What are you reading?

[Brian]

I read all of Chunin Exam Day.

All of it.

Either I'm immune to SAN loss, or I'm immune to SAN loss by virtue of not having any left.

Take your pick.

[thepanda]

Did you go in knowing it was written by Skysaber and thus not blindsided by Skysaber-being-Skysaber?

[Brian]

I ... think I knew it was Skysaber beforehand.  It's honestly hard to recall.  There were a lot of interesting bits, and a lot of Skysaber, "Ugh, I hate this character sooooooo muuuuuuch!" segments.

Kind of wish he'd just have them die instantly so he could focus on other stuff, too.

Then there's the parts Rez pointed out about girls being brainwashed by a guy who can give a backrup and make them dinner.  I think I went into it to see how it inspired Time Braid, actually.  Wouldn't really suggest it to anyone.

[Arakawa]

Did you go in knowing it was written by Skysaber and thus not blindsided by Skysaber-being-Skysaber?

I read all of Chunin Exam Day, due to the logic of "if Brian can handle it, it can't be that cosmically awful".

I dunno, there's something endearing about the pompousness. A certain escapism about having the entire universe revolve around Naruto in a horribly blatant fashion like that, that Skysaber is really the best at capturing. Then you put down the fic and observe how disconnected from real life it really is.

Maybe I'm a terrible person.

[Arakawa]

I think, in terms of any enjoyment obtained from CED, this video about sums it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p4B-ise1iI

[DY]

So, ContraBardus recently updated Gaijin, if anyone is still following that.
Here's the link: http://m.fanfiction.net/s/404359/46/

Apparently he got real sick, heart and lung disease according to what he wrote. He's better now, hope he stays well.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/15/My-Love-s-Flame

My Love's Flame updated. It looks like the first arc is done and all the basic setup is in order.

Spoiler: ShowHide

It's always interesting to see Ranma deal with romance in a situation removed from the typical Ranma 1/2 antics. I like that it plays like a couple of kids blundering around, which is exactly what they are.

Edit:

Apparently he got real sick, heart and lung disease according to what he wrote. He's better now, hope he stays well.

Good God. He's lucky he's still breathing.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9358787/1/Irish-Vampires-Being-Integra-s-Heir-and-Other-Reasons-I-Hate-My-Life

A story of the Hellsing world after the Battle of London and the lid is blown on the supernatural. The OC hasn't gripped me like Meriwether did, but the worldbuilding's really interesting so far plus the piece has excellent ambiance. It's written by Zalgo Jenkins, the author of Postnupital Disagreements.

[Jason_Miao]

Something I really want to complain about right now:

How many chapters can you survive from the most badly paced MLP fic in the history of the planet? No, scratch that... perhaps contending for the most badly paced fic in any canon whatsoever in the history of the planet?

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/24125/the-powers-of-harmony

Clearly you've never read Chuunin Exam Day, if this is the best you have to complain about!

For the record, I read through Chuunin Exam Day.

I remember telling people that I'd found a writer who was just as bad as Skysaber.

[Rayearth]

Um, because group to group interactions are Hard.  I mean it's one thing to say the reverse is easy, but even in singular canons, dealing with group to group interactions is difficult.  You know those mangas that have 50 odd characters but still focus almost solely on like 6?  Why don't they do 12 often?  Because doubling the active cast size is a huge deal to keep awareness.  It's also why large casts often get interpreted as Groups with suddenly homogonous belief/action sets no matter how they might've bickered when they were front and center.  Because it is difficult to find the time to keep people being people and still move the plot forward at a meaningful rate.

When I think of successful stories that involve group to group interaction, they are either Fusions: So a lot of the cast is auto-separated into existing small clusters; or they are Incident fics: Some dramatic event happened that is the focus of everyone's attention so it is easier to move the plot forward in relation to that event.  Someone got killed or saved or something.

Many fairly good fics can count the active speaking cast as less than ten.  Not because 'it is easy', but because going from 10 to 20 is really hard.

I'll accept this point, since I'm currently reading a fic that takes the number of groups (not just characters) to an extreme: Super Robot Wars U.

So the Super Robot Wars series of games are, in a sense, one giant crossover fanfic that happens to be playable. Or maybe they're technically fusions?

Anyway, I've yet to see the One Great SRW Fic, but this might be the closest to claim such a title if only due to having a shot at actually being completed.

One can approach this story as an exercise in trying to juggle 20 different plotlines running in parallel...and failing. There's author favoritism and there's lots of groups of characters getting sidelined and shafted. You really have to be a fan of mecha anime to appreciate a lot of the scenes in SRWU - the writing isn't good enough to stand up on its own. That is, I don't think it can serve as an intro story to get people the play the games or watch the series.

There seems to be more cross-interaction between the "super" and "real" groups than the average plot of a SRW game - it may be that the game's writers are limited by the resources of the game itself, the need to focus on certain series or other executive meddling. I definitely do like how Princess Kaguya Sumeragi (of Code Geass) winds up being interim Chief of Gutsy Geoid Guard in this story and I am sad that that will never happen in any SRW.

