Belated Status Update

Okay, good news and ...so-so news.
Good news - I have acquired a replacement for my broken computer.
So-so news - We're in the middle of the holiday season and I am swamped. I am also currently waiting to learn how much (if anything) can be retrieved off of my old computer. It sounds like everything should be recovered just fine, but I don't know for sure and the individual looking into this is doing it as a favor so real work comes first.

In other words, I am hoping that by the start of the new year I will know for certain if/when I will have my files back. If I won't be getting them back at all, I'll just start working on rebuilding what I had (outlines, jutsu notes, etc.) and get to work on writing new chapters. If I will be getting them back within a reasonable amount of time it means a lot less 'rebuilding' and a lot more work on writing new chapters. So keep an eye out for new stuff sometime in January.

1/1

Sometime this week I should be getting an external hard drive containing what was salvaged off my old computer. It sounds like he was able to save everything but it'll take me a bit to sort through it so I hope to have more solid news for you... next weekend? And hopefully an update for more than one story by the end of January. Thanks for putting up with me this year...it kind of sucked.

No Computer

As the title said I'm currently without regular computer access. Hopefully this'll end soon but I'm not sure. I'll let you know when it does.

Juniper Note

You guys are confusing me. That's the only way I can come up with to explain my reaction to Juniper's reviews lately. Every time I think I've managed to explain something, another reviewer comes along and manages to confuse me again.
With all the other fics I've written people seem to get that this is fanfiction and when I change canon they don't get particularly...contentious (?) about it. It should be obvious simply by the fact that I went all the way back to Chapter 1 to let Juniper jump off that things are different from canon.
I think part of the problem is that I update slowly. It means I know what's coming and I work towards it when writing and in the meantime you people are just reading the updates as they come but I can't really change that.
So instead I'm going to ignore reviews for a while. I'll probably wind up with even more confused readers but at least this way it won't make me write, rewrite, and re-rewrite every chapter.

Juniper - Snakes 2

Actually, I meant to post this like 3 days after the April Fool's joke, but then I got caught up in the whole 'knitting hermit' thing and decided to knit myself a sweater and that distracted me from posting this. Then 53raph1m act-alike mentioned his/her birthday was today so I figured I would go ahead and get this posted to prove that I am writing the Forest of Death.

Notes – I just realized that Gaara and Gorou’s names are a bit similar. I don’t think it’s so close that you guys will have trouble but if you do I apologize.

Also, this is the first time we’ve really heard from Kyuubi. He’s been making random comments to Naruto for a while now but they’re going to be more frequent from here on out. Would it make more sense if I put Kyuubi’s thoughts in bold? I think I’m going to. Their voices are fairly different but that doesn’t make it any less confusing, let me know and I’ll change it in this chapter too.

I considered making Shino or Kiba the slowest, but honestly at this point in the manga, most of what we’re shown suggests that that isn’t the case. She was probably faster than Sakura in canon, but not at this point in this fic. She'll get her 'redemption' so to speak. It would be fair to say that in general, Team 7 is a bit out of touch with what their peers are capable of.

And I know some people are going to think Naruto got caught way too easily, but when you’re expecting some seriously nasty jutsu, a rag over the mouth isn’t something you’re watching out for. I’ll write more explicit fights in the future, this first one just wasn’t important enough and as is pointed out, one on one the Cloud team isn’t impressive; their skills lie in stealth and ambush. Once they lost the element of surprise, they lost the upper hand. Exactly what this Cloud team did will be explained, but not for a bit (as in not during this exam or the finals…sorry).

If you remember (and I know most of you won’t) Anko mentioned at the end Snakes I that Kakashi was monitoring his students communication through Amarante code. Now you know why he was so drunk; I mean, can you imagine getting just those few warnings and not even knowing who they were going up against (and when he found out the next day…).

I’m sure this new code is going to really annoy people but it’s too much fun to write to take out of something like this.

Reviewers' Answers:

Yes, Naruto's mother in canon is Uzumaki Kushina. I started writing this fanfic before they came out and I came up with a non canon replacement who's identity was actually important to the fic. For this reason, when Kushina was revealed in canon I decided to just keep going with the original character, so here his mother is a woman named Mitarashi Anmitsu who happens to be Anko's aunt and one of Jiraiya's student (along with Morino Ibiki and Namikaze Minato).

Seriously though, I'm like dying to know why so many people decided to tell me this now. Please? Someone?

April Fool's?

