sharply. 

Nishikawa-san inclined his head to her. He murmured something that might have been an affirmative, and he left quickly. 

Karin put her hands on her hips and surveyed the office. Gaara drifted to the desk, trailing sand over documents. He stopped, picked one up, and squinted at it. 

"What's that?" Karin asked, coming over to look. 

Gaara shook his head, let sand lift the paper, and had it destroyed in his weird little sandball. "Evidence," he said gravely. 

Ah. Karin nodded. "There's probably a lot of that," she sighed. She pushed up her glasses, wondering where to start. "About the drugs?"

Gaara shook his head.

"The coup in Wave?" She tried absently. She found a file of what appeared to be financial records going back years beyond Aiko-sama's tenure. That seemed useful as baseline knowledge. 

"No," Gaara said again. Cooly, he added, "It was in regards to something called Crimetown." 

Karin blinked, looking up from her tax records. "Crimetown? Can't be what it sounds like."

"A bit on the nose," Gaara agreed. He turned his face towards the door. He waited. 

She didn't know what he was waiting for. 

"Nishikawa-san," Gaara elaborated.

"Oh!" Karin crossed the office floor, flung the door open, and called out, "Nishikawa-san, what's Crimetown?" 

He cleared his throat and loudly called back, "An initiative to relocate organized crime and illegitimate petting zoos to a district between Konoha and the Capital of the Fire Country."

"Okay," Karin said, because that was clear enough for her purposes. As she closed the door, she faintly heard a female voice say "an initiative to what?" 

She turned back to Gaara. They made eye contact. 

"She doesn't care for Konoha," Gaara offered after a moment. 

Karin snorted. "Let's keep that one going, honestly."

"Not the drugs," Gaara said mildly. 

She scoffed. "Definitely not," she agreed. "We don't have the means. But I think that there's actually a mission we can collect to stop the flow of drugs through bordering countries…" She trailed off, getting lost in background information while Gaara patiently assessed the current political state of affairs via reading Aiko-sama's correspondence and the ongoing missions. 

"Wave," Gaara said. It was so long after silence had fallen that it took her a while to realize what he was saying. 

"That's legitimate enough," Karin said absently. "She went through local intermediaries, didn't actually choose the new leader, and now she's gone so that's a lot of plausible deniability. We keep the new Daimyo, we keep our outposts there and expand."

Gaara grunted and put a disconcertingly thick envelope in a shorter pile. At a glance, Karin would say it was probably full of cash. Morbid curiosity got the better of her. "What's that for?" She asked, pointing at it. 

Her brother had definitely already read it. Still, he looked at the notation one more time before bluntly saying "Pencils."

She blinked furiously. "Pen- that looks like a lot of money!"

"A chuunin's yearly salary," Gaara concurred. He looked disturbed. 

There was nothing more to say about it. They finished the inventory in a troubled silence. They sent off the envelope for 40000000 yen in pencils.

"The worst part," Gaara said contemplatively, "is that I suspect pencil is not a code."

She swallowed. "Yeah," Karin agreed. They just had to live with that knowledge now. 

At least it probably came from drug running money. It would just be sad if real work was funding that. It had to be a bribe, right?

"Oh, shit," Karin realized. She ran a hand down her face. "We might need some new, big income streams." 

"Or more surprise unpaid secret diplomats," Gaara murmured. He drifted away before she could find the moral strength to say that they would not be copying that particular crime. Konoha already knew about it: getting away with it once was probably a fluke. 

'They were super helpful, though. And a funny fuck you to Konoha.'

It was something to keep in mind.

They had challenges to their tenure early. First off all, they were both foreign nationals.

Karin scoffed at the councilor who brought that complaint. "Aiko-sama was the Hokage's daughter and retained Fire Country citizenship."

The tremendously old man looked at her. ".... Which Hokage?" He wondered.

Karin judged him pretty hard. "All but one of them were way too old to even be an adult's Dad," she said flatly. "Obviously, the Yondaime Hokage was Aiko-sama's Dad. She's not gone and died of old age, she just left us all forever for personal reasons that she didn't feel like mentioning."

He looked offended as he left.

The next type of challenge was to their qualifications. Neither was a Jounin in good standing, and Karin didn't have much international reputation. 

"Nepotism," Gaara said flatly. "The relevant qualification is nepotism." He went back to very expensive order forms for a seal of office. It was proving difficult to commission. They were considering the argument that impersonating Aiko would be not only in her spirit but a fitting tribute.

The concerned office worker gave him an extremely tired look over her box of submitted complaints. "Aiko-sama did enjoy that," she allowed. "I'll see if that answer makes this stop." 

The true test came 6 days into their self declared tenure, when Terumi Mei threw open the door to the office and narrowed her eyes at them. "Obviously you are not the Mizukage," she said. She was looking at Gaara. 

"Of course not," Karin said absently. She was reading hospital budget requests. "He's half."

"Get out of my office," Terumi said flatly. "I'm her successor. She told me."

Ridiculous.

Karin put her papers down and made eye contact. "Did she tell anyone else that?" She challenged. She put as much condescension into her voice as possible.

The moment stretched on. Terumi seemed to be struggling with a twitching eye muscle.

Karin raised an eyebrow.

"Fuck," Terumi hissed, quietly and with feeling.

Anyone have any good Gaara fic recs?

My faves are

The First Shifting Grain by Cadel

New Wind Nation by Kyogre

Also, although he didn’t show up till later, I do like Vapors by Electrasev5n and the continuations of it.

[ao3feed-peterparker]

Reassembly

by Redflagship (Electrasev5n) Peter wakes up far from home, still hyperventilating at the feeling of his limbs slipping away on Titan. He's really, really far from home. How is he going to get home from this weird alternate universe? How is he going to blend in? Words: 2965, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb), DCU (Comics), Batman - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Characters: Peter Parker, Kon-El | Conner Kent, Tim Drake via https://ift.tt/LvZx84i