What are you reading?

[Dracos]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4251989/1/A_Few_Angry_Words

:)

Anyhow, I don't reference A Mother's Love (or it's spinoff) because while complete, I don't think that much of them as fics.  It could be because the author SI's in them as a cousin who gets 3 wives and none of that matters?

[Dracos]

thePanda asking for a link from Dracos-- an unexpected role reversal.

I believe that's the one by lord of the land of fire

I remember that one, now that you mention the writer.  As a straight up story, I thought it was okay, but nothing particularly special.  But as I've said before, I couldn't get into Naruto itself; maybe there's some nuance that's only apparent if one is familiar with the source.

OTOH, Time Braid was what started me reading other Naruto fics.  I was hoping to find another story as interesting as that one.  I'm still hoping to, really.

Time braid does stand out, though the author has a bit of an obsession with super ninja.  What he tends to ignore is that there's supposed to be a cost to doing those moves.  So the rest of the villages all stay stagnant, but the villians all get to use all of their supermoves infinite times with expert usage.  Well, the villians and Naruto.  Everyone else remains stuck at the same power level.

Meh.

*suddenly thinks of Altered History, a fic that was almost Great...but that good guys never win so what's the point?*

Nyup.  What to read today...

[Jason_Miao]

Time braid does stand out, though the author has a bit of an obsession with super ninja.  What he tends to ignore is that there's supposed to be a cost to doing those moves.  So the rest of the villages all stay stagnant, but the villians all get to use all of their supermoves infinite times with expert usage.

In any plot-driven Groundhogs Day-styled fic where advancement is primarily tied to combat power, it has to be that way.  But if you really want to read a fic that doesn't do that, it's the second-to-last link below.

If advancement is tied to likelihood of scoring with Andie MacDowell rather than combat skills, that's the original movie.
If there's no real plot, that's just a series of vignettes (Yes, I linked to part 12 on purpose; don't bother with starting at part 1).
If the fic is screwing around with control over the reset button (sort of a meta-GD story), nobody is writing that.
If the fic's plot is about the characters beating on and torturing increasingly outpaced "villains", that's this Naruto fic

As for what to read: if you're still following Daybreak, that updated today.

[Anastasia]

Speaking of groundhog day fics!

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7906027/1/Caught_in_a_loop

I really like this idea. It takes the fun of giving Louise a new crossover familiar without the baggage of having to wrangle up a serious plot about them. Reached the end? Kill Louise and start over!

[Brian]

The way you say it, Dune, that sounds _almost_ as awesome an idea as The Bet.

[alethiophile]

I personally like the sorts of power levels we see in Time Braid. It's fascinating to me how political and social dynamics change when the greatest available force isn't a big army, it's some number of specific individuals. It makes things more interesting. (Above a certain numeric scale, individual traits kind of blur out, and predictions end up being pretty much solely a mathematical endeavor. If, when calculating the power of nations, you have to account for the allegiances and mental states of some number of specific people...they don't.)

And I think the idea in Time Braid was that the loops were the only reason anyone could get that powerful; over a single lifetime, there would be too many opportunities lost, too many things that you couldn't do for fear of death, too many bridges burned forever. Hence how

Spoiler: ShowHide

the final conflict just basically leaves everyone who isn't in a loop behind.

[Anastasia]

The way you say it, Dune, that sounds _almost_ as awesome an idea as The Bet.

I can't tell for the life of me if that's sarcasm or sincere, so I'm going to reply with <_< since that can mean whatever you want it to mean.

Seriously though, the idea shows promise. Louise summons a familiar, at some point along what happens dies and loops back to the day of the summoning with her memories (and powers, looks like) intact. When she summons again she gets a new familiar and the cycle repeats. She hasn't gotten very far in the canon storyline as of the actual plot (and it's really just a sidestory to what happens each arc anyway).

[Jason_Miao]

The way you say it, Dune, that sounds _almost_ as awesome an idea as The Bet.

The Bet, as the original idea ("Rather than have a poll of 'what idea should I write', I'll write up a first chapter, and I'll write my framework as a mini-scene story as well!"), was actually fairly amusing, nasty comments by Kleppe aside.  Most of the chapters that Gregg Sharp (sp?  It's been a decade) wrote, not so much, but hey, everyone has to start writing somehow.  Props to someone who actually tried writing out his ideas rather than spit out a blanket list on the FFML.

The Bet, as interpreted by legions of writers ("Durr, wuts Deus Ex Machina?"), was about as interesting as most things written by legions of writers.

