Comment on parenthood and other terrifying challenges

  1. PettyEscape on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 12:25AM UTC

    Man, I get too busy to read AO3 for a few days and I find that one of my favorite Naruto authors has posted five new chapters of a fic! Here we go.

    Click to expand

    First, as a quick note: I don't have a Tumblr or do much social media, but I did get curious and do a dive of your fic tags and some related tags a few weeks back after realizing that I could see a bunch of WIP stuff that way, so this isn't the first I've seen of this fic, and:

    1. I love how Minato and/or Kushina seeing orphans and kids with shitty parents and going "YOINK" is becoming a thing, both here and in some of your WIPs. Between this, Locket, Mutagenicity and the one WIP with canon Naruto accidentally swapping with the Naruto of a timeline where his parents are alive, I am now picturing some kind of amalgam setting with Minato and Kushina now like "This is our son, Naruto. And this is our other son, Naruto, who we stole rescued from a different timeline where we were dead and Konoha didn't appreciate him. And this is our daughter, Karin, who we kind of kidnapped rescued from Grass. They're a little pissed off about it, but technically we have the claim because she's Kushina's cousin. And this is our son, Gaara. His father is still alive, he's just a dick. We have no real valid claim here, Gaara's also Suna's jinchuuriki, and his father's the Kazekage, and Suna is definitely very pissed about it, but how were they going to stop me? And this is -- wait. Who is this? Kushina! Kushina, honey, we talked about this --"
    2. I also found out from your Tumblr that you get a new email with a full copy of the comment every time someone edits it. I did not know this, and, uh, I am so sorry --

    Okay, now that that's out of my system:

    Since this IS its whole genre of fic, I want to clarify some things for the purpose of reader expectations. My goal is to depict Naruto's living situation with nuance and drawing from what canon actually shows us/implies. There will be no comically horrific child neglect or being chased by angry mobs or flanderizing characters. Also, since this confused at least one person when I posted this to tumblr: Naruto having an ANBU guard at all times is purely fanon.

    I really appreciate this, by the way. There are times when it feels immersion-breakingly over the top in some fics and it can make it hard to continue to suspend disbelief.

    It had been six and a half years since he’d lost the both of them. Kushina would make fun of him, if he couldn’t even come in here to clean. Some Hokage he was, she’d say.

    He’d stopped hiring genin teams to clean years ago, promising himself he’d either move back into the house he’d planned to start a family in, or else pack it up and sell it. The Hokage residence, where he’d been staying for the past six years, was fine for just him. It wasn’t healthy that he was keeping a whole house as a shrine to his own grief and not even living in it.

    Very strong opening.

    (Minato wasn’t going to not help her. But he also wasn’t going to give out free labor if he could make someone pay.)

    Love this.

    He retried the first one just to be sure the results were replicable…

    Hey, borderline scientific method here.

    “I had a jutsu accident,” Minato said, very seriously. The kid’s eyes basically bulged out of his head. Adorable. “I’m afraid to tell any other ninja, in case they make fun of me. But you won’t make fun of me, will you?”

    The kid got so excited he actually ended up on his feet, waving his arms intensely. Sand flew everywhere.

    “No way!” the kid yelled. “Everyone makes mistakes, you know! That’s what the old man says whenever I mess up, and I mess up a lot! I don’t like when people make fun of me! So I won’t make fun of you, and if the other ninja make fun of you, I’ll beat them up for you!”

    Baby Naruto is precious and I love him.

    Unless that wasn’t how time travel worked…? Tobirama had written some theories on time travel and seemed to think it didn’t work that cleanly…

    Of course Tobirama did.

    “This means we’re friends now, right?” the kid said. “I’m Uzumaki Naruto!”

    And there it is.

    Minato stared at him.

    He sat on the edge of the sandbox.

    He stared at the kid some more.

    Honestly, fair.

    Minato had read through Tobirama’s theories on time travel many times. One theory was that true time travel wasn’t possible. Time was just infinite probabilities, constantly diverging with every decision anyone ever made, and one couldn’t go back in time because time simply wasn’t linear like that.

    But one could hop into a different probability. A different timeline, where things played out just slightly differently.

    I really enjoy this being how it works.

    “Are you some kind of loser ninja?” he asked. “You’re crying.”

    Minato laughed. He was crying. How embarrassing. This was a really bad first impression.

    Amazing.

    Yeah, great work! I've been thinking about this one since I saw the WIP, and I'm really looking forward to the next chapter!

    Comment Actions