[fic] The Great Pantomime

[ronsard]

I was trying to figure out what Shisui could have been doing for Madara in The Burning of Paper Instead of Children. Anyway, this story isn’t it, but it was way more fun to write. It should either make you laugh or creep you out - if it does both, I'd be very chuffed.

Title: The Great Pantomime
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Madara/Shisui
Summary: A

Comments

[loika]

I am half-asleep from a long day but can't resist reading something written by you. Here are my favourite bits with useless and incoherent comments:

Madara can tell him that this desolation is nothing compared to, say, the golden, sun-washed desert, where the sand is fine like white sugar and the hot wind scoops up the sun and pours it down on the terrifyingly flat landscape. The clear blue sky is merciless to new outcasts who trudge to the summit of the tallest sand dune, tear off their armors and throw their arms wide open to scream at its bottomless face, IS THERE NOTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO TAKE?

Oh my god deserts and you paint with words so well, I could quote that whole section back at you.

It calls up within him wisps of memory, of other men that he has known, but one by one they have sunken into the earth, and now no one remembers their names but him.

This is so morbid and depressing and you make me think of Madara like I've never really bothered to before.

and quietly crawls toward him, hands and knees.a;lskdfj;af;jalsdkjfa

[ronsard]

This was probably not what you needed to read after an exhausting day D: This is probably not something anyone needs to read ever.A lot of the inner!Madara monologue in this fic is carryover from my first Madara-centric fic, in which he fucked over a whole bunch of people. Amazingly, I think somehow he's even more twisted here. More... concentrated. Ew

[loika]

This is probably not something anyone needs to read ever.
I disagree, I totally needed to read it!

There is an entire tradition in Naruto, though, where young boys are picked up by older men to be used as tools
Oh yes, definitely. Or you know, babies are used as containers for horrific beasts. WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA.

I think the way you draw forth your readers' emotions is amazing. :)

[ronsard]

SHUT UP IT WAS CLEVER. You weren't around in this fandom for the whole TOBI = OBITO stupidity.

Tragedy, what tragedy? This is clearly satire. I should have titled it Literary Theory for Villains.

Large time jumps are convenient tools for uncreative writers who have trouble filling up the empty spaces in their stories. Nothing to brag about orz

[ronsard]

Shisui fixing the house reminded me of Sam from Holes

DO NOT EVEN. That reference is the stuff of pure romance, it must not be allowed to be tainted by Madara-association.

HOLY SHIT REALLY? That's awesome. I want to hug you, plz to be legal soon.

[venusian_eye]

Had to read it twice to soak it in, now I'm going to go off on a walk (through mist, fittingly enough, and under an overcast sky) and savor it, let all the little bits and pieces tumble around in my brain. Poor Shisui - reminds me of being an idiotic and tempestuous fourteen-year-old. And oddly enough, poor Madara. He's just so... unimaginably empty. Perplexing. Defined by the fact that he is unfathomable. Ugh, I can't express myself.

... how did Madara come by that house? It's a little embarrassingly recursive to write fanfiction for someone else's fanfiction, but I am tempted to concoct an explanation.

[ronsard]

You get mist in summer? Do you live in the Bay Area or something? New York and its muggy overcast sullenness is not conducive to cheering me up, especially not when it operates in conjunction with RL horridness. This was the end product of that abortive love affair.

I use emptiness as an overarching theme for Madara. BUT DON'T FEEL FOR HIM. And even I don't know how he came by that neat piece of real estate (one of many plot holes, please don't point them out). Maybe he killed the previous owners and buried them in the backyard... or maybe he bought it. Equally plausible. If you want to take a crack at this crackiness, I would forever be enamored.

I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THIS DRIVEL

[venusian_eye]

Madara remembers far too much. His head is a maelstrom of too many details, and the irrelevant ones are left free-floating to wink in and out of his notice - solitary stars in a vast, unfriendly universe. These scattered memories lie, lonely, between the galaxies of Madara's relevant thoughts, but every so often he glimpses them from the corner of his eyes, and every so often one of them wanders into the gravitational pull of his ambitions

Re: I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THIS DRIVEL

[venusian_eye]

He has stopped sleeping; time becomes a continuum, a long, idle river of sunsets, the moon a spinning toy, the occasional eclipse like a dream interrupted. For a week Madara does not need to be anywhere, and so he flickers in and out of places as they occur to him

[soleil_et_pluie]

Well I can say fairly that this one hit like a punch in the gut, as all great Madara stories tend to do. WHY ARE YOU CHANNELING SHIVI AND HER HEARTBREAK HOTEL???

