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timepiececlockSometimes when I see a fanfiction with a particular title or summary, I instantly envision the story in my mind: how I'd write it, what it would be about, the character arcs and the subtle themes and everything fun in between. Often when I actually read the fic I'm disappointed because it's not the idealized version in my brain, or it's totally different, or it's bad, or it's pretty good but I just wish they'd tweak one thing or the other. It's a bit like seeing fic prompts.
Sometimes I browse The Pit or LJ comms and just imagine what the story would be, and don't read the actual fic at all. I got an instant vibe from this Naruto fic, for example:
The Ronin and the Queen
Summary: Hatake Kakashi had entered through that door many times in his long gone past. It was the same door he quietly left through six years before. It was the same door where he made his peace with all his choices and walked away. kakasaku.
I haven't read the fic and haven't the slightest idea what it's about. But I'll tell you what the fic in my head is about.
In my head, the title "The Ronin and the Queen" is about a love story set fifteen years in Konoha's future. Haruno Sakura reigns as the Hokage, a position she's held with steel and courage for four years without the interruption of war or recession. She's thirty-one, not a girl by any standards, and she's the first kage the Haruno family has ever produced. People whisper that she learned at the right arm of Tsunade, that the legendary Nine Tails was her first lover, that she's going to be the Hokage for decades because her skill at medical jutsu is so advanced she simply can't be killed.
It is a bit of exaggeration, sure, but the Hokage appreciates theater and understands the value of a vaulted reputation. She's in the height of her power, her village is still healing fifteen years after The Decimation, and she's speculating on ways to improve the music culture of Konoha, because she likes music, dammit, and she feels very strongly that it could be a therapeutic tool for disillusioned and emotionally withdrawn shinobi. She's considering forcing all of the current ANBU members to take up an instrument, and if one or two of them are so overcome by the joy of music that they gain a new respect for human life then she'd rather not have them on her assassination squad anyway.
But her days of prosperity and peace can't last forever, because a civil war is brewing in Grass Country that threatens to destabilize the balance of power between all the nations within a thousand mile radius. Her village is short on warriors but strong in knowledge and skill, tools they will need to survive the first world war their land has ever faced. And that means she needs to summon the ninja who has been on sabbatical in that corner of the world for four years. A man who requested a leave of absence the very day she took office, for reasons he refused to explain and she declined to demand. What had taken place in the last four years of Copy Nin Kakashi's life was a mystery to Sakura, but war was coming and it was time to call her soldiers home.
She just doesn't expect that he'll arrive on her doorstep with his entire forgotten clan--all two hundred and thirty-two of them. And their children. And their weapons. And their pets and screaming babies and wholly new methods for killing people.
"Hey, Sakura-chan," he says. "I brought you a souvenir."
"Who are they?"
"Eh, just people I met along the way. The Hatake clan and some of our cousins."
"This looks like half the shinobi of the Hidden Creek Village."
"Hmmm, it does, doesn't it? Funny coincidence. You should send a messenger and see if they woke up missing anything this morning."
Sometimes I browse The Pit or LJ comms and just imagine what the story would be, and don't read the actual fic at all. I got an instant vibe from this Naruto fic, for example:
The Ronin and the Queen
Summary: Hatake Kakashi had entered through that door many times in his long gone past. It was the same door he quietly left through six years before. It was the same door where he made his peace with all his choices and walked away. kakasaku.
I haven't read the fic and haven't the slightest idea what it's about. But I'll tell you what the fic in my head is about.
In my head, the title "The Ronin and the Queen" is about a love story set fifteen years in Konoha's future. Haruno Sakura reigns as the Hokage, a position she's held with steel and courage for four years without the interruption of war or recession. She's thirty-one, not a girl by any standards, and she's the first kage the Haruno family has ever produced. People whisper that she learned at the right arm of Tsunade, that the legendary Nine Tails was her first lover, that she's going to be the Hokage for decades because her skill at medical jutsu is so advanced she simply can't be killed.
It is a bit of exaggeration, sure, but the Hokage appreciates theater and understands the value of a vaulted reputation. She's in the height of her power, her village is still healing fifteen years after The Decimation, and she's speculating on ways to improve the music culture of Konoha, because she likes music, dammit, and she feels very strongly that it could be a therapeutic tool for disillusioned and emotionally withdrawn shinobi. She's considering forcing all of the current ANBU members to take up an instrument, and if one or two of them are so overcome by the joy of music that they gain a new respect for human life then she'd rather not have them on her assassination squad anyway.
