All Purpose Naruto Fanfiction Thread

IANCE, from what I've seen of your posts so far, almost everything you've got to say about the main characters of Naruto is horribly mean. Far beyond being fair, and certainly far beyond any potential of accuracy with regards to your character analyses. I will admit that you've got a knack for writing it in an amusing light, so at least it's entertaining to read, but man. Come on. What you've got to say is nearly harsher than any intentional bashing fic I've seen, and what makes it worse is that you're actually a good writer with a brain. AND DAT EGO. YE GODS.

Your Sakura spiel is basically taken verbatim from anyone who’s ever bitched about Bella from Twilight. And although for Bella it may be justifiable, one could attempt to make the same argument for most protagonists in teenage novels. You can’t conflate empathizing and relating with replacing. Not everyone who watches or reads Naruto also participates in fanfiction, and there were still people who liked Sakura (however baffling that may be). All characters get altered in fanfiction, either intentionally or unintentionally, and if it happens to Sakura moreso than others, it’s because she’s the lead female and has parts of her character and backstory that truly are relatable. Fans of Sakura who want her to ‘get her man’ or ‘catch up to her teammates’ or whatever else are likely just living vicariously through her, as many tend to do with favorite characters, but it does not mean that they have completely replaced themselves with her in their minds. Sakura has a personality—you just don’t like it very much. Although you don’t seem to like any of their personalities, or even the source material itself, so I guess that’s a moot point.

And your point is? Or do you just want to complain about me disliking how dumb the characters can be?

'Cuz you won't see me denying that the thing I like the most about Naruto is the setting and that I don't care very much about the characters. Even when I did like them, Shippuden went and shat all over the parts of the characters that I like (such as removing most of the humanity from Naruto's character to turn him into a bland messianic archetype, turning Sasuke from someone who had legitimate reasons from deflecting into a walking suit of Plot Armor, turning the prior series' big bad into a punchline, turning every character dumber than toast through new revelations and retcons, etc etc etc).

And hey, at least I can keep my dislike of the characters to myself, and don't bash. I guess that speaks well of me, no?

While you don't bash in fics, you sure don't keep your dislike of the characters to yourself.

edited 3rd Aug '14 7:20:22 PM by gwonbush

I should've specified. In fics, I mean.

Yes, I'd say you manage to keep it out of writing. I suppose that counts more than venting here. Honestly, the only reason I brought it up at all was because it seemed as if every time any debate on characteristics came up, you were right in the thick of it ripping on whoever the topic settled on. I was just a little baffled as to why you were writing fanfiction for a show you seemed to hate, but since you mentioned liking the setting, it makes more sense. :P

edited 4th Aug '14 1:07:29 AM by EquallyImposingSquash

The setting really is the only part worth writing about. You've got a flexible and diverse magic system, a whole continent to traverse, politics between muscle wizards and a bunch of other stuff. It's a shame most of the characters are morons and the plot is unsalvageable unless you make heavy revisions.

It's good that I can actually separate Shippuden and the first part as basically two different series altogether. Shippuden altered characterization to facilitate a stupid plot, which sucks, and it made several changes to the setting that seriously make everyone look like braindead morons.

Plus, all the goddamned Uchiha focus...

And here's chapter 41 of Wait, Did That Happen Before?.

I am a thread killer. I have killed the thread.

Unenthusiastic Yaaaay.

(Is on vacation but will probably read all of it once I'm back with stable internet.)

@Ironypus

Exactly, the setting is absolutely fantastic. Steampunk Ninja wizards who are forced to become child soldiers and sometimes have to participate in Blood Sport for nobles. The possibilities in the 'magic' system and politics are amazing, not to mention Kishimoto gave us an incredibly diverse and colorful cast to work with before he jumped the shark.

Which makes how soul-crushingly uninspired some fics are feel like a huge letdown.

Yes, it's crummy. Even worse since the characters must be stupid so you get annoying things like Gyuuki never telling B about Hagoromo or ninshuu, or people forgetting ninshuu in the first place. It's the whole reason people have chakra in the first place.

And not including that in the setting is unsatisfying, especially since it turned out to be the thing driving the whole story. Cut it out and you've got big holes, leave it in and the thing is unfeasable.

