***WARNING***
This page contains heavy spoilers. Read only if you have finished the story (or if you don't care much for spoilers!)
Dear Readers,
Firstly, I'd like to thank you for reaching the very end.
It has been awhile since I have provided an update to this story following its completion in July 2018. I was supposed to give a Story Analysis and Story Background as part of a compilation of reader questions, but I never got around to it until now.
So I have divided this section into two parts. The first is the Story Analysis, which details the characters and story components, and the second part is the Story Background, which is a brief discussion about the fic overall.
Happy reading~
Story Analysis
Over the years, I have come across so many incredible readers who have provided me with amazing insight into their thoughts and analysis of the story. I am ever so grateful for you all and I cannot thank you enough for the support and encouragement you have given me.
I would like to bring together a compilation of questions many readers had and utilise this opportunity to discuss the fic a little further.
Rin's Character
I really enjoyed writing Rin's character. Canon only showcased about twenty-minutes of her so there was so little information about her. But we know that she was loyal, loving, caring, indiscriminate and courageous. So I tried to extrapolate on this as much as possible to determine what she would be like if she had lived to be an adult.
Note that in this fic, her circumstances were slightly different – i.e. being under Orochimaru's control for so long, however, unlike a lot of the characters Orochimaru manipulated (in both canon and my story), Rin was able to separate her loyalty to him and what he stood for. I believe this occurred because of his overt blackmail when he offered to return her memories in exchange for medical servitude. So she was very well aware of her position as a slave as well as those contradictory feelings of loyalty. However, this allowed her to permanently walk away from him despite being under his control for seventeen years.
I wanted to make Rin a strong and independent character, whilst taking into consideration her sweet nature and her loyalty as a medical servant. I had to really balance it out without making her seem out of character. We see in canon that despite her caring disposition, she did not hesitate to call out behaviours that were wrong. I really liked this about her, so I made sure to incorporate this into her character (particularly around her disagreements with Deidara).
Deidara's Character
Deidara was my favourite character to write! He is so funny and there are so many ways you could write about him that would still keep him in character. And because canon went into a little more depth about him, it did make writing him a bit easier. I think the trickiest part was writing his interactions with Rin. How would he view someone like her, who is caring and sweet but also pragmatic at the same time? Deidara was never mean to her per se, he just had an attitude and it was his (weird) way of showing his respect and gratitude.
Tobi's Point of View
I actually had a lot of readers ask me why the story did not have Tobi's point of view. The short answer is: it would have been way too difficult.
The story sits at ~85k+ words, with a tumultuous amount of emotions from just one character (that's Rin). When I created this story, I had to be very mindful of content balancing - as to not overwhelm the readers. It is quite heavy, and there are a lot of emotions that interplay. Tobi is also a very complex character, and because of the grief and trauma he's been through, and then again with Rin, I would need at least another 50k worded story just to talk about his thoughts! So you can imagine how very time consuming and mind boggling it would be to add Tobi's point of view to it.
In saying that, I can confirm that there are two chapters in the story that provided a glimpse into Tobi's point of view, and that is chapters 58 (Hatred) and 88 (Gift).
Deidara and Tobi's Relationship
I was originally going to keep this story as purely an ObiRin fic (it's still ~95% that way) but I wanted to add a little bit of drama and spice to it without delving into emotions and relationships. Deidara and Tobi's relationship was a clear representation of this and though I had several readers send question marks my way about why I added a TobiDei component, to me, it was purely for fun and drama. I'm also a TobiDei shipper so it made it that more exciting to write!
Rin's Death
Some readers were curious (and disappointed) as to why I decided to push for this ending.
The biggest reason was to match the story up with canon. I like to keep all my stories in line with canonical materials, so Rin's death was inevitable.
The story takes place not long after Deidara and Tobi partner up, and ends just before Deidara's fight against Sasuke. My aim for this fic was to place the events of the story right in between the above timelines, so that someone could pick up this fic, read it and think "oh, this could actually happen in canon."
