Thanks, but maybe hold off until I've got an outline. It could be shit lmao.

I've actually already rearranged pre-Naruto canon to adequately fit the story (because the entire idea of Madara being alive kind of needs to go). And I'm not using the Naruto plot all that much besides one or two secondary themes, the base value character designs/personalities (with mostly minor tweaks), and some of the same motivations, like Naruto wanting to be Hokage or Sasuke wanting to kill Itachi, etc. But all of that comes out of a completely different story, at this point.

What I haven't decided is whether make a Fourth War be the backdrop, or leave the canon backdrop and threaten war, just in a different way. I like the idea of the Hyuuga kidnapping sparking war and being successful, and I also like the idea of Itachi, Hinata, Kakashi, and Naruto being my POV characters for a story of that nature. Thoughts? I want an outline done for at least the first arc in a couple days, hopefully.

 

Kumo ambassador succeeding in kidnaping Hinata premise, is interesting however you run into few problems.
How he actually manage to do it, without getting caught ?
Konoha isn't that incompetent ?

 

Especially not the Hyuuga, I'd suspect. They're a strictly stratified clan that's even branding their lower cast. I can't imagine a world in which a young heiress is ever unattended enough to be sucessfully kidnapped. It would have to happen a) outside the compound, b) after a detailed and long period of research (guard duty, behavior, etc.), and c) with a team of at least two (one to distract, one to kidnapp).

(C) would presuppose a Hyuuga guard unattentive to his duty (somehow hard to imagine); whereas (B) seems equally unlikely since it's a damn shinobi village -- the spy game is kind of their jam, they'd notice something was strange.

The only thing that would really make sense is the kidnapper having inside help, or a false flag operation (e.g. Danzo kidnapps Hinata for the Byakugan and makes it seem like it was done by another country).

I'll stop now. I'm getting ideas, lol.

 

Or you could use Hinatas gentleness against her. Have the Kumo ambassador bring their own “daughter”

Ingratiate herself to Hinata, less her to isolated location. Kill guard.
--- Post automerged ---
Or, go all out. Kumo isn’t trying to kidnap Hinata. Kumo is trying to get Konoha to declare war (throw in some political reasons why it needs to be Konoha)

Have Hinata killed during the attempted kidnapping.

 

I like this and am going to file it away for future reference, but I think I've settled on starting the story out seemingly in the same spot as canon and hinting immediately the change in tone and backstory. I will, however, be adding weight to the abandoned canon thread of war with Suna after the Chuunin Exams, but that's all going to come about differently. I don't want anything even close to a canon re-hash because that's boring as hell, and also because I like the concept of organically exploring aspects of the other villages.

 

Of course another issue I can't really see without reworking his personality is well... Naruto. Either you go full in on him being a punk and make him a lot more like Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho, which runs into the issue of why he'd care about being Hokage or the opinions of the village in general but would make him a better fighter. Or well I guess you use the early bits of the story/him being on his team to bring him up to speed fast and rub away most of the things that would lead to his later canon traits and give him a massive intelligence boost while you're at it.

 

Naruto's personality is the hardest one to get right out of all of the story's characters, I swear. He feels OOC if you boost his innate intelligence, but at the same time he'd die fast in a low-powered AU, at least as I'm imagining it.

My solutions for this are as follows (feel free to tear them apart):

• Take into consideration his canonical childhood and give him actual psychological ramifications for it so that while he may not be as intelligent as many others, he's deeply skeptical or quick to judge an enemy's (or ally's) intentions/lies/motivations.
• Give him some legitimate kinesthetic intelligence that a ninja village would not ignore because their job is very physically taxing, even if Naruto himself was overall ignored (built into everyone's curriculum as it were).
• Alter his canonical upbringing to properly justify keeping both some recognizable canonical personality traits and diversions that adequately fit the tone.
• Allow him to interact with his peers while he's younger so that he can get something from mimicking them to a degree.

Or some unholy, pain in the ass balancing act of all of it. Why am I doing this again?? Oh right, I'm nothing but a bitch to fanfiction lmao.

 

Regarding Naruto himself: you don't need him to be especially intelligent. Just have him not be an idiot.

In canon, it would be highly likely that Naruto would need to hear an explanation about what punching someone is.

Just simply don't make him into a dumbass and it'll be cool. Oh and tone down the cartoonish evil of the villagers, that became boring a long time ago.

Perhaps have the villagers be smart enough to understand that Naruto shouldn't be blamed for the Nine-Tails' attack? He'd still be an orphan with only minimal amount of friends, but at least he wouldn't turn out mentally disabled.

 

The villagers, treatment of Naruto was mostly verbal and psychological abuse.
Not sure if selling him crap is intentional or result of a 6 years old responsible for himself.

