From Fanlore

Dreaming of Sunshine is a Naruto fanfiction by Silver Queen, an Alternate Universe Self-Insert OC where Nara Shikamaru has a twin sister, Nara Shikako, who is the reincarnation of a Naruto fan. The fanfic started as a self-insert where Shikako was based on Silver Queen, but character growth and time have made her into more of an original character.[1]

The story has many fans and inspired a lot of fannish activity. As of June 2019 there are 93 known recursive fics on fanfiction.net[2] and over 200 works on Archive of Our Own,[3] and several communities based around discussion and writing.

Contents

Summary

The summary on fanfiction.net reads:

[4] Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there. OC Self-insert. No pairings.

Shikako Nara is born the younger twin sister to Shikamaru Nara and remembers her previous life in our world, where she was a Naruto fan. Shikako must navigate the ninja world and try desperately to prepare for the canonical threats she knows will be coming for her team, her family, and her village, including dangerous international criminals, dangerous domestic criminals, and a zombie ninja apocalypse. Silver Queen writes in first person, from Shikako's point of view, and starts from Shikako's birth. Shikako joins Team 7, learns sealing, and generally struggles not to die.

Related works

Sunshine Sidestories is also by Silver Queen, featuring stories in the same universe from the POV of other characters. Reincarnation Roulette is a collection of AU one-shots about what would have happened if Shikako was born elsewhere in the Naruto 'verse. For fanfiction not by Silver Queen, go to the recursive section down below.

There is also a podfic read by jacksgreyson.

Chapters and Arcs

Silver Queen has split the fic up into arcs to help people navigate the nearly 150 chapters she's written since 2011. Because of the prologue,Fanfiction.net's numbers are always one higher than Silver Queen's count, sometimes leading chapter numbers to be written with both the fanfiction.net count and Silver Queen's count to avoid confusion. For example, the prologue would be "Chapter 1/0" while "Chapter 57/56" would indicate the Land of Tea Arc chapter (which is just one chapter) rather than end of the Hidden Waterfall Arc (Chapter 56/55) or the beginning of the Sound Four Arc (Chapter 58/57).

The chapter numbers are one off from fanfiction.net's count, but below Silver Queen's count has been used to indicate the span of chapters that the arc covers.

Name of Arc (Chapters)

Prologue (0)

Academy Arc (1–4)

Graduation Arc (5–8)

Land of Waves Arc (9–15)

Chunin Exams Arc (16–17)

Chunin Exams Arc - First (18–19)

Chunin Exams Arc - Second (20–24)

Chunin Exams Arc - Break (25–30)

Chunin Exams Arc - Third (31–33)

Chunin Exams Arc - Invasion (34–39)

Tsukuyomi Arc (40–43)

Search & Rescue Arc (44–45)

Land of Snow Arc (46–52)

Hidden Waterfall Arc (53–55)

Land of Tea Arc (56)

Sound Four Arc (57–65)

Stones of Gelel Arc (66–71)

Yakumo Arc (72–75)

Trap Master Arc (76–77)

Sealing Arc (78–79)

Land of Stone Arc (80–81)

Haunted House Arc (82–83)

Land of Birds Arc (84–87)

Grass Chunin Exam Arc (88–90)

Grass Chunin Exam Arc - 1st (91)

Grass Chunin Exam Arc - 2nd (92)

Grass Chunin Exam Arc - 3rd (93–97)

Grass Chunin Exam Arc (98)

Sensory Squad Arc (99–103)

Storage Scroll Arc (104–105)

Intelligence Division Arc (106–110)

Land of Moon Arc (111–118)

Lost Child Arc (119–120)

Fire Temple Arc (121)

Hospital Arc (122–127)

Land of Hot Springs Arc (128–137)

Hidden Mist Arc (138–142)

ANBU Arc (143–144)

Police Arc (145–149)

Rice Fields Arc (150–ongoing)

Minor Canon Characters

In addition to the usual popular Naruto characters who featured heavily in the show, Dreaming of Sunshine has included a number of minor characters and expanded on their personalities and backstories, some of them even playing major roles in several arcs.

Most notable is probably Yamashiro Aoba in the Sensory Squad Arc, the Storage Scroll Arc, the Intelligence Division Arc, the Lost Child Arc and the Land of Hot Springs Arc. He mentors Shikako in the Intel division, goes on several missions with Shikako, helps her integrate with other special jounin after her promotion, and teaches her how to make the complex, bureaucratic, gossipy village systems work for her.

