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Blood Bouquet – Posted 2019.06.24

The following are the recorded responses of Eyazahrid to the feedback he received on the above listed chapter and the story in general for the week following. This document is to serve as a replacement to the traditional Author’s Note at the beginning and ending of chapters and will be kept separate from both the above listed chapter and any future chapters unless deemed sufficiently important.

Pregnant Orochimaru

While I did not stop to consider how pregnancy would effect Orochimaru and her body-switching I can say off the top of my head that if it delayed it at all it would only be by nine months, not years.

Most likely, knowing myself as well as I do, it would not have an effect on the body and the child would be left in the discarded corpse, effectively killing it. Should it be far enough along in development it could probably be rescued by cutting open the corpse, but that’s neither here nor there.

One of the girls having Naurto’s child, though, I can use that. It really hadn’t even crossed my mind but it opens all sorts of possibilities for the story. Mostly bad ones, of course, but those are my favorite.

Mai and Consequences

And my choices with Mai continue to haunt me. Very well.

At the moment the only thing Mai has done “against” Naruto is keeping the deaths of some of his Wolves from him. It’s certainly not a good thing and it can definitely lead to a slippery slope but there’s very little benefit to condemning her for things she hasn’t done yet.

It’s not like she just swept things under the rug, either. She and Sai are both actively working to get the Mizu situation under control- which is part of their roles under Tsukuyomi- and, as mentioned in her thoughts in a recent chapter, she knows that he’ll have to be informed of the situation if they can’t.

If they can, however, she doesn’t see any need to tell him that it was a death connected directly to his orders. Her intentions are to tell him they died in training accidents or on patrols to avoid making him more hesitant to use them.

The Wolves are important to Naruto and she’ll do what she can to both take care of them and, more importantly, take care of him.

Speed

Ah, while I haven’t heard it as much recently dissatisfaction with my plot speed has been made known to me. While I cannot promise how long it will last or how it will effect the rest of the story- I’m making it up as I go along, which sounds much more impressive if I wasn’t talking about a story – but with chapter 89 setting it up chapter 90 will start a much faster section of the story.

Again, not sure how long that will last or what the consequences will be but a lot will be happening in chapters 90 and beyond.

Tsukuyomi

As FadeToBlack1994 pointed out, I have finally fixed the spelling of Tsukuyomi. It would have been a lot sooner had someone pointed that out to me three years ago, but I only realized when I had to double-check the story of Tsukuyomi slaying the food Kami to make sure I didn’t butcher it too much with my very brief paraphrasing.

The worst part? I distinctly remember looking up the damn spelling before using it for the first time.

The Plumpy Gate Question

Sounds almost like a deep, philosophical dilemma like that, doesn’t it?

It’s not.

Guest Plumpy asked why Naruto didn’t go back to the Uzumaki compound once he figured out Sealkeeper because he would then be able to modify the seal on the gate. Excellent question, Plumpy.

The answer?

I didn’t think of it.

Well, that’s my answer. Naruto’s answer was that he had washed his hands clean of the clan and wanted nothing more to do with them, even if it was just looting the compound. His success would be completely independent of the Uzumaki and he will not make use of a single Yen that came from them to fund his House of Wolves.

That almost sounds in character. You know, aside from the fact that he’s a Wolf and he’ll take anything from anyone to support his pack.

PassingThrough

I’m reasonably sure the Guest reviewer PassingThrough wont’ see this, but I’ll respond nonetheless.

First, I’d like to thank you for the compliments on my writing. Personally I don’t believe I’m anything more than average but my ego has been quite flattered by your kind words.

We’re sorry to see you go but wish you the best of luck finding something more suited to your tastes. Perhaps ,as you say, you’ll be able to enjoy the story more when you come back to it. I don’t think it will reach five years, so December of 2020 should allow you to reread it in it’s entirety.

Maybe. I have no idea where this story is going to go before it reaches the end I’ve planned.

What has me most concerned about your review, however, is that you fear a direct response from me and specifically used a guest review to avoid it. While it’s very likely that I would have responded to your review to ask questions about what it is that caused you to put down the story- it’s the only way to improve, after all- I did not realize the prospect of speaking to me was so horrible.

I like to consider myself pretty approachable.

Online, at least. I’m well aware my resting face is usually a frown, which keeps people away in public.

If you do happen to see this, I really would appreciate it if you’d be so kind to elaborate on what caused you to leave. If you still wish to avoid direct contact, feel free to use the ‘Contact’ link above. For the email just put in mine, it’s listed on that page.

Again, we’re sad to hear you’ve grown to dislike the story but we wish you the best in your future reading endeavors and thank you for your kind words.

General Response and Closing

Overall the responses were again quite positive, the most notable words being ‘Wonderful’ and ‘Arousing’. With it being “Wonderfully arousing” I’m proud to officially give Anko-Status to Chapter 86.

