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Hello everyone! Welcome back. In honor of (my best friend, my confidante, my silly rabbit) Sakura Haruno’s birthday today I wanted to take the opportunity to crawl out of my shadowy time-out box and give you all a much deserved update. Or, I suppose, an update on an update.
I remember it feeling strange to see writers disclose their life stories to explain their absence, as if they owed their readers that. I want every author to know that health comes first, always. So I’ll spare you all the gory details. Just know it’s been a tough time. I was treading water to stay afloat and before I knew it years had passed. And times had changed. And I had changed.
I starting looking at my old fics and feeling uncomfortable that the stuff I had written as a teenager was still around to represent me. I considered deleting everything. But then I noticed some of my favorite works I had bookmarked were disappearing, maybe getting deleted by an author who also felt that discomfort. I could understand where these writers were coming from... still, I knew that as a fan of these works, it was so sad to see them go. So, I promise, however much I look back on my earlier stuff and cringe… I will not be deleting any of them. In the end, I am glad I wrote those things because it gave me the opportunity to improve. Now I have people who have sworn to take me out back and put me down like Ol’ Yeller if I go back on my word.
Some things have not changed. I still love writing. And I still LOVE Sakura. With all my heart. Truly. I don’t think there’s a single other anime character who has wreaked such havoc on my brain chemistry as Sakura Haruno. And I would be hard pressed to find another fandom who's had as big of an impact on me as the Naruto fandom- or at least, this sexy, sexy subset of Sakura defenders. And I’m still interested in writing stories for her! I actually have two separate AUs that I’m midways through drafting right now, which I am dedicating time and energy and affection towards. I am very excited about them. Unfortunately, I’m not as excited about this particular story. At it’s conception, this fic was supposed to be about strengthening the bonds, old and new, between the members of Team Seven. The team has always felt really divided and hierarchical to me, with Naruto and Sasuke comprising the core and everyone else orbiting them like planets at farther and farther distances. I wanted to bring everyone closer together, and equalize it. I had plans of balancing it with a new team member, and turn Team Seven into a seven man team: Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, Yamato, Sai, and one more (path of seven, get it). I wanted to showcase everyone’s unique relationships, each no less important than the next, so that it would feel less like a solar system and more like a web. In case it wasn’t already obvious, that new member would be Kin! I wanted the team to have another girl (because what the fuck Kishimoto where are your kunoichi) and highlight some awesome female relationships & friendships. I didn’t feel like making up an entirely new character, so I just took one with very little background information and wiped her slate clean. I do love my version of Kin, and relish any future opportunities to use her. I hope this brings anyone who needed it some closure.
The Path of Seven will always be extremely special to me; it was the first fic I ever wrote, (although not the first I posted I don’t think) and I kickstarted so many other exciting ideas. I have color coded folders within folders within folders containing half-formed Sakura-centric fics. So, so many that I’m much more excited about and that have so much more potential than this story. So, unless I’m hit with a bolt of inspiration on a direction for this story, or until I run out of other ideas, I’m going to officially put this one back on the shelf.
Thank you to everyone who read or gave kudos to this fic, if you ever left me a comment I love you forever, and I hope someone was able to get something out of this. People in this community are the reason I started writing, and much of the reason I am still writing today. You are all lovely, wonderful people. I hope some of you get to see what I put out in the future. (Sorry to anyone who did a double take at my two most recent one-shots. I uhm. It’s quite a pivot, I’m aware. Promise it’s not emblematic of who I am, I just needed to do something completely different, and to me that meant, uh. The two worst people in existence being disgusting.) I’m going to try to hold back on posting any multi-chapter fics until I have something resembling a working first draft, so I may just be doing one-shots or drabbles for the time being. I’ve found I like those a lot too. And most importantly, I hope anyone out there who is worried about posting (or even writing) a fanfic in fear of one day cringing at it… do it!!! Despite not liking the quality of my prior works, I don’t regret any of it. It was a learning experience and a bonding experience. Don’t put off doing something because you’re afraid you’ll one day hate it. Do yourself, and all the rest of us a favor and post whatever it is you’re sitting on. Can’t wait to see what comes next :)
I’m in a bit of a rush to get this all down, and reading back it sounds very self-righteous, my god. I am really not trying to preach, or imply that I’m some big shot who knows how everything works come listen to me talk. I don’t presume to have dozens of people flocking to an update on a 3 (?) year old fic. But if I overthink this I’ll never end up posting it, so I suppose we’ll have to bear through it. I’m counting on the fact that not many people will see this, so hopefully those who do can treat it with grace. I’m just a guy. I don’t know what I’m doing. Love yourself.
- trib