Dreaming of Sunshine has introduced (and killed) several characters earlier than the anime, often leading to large amounts of canon divergence. The Sound genin team, Karin, and Hidan all died earlier in the series than in canon. Shimura Danzou, Tenzou and Sai have all appeared years earlier in Dreaming of Sunshine than they did in canon. Some characters are alive when they were supposed to have died, particularly fan-favorites Momochi Zabuza and Haku.

Nara Shikaku and Yoshino, Shikamaru and Shikako's parents, get a lot of focus in domestic scenes and early on tend to appear at the beginning and end of each arc. Shikako's whole team bonds with them; especially Sasuke, who joins Shikamaru and Shikako for lessons about how to run a clan that Sasuke will need if he wants to revive the Uchiha.

Mitarashi Anko first appears in the second round of the Chuunin Exams, like in canon, but Shikako crosses paths with her several more times, including the Yakumo Arc, the Sensory Squad Arc, the Hospital Arc, and the Mist Arc. Shikako accidentally sets Anko on the path to making jounin, later allows Anko to take over running the Kunoichi Club as her jounin project, and gets to see Anko's genin team compete at the Mist Exams. Two of Anko's genin are characters from the anime filler arcs: Kurama Yakumo and Isaribi.

Other minor characters are used for comedic effect and callbacks, such as the way Shikako keeps running into the genin team from Rain who were at the Konoha chuunin exams. Team 7 defeats them in the Forest of Death, and then again in Land of Tea (as per Naruto anime filler canon) and then Shikako runs into them again at the Grass chuunin exam.

The Police Arc seems ready to explore three minor characters. Ebisu has gained a backstory. Yuuhi Shinku (Yuuhi Kurenai's father) seems set to be the main antagonist, although in Naruto canon he appeared on only one page of the manga. Manabu Akado, a one-off middle-aged character who was seen in the first part of the Konoha chuunin exam also features.

Original characters

Although Silver Queen pulls most of her minor characters from canon, reusing anime arcs and improving on them by using them to explain how the Narutoverse works, there's pretty much no getting around the need for *some* recurring original characters, especially because there are only a few Nara clan members in canon but Shikako of course would be expected to be at least acquaintances with the entire clan. For example:

Nara Kofuku, the Head of Nara R&D

Nara Kasuga, an older Nara man who helps the twins train when Shikaku is busy—who's not to be confused by the *canon* Nara Kasuga, who's younger and may very well have come up in the series long after Dreaming of Sunshine was published.

was published. Nara Takatori, several years older than Shikako and does a lot of research in R&D

Some OCs have been created to fill in the ranks of other canon families (for example, Aburame Chiyako, Aburame Shino's younger sister) or gaps in Konoha's military or civilian structure that logically much exist (for example, Heihou, a higher-up in the non-canon Logistics Division who motivates Shikako's activities in the Sealing Arc). Many technically canon characters have so little information about them in canon that they end up being OCs, what TV Tropes calls an O.C. Stand-in.

Inspiration, process, and development

Silver Queen has said that she likes the "core of [Naruto] and the themes and ideas it sets out in the first part."[5]

At the year mark of writing, she also said in one author's note:

[6] ...DOS started as an attempt at a 'realistic' Self Insert, like Cage of Blood and Circumstance and Only a Moron, and to world build and expand within the bounds of canon and explain the how's and why's that things happened the way they did. It was never really intended as a 'butterfly effect' fic, and indeed a few people have complained that nothing seems to change. Still, it's grown.

[7] ... I think the little things matter a lot. Most Naruto fanfic focus on the battle part - getting strong enough/tricky enough to win - which is fair enough, but there's also the point that they're people who are living this fulltime and have to gain enough life experience to make good decisions as they go, which for most teams is probably more important than learning jutsu at genin level. Desperate is probably a good word for it, actually. There's a difference between 'I need to get stronger' and 'three years till Pein'…

Only A Moron (link) by swabloo, and A Cage of Blood and Circumstance (link) by shadowsdeep are two SI fic which have since stopped updating; Silver Queen was reading them when she started writing Dreaming of Sunshine.[4][8] and likes the way fanfiction with peggy-sue time travel elements leads to characters who 'know better' than they did at the start of canon and struggle through all their obstacles in new and improved ways."[9]

Her goal for the fic was to explore the world of Naruto and everything implied by canon. In an answer on tumblr, Silver Queen said,

why did these things happen’. Not about changing them, not about being some ‘rationalist’ take on it all. I can’t understand why people read DoS and complain about how silly things like sending a team of genin after Sasuke are. That’s canon. It happened.[5] DoS was mostly (okay it was a little bit a ‘fix it’ fic) about ‘welldid these things happen’. Not about changing them, not about being some ‘rationalist’ take on it all. I can’t understand why people read DoS and complain about how silly things like sending a team of genin after Sasuke are. That’s canon. It happened.