Okay maybe the joke was on me this year. Overall, there was a good response to Seesaw.
People liked the 21 interlude...except those who couldn't figure out who was talking.
And Juniper...I can't win with those guys. I only had a few people actually complain about it which was good. But apparently this was the chapter in which they decided to defend Kushina. I don't know why people suddenly decided that I was an idiot and didn't know Naruto's mother's canon name and character...but they did. I responded as politely as possible to each of them that I started this before Kishimoto introduced her character (at least I'm pretty sure I did) or at least before I read the introduction. Now the original character in her place is ingrained in the plot of Juniper and there's no point in changing her name to Kushina because it isn't Kushina from canon and that would just be dumb. I still don't know why people decided to tell me this now of all times...but oh well.
Maybe next year...no I take that back. Hopefully next year I have finished all of my fanfiction.

Juniper - Not an Interlude

April Fool's!
I hope at least some of you figured that out ahead a time based on the obnoxious note at the beginning. I'm not normally that weird during the spiels...am I?
Anyways, I really only did because I was working on the rest of Snakes (I really am going to write the Forest of Death, I promise) and I got a review from Elfsong asking about a flashback to Kakashi burning down his house. It was just a week or so ago and I realized April Fool's was approaching and that it might be fun to mess with you a bit. At the same time I figured I could use to...not really clear anything up but pretend I was. I don't actually expect anyone to read it and feel that things make more sense, but maybe some of you will. As a bonus, I'll now know who is and isn't reading the blog, because reviews that don't know this is a joke will just be directed here!

Thanks again to all my reviewers. As annoyed as I some time get - and as easy as it is to take it out on the anonymous people I know online instead of those in my real life - it's a lot of fun to hear people enjoy this, even if it sometimes annoys the crap out of them.
A few quick notes that reviewers brought up:
I'm sorry not everyone 'got' or 'likes' the fact that Anko and Naruto are cousins. Here's the thing, I don't write 'speculation' fics. Instead, I pick things from canon and I pick things from the back of my brain and I throw them together and see where it takes me. I remember thinking that Anko looked a bit like one of the people in Jiraiya's genin team picture (other's had fun writing that she was the same person, I'm writing that she's the person's niece) and that led to one of the main canon differences for this fic. I'm sorry you don't like it, but it's fun for me to write.

Another reviewer (who may have been trying to flame me, I'm not really sure what people are on about when they don't leave emails) said the level of secrecy around the auto pass was confusing him. The auto pass itself isn't shrouded in secrecy. It's a public decision, the Hokage even says so, what is a secret is Naruto's injuries. That's why he asks Sakura not to talk about her team very much. I hope that clears it up a bit, I thought it would be obvious when she openly admits to Neji and the others that she passed with an auto pass but then won't name Naruto, but I guess not.

Naruto's identity is another thing that is confusing people, probably because I've had so much trouble moving on with the story - it would have been cleared up much faster by my original outline, but writer's block has pushed it back. In this fic at least, I figure if the Hokage and his teammate (Anmitsu/Anko's aunt have been clearly stated as his teammate) were having a kid not everyone would know. Mostly just higher ranked individuals. The same individuals who would not be involved in child welfare. Therefore, I really don't see why it would be so hard for the Hokage to hide Naruto. By the time he's in the Academy even with the amount of trouble he's causing, it's mostly going to be grunts doing the cleanup so I don't think they would have run into him. Maybe that's just me over thinking it, but that is the way it gets explained in this fic.

21 - Chapter 4 1/2

April Fool's!
Not the chapter, just the note about me going off to be a knitting hermit. Though really I think that would be my ideal job. I'm also curious to see how many people who also read 'Juniper' review cursing me for starting 'interludes' on another story (I promise I'm not).
Anyways, I'm sorry some were disappointed with last chapter, I had a lot of fun writing it, but oh well, you can't win all of them.
I actually didn't think Naruto was too out of character for this fic. I've shown him to be hyper sensitive to things said about his father, so it shouldn't have been too weird for this fic, meh.
To those of you who did enjoy it, yeah!
I honestly can't say when the next update will come, but as always, it will come; the only real question is whether or not you guys will feel like sticking around to read it.

Seesaw: Chapter 1

April Fool's!

