I exist.

A random pet peeve: No one in fanfiction, apparently, knows the difference between the homonyms 'reign' and 'rein'. Even otherwise quite good writers who would never mix up such commoner sets as to/two/too or their/they're seem to think that the word 'reign' is used everywhere except the type of precipitation. Therefore, the meanings:

reign, meaning either to rule over an area (as a king) or such a rule (as in, the king reigns over the country, the reign of the king)

rein, meaning the leather straps used to control a horse, most commonly used in such sayings as 'to take the reins' (to take control of a situation) and 'rein in' (to pull a situation back from previous excesses)

rain, meaning a type of precipitation often associated with clouds, which I don't think anyone ever actually confuses with the former two

Similarly,

phase, meaning the current state of a cyclical phenomenon (as in the phase of the moon, or waves in/out of phase)

faze, meaning to disconcert or shake the resolve of a person, usually used in the saying 'he was not fazed by whatever-it-was'

And a less common one:

hoard, meaning a large collection of inanimate, usually valuable, objects, usually used in connection with dragons, occasionally in the verb meaning to gather such a collection

horde, meaning a large group of individual people (or whatever sort of being you're dealing with), usually used of a particularly disorganized and brutal army

Yet more:

ordinance, meaning a law, or law in general

ordnance, meaning, generally, military weapons of artillery or explosive type

Also, the single most jarring typo I have ever seen in any Naruto fanfic: misspelling 'chakra' as 'charka'. Seriously, people, just stop it, it looks and sounds stupid.

Rules for Naruto fanfiction. These are not hard-and-fast rules at all; in fact, breaking them can lead to the premises for really interesting fics, and it's quite possible that I will be breaking them in the future. However, the worlds as implied by these rules are the default; if you want to change that, as part of a thought-out response, that's fine, but there's some unfortunate fanon out there that, if it's followed without thought for the consequences, can lead to fairly noxious fics. In general, if you want to break one of these rules, think it through and figure out the logical consequences of the change.

1. Naruto was not completely brutalized as a child. He was treated harshly, true, lived alone from a ridiculously early age, true, he had relatively little normal human contact, true, and most of the civilians in the village were hostile to him, true. However, there is no evidence one way or the other whether or not he was denied service at shops or overcharged (I find it likely, but it's never mentioned in canon), and he most certainly was never routinely beaten by mobs or off-duty ninja. If you break this rule, you need to keep several things in mind: for one, it implies that the Sandaime Hokage is either completely incompetent, evil, or politically tied up by forces beyond his control (but see rule 4); for another, Naruto's eventual outlook should be very different from that of canon (being ignored or glared at, and therefore deciding to become Hokage to force people to acknowledge him, versus being repeatedly brutalized; there's no way he would be quite so optimistic and forgiving, for one thing).

2. The Kyuubi is not particularly friendly to Naruto. Depending on how you're playing the metaphysics, he may or may not be in danger of dying when Naruto dies; if so, then he can reasonably be expected to help him out when his life is in danger, and maybe even give him certain power-ups when he's not directly threatened. However, he is not particularly sensitive to Naruto's feelings, he's not going to be acting sympathetic about whatever thing Naruto is angsting over lately, and he most certainly does not address him by affectionate diminutives such as 'kit'. If you break this rule, either by recharacterizing the Kyuubi from the beginning or by character development over the course of the story, you have to keep in mind that for one thing, it's likely to lead to a Naruto able to draw on large amounts of demonic power without losing control (or at least without fear of hurting his friends), so beware overpowering your protagonist; for another, the Kyuubi may or may not be in a position to reveal most of the plot to Naruto with regards to his parents and Madara, but that should be at least considered. (I use the male pronoun for the Kyuubi above, but all this applies equally to a female Kyuubi.)

3. Sasuke may be more or less of a bastard, but he is not incompetent. It's far too common in stories that bash him to have him much weaker than Naruto, then when this is demonstrated to him, to have him go into denial about it and/or lash out at Naruto through his political connections instead of trying to get stronger. Similarly, he does not simply ride on the Uchiha name, and he doesn't really trade on the political power associated with it. If it is demonstrated to Sasuke that he is much weaker than Naruto, his reaction is most likely to be along the lines of getting strong enough to beat him. If you break this rule, well, you're pretty much breaking Sasuke's characterization from the Massacre entirely. I can't actually think of a way this could be a good thing. You could have him the beneficiary/victim of a conspiracy to make him think that he's stronger than he is so as to keep him happy and in the village (I've seen at least one story like this); if you do, then when he finds out (presumably after being humiliated by someone who he believes he is stronger than) he's going to be pissed off, and not so much at whoever humiliated him but at the people who fooled him.