Silver Queen thought the reincarnation self-insert trope was best for her purposes because "the Naruto-verse is not very friendly to other kinds. Teleported in, wake-up-as-character-x, random omnipotent being gives you a magical quest… they’re going to be difficult. To put it less politely, you’re kinda screwed."[10] However, she doesn't view the reincarnation itself as a plot point or mystery to be resolved, "It's just... a conceit that allows the story to take place at all."[11]

She's also discussed how long it took her to even write anything for the fic: she spent months sitting on the idea for the fic before writing anything and several weeks more before writing a prologue that would allow her to post and even then only posted it because it was becoming too long to email back and forth with her sister.[12][13] When she was still in school she would keep notebooks full of drafts with her. She's since switched to writing each chapter in a new document and pasting the completed chapter into a master doc when it's complete.[14] Arcs aren't planned out ahead of time; instead, arc titles were added to help readers navigate the drop-down menu of chapters which previously had only had numbers.[15] Sometimes arc names aren't put on chapters until Silver Queen has decided if they should be with the last arc or start a new one.[16]

Regarding how much Shikako remembers about Naruto canon, Silver Queen thought that "Shikako should have the same ‘amount’ of knowledge that I had regarding canon" with wiggle room for anything that might happen between when Dreaming of Sunshine was posted and when Naruto ended.[17] She later decided to throw out most of the canon ending, but did keep some later world building, like the Akimichi memorial and vows.[18] Shikako has a good grasp of major characters and plot points, like most fans would, but Silver Queen hadn't seen all of the anime (or found all of the episodes she'd seen worthy of remembering) so smaller plot points, especially filler, tend to take Shikako by surprise. She's also often surprised by the timing of events. Silver Queen has then of course had to rewatch episodes to make sure that the narrative of the story matches up with canon even though Shikako's memories don't, which she says is "a little tricky."[17] Silver Queen first planned to do all of the anime episodes, but complaints about pacing made her focus on just the ones she thought she could "take in an interesting direction, like the Gelel and Moon movies."[19]

Self-insert or original character?

On several occasions, Silver Queen has said that although Shikako started as a self-insert, she's now more like an original character.[20][21]

In an interview in 2015, Silver Queen addressed this in-depth:

The story is labeled as a SI story, but do you still believe that Shikako's character and your own are still the same? Has she taken on a personality of her own? If so, when? In what ways do you and Shikako differ the most, other than the obvious fact that she was raised in a militaristic setting?



Shikako has definitely evolved. Like, even in the early chapters she would have been different from me, because she died and was then highly traumatized by this huge cultural shift. I don't really deal well with new things or new places, especially me-when-I-started-writing-DOS. I think by the time we started actually hitting Naruto plot, with the bell test and Wave Country she would have been coming into her own distinctive characterization. But I would say the Forest of Death could be regarded as the tipping point. Which makes sense, I guess, because it's a decision I would never be faced with making and she was and did.



I think Shikako is way more motivated than I am, actually, and a bigger risk taker, which could in part be because she's playing a higher stakes game. I think she's better at communicating with people, though I do love writing her 'I can't talk, halp, what are words' moments which are, ironically, when she's more comfortable and not trying to play people so hard. I think she pays a lot more attention to the world around her, but that is in part because of the ninja setting and training. And I would like to think she's crueler than I am. We have certainly seen streaks of it in her. Not saying I don't have a bit of it, but she knows which buttons to aim for.[12] Shikako has definitely evolved. Like, even in the early chapters she would have been different from me, because she died and was then highly traumatized by this huge cultural shift. I don't really deal well with new things or new places, especially me-when-I-started-writing-DOS. I think by the time we started actually hitting Naruto plot, with the bell test and Wave Country she would have been coming into her own distinctive characterization. But I would say the Forest of Death could be regarded as the tipping point. Which makes sense, I guess, because it's a decision I would never be faced with making and she was and did.I think Shikako is way more motivated than I am, actually, and a bigger risk taker, which could in part be because she's playing a higher stakes game. I think she's better at communicating with people, though I do love writing her 'I can't talk, halp, what are words' moments which are, ironically, when she's more comfortable and not trying to play people so hard. I think she pays a lot more attention to the world around her, but that is in part because of the ninja setting and training. And I would like to think she's crueler than I am. We have certainly seen streaks of it in her. Not saying I don't have a bit of it, but she knows which buttons to aim for.

