We are excited to introduce our next shining star for the Creator Spotlight… @Mandapandabug! This is a member’s only activity where we reach out to one of the talented people in our community each month to find out all about them and their kakairu creations, and then show them off to the world!
We hope you enjoy learning about Amanda & her creations as much as we did. Please give her some love 
Pronouns: She/ Her
Type of Creator (artist, writer, both, etc.): Writer
Where to find her:
1. How long have you been creating KakaIru fanworks?
Since Dec 27th 2020…. I’m just a young babe full of YOUTHFUL ENERGY! (JK I’m old, just didn’t really feel comfortable writing again until then.)
2. What are you working on right now?
I am working on all the kakairu month fics I posted unfinished! Also a new Beefcake Sensei story, but that’s basically a fetus it’s so young. Also the mini-bang story (!!!). Those are all the kakairu related things. (I have some WIPS for other Iruka relationships, but I’ll leave those out of this! haha)
Not really “working” on it but haven’t finished posting the kakairu mini bang story I’m collaborating with animetrashmuffin with! “Secrets, secrets are no fun”. I love collabs!
3. What is your favourite trope to create for?
OK… ok… I know it’s not a trope, but I love stories where Iruka is kidnapped… OK is “Iruka being valued” a trope? It’s that. Like valued enough to be worth kidnapping HAHAHAHA.
I guess in all seriousness my favorite is the found family? Since Iruka (and almost every character) is very lacking in this department, it’s nice to see him get that family comfort.
4. Which of your creations is your favourite, and why?
…… Gosh…. One of my favorite creations was “Many Little Notes” for the kakairu valentine’s event… I really like the idea of bad pick-up lines. I have a problem where I just make them up. It shouldn’t come so naturally…
I really like this drabble I made for kakairu month the last day called “The worse the wedding the better the marriage” too.
5. Do you have any WIPs you’re excited about?
WIPs on WIPs… Kakairu month was a sneaky mistress. I didn’t have time to finish almost any of my fic ideas. So I’m excited to finish those.
6. Do you have any original characters? If so, tell us about them!
OK So I have to say, I love the OC ANBU that Coolgirl3890 and I have created in our series “Poor unfortunate ANBU”. I love that series and it’s sooo fun to collab, and the OCs we have in there are precious babies I love.
7. What was your hardest piece to create, and why?
I had a lot of trouble with only a few pieces so far. One is “Wearing your Scars”. I really loved the beginning, but I had a LOT of trouble focusing the plot. I wanted to go wild with it and it wasn’t working out and I wanted to post it all in Iruka Week, so I rushed it. That was really hard.
Also my kakairu month wild west AU I have yet to finish is super hard… I want to do so much but again, I just don’t think it’s practical.
8. Do you have any favourite scenes from something you’ve created?
I have some NSFW scenes that I really like in “F.M.K.” because it’s like… super soft and lovey-dovey, but they’re supposed to be having just a one-night stand. Haha. I really liked those.
Also the wedding scenes in “Bride of Hatake” and “You Hold Power Over Me”. Both are inspired by my own wedding and it makes me gooey.
I don’t particularly remember what I write after I post it, so I can’t recall any scenes, just like… vague memories of plot points haha. I sometimes go back and look over a chapter or something and am like “I wrote that?” hahahahaha. My brain… It’s mush.
9. Where does your inspiration come from?
EVERYWHERE. OK so, a lot of it has come from the Umino Hours Discord, which has been so lovely and amazing. That’s where Beefcake sensei was born haha. Umm… OK it sounds crazy maybe, but a lot of the time, I see a prompt for an event or I’m trying to go to bed and then an idea just… like comes to me.
I quickly write down what I call a “summary plot” which is a long summary of every major event of the story (this can take pages if it’s a long one) and then I write the actual story. Vaguely using the summary, but it doesn’t always turn out as I originally planned. It works well for me I think, but my hardest stories (as you asked earlier) were ones where I only got half way through the summary plots and so had to wait for inspiration for the finishes.
So I’m not sure where I get the inspiration from (maybe possession by spirits?). Probably combinations of all the fics I’ve read (so many fics…. So many) and all the media I watch and my brain mushes my favorite plots together or something. I’ve never been sooooo original in my ideas really… They are clearly influenced by something I think. I just never really know what exactly haha.
10. Which of your creations is the most meaningful to you, and why?
Meaningful? I’m a bit of a clown so I wouldn’t say anything I’ve done is like… super meaningful, but… I will be cheesy and say my first fic I posted, “New Years Eve Alone”, is because I hadn’t posted a fic in… YEARS. I just switched from my 15 year loyalty of reading only yugioh fics (puppyshipping!!) to Naruto and over all of 2020 I read every single finished kakairu work on ff.net (there were thousands….)… then moved to AO3 and found this little community and I posted that first fic kind of before that. It was just a little test of the waters. I was SO NERVOUS. It’s not the best fic or anything by any means, but it was my first time putting my work out there since I was a teen so that felt meaningful.
