What are you reading?

[Jason_Miao]

Reading the more recent fics on this page: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/678852/Shana-the-Short



Eyes: Could use a great deal of polishing (esp. chapter length), but since the writer is writing a chapter a day for that "writing month" bit, I guess that's to be expected.  And after reading all those fics that start with "character X gains superduper mutant-eye-powers and blows everyone up", this was different.  Anti-wish fulfillment in a subgenre full of wish-fulfillment fics.

Heart: I probably need a few more chapters before I decide whether I really like this or I really don't.  The initial premise is correlated just enough to some changes where I don't feel it's completely off track.  The badass-lawyer character is out of sight just enough to feel like additional flavoring without being so overwhelming as to be annoying.   These should become important to the plot at some point, and at that point, I'll know whether the writer was able to make me care enough about the additions or not.

[Ebiris]

From Fake Dreams updated.

It's got all the Servant vs Servant and Master vs Master combat you could hope for.

[thepanda]

That... was freakin awesome!

[Dracos]

Reading the more recent fics on this page: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/678852/Shana-the-Short



Eyes: Could use a great deal of polishing (esp. chapter length), but since the writer is writing a chapter a day for that "writing month" bit, I guess that's to be expected.  And after reading all those fics that start with "character X gains superduper mutant-eye-powers and blows everyone up", this was different.  Anti-wish fulfillment in a subgenre full of wish-fulfillment fics.

Read some of Eyes.  Hmmm.  So far, while it isn't poorly written, there's a lot of parts of the plot that don't connect to me.  Most of it actually has to do with the construed family problems.  In canon, Sakura isn't from a ninja family.  That's supposedly one of her things.  Fanfic is fine to change that, but it seems odd for this.  If her dad is literally an employed and active konoha ninja, having nearby family members (her uncle) hoping she drops out is odd.  Having her be some mixture of nobility and ninja is even weirder.

The original plot weirdness offered 1 week of the parents not being there.  But now months in, they still aren't back, and all we have is Sakura thinking about it.  Weird.  Her family is excessively non-present for how much it gets talked about.

It makes sense that the village would have medical awareness for developing talents, but eh.

It's not a bad Naruto story, but a strange one and wastes tons of time on family setup that for over fifty percent of the intended fic size does not matter one whit.

[Jason_Miao]

Read some of Eyes.  Hmmm.  So far, while it isn't poorly written, there's a lot of parts of the plot that don't connect to me. 

...

It's not a bad Naruto story, but a strange one and wastes tons of time on family setup that for over fifty percent of the intended fic size does not matter one whit.

Yeah, pretty much spot with on what I saw (although I missed or forgot the "due back in a week" bit).  It also highlights why I'm not a great fan of the "writing month" challenge in general.  It's designed to get people who are dithering over writing quality as a mental block of writing to overcome that mental block.  All well and good if that's what's keeping a writer back, but from the amount of badly plotted/implemented writing on the internet, I think that most aspiring authors have the opposite problem.

That said, since this is being written for that challenge, I've been mentally tabling those concerns until the month finishes and the writer goes back and edits it.

Oh, and if anyone is still following it, this updated: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6880685/10/Well-in-Hand

[Brian]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8633774/1/The-Mistakes-of-Haruhi-Suzumiya

I can't look away from this trainwreck.

[alethiophile]

* alethiophile reads summary and first paragraph, quickly closes tab

[Brian]

It's terrible in the, "How bad can this get?" sense, not the, "This author must be stopped (Greasetest)" sense.

[Dracos]

Read some of Eyes.  Hmmm.  So far, while it isn't poorly written, there's a lot of parts of the plot that don't connect to me. 

...

It's not a bad Naruto story, but a strange one and wastes tons of time on family setup that for over fifty percent of the intended fic size does not matter one whit.

Yeah, pretty much spot with on what I saw (although I missed or forgot the "due back in a week" bit).  It also highlights why I'm not a great fan of the "writing month" challenge in general.  It's designed to get people who are dithering over writing quality as a mental block of writing to overcome that mental block.  All well and good if that's what's keeping a writer back, but from the amount of badly plotted/implemented writing on the internet, I think that most aspiring authors have the opposite problem.

That said, since this is being written for that challenge, I've been mentally tabling those concerns until the month finishes and the writer goes back and edits it.

Oh, and if anyone is still following it, this updated: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6880685/10/Well-in-Hand

Read it but...well, it still seems like a mess all over.

And I can't at all see why this chapter has:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Orochimaru fighting Gai's team.  Why is that even happening?

Also half the chapter seems like a 'Screw you Hyuuga Style.  You're not as good as you think you are!'

Which is disappointing.

[Kt3]

It's not fanfiction, but I just read Gekkou, a light novel that's translated (and translated rather well).

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Gekkou

Basically.. it's a whodunnit.  But I found the characters rather interesting, particularly the protagonist who I empathized with a lot.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7331568/14/

Tainted Ideals finally updated.

[spoiler]Wherein Avenger gets his ass kicked several times, souls get traded and Shirou works his charms.

[Dracos]

Was reading the Naruto fic "First Try: Team 7" yesterday.  Well for a bit.  Not linking because while it is a fairly long fic, I don't actually think it comes together in something worth reading.  It's got an interesting concept:
Naruto passes the exam on the first try, ends up on a non-Team 7 team with a different teacher.  After hardships and problems, he goes unpromoted in the chuunin exam, and ends up getting yanked onto Kakashi's team 7 afterwards.  Story continues from that point.

But it doesn't connect right.  Some of it is yanking bits from other fics or canon that don't quite match up right anymore.  A lot of it is Kakashi not feeling right at all and coming across as extra incompetent in achieving his goals of actually forming a teacher relationship with Naruto.  Of course, he's also suffering under an eyebrow raising Naruto never gives him a chance and resents him the entire time for taking away his other teacher.  That's not putting it right...it's not just that Naruto doesn't give him a chance, it's that everyone aside from Kakashi takes it as completely for granted that Kakashi never deserves a chance and Naruto's behavior at never treating his new teacher like a teacher is completely expected.  Nobody questions the fic's big conflict or sees it differently.  Equally, no progress is apparently made on this angle, making it an awkward retelling of canon with various small shifts (Mei takes over Kiri early and takes Zabuza as her husband.  This effectively changes nothing since it just gets Zabuza and haku out of the way in the same time range as the original).

Root has both silly incompetence going on and the Hokage not calling them on it.  Never a great mix :\  Even after ANBU pull in some root folks interfering with a mission.

Beyond that, the writer, while prolific, is just not very good.  Grammar issues and inconsistent scenework is very much the order of the day.

Mainly yammer on it as it comes up fairly often in people's favorites, and just really isn't worth the time.

[JonBob]

It's not fanfiction, but I just read Gekkou, a light novel that's translated (and translated rather well).

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Gekkou

Basically.. it's a whodunnit.  But I found the characters rather interesting, particularly the protagonist who I empathized with a lot.

It was fairly entertaining, and I even missed a number of clues until they were pointed out. It had a fair bit of cliches (high school setting, childhood friend, "those guys"), but I still liked it.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7331568/14/

Tainted Ideals finally updated.

Berserker! Fishing! Explosions!

[Anastasia]

http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/256823.html

DK:A updated. Really a filler update and the author mentioned he's not happy with it. I can respect him wanting to get it over with and move on with this sort of story, though.

[Jason_Miao]

Felt like a prelude to a chapter, rather than a chapter itself.  I half-expected Ami to run around the dungeon with a suddenly-appearing crisis without having time to have fixed the minor problem, but the chapter ended instead.


Haigeki updated, for those who are still reading it.