Feeling somewhat weird about shitting on another recommendation in a row, but oh well.

Dance of the Dog God began well enough, but for some reason just didn't hold my interest too well, so I skipped from chapter 6 to... 19? 20? to see how things look in the future.

I'm not sure what's up, but it's like an entirely different fic. The beginning was somewhat rough around the edges but it had the potential to be decent and wasn't canon rehash #3212, but holy shitballs, what the hell happened? Some authors visibly improve over the course of telling a story, here it's the exact opposite. I was literally stunned at the change in quality. Flow got completely fucked by 'funny commentary', author went with the route of 12 year old clan heirs being 'really serious' about paying off 'blood debts' (remember those HP fics with 12 years old Lord Potter in front of Wizengamot and the like? yeah, you'll feel right at home), Team 7 behaving in the first part of the Chuunin Exam like complete lunatics and nobody cares, it just keeps on going.

So, fair warning - things get weird here.

 

You described this perfectly. I think there's a divide between works like HPMOR, and others like In Fire Forged. Often, the two get lumped into one. I feel that In Fire Forged looks to close inconsistencies, rather than bask in it's own cleverness as HPMOR does. For example, Naruto in In Fire Forged, isn't the village outcast he was in canon. Which does make sense. Based off all of the revelations from part 2 - his (god)parents, being the 3rd jinchuriki, how a jinchuriki is raised - his upbringing makes little sense. From what I remember, Naruto here is competent, and hints at being specially trained for his power.

 

I don't know if this has been posted already, but I just read Team 7's Ascension and its sequel.

Top-notch writing and world building. I enjoyed the characters that don't deviate too much from canon and most of the OCs. The gritty realism with which the author portrayed the ninja world was excellent. I could easily picture such a world. The story sets a beautiful pace and the author ties the plot lines well together. There are very few inconsistencies. Literally the best fanfiction works I have read.

 

Eilyfe is a member here so most people are aware of his work. He's definitely one of the best active authors in the fandom. He also recently started a new Naruto story which looks promising.

 

Oh that's cool. I just started reading the new story, it has an interesting premise.
--- Post automerged ---
Is Eilyfe going to continue Team 7's Ascension?

 

One can only hope.

 

Yeah haha.
It has so much potential though and it's exceptional. I mean I would pay to read the sequel

 

Now you don't have to research all the tropes to avoid. It's all here.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12735948/1/negliect-fic

 

So, this was on another Naruto thread, but youth by Gallyrat on SV was never rec'd here. It's essentially an alternate (quest) take on Shinobi: Team 7, takes place in that same setting. It hasn't gotten as far as ST7 (plot wise), but what's on there right now is good.

 

I followed Youth when it was active, but whatever was good about it, you could find in Shinobi Team 7, and the new stuff were mere changes, not improvements.

Gallyrat should never have abandoned ST7 tbh, it's one of the best fics in the fandom; the story certainly didn't improve by the turning of decisions over to an SV mob.

 

I got annoyed with Youth and ended up dropping it when SV decided to go with

Spoiler: Spoiler

Anko instead of Kakashi as Sensei.

 

Yeah actually he went with

Spoiler: Spoiler

Tsume. I think the idea of a sensor Naruto was too good to pass up.

 

I'm trying to recall the name of this fic where the Sandaime gives a graduation speech to the assembled, freshly-minted genin.

Crucially, he talks about how they as ninja are loyal to the village because the village becomes worthy of loyalty by protecting the things that truly matter - peace, justice, love, etc. It is because protecting the village protects one's family and friends, while ensuring a fair and peaceful society where the strong does not exploit the weak, that the village is worthy of fighting, killing and dying for.

I was certain that it was In Fire Forged that had this speech, but when I went back to look, IFF instead had the Sandaime talk about love - kinda related to the above but not quite the same.

So now I'm wondering whether (a) I misremembered, or maybe (b) the author changed shit, or (c) there really is a fic out there with the graduation speech in question.

 

Look what just updated:
Ricochet

 

Just read the story for the very first time and really liked the interactions in the previous chapters, but the last one felt weak.

Especially if you compare Naruto's reaction immediately after they broke out of the Genjutsu to the way he almost brushed away Jiraiya's death. A short lived fantasy of what-ifs compared to the mentor/father figure he spent more than two years with.

Manga-canon from the point of Jiraiya's fight and death, past seeing Naruto's and Tsunade's loss to the point of Naruto's entrance against Pain in his new cloak was the best and most powerful part in the whole of Shippuden at least in my opinion. Everything before and immediately after ranged from shit to meh.

But maybe that's just me being sad about my favorite Naruto character.

Spoiler

 

Has anyone here read Asunder? The fic where Itachi kills every Uchiha? I did a search and only found a link to it in one other thread.

The concept looks interesting, but I opened it to see a breakdown of dialogue font for people and biju - always a major red flag...Wondering if it's any good.

 

That's always baffled me. Putting aside the fact that if the reader needs a legend to distinguish who's talking in a scene, you've failed as a writer, it's just stupid. It adds nothing to the writing the reader couldn't easily deduce after seeing it once, and it doesn't change the tone or understanding of the words at all. Where the hell did it come from, and why is it so goddamn prevalent in the fandom?

 

I got to about chapter 15 before I stopped. It was really interesting to start, and then by around chapter 4 or 5 it was just interesting enough to be a timewaster. Then it just became a slog.

The interesting was that it was him in Akatsuki, which was half the reason I kept reading because I was on an Akatsuki!Naruto kick after reading Hurricane Suite and it seemed like a good enough story.

Just based off of how the author writes though, he kind of comes across as a teenager who knows he's a decent writer but thinks he's better than he really is. The thing that stood out the biggest was an excessive and unnecessary sex scene around chapter 6 that's even marked out with "Lemon" tags.

 

In the Manga there is often a difference in how the speech bubbles are stylized depending on the character and the emotion behind the dialog. Sometimes even the text itself is heavily stylized. So various authors copied it without realizing that a manga and a fic written in plain text are two different mediums.
Then people started using it because it was easier then to specify who is talking and how they are communicating. After that people who were just reading the same type of low grade fics over and over again started using it because they didn't know any better.
The result is that a bunch of people thinking that it's the only way to write a fic.

 

It is a strange crutch, indeed annoying, but it could be worse. Some fics on SB etc. looks like the author puked a rainbow all over every single chapter.