naruto | [META] What do you do in the Naruto fandom?

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[META] What do you do in the Naruto fandom?

(This has been crossposted to

wafflelate here)

bushwah replied to my post in

addme_fandom and at the beginning of their comment said, "Naruto canon is a fairly typical child soldier comedy from what I've seen, but the fandom somehow manages to crank out absurd amounts of quality content on all kinds of themes. What do you do in Naruto fandom?"

This question ate my brain because I parsed the question as a general "you" as in "What do you do in your part of the Naruto fandom, and why?" and I realized my full thought process was probably too long to just throw up in an unrelated community. Also, I wanted to see if I could entice some comments from other folks on the subject, since my part of the Naruto fandom is by no means representative.

What do you do in the Naruto fandom?

I think that looking at Naruto canon as a fairly typical child soldier comedy is... alright, not wrong, in the end, it turns out, but in the fannish circles I travel in, a big thing that keeps people going is actually that Naruto broke its major narrative promises, as

fineillsignup put it, not only does Naruto (the series and the character) fail to change that child soldier thing at all but also:

What it all ends up to is that I thought I was reading a ninja comic about the importance of bonds and making bonds and family and family of choice, and then in the ending everybody scatters away and disconnects. It’s unsatisfying, no matter how happy we’re told they are.

I suppose people who start the series knowing where/how it ends, knowing what it becomes, maybe they just kind of settle in for a Normal Battle Anime Experience? Maybe they don't get too attached to that part in the Wave arc where Naruto makes Zabuza cry by declaring that this bullshit about ninja being only weapons is wrong and fake and actually emotional bonds are important, but some of us were really looking forward to seeing Naruto go against the grain of his society and it's frustrating that he didn't.

So, you know, I guess the statement Naruto canon is a fairly typical child soldier comedy turned out to be true? But the fact that it's true is why we make so much stuff on so many different themes!

fineillsignup said it much better than I could, yet again:

Sometimes people then say “lol salty then why do u bother reading it”. Paradoxically, I probably have more interest in Naruto fandom because the ending was shit than I would if it was great. It’s like I bought a cookbook that had a recipe that had amazing ingredients and was going perfectly, until I got to the last step and the last step was “pour into a bucket of raw sewage and allow to ferment for a week before consuming.”

If the last step of the recipe was satisfying, I’d probably be like “cool cool, that was great” and that would be that. Instead, here I am online saying “Heyyyyyy I want to make this recipe but not with that horrible last step, what are other people doing?” And then we discuss what awesome things we’re doing, and also sometimes commiserate with each other about how terrible the sewage ending was.

(Of course some people don't mind the ending! Some people are enjoying the hell out of Boruto, and good for them, although I don't get it and can't find any meta on it to my deep disappointment. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough...)

But anyway all that to say that many of us are dissatisfied with the canon material, sometimes because we're super salty about the ending but also sometimes because the series introduces so many characters but doesn't have time to actually explore them all. It's also very light on worldbuilding information, has a terrible timeline, and was written very quickly in a serial manner, so all parts of canon are a little wobbly.

What this leads to is a situation like American comics, where in my experience people who really love a character will also throw out years or even decades of canon material because they think so-and-so's run is garbage. Only, with Naruto, some things are different:

Naruto's publishing history only goes back to like 1999 and only became commercially available in English in the mid-00's, so the canon and fandom aren't too old.
The anime and manga are widely available and there's no question about where to start if you want to get into it.
Lots of people (like me!) saw parts of it when we were younger and are at least passively familiar with the plot before ever getting into the fandom later in life.
Paradoxically, it's both an open canon — because of Boruto — and a closed canon — because "Is Boruto canon?" is an entire can of delicious worms wherein even if someone answers "no" very strongly with a lot of emphasis, that doesn't mean they don't still gawk at the show from a distance, fascinated and horrified.

So like... what do we do? Generally, we do whatever we want I guess, often with lots of focus on whatever minor or underdeveloped character/concept caught our eye. I'm part of a very nice Suna-focused Discord. People are producing zines and running challenges.

Here's some interesting things people are specifically up to!

The Dreaming of Sunshine recursive fandom takes a 700k fanfic as its canon, which is my main contact with Naruto.
There's folks over on the SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity forums running quests (a sort of interactive fiction run on forums) like this one that focuses on Sasuke.
I've heard good, interesting things about ANBU Legacy, a long-running fic-style roleplay.