When asked if Shikako's status as a reincarnate would ever come out, Silver Queen has said it won't happen. Not just because she's not interested in writing it, but also because Shikako has very good motivations for keeping it secret.[22][23]

On what she'd do if she met another reincarnate, Silver Queen has said,

[24] The important thing to remember, really, is that Shikako is playing a high stakes game of ninja chess for basically her entire life - another reincarnated person is going to be a wild card. And she’s really not going to like or trust that.

Worldbuilding and extrapolating from canon

A calendar by Silver Queen showing the day-by-day events in Dreaming of Sunshine for the first two years of in-universe time.

Worldbuilding (which Silver Queen describes as "Why is this thing where it is, why is it what it is?") is a driving force behind Dreaming of Sunshine. Much of Silver Queen's worldbuilding and characterization comes from attempting to "explain the irregularities we see on the screen" and follow canon information to its logical conclusion.[12] She doesn't seek to dismiss Kishimoto's hodge-podge and at times silly choices, but instead contextualize them in a way that makes everything line up and be canon compliant.[5] In her 2015 AMA on Reddit, Silver Queen agreed that the lack of jounin available to go after Uchiha Sasuke in the canon Sasuke Retrieval Arc was a plot hole she sought to explain, which is why most of the jounin around Shikako are called away to a border conflict with Kumo in Dreaming of Sunshine's Land of Waterfall arc. Silver Queen was then able to explore the escalation of tension between ninja villages and how Konoha prepares and reacts to war outside the context of the canon Fourth War.[25]

When it comes to characterization, Silver Queen has explained her process for deciding that Tenten was a pacifist as such:

[12] And some of it is very much trying to explain irregularities we see on the screen – Tenten is said to be perfectly accurate, yet her fighting style is a barrage of weapons that never seem to hit anyone. So maybe she isn't trying to hit, just to box people in and direct them around the stage. Which works fine when you have Neji and Lee to provide the actual take down, but shows as a weakness in her solo fights. And the easiest reason for 'why does she miss' is that she's not even aiming at them, because she doesn't want to hurt them. Which works with all information we have on her.

She's also influenced by meta on tumblr and elsewhere, specifically referencing the NarutoForums essay Before Hokage and After: A Tsunade Analysis (link to essay)[12][26]

Chapter 21 of Sunshine Sidestories was originally in the outline for chapter 135/chapter 134 of Dreaming of Sunshine but was cut for length... and then Silver Queen found she really wanted to write it anyway. The chapter is about Shikako's work as joint clan head (with Shikamaru) while their father is out of the village at the warfront, told from the POV of an out-clan man who's looking to let his male lover, a Nara, share custody of his young daughter so that she'll be in good hands if he dies.[27] About her goals for this chapter, Silver Queen said:

good is a clan?’. What benefits does it give you, why might someone want that, what would it take for someone to cross the line into it. And of course, there are tangible benefits! We see a lot of them. But there’s also the very simple ‘a large connected support network’ that can’t really be discounted. In Konoha especially that has such a high death rate and such a lot of orphans - that seems like it would be a massively motivating force for someone.[28] So it kind of… looks into ‘well, whatis a clan?’. What benefits does it give you, why might someone want that, what would it take for someone to cross the line into it. And of course, there are tangible benefits! We see a lot of them. But there’s also the very simple ‘a large connected support network’ that can’t really be discounted. In Konoha especially that has such a high death rate and such a lot of orphans - that seems like it would be a massively motivating force for someone.