But her days of prosperity and peace can't last forever, because a civil war is brewing in Grass Country that threatens to destabilize the balance of power between all the nations within a thousand mile radius. Her village is short on warriors but strong in knowledge and skill, tools they will need to survive the first world war their land has ever faced. And that means she needs to summon the ninja who has been on sabbatical in that corner of the world for four years. A man who requested a leave of absence the very day she took office, for reasons he refused to explain and she declined to demand. What had taken place in the last four years of Copy Nin Kakashi's life was a mystery to Sakura, but war was coming and it was time to call her soldiers home.
She just doesn't expect that he'll arrive on her doorstep with his entire forgotten clan--all two hundred and thirty-two of them. And their children. And their weapons. And their pets and screaming babies and wholly new methods for killing people.
"Hey, Sakura-chan," he says. "I brought you a souvenir."
"Who are they?"
"Eh, just people I met along the way. The Hatake clan and some of our cousins."
"This looks like half the shinobi of the Hidden Creek Village."
"Hmmm, it does, doesn't it? Funny coincidence. You should send a messenger and see if they woke up missing anything this morning."
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 09:05 am (UTC)It's because of your brilliance that I suffer now.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 09:43 am (UTC)I remember reading a fic where there's all this joking about Naruto "losing" an entire village...and I think it would be kinda funny if Kakashi, on the other hand, stole a village. Or half of one.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 03:35 pm (UTC)I'm imagining a little "it followed me home, may I keep it?" banter now. Kakashi has deep pockets and sticky fingers, indeed. XDD
no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 07:28 pm (UTC)Well, you nailed the Sakura as Hokage...
And it took me a minute to realize that Kakashi had stolen have a village. I was like, 'what? No way does he have family' before I got it. *blushes*
thanks-- late reply FTW
Date: 2009-02-05 06:34 pm (UTC)It's one of those ideas I wish I could dump wholesale into someone else's lap.
Re: thanks-- late reply FTW
Date: 2009-02-05 07:20 pm (UTC)And while *I* wouldn't be surprised to hear Kakashi get half a village or more to move because he said so (I ADORE that scene where he gets Yamato to pay for ramen) I image most of Konoha would be like: *mind boggles*
Re: thanks-- late reply FTW
Date: 2009-02-05 07:54 pm (UTC)Then while he's hunting down his ancestors, he traces them back to another village (Hidden Creek, which I made up, situated on the far edge of Grass Country) and finds out that wowsers, turns out his great-grandmother had a lot of siblings. And cousins. And they've been living under a crappy Kage, with rage boiling inside them not unlike the Uchiha clan had been with Madara's influence. So instead of a coup, Kakashi convinces them all to defect to Konoha. And they bring their families, and their friends, which isn't *really* half of the village, more like 1/5th, but it's still a lot of people. Because Kakashi has convinced them that a) Konoha is awesome, b) they'll get paid a living wage because the village really needs able-bodied ninjas right now, and c) Fire Country is NOT about to break into civil war or depression.
Here my imagination kind of wonky, because I imagine him summoning a giant nin-dog for the first and only time in his life, the size equivalent of Gamabunta (who sort of looks like Inu Yasha and Sesshomaru's mountain-sized dog demon father in Inu Yasha), and convinces the giant summon to carry all 232 of the defectors out Grass Country in one night by hanging them from a multi-tiered harness a la the military transport dragon crews in Naomi Novik's books, and deposit them in the woods just outside Leaf's walls so they don't get attacked or ill while moving across the various countries and don't get caught in the middle of leaving. They just disappear one night and show up at Sakura's doorstep.
And while *I* wouldn't be surprised to hear Kakashi get half a village or more to move because he said so (I ADORE that scene where he gets Yamato to pay for ramen) I image most of Konoha would be like: *mind boggles*
Exactly!
Re: thanks-- late reply FTW
Date: 2009-02-06 06:30 am (UTC)And I imagine Sakura would handle this all beautifully in public and then FLIP THE FUCK OUT on Kakashi for dumping this around her without any warning.
So, would their be romance in this? How would that play out?