So, what do you do in the Naruto fandom? What do you think we, the fandom, do in general, and how has it changed?

I would especially love to hear from the pro-Kishimoto/pro-Naruto ending/pro-Boruto side of things, as I know basically nothing about that. Why do you feel the way you do?

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I've always said Kishimoto has amazing world building and character building skills, but he lacks a lot when it comes to the development - and that's what i'm here for. I think i wouldn't be as invested in the fandom if i took no issues with how he wrote the characters and the development he allowed them to have.

Another thing - "Children soldier comedy" is a good summary and very much what i do as well - only minus the comedy part, lol. I find the whole premise of naruto canon much darker than we have ever been allowed to see it as in canon (hello, 12 year olds killing people? the level of ptsd everyone there should have is staggering) and i love to exlore it from more psychologically accurate perspective, or just generally make it even darker and more effed up, since darkfics is how i roll and naruto gives me a lot of material for them.

Yeah I think it's easier to be invested in the character and the fandom when there's that sense of like... snatching your faves out of Kishimoto's hands because you can do better? Also, em>yeah I love his world but it's also got all these rough weird edges that entice people to try to jump in a fill the gaps and smooth things over. Much like with his characters!

I can get pretty tired of constant grimdark ninja stuff. or like, whenever the "all kunoichi 100% take seduction missions" headcanons start rolling around, I always have to check tf out. But I also do love fics that explore the pressure put on the characters.

Agreed. Naruto just has so many places where people feel like they can do better than the Canon, and th at makes it easier to tell more stories of various kinds. Plus, we know a lot about the big picture, but Canon tends to be light on specifics like culture. Canon feel kind of sprawling, and that makes fanfic easy compared to a tightly plotted series like FMA.

Yeah FMA Brotherhood is one of the very few anime series I've actually seen all the way through and have even rewatched, but I don't think I'll ever write fic for it because it doesn't leave me with lots of questions the way Naruto does. Where's that post from

keepyourpantsongohan.... ah yes. Things that never came up again after the Land of Waves arc.

Yeah, since all of the characters have awesome arcs, there isn't room for fic. Especially since the plot is built on tiny coincidences like Mustang coming to recruit Edward as a state alchemists bc of a clerical error. Although I would be totally down for a slice of life fic about Pinako when she was young. I wanna know why she was known as the Pantheress of Resembool!

And wow, Kishi's world building sucked that early, huh? I hadn't actually realized we never heard about a Rebellion in mist in canoon. I guess DOS really is my headcanon now!

Edited 2018-12-08 10:14 (UTC)

Thanks for linking that meta, I found it very interesting!

You mentioned the Second Uchiha quest which is good in its own right but I think the more interesting one to look at if you're talking "reinterpreting Naruto/confronting its broken setting" is Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest. It follows a genin team group of missing nin from Mist. The people working on it and participating in it put a lot of thought into how the Naruto world would actually work if you took the premise seriously. I'm not currently following it (it's a bit intense XD there's so much planning and mechanics and inference and the updates come pretty fast) but the characters very much recognize and are forced to deal with the mercenary and disparity-filled society they live in, and some of them are determined to change it (and I think are taking actions to do that but like I said I'm not current with the story).

That aside aside: in the vein of "broken promises", the thing that really put me off was how Naruto turns out to be the son of the previous, idolized Hokage. The story is set up as following this orphan who comes from nothing and by unlucky chance had a demon that haunts the village's past sealed in him. There's a kind of tragedy in the story of someone potentially having had a normal life and by bad luck being screwed over, like an exaggerated "Why me?" that I think everyone can relate to. And he has such determination to carry on and be his own person in spite of this and the opinions of the people who don't know him and hate his symbol. The people who do connect with him, who actually know him (like Iruka), believe in him! And that number of people are growing through his hard work and sticking to who he is. It's a pretty optimistic and inspiring story. Like shown in the Wave arc, despite the unfair things put on him he's still cheerful, still can dream and be optimistic instead of getting caught up in a cycle of justification and revenge and feeling impotently frustrated with the world and where you are in it. And this provides such great parallels and contrast with his foil Sasuke, and creates so much tension in which way their relationship will go: Because you know that if Sasuke were to start believing in Naruto and seeing/taking in some of his philosophy, then so much of his perspective and plans/actions would be changed.