Hmmm, I think I've found a way to make the lack of ninshuu in the story both make sense and not be a stupid copout:

The seal holding in Kaguya wasn't 100% effective so when Hagoromo was giving people chakra(chakra being hers to begin with) she slipped in a little extra, like a delayed poison that would start making the chakra of two humans be unable to interact. Since Hags was busy traversing the country every time he heard the ninshuu wasn't working he'd have to come back and re-do everyone, which fixed it for a time but since he was busy constantly doing that and sorting out all of Kaguya's other messes he never was able to patch the problem.

It's a little bit of a stretch considering he can bring his imagination to life, and even a average intelligence Hagoromo should have been able to fix most problems facing the world, so the only explanation is that Kaguya fucked the world up so badly the most Hags could do was put it back to normal.

edited 10th Aug '14 7:45:59 PM by Ironypus

Throw in Indra and Ashura's rivalry making a mess of things and it might help.

"Sons, please! This is the eightieth time today you've destroyed my batch of seeds that will grow the perfect food source and end world hunger!"

"Shut up dad! No one cares about your lame spice garden!"

"Indra, why did you burn down the living crystal library before it could start to grow new nodes? That was the accumulation of hundreds of people's knowledge, how will people have easy access to information now?"

"No Ashura, that medicine would have cured cancer and AI Ds! Stop throwing vials at your brother"

And now you are thinking of going through the generations.

First it was Ashura throwing vials of miracle medicine at Indra.

Then it was Hashirama throwing bits of miracle wood at Madara.

And finally, it was Naruto throwing poo at Sasuke.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

edited 10th Aug '14 8:36:30 PM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

And Ghost Dad was there to witness it all, Ghost Dad being Hags in that spirit realm he talked to Naruto in, seeing generations of his descendants squander the world in order to throw things at their brothers.

You can just hear him listing the names of all of his descendants and barring them from the cool kids' afterlife forever.

Naruto: The Boomerang Master

-skims a little further, scrolls back up- Okay, what!?

edited 16th Aug '14 10:47:25 PM by FOFD

Ah, beat me to it.

Been a while since I've read anything that poor.

Still a better love story than Chunin Exam Day, though.

BTW: You think that story's bad?

Here, Ala Iridia reads a much worse one for your pleasure, and here is another one.

edited 16th Aug '14 11:10:45 PM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

No, Boomerang Naruto is poor quality, the shoddy leavings in some fourteen year old's spittoon. Those two are are actually fine on a technical standpoint, but the content is in a dark league of its own. A harrowing quest of such thankless drudgery that only a very wise, very cruel wizard could create it.

The former is the dullest story ever written, with nearly 500,000 words in which there are only something like THREE scenes where stuff is actually happening, instead of the narration telling us stuff is happening. And even those are insanely dull because Skysaber has absolutely no idea how to write an engaging fight scene (heck, every single one of his fight scenes is a complete, total and utter curbstomp, and he has absolutely never shown an actual fight in the 93 chapters we've reviewed already).

The latter is significantly less dull, though very incompetently written, for the most part. The protagonist at least resembles the canonical one somewhat, because he has all the power in the world and he's still complete shit at fighting.

Here's the fun thing: He has Negi Springfield's Permanent Lightning Form in his powerset. Using it, the slowest he can go is at 150 KM/S, going upwards sharply if the air is charged. Somehow, despite the difference in speed so massive that there's absolutely nothing in the entire planet that can actually see him coming, he still cannot actually defeat Yagura, the Jinchuuriki of the Three Tailed Turtle, on his own.

A Death Battle between Negi and the Naruto-verse would last the five or so seconds it takes Negi to activate Raiten Taisou. Once he does, it's game over. And yet the most amoral psychopath in the entire planet somehow can't use that technique to win every fight ever.

edited 16th Aug '14 11:55:58 PM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

I found the beginnings of Chuunin Exam Day to be somewhat interesting, honestly. The idea of Naruto honing skills by repeating the same day over and over was a pretty neat concept, and executed in a believable manner. The murmurings of Naru Hina at the start were annoying but tolerable since fanfic writers always have to shoe-horn in romance for some reason. The slippage to terrible story was slow, I didn't really notice it until parts concerning Gaara, but I still tolerated it because maybe it got better...then the wedding scene happened.