Types of Naruto Fanfiction Tropes I Remember Over the Years

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Title:	"Types of Naruto Fanfiction Tropes I Remember Over the Years"
Creator:	themultifandomnerd
Date(s):	13 September 2016
Medium:
Fandom:	Naruto
Topic:	Naruto fan fiction tropes
External Links:	Tumblr Post at Wayback Machine
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"Types of Naruto Fanfiction Tropes I Remember Over the Years" was a meta post made by themultifandomnerd, concerning Naruto fan fiction on FanFiction.Net (and also in some cases Quizilla) during the latter half of the 2000s.

The Post

[themultifandomnerd]

• sakura, hinata, ino, and tenten are on their way to train and they overhear all of their teammates calling them weak so they decide to get permission from tsunade to leave and train then they come back super boss level. sometimes comes back with kids and its obvious to tell who’s the dads but said dads are oblivious af to the fact
• same as the above but the girls become rogue nin and somehow join the akatsuki and fall in love with whichever akatsuki member is in charge of their training
• same as the above but this time its just sakura and hinata
• sasuke and karin come back to konoha and someway, somehow, karin turns the entire village against sakura, including fucking tsunade [save for maybe one person that in all honesty sakura isn’t even close to, ex. shikamaru but according to sakura they’re just like siblings] so sakura decides to runaway and she joins the akatsuki who all love her because she’s been through so much and meanwhile in konoha everyone is shocked and hurt sakura left them and decide they must bring her back at all cost
• same as the above but everyone still thinks sakura is weak etc and don’t want to save her but tsunade realized the error of her ways and makes everyone find her anyway
• high school au where sakura, hinata, ino, and tenten are the least popular girls at school who constantly get bullied [maybe temari is included, but usually just those four]. sasuke, naruto, shikamaru, and neji are the most popular dudes in school with a shit ton of crazy fangirls. sakura, hinata, ino, and tenten all decide to stick up to the boys who are also bullies who in turn put all their bullying efforts onto the girls. but guess what, kakashi-sensei who is that teacher who’s always late af to his job/class is doing a group assignment AND GUESS WHO’S CONVENIENTLY PAIRED UP???
• high school au where sakura, hinata, ino, and tenten are all skater girls with no interest in dudes but new cute guys sasuke, naruto, shikamaru, and neji fall head over heels in love at first sight but the girls are like buzz off.
• did i mention that in all of these high school aus with sakura, hinata, ino, and tenten for some unexplainable reason they all live in this big house/apartment with each other
• high school au where sakura is the only one being bullied and is for whatever reason the most hated and bullied girl in the entire school and the most popular [usually ino, sasuke, naruto, etc] decide to devise a plot where either naruto or sasuke trick sakura into falling in love with the respective guy then break her heart but they end up falling in love with her for real. sakura typically comes from a poor/troubled home that makes nards or sauce feel super bad
• high school au where sakura is the most hated and bullied girl in school but finds solace and friendship by somehow befriending the most notorius kids in school that everyone calls the Akatsuki
• sakura is the most hated and bullied girl in school but instead of the akatsuki thing, she actually has a nighttime persona and ironically enough that nighttime persona is super popular and loved by her peers and one of those peers, usually sasuke, falls for the persona and attempts to woo her whilst also being captivated by sakura whom he is annoyed by but also kind of is intrigued by
• sakura isn’t being bullied but doesn’t stand out but she finds a new hobby in dancing or fashion or smth and the ppl who got her into it is the akatsuki
• sakura is some kind of jinchuuriki like naruto like a ten-tailed wolf or smth and has been hated by the entire village her entire life save for best friend hinata. isn’t a sasuke fangirl but after being placed onto team 7 there is a love triangle. sometimes a love square if sai is thrown in as a first time ever 4 man squad thing is added
• sakura is chosen to be apart of an interrogation thing where she’s the medic for this particular person who turns out to be apart of the akatsuki but through their constant meetings and healing sessions, sakura falls in love with the person and they fall for her and share some passionate kiss and sakura typically helps this guy escape
