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sjhanny2000 · 3 years ago

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Dance Under the Stars

A/N: Welcome everyone to day three of the 300+ Followers Event! Thank you guys for all your patience and loving support, it really helped quell my remaining anxiety and stress and now I'm rolling forward. Anywho, day four is not written just yet due to another project I've been working on (I haven't update my Madatobi works in over six months) but it should be up soon! I will warn that this piece has manga and anime spoilers for Demon Slayer so if you don't want to be spoiled, LEAVE NOW AND COME BACK LATER!

This is an AU of TDoFL where you didn't survive. Expect angst, a tad bit of fluff, and sweet Tanjiro Kamado.

Summary: Aside from gardening and sewing, one of your favorite hobbies was stargazing. Tengen simply wishes he could see the galaxy shine down on your face just one last time.

Warning(s): mentioned death and torture, depression, angst, manga and anime spoilers, neglect and abuse briefly mentioned, nakedness briefly, reader character death, grief

~~~

“Do you miss them, Tengen-sama?”

Uzui Tengen was far too familiar with death for his liking. Death had become his constant companion from a young age, ominously shadowing his every move from the moment he took his first life at the tender age of seven. They grew to be unwilling associates over time, much to his chagrin, there constantly a struggle between them as Tengen worked to save lives while Death served to take them. The struggle seemed to grow with time, shifting from weekly to daily to damn near unhourly, requiring continuous flashiness of both Tengen and his wives as they fought to protect the innocent from the ravenous clutches of foul demons. Hinatsuru, Suma, Makio, are three of his stylish and magnificent wives always seemed to stand at attention, staring down Death and its chilling figure with stern eyes and fiery hearts like the kunoichi they were.

You, however, were not of the same breed of people.

Born and raised within an affluent household to be the perfect housewife, you had undergone traditional training that would assist you in pleasing your future husband and raising the children you would eventually have. You were, much to his honest surprise, educated in medicinal teachings and a natural gardener, your green thumb creating their miniscule garden into a beautiful and flashy botanical garden. Even with the fortunes of your upbringing, much of your childhood was tainted with neglect and abuse caused by the death of your mother and the constant absence and disinterest of your father. Tengen’s very soul ached to hear the treatment you and your siblings endured under your father’s roof and beyond, simply treated as objects to increase his influence and wealth instead of living beings with feelings and dreams. It was even more unflamboyant to see how you cried at simple gestures of kindness upon your arrival at the estate, or to witness you fall apart when they gifted you with your own room for crafting. The Sound Pillar found his blood boiling every time the scars of your past presented themselves; whoever had hurt you would surely pay, in the most flashiest and skillful ways possible! Suma, Hinatsuru, and Makio were all in consensus with his feelings, the three kunoichi sharpening certain kunai for the day they met your waste of a father. They vowed to protect you no matter, knowing you had already been through enough in your short life.

“Y/N! YOU NEED TO WAKE UP, PLEASE! Y/N!!!”

Hinatsuru’s screams had been deafening as he stood vigil over the kunoichi and the woman she cradled in her muscled arms. Naked as the day you were, you lay limp in Hina’s lap, body bloodied, cut, scrapped, and broken, it evident to anyone that you had been tortured by something ungodly. Your chest refused to move with breaths, (e/c) irises dull and lifeless, staring up to the heavens above that you believed in (Tengen couldn’t believe in any kind of god that would allow demons to prowl the earth for so long.) The kunoichi was sobbing with desperation, porcelain tainted with crimson liquid that smelled of iron, your blood swiftly soiling her dress and coloring her skin in a scene of horror. He wanted to move, to take you from Hinatsuru’s arms and raced to the nearest medic, to do something dammit , but as Death tenderly caressed your gaunt cheek with soft hums, the shinobi knew that it was too late.

He was too late to save you.

But he wasn’t too late to avenge you.

Tengen had taken great pleasure in beating that cursed demon into the ground before prolonging his death until the morning hours came and the blessed sun followed. The twisted and bittersweet pleasure the demon slayer had in watching the demon thrashed and scream for mercy did nothing to quell the stabbing pain in his heart, the roaring in his ears, the tears marking his face. His wives’ cries of agonized grief forever echoed in his mind, the painful sound plaguing the Sound Pillar every time he thought of you and saw the traces of you left behind.

Your death only occurred eight months before Tengen found himself faced with a boy who claimed that his sister was a demon who had never feasted on the flesh of a human. His stomach curdled at the very sight of the girl, anger and shame boiling unhappily in his veins in distaste at her continued survival. Demons were killers, the very scum of the earth, and lacked pizazz and humanity; not a single one of them deserved to live!

Oyakata-sama thought differently, much to Tengen’s chagrin.

The boy, Tanjiro Kamado as he came to learn, and his demon sister Nezuko Kamado were given Oyakata-sama’s permission to remain in service to the Demon Slayer Corps and left with their lives in hand. Tengen remained respectful to his master with his silence, but he knew that the man could sense his deep and knowing displeasure, all of those present did. You had asked once, if there had been a demon that hadn’t consumed humans before, and Tengen had been swift in declaring the impossible.

He wished that Nezuko had been the demon you met in that cursed village.

Time passed and as the anniversary of your wedding approached, it being the first full year since your passing, Tengen found himself here under the stars with his grieving heart in hand.

“At moments, when I feel as if I am alone, I look to the night’s sky and gaze upon the stars.” The Sound Hashira’s fuschia gaze took in the look of fondness on your face, the moon’s light highlighting the face he came to long for when away on missions. “My mother once told me that stars signify those who have passed on from this world and that while we cannot see their spirits, our loved ones dance around us as their souls shine above.”

On numerous occasions, he or one of the girls could be found looking at the stars above, speaking to you in the cover of night in hopes of hiding their tears. That was when Tanjiro found him, underneath the blanket of the heavens, tears in his eyes as he spoke to you about the events that had transpired in the Entertainment District. He knew you must have been so worried as he fought those two dull and tasteless demons, losing his left eye and arm in the process while the girls were in danger themselves.

Tanjiro’s hesitance voice had broken him out of his blessed momentary reverie, drawing him away from the world where he could pretend that you were alive and well to the one where you laid six feet beneath the ground.

“Tengen-sama?”

The man had heard the boy coming his way three minutes back but he didn’t have the will to pause his conversation with you and the stars, simply choosing to focus on the task at hand.

“Those two were incredibly hideous and dull, lacking style and flashiness. You would have hated their choice of clothing. Tasteless and drab.” Tengen rested his head against the wooden column of the engawa, a fond smile growing on his face as he sensed Tanjiro stall a few feet away. “You always had a wonderful taste in fashion, so colorful and attention grabbing. It always sent shivers down my spine to see what flamboyant concoctions of outfits you would design for the girls and me.”

He grew quiet for a moment before his voice deepened with grief, his lone eye growing blurry with salty tears. “The stars are beautiful tonight, aren’t they Kamado-san?”

“Err, yes Tengen-sama! I’m sorry for interrupting your talk with…” The younger Demon Slayer trailed off with cautious confusion, body tense with anxiety and apprehension as he came to sit beside the hashira. A very unflamboyant look on him, indeed.

Turning to face Tanjiro with a soft smile, Tengen took in the boy’s disheveled appearance, various parts of his body covered in bandages. “Y/N, my fourth wife. A woman of class that possessed a fiery spirit of flamboyancy unlike I have ever seen before. She believed that stars signify loved ones that have passed away, so I and my wives do our best to speak with her every night, as people of our high status should.”

“You had a fourth wife?!” Concern and knowing realization colored Tanjiro’s features, his hands clenching the fabric of his pants.

“Didn’t I already say that?!” It wasn’t his usual flair that incited his annoyance; it was the pain of having to acknowledge that you were no longer of the present but of the past. “They were murdered by a demon I was in process of hunting, something I’ll never forgive myself for for the rest of my miniscule existence.”

Silence enveloped the space between for who knows how long, all Tengen could do was internally cool his attitude, grief overtaking irritance like a cooling balm.

“I know I never got the pleasure of meeting them, but I know for a fact that they would never want you to blame the others or yourself, Tengen-sama.”

Tengen locked onto Tanjiro with a snap of his head, heart screaming as his eyes grew wet with pain and surprise.

The boy was now the one looking to the stars, a sad smile on his scarred face. “It hurts, knowing my family is gone and that Nezuko’s a demon, but I know they would want me to keep fighting and to never blame myself for something I didn’t do.”

He turned to the older man with eyes of understanding, red irises shimmering under the moon’s light. “‘Remember and treasure but do not hold onto the past too tight.’ That’s what my grandmother used to tell me.”

“Remember and treasure but do not hold onto the past too tight, my wonderful husband.” Your smile had been soft yet blinding as you encased his clenched fist with tender hands. “Your future is too bright to be ignored, your present too important to be absent. Remember this and you shall live with a balanced mindset, for you have come to terms with the sisters of the past, the present, and the future.”

Your voice twinkled delicately in his ears, the memory already had begun to fade yet so clear at the same time. His heart ached terribly within his chest, his mind flooding with memories of your gentle touch, of your sweet and flamboyant heart. Tears he had been denying himself from spilling now rested on the precipice of his eyelid, threatening to wet his cheeks as your words echoed within him.

“I should go, Shinobu-sama wouldn't be happy if she heard I was out of bed when I’m supposed to be recovering. Good night, Tengen-sama.” Slowly with strain, Tanjiro stood to feet, wincing along the way. His injuries, while not as grievous as Tengen’s own, were quite significant and had left the boy bedridden for a time alongside his friends. The Sound Hashira had been quietly relieved that all of them had come out of the fight with those unflashy demon siblings alive, though he would never tell those three delinquents faces.

The young demon slayer padded away slowly and Tengen waited with bated breath until he heard the soft click of the screen door of Tanjiro’s room being shut to release the toiling emotions within him. He choked on the sobs bubbling angrily in his throat, tears beginning their race down the expanse of his cheek as his remaining hand came to desperately clench the fabric of his kimono. Above, the stars twinkled and danced amongst the black platform of the heavens, seeming to move on their own accord as if they were dancing.

You were gone and by whatever gods existed did he miss you.