That will wrap up this commentary so I’ll get started on the 2019.06.30 update.

Until I next have your attention,

-Eyazahrid

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Amaterasu – Posted 2019.06.17

The following are the recorded responses of Eyazahrid to the feedback he received on the above listed chapter and the story in general for the week following. This document is to serve as a replacement to the traditional Author’s Note at the beginning and ending of chapters and will be kept separate from both the above listed chapter and any future chapters unless deemed sufficiently important.

Secrets

This seems to be a very big concern among my readers- and understandably so – but I don’t think anyone’s quite as vocal about it as CamTheThief. While I won’t go too far into the specific secrets I do want to address an aspect of them that I fear might be misunderstood.

This should not be a spoiler, but if you’re a massive fan of the secrets being kept between Mai and Naruto I would advise skipping this section. It shouldn’t be too long.

First, I would like to make two things clear.

  1. No, this is not good for any relationship. With all they’ve been through together they shouldn’t be keeping secrets from each other.
  2. Neither of them are keeping secrets with any intention other than to protect those they care about. Is it a good idea? No. Are the intentions good? Yes.

When it comes to Mai and her secrets, it’s not a matter of subverting Naruto or because she doesn’t think he’s capable of handling the situation. She’s keeping this from him to spare him from knowing his actions caused more deaths of his children. Her intentions are to resolve the matter so he doesn’t have to but she knows that if she cant’ she has to turn to him. Again, she has more faith in his abilities for this situation than in her own, she just doesn’t want to burden him with them.

As for Naruto, he was well aware that Mai would find out that he had been injured almost immediately he was just avoiding a scolding. It would have been very easy for him to keep her from knowing at all.

Was it a good idea? Not really, because the way she then learned makes her thing he’s unaware that she knows when he was fully expecting her to find out that way rather than telling her himself.

Oh, look, I’ve started going into specifics after saying I wasn’t going to. Fuck it, let’s just finish this part up.

The existence of Tsukuyomi – refering to his clone- is probably somehing else being considered a secret.

That is not intentional on his part. He’s been meaning to tell her, he just keeps forgetting. recently, I believe- it can be hard to remember what you’ve read versus what I’ve written, so I hope this has happened already – he even had a thought that he was forgetting somethingimportant- Tsukuyomi- but figutred that if it was important Mai would have reminded him.

You can see the obvious problem there. Naruto’s still getting used to there being two of him as well and usually doesn’t think of Tsukuyomi as himself until after it dispells. When he has all the memories of spending time with Mai as Tsukuyomi and was for all intents and purposes there with her, it doesn’t even cross his mind to let her know he was doing it through a Jutsu.

To him, it was simply him being there.

I do hope I managed to explain that part well enough.

In summary; Yes, secrets bad. No, they aren’t intending to hurt each other with them. Yes, this will effect their relationship when it all settles.

And for now, I’ll leave it at that before I spoil anything.

Gaara’s Picture

Yes, It’s going on the fridge.

Smut

There are still a few of you who would like to see some Smut in the story but I’m afraid it just isn’t going to happen. I’ve taken plenty of risks with the story already- and you all know how well those turned out- and I thought those were good ideas at the time. I know smut is going to end poorly and I don’t feel comfortable trying to interject it into this work.

Perhaps in future works- after a couple of dirty oneshots- I’ll feel more comfortable about it but I just don’t think I could do such scenes well enough to fit the current story. if any of you are familiar with Botsuraku you’ll know of my only published lemon and the quality you can expect if I try in Sealkeeper.

It’s less than inspiring.

Then again, I wrote that forever ago so maybe I would do better these days. I’ll have to try it on a different project to see how it goes before subjecting Sealkeeper to it.

We’ll see.

RuneCrafter

A guest review from RuneCrafter was near the bottom of my list when I was going back through them but what they mentioned stood out to me.

I’d like to welcome them- and I hope everyone else will too- to the Naruto FanFiction Community. Apparently Sealkeeper was their first introduction to Naruto stories and we managed to not scare them away.

If you’d like to find some better works feel free to peruse my favorites list where I’ve stashed many dozens of them but I’m glad to hear you enjoyed Sealkeeper and I hope to one day see some Naruto stories of your own on the site.

In Closing

Once again responses seem mostly favorable and I hope to continue that into the future. The next chapter should be posted about seven hours after I post this and I look forward to seeing how it’s received.

Until I next have your attention,

–Eyazahrid

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So, as is becoming an alarming trend lately, I have not managed to catch up on my writing. We’re still ahead- thank the gods- but our five-chapter lead has been gone for some time now. In fact, I can’t even provide a teaser because the next chapter to tease isn’t done yet.