• tsunade has sakura to do an infiltration mission where she literally has to be arrested for some crime, escape authorities, and become a rogue ninja and join the akatasuki whilst somehow getting info about the akatsuki back to konoha. she typically falls in love with whoever she’s partnered with
• the akatasuki actually need a medic nin to heal itachi’s eyes, so they decide to kidnap tsunade’s apprentice and force her to heal them and keep her forever. sakura typically either falls in love with itachi or with a diff member.
• usually these above akatsuki fics have two ways of being handled: the characters are all p in character for what we’ve seen on screen or what is usually done– sakura sees the akatsuki as a bunch of goofballs that are actually nice af and konan is like a mother figure
• sakura finds a box of cats outside her house and decides to take them in. these cats are usually the akatsuki
• ‘The Future of Mrs Sakura ____’ au where every sakura ship is explored as this fortune teller person shows sakura her various futures with different guys and girls she could be married too. usually these fics are forever incomplete
• sasuke is back in the village and is super flirtatious with sakura but sakura isn’t looking for love but finds it with someone else who isn’t sasuke. typically neji and sakura and neji support naruhina by being like chaperones on their dates cuz hiashi said thats the only way naruto and hinata can start courting each other
• sasuke is back in the village, but this time sakura, hinata, ino, tenten, and typically temari shows up too, are all tired of their love lives/crushes so the girls decide to all date someone else. this is either super good or meh. best one i’ve ever read is Three Months y’all should read it, its 50 chapters long but bawse af
• sakura goes back in time to prevent obito from dying and to save the future because the war is going shit and they’re side is losing. but sakura somehow falls for minato. she either knows who he is and is trying to get him to hook up with kushina but her arrival to the past fucked shit up so he isn’t into kushina anymore or kushina dumped him. or, sakura doesn’t know who minato is and they have a lot of sexual tension going on. naruto is usually brought up a lot of times and minato has this huge sense of jealousy and dislike of this naruto guy, which is amusing to the reader because we know that naruto is his son
• another time travel fic but sakura has been chosen by some celestial being to change the past of someone who she subsequently falls in love with. like this fic Lost Year where she was trying to prevent Sasori from joining akatsuki it was p cute actually
• modern rivalry au where sakura, hinata, ino, and tenten are in a band and sasuke, naruto, shikamaru, and neji are in a band
• sakura, hinata, ino, or tenten wake up in the future where they are married to naruto usually and they have kids and everyone’s an adult.
• after some incident between suna and konoha, temari is used as a peace offering for an arranged marriage. usually with either naruto or shikamaru
• canon divergence where after the failed sasuke retrieval thing went down and kakashi was on his way to taking naruto back to konoha, they stumble upon tayuya who miraculously survived the attack and is taken back to konoha and she falls in love with naruto and vice versa. or maybe shikamaru
• canon divergence where orochimaru took naruto under his wing by ‘saving’ him from his cruel fellow villagers and raising him in oto. naruto is good friends with the sound ninja 4/5 but he goes back to konoha for a spy mission. either falls for kin, tayuya, hinata, or sakura
• canon divergence au where sakura’s parents died when she was young and was taken in by the akatsuki because konan’s motherly instincts kicked in and she convinced pein [the orange haired yahiko version b4 nagato’s big reveal] to let them keep her. usually titled smth like the akatsuki’s hime/princess/cherry/etc. she goes back to konoha for an infiltration mission if its planned for her to fall for sasuke, naruto, or neji instead of the usual akatsuki members if they just view her as their cute daughter/niece/sister
• same as the above but it was hinata instead and the hyuga clan was wiped out by the akatsuki but konan couldn’t bring herself to kill this one baby that was in the arms of a dying woman
• canon divergence where sakura is taken under orochimaru’s wing as a kid and goes back to konoha
• sakura catches the attention of tobi who likes her a lot and they sneak around to meet and this way before it was confirmed tobi was obito or madara so there was like a shit ton of speculation
• canon divergence where naruto was the one who saved karin from… wth was it a bear?? but that was before karin was revealed to be naruto’s cousin so after the reveal a lot of those fics were either deleted or forever incomplete

