About the Author (For those who stumble onto my profile)

Hi I'm Lindsey! I've had this account for a very long time. I started writing fan fictions when I was around eleven or twelve. I started publishing them in early high school. Now... I'm 24! I wonder if I'm one of the oldest active writers on this website. I honestly don't know why I've never grown out of writing fan fiction. But honestly I think you're never too old to make believe and delve deeply into a world of someone else's creation. After all, isn't that what stories are for? I continue writing here because it's how I think, and because it helps me grow as a writer before I set out to publish my own works into a real book series.

So who am I? I'm a master's student at the University of Michigan studying clinical social work. Before now I received my bachelor's studying psychology and liberal arts. I'm a singer, and I have a lot of experience working with kids 0-18. It's strange to know that while I've grown up reading and writing fan fiction that period of my life is older than some of you. I have experience in paraprofessional crisis intervention and have talked probably more than 50 and less than a hundred individual people out of suicide. I can take crisis calls on a hotline for 16 hours and not get tired. I'm a foodie, an animal lover, and I have many types of a rare brain condition called synesthesia. It's when multiple senses are linked together. For example I have colors for each letter, and I see color, texture and pattern in music without trying. Each month is mentally located in a certain location around my head. That sort of thing. It's not a disorder because it doesn't impair me in any way. I love visiting new restaurants with my friends, having long deep thought provoking discussions, belting at the top of my lungs by myself in the car, interior decorating, cooking, and in general being pretty domestic. I have a crippling curiosity about too much, and I spend a lot of time researching to answer my questions just to keep myself sane. I am a devoted naruto fan, and I've devoted way way too much time to studying not only the characters but the themes, symbolism and creative process behind that particular anime in exclusion to all other animes (thousands and thousands of hours by now I'm sure.) My favorite characters are Itachi, Kakashi, and Kabuto. I like characters that I can really take apart.

I am also a self proclaimed Itachi expert. I have never met a person who has outstudied me on him. I challenge anyone who is interested to ask me a tricky question about him. I promise I won't look up the answer. If you can find a question I don't know the answer to, I will personally ship you a gift. I'm am not kidding.

Anyways, I'm sure that's more than enough about me. Feel free to message me about yourself if you're one of my readers! I'd love to talk Naruto with you.

About the OC Hikari Senju and about the story Itachi's New Partner

I wanted to post somewhere here why I decided to create this character instead of using another female that was already created for my story. After all, there are so many characters in Naruto, why not develop one that was already there?

I dreamt up the first chapter to the story, and in it the main thing I knew about the girl was that she had confidence. She kind of felt a little naruto esque to me because she was radiant (like her name) and she stood firmly on her ideals and never backed down from them. After waking, I realized that I wanted to write more about her because she was what the entire series as a whole lacked: a strong, independent female character. Every other women in this series was in some way a caricature of what women are seen as in a lot fo anime and in the media as a whole. Every single one was in the series at least partially preoccupied with a boy or boys in general. If they weren't they were only really there because they were sexualized. If they were successful, people remarked that they were single or unattractive. Very few were truly strong. It makes me sad when people defend Sakura in saying she was strong because she had super strength and could heal people very well. It's as if Kishimoto thought making a girl who could punch hard and be advanced in a stereotypically feminine ninjutsu was enough. Sakura, and all female characters deserved more than that. Women are more than that. Sakura was written as a character who loved Sasuke and couldn't really put her foot down and stand against him when he hurt her and many others. That's not inner strength. And even into the end of the series, none of the well developed women really could catch up to the men in their strength. Hikari was designed to fix all of that.

Hikari set off to help Itachi based off of principle, not love. She never wanted him to love her, she never expected to even have him as a friend. She was a strong fighter, and was not afraid to get blood on her hands unlike Konan. Naruto females were either sexual, soft, or aggressive and angry or a combination of the two. Hikari gets angry over principle but usually remained level headed. If there is one character that most resembles the type of woman she is, it is her aunt Tsunade. But Tsunade was seen in the fandom for her breasts, not her prowess as a ninja.

I wanted to make Hikari relatable to how women actually are. She's not perfect. She manipulated Deidara, thought of siding with Obito, and sometimes lost control. She was designed to be a counterpart to Itachi so she had to be strong, but she had to work really really hard to get stronger for herself. I wanted her to not be sexualized. I talked very little of her appearance and left it to reader interpretation. Itachi thought she was most beautiful when she was studying and when she was recouping from a battle. Hikari usually called him beautiful, and Itachi often called her strong. This is the type of character that this series desperately lacked. It was a huge hole that made women into caricatures of themselves. And I cared about it enough to write her.

But while the specifics of Hikari were thought up organically (she tended to take on a life of her own), the story was not. After some deliberation I thought it would be interested to share the context that shaped the story from the very beginning. I have decided to completely open up for anyone that is reading.

