i have precisely one thing to contribute, but ffs it's not done yet grr!! maybe we can blame my dog... she demanded i come play with her no less than nine times (i kept track) as i wrote this post (she does this by shouting at me then humping my leg to show me who's boss, sometimes pulling on my sweater sleeve with her sharp li'l teefs, beagles, man, i tell ya...) 🐶
anyway!! here's a TEASER of my Day 3 Band/Rockstar/Idol AU story ahhhhh!!! it's not even titled yet!!!!! i don't even really know what the tags will be! and i haven't had time to make a header image!! 😫
but this i know, oh this i know:
Sasori is first chair cello of the Sunagakure Philharmonic
He has a dirty little secret hobby: listening to metal (among other genres that are definitely not classical)
One of the bands he listens to is called C4
Guess who's the lead singer???
Yes, you guessed it, it's Deidara, singer/song-writer, perhaps much more...
In this AU, everybody lives!! Well... okay fine, Sasori's parents still didn't make it, i'm sorry
But that means two important things: Third Kazekage is alive! And there are a LOT of Uchiha running around.
There's more, a lot more, but you'll have to wait until i steal more minutes and hours from my dog and my work! but i'll give it to ya, come hell or high water! or wildfires, earthquakes, debilitating PM 2.5 ratings, or uh... dare i say... another pandemic??? FEAR NOT!
if you want to wait for the full thing to drop to read, i've left the teaser excerpt below the cut.
a million thanks to @sasodeiweek for hosting this event and encouraging us SasoDei creators to flex our creative muscles! loving all the contributions so far!
and without further ado...
Rehearsal ran circles round Sasori’s ears. The music followed him always, all hours.
Chapter 1
Rehearsal ran circles round Sasori’s ears. The music followed him always, all hours.
The fine, agile fingers of his left hand twitched; his right hand swayed side to side, marking the strokes of his bow. Eyes half-closed, his feet kept time on the pavement as he walked. It was Haydn this week, Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major. A weighty yet familiar responsibility for Sasori, first chair cello of the Sunagakure Philharmonic.
He sighed. Rehearsal had wrapped half an hour ago. He was on his way home, and tomorrow was a rest day. He didn’t need to torture himself like this.
The headphones around his neck were a comforting weight, as friendly and intimate as the straps of his cello case on his shoulders. He flipped them over his ears and dug in his coat pocket for his phone. Scrolling through the saved playlists on his music app, he skipped all of the classical “homework” and went straight for his guilty pleasures: dance-pop, glam-rock, musicals… and heavy metal.
No one at work knew about his low, low tastes.
Well, the Third had known.
Sasori gritted his teeth, biting back unbidden memories. Now he definitely needed to blast his brain clean with some noise.
Something heavy.
Something loud.
Something to transport him far away from the sand-scraped streets of Sunagakure.
His thumb landed on the album he was looking for.
Art is an EXPLOSION by C4. Track 1: “Light It Up.”
From that first haunting guitar chord, the tension Sasori held in his chest and face dispersed. He rode that twisting whine down, down… someplace dark and cool, far beneath the earth. As the barreling drums built to a crescendo, he held his breath—wait for it!—
A million years, through timeless stone
I’m damned to walk this path alone
This darkness, all I’ve ever known…
The lead singer had a deep, melodic voice. He molded each word of the verse carefully, tenderly, as if he were embarking on a ballad… then WHAM!
Cymbals crashed; the roaring chorus caught the last two notes of an electrifying riff like a surfer hopping a wave:
Light it up! Hey, light it up!
Strike a match and light it up!
My fuse is short, ’m ready to blow,
Crush the ceiling down to the floor!
Not in a million years would Sasori admit out loud to anyone that he listened to C4, especially not now that the public were actually aware of their existence. The metal band had catapulted to fame last year with their single “Burn Down All the Discos,” but Sasori had been listening to them well before that. Three years ago, his music app had recommended him a track from Art is an EXPLOSION—C4’s debut album—based on his eclectic streaming history.
If the first song Sasori had heard by C4 had been anything but “Artist,” he’d probably never have given them a chance: their usual sound was, on the surface, sloppy, and most of the lyrics were childish boasts. “Look at me!” their vocalist seemed to say in every song.
But “Artist” was different. It was, inexplicably, an up-tempo perversion of Vivaldi’s Winter Largo in F Minor, lamenting how hard it was to live for art’s sake when the world ran on money and heroic virtue. Listeners without classical training would be unable to appreciate or likely even identify the subtleties of what had been done with the classical score, but the first time he heard it, Sasori had been riveted. Vivaldi’s rhythmic harpsichord had been replaced with a softly tapped snare drum; a mournful electric guitar carried the melody when it wasn’t sung.
Curiosity piqued, Sasori had investigated the rest of the album, and found similar nods to classical music throughout the tracks, much harder to notice than the adapted Vivaldi, drowned as they were in a thunderstorm of electric guitar and percussion. C4 were more than just a metal band: they experimented with typical traits of the genre and also drew from pop rock, classical music, even musical theatre to create a sound unlike anything Sasori had ever heard. They broke all the rules and they did it with glee.