did i leave anything out? anyone else remember these tropes??

Responses

[hotcupnoodle]

Omfg so true, I'm dying lmao. If I remember correctly most of these docs spawned sometime between 2008-2011 lmao

[confettibunnie]

i've also noticed in all the high school aus where the girls live together, the fics usually start with sakura destroying her alarm clock and then she screams about being late. most of the time ino will walk in and say 'wake up pig!' or something like that.

[itsthefandommash]

Not quite as old, but there's a festival and either the boys or girls are getting sold out for a date to get money for the village

[chaozee]

These are the tropes I’ve read around 2006-2009 hahahahaha. Specially the top bullets and kitten!akatsuki. Oh nostalgia

[https://panamanianturkeyfighting.tumblr.com/post/188313226491/%5D

U can’t forget *Naruto cheats on Hinata with Sakura and then Hinata leaves the village and trains/joins the akatsuki then has a new personality and comes back to the village and Naruto keeps trying to win her back *

[https://akutagawa-and-figs.tumblr.com/post/185161462647/%5D

• Don't you forget the time travel fics where a few of Rookie 9 (with extension of Gaara) go back in time and wake up 12 again? It's usually team 7 or someone form team 7 that this happens to.

• Time travel fic where Sakura or Naruko go back to warring era and it's a love story between one of them and either Mada/Hashi/Tobi (Izuna by extension) or all of them at once

[https://raorica.tumblr.com/post/180362049546/%5D

This is sending me war flashbacks.

Did you forget the wave of those fics where the Akatsuki turn into cats and someone (usually Sakura) has to take care of them? And like, for some reason, they can sometimes turn back into hot men?

[https://thatoneclod666.tumblr.com/post/179305476947/%5D

It was a bit before Soulmate Aus were mainstream like they are now. To add;

-Underground Boxer Sakura fic where she kicks people's asses in cage matches and buys cookies and shit with the profits. Gaara is usually involved as either a rival or like the mob guy that runs the matches.

I feel like I'm obligated or something to write one of each of these now, as a momento to times past and our growth as a fandom. Probably won't, but ya know

[https://midterms-crisis.tumblr.com/post/177274689705/%5D

Erm you forgot a few

• Naruto becomes so tired of being the village pariah so he decides to leave the village, become a rouge-nin and either help the akatsuki or just get reveng on Konoha

• Similar to the one above but someone, usually an OC, decides to help him

• Sakura, and sometimes the Akatsuki, become babies for no good reason and either Konoha or Akatsuki will take care of her/them.

• Sakura gets sent in the past and engages in a love polygon with the founders

• Naruto is born with someone there to raise him up properly, usually either Jiraiya or an OC and Naruto becomes OP as heck

• Sakura as the Akatsuki’s “child”

• The Kyuubi, or someone probably Kaguya, sends either Naruto or Sakura to the past to try and “fix their mistake”

• Instead of the Uchiha Clan massacre, Sakura comes from a really powerful but dead clan and she unlocks a powerful kekkai genkai

• Instead of Sakura, Naruto unlocks a very popular kekkai genkai and becomes op

• An OC gets transported into the Naruto-world where they somehow get into the Akatsuki and romance someone there

• The Akatsuki gets transpoted into the modern world and the Author, usually with their friend/s, take care of them

• Sakura gets bullied when she’s a child and goes somewhere for a few years, usually to Suna or Ame, and when she goes back she’s edgier and more bad-ass. Usually High School!Au

Hmm I dunno im pretty tired now did I miss anything else? XD

[https://sheyul.tumblr.com/post/169775455012/%5D

Lol and the fics where sasuke needs sakura to pretend as his girlfriend to get rid of his fangirls, sasuke going blind, sakura being sent off to seduction missions, sasuke having amnesia, etc. 😂😂😂

