What are you reading?

[Anastasia]

Yeah. I think it comes down to a lot of fanfiction types not being interested in religion in the first place, or that sort of character being difficult for them to write. You rarely see real religious sentiment of any depth in fanfiction, let alone a mainstream religion.

[Arakawa]

Yeah. I think it comes down to a lot of fanfiction types not being interested in religion in the first place, or that sort of character being difficult for them to write. You rarely see real religious sentiment of any depth in fanfiction, let alone a mainstream religion.

I read this one Harry Potter fanfic where the Hogwarts form letter gets sent to an evangelical Christian family. But that doesn't really bring in much doctrine besides 'witchcraft is evil' -- it's mostly the drama of how the family gets torn apart by the letter, especially once the notion comes up that the girl is a witch (rather than being asked to do witchcraft) and will be prone to accidental magic whether or not she goes.

As for ZnT and the total lack of fanfiction that makes interesting use of its world having a religion:

Again, to be fair, canon does a terrible job of covering this as well, so it's not like fanfic writers even had any reason to pay attention to that element in the first place. Halkeginian religion is just sort of... there, because the world is a caricature of Europe and Europe has a very prominent and organized religion. It doesn't have any specific doctrines that are ever mentioned.

This element is fine until you start to pay attention to it. If Louise has void magic and void magic has (some kind of) religious import due to being associated with the Founder... then instead of just being a Designated Badass Mage, that puts pressure on her to live up to the role of a saint. Or prophet. Or something like that.

It's not something I necessarily want to see everywhere I go, but once in a while I get a hankering for a fic that does interesting things with a character having a religious perspective. Louise for some reason seems to be a character for whom doing that would not be at all forced. Of course, because the religion in question would most logically be a caricature of Christianity, that makes actually seeing that kind of fic less likely... since (a) the writer has to be interested in Christianity while (b) being willing to write a caricatured version of it that has a warrior monk as the central figure, while not coming across as a total mockery.

[Anastasia]

Yeah. I put the odds of it at about 0.00001%. The set of factors needed combined with the type of people in a typical anime fandom kills the odds.

A few fics have made mention of Louise possibly being a saint or something similar to that, but again it's usually just a throwaway. Considering how important religion was in Europe, it is a notable hole.

[Dracos]

Finally read some of Mass Effect Glorious Shotgun Princess: Now with 100 percent less shotguns.  I mean seriously, not a single person has used a shotgun 9 chapters into the fic.

So...it's also a disorienting fic.  Much better than the Green Sun one, but really I can't help but think how much more interesting a fic it would be if half the descriptions in a scene weren't:

What?

What the Fuck?

What?

How?

What?

What?

What?

Another What? for good measure.

Have I harped it in enough?  Because there's a lot of interesting scenes where the description of what is going on is just missing.  And the dialogue that could supplement that is just the characters going "What?" or "What the fuck?"  Nine chapters in and the cast still hasn't moved out of "What the hell is going on" phase.

Frankly, I don't blame them because it seems like a new Godling or world changing revelation is dropped once per chapter (Too often, kind of muddying the flow.  Needs some of cast dealing with the challenges, adapting, getting footing), but with the lack of description going around, it's real hard in a lot of scenes to know what things are or look like.  Not all of them, some are well described, but its the exception rather than the rule.

Geth Wuffles (amusing) was wandering around shops.  I'm not sure if he's in a clear disguise (I think he is but I can't tell what?) or whether folks just aren't caring...  because really he also skipped over the time period where Tali would get accustomed to Geth and moved right into Tali being totally fine with them, perhaps this is just going on everywhere?

The ship has undergone extensive redesign.  All I could tell you about it is that there's now a japanese bath.

It seems like the fic is real close to being fun.  Wild powers, chaotic world events, kicking the status quo.

But at the end of the day, it so far has seemed more random.  The characters are dragged along by the story.  I think the last time they made a plan was to go after the Shadow Broker and that concluded like 4 chapters ago and since then they'd just been hammered by random cosmic occurrence after random cosmic occurrence.

Some of the admitingly large cast vanish sometimes for chapters.  "Jacob's still on the boat?  He's had 1 scene and 2 lines."  Don't add characters unless they're going to be part of something.

Still reading but just lacking the credibility as a story that would really elevate it into an epic experience.  I can see the vague hints of the 'I have no self control' that destroyed Nobody Dies as well.   Shame.  Prolific author, interesting concepts, good starts, no self control.