I feel like this is really well set up in the early part of the show, but then at some point it starts getting sidelined/undermined? Like, I know the show continues on with at least lip service to the "cycle of revenge is destructive" and "your bonds are important and forgiveness is powerful and can break the cycle", but it doesn't have as much impact for me when it seems like the story is doing it through big set pieces with new characters like Nagato | Pein while changing the more nuanced original set up instead of following through with it. Naruto was an orphan nobody who was just unlucky; he could have been like anybody else, but he was in the wrong place at a time when they needed to seal the Kyuubi. Except whoops jk he is actually the super special son of the Hokage and one of the survivors from Whirlpool, and he's got a godfather, and he's the reincarnation of one of the founders of ninjutsu as we know it, and etc. To me, that diminishes the power of him bucking his unlucky backstory. Not only is there less power in him facing big things when that would have been inevitable either way, but now he has all this history and people to live up to and people connected to/with opinions of him because of other he's related to instead of because of who he is as his own person. And it makes the relationship with Sasuke seem less powerful too because again it's not a nobody intruding on his personal quest for vengeance/plan for his life, it's Namikaze Naruto, there's way less interesting disparity.

It may seem kind of stupid to let something like this effect my enjoyment so much--all of what I'm mourning had already happened prior to the story's actual beginning. But my enjoyment of things comes from the "what if"s and the contrast between them and how things actually go. Give me the tension of potential outcomes, of information getting in the hands of the wrong people, of people meeting and having the potential to change each other's outlooks and actions! The relief of dodging a bad ending, the joy of two friends talking it out and growing closer and changing, the extra meaning added to a character when you know what path they could have taken or had. And just adding all these power ups and prestigious relations to Naruto's orphan-nobody backstory just ruins those delicious established tensions for me. :(

On a more positive note, while I don't like how canon handled it, I do like time travel stories where Naruto and/or others go into the past. I do think the historical characters and conflicts are interesting and there's a lot to play with! And I also have a soft spot for some Kyuubi stories or jinchuriki stories (maybe because they could be so much if they weren't in such a violent, exploitative society?). I also like Sai, and he wouldn't have existed without the later Naruto plot. There's a lot of silver linings like that with what the Naruto story continued to bring. :)

Marked for Death is interesting, but I really couldn't stand the protagonist. They are a poorly socialized, traumatized kid who is frequently treated as an idiot in-story for decisions the players made ooc without the information the MC is supposed to know.

And the GMs also tend to interpret votes incredibly uncharitably: I remember one time a joke vote accidentally won, so the PC literally had a psychcotic break, started scearming about YOUTH in the middle of Konoha (the PC is a missing-nin) and ended up in T and I.

That's one of the tensions that always occurs in interactive fiction (the gap between the general knowledge people have in-setting and the limited general knowledge the players have themselves) and it's frustrating when it's handled like that, even if I can understand the GMs not wanting to encourage joke options. I think it does show a lot of interesting worldbuilding and I am in awe of the dedication and discussion put into it, but it's a bit much for me. I do like Hazou though, I found him and his team kind of charming in a plucky, I-hope-they-don't-die-or-get-maimed way.

The worldbuilding is fascinating, true. But even apart from calling the mc an idiot in character all the time, I just couldn't stand how uncharitably the QMs interpret votes. Like that time they got kicked out of Konoha because the MC said he would "go pretty far" for his comrades.

I liked the characters, though.

You know, I did consider linking that but A) I think on the rec thread I looked at the Sasuke one was just mentioned first and I'm lazy but also B) I know it's probably unfair to at least some of the "rational" fanworks out there but I full-body flinch away from fanworks that use that description, be they fic or quest. That's probably mostly an off-topic discussion, but I do think there's something to be said for the loads of rational Naruto fic. Part of it I'm sure is that Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality was big on ff.n and Naruto has consistently been the second largest section there and the fandom overlap has always been weirdly large, but also I think it's got to do with being dissatisfied with canon... just, you know, in a way I can't related to, I guess?

Like, I definitely believe you that Marked For Death is a worthwhile story being told! But lots of rational fic has that weird edge of... you know... assuming that the source material is fundamentally irrational, I guess? And along those lines, something I really like about Dreaming of Sunshine is how seriously Silver Queen takes the decisions of the canon characters and assumes that there must be reasons for things that we're just not seeing. I know many people don't like that it stuck to the canon sequence of events for so long, but to me that was kind of a delight because of the thought and worldbuilding that was put into it. I think that that's also what's made so many of us be so enthused about writing recursive fic for it.

