I established a forum at EdStargazer's Story Forums to discuss or comment on things brought to my attention on my Naruto stories.

As of checking in on 10/23/19, total words posted to date - 666.725 Total Page Views - 4,008,452

For a writer on here, nothing make you feel like a little kid on Christmas like having an author you like favorite one of your stories.

When you are a hero, you find that death itself is not as final as many want to believe it is. Past a certain power or ability level it is merely an ... inconvenience. [from as yet unpublished HP - DC Comics short by EdStargazer]

There comes a time when even a magical castle loses its luster, when spells and enchatments fail to thrill, when magic itself becomes ... mundane [by Hermione Granger in Chapter 6 of Tales from the Cutting Room Floor - Harry Potter by EdStargazer]

In comics: Lex Luthor, Darkseid, the Joker, Dr. Doom, Magneto, the Green Goblin.
In Books: Sauron, King Haggard, Rhett Butler, Voldemort
In Movies: Darth Vader, Ming the Merciless, Maleficent

They are characters we all know and dislike.
They are the reason for the story.
The reason the plot moves ahead towards its end.
The reason ushers have to sweep up popcorn at the base of the movie screen.
No story of any quality can exist without these most important of characters.
They are the reason for heroes to exist.
The antagonist, the 'bad guy'
The Villain

CROSSROADS

The old warrior stood in the crossroads looking at the paths before him. All the roads were clouded over and he could not tell what lay down them. Even so he must choose a path to follow. As he thought on his decision he looked back on where he had been before. It lay there spread out behind him, clear as the day it happened.

There was the first time he had stumbled. The reason behind it seems so petty now but then it was a major event. The awkwardness of youth and an innocent lack of knowledge had conspired against him. Even so, he had pressed onward in life. An unexpected angel had sung in his ear and given him the strength to carry on.

There was where he lost his childhood dreams. Life had taken him far from where he had dreamed so his way back to them had long been lost. He pressed onward. He swore he would find new dreams to replace the old ones. His grandfather was taken away piece by piece before dying in sadness. He knew there was nothing he could do about it but it weighed in him. His faith was shaken and he no longer professed it as loud as he had in the past.

There was where he regained his pride as he strode the path of the Warrior and lost it once more. Failure from his immaturity on the path of the Scholar had driven him to find this new path but he took to it with a full vigor. He was doing well at it until his own body broke beneath him and closed that path in the future. New dreams were required once more. But this time he dreamed less grandly, hoped less fervently, wished less forcefully. He knew it would hurt less when the next loss struck him.

Once more on the path of the Scholar, he took the lessons and maturity he learned as a Warrior and succeeded in time. He hoped that he could follow his dreams and for a time he did. Finding love in an unlikely place, he took to it with his whole being. Love brought family and a chance for happiness. But it would not last.

There was where he fell. His love had to have been true or it would not have hurt him so much losing it. But the one who brought it was false. She had merely used him as an escape from her own situation. Once she no longer faced returning to it, she walked away from him and their child without a glance back. Fate would deal with her in its own way but the pain broke him. It took the simple whimper of ‘Daddy?’ to rouse him from his pain. His responsibility would not be denied no matter how much his heart and soul bled. He moved on using responsibility as his purpose until his own strength and drive returned enough to let him stand again. But he stopped dreaming, stopped hoping, and stopped wishing where others could see it.

His face was grim and his humor was twisted but he was never an unkind man. Deep inside, when no one was watching, when he had a moment of respite from the world, he would look inside his soul. Past the pain, past the loss, past the scars to a place that only he knew, that only he could reach; a soft light still burned. The light of hope was now a mere ember but it still remained. He would die before he let this light go out. All his fondest memories lay here, every dream he ever dreamed, every wish he ever made. They stood watch; protecting the ember of hope from the world.

He touched them one by one to remember how they all had felt so long ago. The thrill of faith. The soaring dreams of his youth. The pride of his accomplishments as a warrior. The feeling of being held in love, even if the face of her was blocked. The first touch of his child and her first smile. How it felt to be whole not broken. One by one, he recalled all of the things that meant something to him and kept him human.

He backed out of his thoughts with a bit of strength restored and stared at the fog of the unknown once more. More trials awaited but he would take on them as well. He knew he would be hurt again and he might gain in return but he would go through them all. He could do no less as long as he could continue. His body was bent, his spirit was tattered and his soul was scarred but he still lived so he would endure it all. He glared up at heaven then spat down at hell; knowing he had not yet earned a place in either. He was neither saint nor sinner, neither angel nor devil. Just a simple flawed man. Lines of movies and poetry said things better than he could sometimes.

