#to the river. sometimes we go to what is technically a gay bar but it’s more of a pub but usually. river it is

[alpinelogy]

Is it maybe a little bit stupid of me to wear a dress when I’ll probably end up sitting by the river at midnight with friends, eating a baguette and maybe drinking a beer? Quite possibly yes. Do I care tho? Not at all

[akatdollie]

Canon Verses (Detailed)

I find that Naruto-centric Universes help me get a feel for other muses and muns, as we are all working with - relatively - the same facts. However, sometimes it can be difficult to get cross-generation/village characters to interact. Therefore I made this (long) guide of detailed verses, for my reference and yours, to help non-Sunan, non-Akatsuki muses interact with mine.

Founders - Leaf 

Sasori - Chiyo’s son. Busy with war council after the death of her husband, she neglects him, and fails to help him cope with his father’s death. The child is subsequently taken in by nomadic relatives whom specialize in performance (and dabble in banditry). Think circus with a side of scams, pickpocketing the crowd when no one is looking.

Interactions with Founders traveling in the Land of Wind, on the border of same, or wherever - he is in a traveling troupe, after all.

Tag: [Canon Divergent: Nomad Alt.]

Third - Has the same background as his bio, but with a major caveat - he has several other clans competing with him for power and prestige. He is a warlord along the northern border (between the Land of Wind and Earth, who is slowly expanding along the borders of Rain and Rivers. More paranoid than most verses, perhaps by necessity, he seeks to make alliances and crush enemies. He is protective of his mines.

Verse Specific Titles (from most to least formal): Lord of the North, Lord, Busho, Tenno (among those familiar with him), Boy King (if you want to piss him off).

Interactions with Founders characters when dealing with politics of the Era.

Note: This is before the Village Hidden in the Sand exists properly. The village is currently not a “village” but a stronghold built on top of a preexisting, but now extinct, civilization. Suna is currently run by several competing tribes, which will later be conquered and united under the First Kazekage. 

Tag: [Canon Divergent: Busho Alt.]

Second Shinobi War - 

Sasori - Same nomad verse as above, with Sasori placed in roughly the same generation as the Sannin. His troupe is conscripted for battle. An annoyed Sasori wants to get this over with so that he can go back to his art. Note that he will be in his late teens around then, and that his puppeteer expertise will swing the war in Suna’s favor. History may diverge from here.

Tag: [Canon Divergent: Nomad Alt - Sannin Gen.]

Sasori - enrolls in the puppet brigade at the age of seven, enters the war as a child soldier. He is not a genius at this time, nor is he unshakable. He is prone to mistakes and can be terrified and traumatized.

Tag: [Canon Compliant: Second Shinobi War]

Third - With his father assassinated, a sixteen year old Tenno is inaugurated as the “The Boy King” and thrust into battle. Due to his age and inexperience, his role is initially contained to war rooms and politics; he may meet with any delegation that the Leaf may send (including the Sannin and Kagami), hidden behind a paper screen while his advisors speak on his behalf.

Later on, after researching Shukaku, chakra control, and the elements, he becomes a force to be reckoned with - literally. Fields on fields of enemies are flooded with iron. He earns the name “Calamity”.

Tag: [Canon Compliant: Second Shinobi War]

Third Shinobi War - 

Sasori - wheedles his way into leading the puppet brigade in a vain attempt to find and kill Hatake Sakumo, who killed his parents. Chiyo leaves the village after an argument with him; he earns the moniker “Scorpion of the Red Sand” for his brutality left nothing of his opponents, except the stain of crimson upon the earth.

This allows Sasori to meet and interact with age peers who would be fighting during this war, including:

Kisame, Mei, Zabuza

Kakashi, Obito, Rin

Gai, Kurenai, Asuma, Anko

The original Akatsuki

Fugaku, Mikoto, Hiashi

Sakumo, Minato, Kushina

Other parents 

Tag: [Canon Compliant: Third Shinobi War]

Third - after some personal struggles, the Third Kazekage casts out advisers and political sycophants to emerge as a true leader of the Hidden Sand. He is, primarily, a general and a symbol of Sunan might. Due to personal fears, he does not fight as much as he used to, but is nonetheless present with his troops in the war tent. He will not be found in Suna at this time. 

