What are you reading?

[Jason_Miao]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7977390/1/Life_in_Konohas_ANBU

It's easy to get the impression in the first few paragraphs that this is just a thing that was written; if you care to glance at it, finish chapter one before deciding whether to continue reading.

I sorta get what it's going for, but it's really playing the buttmonkey card way too hard.  It makes it hard to keep in a serious raising a hero context.  Mmm.  Yeah.

Wait, what?  If you wanted a heroic story, then this certainly isn't it (and I thought that was evident by the end of ch 1; if you were looking for a heroic story, I don't know how you managed to last through ch 5).

Now that you point it out, I've realized that I'm not actively following any stories of heroic characters at the moment.  There's this (which I'm interested in for the squabbling dialogue that I think the writer handles pretty well), one fic with the main character trying to hide the fact that she has a severe case of MPD, and one AU where the main character is a sociopath.

I'm not uninterested of heroic stories, but I think after reading a number of fics that try to pull it off and usually fail to not suck, I'm looking at other types of fics at the moment.  I could suggest a few heroic stories if you want, but they'd be authored works rather than fanfic.

[Dracos]

It wasn't what I wanted, it's just one of the many incoherent plot threads it was following.  You didn't pick up on it?  I thought it was ringing it pretty hard with Danzo/Sarutobi's discussion on him being like Sarutobi was as a kid, or him being measured against keeping up with the 3rd hokage.

When I wrote the first line, I was just at the end of that scene and it was pretty blatant that it was delivering a "Naruto is a talented ANBU who is tormented by the 3rd Hokage as an assistant to help teach him humility and challenge his potential.  Also, look, he's a buttmonkey again!"

And not much later he's tossing out rasengans and dozens of different elemental techniques too.  It clashes pretty hard with the "Here's the story of someone not super awesome from the get-go."

But it really goes all over the place in it's first five chapters, so if it solidifies on picking a direction later and going with it, well, hard to say.

It's kind of interesting you mention it as the squabbling dialogue in this fic fails to me.  It doesn't seem to decide where it wants the relation to be between Sarutobi and Naruto, so it feels off.

[thepanda]

one fic with the main character trying to hide the fact that she has a severe case of MPD, and one AU where the main character is a sociopath.

That one fic with Sakura and that one fic with Naruto as Dexter?

[Jason_Miao]

It wasn't what I wanted, it's just one of the many incoherent plot threads it was following.  You didn't pick up on it?

Sure I did, but at that point, more as flavor of character than an intended direction.  And it does say it's a series of vignettes rather than a coherent story.

*checks summary again* 

Or rather, I could have sworn that it did two months ago.  I could have sworn I read that somewhere in relation to that link.  Because, yeah, if you're reading it with the impression that it's an interconnected, well-thought out story, then I agree: it goes all over the place.

That one fic with Sakura and that one fic with Naruto as Dexter?

Who or what is Dexter?

[thepanda]

Dexter is from Dexter. >_>

He's a serial killer who kills serial killers. I think it was on HBO.

[Jason_Miao]

He's a serial killer who kills serial killers. I think it was on HBO.

Sounds like an interesting premise for a show. 

Although...how does that work as a crossover with a series about screaming fantasy ninjas?  I'd imagine that Dexter takes place in the modern day since the only historic serial killer that gets put into popular media is Jack the Ripper, and screaming ninjas in the modern day seems like it'd be awkward to write.  The reverse concept of a serial 'serial killer' killer in the Narutoverse seems like it'd be odd to write too, since killing seems to be okay in that universe, as long as the character is killing the enemy.

(also, to answer your question: no, that's not the fic.)

[Dracos]

It wasn't what I wanted, it's just one of the many incoherent plot threads it was following.  You didn't pick up on it?

Sure I did, but at that point, more as flavor of character than an intended direction.  And it does say it's a series of vignettes rather than a coherent story.

*checks summary again* 

Or rather, I could have sworn that it did two months ago.  I could have sworn I read that somewhere in relation to that link.  Because, yeah, if you're reading it with the impression that it's an interconnected, well-thought out story, then I agree: it goes all over the place.

That is indeed  how I was reading it.  It didn't present itself as vignettes, so I wasn't reading it as such.

Even if it was snapshots in time, it doesn't deliver well.

Being so critical, I feel compelled to offer counter example of vignettes in a similar fashion.  Linked in chronological order, even though they weren't originally published in such.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4481984/1/Clean_and_White
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3774334/1/Mending_Songs
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6267545/1/Stained
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6775888/1/Take_Two

[Jason_Miao]

Being so critical, I feel compelled to offer counter example of vignettes in a similar fashion.  Linked in chronological order, even though they weren't originally published in such.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4481984/1/Clean_and_White
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3774334/1/Mending_Songs
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6267545/1/Stained
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6775888/1/Take_Two

Yay!

Well, seeing as how it's Kenshin and Bleach and I couldn't make it past the first couple of chapters of Bleach, I have no idea what the hell anything means the first two, and I didn't bother reading the other two because of it.  But getting people to post decent stories is always a plus. :)

[alethiophile]

Hey, I was just reading those a bit ago. Pretty decent they are.

The big significant thing by that author seems to be the Embers AU for A:TLA. Anyone read that? It looks good.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8403297/1/Sailor_Ecdysiast

Read this one and count how many times you go what the fuck.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Ranma's given a sailor crystal, apparently it's common knowledge what it is, it transforms her into a nudist sailor senshi, Ranma is okay with both aspects and fully embraces it, his big sailor attack is to detransform the other sailors when they confront him, to expose both identity and to well...expose them naked.

Um. What. The. Fuck.

[Arakawa]

Does 'Ecdysiast' mean anything in particular? May be a bit rusty on my classics here.

If not, that title just adds to the WTF.

[Anastasia]

[spoiler]It means stripper, more or less. I looked it up after I read.

[Arakawa]

... still adds to the WTF.

Total WTF count: 2, and I haven't even clicked the link.

[Dracos]

Hey, I was just reading those a bit ago. Pretty decent they are.

The big significant thing by that author seems to be the Embers AU for A:TLA. Anyone read that? It looks good.

Weirdly no.  Haven't tried it yet.

Very whim driven on my readings after all.

[Brian]

Read that entire sailor stripper thing.  I got what the author was going for, but effectively, too much padding.  It was supposed to be funny, I think, but it just fell short by getting caught up in trying to explain itself.

Which is really not what a crackfic is supposed to do.  Internal consistency is good, pages of justification/explanation with no action, not so much.

No WTFs, just a bit of a, "Well, this isn't very good."