Favorite Quotes

"Evil is a point of view." - Lestat, Interview with the Vampire

"He fought for a better world because he believed that a better world could and would be made. He had never held any illusions that he would change the whole world, of course, or even a substantial portion of it, but he had always held strongly that fighting to better just his own little pocket of the world was a worthwhile course." - Drizzt Dro' Urden Hunter Blades Trilogy, R.A. Salvatore.

"What father would accept his death before his child was truly old enough to remember him? For who better to put a face to the bones among the stones? Who better to remember the sparkle in an eye before the crow comes a'calling?" - Drizzt Dro' Urden Hunter Blades Trilogy R.A. Salvatore.

"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king." - Conan

"Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And, years later tell how they stood for hours in the cold rain just to catch a glimpse of the one who taught them to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us who keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams." - Spiderman 2

“Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from?” - Croaker Chronicles of The Black Company, Glen Cook

"For in the end it is Middle-Earth and its dwellers that we love, not Tolkien's considerable gifts in showing it to us. I said once that the world he charts was there long before him, and I still believe it. He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams."
-Peter S. Beagle, from the Foreword to The Fellowship of the Ring

"Prince Zuko: This city is a prison. I don't want to make a life here.
Uncle Iroh: Life happens wherever you are, whether you make it or not." - Avatar the Last Air Bender, Book II

"You’re gonna carry that weight" – Cowboy Bebop

"Most folks live and die without moving anything more than the dirt it takes to bury them." - Supernatural, Season 4, Episode 17

Current Fanfic:

Shadows of Konoha - Naruto Uzumaki, the young war hero is one of the strongest ninja in the world today. But everyone has their limits. Can he survive ANBU or will it defeat him first?

Shadows of Konoha:Bonds - Sasuke Uchiha has been running ever since the Fourth Shinobi War. But everyone has their limits.

Shadows of Konoha Update - 06/21/2014

I am now beginning the process of editing Shadows of Konoha while prepping for the sequel. This will be the first time I have ever read the entire thing at one time. The editing changes I make will be listed here for those who have already read SOK. This is one thing I like about fanfiction, its not as if its a book. I can always go back and make it better:

The rest of the changes include the correction of spelling, grammar, etc.

Shadows of Konoha Q&A

*Spoilers*

Who’s surprised Naruto didn’t die?

It seems in most reviews, everyone assumed he was going to die by the end of the fic. From chapter 1, I knew he was going to survive until the very end. Naruto dying just wasn’t what this fic was about.

Writing Process?

My writing process takes me forever. First, I create the rough draft which is the easy part. Then I go back through with three edits. The first edit I get the structure of the chapter right. The second edit I get the words right. The third edit I add in more description and iron out the details. Sometimes going through just a few pages can take me days. And even with all of these edits I still have spelling mistakes. :(

Inspiration?

I think this is one of the more difficult questions. I like writing Naruto because I know that universe the best as it is one of the only shows I've bothered to keep up with. I wanted to write an ANBU fic because ANBU is cool and I typically hate how the organization is represented in other fics. Lastly, Shadows of Konoha in particular allowed me to vent my frustrations with some of the stupid stuff in the Narutoverse. I mean really, if you think about it hard enough, the Fourth Shinobi War is nothing but a zombie apocalypse.

I also want to give a shout out to my favorite fanfic ever: Vejitasei Ascendant. It really opened my eyes to what a fanfic could be.

Kages?

I get a lot of reviews complaining that there are only five Kages. I know that but evidently Kishimoto doesn’t. As I got more into this fic I realized that there are a lot of different ninjas shown in both the anime, manga, and movies from other villages. According to the Naruto wiki, there are a lot more hidden villages than just the five. Who leads them? In my way of plugging a Kishimoto plot hole, I decided that there are lesser Kages always vying for the Greater Kages position of influence and power. After all, power isn’t constant. It rises and falls over time. Got a problem with it? Blame Kishimoto.

Hinata?

Hinata was not supposed to survive this fanfic. She was supposed to die but a few characters got in my way. Naruto fought me tooth and nail for Hinata. He often made plans to protect her from me. 0.o Talk about characters going rogue. Hinata was supposed to take Shion’s place and Suigetsu was supposed to kill her but Hanabi and Konohamaru stepped up as characters and stepped in. If Hinata had kept the baby she and the baby was going to die. All those ‘a pregnant kunoichi is a dead kunoichi’ was supposed to be foreshadowing but Hinata stepped up and made the decision to get rid of the child. Without the pregnancy, I couldn’t find anything to make her vulnerable enough in my machinations to kill her. Hinata was supposed to die but sometimes your characters work against you. Like Neji. Like Tenten. They were supposed to die too. But in the end, after listening to my characters I think the fic is better because of it. I even had a song picked out.

Hinata and Naruto?

I personally thought Naruto would get over Hinata too. Mei was supposed to be his vehicle to move on but I sincerely believe Naruto has some abandonment issues that he won’t admit to and as I delved further into his character, he just wouldn’t let Hinata go. He was forced to let Mei go and he refused to do the same with Hinata. Hinata’s increasing presence in the story also reflected the increasing importance of her character in Naruto’s story. In many ways, without Sasuke, Naruto needed a foil and Hinata grew into that role. She can challenge him when need be. Very few characters, if any, has that sort of power over Naruto. In fact, Shion is purposefully that stereotyped naïve, innocent, sweet, and innocent virgin that Hinata is very often pidgeon-holed into in other fanfics. Shion's relationship with Naruto shows how this stereotype simply cannot survive the Naruto universe.