~~~

Have a wonderful day everyone! I hope you enjoyed this bit!

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olliya · 5 years ago

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Readers‘ engagement on AO3

This time it will be less scientific, and more like me writing down my stream of consciousness. But the methodology was really straight-forward, so I think I can spare us the details, and I wanted to show you a detour I made trying to untangle the reasons behind certain fandom reactions. Join me for a trip?

AO3 is rather infamous for its lack of readers engagement (see all the initiatives supporting the commenting: @ao3commentoftheday, @longlivefeedback), at least among the fics and writers I am in contact with (and I do pay attention to the stats, you can believe me 😉 ). Nevertheless, some people feel very comfortable on this platform and for quite some time already I wondered what leads to such diametrically different writers’ experiences.

I started with analyzing Comments for Sakura’s ships. Since I did the same analysis for four Sakura’s ships: SasuSaku, NaruSaku, KakaSaku and MadaSaku on ff.net, we can have a direct comparison, especially as the time scope of existence Pairing Option and AO3 as a platform are very similar, and fic numbers are also comparable.

Very briefly: I sorted the fics into the following bins: >500 Comments, 201-500 Comments, 101-200 Comments, 51-100 Comments, 21-50 Comments, 11-20 Comments, 6-10 Comments, 2-5 Comments, 1 Comment, 0 Comments. All data are presented in percentage to allow for comparisons between the ships.

So let’s dive in:

On the first glance the graphs look peculiar: there is always sort of a double maximum for “0 Comments” and “2-5 Comments” divided by a minimum for “1 Comment”. But once we remember that the Comments on AO3 include also author’s responses the situation becomes clear: the majority of fics have 2 comments: namely 1 real Comment from a reader and one answer from the author.

To put this hypothesis into a test I checked how many fics have 2 Comments, and it is 316 out of 839 of SasuSaku fics in “2-5 Comments” bin, 84 out of 204 fics for NaruSaku and 104 out of 315 fic for KakaSaku – which gives always ca. one third of comments in the “2-5 Comments” bin.

At that point I deliberated for a while whether I should modify my bins to include “2 Comments” as a separate category, but I opted out of it for the sake of (future) comparisons with ff.net (and because I think by bins are very good, thank you).

