Experiments in Empathy by Paradox Jast - T- Naruto

Title:Experiments in Empathy
Author: Paradox Jast
Rating: T
DLP Category: General
Pairing: Naruto\Kyuubi (only hints so far)
Status: WIP
Summary:The Nine Tails. Everyone in the Elemental Nations knows about it. But no one knows it as well as one Uzumaki Naruto. So what if he meets it a few years earlier, what's the worst that could happen?

Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5902498/1/bExperiments_b_in_bEmpathy_b

An awesome characterization of Kyuubi very nice take on of the well known clishê Naruto meeting Kyuubi.

I liked this story. 5/5 from me.

 

Everything in this fic completely lacks flow, to me. Some sentences are redundant, others take a long time to get to the point, and in both cases they lack the prose that would make it acceptable.

The dialogue feels forced and uninteresting, with every character sounding pretty much the same. Kyuubi uses some token big words, but then refers to Sakura as a 'pink haired harpy'. This strikes me as particularly retarded, since I've never heard anyone actually refer to someone as a harpy, except in bad fanfiction.

Everyone is constantly talking about 'fairness'. Kakashi talks about how it's wrong to fail students in the second genin exam. Sarutobi talks about fairness a couple different times. Iruka talks about how it's unfair to fuck with Naruto's grades on the Sandaime's orders. Apparently, in this fic, everyone has forgotten that they're fucking ninja, living in what's pretty much a military dictatorship, with a counsel tacked on because they happen to be the kinder gentler village of soulless assassins.

I could accept the fairness speeches and log them away as 'good people reluctantly doing what they must, wishing for a better way'. It would still suck, but it would be reasonable. Except that isn't what's going on: people are reluctantly being unfair because the author wanted the canon team 7, and Naruto would have graduated on his first try if everyone had played nice.

All of the characters are just as annoying as in canon, except for Sakura, who manages to be worse. Naruto is praised as being intelligent, despite coming to the conclusion that Sasuke knows why he's so popular with the girls and just won't tell Naruto because he's a dick. This is phrased in such a way that it's clearly intended to make Naruto seem smarter, but just made me :facepalm.

Other really stupid things to be wary of include, but are not to: Naruto still being worried that he's the Kyuubi after meeting it twice, Iruka apparently knowing the entire contents of the forbidden scroll, and literally everyone knowing team seven fought Orochimaru in the forest of death.

That said... towards the end of chapter four it starts getting better, and somewhere in chapter six it actually starts getting kind of good. I haven't seen a Naruto x Kyuubi done this way before.

I still wouldn't cal it good, but after chapter 6 it definitely isn't bad.

TL;DR: I'm giving this one a very confused and conflicted 3/5.

 

Actually, if I read it correctly, Naruto failed his first try at the exam legit. The idea was that if he passed, Kakashi would train him, if not, then Kakashi would get a loser team that would have failed anyway, and train them.

Next year, he was failed on purpose, though I don't really understand why. He could have just been passed and then put on a two-man team with Kakashi, if Sarutobi was waiting for Sasuke (which, alright, is a decent assumption). Or there are other ways to work around that. His failing in second year was just shoehorned in, it didn't really fit.

Of course, it would have made the most sense to do that in the first year itself, and the fact that the author chose not to is a bit annoying.

Aside from that, your other points hold. So far, though, it's decent enough for a 3/5. Might upgrade to 4/5 if the later chapters are better.