Worse, because I’m not even managing to keep up with Sealkeeper I can’t work on any of my other projects such as the Tatsuki “Oneshot” or The Warlock of Winterhold. Then again, I’m not even sure if Warlock will ever come into being because my notes are limited and my saves seem to have been messed up.

Unless I manage to recover them I’m better off just starting a new game, in which case I’ll probably stream it. That could be interesting, I suppose, letting you all see- and perhaps influence- what we do and then getting to read the story I spin from it.

I’ll have to keep that in mind.

I’ve mentioned this in a recent tweet, but I am going on vacation soon. I’ll be off for a week and only three days have been set aside to relax at a nearby casino, so the other four days will hopefully allow me to get some actual work done. Unlikely, but my fingers are crossed.

No, wait, nevermind that. If I’m going to have a stroke of good fortune let it be at the casino, please. Covcerign my stay would be awesome, paying of my car would be fantastic, and anythign beyond thet is, well, pretty damn unlikely.

Probably have better chances with the Lottery tickets I bought earlier.

My gambling aside- can anyone say ‘retire into obscurity and write without any worries’?- I do want to mention a few of the things I need to get done here. Mostly so I feel more obligated to get them done because you’re all expecting them.

Remember that forum I set up here on the site? [There should be a link to it somewhere above you] Yeah, it’s still empty. I’ve been meaning to go through my old ideas and post them there but haven’t gotten around to it.

I want to have at least three of them polished up and posted there before the end of my vacation.

We need to regain our lead, which means five chapters ahead and I need to post a chapter during my vacation- it will be from my hotel room or possibly from my phone as I lounge by the pool if I’ve already added it to the Doc manager of FF.net- so I have to get chapter 92 done by the timer I’m back- Wednesday- and I’ll have the rest of the week to finish up chapter 93.

other than those, the only other thing on my to-do list that may interest any of you would be that I’m going to post my last couple streams on Youtube. It’s really difficult and time-consuming. I totally don’t just name it, throw on some tags, and give it a basic description before walking away to do something else while it uploads for the next forty minutes.

Oh, wait, I do. Really no excuse for not having those up yet- really, I could be doing them now instead of talking about them- but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Mydia has been rather needy lately and my will is weak.

Of course, getting just those three tasks done- I make it sound simple, but that’s a good four chapters and my rate peaked at about 2.5 chapters a week – is going to be made more difficult by the next bit of news I have;

I finally got VR.

I’ve been debating getting a VR system for a while now and was mostly hesitating on the price- and because I know it will eat up my limited free time like little else- but I did finally give in. Menoly is going to immensely distracting over the week.

On one hand, that’s something that may impede my progress. On the other, it may serve as a good motivator to get the chapters done.

And speaking of chapters, 89 onward is going to bring a very rapid advance- and possibly conclusion- to the Rebellion Arc. I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to effect the rest of the story’s pacing- or plot- but I already see this part in my head so it’s going on paper.

Er, in a manner of speaking.

That’s about all I have for this week and I still need to write up that commentary- not much really stood out that I can recall, though I do have a pretty pad memory- aside from Cam’s series of reviews. I think those were more notable because she’s been absent lately and suddenly I have five reviews from her. I’ll have to pull up the other reviews for the chapter to see if there’s anything I actually need to address.

There probably is, I just hope I can get it done quickly. I have more stuff to do and need to be in bed soon for work tomorrow. I’d really appreciate it if the gods would like to favor me with a lottery win or a real good haul from my upcoming casino trip so that’s not as much of an issue.

You may consider invoking your gods to that effect, too, if you’d like to provide me with more time to write for you. Or, you know, click on an add before you go. I’ll take what I can get.

We’ll finish this up with some pictures of happy little trees- well, one of them is being as bit droopy lately- and I’ll see you all in eight hours or so with the next chapter. Ah, damn, I need a name for it still. Might save that for tomorrow right before I post.

Nothing like putting things off until the very last minute.

Here are those trees.

Until I next have your attention,

–Eyazahrid

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Morons – Posted 2019.06.10

The following are the recorded responses of Eyazahrid to the feedback he received on the above listed chapter and the story in general for the week following. This document is to serve as a replacement to the traditional Author’s Note at the beginning and ending of chapters and will be kept separate from both the above listed chapter and any future chapters unless deemed sufficiently important.

Divinity

There were a few responses that talked about Mai’s thoughts about godhood either calling for her to be put back in her place or claiming she’s delusional. Ashenerden mentioned that despite being a Jounin-level Shinobi she’s just cannon fodder to S-rankers.

Yes, absolutely correct. Everyone is cannon fodder to an S-rank Shinobi. A-rank is elite, an S-rank is legendary.

I also mentioned this in a previous commentary, but when it comes to rogue Shinobi part of their ranking is based off their bounty, so most of the S-rank nuke-nin aren’t actually S-rank Shinobi.