As a side note: on the first 4 graphs we can also see that MadaSaku has a different distribution than all the other ships, but it is worth mentioning that it was also an outlier on ff.net. We will come to this later.

Peculiarity of distribution aside – the feedback on 3 main Sakura’s ships is consistently miserable. But, I reasoned, AO3 is famously M/M oriented so maybe the F/M audience is simply not there. Therefore, I set off to check all the Naruto ships in the order of their popularity, which btw is the following:

So, working down the list we get this:

And, WTF Naruto fandom? Most of the fics for hugely popular, established ships have no comments??!! Or one comment and an answer from the writer??!!

That was a really disappointing exercise…

Until I found that:

MadaTobi was the first ship that displayed a different pattern of readers interactions! It has a maximum in “21-50 Comments” per fic which is perfectly decent and corresponds well with the values for the ships I examined before on ff.net.

Encouraged by this discovery I dug further: (And tbh for a moment I thought I have here a “Madara-effect”, since both MadaTobi and MadaSaku displayed encouraging results 😉 )

But Madara-effect was not the case (HashiMada displays the same distribution as all the other ships) and further data were even more disappointing. (Let me repeat myself: WTF, Naruto fandom?!)

Until I found another instance of good readers’ participation:

KakaGai! So, at that point we had three ships that were behaving differently than the norm: MadaTobi, KakaGai and MadaSaku.

I looked further to see if I can find more examples of fandom positivity, but, spoiler alert – No. For the sake of appearances lets look at the data though. GaaLee is sort of a borderline case, so let’s flag it as “tentative” for now.

So, what could be the reason for such a drastically different behavior of distinctive pockets of the fandom? Over the course of last year, I was observing how MadaTobi was rapidly gaining popularity, so that hinted me to follow this line of reasoning.

For each ship, I broke down the fics numbers into years when they were published. I ignored all the fics published in 2020 (because the year has only started and including those data would skew the image). To be able to compare the ships (which vary widely in term of fic numbers) I calculated the percentages of fics published in each year. I.e if a ship had 100 fics published until December 2019 and 30 of them were published in 2019, then 2019 had 30% of all published fics. It was at that point irrelevant how many fics were published in 2020, they weren’t counted either the way. I included only data from 2011 on, because earlier ones are very fuzzy due to back-dating customs that were in fashion at that time (for explanations see here).

Let’s look at the data. Tadaaa!!!

Isn’t it absolutely beautiful?! (yes, I know!) Does it look like a tangle of knitting yarn? (yes, I know that as well!)

So, let me break it down for you:

See that, that general trend? This is the growth curve that most of the ships follow – pretty linear, with maybe a bit of acceleration in 2019.

Now let’s focus on outliers: (3 most popular ships: SasuNaru, KakaIru and SasuSaku are included for reference – they illustrate the general trend pretty well).

The ships that grew more than 30% in 2019 are: SasuHina, MadaTobi, GaaLee, KakaObi, HashiMada, KakaGai, MadaSaku and InoSaku. So, among those eight, 4 (3 obvious, and 1 tentative) are the ones which showed outstanding readers’ engagement!

So, are newer, more energetic parts of fandom also the ones with best readers’ engagement? That would be a very optimistic message… But what about four ships that grew tremendously, but still show very poor readers behavior?

SasuHina is an easy case. If there exist a ship that has a captain, then it is this one. And the captain is @365daysofsasuhina who contributed staggering 438 fics (out of total of 966) to SasuHina! (Seriously, a round of standing ovation, because this is amount of dedication, work and talent that we can all only dream about. Talking about being a change you want to see!). And 90% of that contribution was done exactly in 2019, which explains the growth spurt of the ship. Sadly though, the audience response didn't keep up with the supply of new fics, therefore great many of them remain with very few comments.

So what about the remaining ones: KakaObi, HashiMadara and InoSaku?

Scrolling through the fic lists I noticed that great many of KakaObi fics are written in Chinese, so I decided to look into it deeper.

I analyzed the percentages of Chinese fics for all the examined ships (and percentages of English ones, just in case there was a ship with overrepresentation of some other language):

And we can see that both KakaObi and HashiMada have a very strong presence of the Chinese fics!

At that point I thought I have it, and proceeded to look at the distribution of Comments for Chinese KakaObi and HashiMada fics. And indeed, the reader’s engagement is sadly, almost nonexistent (165 out of 182 HashiMada fics and 478 out of 630 KakaObi fics have no comments at all). The reasons for that may be multiple; one that come to my mind is that the Chinese readers are still to follow their writers to AO3, or that the fics published recently are in reality not new (which for sure they are not, given the sheer amount of them) and received already their share of feedback on other platforms.

But, even if one subtracts the Chinese fics from the overall fics, the distribution remains the same! ☹ KakaObi and HashiMada still display the standard Comment distribution, despite having grown 45% and 41% in the last year!

It looks a bit better, but still follows standard, not very flattering trend of most of other ships.

So, then I thought that maybe if I subtract the Chinese fics the sudden growth in 2019 will disappear?

The answer is unfortunately, no. The growth spurt is still there, language independent.

So, at this point I don’t know... I am convinced that there is some effect coming from the influx of Chinese fics, but I cannot put my finger on it. (It is also a beautiful example of how correlation does not equal causation.) I also have no explanation for InoSaku behavior…

Nevertheless, I think it is possible to draw some conclusions, and those conclusions are of vital importance for the health of fandom as it is currently on the move from ff.net to AO3. And I would hate to see the good habits that are in place among ff.net readers getting lost during this move!

It seems that the readers response is better in the pockets of fandom that experience rapid growth, which in itself is very positive news. But one would think that the entirety of Naruto fandom is experiencing such growth (as the fandom is moving to AO3, remember…?). Unfortunately, it isn’t the case.

There can be yet another factor in play: namely the question if the ship is well represented on ff.net, and most of the ships are. Let’s take a final look at our three outliers: MadaTobi, KakaGai and MadaSaku.

Quick look into ff.net (by quick look I mean: sum of two main Ship Names plus Pairing Option minus fics that were double-tagged) shows that there are 174 KakaGai fics, 132 MadaTobi fics and 230 MadaSaku fics (my carefully calculated MadaSaku fic number was 232 in December 2019, so now I believe this number will be slightly higher).