I began writing this story before the United State's most recent election. I wrote it while the world was flooded with divisiveness, when two opposing sides could not work together to become stronger as a whole. I wrote it during a time when people were so detached from so many equally valid lives that they forget their suffering, and how that detachment breeds the exact same chaos Itachi desperately tried to avoid. I got the theme of terrorism from terrorism in the real world. I thought of how many feel that small changes to the system are no longer enough and revolution is needed. I wrote about an oppressive regime because that's what people are afraid might happen today. I wrote about a flawed government whose mistakes endangered the lives of many people because that is what is happening in our world today. The Uchiha side story is the perfect scenario to connect to the world as it is today.

I also wrote of themes from my own personal life. I wrote of death and suicide because my friends were literally dying. While writing this two of my friends died by suicide. My close family and friends were suicidal. Even I was struggling with extreme depression (and seizures, lol) through a lot of this time. A family member died in this time. I wanted to share my perspective on death, because I too have never truly felt like our loved ones leave us. I have never truly felt like anyone was ever gone. I wanted to give that viewpoint to Hikari because it was a huge theme and message I wanted in this story and more than anything, I wanted to explore how Itachi would react to that. I didn't really give anything else of my personality or viewpoints to her. Honestly, I'm a lot more of a Hinata-type girl than a Hikari like girl. (Maybe Rin.) Her personality all came from that dream and then she took on a life of her own. Lastly but perhaps most importantly, I wrote this story to grow as a writer for my own books. And from the second chapter, I knew that I wanted to kill of Hikari, and that my number one goal was to MAKE READERS CRY. That's right, I'm a criminal. I wanted to make this story raw, hit people hard and make them cry because what I'm writing about might be a fan fiction but the pain in it is real and it matters. And I did it. I accomplished my goal and I hope that means that people got a lot of the messages I was trying to address to some extent. After finishing the story the way I had planned it, I decided to write a world in which Hikari lives on, because the idea of an Uchiha/Senju child was compelling but also because I wanted to directly write to any reader who is going through hard times themselves. I wanted her continued life to be a message about how people persist after hardship, even when they think they can't or they shouldn't go on any longer. Because as completely overrated as it sounds, I can truly say it gets better.

Guide on How to Make Characters Not OOC:

In comedic situations, having characters ooc is never a bad thing. However, when writing not comedic fics, it's good to have a few of these things in mind: Before even writing, go into the original work, whether it's a book or anime or whatever, and review the parts where your focus characters appear. Get a feel for the way they speak, even mannerisms and sayings they repeat, and pinpoint their major personality characteristics. For example, in Naruto, the main characters can be summed up usually into two-three main points with a few exceptions: Hinata is gentle/shy. Shikamaru is smart/lazy. Kakashi is cool/ perverted. Sasuke is cool/messed up. In Inheritance, the personalities are more complex. Christopher paolini was even more meticulous about keeping them in character than how they looked, in fact. Looking into them will be harder work. They each have their good points and their flaws. Then observe more of their details. Next step is to do a little research on their character via the internet. There are people who explore these characters meticulously and they have insights to how the characters might function in a story. Look at their experiences in life and that will give you insights to their mind and emotions too. After you feel like you've got their main points down in terms of the way they talk, behave, think and feel, it's time to write. Once you start, make sure you never stray from those original points, unless they are put into a situation that might cause them to change.

Guide on OC's and not making Mary Sues!

First off, and most simply, make the character simple enough to not be confusing, but complex enough to be relatable/ three dimensional- with flaws.

Making a character can be an EXTREMELY hard and mentally exhausting task, especially when paired off with some characters. I've worked on my character for a looong time and I admit, it's hard even now to portray her correctly. Here are some things to think about when creating one. Firstly, like characters that already exist, you want to have your character's personality fully developed even before writing. Aspects can be revealed later in the fanfic, but the majority of it should be shown in the beginning. It's wise to have their personality as simplified as possible too, because we can't see the character visually, as the writer sees it, so likely, they won't look to readers quite how they look in your head. That way when they hear the name of your oc, there won't be this huge blank spot where they can't relate traits to the name. Make CERTAIN this character has flaws. It makes them relatable and gives them dimension. Next up, here are things to make sure they don't appear Mary Sue.

Not everyone can like/love/want to have sex with her/him. The character has to have people they don't mesh with, and those people she doesnt mesh with have to point out his/ her flaws the most. Give them flaws in their appearance, and quirks. Make their love interest notice the flaws too!

They cannot be all powerful, all intelligent, etc. Arya was not good at showing her emotions and when she did they were very intense. Itachi Uchiha was known as the perfect, all selfless protigy of the leaf. He would have made the ideal Hokage. Yet he was a liar, he couldn't trust worth his life, was incredibly cold, and even at the end couldn't manage even a hug from his bro. Kakashi is a genius; cool and aloof. He, many would agree, would make the perfect love interest. Yet he reads Icha Icha in front of his genin students- a huge flaw. Don't make your character having no flaws and be able to fight off an entire battalion of soldiers and a dragon and galbatorix/ Obito, Madara and Itachi on their own.

Make the character, well, possible. "I'm half elf half dragon and I can live forever while flying and breathing fire." Or "Hi, I'm Narsuke Huuga and I have one sharringan and one byakugan from a traumatic incident and I'm Sasuke's sister and naruto's half cousin from a family we never even heard about." This is an exaggeration I know, but you get the point. It won't work.