And I totally get you about Naruto's underdog status being revoked with extreme prejudice. Heck, not to unnecessarily bust out ancient salt, but people were mad about this all the way back in 2008! Naruto struggling against everyone and everything and gaining inches through his own stubborn determination was so important to the series and then it's all just left behind.

It also really irritates me that despite Naruto being given all these connections and yet... his interactions with Jiraiya and Minato and Kushina are so disappointing. Even leaving aside the Lost Tower movie, best not to talk about that, like??? Jiraiya and Naruto's ~big moment~ is sharing a popsicle???? We definitely see Jiraiya steal all of Naruto's savings????? Naruto comes back from three years of training and still only knows two jutsu????? And the destruction of Uzushiogakure is never really satisfactorily handled, either. If we can't have Naruto being a nobody underdog, can we at least focus on how circumstances contrived to take his entire heritage away from him? No? Fine I'll write my own fanfiction about it I guess!

But yeah, it's not like it's all bad. Time travel stories are the Naruto gateway fic! They're so good! I would read a million billion more of them. And Sai is incredibly important even though I think Kishimoto missed the mark he was actually aiming for by a really hilarious degree.

There def are people that like it, because I've seen posts complaining about them/arguing with a presented premise. But mostly in shipping circles, I guess. But yeah, I haven't seen any direct meta about like. a good thing boruto did. I think the closest I got was someone doing headcanons on the new Kiri based on a visit bort takes there.

"I know it's probably unfair to at least some of the "rational" fanworks out there but I full-body flinch away from fanworks that use that description, be they fic or quest."

Omg, I had this EXACT same response when I read that title, but wanted to give the post a chance since I know golden. And it was definitely interesting to read about. But I don't think it's for me. Especially because, as you nicely put it:

"But lots of rational fic has that weird edge of... you know... assuming that the source material is fundamentally irrational, I guess? And along those lines, something I really like about Dreaming of Sunshine is how seriously Silver Queen takes the decisions of the canon characters and assumes that there must be reasons for things that we're just not seeing."

SUCH a good explanation. This is exactly one of the things I love about DoS.

Also, people tend to complain that it follows canon too much at first, but the fact that things don't change at first much means that you can really see each turning point, direct and implied, by the time things have shifted a lot. Like, I know exactly where the war in Kumo came from. I know exactly why Konoha, Kiri, and Suna are all in an alliance at this point in canon, and why the Kiri rebellion went differently.

I certainly have some issues with Naruto, namely the confusing timeline and tech levels and other bits of the world, they're the sort of things I enjoy focusing on and so that's where I find most of my problems. Though honestly with the ending to Naruto I never felt it was especially "raw sewage" level. Disappointing? Yes, I felt there was a lot of untapped potential within the sheer number of awesome characters shoehorned in to the end, most notably with Edo Tensei. They brought back tons of awesome looking and sounding characters that would've been great to see how the cast interacted with but only really did anything with the Kages. The Jinchurikis, for being such an important concept to the plot and themes of Naruto really were under utilized as there were practically only 2 of them per section of the story. We had Naruto and Gaara in the first half, and then Naruto and B for Shippuden. Those three I think were handled well because where Naruto helps Gaara grown post invasion, Killer B helps Naruto grow in his connection to Kurama and in finding what it means to be the host of a tailed beast. However all the other 7 were relegated to just faceless enemies which I really think was a huge disappointment. This isn't helped by the fact that the one Tailed Beast Host I felt they absolutely needed to have summoned was the one they didn't, and that is Naruto's mother Kushina. There was so much potential with her, the added conflict of Naruto and or Minato having to fight her as she's controlled by Edo Tensei, using her to highlight how far Naruto and Kurama's relationship has come, SHOWING OFF A BADASS FEMALE CHARACTER.

I think the biggest waste within the Naruto was however with the villains, honestly I'd have been fine with Kaguya if they just took the time to explore the others a bit more, instead from the end of Pein's invasion its just a game of "Sorry Naruto, your main villain is in another castle." Pein's boss is Madara, but he's not really Madara he is Obito, but then oh wait real Madara is back and was controlling everyone through Zetsu, but then Zetsu was actually controlling Madara and the real villain is neither of them, but Kaguya whom we've heard nothing about. I would've really rather they kept with Madara as big bad but Kaguya didn't have to seem so ham-handed.

