Subject: [FFML] [C&C] Re: [fanfic] [Naruto] Pride of Suna, Chapters 2-3
From: Aaron Nowack
Date: 12/4/2006, 1:22 AM
To: Legendary Legacy
CC: ffml@anifics.com

Legendary Legacy wrote:
It took a little longer than I wanted to get this sent out, but here's 
chapters 2 and 3.

Or 1 and 2, as the case may be.  (Actually had me checking whether I had
missed a posting for a moment.)

Also, I'm not sure what people on the FFML normally do when conveying 
character thoughts since bold and italics don't seem to work, so I hope 
there isn't any confusion with that.

There're two main schools of thought on that.  I try to write so that
it's abundantly clear whether a line is spoken aloud or merely thought
without any special notation.  The other way is to use something like
/.../, _..._, or *...* to denote special kinds of speech.  Either way is
perfectly acceptable.

The Pride of Suna
By Legendary Legacy
A Naruto Fanfiction

Standard Disclaimer still applies.

Standard C&C Disclaimer also still applies.

"Team Seven," Iruka continued. "Uchiha Sasuke...Haruno Sakura-"

"YATTA!" Sakura cried victoriously while several other girls groaned in 
despair.

Iruka frowned at the sudden outbursts and continued. "And Nara Shikamaru."

Well, I suppose Shikamaru would be last in the class with Naruto gone.
Though, I always figured that the old InoShikaChou played politics to
get their kids together rather than them just happening to have exactly
the right scores to wind up that way.

Actually, I'm kind of surprised the Hokage (or Iruka) didn't insist on
assigning the teams with a spot for Naruto.

He felt like such an idiot. It had been four and a half days since he'd fled 
from Konoha. Since then, he'd traveled aimlessly, not sleeping, not eating, 
not even paying attention to where he was going.
He never stopped to think about it, but now that he was stranded deep in the 
heart of this desert, he couldn't understand just how he had managed to 
travel so far and so fast without much of a problem. There was a couple 
times where he'd felt himself blacking out, but when he came back around to 
consciousness he'd notice that he was still running, like he'd been on 
auto-pilot.

Looks like a missing blank line between to paragraphs here.

Also, I believe it should be "There were a couple..."

Also also, "He had never stopped to think about it," at the start of the
paragraph.

Since that night, the Kyubi hadn't spoken to him again, though it was sure 
that Naruto still had it on his mind. Several times the Kyubi could feel the 
boy reaching his limits, and would pump a little more of its own chakra into 
his body and allow him to keep going. It felt odd to be constantly helping 
the boy like that, but if it got him further away from Konoha and the 
Hokage, he could spare it.

The comma after limits isn't needed.  Probably should be "Several times
the Kyubi had felt the boy...and had pumped a little...to allow him..."

However, the Kyubi now had more important matters on its mind. They had 
first come across the massive ocean of sand during the night, long before 
the sun had risen. It had been freezing then, but it was now mid afternoon, 

mid-afternoon

In between them was a shorter boy with red hair and thick dark marks around 
his aquamarine colored eyes. He was also carrying a large object on his 
back. In his case, it was a large sand colored gourd. Although none of the 
travelers were looking particularly happy at the moment, this one seemed to 
give off an aura of hatred that made his companions want to not walk too 
close to him.
Behind them walked the older man, who had two red lines along his right 
cheek and a white cloth pulled down over the left side of his face.

Another missing blank line.

They all walked in silence for a few more minutes before Kankuro stopped 
abruptly.
"Hey, Baki-sensei?" he said, catching the other's attention.

This one's probably an extra newline rather than a missing blank one,
assuming all of these aren't just a product of my mail reader.

Baki had already stopped as soon as Kankuro had, having almost walked right 
into him. "What is it?"
Kankuro pointed off into the distance. "That orange thing over there, it's 
not a mirage or something is it?"

Missing blank line, again.

Then the boy's eyes opened, and Temari got a good look at just how deep and 
blue they were. The boy had nice eyes, she decided.

"I see...an angel," he whispered faintly, a small goofy grin appearing on 
his face.

Gah.  Star Wars prequel flashbacks.

The woman glanced around the room as though she were afraid to continue, 
then spoke in a lowered voice. "While cooling the boy's body, we discovered 
unusual markings on his stomach. It's not like anything that any one of us 
had ever seen, so there's no telling what it really is."

Ordinarily in canon, the seal is only visible when Naruto is molding
chakra, IIRC.  Intentional that it's permanently visible?

"And since you're still a ninja-in-training, perhaps we can work things out 
with the Kazekage to let you take our genin tests once you recover. We've 
been running a little low-"

...that's a little surprising, to bring that up so quickly even if their
numbers are low.  They don't really know anything about Naruto at this
point.

Also, it's doubly odd since Baki was just talking about how they'd have
to give Naruto back to Konoha if anyone asked for him.

"What exactly is the 'special meaning' behind that paint of yours?"

"...Shut up, Temari."

...heh.

End chapter 2

Hope you liked it.

Hmm.  Overall, not bad.  My one complaint would be that it just seems
like Naruto is being set up to become a Suna ninja because it needs to
happen for the story to happen, rather than because it makes sense for
it to happen.  Even if Suna assumes Naruto's telling the truth, then
he's an exile from an allied village - hardly a trustworthy resume, and
at this point they have no real reason to take a risk on him.  (Unless
and until they find out about the Kyubi, anyway...)

I'd suggest not bringing it up at all at this stage, but perhaps have
Naruto naively ask about it once he's more comfortable in Suna.  That
seems a much more natural way to raise the subject than just having Baki
bring it up out of the blue.  It'll still be tough to make it plausible
for Suna to accept Naruto without them discovering the Kyubi, but that's
another issue.

*shrug* Just my thoughts; use or ignore as you see fit.  Hopefully I
said something useful.

-- Aaron Nowack "Never let reality get in the way of a good hypothesis." http://www.mimiru.net/ .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----. | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com | | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com | | Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject | `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'