MadaTobi and KakaGai are definitely underrepresented on ff.net (though MadaSaku is not). Therefore, new fics are not being published on ff.net in parallel to AO3, but rather on AO3 exclusively. It is a speculation only, but maybe if readers are given a choice between commenting on ff.net and on AO3, they are choosing the older platform. That would imply that the authors who make a complete move can still count on feedback, as with absence of ff.net-uploaded fics the readers would have only one place to comment on. At least that’s my hope…

And finally, dear Naruto fandom – step it up. Those numbers are a shame, and I know that people can do better than this.

#fandom stats #naruto stats #ff.net vs ao3 #sasusaku #sasunaru #kakairu #madatobi #kakagai #kakaobi #madahashi #sasuhina #madasaku #shipping stats

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fuckyoucanada · 5 years ago

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MadaTobi, Madara Time travels fix idea that I’m writing spoilers ahead ehhh

Madara does and then while he’s dead he sees what happens in Naruto shippuden and he realizes what a fucking dick he is and the manipulations he fell for. Uchiha have the sin of pride down to a T so when he wakes up again and he realizes he’s actually alive???? in the past he decides that some shit needs to be taken care of. The only problem? There’s another one of him running around, so he can’t be him.

So Madara gets a hair cut and uses his future knowledge of seals to change his eye color. He picks blue???in honor of the uzumaki boy who managed to talk obito around but because of reasons they come out more as purple (because it’s my au I can do what I want). That’s something he has to feel particularly awful for; he and zetsu destroyed that kid.

So now he’s in the warring clans era and he needs to change shit up. He thinks he might have to kill his past self to save Everyone from the pain he caused. So he decides to assassinate his past self. But first, he needs armor and weapons. To get those he needs money.

So he goes about minor clans, doing jobs for them to get paid to eventually save up. While helping a small merchant train, he runs into a few Senju shinobi who have been paid to rob the train. Madara doesn’t kill them, but he leaves them injured enough that they have to make a retreat. From there, tales amongst the clans start to travel.

He runs into izuna and there’s a big emotional battle as he has to fight him because of the people who have hired him. He manages to knock him out and flee, but it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Mostly because when he remembers izuna, he doesn’t think about the vitriol hate that his brother carried for outsiders. He’s always remembered the best and never the worst of his brother and it takes him by surprise.

He runs into Tobirama completely at random, not on a job, so he doesn’t go after him. Tobirama approaches him later however asking about the seals on his eyes. Madara is slightly impressed that the Senju noticed but he doesn’t answer him, escaping with a pleased little smile. From then on he keeps running into Tobirama and gets to know the man in a way that he never got to know him the first time around. He learns about his father from a different POV as well as his fallen brothers. Madara admits the abuse his father put him under and the fact that he knew someone was going to kill him and he never stopped it. What clan are you from? Tobirama asked. I’m not a part of any clan, Madara told him. I’ll never be a part of one ever again.

Time passes and finally he has enough to save up, purchasing purple armor close to the color of his purple eyes. He sets out towards Uchiha held lands and waits. A patrol of Uchiha led by Madara appear eventually and with a heavy stomach, Madara attacks. He manages to knock out the other guards before they can call for back up and he starts to fight his past self. It’s interesting to see how strong he was, even back then. Fortunately, he is stronger now. He has Madara on the ropes, sword at his throat, when he notices a tiny seal behind madara’s ear. Confused, he knocks out his past self and takes him with him. Intent on knowing what the seal was. He checks himself and there’s no seal there on his new body. He slowly deciphers it and realizes that it has something to do with clouding thoughts. He decides to put his other self in a coma and travel to uzumaki lands and show them a drawing of the seal.

He runs into Tobirama on the way and they travel there together. He shows the seal to the uzumaki and they tell him they didn’t make it but it’s a very dangerous seal it’s applications being to cloud the persons mind so that they’re more susceptible To manipulations. Madara is shocked and realizes this is why he started to fall the first time around. This is why he always hesitated to grow close to Hashirama once more. Zetsu has already been subtly manipulating him. Can it be removed? It’s locked by its creator. Either the person who made it has to die or the person wearing it has to die. So now Madara has to track down zetsu and kill him to release his last self from the curse seal. He drops his other self off in the clan compound in the dead of night careful not to get caught by the agitated Uchiha shinobi. He leaves a scroll explaining the situation and the fact that he is going to find a way to remove the seal to get Madara his mind back. The name he’s been going by is Fujio with no last name.

He starts tracking down zetsu and he meets Tobirama in one town where they fall in bed together. Tobirama doesn’t know it was him that kidnapped the Uchiha clan head. Madara wakes up early in the morning when he senses zetsu in the area. Sad that he has to go before he’s ready, Madara leaves a token for Tobirama because he cares god damnit (a small scroll that contains everything Madara owns including another scroll that reveals the truth to Tobirama).

He goes to fight zetsu and has to unseal his eyes. He manages to defeat and kill him??? Seal him away??? Hmmm but it’s only with a grave injury. He passes out thinking he hears someone calling “Madara!” He wakes up being tended to by Tobirama. Tobirama calls him an idiot, tightly holding his hand. Tobirama confesses he always thought Madara was an Uchiha, tho he had no real idea about the whole time travel/secretly Madara thing he had going on. Madara asks him if he still cares for him and Tobirama calls him an idiot and kisses him.

News travels that the other Madara has woken up and that he is acting more like his younger self (optimistic) now that the control seal is gone. Tobirama has to go back to his clan now that Madara can fend for himself. Call me by my new name. Madara tells him. I think I’m finally ready to let go and start over. Ok Tobirama says parting with a lingering kiss. I’ll see you. They make no promises because they can’t not with how everything is. Then a few months later word spreads that the Uchiha and Senju have come to an agreement and they’re signing a treaty to start a village together. Madara, against his better judgment, goes to the signing and runs into his past self. He is recognized but instead of being attacked the other self thanks him. You saved me from a fate worse than death. To betray Hashirama and all that I’ve m ever dreamed of...it would have broken me. I can imagine Madara responds and now that he’s in the clear he decides to finally get his man.

He approaches Hashirama (his eye seals back on) and asks for permission to court Tobirama. Who is asking? Hashirama is bewildered. Fujio Uchiha. Tobirama is surprised to see him and actually blushes when Hashirama tells him what Madara said. Hashirama gapes at his brother and Tobirama glares and demands he give Madara permission. Hashirama does and he is shocked when they cling to each other, foreheads pressed together. Is this all you hoped it would be? Tobirama asks. It’s even better. Madara replies.