Well, sort of. Like I said, this was a plot bunny that his been whirling around in my head since about the time that I started writing 21, note I said writing not posting and I was writing it for at least a year and a half before I started posting. Over the past few weeks, I actually came up with a minor break through about how it should be written and so I've been tinkering with it a bit more. I don't actually know if I'm going to go through with it, just like I don't really know if I'll ever get back to Yuusen but I figured posting the first chapter would be a fun way to poke at people on April Fool's.
Just one or two quick notes. Because of the crossover (which I'm not detailing now) I'm drawing on more purposeful parallels between medieval Japan and the Elemental Countries. Therefore we get more than one Daimyo in just Fire Country (which is based around an alliance). I'm also obviously deviating from history since I've already introduced a female Daimyo.
Kagemusha is a term I'm taking from the movie of the same name (it's not what the crossover is with). I just thought it was fitting. Historically within the fic the Kagemusha precedes the Kage of the Five main countries. I don't know if I'll ever delve into his history (I came up with it because I was bored) but before the five nations solidified all the other ninja were mostly small clan based and not in the hidden village system. The Kagemusha was the head of the only thing close to hidden village to survive from that period. He is not related to the Nara clan. He is also mostly a figure head - the current one is barely a ninja, which is why most of the Daimyo like him. He's kind of like a Shogun, but in reality though his territory is relatively large - not fire country large, but large for a Daimyo - he no longer heads a large group of ninja so the main five Kage have been known to ignore him.(I haven't actually decided where that territory is, it keeps changing...).
That's all I know right now.

Oh! The names. In a lot of cultures, people are reassigned names for 'adulthood'. That's essentially what they're referring to here. In this fic, it's traditional for those not from Clans to adopt a name specifically for them once they've reached a certain point.

Also, I'm really mean to Naruto as a fanfiction writer. He's the title character, so changing him is the easiest way to change the story. Besides, Kishimoto does a damn fine job with the Naruto he's created, I can't compete with it so I have fun changing it instead. Don't bother complaining to me about it.

If I work on this in the future I'll answer questions about it (and possibly have to rewrite the prologue), but right now...probably won't get back to you simply because I probably don't have the answer.

Juniper - Interludes 9 & 10

Interludes 9 & 10 are up. These are the last two interludes so the next thing that will be posted will be the rest of Snakes, it might take a few months but that's what you'll get.

I also figured I would just address the lack of 'quality' here and get it over with. I think I've said this before, but I'm not really editing these anymore. It's not meant to be disrespectful to you guys or anything and I know the drop in quality will make some of you stop reading, but I've been working on these for years now. It isn't even a matter of lack of interest...okay it is but more because I can't write as fast as I come up with ideas so the chapters (when I can write) never seem to tell the story I want to tell when I'm ready to work on the next chapter...does that make sense? Basically I need to hurry up and finish them so that I stop getting urges to rewrite entire parts of them and editing...it just isn't my strong suit.
Sorry, it's the truth.
A lot of you have been helpful in pointing out things like missed words, misspelled words, and other grammar errors, but I haven't gone back and edited a thing...it's laziness but oh well.

As for updates... I ask you guys to remember one thing. I'm doing this in my free time for myself. I'm sharing it with you because I like getting compliments. But in the end this is fanfiction I cannot make money off of it and I do not intend to spend so much time on it that it looks professional, I hate to say it but it isn't worth my time to do that. I write when I can and I share it with you, please remember that in the future. I'm very, very happy with the fact that people like this and I don't want to sound flippant, but it's the truth. If I'm going to spend that much time polishing something I'd honestly want it to be an original story and not fanfiction.

This is of course the main reason that the interludes even existed. I didn't care that not all of you liked them, I was trying to figure out where most of the other characters were at this point so that the main action of the chapter would make sense to me. I liked most of them, some of them didn't come out the way I wanted but they still helped me make sense of the plot I had in my head. I can't tell you how annoying it was to read that people wanted to cut to the chase when I couldn't figure out what that chase was even going to be.
It was kind of insulting to hear (repeatedly) how alienating the interludes could be because to me they were the only thing keeping me interested in the story at the moment. I could delete the whole fic off the web and just play with it in my free time (and I have seriously considered this), but I like the fact that others enjoy it so I haven't done that. Hearing that I'm ruining my fic for other people...makes that a lot less fun...just letting you know. And if you can't remember what happened...reread it. I do it all the time with fics I like before telling the author that I can't remember what's going on.

That said...I do pay a lot of attention to constructive criticism. I may not always implement on the fics because they're comparable to a 1st or 2nd draft for me, but I do pay attention.

Juniper - Interlude 8

New interlude is up.

So...

Okay, the holidays are over and I'm just about as destressed as I'm gonna get. I'm starting to work on getting back to people who left reviews and I'm trying to work on new chapters and stuff so hopefully there will be updates within the next month or so.
I'll let you know how it's going in the next week or so.
Thanks again for putting up with me.