In addition to the above, Tenno is secretly funding the original Akatsuki, and may interact with

Konan

Yahiko

Nagato

Hanzo

Plus any other village leaders and/or diplomats. (He may interact with Uchiha in order to cause trouble in the Leaf).

Tag: [Canon Compliant: Third Shinobi War]

Akatsuki - 

Sasori - is among the first three members of the Akatsuki, with Orochimaru to join next. He may meet with Jiraiya or Tsunade on his mission travels; note that Sasori and Jiraiya both have excellent and competing spy networks so there is room for threads here. He can venture into any village while on a mission and bump into any muse (bar Sunan).

Tag: [Canon Compliant: Akatsuki]

Third - is kidnapped, killed, and converted into a puppet for the above. For the sake of interaction, he is sentient. With Sasori nearby, he can venture into any village while on a mission and bump into any muse (bar Sunan).

Tag: [Canon Compliant: Akatsuki]

Note: During the brief period in which Orochimaru is Sasori’s Akatsuki partner, both of the above muses may interact with anyone resurrected by the Edo Tensei jutsu.

Note Two: Both muses will interact with Akatsuki versions of characters (e.g., Akatsuki!Anko).

Fourth Shinobi War - 

Sasori - resurrected. Diverts from canon in that he refuses to be controlled by a snake, and will immediately grab the nearest alley and try to disappear. Being Orochimaru’s ex-partner, he is aware of the hand seals that will grant him freedom.

Tag: [Canon Divergent: Fourth Shinobi War]

Third - resurrected (not shown in canon). He breaks free from the jutsu and tries to piece together what has happened since his death - and how much time has passed.

Tag: [Canon Divergent: Fourth Shinobi War]

Alternate Histories

Fire Crush - 

Made with @sunagakurenosato.

Seeking access to water, the Third Kazekage and Mizukage make a deal - to invade the Land of Fire and split it in two. The two impoverished nations ravage a richer one. Includes the war and its aftermath. 

Interactions with:

Original Gen Leaf Muses (conquered)

Third Shinobi War Gen Leaf Muses

Third Mizukage, Yagura, Kiri Muses

Original Akatsuki - Amegakure, technically neutral, remains a hot spot for rebels.

Tag: TBA

Note: Muns writing enemies of Suna might find it both easy and hard to interact in battlefields, as (1) it gives characters the chance to meet each other with a clear goal and (2) it sometimes requires writing action scenes (which I am perfectly okay with).

    Other (less fight-y) recommendations for war verses:

Prisoner of War

Temporary Truce

One Muse is a Spy

Spy v. Spy (both are spies)

[Back to Main Verse Page]

[randoreviews]