In both manga and anime, Tobi and Deidara's adventures were barely shown, so we don't know exactly what they got up to. We see them (more Tobi) goofing around, and then their capture of the three tails, but then that was it. So this story allowed those gaps to be filled. It was also the reason why Rin did not partake in the three-tails' capture because she was (obviously) not there in the three-tails' episode. Think of this story as a potential "filler episode" if that helps!
And some trivia for those of you who haven't noticed.
Rin dies in the exact same way as Obito. They both crumbled to pieces. The lines seen on Rin are the same lines seen on Obito after he was hit by Kaguya. Rin's last memory to return was of her as a shinobi of Konoha. As soon as she remembered that piece of memory, she died. This was the point where the contract was breached.
The Stallions
Some of the replaying themes of this fic were life, death and time. The white stallion represented life and it was the one that Orochimaru used as a sacrifice to give Rin more time. It was also Rin's companion as they were both connected by the meaning of 'life' – Rin through resurrection and the white stallion through its powers to bring vitality and time. Orochimaru would use the white stallion as a means to prolong his life, hence its reluctance to be in his presence. This is seen in chapter 22. The last of the white stallion's powers were given to Rin, hence its demise.
The black stallion represented death. This one was relatively self-explanatory, but you could say it was a much nicer version of a death god. It resided predominantly on Black Sand Island and often followed those who were close to death. But I would say not just any type of death. Rin's situation was unique in that her resurrection was a result of something unnatural. She did not belong in the mortal world and being a symbol that represented death, the black stallion would tail her until she returned what was not hers. However, the reason for its appearance on Cascades Mountain (and why it guided Tobi and Rin out of the mountain) was because of Rin. She was slowly approaching her death, but she was still not there yet. Tobi's acquaintance with the horse was mostly to do with his own experiences with death.
The black stallion has a multitude of abilities (erasing memories being one), but how a person can request certain abilities would entirely depend on their situation.
Character Sexuality
I don't often go into the sexuality of my characters, just because I like to keep things mysterious (and close to canon). However, if you unpack it, you could argue that Deidara was more prone to do whatever that excited him, whereas Tobi did whatever that made him feel better, regardless of gender or sexuality.
Tobi's Aggression and Intimacy
I had someone ask me this and thought I should put it here because it was interesting. The reader was curious about Tobi's progressive need for aggression during those intimate sessions he had.
And without delving too deeply into Tobi's state of mind, he was most likely overcompensating for those numbing feelings and prolonged loneliness. So the more violent or aggressive the act, the more he was able to feel - quite a sad way of doing things...
The Necklace
To the sharp reader who questioned about this, I'll put it here so other people can see it as well - just in case any one missed it.
Tobi made mention of the sentence "one tool in reserve" in chapter 81 (Reserve) when he gave Rin the necklace. If you remember back in chapter 35 (Parallel) where Tobi and Rin encountered the sacrificial chamber on Cascades Mountain, the inscription talked about "one tool in reserve." There is a connection between this, the necklace and Tobi's knowledge of it. So he definitely knows something Rin and the readers do not. This sets the story up for the third and final series of the trilogy (see Story Epilogue).
And I can also confirm that the necklace is in the shape of Obito's Mangekyou Sharingan.
Rin's Astrological Predictions
From the same sharp reader as above who also questioned about this. Rin's first astrological prediction in chapter 75 (Precious) referenced Kaguya's appearance at the end of the series in canon. I'll let you have a think about what the second prediction is about.
Rin's Age
She was 13 years old at resurrection + 17 years later = ~30 years old (same age as Obito).
The Men's Death
In chapter 5 (Appease) re; the men's death. It is almost redundant to bother extrapolating on who killed them.
