What are you reading?

[Dracos]

www.fanfiction.net/s/2449022/1/Millennium Read this yesterday.  The formatting for like the first seven chapters is a mess that makes it a bit of a pain to read.  Victim of fanfiction.net 'help' in that regard certainly.  It's got occassional neat stuff but frankly, Big Human on Campus (same author) is simply better and both his Ranma and Senshi come across as only really the shapes in Millenium, as  fun as CyberMoon ends up being.

[Jason_Miao]

...and both his Ranma and Senshi come across as only really the shapes in Millenium, as  fun as CyberMoon ends up being.

You did read Guardian first, right?  Because Millenium is supposed to be a sidestory to Guardian, and my understanding is that he's supposed to be firmly embedded in the DAPC Culture at the start of Millenium, so really shouldn't be acting like Ranma straight from Nerima.

[Dracos]

I know, I've read them.  I hold it's the same in Guardian too.

Both stories share a lot of the same flaws.  Fun and set in a clearly anime world (for better or worse), but heavily mangled/compacted formatting.

[Jason_Miao]

Fun and set in a clearly anime world (for better or worse), but heavily mangled/compacted formatting.

Well, at least regarding the formatting, you could go to his webpage.  If you don't like it there either, at least you know that fanfic.net had nothing to do with it.

[thepanda]

His later chapters look ok on the site but the early ones are a mess.

[DY]

Gabriel Blessing has posted a new story. A Medaka Box/Bakemonogatari cross titled Those Who Love Monsters.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478991/1/

[thepanda]

Myoushuu no Fuuin

I don't even know where to start with this one. It starts out as a 'what if Naruto had become a seal specialist?' story, and as such the first three chapters are actually pretty entertaining.

But then comes that forth chapter. Felt like walking straight into a wall. I don't know what's worse; the sudden darkening of the story's background, teh angst, or that everyone who isn't in team 7 becomes a complete moron and/or asshole. Chapter 5 only makes it worse.

Chapter 5 is Wave country. I know, I know. Overused forum jokes aside, though, they actually managed to finish it in one chapter, had Zabuza and Haku run off after the first fight, and yet somehow still made it feel more tedious than canon.

After chapter 5 the fic sort of stumbles along. The good parts are pretty good, but likewise the bad parts are pretty annoying.

I'd tentatively recommend it as it still has my attention, but skip it if it doesn't sound like your cuppa.

[Dracos]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4622086/1/Ranmas_Eternal_Night

Ranma/Hellsing crossover. It's not bad. I wouldn't call it great, but I've had fun reading it. The writing is good and the story does a superb job of showing Ranma's descent into vampirism. More in the spoiler box.

Spoiler: ShowHide

The good:

Ranma's gradual loss of humanity. Unlike Seras, he embraces his nature almost immediately and changes in time to it. It's not sudden and it is well built up over the course of the story. Despite all of Ranma's will, he can't really resist what he is now.

Ryouga's death. It was a complete bitch-kill, but you know what? It was done just right and really slammed home hard. The story set it up so that you'd think he'd be able to compete with Ranma again, but BLAM! That one got my attention but good. Lots of credit to the author for pulling that off.

The general darkening of the story to match Ranma's descent is outstanding.

The bad:

I'm not really fond of how he portrays Alucard. I'm not a Hellsing nut so maybe I'm wrong, but his entire voice for Alucard's internal monologues feels wrong.

[/quote]

hmm... just went ahead and finished reading this.  Reminded what rubbed me wrong on it.
[spoiler]
Pretty much it involves Ranma consuming all of Ceres' character growth scenes.   Anything that involves a challenge to her humanity is instead met by Ranma.

Integral is really off tone, which throws a lot of it into weird space.  Even though young, in both canons she's been having to be lady of steel from the time she was like fourteen.  She's got decades of experience and a masculine swagger by the time Ceres shows up in canon.  Alucard is slightly off tone in a lot of strange ways.  Ceres meanwhile is on tone, with the exception that basically the Tiger part of her Timid Tiger character never gets a chance to come out and she gets aggressively ignored by virtually everyone anytime she isn't on camera.  With a strong character like Ranma around, she's pretty much run into the dirt.

Truthfully, I read Hellsing because I want to see Integral, Ceres, or Alucard interact with the world in interesting ways.  Alucard has in this (hey here's Ranma).  There's a rabid take on Integral here.  Ceres meanwhile is being bludgeoned into the ground.  She's completely stripped of all but the most superficial moments to deal with vampirism or the world around her.

I really think that the descent could've been more interesting with Ceres taking part.  It also could be a fun romance thing, but it's a bit weird with pip also around.

Basically events going on as 'is' in spite of having a considerable additional force is strange.  with three vamps, it should've been almost a wipe when the valentine brothers showed up.  Instead Ceres ...and Alucard both were basically written out of the scene?

[Dracos]

Gabriel Blessing has posted a new story. A Medaka Box/Bakemonogatari cross titled Those Who Love Monsters.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478991/1/

Huh and I was just going on about how unsatisifying scenes breed fanfiction.  That's a pretty solid take of it.

[Yuthirin]

Didn't see this on here, so I figured I'd add it. It's an HP/Dresden Files crossover that I find myself really enjoying.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4183715/1/Awaken_Sleeper

[Dracos]

Myoushuu no Fuuin

I don't even know where to start with this one. It starts out as a 'what if Naruto had become a seal specialist?' story, and as such the first three chapters are actually pretty entertaining.

But then comes that forth chapter. Felt like walking straight into a wall. I don't know what's worse; the sudden darkening of the story's background, teh angst, or that everyone who isn't in team 7 becomes a complete moron and/or asshole. Chapter 5 only makes it worse.

Chapter 5 is Wave country. I know, I know. Overused forum jokes aside, though, they actually managed to finish it in one chapter, had Zabuza and Haku run off after the first fight, and yet somehow still made it feel more tedious than canon.

After chapter 5 the fic sort of stumbles along. The good parts are pretty good, but likewise the bad parts are pretty annoying.

I'd tentatively recommend it as it still has my attention, but skip it if it doesn't sound like your cuppa.

Adults are Incompetent seems to be kinda the name of the game.  Also Cheat Knowledge ("Oh, here's your weaknesses, person I've never met.  And could you train my friend?")

[DY]

Didn't see this on here, so I figured I'd add it. It's an HP/Dresden Files crossover that I find myself really enjoying.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4183715/1/Awaken_Sleeper

I've read that one, it's pretty good. It actually got me into reading The Dresden Files.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4722676/16/Her_War

Her War updated. It's 100% a cleanup chapter, almost as if a connecting chapter between books. I'm just glad to see an update.

http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/250595.html

Dungeon Keeper Ami updated. It's a complete nothing chapter but the author admitted that. He'd had trouble updating so he just ran with the chapter to get it over with. Hopefully the doldrums will end soon.

[DY]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478991/2/Those_Who_Love_Monsters

Those Who Love Monsters updated. I'm interested in how this all plays out.

[Dracos]

Started reading Process of Elimination again on Brian's site.  Still a good read.

Ran out of chapters on his site, so went to Florestica that has the rest.  http://florestica.com/brandall/poe for those who somehow are here without having read it.  All -1 of you.