A little over three years ago, on December 4th of 2015, I posted the first chapter of SealKeeper; He Who Binds and so it began. Sixty-Five chapters and over 450,000 words later and I’m still here, though not nearly as much as my readers deserve.

I created this blog so that those readers would have somewhere else to turn between updates which, as of late, have become more and more infrequent and so that I had a place for material that FanFiction.Net – my first and preferred medium for Fanfiction- doesn’t support.

At the moment I have only a single set of images, inspired by a reviewer, that I wanted to be able to share. When they said there needed to be a flowchart for the relations between characters they weren’t kidding but actually trying to make one was far more difficult than I imagined.

My first attempt looked more like a circuit schedule than any sort of organized information. To be fair, the other’s didn’t look so good either but I was spending way too much time trying to complete the flowchart that could have instead gone to the next chapter.

I’m pretty sure I know which my readers would prefer I work on.

Most of you reading this will already know about my story and I may have said some things in my Author’s Notes over the last three years that have given you insight to my feelings and thoughts about the story, but nevertheless I’ll collect them here.

Sealkeeper is an irrefutable part of my life. Even if I take forever to update the story is in the back of my head near constantly, badgering me to sit down and write up a chapter for my readers to enjoy.

To this day, I still don’t know if I like it.

If you know me, you’re probably aware that I dart from project to project constantly growing tired of something and moving onto whatever catches my attention next. FanFiction is no different and despite having spent three years of my life working on it I really have wanted to move on for some time.

Another thing people who know me will be aware of is that I will do my damndest to keep my word, even when not in my best interest.

So, of course, my dumbass made a promise to myself that Sealkeeper would be the story I finish. That is, honestly, the only reason the story moved passed chapter fifteen. There have been, admittedly, bursts of inspiration that temporarily ignite my desire to explore the world I’m twisting more, but they don’t last long.

Still, I think we may be getting ahead of ourselves here.

SealKeeper; He Who Binds started with a single scene I wanted for my story- ROOT agents kneeling before Naruto in one of the training grounds. That’s it. That’s SealKeeper.

Well, not exactly, but without that scene I wouldn’t have invested the time to develop the story into what it is today.

The concept of ROOT- and ROOT specifically, I hadn’t intended for him to build anything from the ground up because it should take years and I wanted this when he was young- loyal to Naruto lead to the biggest problem to overcome- how does Naruto come into command of ROOT?

There were a couple of ways I could have done this, but for some reason I decided he would take over their seals from Danzo. Great. How does he do that? Personally, I love the concept of Fuinjutsu, but even I can admit it’s overused and typically not done very well.

Sealing is the kind of thing that can create a solution to anything- but using it to solve every problem you have ends up devaluing it. Sort of like in Harry Potter FanFictions- which, yes, I do read from time to time despite never having read the books and only seeing the first four movies as a child- where Runes are used to solve every problem imaginable. Funny how absolutely no one else thought to use them in that manner within the last millennia.

So that was the next problem. How do I make this original?

Well, what if it wasn’t Naruto’s Fuinjutsu work? What if it was something someone else did that he’s benefiting from? Really convenient that his dad happens to be one of the best Fuinjutsu users of all time in cannon, isn’t it? Even better, he’s dead, which gives a pretty damn good explanation for why he’s not using it.

The final masterpiece of a self-sacrificing hero. I liked the sound of that, so I ran with it.

Sealkeeper- a seal that can change the function of any seal into anything the user wishes it to be.

And with that, my planning was done.

Seriously.

That was it.

Or, that’s all I can remember, anyway. I just started improvising after that, which was a horrid idea. Trying to figure out why Kushina left when she was already gone wasn’t all that fun though I did get a lot of help from ncpfan.

Going through some of the older messages between us I’ve found some lists of events I had thought about happening- some of which already have and some of which never will- and even a list of possible endings(There are fifteen, only one of which is close to the one I’ve since decided to use).

My improv had some interesting effects on the story and I never imagined it would go in the direction it has, but I cannot deny it is my most successful work to date. I hope i can make use of the lessons SealKeeper attempted to teach me in future projects, but who knows how long it might be until that happens.

Something I have enjoyed immensely while writing is finding opportunities to slip in ideas I had for other stories as part of the plot. Mikoto taking Tobi’s place, for instance, was something I had at one point wanted to use as a basis for an entire story.

The fact that I can use it here without having to write a whole other story for it pleases me greatly.

I didn’t really have a plan for this when I sat down to write it- big surprise, yeah? – but i don’t think I’ll keep you for too much longer in this post.

If you’ve read as far as chapter ten – The Weight We Bear – you are more than likely familiar with Tatsuki, an OC I whipped up in chapter once completely unintentionally because I, quite frankly, hated OCs with a passion.

And before we continue yes, I am well aware that the ending of that chapter makes no sense. I forgot I was supposed to be writing for an eight year-old and wrote as if he was cannon+ instead. My bad. Not going back to fix it at this point.

Now, where was I?

Ah, yes, OCs.

I loathe OCs. Most of you are probably pretty confused because, at this point, I have three or four running around my story. Well, living ones, at least. Rather hypocritical, yeah?

Absolutely.

I have quit reading fantastic stories at the hint of an OC and yet here I am with Mai as a pretty big part of the story. I will admit that Tatsuki, who was for some reason wildly popular, did soften me up a bit to the idea of having OCs which is probably what allowed Mai- who, again, was not actually supposed to be a major part of the story- to slip in.

Unlike Tatsuki, however, Mai has managed to keep herself alive.

And worm her way into my heart, but that’s not the focus right now.

My experiences with Tatsuki and Mai has lead to me giving more of my Wolves names and trying- See; “Failing Miserably”- to keep track of what orders Naruto has given them. It does, I believe, make the world seem just a little bit more real, which I would consider to be a good thing.

I still typically avoid stories with OCs, though. I don’t have the energy to keep track of an entirely new person in the series and I don’t particularly care for your self-insert no matter how you disguise it.

Because I’m not completely unreasonable, I have read stories with OCs and enjoyed them, too. It’s usually just more trouble than I’m willing to go through when I’m trying to relax.

And with all that said I’ll leave you with one last thing before I call this post finished-

The name of my story is SealKeeper; He Who Binds.

That will not change, regardless of why you feel it should. I’ve gone over my reasons before in an Authors Note but I’ll try to remember to post it here too.

Now, if for some strange reason you’re still here, I’ll release you back into the world. I’ll probably be posting Relationship Flowcharts and Family by Gaara next followed by An Anonymous Rant, A Tittle Bound, or a link to the one piece of existing fanart I’m aware of for this story.

Until I next capture your attention,

Eyazahrid