Fast forward and Madara is an old old man. His generation is gone. Tobirama passed almost ten years ago. Events from the canon Naruto verse are very different because of madara’s foreknowledge. His survival is considered a blessing. He lives long enough to see the birth of obito and make sure his parents survive to raise him. A young obito (maybe three?) calls him Madara and he realizes that this kid is the obito he ruined in the future. He tells obito about what he’s done and how sorry he is he doesn’t expect to be forgiven but he begs obito to use this second chance to live his life the way he’s always wanted to. Zetsu is gone. Live! Obito hugs him, tears in his eyes, and Madara passes on, finally having found forgiveness from the boy he wronged the most

The end hold your applause 👏

#madatobi #time travel madara #is the tag now i guess #god shoot me #i have 2k so far and hey i havent finished the exposition yet so theres fucking that #fic prompt #naruto fic #purple madara is a thing i didnt know i needed

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emilx311 · 5 years ago

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Tobirama had been blind since birth, he dealt with it, even when his lack of sight led to shenanigans. Madara, on the other hand, was very confused by Tobirama's seemingly random habits. Or, four times Madara really should have figured out Tobirama was blind and the one time it actually came up.

My first MadaTobi week story! I'm hoping to do 4 of these in total. This is for the blind Tobirama prompt

read on AO3 or under the cut, also if you enjoyed this please buy me a coffee

Senju Tobirama had a secret. It was not one he really cared about, but his father had and keeping it had become a habit over the years. You see, Tobirama was blind. He had been born that way, with his eyes closed and his senses open. Hashirama and Touka knew, as did a few of the older Senju, but even within his clan most did not. Tobirama had never understood why others seemed to make such a big deal about it. He had never had it so he could not miss it and he had found ways to compensate for anything his blindness may have prevented him from otherwise doing. He was a capable and deadly warrior so he really did not see why anyone would care. This was why he had never thought to tell the Uchiha of his condition even after pulling his blow on Izuna to create peace and helping their brothers to build the village of their dreams.

One of the first things Madara noticed about Tobirama after peace was established was how messy his handwriting was. This seemed odd since anyone who spent any time around the brothers could see that Tobirama was the organized, logical one. He was the one who came up with the systems, the one who kept his brother in check and on task. And yet, while Hashirama had the beautiful handwriting befitting of a clan head's son Tobirama's was chicken scratch. It was messy and slanted and almost impossible to read. The albino seemed aware of this, had even hired someone specifically to be his scribe, but never did anything to fix it. Madara wanted to say something about it, but none of the Senju reacted or seemed to think it strange and he didn't want to make it seem as if the Uchiha were criticizing their heir. Izuna also thought it odd, but when he asked his brother he was unable to offer a possible explanation even after all the years he had spent fighting and studying the other.

Madara was watching Tobirama again, Hashirama noticed. He’d been doing that quite a bit since Tobirama had pulled his blow to Izuna, but this time seemed different. Instead of being focused on his brother himself the Uchiha was squinting at the book held in his brother’s hands. It was a braille book because Tobirama had just gotten back from a mission the night before and his chakra was still low, but otherwise Hashirama saw nothing out of the ordinary about it.

“Something wrong? You seem distracted” Hashirama asked his friend off-handily. Madara hummed, still focussed on Tobirama.

“Not really just…what is your brother holding?” Madara asks in return. Hashirama gives him a confused look.

“What? It’s a book” he replies. Madara blinks before looking at him quizzically.

“But there’s no words on it and he’s not using it to write in” Madara points out.

“Of course not, it’s written in braille. He always reads that way when he’s tired or low on chakra, it’s more relaxing for him” Hashirama explains. He’s surprised that Madara has never seen his brother read braille before, he does it often enough. Tobirama really did find it more relaxing since he didn’t have to focus his chakra when he read this way. It was almost as good as swimming for de-stressing him.

“Oh” was all Madara could say to that and Hashirama wandered away happily with no idea he’d left his friend even more confused than before.

Madara blinked. He blinked again. The sight in front of him didn’t disappear or change. He activated his Sharingan just to be sure. Everything stayed the same. So, he was not hallucinating or caught in a genjutsu, so what he was seeing had to be real. He took a moment to wrestle with that idea, but he just couldn’t accept it. There had to be an illusion of some sort, had to be! There was absolutely no way in the world Senju Tobirama would be dressed in that otherwise. No way!

He had tracked the Senju down to one of the more secluded training grounds with a few questions about paperwork only to find the sight in front of him. At first glance everything seemed normal enough. Tobirama was flowing through a series of katas, moving fluidly but slowly from one pose to the next with precision and control. He was covered in a light sheen of sweat that made his clothes cling in delicious ways. That was not the problem (or at least not the one Madara was focussed on, the one that is preventing him from appreciating this view). The clothes themselves were even, on a basic level, appropriate training wear. A pair of flexible capris and a teeshirt with a V-neck plus the mesh he wore underneath. No, the problem, the huge mind-bending, reality-warping problem was the colour of the clothes.

The pants weren’t too bad he supposed, being a darkish shade of green unfortunately reminiscent of vomit. They, at least, had the redeeming quality of providing some camouflage with the forest. The shirt did not. The shirt had nothing redeeming about it what so ever. It was a horrendous shade of neon pink (Madara wasn’t sure where the younger man had even been able to find it). The colour would have been bad enough on its own, but when contrasted with the pants was somehow even worse. ‘And’ he noticed distantly, ‘neither of them suits his colouring very well anyway’.

“What the fuck Senju?” He demanded once his brain had rebooted enough for his mouth to work. The Senju in question heaved a sigh and turned to give the Uchiha his full attention in the hope it would get him to leave sooner.

“What Uchiha? It’s called training. I would have thought you aware of the concept, or are you so above us mere mortals that you don’t need it?” He questioned, annoyed at being interrupted.

“What, no! Not the training, of course I know what that is! I meant the clothes! What the hell are you wearing?!?” Madara screeched, waving his hands towards the offending items. Tobirama blinked looking very confused.