Even now that the story is ended, I’m not sure Hinata and Naruto’s relationship counts as ‘shipped,’ more along the lines of a small lifeboat trying its best not to capsize in the storm and survive.

Realism?

It’s funny that many reviews mention the realistic take I have on the Narutoverse when I never intentionally set out to do that. I saw things that were broken with the universe and set out to fix them to the best of my ability. The rest comes with my writing preferences. I don’t do black and white. It’s too easy. It’s my natural tendency to write in grey. I also tend to ask hard questions without really providing answers. A lot of the characters responses to these questions aren’t always my personal opinions. The rest? I do things because its fun.

Biggest Regret?

My biggest regret was killing off Kiba. I decided to kill Kiba because there were too many plotlines going on and I couldn’t respectfully handle the emotions it takes to deal with an amputation in the scope of this fanfic. I really want to give it the proper respect in perhaps a smaller project. Besides, if Kiba had lived he would have become a drunkard and Sakura would have died in his stead. So, take your pick I guess.

Biggest Surprise?

It really surprised me how much you all liked Mei. I guess from my perspective I always knew she was going to die but I didn’t expect the strong reaction to my interpretation of her character. Perhaps I'll do a Mei and Naruto fic in the future. I was also surprised how everyone liked Boar.

Favorites?

My personal favorite chapters are 'A Tangled Web of Politics (9)', the 'Jounin Exams (23)', 'Coup D'etat (29)', 'The Captain (31)', and 'Shadows in Kirigakure (32)' I also really enjoyed building and fleshing out the village of Konoha. I loved giving it that distinct personality that sets it apart from other places in the Naruto world. Granddaddy Hyuuga was my favorite OC.

Easter Eggs?

There are various Easter eggs and even now I probably can't remember them all. Here are a few off the top of my head: The terrorist organization Kuro no Keiyakusha is named after the anime Darker than Black. Konohamaru is a Dragon Ball fan. The title for Chapter 38 'Battles Without Honor and Humanity' is named for the famous Yakuza film series of the same name. The Yakuza tattoo described on Gamabunta's back is the same tattoo on the character his name comes from. Killer Bee makes a rhyme in every single one of his sentences except once. The Chapter titled 'Absolutely Nothing' is named for the song War by Edwin Starr. And as a metaphorical easter egg, not one leaf ninja dies after Naruto becomes Hokage. The only reason why I started doing quotes at the bottom of chapters was because I always knew that I wanted that quote at the end of the last chapter.

Anymore projects in the future?

My head is filled with a host of possibilities. First, I want to attempt my hand at professional writing but I’ll always be back into fanfiction. A few ideas I have shifting around in my head: a post-apocalyptic story which comments on the fact that Kishimoto’s jutsus get bigger and bigger. At the end of the Fourth Shinobi War, Naruto and Madara’s jutsu were so big that the battle brought a complete environmental meltdown and nuclear wasteland where suddenly big ninja villages can no longer survive. The fic will let me force together characters who are normally from different villages as they band together to survive.

A random fairytale/one piece crossover if I ever get to it and catch up on all of the one piece episodes.

A DBZ fanfic that brings that cynicism from Shadows.

As I have suggested in previous questions, perhaps a Mei and Naruto fic, a Naruto character dealing with an irreversible injury such as an amputation, fodder ninja-one shots, and the idea of Tenten solving crimes around Konoha tickles my fancy.

Assorted Musings about Shadows of Konoha: Bonds

The sequel was harder to write than the original. Sasuke is a hard character to write. Personally, I never liked Sasuke from the manga but he was the logical subject to focus on for the sequel and I was curious to see if I could understand and figure out his character. And it was hard. Whenever Sasuke and Naruto were in a scene together I kept constantly slipping into Naruto's POV and had to rear back and say wait, how does Sasuke's view these things? One of the other bravest decisions I decided to make is the interpretation of Sasuke's character as gay. It made sense in the perspective of what we know about Sasuke from the manga. I decided to take up the challenge and hope I did the character justice considering I have never written a main character from anything other than a hetero-normative POV.

-Naruto and Hinata were not supposed to break-up. But at one point Naruto said to me, 'Fuck it. I can't do this anymore.' I listened to what the character was telling me even though I personally wanted Hinata and Naruto to work out. There was the hope that maybe they did from SOK. But Naruto and Hinata had fallen into two different ruts. Hinata was completely content with their situation. Naruto wasn't.

-That being said, I started this out as a friendship fic - the reconciliation of Naruto and Sasuke - the story of Sasuke's redemption. But when Naruto broke off with Hinata he was determined to have his happy ending which ultimately gave Naruto and Sasuke a chance. I prefer NaruHina myself and before this fic never understood NaruSasu. But after writing these two and experiencing the way the chemistry of their characters bounced off each other, I finally understood. In some ways I still consider this largely a friendship fic. It certainly isn't a romance. Its tragedy, its redemption, its healing.

-I'm probably not going to post another fanfic in a while. But I have enjoyed all those you have joined me on this ride.