EDIT:
Finished up to current.

My conclusion is that the first chapter delivers an intriguing fic with promise.
The remaining chapters so far are interested in telling something very different.  Some of that different fic is interesting and engaging, but overall it's lost me for a similar reason as Nobody Dies: No self control and being all over the place.  Also, everyone is overtly sexual.  Everything.  Sometimes fun, got old.  And sometimes really stupid.  Re: Vow of Celibacy monks getting it on.  :\

[Dracos]

There's a new Big Human on Campus.  It's awesome.  Nuff said.

[Jason_Miao]

There's a new Big Human on Campus.  It's awesome.  Nuff said.

Yay, back home from the west coast.

This chapter made me want a glass of Scotch.

[Kt3]

Finally read some of Mass Effect Glorious Shotgun Princess: Now with 100 percent less shotguns.
(snip)

You pretty much summed up the reason why I dropped it about 6 chapters in.

Interesting ideas, but they were all just dropped in whenever he seemed to come up with them, with no sense of timing or idea as to how it all works out in the end.  Which basically lead to what felt like a Namek situation, i.e. "when the hell are they going to get off this planet and actually progress the plot?"

(Also, maybe it's called 'Glorious Shotgun Princess' because the more appropriate name 'Glorious Fisting Princess' lead to some misunderstanding.  :d )

[Dracos]

Finally read some of Mass Effect Glorious Shotgun Princess: Now with 100 percent less shotguns.
(snip)

You pretty much summed up the reason why I dropped it about 6 chapters in.

Interesting ideas, but they were all just dropped in whenever he seemed to come up with them, with no sense of timing or idea as to how it all works out in the end.  Which basically lead to what felt like a Namek situation, i.e. "when the hell are they going to get off this planet and actually progress the plot?"

(Also, maybe it's called 'Glorious Shotgun Princess' because the more appropriate name 'Glorious Fisting Princess' lead to some misunderstanding.  :d )

There's lots of other names that should've been chosen.

That said, for a fic that has an entire chapter long lecture on chekov's gun, it certainly so far has dropped the whole "Someone is gonna use a shotgun" suggestion in the title.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8426142/3/

The Bad Cut updated. Decent chapter, but most of this has been seen already if you're following his snippets elsewhere.

[VySaika]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6942921/11/He-Who-Fights-Monsters

He Who Fights Monsters updated. Kinda saw this coming, really wondering where the plot is going from here.

[Dracos]

He almost really should kinda wrap it up.

Kinda wondering the same myself.

[VySaika]

Yeah, thinking the next chapter will be the last one, where things get wrapped up. Or we'll devolve into "good concept, no plot" territory. I really hope we don't, but the possibility is there.

[Jason_Miao]

Yeah, thinking the next chapter will be the last one, where things get wrapped up. Or we'll devolve into "good concept, no plot" territory. I really hope we don't, but the possibility is there.

Well, given that he's just about at the end of Rosario #1, it likely will.  I think after the witches was just the student council arc, right?

(Although...one could conceivably plot something with vampires out for revenge.)

[Merc]

Hokuto (the student council leader) was going break the barrier that kept the humans from seeing the monsters' school in the original story, and the only reason Tsukune initially got involved was because Hokuto's gang was hounding him.

Here, they have no reason to do so, particularly as Hokuto has no reason to think Tsukune's a human or a pet project of the headmaster, meaning Hokuto could get away with his attempt.

If the barrier goes boom at the end of the school year because he didn't get involved, that could really go somewhere new as he gets thought of as one of the monsters from the school by humans or something. It could, of course, also be delayed as part of the reason Hokuto almost succeeded was because he tricked the headmaster using Tsukune.

There's also what Miao pointed out. Kokoa wouldn't be a problem for this Tsukune probably, but Akua and Gyokuro? One's an assassin that was obsessed as all hell with Moka, and the other had plans for Moka for her organization, an organization with the goal of chaos and ruling over humans. Both of them have every likelyhood of targetting Tsukune.

Regardless of what happens, I would hope Tsukune doesn't become some spider hybrid, as the source material has shown that it's not just vampires that can make humans into monster hybrids. Still think the story can go other places without going into the "no plot" territory, although super-vampires targetting human probably means he's pretty much screwed at this point.

[Brian]

Was reading Cast in Gold -- Shinji as an exalt (Zenith, evidently).

Got to the limit break.

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