“I’m wearing clothes as you yourself just pointed out. I fail to see the issue with it. They are hardly immodest and provide the lightness and flexibility I require to optimize my training” he responded blandly.

“You-immodest, no, what?” The Uchiha sputtered. Tobirama gave him a judgemental ‘get to the point’ look. “It’s not the type of clothes that’s the problem! It’s the colour! Are you trying to make all of Konoha go blind???” He questioned. Tobirama glanced down self-consciously.

“Is it really that bad?” He asked. “I mean, I know they’re not the best, which is why they were in my training clothes pile in the first place, but I didn’t think it was-”

“They are” Madara cut him off. “Please, for the sake of us all, burn them. Or, at least the shirt. No one deserves to see that, not even you.” Then, because he has always been far too curious for his own good, he asked, “where did you even buy that, and why?”

“No idea” Tobirama replied with a shrug. “Brother gave it to me, likely as a joke so he could laugh when I grabbed and worse it out by accident”. Madara paused for a moment at that, but it did sound like something Hashirama would do. He wasn’t sure how Tobirama could miss the colour (his eyes!) but then again, he wasn’t always the best in the mornings himself.

“Humph, just do the world a favor and burn it. The idiot’s likely already forgotten about giving it to you” he advised again, only to start sputtering, again, as Tobirama pulled the shirt off right in front of him. “What are you doing now???” He shrieked, a blush forming at the sight of the other’s pale, sculpted chest highlighted by the darkness of the mesh.

“I’m taking your advice. If it’s really that bad I may was well take the chance to get rid of it now. Uchiha are rather well known for their abilities with fire” Tobirama pointed out. Madara preened once he understood what Tobirama was suggesting. Burn the abomination? Yes, he could do that! He grabbed it out of the other’s hands, laid it on the ground and made a show of setting it ablaze. Once the offensive object was nothing but ash, Tobirama used a water jutsu to put the fire out.

“Thanks, Uchiha” Tobirama said. Madara nodded in acknowledgement and wandered off, please with his morning’s work. It was only after he was halfway back to the tower that he remembered why he’d been looking for Tobirama in the first place. He thought for a moment before shrugging. The paperwork could wait, what he’d ended up doing had been far more important. Plus, who wouldn’t have gotten distracted at such a sight? He didn’t know how the Senju had been able to stand having it on! (Meanwhile, Tobirama made a note to himself to go over all his clothes with Mito later-he’d had no idea any of them were that bad!)

Tobirama was beyond tired. He’d just gotten back from a mission (not that bad, but still tiring) and had been planning on making his report and then returning home and passing out. Instead, he had walked into the tower only to be greeted by terrified staff, screams, and flames. He pinched his nose, sighed, and set himself to sorting out the chaos.

He was unsurprised to find Madara and Hashirama at the epicenter of the mess. Stopping to shoot a glare at Izuna and Touka who were standing off to the side snickering, he called up a shave of water and dumped it on the two strongest shinobi of their age. Predictably, the screaming then turned into confused sputtering. Tobirama despaired for the village sometimes, and was also vaguely amazed that there even was one with these idiots in charge.

“Tobi! You’re back!” Hashirama cheered once he noticed his brother. He forgot about Madara as he eagerly launched himself forward to hug Tobirama, who neatly dodged him.

“Yes, I am, no, I am not hugging you while you are all wet” Tobirama told him. Hashirama laughed sheepishly. By that point Madara had managed to wrestle his wet hair back away from his face and had switched his glare from Hashirama to Tobirama.

“Oh, you survived, joy” he muttered. The dunking had not improved his already bad mood (Izuna considered it Karma for the number of times Madara had dumped him in the koi pond). Tobirama snorted.

“Yes, I survived, only to come back to this. I thought I specifically told you that I expected the village to be standing, intact, and not on fire when I got back!” Tobirama gave all four of them a pointed look, and they did have the dignity to look a bit abashed, or well, most of them did.

“It is!” Madara protested.

“This building is part of the village and there was definitely fire just a moment ago” he pointed out drily. Madara pinked slightly and looked away from the albino. Now that he had successfully cowed them Tobirama set about finding out what had happened and actually fixing the problems (setting them on fire is not a solution Madara!).

By the time he’d finished with that and finally made his report it was well into the night, and he was, as previously mentioned, very tired and also a bit low on chakra. Because of this, he was not sensing at anywhere near his usual level. This, he maintained, was why he ran into the door. Taking a step backwards and rubbing his head he glared at the offending piece of wood (ignoring how his brother and Madara were snickering). Grumbling, he reached his hand out to grab the nob and pish the door open. It didn’t move. Puzzled, he tried a bit harder, but there were still no results. Madara had, by now, stopped laughing and was starting to look a bit worried. Fed up, Tobirama switched tactics and gave the door a hard yank. This time, it did open-flying backwards with enough force to knock into his head, again. Tobirama cursed, he’d never been fond of doors, while Madara rushed over.

“Oh my god! Are you okay?” The Uchiha asked, fluttering around him with actual concern. He glared at Hashirama who was still snickering.

“I’m fine” Tobirama waved him off, “just tired”. Madara made a noise of contempt and began feeling the other’s head for bumps himself.

“It’ll be fine, this is hardly the first time he’s done this” Hashirama reassured him, voice still infused with mirth. “He always has trouble with doors when he gets tired. It’s why he has an open layout and shoji doors in his house, and why he uses windows so often” Hashirama explains, which…kind of makes sense. (Madara had wondered about the window thing. When they were first building Konoha, Hashirama had insisted that all the central buildings needed to have large numbers of windows and then that those windows had to be able to open from the outside. The Senju, when they heard, had all nodded with tired and resigned looks. The Uchiha had been so confused until the buildings actually started seeing use and Senju Tobirama started sliding through them. More than one of his clansmen had had minor panic attacks upon turning around to find Tobirama suddenly there, standing calmly by the window, but they’d gotten used to it quickly enough. It had become a secret pleasure for Madara to watch the albino twist his lean body as he entered or exited by his chosen route.)