Story Epilogue
This story is the first instalment of a three part series. The three stories have a direct connection with each other, however, they can be read separately without needing to read the entire series. In other words, you can read the second instalment without having read the first to understand. They are designed to be standalone but within the same universe. However, if you do decide to read all three, you will notice that there are connections between them as they pertain to the story plot and some further explanations around certain components of the story.
The reason why I made each of the instalments as standalone is because of the differing characters and ships. The next instalment concerns Itachi, Izumi, Shisui and another character, so some readers may not be interested in them or the ships that occur between them. At the same time, it gives me the opportunity to write about other characters that interest me.
This Day Tomorrow is the second instalment and prequel to On The Road With Time. So if you are interested in Itachi, Izumi and Shisui, and you are happy with the ships between Itachi and Izumi and Shisui and an OC, then have a read. A reminder that this story is still ongoing. As FFN do not allow links, you can head to my profile and look for "This Day Tomorrow."
The third instalment follows on from On The Road With Time and This Day Tomorrow and is yet to be finalised.
I will continually update this page with more analyses down the track if I receive more questions. But for the time being, I do hope you enjoyed this fic and if you decide to follow through with the other two instalments, I look forward to continue writing for you.
Story Background
On The Road With Time was my first ever fanfiction, so as you can see, it holds a very special place in my heart.
The fic was written in November 2014 when I was sitting on a 15-hour plane ride to Europe. It was definitely time well spent! It took approximately 4 years to complete and was finally published on FFN and AO3 in July 2018.
Deleted Scenes and Story Edit
In the last 3 years, the story underwent several rounds of editing (that drove me absolutely mental), so for the readers who read the story when it was first released, you may now notice slight variations in sentence structure and the omission of some scenes and chapters. This is because during the 4 years of the story's creation, some chapters were written out of order whilst others had several years gap between them. What this means is that the writing style becomes inconsistent if there are too long delays in between chapters.
*(Note to self and massive lesson learnt).
And because this is a fanfiction, us authors do not have editors to keep things in check. This is why professional authors have editors to keep their writing style, language and storyline consistent.
When the story was first published, it sat at about 120k words. But as it went through numerous rounds of editing throughout the years and finally to its final editing stage, it now sits at around ~85k words (excluding this story analysis and background chapter). That's the omission of ~35k words! A large chunk of the removed words were 'double ups' and sentence restructure.
The double ups are essentially redundant sentences or repeated sentences. When you write about character emotions for example, you can get carried away with delving too deeply into their thoughts and feelings. The problem with this is that you can get into a space of repetitive sentencing (but done in a different way) in an attempt to get your point across.
For example, the sentences below;
There is a surge of cold that infiltrates her veins The cold suffuses her insides and chills her very core
Though the above sentences can be placed together, it is essentially talking about the same thing but in a different manner. Writing sentences like that helps connect with the readers, but the problem is that if you go too far, you are essentially repeating yourself over and over.
The other portion of the 35k words removed were sentence restructures. For example, some sentences were 20 words long but could be written in 10 words or less.
A very small portion of the ~35k words removed were actual deleted scenes. I removed them because they either did not add to the storyline or didn't seem to make much sense. If you were a returned reader, you wouldn't really notice the deletion of certain scenes because that was how irrelevant they were.
The reason why I decided to share this portion of my writing journey is because I want readers (and perhaps other authors too) to understand the nuances and the difficulties that goes into writing a fic. There is a lot of editing, and re-editing, and editing, and re-editing, over and over. Writing is a lot more difficult and frustrating than a lot may think!
Aside from the deleted scenes, there is another portion not counted in the 35k word deletion. And they are deleted chapters. These chapters were never published in the first place, but if people are interested in reading them, I could post them.
Regardless, the storyline and content remain exactly the same. The final edit of this story is now complete.
Story Translations
I am aware that some people have been translating my stories without my permission. I am okay with people translating my stories into another language, however, please do not translate without my permission. We authors work really hard on our stories, so please respect us by asking first :)