For example, Mai is a low A-rank, Kakashi is a high A-rank, and Itachi is a low S-rank.

As far as I’m concerned, Kakashi is very close to Itachi’s level and the only real difference is Itachi’s Sharingan. Remove the Sharingan from both and I would consider them to be equal.

To better show this, I’ll list below some of Akatsuki’s members and the Shinobi ranking they merit, as opposed to their rogue status.

Deidara – High B-rank, Low A-rank

Konan – High A-rank

Sasori – Mid S-rank

Kukazu – Mid S-rank

Hidan – Low B-rank

Pein – High S-rank

Kisame – Mid A-rank

Perhaps not cannon, but this is how I’m viewing these Shinobi. You may notice that those with S-rank status are those with skillsets that allow them to be Army-Killers. That is very much intended. A-rank Shinobi are expected to be able to easily handle squads of B-rank Shinobi, S-rank Shinobi are able to handle groups of A-rank Shinobi.

That’s why Deidara is a bit higher than his actual ability should merit. With his explosives he can be expected to clear squads of average Shinobi (Average is B-rank) but he himself really isn’t Elite. He’s pretty average outside of his explosives and one could probably argue that his reliance on those explosives probably means the rest of his skills have suffered.

Power aside, Mai is not becoming Amaterasu because she believes herself to be a goddess or because she’s powerful. Rather, she’s elevating herself to equal status with Naruto. Likewise, Hinata does not believe herself to be a goddess but her followers do. That belief gave them hope and now gives them security so she continues to maintain it for their sake.

And on the subject of followers, Ashenerden‘s review also mentioned the Wolves and how their belief in Naruto’s divinity and that he’s their father makes them all as mentally sound as Gaara.

Again, yes. Completely correct.

The Wolves are the prospective ROOT agents whose mental conditioning was unsuccessful. When I say that I don’t mean that they couldn’t be conditioned, but that the result wasn’t what Danzo had been aiming for. The result? Shinobi less sound than the average. That’s been another theme in this story- very few Shinobi are mentally sound and those that are usually don’t get very far.

As for their belief in his divinity, it is only a handful- zealots- who truly believe this. The majority of the Wolves are aware that he’s as mortal as they are and only go along with it to help maintain his persona. Tsukuyomi is the name Mai gave their leader to hide his identity and provide a sense of power. They don’t see anything wrong with making sure it stays that way.

When it comes to him being their father, however, he is. Naruto founded the Wolves – and later the House of Wolves – and thus is the father of the organization. He gave them direction and purpose again and they love him for it. Add to that the rather parental role he’s taken in their life and you’re going to loose any argument with them trying to convince them otherwise.

None of the Wolves, however, believe him to be their biological father- not even the zealots.

General Response

I normally mention the more positive responses near the end but I have a very special negative review I’m going to enjoy ripping apart so I’m saving it for last.

The majority of you enjoyed chapter 84, specifically the fact that Naruto got with Anko and the ending scene with Yugao, which I’m very glad to hear. I wasn’t sure how exactly the Yugao scene would be taken but I had high hopes because I was very fond of it after it was written.

One reader has expressed their dislike of there being a self-loathing female but when the majority of characters interacting with Naruto are female it’s kind of inevitable. You may have noticed that most of the characters have bouts of self-loathing, Naruto being in the lead for that particular race.

Personally, I prefer the term “Regret”, but self-loathing is pretty apt. A bit extreme, maybe, but it gets the idea across well enough.

Not to say self-loathing might not become even more apt in the future. In case you’re not a fan of that, you’ve all been warned. My actors will continue to suffer right up until the last scene. After that, well, that will be more a matter of opinion.

Kukukukuku.

Now, with the general feedback generally covered let’s dive in to the review I’ve been looking forward to tearing apart all damn week.

OmegaRealism

I’m not even going to paraphrase it, I’m just going to copy the whole thing below so you can go over it with me. Oh, this will be fun.

“and 85 fucking chapters in and all i have seen since chapter was was gay ass boring bullshit nothing about this trash has been good, hell i have skipped over 60% of this trash to see if you could even man the fuck up and make your gay ass pathetic weak little limp dick naruto get the fuck off his ass out from behind an office desk and fucking do something yet again i was wrong because 90% of you trashy people on this website are far to easy to read and predict considering i can and have predicted almost every more you naive trashy authors have made when writing a story. you have been reported for writing about politics when this website does not approve of such a thing. i could write a story with this many chapters while my wife is sucking my fucking cock without a damn issue and i sure as hell won’t ever write about gay ass politics or bitches pushing paper work fuck that you are either on the fucking battle field with those you send out to die or you have no right being in charge.”

What to start on first? The lack of capitalization? The lack of punctuation? The fact that they have no profile picture, no bio, no favorite stories, nothing posted, and have turned off private messaging? Oh, it’s so delicious that I can’t wipe the shit-eating grin from my face.