[https://dewprisms.tumblr.com/post/167271078069/%5D

• High School AU fics where Karin is inexplicably the stupid, slutty rich bitch of the school (like Ino in said AUs before she was introduced), despite being an abused orphan, that is the most popular girl but also everyone openly hates her??? and she always bullies Sakura so Sakura can one-up her and SasuSaku can happen
• Same as above but she also bullies Hinata so Naruto or Neji can fall in love with her. In fact she bullies every girl because she suddenly wants the guy they like too
• Hinata gets kidnapped by Akatsuki for a ransom or something and she falls in love with the one assigned to her
• Hinata (again) falls in love with someone other than Naruto and the author goes out of their way to make Hinata suddenly realize Naruto is the most annoying being on the planet
• Sakura is revealed to be from a super powerful but long-lost clan so she can as strong or stronger than Sasuke and Naruto and always stronger than the other girls, or she’s just a long-lost Princess instead
• The only time Karin isn’t antagonizing Sakura is when she’s paired with Suigetsu, and even then she’ll still bully Sakura for no reason. These are always stories about Sasuke and Sakura.
• Everyone hates Hinata (especially Sakura) and she runs away only to be taken in my Akatsuki because she’s so beautiful, and suddenly everyone (but especially Naruto and Neji) realizes they care about Hinata and look for her
• Stories about the “darker side” of kunoichi that consists of them seducing and sleeping with the guy they’re fighting or spying on (usually an akatsuki member)
• Baby Naruto gets kidnapped or found by Akatsuki and they raise him to be a killing machine but they all act like big brothers to him despite being bloodthirsty killers. Usually shipped with Hinata or Itachi
• Sasuke forms Hebi, tracks down Sakura instead of Itachi and immediately kicks Karin out of the group. Sasuke and Sakura date, Sakura and Suigetsu fight exactly like Karin and Sui did, and Karin stalks the group to try and kill Sakura for “stealing” Sasuke from her. Jugo may be mentioned but does nothing if the author actually remembers he’s there.
• Find another series that existed in the 2000s and there’s a good 99% chance there’s a crossover fic where Sakura, Naruto or Hinata fall in love with a character from the other series. 50% of these will be with Sakura
• Sakura realizes how much an asshole Sasuke is and then she falls in love with her teacher Kakashi instead
• Reverse Harem where every male character lusts after Sakura. Every one of them
• The same as above but it’s Hinata instead, including her cousin Neji
• Naruto is now a girl named Naruko, and she always falls in love with Itachi, Sasuke, or Kakashi
• Like the above but Naruto and Naruko are twins
• Itachi kidnaps Sakura in order to taunt Sasuke but he falls in love with her instead. Most were written before the reveal that Itachi was a good guy, but some from after exist
• The Kyuubi is actually a girl and either seduces Naruto or Sasuke or is actually Naruto’s long-lost mother
• Stories where Hinata (usually), Ino, or Tenten (despite being from an older group) are place into Team 7 instead of Sakura and paired with Naruto
• The same as above but Kurenai has Kiba or Shino replaced by Naruto so Hinata can be with him
• Sakura is given a tragic backstory so someone (usually Sasuke) can sympathize with her, but nothing else is different about her
• Stories where Sakura gets over Sasuke and falls in love with someone else always involve flanderizing how badly he treats her, usually into full-blown domestic abuse. If it’s not NaruSaku, then Naruto is killed to show how evil he is.
• Sakura, Tenten or Hinata had the ten-tailed beast sealed within them all along. A lot of these suddenly disappeared after the ten-tails became a canon thing
• TLDR if Sakura or Hinata is the focus of the story you can guarantee something in the fic is A Naruto Fic Trope

[https://hltsuzen.tumblr.com/post/160356863712/%5D

Hahaha yessss Don't forget:

• Arranged marriage AU's for the good of the clan/Konoha
• Sakura is Sasuke's super interesting, beautiful friend and an Uchiha relative falls for her
• Sakura meets a sex god! type who is really intense and very interested in her
• Sakura's turning into an old spinster (usually in her 20's, though) and all she wants is a boyfriend; has a meet-cute and charming guy brings new life into her world
• Sakura's a total badass that everyone's afraid of

[https://always-a-darling.tumblr.com/post/159404067652/types-of-naruto-fanfiction-tropes-i-remember-over%5D

~The ones where sakura goes back in time and fixes everything because hello it was pretty sucky and she remembers how to use her training (does need to build up her strength again tho)

~sakura goes to Suna because her parents are merchants, thus meeting Gaara before the chuunin exams

~sakura time travels towards the founding era and helps out with her awesome healing powers usually ending up with either tobirama or madara (there’s one called Reincarnation which is so good)

~sakura is transporting a scroll which is super important, she gets attacked, the scroll activates and it ends up being a time traveling scroll that transports her to any important plot point in the past (before the Uchiha massacre, before Kurama’s attack, founding era, Gaaras childhood) The latter has a great ff called Mother’s Song

~genma adopts all the rookie eleven and just fluff (I think it was called Genma Shiranui Motherhen Extraordinaire)

~izuna is dying (tobi thinks hes dead) so tobirama tries to make up for the fact that he almost killed him (because Hashirama talked without thinking) by offering his life to the Uchiha (madara)and then madatobi happens

[https://munchponkeymd.tumblr.com/post/158752281904/%5D

Here's some that come to mind.

1) Canon divergence where either Naruto and/or Sakura are born years before the rest of the Rookie 9. Usually around the same year as Itachi or a canon divergent Anko that wasn't born during Kakashi's generation.

2) Canon divergence where Naruto, by some miracle, saves Konan from Obito (Often times with Naruto somehow getting the Rinnegan) and the two fall in love despite the huge age gape.

3) Canon divergent plotline where the final battle between Naruto and Sasuke ends with Sasuke getting killed, causing Naruto to go into a sever state of depression. Often results in Naruto abandoning his goal to be Hokage to either become a wandering hermit like Jiraiya, or go exploring some mysterious nation outside of the elemental nations (Bonus points if the empire was created by Madara).

4) A fanfiction where Naruto has a sibling that has the Nine tails sealed inside them and gets neglected in favor of them. Angst and edginess all around, and Naruto usually ends up getting OP as hell before he reaches 20.

5) Canon divergence where Naruto and Kurotsuchi meet before the war and fall in love.

6) Similarly to above, but it takes place in a warring states period AU where they're starcrossed lovers.