One day—a rest day—home alone and bored, Sasori had looked up the band online. It surprised him to learn that the lead singer had been only sixteen when the band was formed. That powerful voice certainly didn’t sound like it belonged to a teenager. But the band’s website was light on biographical information, and Sasori hadn’t felt like digging deeper. An overwhelming amount of fan sites and social media accounts had sprung up since “Burn Down All the Discos” and C4’s world tour. Bored as he was that day, Sasori wasn’t about to use his precious free time to obsess over some flash-in-the-pan rock band, especially one fronted by a kid.
And yet, he still listened to them.
“Artist” often competed for the position of most frequently-played song on his app, but only when he was feeling particularly moody.
It crossed his mind that he ought to check if C4 had come out with anything new lately—the app usually sent a message when artists he’d followed released new music. Pausing to wait for a traffic light, he dug for his phone again.
Lo and behold, a new album had dropped not three days ago.
Beauty of a Moment, it was called. The cover art featured the Venus de Milo... mid-explosion.
Sasori chuckled under his breath. “He really does fancy himself an artist, doesn’t he…”
What a fool. Popular music was not art. Rock music was not art. It came and went, but the classics stayed. For centuries. Forever.
It was the one thing Sasori and the Third had always agreed on, despite all of their differences.
11. Favorite comment you've ever received on your work?
Oh, this is impossible to answer Lol. People are wonderful, and I feel so blessed that I can't pick only one comment! 😂 So, humm... the closest way I can reply this is that it makes me so happy when people talk abou emotions/lightning/details that called their attention. When people say these things in the comments/tags I feel like bursting into fireworks hahaaaa 🤣💥 (+Extra points it's about YahiKona 😏)
15. Biggest artist pet peeve?
(Answering small to save space). I'm not sure if this question is for the art process, because I can't think of anything, but there's a type of "I'm too cool for this/I don't care/It just happened woopsie" behavior of some artists that really bothers me, especially when it comes from artists who make obviously well-thought works and have clearly studied a lot. Why act like you don't care about something that you clearly put a lot of passion and work into? Art recquires study and practise from everyone... no one is born knowing, and no one should be ashamed of working hard, regardless of the outcome. I'm not saying that people should be Extra Deep/Serious all the time Lol, but that "ahh whatever" behavior is really off-putting for me when it's evidently not true. I much prefer when people are unapologetically passionate about things. (: <3 (Fortunately, the artists I admire the most talk honestly about their passions and struggles and they inspire me so much more for it!)
--- Thank you so much for the questions Blonde, love seeing you 🥺💞💞💞💞
heylo! tell us more about your original fiction! (and the newsletter) and also how's it going with using Patreon? inquiring minds (of writers setting off down this same path) want to know!
Thank you for taking an interest ❤️
Patreon is a thing of the past for me. I found it was less rewarding than directly posting my fiction to my own website or free hosting sites like Ao3, because only so many people were subscribed, and of those people, not many were offering feedback.
The newsletter, I am guilty of neglecting for the past months because I have been going through a huge transition in my life and all of my publishing goals have been put on hold. I will return to it, as I plan to publish a second novel as a companion to the first.
My first novel is called Scattered Pictures, a romance about a woman with children divorced from her husband, whose return to town results in them rekindling their relationship and working through the issues that led to their divorce when they realize love never left them. It’s available on Amazon, and if anyone ends up reading it, I’d appreciate reviews! My friends and family who loved the book only tell me to my face, which is nice to hear, but doesn’t help me promote the book at all 😅
Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. spread the self-love ❤
Nothing made Deidara feel more alive than rigged explosives.
And split-second, life-changing decisions.
Or start from Chapter 1: Mythology (AO3)
Thanks for coming with me on this ride, dear readers! Thus concludes my @sasodeiweek contributions, unless i can squeeze something out for the canon-verse pirate fight idea i've been planning but haven't seem to have found the right inspiration for yet... might make it in time for a late submission, might not...
“Time’s running out, Sasori,” Deidara taunted. “What will you choose?”
The time-bomb’s clock-face pulled Sasori's gaze: 4:19. 4:18. 4:17.
“Deidara,” Sasori began slowly. “Please. I’m begging you, and you know I don’t beg. Disarm the bomb, and walk away. I’ll tell the Society what happened, and we can arrange something. Whatever the buyer wants, we’ll negotiate a compromise. Just don’t take Third. Don’t do this to me.”
“It always had to be about you, didn’t it?” Deidara scoffed. “The buyer specifically wants Third, and as many artefacts as I can get out of here before the police turn up. Kakuzu and Hidan are waiting downstairs with a forklift and a truck. So I ask you again: what’ll it be? Let us go, or die here, mn?”
“You’ve always been so dramatic,” Sasori sneered. “Would you really forfeit your life to stop me from getting what I want?”
Deidara let out an incredulous laugh. “Again, you think it’s about you! This isn’t about you, Sasori, mn!”
Sasori’s heart was in his throat. “I think it is! It has to be! It has to be personal! Why else would you be here if it wasn’t to ruin my life!” He spun away, caught up in his emotions. He ran frantic fingers through his hair. “Why, Deidara? Why are you here, of all people?”
