Maybe it's alright to take what you can, when you can. It isn't perfect, it might be wrong, but soon enough you'll end up alone anyway. Series of loosely connected ficlets.

I feel pretty strongly that the second half of Naruto diverted all the momentum of the first half, where what I wanted to see was what would happen if it speeded up instead. This arc is an AU of canon, in which Kakashi dealt with Sasuke differently after the first fight with Itachi and Sasuke never left Konoha. Changes spiral off from that point. This is also the arc where I change all the things that truly made me tear my hair in canon, such as the carbon copy generations, the sidelining of the women, the apotheosis of Naruto as a solitary hero, and Itachi turning out to not be a villain. So none of that happens. There is, however, Sakura/Sasuke/Naruto goodness. Also featuring a dash of Kakashi/Iruka and a side arc about Hinata and the Hyuuga clan that somehow shoehorned its way in while I was innocently contemplating ninja sociology.

Thirty year old Kakashi was supposed to have been killed by Pein during the Invasion. Instead, he wakes up in the body of his twenty year old self. (It gets a lot more complicated.)

The Narutostuck world is a fusion wherein I have jammed Homestuck characters into the Naruto universe and am pretending they were always there. Basically the Land of Space (Uchuu no Kuni) lies to the west of the Land of Wind (Kaze no Kuni), separated by a great desert; its capitol is the village of Hidden Time (Kouingakure no Sato). For the past century or two, it has been ruled by the Condesce and engaged in an endless war of conquest on the continent across the western sea; recently, however, a rebellion led by the Sufferer succeeded in overthrowing her and establishing a new social order in which discrimination against humans and discrimination by blood caste are officially outlawed. Meanwhile, over in the Elemental Countries, the plot of Naruto has reached some sort of good-guys-win conclusion. Now the people on both sides of the desert are tentatively trying to establish some kind of normal diplomatic and trade relations... but the Condesce and her chief supporters were never caught, and are still seeking to restore their rule.

From the Legendary Sannin, to Jiraiya's genin team with Namikaze Minato, to Minato's genin team of Rin, Obito, and Kakashi... Team Seven can't manage to hand in normal paperwork. The genin are either completely oblivious or having fun with this, the jounin-sensei are one step away from ripping all their hair out, and the formidable order of desk-shinobi is not pleased with this. And then there's Team Kakashi.

Sasuke Uchiha is cheerful, forever smiling, and deadly with a sword in hand. Team 7 is cohesive, capable, and formidable apart but unbeatable when together. This world is better for all of it. [OR: Takeshi and Sasuke are one and the same. Mafioso and shinobi aren't so different, after all.]

No one in their right minds would ever expect it of him, and that’s why he’s the one best-suited to the job.

No one in their right minds would ever expect it of him, and that’s why he’s the one best-suited to the job.

In a world where Fugaku has three sons, he wishes he'd stopped at the one. There's nothing wrong with the youngest, it's just... The middle child.

For a prompt on my Tumblr: de-aged oro???? he was such a cute kid and i can just see everybody going wtf.

When Uzumaki Naruto breathed his last, he didn’t expect to wake up in the world of the living again. He was old, and tired, and so, so ready to move on. And, well...he wanted to see his wife again, dammit. But, of course, that wasn't what happened. Why? Naruto screamed at the powers-that-loved-to-fuck-with-his-life-and-now-his-afterlife-too, with tears streaking down his cheeks, feeling cold, weak, hungry, and utterly disgusted. Because you’re everybody’s bitch, Kurama helpfully supplied.