7) Divergence from canon where the battle with Mizuki plays out differently, causing Naruto to believe that Iruka and the village really do wish he didn't exist. This usually results in Naruto to fleeing to literally any village, but the most common I've seen thus far has him running to Suna where he meets the Sand Siblings, falls for Temari and vice versa, and changes Gaara for the better earlier than in canon. And strangely, Hiruzen acts totally fine with it.

8) Canon divergence where Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato come with Jiraiya to the Leaf where they meet Minato. Usually end up with Konan stealing Minato's heart, and becoming Naruto's mother.

9) Change in canon where Naruto is the adoptive son of Tsunade and has a perpetual chip on his shoulder. Hates ninja with a passion.

And there's soo many more but that would require me really digging to remember them all.

[https://hellmry.tumblr.com/post/152878292735/types-of-naruto-fanfiction-tropes-i-remember-over%5D

OH THE NOSTALGIA

don’t forget the ones where Sakura has to keep an eye on Sasuke after his return and they have to live together ahh

[https://sakura-kara.tumblr.com/post/153276848658/%5D

High school au where there's a love triangle between Itachi, Sasuke and Sakura and the brothers have to choose who can have her but there's like an accident and someone has memory loss lol

[https://borutomitsukisarada.tumblr.com/post/152907168570/%5D

YOU GUYS ARE FORGETTING MY FAVORITE TROPE! Sakura gets sent to the past, usually the day when they’re graduating from the academy, and she wakes up with an alarm that she smashes with her super human strength.

[https://meerkatwobbles515.tumblr.com/post/156516226233/types-of-naruto-fanfiction-tropes-i-remember-over%5D

The au ones where Hinata, Sakura, Ino, and Tenten are best friends who go out one night and are captured as mates for these four GORGEOUS vampire guys( Sasuke, Naruto, Shikamaru, and Neji). They hate them at first but eventually fall in love.

[https://hyugapineapple.tumblr.com/post/154928827301/%5D

You forgot the one where Sakura is Orochimaru’s biological/step daughter. She’s either a troublemaker or a cutie pie and she is forced to move to another school where she pretends to be a boy or she’s the super popular girl. Usually, she falls in love with Itachi or Deidara and he saves her when some dude who appears to be Oro’s sworn enemy tries to kill her.

[https://tomioneer.tumblr.com/post/155837066447/%5D

What about the fic where nobody survived the big war against the Akatsuki but Sakura/Temari/Hinata/Ino/Tenten and Hidan/Deidara/Sasori/Itachi/other miscellaneous conventionally attractive Akatsuki member plus maybe Zetsu or Kisame, but they don't find the second one until after they've begun to bond during their arduous journey.

[https://kikyomibu.tumblr.com/post/150877957735/%5D

For the love of Jashin I do in my entire fanfiction.net career.

I got more tropes to add, but too lazy add more right now in great detail but it involves more with AU with

• the Uchiha massacre never happening
• Sakura get promoted to ANBU which she is in a team with Itachi and Shisui
• arrange marriage with Sakura and Itachi
• Sakura heal Itachi either eyes or from a battle and it ends up with him peaking his interest with her and tries to get to know her more (pretty much stalking) and she starts to notice him getting into her life some more and ends up with sakura and him at the end.
• everyone working in the police force trying to solve a killing spree and Sakura starts falling in love with either her coworker/suspect/boss usually its Akatsuki or Uchiha.
• Sakura being the Ceo secretary and falling for her boss (mostly it's Sasuke, Itachi, hyuga)
• Sakura getting kidnapped from the Akatsuki to lure Naruto to them and ends up with falling in love with one of them.
• everyone turning to babies mostly it's naruto or sasuke and Sakura has to take care of them until the jutsu wears off.
• Sakura and everyone in a Pokemon world and ends up with her and someone mostly naruto or sasuke (they never are finished *tears*)

[https://jungkooks-tea.tumblr.com/post/150385675733/%5D

Or the one where Sakura is forced to live with Sasuke after his return. Because he can’t be trusted but also isn’t put in jail...

Naruto Fic List

As a follow-up, the multifandomnerd compiled a post of fics exemplifying these tropes.

Mirror links (source lost to time):

• https://check-yes-juliet.tumblr.com/post/644295625396076544/naruto-fic-list
• https://bugright.tumblr.com/post/188003837429/naruto-fic-list
• https://toasted-fan.tumblr.com/post/639816875111596032/naruto-fic-list

Notes

The original post was lost when the original poster's blog was deleted by Tumblr.

References

Related Concepts, Fandoms, Terms, Fanworks
See also