The best part? Now that I’ve started these commentaries I can rip it apart here without bothering the readers who don’t care and this fucker doesn’t get the satisfaction of having their name in my chapter.

Let’s go from the top, then, and just take this piece by wonderful piece.

First, you’re 85 chapters in. If you’ve read all 550,000+ words before you decided it was boring then you need to get a hobby or a job or something. Maybe I’m a slow reader or it’s just been so long that I don’t recall properly but I usually estimate a 100,000 word story as a six hour read. If that’s even close to being average that it would be safe to assume this person wasted some 33 hours on a story they didn’t like.

Gods above, I would love that kind of free time.

Next, Naruto is not gay. I think we’ve established that with the two women he slept with. He may be bisexual – I could always go that route, I suppose, though it’s not the plan – but he’s certainly not homosexual.

As for waiting on him to do something, he very recently went on a mission where he blooded Sakura. He also managed to get the Kage-Bunshin working so that he can get out from behind his desk and focus more on his career as a Shinobi.

What else? Something about giving Inoichi a body, resolving his issues with Shizune, using Biju Chakra for the first time, and becoming a part of team seven. It’s like he’s been taking care of things as he transitions from being burdened by his responsibilities as a Daimyo- you know, from the country he took over- to being able to focus on his lifelong ambition of being a Shinobi.

I’m sorry he hasn’t been in any wars yet or discovered the bullshit scroll of overpowered Jutsu and mythical super-rare holographic poke-summon yet as he builds his harem. We seem to be waiting on Kakashi to decide which country they’ll be going after. Unfortunately he keeps getting distracted by his book.

If that’s what you’re after, though, I’ve enjoyed a lot of those over the years so feel free to scroll down my favorites list to find something more to your taste.

Gods, how did you get to chapter forty if you think he’s doing nothing now? I quite clearly remember writing like three chapters in a row with him in a fucking carriage.

Erm, moving on.

You can predict it all, huh? Did you see that you wouldn’t enjoy it before you wasted all that time, dumbass?

Apparently I’ve been reported for writing about politics, too. I haven’t poured over the rules lately, but I’m 99% certain that’s intended to mean don’t discuss real world politics, not that whatever story you write cannot have any sort of political structure. You know, because that would be dumb.

You remember those 33 hours? There was a much better use for it. If you can write a better story and are tired of seeing so much trash on this site fucking do it. Seriously, if you can contribute to the community do so. I sure as hell won’t mind another good story being posted. Fuck, if it’s a fandom I know I’ll check it out and be perfectly content to read the damn thing.

Not sure why you brought your poor wife into this – maybe you could have spent all that time with her instead of wasting it on something you could predict you wouldn’t like – but congratulations, I guess. I suppose it’s to establish the fact that you are most assuredly not gay despite that being one of your favorite words, if I’m understanding things properly.

Or maybe it’s some sort of achievement?

Personally I’m married to my job – and she can be a real bitch – but tell her hello from me, I guess. Oh, better yet let her read the story. Never hurts to have more people enjoying my work, after all.

It seems as though you have a pretty outdated sense of battlefield command, too. It’s good to have people with the front lines leading the charge but it’s also important that your leader doesn’t die and that whoever is issuing orders has a clear picture of the conflict. It’s awfully hard to maneuver troops when you’re in the middle of combat.

Then again, that’s for open battles and these are Shinobi. You know, assassins. Operating in small cells to achieve goals and being directed from the shadows. Kiri’s the closest to an open battle that they have at the moment and that’s primarily small skirmishes. There’s also the matter of keeping his identity secret. He only recently figured out Kage-Bunshin so joining the fight wasn’t much of an option.

There’s also the fact that he’s not as strong as the Wolves at the moment, so there’s no benefit to him being there. Naruto is the moral and political leader, their commander is Sai. You know, the young man who is also directing the battle from afar.

I don’t exactly see any prime ministers or presidents on the battlefield these days, but the military commanders don’t seem to have any issues utilizing established chains of command to direct their troops. It’s almost like they can trust them to follow orders and make the necessary judgment calls while on the field.

Weird.

It’s like soldiers are trained for a reason instead of being random people rounded up and told to charge.

And no right being in charge? Who’s to decide that right? Oh, yeah, those being led. In this case it would be the Wolves. Huh, they don’t seem to have any problems with Naruto being in charge. You know, the young man who changed their seals and gave them purpose again. They seem pretty happy with him leading them. What right do you have telling them who they can’t chose to follow?

I could probably say more but I’m late to post this and have other things I need to take care of. I will ask that when you write that amazing story of yours you do a better job than on your review. You don’t do yourself any justice when you argument is made of run-on sentences and you can’t be assed to capitalize.

Cheers, dumbass.

And with that addressed, I do believe we’re done with this commentary.

