Howdy.

I'm a 23 year old male college graduate with a major in Economics and a minor in Japanese.

I'm also an Arizona native. That means I live in the middle of a desert in the Southwestern USA.

Why do I read and write fan fiction? Because the manga chapters don't come out nearly quick enough.

I mostly stick to Naruto and Harry Potter fiction. Harry Potter because you can find quite a few fan fictions that are even better than the actual books (not incredibly hard to believe considering how terribly the series ended) and Naruto because it's fun to get creative with the Naruto world.

Sadly, there aren't too many Naruto fics out there that I really enjoy.

There are far too many crossovers, demon!, and superbloodline! fics out there in my opinion.

All the m/m out there makes me cringe, especially when I do a search for mature stories and everything that pops up is slash. Not only am I not into it, but it's so OOC it makes me want to pull my hair out.

My biggest pet peeve in all of Naruto fan fiction though is poor characterization and scaling of villains. I can't tell you how many stories I've stopped reading because the author decides that Orochimaru or Kabuto is going to be the final villain. I even read one that had Orochimaru killing Pain, taking over Akatsuki, and having Konan call him "master." I mean, wow. Orochimaru is the most cookie-cutter villain stereotype in fiction. Just give him a wand and call him Voldemort.

My second biggest pet peeve is changing the characterization of certain people too much. Big brother Itachi and "I'll give up on my revenge after three chapters of D-rank missions with you" Sasuke are good examples of this. An even better example is evil or stupid Kakashi.

My third biggest pet peeve is authors who throw Japanese romanji into their stories without really understanding what they're saying just to look cool and so that they can put a little translation section down with the end notes. I'd much rather know what I'm reading when I read it, thank you.

My Policy on Using Ideas Presented in My Works:

Pretty simple really. If you're an author and want to use any of the ideas or premises I've come up with in my fics, feel free to do so. You don't need to get my permission or feedback to do it. I don't even really care if you quote me verbatim.

Having said that, I do insist that you properly cite me and whatever idea you borrowed.

That's about it for that.

Favorite Naruto characters:

Naruto, Jiraiya, Pain... and Kakuzu. What can I do? The guy says it like it is and isn't so damn arrogant as to believe in his own invincibility. Too bad he made such a quick exit in the manga.

Least favorite Naruto characters:

Basically anyone who people love to build up to a disgusting degree despite no canon evidence such as: Orochimaru Lee Kimimaro Kabuto Sasuke

Houses of the Holy:

Naruto/Yugito

My first attempt at fan fiction. It's an attempt to make a story where Naruto is raised with a different set of ideals and upbringing. Too often I see Akatsuki fics where everyone is actually such a nice guy and they're really just misunderstood murderous criminals instead of evil murderous criminals. You can still be a "bad guy" without actually being a bad guy in my opinion, and that's what I'm going for. We're talking about a world where small children are raised as professional killers. It's a bit hypocritical to say that simply having opposing objectives makes you the embodiment of evil in the world. That being said, Orochimaru is an evil bastard. That's about it for me though.

Most important for me is to keep some realism in my story despite the obviously fantastical setting. That means realistic mindsets and goals as well as believable characterization. The lines between good and evil aren't meant to be very clear in this fic - not everything a ninja does can be considered good or righteous. Just look at the Uchiha Massacre in canon. This is meant to be a grittier fic that features a more worldly Naruto than the one we see in canon.

In this story I get to express how I think things work in the Naruto world and fill in blanks left ambiguous by the manga.

Expect a less oblivious Naruto.

Warning: This story ramps up relatively slowly. I feel it necessary to set the stage adequately and give some personality to my characters since they are characters that haven't and most likely won't be developed too much in canon. Also, keep up to date with the manga! I can't stress this enough unless you like getting spoiled. I will be adding in any new elements that I can that are introduced down the road, assuming they don't tear my plot to shreds.

We finally got Yugito listed! Here's my email to and their response:

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 12:06 PM, HowdyU wrote:

I'm currently writing a Naruto fiction with a Naruto/Nii Yugito pairing and was surprised to find that Nii Yugito (Yugito N. on the site, I suppose) - a character introduced in chapter 312 of the manga - was not listed.

I've read a number of stories with this pairing and think that she should definitely be on the list sheet, especially considering characters like Hanzou and Yoshino are there despite getting even less page space than Yugito did.

Thanks for your time.

-HowdyU

On Wed 10/8/08 at 6:02 PM, FanFiction.Net Categories wrote:

Done.

--
Please help by spread the word.

Regards,
Zack
FanFiction.Net Support

Naruto's Look: Don't panic! I made the changes as a sort of physical manifestation of Naruto's mindset in this manga. Naruto knows that he's a jinchuuriki, and accepts it. He understands the why and the how. It's who he is. The changes I've made, in my mind, are simply an extension of the whisker marks he has in the manga. They're almost entirely cosmetic. Don't get sucked in to the "OMG he said he wasn't gonna do a Bloodline Limit" crowd. The only thing that Naruto has gained is enhanced night vision and claws. The Demon Brothers in the first arc of the manga had claws too if I remember correctly - poisoned ones! The claws didn't do them much good there, now did they? This isn't a "coolness factor" decision on my part (mostly). I solemnly swear that Naruto's appearance will be a (not so) minor plot device in the future.

Jutsus: With the release of Chapter 5 I thought I'd make a little section for jutsus shown in the story that bear a little explanation or verification (if they're actual canon techniques). You may have noticed that plenty of the abilities and attacks shown earlier in the story are nameless, generic type stuff. That will continue to be common in this fic.

Despite the popular belief of the Naruto fanfiction community, ninjas in the manga do not yell out their techniques as they use them as a general rule! You won't be seeing this happening much, if at all, in my stories.

Naruto's Jutsu:

Wind Element - Blade of Wind: This is the jutsu used by Baki (Gaara's jounin instructor) during the chuunin exam arc against Gekko Hayate (the third examiner).

Wind Element - Great Breakthrough: Orochimaru uses this jutsu against Team 7 in the Forest of Death in the Chuunin Exam arc to knock Naruto away from Sasuke and Sakura.

Wind Element - Cyclone Blow: This is one of Nagato's very own jutsu - used to propel Konan's Paper Shurikens into Jiraiya's shadow clone in a flashback during the Pain vs. Jiraiya fight.

Wind Element - Bleeding Pressure: I'm sure most of you will remember this one. This is one of my man Kakuzu's super B-ranked elemental attacks. As far as I know it's the highest rank pure wind jutsu in the manga, and Naruto's got it. Most likely this takes a ton of chakra to use, but like Kakuzu, Naruto has chakra in spades.

Shadow Shuriken: Naruto uses this jutsu to multiply his kunai against Hanzou's elite guard. This jutsu was used in the Hiruzen vs. Orochimaru fight in the manga and actually used shurikens. In my mind, there's no reason why this jutsu couldn't be applied to other thrown weapons, so there you go.

Shadow Clone: Do I really need to say it?

Wild World

Naruto/??

This was a goofy idea for a story I had, and I'm sure as hell I'm not the first to have it.

Thanks to a very strong positive response to this fic, I think that I'll be bumping it up to share time with my other story.

I have an outline for this story now and a good idea of where its going, so don't worry about it grinding to a halt or getting too crazy.