“He even swore off door entirely for a few months as a child, would only ever use the windows. Broke a few bursting in when they were locked before everyone finally just gave up and started keeping them open” Hashirama adds. Tobirama looks unrepentant and even seems to smirk at the memory. “Still, this is usually a sign that he really needs sleep, and I still have some things to finish up here so would you mind making sure he gets home safe for me?” Hashirama shot his best pleading face ad his friend who pretended to be annoyed as he agreed (neither Senju was fooled). Once they were out of Hashirama’s sight Madara took the opportunity to wrap an arm around Tobirama, who rolled his eyes.

“I know I’m tired, but I can still walk by myself” he mentioned sarcastically. Madara shrugged.

“Maybe I want an excuse to touch my boyfriend who’s been away” Madara said, smiling with pleasure at the light blush his words cause. Their relationship is still new, having only begun a few weeks ago, but it was good. They would probably get around to telling people soon (neither wanted to deal with their brothers’ inevitable dramatics), but for now they were still keeping it quiet.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier” Madara adds, cringing as he remembered his first words to the newly returned Tobirama. “I am very happy that you’re still alive and back safe”. The Senju leaned into him a little in reassurance.

“I know, it’s fine. You were obviously upset, and my welcome to you was not the warmest either” he told the other. Madara just smiled at him, amazed as he always was that this man was his. They stopped once they reached Tobirama’s home and Madara pressed a light kiss to his lips before letting go and stepping back.

“Think you can manage the door?” He couldn’t resist teasing. Tobirama huffed, but there was a small smile playing around his lips. He walked up to the door and opened it with a big flourish, just to prove he could. Madara laughed.

“Good night then dear heart, sleep well” he told Tobirama who waved a hand in acknowledgement and farewell as he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him. Someday, Madara hoped, they would share a house with plenty of open space and windows and shoji doors where they could retire for the evening together.

It was months after that when things finally came to a head. If he was being honest, Tobirama would have to admit that he’d actually forgotten that Madara didn’t know he was blind. His partner was so good about accommodating him and his quirks that the whole thing had rather slipped his mind. Because of this he was genuinely surprised when it actually came out.

Their relationship was going well and they’d finally decided it was time to tell their families (well, they were both pretty sire Mito already knew, but they would tell everyone else). Since both were aware of their brothers’ personalities and tendency to over react (especially Hashirama) they had decided to do this in private and get it over with all at once. So, they had arranged for a family dinner at Tobirama’s and had invited Hashirama, Mito, Touka, and Izuna. They both knew that once the shock passed their family would be happy for them, but Madara was finding that knowing this did nothing to lessen the nerves churning inside him which was making him twitchy and irritable. Tobirama, Izuna, and Hashirama were the most important people in his life and he had no idea what he’d do if he ever lost one of them, but it would not be pretty. Because of this, he was fluttering around trying to make everything as perfect as possible.

“Why do you only have one vase? And why is it so deeply buried?!” He demanded between muffled curses as he finally unearthed the aforementioned object from the back of a cupboard that looked like it hadn’t been opened since Tobirama moved in. He carefully rinsed the dust off it, filled it with water and the flowers bouquet he’d bought and found it a place near the center of the table.

“Flowers aren’t really my thing since I can’t appreciate them properly. Besides, Anija makes them bloom everywhere anyways, so what would the point be?” Tobirama replies from his perch on the counter across the kitchen. Madara doesn’t really understand the first part but that’s okay because he understands the second way too well.

"Does this look okay? I wasn't sure if the colours of the flowers were too clashing but the clerk assured me, they were offset by the others enough that it didn't matter..." Madara trailed off. He knew he was being a bit ridiculous but the level incredulity in Tobirama's look was hurtful and uncalled for.

“Why in the world are you asking me?” Tobirama asked.

“Because you’re here?” Madara’s reply came out more of a question. “I know you don’t really care much about colour, but you can at least tell me if you can stand looking at them” he huffed. Tobirama froze, his eyes going wide which made Madara freeze in turn because that? That was not a good look.

“Shit” Tobirama murmured to himself and Madara felt as if a cold hand was trailing down his back. Tobirama rarely swore and when he did it usually meant something really big and really bad was going on. He had a split second to wonder if the village was being invaded before Tobirama started talking again. “Fuck, you don’t know! How could I forget you didn’t know?!?” He raked an agitated hand through his white hair. Madara was getting the sense that there was something he didn’t know.

“Ah? Tobi, love?” He questioned when after a minute the other just continued muttering to himself about what an idiot he was. “What don’t I know?” He figured it was best to ask bluntly, he’d never been any good at tact anyway. He was startled when the question made his normally stoic boyfriend blush and fidget ever so slightly.

“I…I didn’t mean to keep it a secret from you” Tobirama started off with, trying to reassure Madara but only succeeding in making him more anxious. “I assumed you knew. That Hashirama had told you at some point or that Izuna had figured it out and it just didn’t bother you which is why you never brought it up…” Tobirama realizing he was rambling forced himself to stop and took a deep breath before, finally, getting to the heart of the matter. “I’m blind” he blurted out. Madara took a moment to digest that.

“Oh” the Uchiha eventually replied dumbly. Tobirama, his strong and skilled lover, the man who’d spared his little brother and made his childhood dreams possible was blind. He wanted to reel in shock but…but he kept remembering instances, and small habits of Tobirama’s he’d observed that suddenly made so much more sense. His handwriting, the scribe he had with him at all times at work, his braille books and the way he would always read them and only them when he was low on chakra. It explained Hashirama’s insistence on giving him the most horrible clothes, why he hated doors and kept everything so neat. Every odd habit and quirk of his lover’s he’d wondered about but accepted (because they were a part of Tobirama and therefore precious) suddenly made sense. He looked back at Tobirama (when had he looked away?) and found him playing with a loose thread looking worried and…ashamed? He realized then that Tobirama expected him to be mad. Expected him to be angry that he’d never mentioned this to him before.

“Oh, Tobi” he crossed the distance between them in quick steps and pulled his boyfriend into his arms. “I’m not mad” he reassured the other. “Yes, I’m surprised because I never would have guessed and I’m maybe a bit annoyed at myself for not noticing the clues, but I’m not upset with you. I’m honoured that you trust me enough to tell me now!” He pulled the other down for a kiss that he poured his soul into. He tried to show the other how much he loved him, how learning this only made his love and admiration for the other’s strength grow. He seemed to have succeeded since Tobirama was beaming at him when he pulled away.