The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone and I must follow, if I can.
Hey you bastards, I’m still here!’.
‘Who else wants some?’.
Then he stepped into the unknown once more.

Things About Myself

On Reviews
I appreciate review like most authors do. Unlike a few authors I have seen, I will never hold my story hostage to get more of them. I write for my own enjoyment and not for the praise of others. I prefer critical responses to anything else. In truth, the thing that gets me glad about my posts is the fact that people think it is good enough to read so for that I thank all my readers.

On My Writing
I write for my own enjoyment. I am an amateur and as such my formatting, punctuation and style are far from perfect. I have learned from a previous attempt to write and post online that if I fall to pressure to produce the quality of my writing suffers. The Muse strikes when it will and forcing myself to keep up a tight schedule takes away the enojyment of the process.

Things I like in HP fanfiction
Well written stories that have a good plot and keep good faith to canon. The ones that stray too far off should at least say AU or the point where the story moves off of canon. Stories that are kept within the realm of believable within the universe they are set in. For example, nothing will make me hit the back button faster than Harry finding he has more gold in a vault than Ft. Knox sitting untouched for centuries.

My Harry Potter snippets (01/15/2013)
I will freely admit I am a H/Hr fan in spite of the obvious non-canon of it. I want to attribute Hermione's shift away from Harry after OotP as a combination of Harry's lack of expressed interest in her along with her life threatening injury in the MoM battle. She settled for second best as did Harry.
I have considered APWBD as the equal a Dark Lord of the worst kind. His history in DH only confirmed that view.
My snippets normally poke fun at the tropes most fanfiction use and in some fashion end up being H/Hr in the end

Sighs deeply and notes that Kishimoto went to the J.K. Rowling school of Lousy Endings

My Current Thoughts Regarding Naruto (05/10/17)

For the last four years, my Naruto stories have been languishing in a sort of limbo for various reasons. I have plots and plans for them but I cannot get around the disappointment of the canon. It began in the manga during the Sage Training Arc. I find the story stopped being about the characters and simply devoted itself to more and more power [think Dragonball to Dragonball Z and now Dragonball Super] Yes, to abuse the memes; Naruto went over 9000; It jumped the Shark. It were into the realm of Bad Storytelling

It got worse during the Fourth Ninja War battles. Jutsu so large you could see the curve of the planet. Seriously? The manga devolved into Stupidly Bad Storytelling. If these people had so much power at their disposal, why were they so beat up on in the earlier episodes?

The final nail was the lame and cheap ‘Final Battle’ between Naruto and Sasuke ending with Sasuke’s ‘redemption’. That coupled with chapter 700 and a crapuloge worse than the one JK Rowling made which basically took any character development by Naruto and Sakura in the first 690 chapters and deleted it.

I admit I was extremely disgusted with that outcome. I could go any direction on who Naruto ends up with and I have in several idea kernels. I do love the characters that Kishimoto created and I enjoyed many individual moments in the manga and the anime series but in the end I found the final outcome a Pure Fail.

I know the cultural difference played a role in the outcome but I also know I could never forgive a person who snapped my neck and drove a fist through my chest. My thinking will not allow for that no matter the circumstances or future necessity.

In spite of all that, I still plan to write my version of things as it is called Fanfiction for a reason. Do not expect anything close to end canon as I will not go there. My Sasuke will never get the redemption that the manga provides. He will always be powerful. That I have never denied him but he is not part of my ‘good’ list. At best he might enter the range of anti hero in some instances but he is not one of the ‘good guys’.

Sakura remains a sore point as I like the character but the anime destroyed Kishimoto’s early work in her development. Sakura could have been so much more if they had not fallen into the anime tropes with her. The over the top violence, the mood swings that make the worst manic depressive go ‘damn she is nuts’. By the time the quality of her character came out in the manga it was too late to salvage her reputation with fans.

Naruto himself is a puzzle. Fanfiction is all over on his treatment as a child but my take is simpler. Using the images in the manga of all the villagers turning their back on him I get the idea he was not abused as so many like to put. He was just shunned and ignored than anything else. He acts out to gain attention as opposed to simply be destructive. Negative attention is better than none at all.

I wrote in one instance he is a ‘sad lonely boy who just wants to have some ramen’. I still adhere to this sentiment. He hides his true self behind a mask of the Fool. He craves acceptance and friendship and as he shouts out, his ‘precious people’ are worth everything to him.