Onward:
Standard procedure when a stray follows you home is to drown the whelp, but his personal protocol requires more finesse. This line wasn't quite clear till the end (also the, ya know, drowning) but it's really murder that Madara's doing here, killing Shisui quite literally. You and Shivi made bookends of stories about Madara fucking with the relationship between Itachi & Shisui. :/

Madara can and will always say that he never lied to Shisui on that night. Oh Madara, you fucker. >/ Misdirection and omission: two of the things Madara execels at, and in all the best stories of him he's always amazing at sloughing off responsibility for the evil he's doing, both in his own mind and the minds of the people he's manipulating, even as he knows he's doing it. and still: It makes the slightest twinge of culpability raise a timid finger to tap at the back of his skull, but it

[ronsard]

So all that stuff you said about being into Madara/Shisui, THOSE WERE ALL LIES? I should have known. And I have no idea what you're talking about. This is a romantic comedy feel-good fic. Romance for Shisui, comedy for Madara: everybody wins! Except Itachi. But who cares about him?

LOL, that line was, um, a reference to puppy-drowning. Bit of a funny aneurysm for me because, you know, PUPPIES! Drowning! Hey, it's not like Madara meant to steal Shisui from Itachi, things just happened to work out that way. By the way, did you notice that I sort of obliquely insinuated that Madara disguised himself as an older, crippled version of Itachi? No wonder Shisui fell like a stack of bricks. See? Hilarious.

Concurred. I have two go-to characterizations for Shisui: this one (same from TBoPIoC), and the one I use in everything else, the Shisui that will never ever ever be allowed to associate with Madara, except in crack AUs

[soleil_et_pluie]

Madara/Shisui: Just 'cause it's hot doesn't mean it's not depraved, hun. That is like the fucking tagline for all Uchiha relationships: "smoking hot, but oh-so depraved!" And it was my "you are one sick bastard" ship anyway :P

[ronsard]

ItaShi isn't depraved. No, I didn't describe his hair, but I almost included something like, "He sweeps back the coil of hair," but then decided that was too obvious, and as if I needed more hamfisted descriptions anyway. But he did have the general air of the sickly, ethereal lover with a higher cause; how did he peg Shisui's type without meeting Itachi, I don't even know XD

You'll have to sell that to me through fic, because as it is I just can't see that happening. Madara, Redeemed By The Power Of Love? (My worst nightmare is that this will *actually* happen in canon, goddamn Naruto and his Jesus qualities.) Shivi's Eclipse is the only story so far that's come close to steering me in this direction, but ultimately my idea of Madara is someone who's extremely stern in virtue. Uh, not a virtuous person, but someone who truly believes in what he does - he's not ruining people's lives just for the lulz, is what I'm saying. He doesn't need redemption or to be returned to innocence, because he has become the goal that he's been

[frostheavens]

oh god mai why are you so perfect :( this is so creepy (i have creeped out covered, no worries) and heart-breaking. dark, ruthless love. your writing is spectacularly beautiful, as always. man, ♥

[ronsard]

Thank you, bb, thank you. I started hacking this one out when I became fed up with my inability to write this tiny Mal-centric Inception fic. I need to read some stuff by other people to flesh out my ideas, BUT ALL ANYONE CARES OR THINKS ABOUT IS ARTHUR/EAMES. It's just like Merlin, where I just want some good Morgana fic to fortify my fanon but alas :(

[frostheavens]

Yeah, I see it :( I mean, I like Arthur/Eames, but where is the Saito fic??? I haven't read this myself, but it got recced by a friend of mine and it's pretty Mal centric? I wish for you to write Merlin fic :(

[ronsard]

OH MY GOSH. THANK YOU, THAT IS EXACTLY THE MAL-FIC I NEED TO READ. I only skimmed it just now but her voice is perfect and her interaction with Arthur, and urgh, the concept. This is *exactly* the concept I was looking for in fic, and if you hadn't sent me this I would have had to write it myself and do an awful job of it. But now I don't ♥

RIGHT? If you ever find any good Saito fic, please let me know. Just Saito, Saito with Cobb, Saito with anyone (Fischer?!). He's a BAMF.