What are you reading?

[Jon]

Finished Right Moments, finally.  It went a very strange place.

Yes indeed.

I have literally no idea where the "let's go be mercenaries in Africa, and let's change ourselves into black people while we're at it" plot at the end came from, or how it makes any sense to anyone, even the author.

[Brian]

What they did is not nearly as boggling as why they did it.

Spoiler: ShowHide

I get that it was thrown in so that Ranma could fight a Big Bad and get closure, but since he actually totally lost that fight (the goddess kicked his ass in every single exchange before the Formless Duke's Heel Face Turn and subsequent Curbstomp Battle) I didn't really feel it.  It felt like it was just another screwup that Ranma survived -- yay planning, decades of training, practice, etc.  I feel the last few paragraphs of the fic (pre-epilogue) actually handle this better.

Generally, I give the fic points for the badass super-loli that constantly beats up Ranma -- she was actually probably the best part of the entire fic for me.  Yeah.  She was pretty much most interesting part of the kami plane arc.

[Anastasia]

Agreed with absolutely everything above.

Read a new fic today, Forcibly United. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/1/Forcibly_United It's a Ranma/Black Lagoon crossover; I didn't go in expecting much as I don't care for Black Lagoon. The author's still solid enough early on and it has some fun moments.

[Dracos]

I've seen that fic referenced dozens of times, but every time I read its summary my mind boggles.

[Anastasia]

Yes, no argument there. It sorta works because the author just runs with shit and tries to keep people IC.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/1/Amorously_Minded

This isn't my normal cup of tea: It's Marvel vs Capcom 3. It's what if Iron Man and Morrigan got together, and a kid came of it? It's lighthearted fun that's written well, nothing less and nothing more. I like it.

[Dracos]

Huh, olg suggested that I think a while ago.  Never really read it though.

Num.  Spent a bit more time on Into Nightmare, skipping ahead to Into Dreams on the advice here, but it lacks holding power.

Reread Hill of Swords and read a bit further into Breath of Fire 1 Novelization.  Have I linked those here?  I should if I haven't.

[thepanda]

I'd have to say Hill of Swords has probably the best climax of any fic I've read this year.

Currently rereading Black Dragon's Guardian. I hadn't read it in years. I think he'd only gotten to chapter 13 maybe and now I see there are more than twice as many chapters. I'm up to chapter 17 now and its still a fun ride.

[Brian]

Black Dragon's Guardian

Nyoro...~n?

What fandom is this?  What's it about?

[Dracos]

Ranma.

Black Dragon is the same author that does Big Human on Campus.  He wrote a variety of Ranma-shaped in Original/Crossover universes, guardian being one of them.

[Brian]

His profile lists Metro, Shade, and Sky as favorites.

Sky's OLD handle, since he now posts as Perfect Lionheart.  Haha, wow.

[thepanda]

Haha oh wow. I never noticed that. Well, some people like okra; I won't hold it against him.

[Jason_Miao]

Finished Right Moments, finally.  It went a very strange place.  I found it interesting, but I didn't like some aspects of it.

Yep.  It's far from the best fic I've ever read.  But I thought it was interesting, and I don't think many fics are, these days.  Anyway, now that people have read it, I can talk about it.

My own view on this is that the story mostly holds together up until the gods arc ends.  The "Ranma can't always win" bit gets established there, which makes the Africa arc pretty random and irrelevant.  You pretty much reached the conclusions I did, although I actually found the Kodachi part fairly interesting.  Most writers who want a Kodachi romance will try to keep her social position and change her character.  This writer tried the opposite tack.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2210522/12/The_Ranma_Omake_Files_Innortal_Style is a somewhat different take on the concept.  A mix between Groundhogs Day gone wrong and Donny Cheng's Life and Times series (if anyone still remembers those).  Linking to page 12 was deliberate, since it's buried at the end of a slush file.  Done as a series of vignettes.

re: United, I think I read that fic.  If it's the one I'm thinking about, the only things I remember are Ranma trying to dodge bullets from a magical Colt 45, and a holy spatula (which wasn't even important.  Just thrown in as a gag).  But that was true of the manga too; I read a great deal of the manga, but the only thing I remember is the combat maid because when I was a regular in #fanfic, I used to joke with Kieron and DA that if I ever had more money than I knew what to do with, I'd form an army of french maids with assault rifles.  So, not-memorable fic based off of not-memorable manga.

[Brian]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/1/Amorously_Minded

This isn't my normal cup of tea: It's Marvel vs Capcom 3. It's what if Iron Man and Morrigan got together, and a kid came of it? It's lighthearted fun that's written well, nothing less and nothing more. I like it.

Instead of being serious, I'll say: interesting teaser.  Do you think the author will ever bother to write a chapter?

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/1/Amorously_Minded

This isn't my normal cup of tea: It's Marvel vs Capcom 3. It's what if Iron Man and Morrigan got together, and a kid came of it? It's lighthearted fun that's written well, nothing less and nothing more. I like it.

Instead of being serious, I'll say: interesting teaser.  Do you think the author will ever bother to write a chapter?

One can only dream. [derail]I've read a lot of good authors lately who think a chapter is somewhere between 500 and 3000 words long. What the fuck? I can understand it's hard to write a full chapter and tine consuming, but c'mon. Give us something we can get into with a lot of meat to it.[/derail]