Until I next have your attention,

–Eyazahrid

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Normally I sit down after work to write up the commentaries, the update, and to do a quick proofread of Mondays’ chapter. Switching things up today I’m writing this during my break instead of working on chapter 89 because I’m not going to be conscious enough to do this once I get home.

As I type this I’m on 27 hours and I still have another 5 until my shift ends. When I get home it’s going to be a very brisk shower followed by me grabbing a blanket and a pillow before collapsing onto the floor for the next twelve hours.

I suppose I could have tried sleeping earlier, but I usually can’t sleep for just four hours and I’m too paranoid to risk it. I can’t stand being late and I was already late for the first time in over a year the other day because I managed to sleep through all my alarms.

So, with my lack of sleep already making standing an interesting challenge, there’s no way I’m going to be able to do this later. For that reason I’m also pushing the commentary for chapter 84 to tomorrow. I’ve already gone over chapter 85 so when I get up tomorrow I’ll type up the commentary and post both it and the chapter.

So far there’s been no luck in the job search but I did put in an application this morning so hopefully I hear from them soon. I’ll try calling them sometime tomorrow to increase my chances but that’s going to be interesting when I work during most of the business day.

Fingers are crossed, though, it seems like the job would be a good fit for me. You know, assuming I’m understanding the job listing correctly. I’ll have to make sure what I’m imagining is even vaguely close to reality before committing to it.

And if I don’t get it, well, I have a list of other jobs which all seem better than my current one. Hopefully I can be somewhere else no later than August.

Might have a paid vacation coming up, too, so getting it after that would definitely be preferably. I haven’t had a vacation in years and the chance to spend a week doing nothing but sleeping and catching up on my writing sounds fantastic.

I should probably see an optometrist, too, considering I’ve known that I’m nearsighted for over a year now and my vision plan kicked in months ago.

But that’s enough of my personal crap, let’s focus on what you’re really here for- Sealkeeper.

Chapter 89 is still only in it’s infant stages, so quite a lot of work to catch up still, but I did sit down and type up the plan for the next half dozen scenes and I think you’ll enjoy them.

I haven’t had any time for my other projects, which is a shame, but with the completion of chapter 88 I do have a new teaser for you.

“Hinata, Cuddles, and Naughty Misunderstandings.”

Nice and short but I’m sure it will keep you busy wondering what’s going to happen.

Haven’t taken any recent pictures of my Bonsai so I don’t have any of those to share but they are doing well still, which is good.

Break’s just about over so we’ll end this here. I’ll see you all tomorrow for the next chapter.

Until I next have your attention,

-Eyazahrid

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This has not been a good week for Sealkeeper. Chapter 88 is now two weeks overdue and is sitting at a mere 66% completion. Over the last week, I think I managed a whopping 300 words. Between being sick and being at work I haven’t had much free time and the one day I did have a generous amount of spare time I ended up spending it all playing the League of Maidens alpha which you can blame on Nssheepster.

There isn’t even all that much to do in the game at this point, they’re just making sure the functions are, well, functioning, so I don’t know how I wasted so much time in the game. I didn’t even mess around with the fun little extras, either, all my time was spent in missions and freeroam.

I was at least smart enough to avoid the temptation of making use of their pose mode because I’d probably still be playing with it.

If you want pictures, though, just let me know. I can always post a few of my darling Faewyn here.

And speaking of pictures, we do have some Bonsai pictures again because I got around to changing out the soil finally. Better yet, they’re both in pots now!

Miracle, isn’t it?

She needs a trim, I suspect, because the lower branches aren’t getting much light so they’re slowly withering away. I’ll need to get to that soon.

Other than that, she’s doing pretty well. Still need more vertical growth so the limbs can drape without falling out of the pot but we’ll just have to wait for that. I probably should choose one of the ‘trunks’ (Don’t think they’re quite far enough along to be called such) to keep and snip away the other so they don’t compete but the idea of having two trunks sort of twisting together as they grow really appeals to me.

I’ll just have to keep my eye on her in the meantime. Pleasing my sense of aesthetics takes second place to making sure she doesn’t die.

And see? I wasn’t lying. Shes’ been potted finally. It’s a bit bigger than I wanted and quite a bit deeper- this is probably going to ruin the roots- but there wasn’t a wide selection at the store I stopped in at so this was the best I could do.

Shes’ a little low, too, but that’s probably my fault. just like all those leaves that have fallen into her new pot. Not sure if I knocked those off during the re-potting or if she’s just not liking her elevation but she seems to be doing okay overall so I’m not too worried.

I have a bunch more seeds, so I should probably plant those eventually but I think we’ll wait until these two are a bit more grown and I know I can keep them alive for a decent amount of time. These two recently hit their six month mark, so maybe after a year I’ll start some more.