Naruto just being raised alone by himself without friends, is going to be mentally scared with wide range of issues.
Add: the verbal and mental abuse he suffers from the adults and children through his early years.
I wonder why he remained loyal to the village or wanted to be an Hokage.
Does he even care about the people in Konoha, outside of the Raman father and daughter, Iruka who came late to his life, and the Hokage who is suppose to be the strongest man in the village and does little to fix Naruto issue?

Than you have, is graduation night, the betrayal and learning about the Kyubi follows up with team 7 and later Wave mission (which add it is own mental issues)

A none idiot Naruto, why should he remain part of the village, housing people who hate him since he was born, or people who are indifferent to his plight ?

 

I think that this statement misses the incredible effect having a person be nice to you can have, especially on someone as impressionable as a young child. Isolation and loneliness are horrible states of mind to experience, more so if you don’t know why, have no mental capacity to even figure it out.

Lofty concepts like loyalty won’t even come to mind for a kid that age. All Naruto knows is the village and the people in it. That’s it. And then there is this person, this one beacon of light who treats him well, always has a nice word for him, maybe even a treat or two. Of course he’d latch onto that, and by proxy also to the values espoused by that person. And ‘Jiji’ isn’t just to be imitated because he’s the only cool and friendly guy around, but also because he’s the Hokage, and that’s the answer every further question yields: why does everyone like Jiji enough to immortalize him in stone? What about the other people with stony noses up on the mountain? Everyone likes them, too. What makes them special? Being Hokage. I doubt that at any point in this chain of thought, Naruto ever thinks about loyalty, or what it actually means to be a leader of men. He sees a way to become popular, because having been alone for so long is the one thing that hurts him the most.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that Naruto’s ambition of becoming Hokage actually counts among the things done right. The story got its flaws, sure enough, but Naruto’s horrific loneliness and his enduring fight against it, in whatever shape or form, is one of Kishimoto’s masterstrokes, because it can be so easily felt and empathetically understood.

Which is not to say that Naruto’s attitude toward the village can’t be tempered with time, of course. Depending on the point of divergence, I’d even expect it to change. But as a kid? No way he ever considers something like loyalty, except for feeling it on a primal level when it concerns the few people who show him kindness.

 

You raise great points.
However the series I think dealt with it poorly.
Especially post Pain arc and the resurrection that was pulled out from no where (like the rest of Pain powers).

Naruto loneliness also plays into
His bond/relationship with Sauske.
He was the first to acknowledge him from their age group.
How this little fact and Naruto psychological issues twist into obsession with him.

Among the things that annoys me in Shippuden, while Naruto end among the strongest, he isn't a material to be Hokage.
He doesn't understand what being a Kage means nor what being a Leader.

Than again it is part of the manga the author just ruined.

I don't remember Naruto pays for his mistakes, or acknowledge the consequences of his lets forgive everyone when they recognize they were idiots.

Edit:
Last thought, shame we never have a chance to see Naruto repressed emotions, hugging your darker side/repressed emotions doesn't solve them, acknowledging and accepting them is just a start not the end.
There is probably somewhere 12 steps program.

 

So there was a lot of discussion on where to cut the series off and what powers to limit but not much really on an actual low power Naruto universe.

So, for example, I’ve always wanted to read something where chakra isn’t “magic”, but rather is the more traditional Chinese Qi the idea was based on.

 

Thinking along these lines, it has me thinking of Naruto but with Avatar:TLA bending powers.

 

Can you elaborate about the difference ?

 

https://www.google.com

 

Why thank you
Reading wikipedia and other sources doesn't share the difference from chakra.
A source of mysterious energy we posses.
Which is why I ask you, how you visualize it in Naruto world, not what is the definition.
I doubt I will find the answer in google.

 

With chakra, in Naruto, people make fire and lightning and “magic”. They have a little of it, or a lot of it and do special things to make it do stuff. It’s magic, by any other name.

Qi is basically an explanation of the energy of life. According to chinese tradition, imbalances are causes for illness in the body and cultivating it is a core part of martial arts.

 

So you basically don't care for any elemental stuff but would rather see that cultivated energy enhance a shinobi's close combat abilities?

 

Would certainly make for a low powered universe. The only thing I think needs to be done to achieve an actually low powered universe, is throw it back to the chunin exams. Recently rewatched Sarutobi v Orochimaru. Fight was bootyhole. The ANBU were tripping out over a summoning technique and a fire dragon.

Emphasize stealth, tactics, planning, and information, and there you have it. Part 1 Itachi and Kisame toyed with 3 jonin without showing off anything flashy. They were faster and more well prepared, with some power to back it up.

 

Basically. Just leave the bijuu as the terrifying natural disasters they are. Part of it is that I really just don’t like the power creep that is part of the shounen genre, the other part is I really just like the stealth and strategy angle.