Fan reactions and impact on Naruto fandom

Influence and popularity

Dreaming of Sunshine inspired a big upswing in self insert fanfiction, especially in the Naruto fandom.[29][30][31][32][33] It's common for fans to note that Dreaming of Sunshine is the first (or only) SI/OC fic they've enjoyed, that it's much better than other SI fics they've read, or that it's changed their opinion on the genre.[34][35][36][37] Many readers have only started reading Naruto fanfiction in general because of Dreaming of Sunshine.[38][39] Rereading the fic is common.[40][41][42][43][44]

Dreaming of Sunshine was the 8th most reviewed Naruto fic on fanfiction.net as of mid-August 2015. According to on DoS forum user, the ranking on August 16, 2015 was:

Chunin Exam Day: 14,359 Team 8: 14,097 Lost Soul (M rated): 10,599 The Sealed Kunai (M Rated): 10,157 A Mother's Love (M Rated): 8918 Neo Yondaime Hokage (M Rated): 8700 New Chance (M Rated): 8445 Dreaming of Sunshine: 8059 I would also like to point out that all of these are at least a year older than DoS.[45] I would also like to point out that all of these are at least a year older than DoS.

Chapter 95 was released and DoS jumped to 6th most reviewed by August 26, 200 reviews short of being #5.[46] On September 9, 2015, it hit 9k reviews, putting it in 5th place[47] and by October 14 it was up to 10,000 reviews.[48] Mid-november, Dreaming of Sunshine became the 3rd most-reviewed.[49]

As of mid-2018, Dreaming of Sunshine has 21k reviews and is the most reviewed Naruto fanfiction on fanfiction.net. #2 is Chūnin Exam Day, which ran from 2007 to 2010. #3 is Team 8, which ran from 2006 to 2015 and has 14k.

Plot, pacing, and inclusion of anime filler

Because Silver Queen started writing Dreaming of Sunshine with the intent to fill in plot holes and explore the world, many readers became frustrated with how closely the fic stuck to canon events in earlier years[50] as the first large, obvious upset to canon events was Sasuke's choice not to defect to Orochimaru. On a SpaceBattles.com forum discussion in 2015, one fan wrote:

[51] But in my opinion, it's far too long, and spends far too much time having nothing happening. Personally, I believe Silver Queen should have started a slice of life spin-off to keep the primary fic from swelling into the bloated borefest it often becomes.

For other people the slice of life parts are the entire point of the fic[52] or at least the part they like best:

[53] That was a really good moment in [Chapter 8] when Shikako reflects that "not all the danger in the world was bandits or missing nin". I have to say I really enjoy the slice of life elements to this story more than the action. The exposition works well in slice of life, but it gets clunky and awkward during battles, even when the action itself is well thought out.

Silver Queen also chose to include a good deal of anime filler, to a great deal of complaint and support. Often people who don't mind the fillers just didn’t see the fillers in the first place,[54] but others find that Silver Queen has brought an interesting slant to the filler.

[55] A minor gripe with the story is, that it's at times a bit too close to canon, it could definitely deviate a bit more from the standard story. I also dislike the inclusion of so many of the anime filler episodes and the movies. I don't really care about them, they don't add anything to the story in my opinion.

[56] I love how you weave filler and main plots or making filler important. Not just for the movies. I mean in the waterfall arc you got to the whole why Kakashi goes to frontlines, adding the jinjuriki and warning about Akatsuki. For Idate you got the whole rain isn't under the Hanzo. Really I love how you make connections. It makes it seem more like a world that's connected than a show.

Some fans have also credited Dreaming of Sunshine with renewing their interest in the series, or making them seek out new canon material. In a comment on the last chapter of the Stones of Gelel Arc, an arc based on the movie Legend of the Stone of Gelel, one fan noted:

[57] A long time in coming and yet worth the wait- The *feels* in this chapter... I hadn't seen this OVA and this made me watch it, it was interesting to see how Kako changed canon- I still don't quite understand what Shikamaru did to heal his sister but it definitely brought me back into wanting to write Shika.

This was a fairly common sentiment in the reactions to Chapter 71/70. Another fan said:

[58] I-I-I-I-I... I don't know what to say. I was going to say 'Thanks for updating' but that doesn't do this chapter justice. I made it half-way through this movie, then I quit. I am now going back to finish it, simply because of this chapter. They were stars... How cool is that?

Fandom and fan communities

The popularity, length, and persistence of DoS over the years has created its own fan community as a subset of the larger Naruto fandom. The Dreaming of Sunshine forum started in 2015 but fans now congregate on several other platforms, including Discord, reddit, and tumblr. Much of the fannish activity is focused on recursive fanfiction and although for years it was almost entirely archived on fanfiction.net or posted to the forum, fans have started trying to use Archive of Our Own as well.

Vids

Fanfiction

Fanart

Elsewhere