Sadly, canon Naruto is not as deep as that

Personal Notes

10/23/19

Posting an old poem I wrote years ago on my profile. A few false starts on rewrites for my Naruto stories ended poorly but I always save before simply hitting AltF4 so I never lose writing to ragequits. I know I am over 5 years into no updates on a few things but I have not given up. Life comes first at all times. With my daughter grown, a little less responsibility means more time for things. We shall see what comes of it.

03/04/2019 Like many other writers I have read profiles on, I am having health issues. If the body cannot explore, then the mind does I guess. Even so, I try to put things out onto the page both for myself and those who like to read my attempts. My continued thanks to those who are sticking with me. I managed to put finished to my first story which should have been done years ago but I kept hoping my will would win out over everything else. I still have many ideas but few desires to sit at the computer and crank out the words when I work 50 hours a week. But my idea file still grows and modifies what is in it. I have read my Naruto Fictions from beginning to end once more and jotted down more ideas but that is still a WIP. Do not give up if you have hung on this long. In the famous words of Papillion, played by Steve McQuenn - 'Hey, you b@$tards, I'm still here!'

02/14/2017 Well life has thrown me a few curse but I am still plugging along. A bout of depression caused by medical issues has hit and is fading. To kick-start my muse [or simply kick it] I am posting what I have on my various in progress stories to date over the next week or so. They are rough in places but I need to keep moving forward. I cannot guarantee more than I have but I will say if I ever give up on something permanently.

04/13/2014 A few months back I was asked for and have given permission for someone to use one of my Harry Potter Cutting Room Floor ideas as the base for a larger story. I am keeping quiet on who and which for now but if anyone sees something that looks like one of mine before I update here with specifics, contact me by PM before jumping on another writer. Personally, I am looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

12/18/2013 I logged on to prepare to upload the next chapter of Captured before final edits and noted a curious fact. My inner fanboy geeked and joked. "The hit counter level! Its over Nine [hundred] Thousand!" Final chapter of the Sand Arc is days away as I let the file sit and re-read it in preview online looking for errors.

08/10/2013 Updated profile with a link to my DeviantArt account for as long as FF leaves it here. I am unloading my flash drive of half finished ideas over the next few weeks so people can see some other ideas I had in other genres besides Naruto and Harry Potter.
Also, when I was not paying attention my first story 'The Will born in Fire' has moved past 1 million total page views with 'Captured' closing in quickly at over 800,000 in spite of being 12 chapters and 55,000 words smaller. My profound thanks to everyone who thinks my stories are worthwhile reading.

01/15/2013 Several month of unemployment have taken their toll on my writing but as of today I can sincerely say, "I got a yob again!' (misspelling intentional). The job search and stress involved left me with many frustrated nights and lack of inspirations. but the eye is back to 95% and the rest of the bod working within expected tolerances. My Naruto stories have not grown enough to post new chapters but I hope to remedy that soon as I have numerous ideas scratched down on papers while waiting to see people in offices.

06/22/2012 A health issue came up that required surgery on my eye or end up losing my vision in that particular oculus. Naturally, I opted for the surgery. Bad timing to have this happen but life is not fair. I persevere and am still around as I try to find my muse. So far it is not hiding anywhere I have looked but I know it will be in the last place I look.

03/30/2012 I am trying to keep writing but I find worry about too many other things is hindering that. Writing is a way to relax for me but I will not simply force myself to do so if the fun is not there. I still fully intend to finish everything I started but it is slow. I am experimenting with other non Naruto items to see if I can find my muse once more

03/09/2011 More setbacks. My job is still in jeopardy as the construction business is almost non existant locally and the company is on the verge of closing completely. Not a good combination for inspiration. I try to force it but I am never satisfied with the results. Some ideas still move and I will keep trying to write. Please be patient.

04/21/2010 My writing has suffered many setbacks since I last updated this page. Personal issues and work issues always seem to find a way to interfere with my love of writing. But, writing fanfiction does not pay the bills so it is always a secondary concern. WBIF is nearly 10 months without an update at this point but I am working on it. I estimate a few more chapters on that before I mark it as complete with a sequel in the works already and hopefully started to post by the end of the year. 'Captured' has really taken off as far as popularity and that one has become my primary story. Continuing 'Runaway Hokage' has lost a lot of steam on my part but I have ideas sketched out. I must admit I broke my own self imposed rules on that one. I began it without a clear idea of where I would take it

A few stories I have at the bottom of my Favorites are high quality ones but never quite finished or abandoned by their authors. I do hope that they can take care of them one way or the other. They are too good to remove from my Favorites.