OTTAWA REFLECTIONS

     Let’s reflect. Where is Ottawa? Just past those three stars in the sky and down the rainbow road a ways. No, if you’re going from New England, you have to go through Buffalo. Buffalo will let you know that you shouldn’t be sad to be leaving America. Even if you like a good wing, you can get that anywhere now, with as much blue cheese as you want.      Once you’re in Canada, the land flattens out to reveal power lines and stations stretching on for miles and miles. They look like electric scarecrows. If now you get a faint tinge of homesickness, again think of Buffalo. We went in the summertime, in August, but if you go anytime between November and April, this will be a winter oasis. The swirls of wind and snow will almost seem to be carrying your car along. (I know from going to Quebec City many times in the winter... dear old Quebec.) Take heart in the snow: it’s not cold, it’s comforting. Aren’t you warm in your car? But this was August and no rain, and my friend kept talking about how he could see how the rail system was all connected. (He had just read a book about trains and had a fever for talking about it.) Once you get somewhere abroad, even if it’s on the highway in the middle of nowhere Canada, you start to think you see things with a fresh eye. This may in part be due to the fact that we all leave some baggage behind in our home countries, as soon as we cross the border.      I was a little homesick. I always think I want to travel across the world, but as soon as I get ten miles from my house I start to think about my friends and my houseplants, etc. It’s quite the dilemma being a person. We’re all just walking question marks. We got to Ottawa (which I’ll point out, is the capital city) at sunset and I immediately thought I had made a mistake in bringing us here. It seemed small and nondescript. It seemed like something that would hardly be a city in the U.S. Well, we would at least have three days to see how boring it was. Sometimes it’s fun to see just how bored you can get. It’s a fun, fully immersive activity. We met our AirBNB host, who, do I even need to tell you, he was Canadian so he was friendly. (Not as many French Canadians in Ottawa, to my knowledge, so they are apt to be more friendly.) He was a male hairdresser and we were staying behind his salon off of a little gated courtyard with a little fountain, and he made haste to introduce us to his wife, I think to prove to us right away that he wasn’t gay, even though he was a hairdresser. (Still could have been gay... and who cares anyway? Be as gay as you want.) The apartment was a sleek little place, what you would expect from a hairdresser. White everything.      We turned on the local news and started to drink some beer. Of course we connected to the WiFi and I responded to a couple friends’ texts telling them that I was in Canada, to make it more real for myself. Aren’t you jealous? I’m in Ottawa. How can you travel and not watch the local news? It really puts you there. If they’re having a pumpkin festival the next day on the outskirts of town, or a lumberjack competition, don’t you want to know? Just for your own edification? Thinking about it, we got the beer in Burlington, where me and my friend went to college. So we didn’t go through Buffalo. I made that up, I guess just to talk some shit about Buffalo. (Sorry all you Sabres fans.) And the beer was strong, and before we knew it we were drunk. I was playing songs on my phone. John Coltrane, Bob Marley. Legendary Americans to remind us of home. (Okay, Bob isn’t American but we’ve basically adopted him.) Once a friend asked how I was doing and I never really know, but I told them I could play any song on my phone, so that was at least something.      A stones throw from our place was a bar called Atari. I figured they would have some arcade games ��� not that I would want to play, I just like looking at them. For aesthetic pleasure. You understand. It was a bit of false advertising because they didn’t have any games, but they did serve strong drinks. We sat on the roof and our server (he was definitely gay... and friendly), he sold us on one, two, three drinks. My friend doesn’t drink very much, but will drink if that’s what we’re doing. We became best friends with our server for that hour or so. He told us that Ottawa was okay but that when he graduated college he wanted to move to Toronto. Toronto is like the LA and New York and Miami of Canada all combined. Ottawa isn’t the Washington D.C. It’s more like... Richmond, Virginia, or some place like that. EXCEPT...      ... EXCEPT... where the government buildings are it is beau-tee-full. It’s called Parliament Hill and it’s like all of a sudden you’re in London, without all the smog and the congestion and people throwing acid in your face. It’s real chill. And international! Canada’s immigration policy is more lax than Uncle Sam’s, and if you’ve just moved to Canada from, say, Ethiopia, you want to see the capital with your family. You want to go to Parliament Hill and see the Peace Tower, which is like Big Ben, but again, more chill. I saw some high-class pretty women who, maybe this is my bad but I just assumed they were prostitutes and I thought, politicians DO work here! The Hill is on a river, not too far-fetched of a name, the Ottawa River, and it’s a pretty idyllic scene. I live in a suburb, pretty much all white, so really it was just good to see some black and Middle Eastern and Asian people.      We paid for those drinks, I mean the following morning we paid for them, and after we got coffee the following morning, which wasn’t quite strong enough to be a silver bullet, my friend went back to the place to rest more and I sojourned around the main market that’s near The Hill. I saw a picture of Obama from when he visited the market a few years back, shaking someone’s hand, and thought to myself, this place is all right. I stood in front of the U.S. Embassy, took a good long gander at it. It’s not a modest building, I’ll say that. It almost looked more like the real seat of power. It has what looks like a steel spine running down the middle, like a combination of Alien and Predator, like it could get up and shoot lasers and eat the rest of the city. It’s probably the only thing in the city that isn’t chill. If we somehow got in a mishap about some stolen poutine, my friend and I, we would seek refuge in this building. Not only are we Americans, our I.D.s would show them... we’re from Massachusetts, basically the birthplace of the country, if not of all civilization.      