Unfortunately those pictures will be your only goodies this week because I haven’t even finished the chapter you’re supposed to be getting a teaser on.

Sorry.

I actually got up from my desk in hopes of finding my cat so I could share a picture of her but I have no idea where she’s off to. Better luck next time I suppose.

Not much else to cover here, I guess. I have recently updated my resume and I’m going to start submitting it to some hiring sites to see what responses I get. If we’re really fortunate I can find something that pays the same – or maybe even more- as my current job while dropping me back down to 40 hours a week. That would free up at least ten hours for me- possibly twenty if I didn’t feel the need to get there two hours early most days- and that could go a long ways in making sure chapters are done on time and that I have the opportunity to work on other projects.

Fingers are crossed, but even a general search for jobs in my area looks promising. I can make more an hour sitting behind a desk at a highschool than helping manage the restaurant, so why stress myself for less pay?

Hopefully we’ll have an update on that front by next week. I’ll just have to make sure I use my paid vacation time before I quit.

I really need that vacation.

Until I next have your attention,

–Eyazahrid

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Blossom’s Edge – Posted 2019.06.03

The following are the recorded responses of Eyazahrid to the feedback he received on the above listed chapter and the story in general for the week following. This document is to serve as a replacement to the traditional Author’s Note at the beginning and ending of chapters and will be kept separate from both the above listed chapter and any future chapters unless deemed sufficiently important.

Sakura

While the majority of feedback I received for Sakura’s role in the last chapter was positive, I did receive a few reviews expressing either disagreement or confusion about the situation.

The main question seems to be why Naruto would bother to help Sakura. I thought it was obvious but I’ve made that mistake before.

Naruto’s helping Sakura because making Sakura a competent Kunoichi is beneficial to him.

He’s part of team seven now, she’s his teammate. That means she’s the one watching his back in the field. The last thing he wants is a teammate who can’t hold her own. Having a useful Sakura is, well, useful.

Why have dead weight when you can teach them to pull their own?

It didn’t cost him anything more than a few extra minutes, either, and if that improves his team’s future survivability it’s well spent.

The next part will address the other matter that came up – how Naruto handled the situation.

Psychology Skills

I’ll just make it clear here- Naruto has absolutely no knowledge or training on this subject. In chapter 83 he made use of manipulative logic to try turning a scared young woman into a killer.

Did he go about it wrong? Oh, very much so. As Mo Eazy pointed out, he was going about things backwards and focusing on some incorrect areas. I did not intend for him to be some sort of master mental manipulator and I’m glad he didn’t come off that way. He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing – I do believe he has the same thought in the chapter, too, or at least something similar – and it’s a miracle it worked as well as it did.

And how well did it work? Well, I’ve already included that in one of the future chapters, though I can’t remember exactly which one. You’ll get to see exactly how successful Naruto really was.

It was to be expected, really, his primary frame of reference for emotional conditioning are the Wolves. We love ’em but we’re all well aware that they aren’t the most normally functioning individuals.

To really simplify it, Naruto applied Wolf-Logic (Which is only about a degree or so less than Anko-Logic) to solve the problem of an untrained, unblooded Kunoichi out in the field. The results will be less than stellar –

From an outsider’s perspective, at least. I don’t think the Wolves will find anything wrong with our little Sakura.

Naruto’s Direction / Goals

For most of the story, Naruto has had his own little projects that we’ve focused on and they’ve served as short-term goals. At the moment he doesn’t have many short-term goals – Kage Bunshin was probably the biggest recently – and instead we see him dealing with daily affairs while his more long-term goals play out.

Regardless of where he’s decided to apply his attention, however, he has always had a constant goal- the success of the Wolves.

Ultimately, it’s the only one that matters to him. The problem with that goal is that there’s really no end. Looking after the House of Wolves will be a constant task and there won’t be a point that he can say ‘Alright, that’s done.’ before moving on to something else. In short, it’s not really an obtainable goal.

It’s also hard to say what actions properly work towards this unobtainable goal because he could start a farm with the Wolves and consider it being a success for supporting the Wolves or he could take over a country and consider that a temporary success. Regardless of what he does, he must constantly work towards providing his Wolves a better future.

That is his goal and until his final breath it will remain his primary concern.

At the moment, all we really see are glimpses of his efforts in Mizu no Kuni but I do have other plans for him to be working on soon. He has plenty of ideas for the house of Wolves, it’s just a matter of having everything he needs to implement them.

I’m not sure if we’ve peeked in on them yet (My memory is pretty bad), but several characters have mentioned the fact that there are more Wolves currently being trained which will be pretty important as Naruto tries to expand.

That’s as much as I’ll say on that, though, wouldn’t want to ruin the fun.

–

The response this week was again mostly positive so we’ll try to keep that trend going.

