FanficRecs YMMV on this parade of despair
I read it because, at the time, the summary didn't have the relevant warnings and I didn't know what I was getting into. Didn't enjoy it. Canon childhood was filled with plenty of hints about neglect/emotional abuse, which is plenty shitty enough. There's no need to heap on physical and sexual abuse on top just for shits and giggles. Plus, it's just depressing incident after depressing incident, where there is no hope for a better future and no bright spots to at least lift your mood periodically.
There comes a point where reading chapter after chapter of watching someone get kicked when they're down for no purpose gets tiring and boring. I stuck with it until the last posted chapter for the sake of finishing the fic, but I haven't gone near it since.
FanficRecs from comments
- Comments: Though not always perfectly written, I've fallen in love with this fic because of its deeper look in to exactly what Naruto's mental state is really like. Its currently got 16 chapters, and was updated earlier last month. Come on, give it a chance! :)
- BlueFox: I'll disagree here. It's well written, but it takes the typical wall banger of Naruto being horribly abused and ups it to eleven: In this fic, Naruto needs multiple jobs to pay the bills (despite having obviously done multiple high ranked missions already) and is having trouble to pay for food (come on, he's in the military. They might not get rich, but keeping elite soldiers starving is just stupid). On top of that, most of his suffering is self-inflicted. Outwardly he pretends to be a happy moron, so everybody treats him as if he was. He hides that he's broken inside at all costs, even when characters demonstrate they do care when he lets it slip through. He obstinately resists any and all attempts to help him. The fic follows a predictable formula: Naruto pretends that he's stupid and without any problems, then is horribly crushed when people fail to take into account things they didn't know about. My take is that this fic is about a seriously depressed Naruto, most of whose suffering is self-inflicted due to his incredibly skewed perception of reality. It's tragic alright, but not nearly in the way most people seem to read it.
FanficRecs I liked it...
Though it wasn't realistic at all honestly I liked how the author wrote it and how tragic it was... It barely had anything to do with Naruto really...call me a masochist but damn was that sad... it was literally a roller coaster of emotions for me ;-;