naruto fic recs in general?
Ok so the thing is. In my opinion. Naruto the fandom isn't very good at fic writing overall. To be clear I don't necessarily think that's an unusual thing, because we have very good artists and meta/textpost writers. I have found that a fandom can only be good at two out of three of those things max, so if there's consistently really good art and textposts, the fics might be lacking.
My main beef with a lot of naruto fic is its written out of character, or just doesn't have interesting plots? This could also be because its such a popular story that there's a lot of fic for it, so there's gonna be a lot of mid stuff and the peak stuff is therefore harder to find. I'm pretty open to reading whatever pairings and plots, and what I'm really looking for is high quality writing and characterization, or people doing weird and interesting things with the plot.
But still- I'd say what this fandom is most famous for is Naruto and Sasuke yaoi. Like you ask someone who hasn't read or seen naruto what they know about it and they'll be like "Naruto and Sasuke are gay." And yet? I've only read a few fics with that pairing that were, in my opinion, good. Maybe the good ones are just on older fanfic sites but I do not want to go to those places.
That being said, here are some of the SNS ones I like:
Kizuna Hikari by YoungAndOverIntelligent is pretty well known I think, and for good reason! Its long and well told, and I love how it builds on canon like worldbuilding wise. Naruto and Sasuke are written in character and I like how the ship develops.
That's What Best Friends Are For by heimai is so funny I cried laughing reading it. Modern au, not too long, and revolves around Sasuke getting a vibrator stuck up his ass and needing Naruto's help getting it out.
Two of the pairings I find to be written consistently well are GaaLee and KakaIru. There's just higher quality fics for these ships, idk why. I don't even really ship GaaLee but I still read some fic about them sometimes cause that's where the good shit is apparently. Hats off to the GaaLee shippers.
My favorite GaaLee fics I come back to reread consistently are:
Diplomatic Relations by Malador_Chant, longfic where Lee is on an extended mission to Suna and eventually falls in love with Gaara. Very well told, the characterization is good, and I like this author's attention to detail and talent for showing the audience what the pov character is thinking.
We Don't Talk About Fight Club by solas_oiche is also super funny and very smutty. The story is a series of increasingly charged sparring related encounters between Gaara and Lee as they try to figure out what the other one is thinking/feeling.
Iruka is one of my favorite characters, and perhaps the only one I enjoy the main fanon interpretation of, and most Iruka-centric fics are KakaIru, so I read that pairing the most out of all naruto fics.
Bleed Out by HazelBeka is one of my favorites. Its a murder-mystery plot, with a lot of worldbuilding and lots of details put in to how barriers and seals work, which is super awesome I think. It also features smitten Kakashi, which I'm a fan of personally. He has to be kind of pathetic, but also competent in my opinion. Actually most of HazelBeka's work has these traits, and I enjoyed a lot of their stuff.
Another good one is Lexicon by Glaspen1. In this one Kakashi cannot read and Iruka teaches him. This is an amusing premise, but the story actually takes it very genuinely, and the plot is very well executed. It also has some sealing worldbuilding, and I love the complexity given to the characters' mental states. To me, it sort of grounds the whole thing in the world of violence that naruto takes place in.
The Open Window by decaf_kitty is also very good. Quite smutty, and what I like so much about it is the deep dive into Kakashi and Iruka's minds. Once again it features kind of neurotic and pathetic smitten Kakashi. The plot revolves around a semi-anonymous hookup between the two and the fallout of the event.
In the realm of genfic, I really enjoy let a guy and his sword rest in peace together by suitablyskippy. It asks what would happen if reanimated Kimmimaro and Juugo and reanimated Mangetsu and Suigetsu met during the war. I personally have wondered this many times, and I really like this author's take on it. It feels like it really gives Juugo and Suigetsu a more solid resolution to their relationships with these characters who were very important to them.
Rosemary for Remembrance by Sintari is pretty dark, and features Hinata/Neji, which may be not to some people's taste. I like it because it really digs into Hinata's character. I have found that serious and complex readings of Hinata to be pretty rare in naruto fanfic, even ones that seemingly center her. The author approaches Hinata from an angle that is rooted in canon, which is a plus for me, and then fleshes her out to give her an interiority*** Kishimoto seems incapable of providing for female characters.
Also, my mutual and @valiant-typhoon and Valiant_Typhoon on ao3 is currently writing The Dose Makes the Poison, which explores Tsunade and Shizune's relationship, which as we all know I find fascinating. Shizune accidentally and presumably temporarily has de-aged herself, and we get to see how Shizune used to feel about Tsunade, and her opinions as a young girl, and sort of reverse-engineer how the two of them built the relationship they have in canon. Its really great, go give it a read!
***Edit: I just realized "interiority" isn't recognized as a word in my computer and autocorrected to "inferiority." Sintari fleshes out Hinata's character to give her interiority. Not inferiority. I would like to go on record saying that Kishimoto is extremely capable of writing his female characters to have inferiority.