4. The Hokage is the ultimate power in Konoha. The council may have some authority in its own right, but this is likely to be largely at least theoretically derived from its acting in the name of the Hokage. The heads of the shinobi clans will probably have more power, because they make up much of the military strength of Konoha, but even they are still subordinate to the Hokage. Specifically, the Hokage is extremely unlikely to be in a position where he can be forced by the council/the clan heads/whoever into compromises that he thinks are abhorrent, like "let Naruto be repeatedly horribly beaten by villagers" (see rule 1). If you break this rule, keep in mind that this is likely to greatly decrease Konoha's efficiency as a shinobi village and hence essentially a military force. If you want to really play with the situation (most likely in an AU, since this is going to be completely counter to the canon), you could have the Hokage as a basically figurehead authority that whoever holds real power 'acts in the name of' in a mostly ceremonial fashion, analogous to the Crown in modern-day Britain. This could be quite interesting, but again, think it through.

Also, one thing that annoys me about anime fanfiction more generally: the use of sweatdrops, facefaults, etc. in fanfic itself. These are a convention of the anime genre, and on screen, they work as a way to easily portray and emphasize basic thought processes. However, they have no significance to actual action in the plot--you never hear about someone losing a fight because they facefaulted, when in reality 'falling over' is a fairly irrecoverable mistake. Fanfics, inspired by the anime though they may be, are more like written literary works, and using these anime conventions unchanged is stupid. There's no more reason to use these in anime fanfics than there is to actually describe the camera panning in film fanfics.

A challenge, in case anyone is interested. Call it Raijin, for reasons soon to become apparent.

Naruto has an incident when young, before entering the Academy, involving some sort of power substation or high-tension power lines. He bridges something he shouldn't have and takes a lethal-to-the-point-of-overkill electric shock. The Kyuubi, not liking this whole dying idea, manages to alter Naruto's chakra to the degree that he can survive. The result is that Naruto has the strongest lightning affinity ever seen anywhere, to the point where he actually can't use non-raiton techniques. Thus Naruto is like Lee—he can do basic chakra shape manipulation for wall- and water-walking, but no techniques—except that he can do raiton techniques easily and with ridiculous power. He is also immune to any sort of electric shock damage—up to you if this includes Chidori variants, since they seem to be cutting/piercing just as much as shocking techniques—and can control electric currents and fields around himself. There are many possibilities from here, most of them awesome. Bonus points if you know some E&M physics and base his actual powers off that.

Yes, 'no techniques' includes shadow clone. It's up to you whether or not it includes rasengan—you could rule that it's entirely chakra shape manipulation, like wall/water walking, and so allowed. More bonus points if Naruto makes a lightning Rasengan analogous to rasenshuriken; extra special bonus points if the disadvantages are actually played up to the point where they count as weaknesses.

'Raijin' translates as 'lightning god'.

Thoughts for future fics. I may write these, or I may not. If you want to write one, feel free. If you do, I would appreciate a message to see how it turns out.

There are several fics on the theme of Naruto leaving Konoha after successfully bringing back Sasuke after Valley of the End; I think the idea for most of these originates with Perfect Lionheart's Missing Hokage Challenge. That challenge, at least, notes Tsunade's likely response to Naruto being banished by the council. I think, though, that there's something else missing there: Naruto just fought tooth and nail to bring his best friend back as a ninja of Konoha, and he's not going to be too pleased if Sasuke immediately gets imprisoned a la Escape from the Hokage's Hat. So, in a nutshell, Naruto brings Sasuke back, who is immediately imprisoned as a traitor, and Naruto, being displeased, breaks Sasuke out of prison and leaves again with him. Possibly some other combination of the Konoha 12 come along as well. To be realistic, some stuff needs to have happened beforehand to sour Naruto's view of Konoha, but I think it could be an interesting story. Of related interest: if Hinata left with that group, they could probably defect to Kumo and be taken in and defended, no questions asked.

A thought about a Naruto AU set in the modern world in which the arts of chakra manipulation are lost; have the Naruto cast studying the fragmentary documentation available to rediscover it, while the modern world order falls apart around them. Will probably need to give chakra manipulation a powerup compared to canon to make it a more realistic alternative to modern weaponry.

What if Hyuuga Hanabi was never born? For one, it's entirely plausible that the Hyuuga Incident with Kumo would not happen; taking a risk to kidnap the heir to a house with a ready replacement might be considered reasonable, if it could be presented as a fait accompli, when kidnapping an heir primus without an heir secondary might not. Thus, Hiashi never associates Hinata, subconsciously or not, with the death of his brother, and lacking a ready replacement does not write off Hinata at an early age; also possibly, the pressure on the Uchiha is not turned up to the point where Itachi is required to kill them all to avert catastrophe, so that issue might be resolved without Itachi's exile and Sasuke's focus on vengeance.

Any of these will probably not be written until I've either finished with Shinigan or put it on temporary hiatus, which I do not envision happening too soon.