What are you reading?

[Brian]

abusive-mostly-tsun female lead and extreme-doormat male lead isn't a dynamic I'm too happy about.

The male lead of FnZ pretty much lacks defining character traits.  It's why nothing of value is lost when he's replaced in a crossover.  He's literally no-one.

[Brian]

I read this one, despite the warning signs:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7017118/1/

I'm torn between how awful it was, and respecting just the fact that the author ended it instead of leaving it as one of the vast mounds of unfinished fics.

It's a textbook example on the pitfalls of not having a clue what the ending is or how the story will go before starting, though.

[Anastasia]

I also felt that Shiro's continued fixation on Saber was the weakest element in that fic. The first time I read it the whole epilogue kind of squicked me out, like most together-in-death sort of resolutions; then I realized that according to Nasuverse canon, Shiro and Saber do actually get an afterlife together, which helped somewhat. Of course, I'm a huge fanboy of everything that guy ever wrote, so my assessment is likely overgenerous on an objective level.

That was also my intro to ZnT, and it did a good job of hooking me on the universe. Now I'm kind of leery of reading the canon; abusive-mostly-tsun female lead and extreme-doormat male lead isn't a dynamic I'm too happy about.

I'm okay with after-death/together-in-death things, but the way this one was executed left me rather chilly. I think the fic's fundamental problem is that it was introducing all this new, interesting material from FoZ while ultimately being a fic about Saber and Shiro. There's a huge dissonance between where the fic's attention and focus was versus the ultimate goal of it. It's so damn awkward - it's a Shiro/Saber fic and she she's a complete non-entity for it, while the focus of things are entirely elsewhere.

[Brian]

http://fanfiction.net/s/8190430/1/

Yay, pointless angst.

I want that minute of my life back.

[Muphrid]

That's vaguely like...what, that story where Haruhi never knew the Brigade, but they're just four kids who died in a car crash or something?

[Brian]

Yeah, kinda.  That story really ticked me off, too.  Here it is:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5185574/1/The_Anatomy_of_Melancholy

Not because it was a downer, but because it felt like it was specifically trying to poison something I enjoyed.

I reviewed it here:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=FanficRecs&target_title=The%20Anatomy%20of%20Melancholy

[Dracos]

abusive-mostly-tsun female lead and extreme-doormat male lead isn't a dynamic I'm too happy about.

The male lead of FnZ pretty much lacks defining character traits.  It's why nothing of value is lost when he's replaced in a crossover.  He's literally no-one.

Not quite true.

He has two defining character traits.  Neither good ones.

1)He likes being abused.

2)He likes women and does nothing but stare about it.  Sexy could be said to be optional if it wasn't a classic eroge show setup with its cast.

Neither of these are endearing characteristics, so it makes it easy to swap him as you said.

Kotono:

Having encountered FoZ first...  I have to say I took away more that the point was Louise becoming a better person.  Which spun off a lot of fics where the summoned individual is harsh or embittered or otherwise can force that on her.

[Dracos]

http://shadowheartdesigns.deviantart.com/art/The-Shrine-272911191 neat short/one-shot madoka fic.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8157755/1/WWZ_Files_A_Hero

Too short to have any serious meat, it's still an interesting WWZ crossover. I'm no zombie fan, but I still got a kick out of it.

[Arakawa]

Cleaning up some basement books, came across the very unpromisingly titled title "Kids vs. Wizards". I think some visiting relatives from across the pond were like "hey, you read Harry Potter, right? Try this book, too!" before they shoved the thing at me. Then it spent some time marinating in my family's basement.

Anyhow, I decide to read it now.

*sigh*

How do I summarize it? Imagine if you had Skysaber... and then some hypothetical shady propaganda arm of the Russian Orthodox Church paid him a bunch of cold, hard cash to write a Harry Potter hatefic.

EDIT: I am weirdly tempted to do an epic-length review of it just because I need to blow off steam and even the previous sentence doesn't do justice to how surreal the thing is. Perhaps the cover art does it justice:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Good god... those facial expressions... and the military guy... and that other wizard guy who isn't Harry Potter or Dumbledore... wait, why is that other other guy wearing a bear?

*hrk*

EDIT2: yeah, it's basically the Godfather of all ludicrously bad HP bashfics.

[alethiophile]

...Wow.

If it was in a language I read, I might almost be tempted to take a look at it just for laughs. Not worth learning Russian for, though.

[DY]

Millennium by Black Dragon has updated: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2449022/14/Millennium

Also, new chapter of In Flight is out: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/31/

Now, off to read!

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/1/Zero_Interface

Ranma/Familiar of Zero crossover I read today. It's not bad and rather refreshing. It takes Ranma from the beginning of Ranma 1/2 and uses that to the advantage.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Ranma isn't so gunshy about women and doesn't have an entire series worth of hesitation about it. It's nice to see a fic that isn't stuck in the same genre inspired patterns and instead freely mixes in reasonable amounts of chaos to things. Ranma's curse changing shape is inspired, as Louise getting all of Ranma's sensations.

Worth a read, I'd say.

[Brian]

Borderline ecchi in the fanservice, but a surprisingly fun one.  The FnZ crossover that got my attention initially, actually.

[Yuthirin]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/1/Zero_Interface

I have linked this at least twice! You should be paying attention! Pay attention, Fic-Man!