This fic also confirms the fact that GaoGaiGar is the King of mecha anime now and forever. I just hope that the story gets to the GGG Final and Gurren Lagann finales and writes those epic scenes well.

[lolipettanko]

Monsters of the Wild updated.

I'm enjoying this to be honest. Not necessarily because everything about it is good, but because of how engaging the premise is so far. As far as I've read, I think the "set-up" chapters are done and we're just about ready to jump into the meat and potatoes. There'll probably be a few filler chapters, hopefully not too many, but I'd really like to see how the characters will interact with each other.

Jaegu's power level was explained decently and I didn't feel ripped off by it. The Illias portion was interesting. All in all, a good chapter. Even if this goes to complete shit, I can at least say this was an interesting read.

[Dracos]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9125398/1/Introverted seems something I may follow for a bit.

Read a bit of it today.

It's got certain interesting facets.  A Danzo that isn't RAWR, STUPID EVIL is the most intriguing of them.

Unfortunately, like many of its type, it relies on the rest of shinobi village being significantly less competent than Danzo and his the OCs that are brought.  Having a reasonably structure ninja team clashes when the rest of the genin are just like canon or worse, because despite that, these are eventual village aces.  Basically, the rest of the genin are in the original naruto genre (Sasuke and Sakura excluded), and the rest of the ninja are like "We can totally be tricked".

The extent to which folks in this are publicly and loudly calling Naruto on being a demon gets a bit bothersome.  There's clearly the notice that the S-rank law exists (Someone gets killed for it even), but the village reacting to it being enforced seems to be not present.  They're entirely too bold with their obnoxiousness.

Getting the poisoner wrong midway is pretty blatantly ridiculous given that mind reading exists and its a civilian they end up blaming.  Again, nobody but danzo and the OCs seem to be allowed real competence.

It has one of the shortest wave country arcs.  That was actually fairly neat, if cold blooded.

It's written well, but hard to recommend due to the fact that the rest of the cast feels like strawmen.

[Jason_Miao]

The extent to which folks in this are publicly and loudly calling Naruto on being a demon gets a bit bothersome.  There's clearly the notice that the S-rank law exists (Someone gets killed for it even), but the village reacting to it being enforced seems to be not present.  They're entirely too bold with their obnoxiousness.

I've always thought that any story where civilians are willingly screwing around with the borders of that law to be generally unrealistic.  I've just taken it as one of the cliches of Naruto fanfiction at this point, and just suspend my disbelief (unless the writer is writing yet-another-saved-from-mob-by-ANC scene, because that's so ham-fisted that I lose most of my interest in reading further).

Getting the poisoner wrong midway is pretty blatantly ridiculous given that mind reading exists and its a civilian they end up blaming. 

Didn't that get explained as a result of the MagicalPlotAbility Bloodline?  I still haven't read any significant amount of Naruto, and since the writer just presented it as "and then they screwed around with the evidence like so," I just assumed that screwing with someone's head to implant hard-to-detect false memories was one of its canon abilities.

Again, nobody but danzo and the OCs seem to be allowed real competence.

A bit on this below

It's written well, but hard to recommend...

This sums up my thoughts on this fairly well.

I'm still following this story (it helps that the writer updates fairly often, which means if I am off doing something else for a few days and wonder if there is anything new to read, chances are that it's true).  The pacing works, and the writer understands that even if you label a story as "Angst", continuously pushing the angst button doesn't make for a good story.  On the other hand, some characters who are not part of the main cast are just thrown into the story as needed to advance the plot.  It's not a fatal flaw, but it feels unpolished.

I think the incompetence feel of the secondary characters stems from that.  The only time we read about those characters is if they're being fooled, lectured, killed, etc.  For example, Mizuki was a great deal more competent than in the manga...but he only appears in the fic a few times when it's time to push the plot along.  I believe the writer had to explain what was going on with him during one of the chapter notes - not really a great sign.

[Brian]

The pacing works, and the writer understands that even if you label a story as "Angst", continuously pushing the angst button doesn't make for a good story.

Really?  Because I quit before chapter two or three ended for precisely that reason.

It seemed like it was on a fast track to nowhere, and those reviews from you and Drac seem to confirm that.

[Jason_Miao]

The pacing works, and the writer understands that even if you label a story as "Angst", continuously pushing the angst button doesn't make for a good story.

Really?  Because I quit before chapter two or three ended for precisely that reason.

Really.  The first few chapters are a stereotypical angst-fest.  Later on, there is a bit of slapstick, some teamwork, etc, that serves to break up the previously constant atmosphere of depression.

But that fic isn't mislabeled by any means.  It is an angst story, so if you dislike them on principle, there's no reason to keep trying to read it.  It's just not like anything written by...whatever-that-Kuno-fanboy-was-called (Can't recall offhand.  Posted to the FFML quite frequently when I was active way back when.)


When I posted that fic last month, I was looking for one of his humor fics to post instead since humor has more universal appeal.  But every one that I tried reading was terrible.