Until I next have your attention,

–Eyazahrid

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An update on Sunday? My, we’re doing much better this week. Of course the only reason I’ve managed this is because I had to leave work early and even then it’s taken me four hours to write the commentary, do a final check on chapter 83, and start on this.

Apparently constantly throwing up is not conductive to the workplace nor to getting my writing done. Didn’t have time to finish chapter 88 either, but it’s at least at 50%. Hopefully I can have it done by Tuesday so I can use the rest of the week to finally catch up.

I’m not going to take too long because I’m still not feeling well and it’s proving difficult to get my thoughts out through this haze but hopefully I don’t forget anything too important.

Actually, I can’t remember anything that I needed to talk about, let’s just jump straight into the goodies.

Here we have the Bonsai I still haven’t gotten around to giving an actual pot – I just bought one for it, I swear- and we can see just how much better my new phone’s camera is.

Not my favorite, but they’re growing nicely nonetheless. I need to change the soil in the next few days, so as soon as I’m feeling better we’ll get to both that and providing it with a proper pot.

My favorite is still doing well, though the branches are just falling around the pot. Hopefully we see some more vertical growth soon so that’s not an issue.

As expected, she too looks much better with the new camera.

With your monthly does of Bonsai provided, we’ll move on to your weekly teaser. I never can remember where we are for these, so I always have to go read the last post to check.

Ah, chapter 87 it is. Shit, that’s the last completed chapter, too. I really need to catch up.

Naruto hunts down Hayate’s killer, Keigo teaches us the duty of the elder siblings, and our prince starts to question just how useful his attempts to foster a good reputation have been.

That should do it for now, but if you’d like to come back after I post chapter 83 and click on an add I’d appreciate it. I’m still trying to get the website to the point where it’s self-sufficient. At the moment, we’re somewhere along the lines of 20% so everything helps.

Until I next have your attention,

–Eyazahrid

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The Anko Express – Posted 2019.05.27

The following are the recorded responses of Eyazahrid to the feedback he received on the above listed chapter and the story in general for the week following. This document is to serve as a replacement to the traditional Author’s Note at the beginning and ending of chapters and will be kept separate from both the above listed chapter and any future chapters unless deemed sufficiently important.

Why I Write

When I read the first review for chapter 82 “I wonder for what purpose you write this.” I’ll admit I was more than a little confused. Was it a question about something specific in the last chapter? If so, what? While I could have gone to the reviewer for more clarification, I’m a busy man who puts things off for the last second.

So, instead of figuring out what they actually meant I’m going to take the liberty of assuming it was just a question about why I’m a writer on Fanfiction.net.

Sounds better to me than assuming it was some sort of insult about my writing abilities.

So, why do I write?

That’s actually a damn good question. At this point, I cant’ really see myself not writing. Fanfiction itself is something I’ve dabbled at throughout life- the first I can recall was back in the second grade when I wrote a story based on the Jackie Chan Adventures – and something I really started getting into at the beginning of high-school.

I was more of a reader than anything at that point- Bleach fics were my favorite, especially those more focused around Ichigo’s inner hollow – but I eventually branched out to other fandoms. After reading for a while, however, I wanted to give it an honest try myself.

The first result was, well, there’s a reason you won’t find the story ‘God of Hollows’ by Eyazahrid up on the site. It was the success of that story – though compared to my other works it was absolutely nothing – that motivated me to keep going.

The family was on vacation right after I posted that one and I cannot explain the joy of logging into my account to see I had reached a whole 6 views. After that any idea I had I started writing up. Most of them stayed on my computer but those I liked the most were posted and received better feedback. It sort of snowballed from there until Born Into Wickedness and Awaken, Noblesse became my most successful stories. They also became some of the first stories I had that were updated even somewhat regularly.

Botsraku became the first story where I prepared chapters in advance and updated on a schedule rather than updating as soon as chapters were finished.

Soon after I ended up finishing high-school and started working. The amount of free tiem I had dropped significantly and was used towards games more than writing. I couldn’t completely escape it, however, as once you start twisting worlds you find yourself thinking about all the different things you can do for all the media around you.

Of all ideas I had, I liked the thought of ANBU kneeling before Naruto and so I started writing Sealkeeper. I promised myself I would finish it and despite some ups and downs I don’t have any intention to break that promise. To be perfectly honest, that promise is the sole reason the story is still going. I would have moved on to different ideas long ago otherwise.

Even if I did stop writing that story in particular, writing has simply become such a large part of my life that I would never be able to stop completely.

I write because that’s who I am.

Overall Response

Beyond the question above that I probably stretched on unnecessarily, there wasn’t much in specific to be addressed for chapter 82. Interacting with Anko, Sai taking command, and Sakura being a closet pervert were all received pretty well based on the reviews posted for the chapter.

Hopefully future chapters are also received well because I made some strange decisions.

Until I next have your attention,

–Eyazahrid