Naruto

My Naruto fanfic, One Hundred Days, is finally finished and up on Fanfiction.Net. It has 18 chapters, counting the Prologue and Epilogue, and weighs in at 368,971 words by Fanfiction.Net’s count. As of right now, it has 492 reviews, over 180,000 hits (which is mostly meaningless), and has been listed as a favorite story by 450 people. (110 people also list me as a favorite author, although this has some overlap with the “favorite story” list.)

So, overall, even given the massive delays in writing and then revising the final chapter, I think I can consider this one a success.

One of the first meaningful posts on this blog was a tangential reply to something Pete Zaitcev wrote, so why not follow that tradition for this soft relaunch?

Over at his new blog, he introduces me to the existence of a fairly significant project to rewrite the Haruhi novels/anime with the genders of all the characters reversed. (Via a link to post on “Moe Check!” ). Pete writes:

I am not amused by the sex swap per se, primarily because I think Ranma squeezed that particular lemon dry back in the 80s…P.S. Truth to be told, Kyonko does play some angles on the swap which Ranma didn’t. Specifically, the favourite joke of Kyonko is how all the relationships and actions become ridiculous after the swap, e.g. Mr. Yuki Nagato inviting Kyonko to his room late in the evening. It’s the schtick advocates of colorblind society enjoy a lot, and it never gets old.

Genderbending fanfic of various sorts is actually one of the more interesting genres to me, and this post made me think about why, which lead into some various thoughts on the different sub-genres of it, which lead to some various thoughts on how I would do it to the Naruto cast (if I wasn’t dreadfully late on finishing the fanfics I’ve actually started). If any readers actually (a) exist, and (b) aren’t completely disturbed by this topic of conversation, then click on the more link for these thoughts. (Minor spoilers for Naruto involved.)
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Recent Naruto Manga

• What’s the difference between the first chapter of a fanfiction I’m not going to read more of and the latest story-arc in Naruto? One swiftly and clumsily eliminates old characters, introduces a host of new characters including a new love interest for a pre-existing character, in a burst of enthusiasm boosts said pre-existing character to new, unrivaled heights of power with little regard to explanation or logic, and generally fails to generate any interest in where the story is going. The other I frequently encounter on Fanfiction.Net.

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I finally got another scene done for One Hundred Days Chapter 15. It’s not even that this scene was giving me trouble, just that it wound up being a bit on the long side and I had trouble getting motivated to actually write. Unfortunately, the next scene is looking like it might be a little rough also, but we’ll see.

Current Status: 9 of 22 scenes written
Current Length: 70.0 KB, 12059 words by OpenOffice’s count

This is… kind of shaping up to be a rather long chapter. I really shouldn’t be surprised.

Work on One Hundred Days has been slow to non-existent lately. I’ve gotten one more scene done since the last status report, but that’s about it.

I did write a short, unrelated snippet of story as a reaction to Naruto Chapter 342 called Softness. For something written in about an hour with no planning, I’m pretty happy with it.

Steven Den Beste writes about writing (20070215.1620):

I started trying to write about [DRM], but… it didn’t flow. I was having to struggle with it. I know the signs; it means I was trying to force it, and the result sucked. Maybe if I let it cook a bit longer it’ll come out. And maybe not.

This goes for my writing as well, which is why progress has been slow of late. I tried to force a scene, and unsurprisingly it didn’t work and the result was crap that meshed poorly with canon. Today I got around to rewatching a few episodes to get a better grasp of how Tayuya fights and managed to rewrite the scene more decently.

I’m still not totally happy with some of the stuff; writing a Hyuuga versus genjutsu-user is kind of tough without either trivializing the fight or underpowering the Byakugan. The fact that there’s no canonical basis for how the Byakugan might interact with sound-based genjutsu (even more so such genjutsu that then creates a visible image in the victim’s mind like Tayuya’s) doesn’t help. When the chapter is released to the FFML, I’ll see what that bunch thinks and adjust if necessary.

Current status: 7 scenes of 22 total written.
Current length: 49.0 KB, 8400 words by OpenOffice’s count.

It’s not looking like it’ll get done by the end of the month, but stranger things have happened.

Not much to say on this week’s chapter; most of the stuff I would whine about I’ve already whined about before. The Shikamaru scenes that made up the bulk of the chapter were nicely done, and it seems like my prediction as to the nature of the next arc will be correct. Just one thought:

• It’s kind of amusing to watch how Kishimoto (understandably) struggles to avoid definitively establishing Naruto, Sasuke, or Sakura as having killed someone, despite in the context of the world it not only being okay but expected for them to kill.
• And of course, because in context it would be silly otherwise, all those characters have shown themselves not only willing to kill but actually have tried to kill people over the course of the manga. Which makes it all the more amusing how things never work out that they land a killing blow.

Okay, so it was one-and-a-half thoughts. I rounded down, all right?

Shikamaru of Leafninja, I salute you:

Episode 220 has aired in Japan, this marks the last Naruto episode. Yes, I know it’s sad. This is the last Naruto episode ever, it was a good run, the last two years have been beyond awesome. How can you forget the time Naruto peed on Ino or that time Akamaru went rabid and humped Naruto’s butt? So many awesome moments where Studio Pierrot took the series to the next level. Characters like Raiga and the multiple Houki’s, all fully-fleshed out characters with great emotional subtext and motivation. Who can forget the times Naruto took on powerful enemies and chose to attack them with kunai rather than Rasengan, or that time he chose to use Rasengan when his boat lacked a motor? Who can forget all those new exotic lands, like the Bear Country, with it’s power hungry Hoshikage or the Vegetable and Bird Countries, with their cross-dressing female leaders? Who can forget those evil groups full of powerful ninja, like Shinobazu, the Fuuma trio, the Kamizuru, the Criminal Brothers, the Shitenshounin and all those wandering ninja. Such a good run. We salute you Tiger Mizuki, may your orange fur never fade and may you cereal always be GRREEAAT!

Gah. It’s hard to believe just how many filler episodes Naruto has had.

The pedant in me is irritated that this is under the “Anime” category, but the sane part of me knows that having separate “Anime” and “Manga” categories would be silly.

This post is a sequel to my previous post of why I didn’t like chapter 340, though in patent-pending bulleted list “Thoughts On” format. As with that post, all real content is after the cut due to ZOMGSPOILERS.
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Probably not of much interest, but I felt like gloating over finally getting a scene I’d been struggling with together. I knew what had to happen, but making it happen without having any characters act stupidly was tough. I knew it was possible, but finding just the right chain of events and reactions to get me exactly where I needed to go took longer than I’d like.

I’m still not totally happy with all the fighting - tiny, inconclusive bits of fighting seem to be harder for me to write than full-fledged fight scenes - or with the scene I was complaining about before, but it feels good to have another scene with at least a first draft done.

Then I look at the 18 remaining scenes (not counting the not-yet-outlined epilogue) and I feel a bit less good, but such is the life, as the French would say.

Only they’d say it in a silly French accent. While eating a croissant. A snail sandwich on a croissant. And then they’d surrender.

We here at Small Eyes, Big Mouth are on the very cutting edge of humor.