My Brother's a Jinchūriki!

My Brother's a Jinchūriki! Q & A

Q: Why do you write fanfiction?

A: Why does anyone? When you love a show/book so much, you start to imagine what it would be like to live in that world or who you would like to be. The Naruto universe parallels ours closely, but has magic Ninja (Jutsu literally translates to "spell.") Who wouldn't want a talking animal sidekick and the ability to lava someone in the face? Or wear fishnet all the time and it's seen as normal? (love Temari's look) The Ninja World seems so appealing because you have the potential to gain power and be more than yourself.

Q: When did you start writing fanfiction?

A: pssssh. I was probably 5 or 6. I was obsessed with Lion King and would imagine all the time what it would be like if I were a lion, friends with Kiara and Kovu. (Don't judge.) I didn't technically write any formal fanfiction down until I was 15, but almost every show or book I really got into, I came up with OCs and ideas in my head. (Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, Digimon, Dragon Ball Z, Danny Phantom, you name it.)

Q: Why Naruto fanfiction?

A: Naruto was one of the first anime/manga I ever got into. (Fruits Basket was the first). I was 12, in middle school. My first exposure to Naruto was even before I began reading Fruits Basket (literally I saw it on the store shelf, read the description, thought it was cool, and begged my mom to buy it for me.) My middle sister watched Naruto a lot and was into it for a phase. However, I did not enjoy it then because she watched it as English Dubbed. The English Dubbed sounds terrible. It wasn't until after Fruits Basket, Vampire Knight,  Death Note, (and a few others I don't remember the names of), that I actually gave Naruto a second chance. I read the manga first. LOVED it. After our Walmart stopped selling books (*cries*) I no longer could continue the manga without going to the best store ever (Borders), but that was more of a luxury because it was more expensive and out of the way. Sooooo I started watching the anime in Japanese with English subs this time around. And I got hooked. I recorded the Rock Lee/Gaara fight and watched it over and over, and then recorded the Rock Lee and Gaara vs Kimimaro fight. I loved it so much that I probably watched it over a dozen times, and my dad was able to copy some of Gaara's lines (almost perfectly, actually.) Once I found my tribe of geeks and nerds in high school, I was introduced to even more anime/manga. BUT Naruto remains one of my favorites overall. It's also my husband's favorite anime of all time (followed closely by Fullmetal Alchemist, Seven Deadly Sins, and Death Note). I got back into Naruto again because he's so obsessed with it. I thought... hey. Let me rewatch the show and catch up so that I can talk about it more with him and show more interest in his stuff. After one episode I remembered how much I loved it, and then over time, I started to imagine my old OC that I'd created years before in my head (Trust me, mary sue, terrible plot, ugh.) and then started with "what ifs." Like... "What if Naruto had a twin? How would his life be different? What if that twin was a boy? A girl? How much would change?" It started off like that, me asking my husband questions and him giving his expert fan answers. After a while, I just said "Yup. I'm going to write it."

Q: Where do you get your ideas for your OCS/plot from?

A: Um... mostly from "What-ifs." Although, Natsumi is someone that I would like to be. She's similar to me in some ways, but way more motivated... and fit... I'm not a twin, but I've always been drawn to the idea of twins. (They actually run in my family.) Um... so... We also don't see much about the ANBU. I didn't want to completely change too much of the story or plot by inserting an OC in there (especially since twin OCs are cliche), so I thought "hm...what if Natsumi was in the ANBU?" I really am fascinated by the ANBU, and since you don't see them much, I thought it would be great to show the darker side to Konoha/The Ninja World. I also want to try to accurately as possible stay with the main storyline, so that means that sometimes Natsumi probably won't have a major role in major canon events. I also want to show as accurately as possible how ANBU life effects someone, especially someone who joined so young. To see so much death and to kill is already traumatic, but doing so in childhood can be especially hard on someone. I want to try to show the accuracy of her struggling with what she does, her work, her choices, and trying to live normally despite it all. I'm not going to make it easy on her necessarily, because trauma like that is not easy in real life. It's nitty gritty. It will get dark. This FF will show some deep, mature themes like depression. But that's because I want to show how you can recover from depression, and overcome it in the end, and how each day can be a struggle.