[Brian]

Miao, I realize your career requires you to be contrary and tell people they're wrong.  If you're trying to be friendly, that attitude should be left there.

That's as far as I'm going to take that observation, here.


What Dunefar originally said sounded like a terrible idea that would intentionally go nowhere.  The point of a groundhog day fic is that one character alone is capable of changing/learning in a static loop.  Throwing in the added twist of saying that one of the most critical set-pieces (characters) is arbitrarily swapped out and replaced with a constantly changing variable every single loop devalues one of the main points of a groundhog day setting.  Try imagining the original Groundhog Day movie if the main character's love interest were swapped out with a different character every loop.

[Jason_Miao]

Miao, I realize your career requires you to be contrary and tell people they're wrong.  If you're trying to be friendly, that attitude should be left there.

That's as far as I'm going to take that observation, here.

Thanks for pointing it out.  Seriously - I can usually separate work attitude from home, but the work cycle for the last few months (which, thankfully ends in about two biweeks) means I've been having to think about work a hell of a lot more, and I hadn't realized that the mindset was bleeding through to my personal life.

[Dracos]

Time braid does stand out, though the author has a bit of an obsession with super ninja.  What he tends to ignore is that there's supposed to be a cost to doing those moves.  So the rest of the villages all stay stagnant, but the villians all get to use all of their supermoves infinite times with expert usage.

In any plot-driven Groundhogs Day-styled fic where advancement is primarily tied to combat power, it has to be that way.  But if you really want to read a fic that doesn't do that, it's the second-to-last link below.

If advancement is tied to likelihood of scoring with Andie MacDowell rather than combat skills, that's the original movie.
If there's no real plot, that's just a series of vignettes (Yes, I linked to part 12 on purpose; don't bother with starting at part 1).
If the fic is screwing around with control over the reset button (sort of a meta-GD story), nobody is writing that.
If the fic's plot is about the characters beating on and torturing increasingly outpaced "villains", that's this Naruto fic

As for what to read: if you're still following Daybreak, that updated today.

I was actually meaning in his fics in general.  In his other naruto fics, the villians completely trump everyone but the special protagonist group too, and not by small margins but by 'We solo cities' margins.

Even in time braid, it is a pity that contextually almost everyone not looping or a villian or sannin is practically a mook.

Time Braid it works from the time travel angle, but the author genuinely believes that 'yes, these villians could handily wipe out everyone else anyway'.  Technically, with Pain, that's canon.  But just because the Arch Bad can solo a city, doesn't mean every flunky can too.

I suppose I shouldn't bitch.  Canon has one guy that can solo a village and a team of 3 that are supposed to be a credible challenge to every ninja village in the world teamed up together.  So it's not like it's a huge stretch.  But it's generally one of the things that I don't think the series generally handles well as it demeans the level of power reached by everyone else.

Ironically, that 3 on everyone arc was one of the ways they pulled back and had the various elite shine as elite amidst the ridiculous zombie horde.

Edit the third:
An example:
In canon, Itachi is one of the penultimate badasses, done in more by illness than anything else.  He's got all the sharingan bonuses as well as history/knowledge on it and can keep pace with someone in a Sage transformation once his illness is out of the way.

In Indominatable, Itachi is all that, and able to do it with special clones so he doesn't even need to be nearby for it.  So can his partner (Special sword included in clone technique apparently).

It may be one of the few things that keeps it from being just a god-mod fic, but it also renders even the elite ninja as just crawling baby mooks by comparison.  Itachi can keep up with Naruto as a clone technique, even with a Naruto who can kill his own Kage without even being there.

[alethiophile]

The clone technique is canon. It happens in canon in the first part of Shippuden; Itachi and Kisame show up as weird clones in order to delay Konoha/Suna help getting to Gaara.

[Jason_Miao]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6693171/20/The_Mouse_of_Konoha updated.


Drac: Ah, okay.  Given the fact that you were the one who introduced the fic to me as worth reading, that makes sense and sanity is restored to my universe.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8426142/1/The_Bad_Cut

Looks like this is moving on towards FFnet. I haven't read it for edits/changes yet, so this more of a heads up.

[Dracos]

The clone technique is canon. It happens in canon in the first part of Shippuden; Itachi and Kisame show up as weird clones in order to delay Konoha/Suna help getting to Gaara.

That both reveals a gap in my canon knowledge and saddens me.  Bullshit no jutsu~