“I love you” the albino told him tenderly as he tucked an escaped strand of black hair back behind Madara’s ear, caressing his face as he went. Madara nuzzled into the hand with a smile. “And I trust you with all that I am” he added. Madara felt his heart skip a beat at the admission and the adoration written plainly in red, sightless eyes. He’d known, of course, but to hear it…They would have details to work out later, questions Madara would need to ask and accommodations he’d learn to provide, but for the moment this was everything he needed and wanted.

“I love you too, there is no one I would rather have beside me” he confessed in turn. Delighting in the way Tobirama’s smile widened even more at the words. Entranced with the man in front of him Madara could do nothing but kiss him again. The world around him faded away until the only thing left was Tobirama. Evidently, his love was having a similar experience since neither of them noticed the arrival of their relatives. They were pulled apart, and back into reality, by Hashirama’s happy squeezing and Izuna’s confused exclamations. Blushing, Madara pulled away to let Tobirama hop off the counter. He kept one hand in Tobirama’s and felt the other give it a comforting squeeze. Tobirama had his back and they would face this together. Strength renewed, Madara set about helping the other deal with the ridiculous people they called family.

#MadaTobi #madatobiweek2019 #Blind Tobirama #Tobirama #Madara #Hashirama #Izuna

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raendown · 8 years ago

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Naruto Tag

It took me a couple days to get around to this, sorry! I was tagged by @moonfox22 and @dimancheetoile. Thanks guys!

Top 5 characters

1. Kakashi 2. Tobirama 3. Minato 4. Sakura 5. Obito

A character you’ve been disappointed in their development and why

This might be unpopular but Iruka. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my sweet little sensei. But I really don’t like the way he was portrayed in Road to Ninja or the wedding arc at the end of the anime. At the beginning of the show he is built up to be this kind man who learns to understand Naruto and care for him despite the demon fox inside the boy. I took from those things that he was the kind of person who was willing to listen to your problems.

But in Road to Ninja he just flat out yells at Naruto for being sad that his father is dead? He doesn’t even listen to Naruto or try to talk to him about these feelings? Like, yeah at the end of the movie they have that cute scene where Iruka shows up with a cake and that’s nice and all. But I don’t agree with the way they portrayed that conversation at the ramen stand.

Same thing with the very last episode of the anime. Naruto comes over to visit him before his wedding and Iruka screams at him for neglecting her? And he says something like “there are things I failed to teach you about being a human” as if Naruto is doing something wrong just by visiting someone that is supposed to be precious to him? They’re supposed to view each other as brothers, what is supposed to be wrong with Naruto visiting him?

I dunno, it just bothered me that they seem to jump Iruka’s personality around from caring to careless whenever they need a convenient plot disturbance.

A character you wish had more panel/screen time

I wish we could have seen Ino actually doing something. We saw her flitting about Konoha and she appeared in some battles but usually did very little. I would have loved to see some of her actually being the bad ass I know she can be. I wanted to see her working in the Intelligence division like her father before her or destroying minds with her jutsu.

Favourite arc

Kakashi Gaiden. The whole thing. Hands down. Not only was the story line centered entirely around my ultimate fav, but it was a good story line. It showed Kakashi growing and changing, learning new things and letting that new knowledge change him as a person. We got to see the cold cruel beginning but also the moments of mercy and the proof that his humanity was still there. Knowing what he went through when he was younger changed everything about how I watched his older self interact with the people and events around him.

Favourite antagonist and why

I think a toss-up between Pein and Kisame. Neither of them were inherently evil but they were pushed towards evil acts by their disillusionment with the world around them. Pein as Nagato was such a little cinnamon roll who just wanted to make the world a better place and protect his friends. Then when he lost the most important person in his world he thought “fuck you I will force the world to be better”. Kisame was similar; he was just trying to do what he was told and be an obedient shinobi. When he questioned how actually fucked up the things he was asked to do were, he was punished for it. He joined the Akatsuki because they were trying to build a perfect world and, being really disillusioned with reality, he was happy to help with that plan. Not to mention - and yes I am this petty - Kisame is kinda hot!

Thoughts on Akatsuki and its evolution in the plot

The characters were very different from each other and very interesting. I liked the strange thing they had going on where they were fighting for world peace by murdering everyone. xD It was just kind of unique to me that their end goal was the perfect world that would make everyone happy, but of course they’re ruthless and willing to make sacrifices to achieve that goal.

By the end though I was more in to the individual characters than the Akatsuki as a whole because the organization got weird and messy and not written very well plot-wise. I wish we had more arcs on those characters, where they came from and what they had gone through while in this organization.

Choose a fixed point in the manga, alter it and give me your canon divergence

Instead of just leaving Obito’s body behind, Minato and his two surviving students wait for the earthquake to settle then go about retrieving their fallen friend. Oh, hey, surprise! Obito isn’t dead! They bring him back to the Leaf and he receives mass amounts of healing. They are able to save his organs but his arm and leg are fitted for prosthetics. Kakashi keeps the eye. They train together and become the single most terrifying duo you will ever face on any battlefield ever. Maybe fall in love along the way *winkwink*. Madara might find someone else to try and help with his plans but they fail as soon as they try and all of my precious babies live happily ever after. U.U

A canon ship that didn’t disappoint (hard, I know)

Can I use a FRIENDship instead of a relationship? Does that count? Because Kakashi and Gai are BroTP forever. These two idiots have literally never let each other down. They will fight for each other and believe in each other until they have both dragged in their dying breath.

Favourite rare pair/crack ship

Fav crack pairing will always be MadaKaka xD

A piece of fanart you love and wish to promote the artist

Uhhhh everything that anyone has ever drawn for me?

@syndellwins has done so many pieces for me and they are all wonderful. Hard to choose between them but I think this one of one of my KakaHana sequels might still be my fav.

@mrsvasiliev has gifted me the world’s best Kaka-butt more than once, starting with this glorious piece, also of one of my KakaHana soulmate au’s.

@thetoxicstrawberry knows exactly what she’s done. Of the ones on tumblr I would have to say my fav from her art is Madara in gotdamn footie pajamas! Drawn for a small MadaKaka piece written by me.

And most recently but certainly not least @redhothollyberries has created some beautiful art for the MadaTobi sequel I am almost half done. I might still be drooling on this. *shhhh*

You are all incredible and amazing people! I bow to your talents!