That second night we didn’t do anything besides to tell ourselves we weren’t drinking. And we didn’t. I can’t drink more than once a week. Thankfully my body revolts. Besides that drinking is fun, it’s almost worth drinking to then not drink the next night and just eat and sleep and watch TV, to remind yourself of the good, quiet life. I’m pretty sure I did some stretching that night too, just in the little corner of the kitchen. Made it my little impromptu yoga. Felt so good. We also happened to get the Lions-Patriots preseason game, because we were close enough to Detroit. Home has a way of finding you wherever you are.      Now the THIRD day (technically the second DAY we were there)... the third day was the big day. Hangover... gone! The gay bartender was great people but we hadn’t gotten pulled in by him again. The third day late morning we went to the National Gallery. First we stopped in an antique bookstore and I looked at the spines of all these books about traveling to Antarctica and taking a dogsled across the Yukon. Crazy shit, man. How bad does your wife have to be for you to be like, fuck it, I’m traveling to Antarctica! I may not make it back! Was Ernest Shackleton’s wife just one of the worst people in the world? Or was she lovely and Ernest simply had the exploring bug? Something must have been going on there. Then when we went to the National Gallery we saw all these paintings of people in canoes and dogsleds, and houses in winter, and rivers... lots of rivers. Canada, man. You know what’s north of Canada? The North Pole. That’s how far it goes up. Do you know how cold it is in Canada in the winter? Like, everywhere in Canada in the winter? It’s fucking freezing. Do you know what extreme conditions do to people? It makes them make great art.      The most famous group of Canadian artists is the Group of Seven. I only really knew Lawren Harris’s work from this group, but the member probably most central to the group, who drowned in a damn lake, is Tom Thomson. Tom Thomson is one of those artists like Van Gogh who, although not nearly as prolific as Vincent, you just fall in love with him right when you see his paintings. Or you fall in love with his work... but isn’t that the same as loving the man? Trees blowing in the wind. Trees standing stalwart way up on the side of a mountain overlooking a lake. Trees in the deep woods next to a river. From the little I know of his death, I got the impression that some folks have tried to make it more of a mystery, possible foul play, but probably he just drowned and it’s their way of making him more of a legend. I have to get a hamster or something and name him Tom Thomson. Such a strong name.      Anyone who knows me knows I’m an art and museum lover, and less the sports bar kind of guy, but you reach a point in a museum where you say, no more, please. Please! You’ll bring the Mona Lisa to me personally right now and I can look at it close up with no one else around? I’ll punch a hole in that bitch’s face. My point is you reach a saturation point. If you don’t reach a saturation point, that means you haven’t been absorbing anything, which probably means you’re a robot. We retired to the AirBNB to sit and look at our phones and stare at the wall and not look at any art of any kind. We then went to a medicinal shop and imbibed some medicine, allowed by the government, and then the art could really blend and distill in me. We walked around The Hill and, jeez, it was one of the most beautiful late afternoons I’ve ever seen. Sun shining, the sunlight twinkling off the water. Real magical travel shit. We walked down by the river and canal and inspected the lock system. My friend has a very curious mind. Maybe in his next life he’ll be an engineer.      The big boxing match happened to be the last night we were there, and we went to a pub beforehand and the female bartender sold me on a place to go to. At first I thought she was just being nice to me because maybe she liked me, and then about eight seconds in I was like, nope, she’s selling me on something. I could die in a fiery car crash in a ravine and she would sprinkle down advertising cards to her friend’s club on my dead body. Come to think of it, I’ve never met a female bartender who you could describe as, Oh, she seemed shy and genuine. I get it because they have to deal with so many people, so many assholes, so they have their shtick and their guard up, but it’s never a good feeling when someone treats you like an easy mark. To further perfectly emphasize my relationship with women (not that I was interested in her), we ended up going to her friend’s club, because I told her I would go and I stupidly stupidly have integrity or whatever when it comes to that stuff, and it was at full capacity. A woman who I didn’t even like who I was just trying to be nice to swindled and sold me on something that I was then shut out of. Kind of wish I was a politician so I could just fuck high-class prostitutes and not care. But then do you even have a soul at all? Could you appreciate the Tom Thomson paintings?      It’s funny, I have no idea what we ate for breakfast the next morning before we left. Totally gone from my mind. (I am writing this on my phone on a red eye at about three in the morning.) It wasn’t a crepe, I would have remembered a crepe. It wasn’t chicken wings, I don’t eat too many of those. I’m desperate to remember in part because I’m hungry right now. Maybe a chocolate croissant? Chocolate croissant is my best guess. Always my best guess. As we got close to the border and our phones really started working again, we picked up the baggage again that we had sort of kind of left for a few days, back to our regularly-scheduled lives, but with the sunlight flickering on the water in our minds in the late afternoon sun.