What I really enjoyed about the Naruto ending was that last battle between him and Sasuke mostly on artistic merits. I felt it was a really nice way of connecting the ending of Shippuden to the end of the Sasuke retrieval mission especially with how they're both following beating a super tough opponent who's very pasty white, fights using at least some bones and has the name Kaguya, taking place in the same location too. That was satisfying.

Also I'm personally in the camp of Boruto's Dad's Son not existing.

Omg, don't get me STARTED on the treatment of female characters. SO much potential there and then like. Not a single one was a allowed to win a fight onscreen against a man. The closest we got was Sakura and Chiyo vs. Sasori, but that's still 2 v 1!

Uuuuugh.

I didn't get far enough to see the final fight between naruto and sasuke, because at that point I just wanted Sasuke to die. He was terrible, irredeemable, and the narrative just. Gave him a pass instead of any kind of actual redemption/turning around arc.

Oh God yes. I loved the Sasori fight; I was like, yeah! Give me more of badass women kicking ass! And then a fangirl pod person replaced Sakura.

And the narrative bending so far over backwards for Sasuke just compromised all the other characters because they were ignoring his behavior. He chose his path, Naruto! He's a missing nin! He tried to kill you several times! But nooo.

He literally chose to cut through his teammate (karin) to try and kill you, and you only lived because of Dues Ex Other Teammate. He shattered all of the themes about bonds and shit! Drop him, or at least make him work for his redemption.

I'm personally just going to believe that Sakura just wanted Sasuke's genes after seeing how OP Uchiha were and also how amazing Madara's voice was. That she didn't realize the crazy is genetic is because she's gotten far too used to crazy and doesn't actually know any normal people.

That just makes her despicable too, honestly. I prefer the pod person theory because that way I can ignore all the shitty characterization after her one awesome fight.

Also, Tsunade really should have had Sasuke declared missing-nin.

If you take Bort as canon like. That is kinda what happened. She followed him around the continent and then got pregnant and had to go back to konoha alone or something. It's awful. 700+ ruines even the stuff I like about the ending, like ShikaTema.

Thank god my precious SaiIno escaped relatively unscathed.

This isn't really related to what fans do with Naruto, but I just saw this meta on Pillowfort about villains in Naruto and why Danzo was the ultimate one, and I thought it hit a lot of good stuff about themes and how Danzo fits into the institutional problems of the Naruto world.

Meta hatign on Danzou and going through why he's the Worst? HECK yeah. Gotta go to bed, but I look forward to reading this tomorrow. Fuck Danzou.

Indeed, hating on Danzou is always entertaining. I'm looking forward to ROOT possibly being uncovered during the timeskip in DOS (Shikako has almost finished her seal microscope!)

I just want to see Sasuke tear Danzou apart on Tsunade's orders, you know?

The way Naruto fans break down the Universe with these in-depth discussions is one of the things about the fandom I enjoy.

Masashi Kishimoto, in my humble opinion, created something magnificent with Naruto that became so magnificent he seemed to have lost control of it, LOL. Nevertheless, I discovered the anime during an apparently impressionable period of my mid-to-late thirties, and it has had a profound effect on me and my life. All the things that parents warn their kids about from spending too much time involved with a fandom has happened to me, it seems -- the universe and its characters became familiar, like family and friends. Before long, everyone in my home was on the Naruto bandwagon.

I write (mostly yaoi) fanfiction for the fandom. I wrote my first one in 2008. I created an AU that readers seem to appreciate.

I also beta for other writers.

That's what I do for Naruto.

I love the detailed breakdowns Naruto fans do too! I think the commitment to worldbuilding is really great and one of the selling points of the fandom. Thank you for your response!!

How do you think the Naruto fandom has changed in the last ten years?

I feel like we're more spread out -- a mixed blessing, and I think the fact that so many of us are on Facebook and Twitter (but I'm not) contributes to this. Beyond that, I don't really have an opinion. Naruto is going to be special for me no matter how the fandom itself evolves.

How about you?

Ahaha I've only been in the fandom for about a year so I'm probably not qualified to say!

Ah. Well, hopefully I'll make it a bit more fun for you. :)

I'm sure you will!!

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[META] What do you do in the Naruto fandom?

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Marked for Death

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re: danzou ultimate villain

Re: danzou ultimate villain

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