What are you reading?

[Anastasia]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13233466/10/The-Other-Way

The Other Way updated. It was about 95% character work and team building, but it was fun.

[Jason_Miao]

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/1/Mother-of-Learning

Finished.

[Anastasia]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12520349/5/Like-a-Senshi-Scorned

Oh look, A Senshi Scorned revived. I'd have to reread the entire thing to get back on base, but boy it reads as fanony these days.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13156407/10/Heated-Storm-Yields-a-Wild-Horse-s-Heart

This also updated. Wasn't the biggest fan of the angle ultimately used by Shampoo, but after last chapter's emotional peak, there was going to be a valley regardless.

[Jason_Miao]

Just found out yesterday that there's a sequel to Worm.

Also:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12520349/5/Like-a-Senshi-Scorned
Oh look, A Senshi Scorned revived. I'd have to reread the entire thing to get back on base, but boy it reads as fanony these days.

Which side?  The Ranma parts?  The Senshi parts?  Or fanon all around?

Just asking out of idle curiosity; I'll probably read it whichever way you answer.

[Anastasia]

Just found out yesterday that there's a sequel to Worm.

Also:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12520349/5/Like-a-Senshi-Scorned
Oh look, A Senshi Scorned revived. I'd have to reread the entire thing to get back on base, but boy it reads as fanony these days.

Which side?  The Ranma parts?  The Senshi parts?  Or fanon all around?

Just asking out of idle curiosity; I'll probably read it whichever way you answer.

All around. I only read some of it since I'd need to go back and reread it, and the fic it continues off of first.

It has that good, old fashioned 90s crossover feel.

[Merc]

It has that good, old fashioned 90s crossover feel.

So does that mean you feel like going and giving Just Won't Die series a re-read? Can't beat that for 90s crossover fanon! :D

[Yuthirin]

Re-read The Games We Play by Ryuugi recently. This is a re-host off of SB.

[Dracos]

It's a good tale.  I have trouble connecting with Ryuugi's works these days.  They've gotten too eclectic (even compared to that).

[Jason_Miao]

Just realized that I'd never posted a link to this one: http://liberspark.com/novel/black-irons-glory

[Dracos]

https://wanderinginn.com/2020/03/24/ caught up on this from mid volume six.  Lots of good scenes.  Erin's feeling sorta distorted in certain ones to accent an inability to deal with things that felt a bit weird given story so far.  Author's at his best writing chaotic intertwined events and quietly epic parties.

At his worst writing anything about sex.  The last chapter was that and it was ridiculously completely and utterly bad.  Hopefully very skippable as I couldn't bother to read that many consecutive scenes all about characters sex lives.  So far it also really hasn't been relevant.  It's not porn with plot or decent porn since it's trying to be adult/anti-prude in a sense there rather than telling a sexy tale or a sex scene.  Even excluding that scene, just other parts are really heavy handed and poor.  The goblin shaman always talking about it is rarely shown to be exercising power from persuasive having sex as opposed to just being able to physically and magically beat the crap out of the vast majority around her.

He's utterly lost track of any real sense of levels as a part of his narrative system at some point.  It's basically 'at any point someone could magically I win power, this won't generally affect day to day though that much, just big dramatic scenes'.  40 went from outlandishly high in the early volumes to 60-70 being so.  But even so the main characters are rubbing shoulders at least with what the world considers to be movers and shakers at the national levels at this point.

Klb goes through three or four personality replacements over the series.  Luckly his partner Relc is largely a stable and understandable character.

Anyhow enjoyed Sallis of the Lights.

[Jason_Miao]

https://wanderinginn.com/2020/03/24/ caught up on this from mid volume six.  Lots of good scenes.  Erin's feeling sorta distorted in certain ones to accent an inability to deal with things that felt a bit weird given story so far.  Author's at his best writing chaotic intertwined events and quietly epic parties.

I managed to work through maybe a third of the sex-related shorts, and just skimmed through the rest.

With respect to various scenes in general, normal action scenes are done pretty well, and slice of life/amazing party chapters are great.

The flip side is whenever the writer think some chapter would work better with a majestic tone and tries to adopt it, it just comes off as borderline (or not so borderline) purple prose.  And with how long each chapter is, it's pretty tedious to slog through.  I have the impression that the experience has somewhat improved as the story goes on, although I'm unsure whether that's because the writing itself has become better or whether it's because I've gained resistance to the K-chapter writing style.

[Dracos]

I did appreciate, and at the same time eyebrow raise, at the Goblin Slayer expectation inversion.  It's really something that almost entirely doesn't work without awareness of the sudden popularity of Goblin Slayer.

[Anastasia]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/inspired-voyage-st-voyager-si.791005/

So this story continues on and got a big update today. I like the strong points of the story a lot, but the weak points?

Spoiler: ShowHide

Janeway was a giant plot tumor. If a Janeway fan read it and balked at the story I would not blame them in the least. I fall on the lower end of Janeway opinions and that fic was still brutal to her in my opinion. I'm glad it's finally excised so the story can get back to doing what it does best. With a three ship fleet now, the story's really getting better and interesting.

For my money though, the best tack would've been having Janeway and the SI manage to sort it out before it all went to crap.

[Anastasia]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743297

Sailor Moon fanfic. It's something. It's unique but I feel the non linear presentation does more harm than good. The writing's also a bit weak in places, or perhaps weakened by the non linear style.

[Anastasia]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/kill-them-all-worm-gamer.830187/

A Worm/Gamer cross. I'm not going to lie, this fic bothers me.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Okay, this is the same author as a Wand for Skitter, so that should inform you to begin with. More than that, the Taylor in this story is a stone cold psychopath. Now granted one could see this as a deconstruction of Gamer's Mind that so often permeates Gamer fanfics, but let's be honest Taylor doesn't need a huge push to go down the road o' violence. It's just that she rapidly graduates from murder to mass murder to killing two hundred people in five minutes simply because they're ABB.

Like seriously, the heroes rightfully freak out at this, but it's very much a story in the vein of the Taylor is Right narrative and the writing tends to reinforce this. I feel like I'm watching someone's murder simulator at this point, only that we're supposed to pull for the murderer. The entire vibe of the fic really puts me off. Like Taylor's legitimately monstrous now and I don't fault the PRT too much for the recent attempt to kill her. Considering the dirty pool the PRT did with the attempt that says a lot.