What are you reading?

[Jason_Miao]

And yes, I did see your name at the bottom of all the proofreader stuff Jason :P  So you probably have a blast to the past there.

Yep!

Was one of the first fics I'd preread on the FFML, and I think it was actually DB's first fic, so lots of what you're pointing out is first-fic problems.  Hell of a long first-fic, but there you go.

Idle thoughts...one of the problems with keeping to the same atmosphere as Ranma cannon is that Ranma 1/2 didn't really have much interaction.  Mousse being a counter-backstabbing asshole isn't much of a surprise; I don't recall much of the story per se, but I recall that DB and I both liked Shampoo and really disliked Mousse (whom we both thought to be no better than Kuno Tatewaki).  We both also hated pointless bashing, so DB tried to avoid it where he could, but Mousse never destined for greatness.

Hmm...
A rather shorter Ranma story of his that might hold up a little better against the test of time a little better is https://www.fanfiction.net/s/159351/1/Those-Who-Hunt-Ninjas, thought some of the scenes require a bit of FFML knowledge.  His Avenging story was longer, but I never read it, so don't know anything about it (And come to think about it, since I've seen some of the movies with friends, I suppose I ought to go read it since I might understand what's going on)

[thepanda]

Vacation Days is still my favorite thing he's written. And why are we linking to ff.net instead of Florestia?

[Dracos]

Because I wandered to it off of ff.net.

http://florestica.com/ is still awesome.  I did a bit of editing work for them back in the day.  It's good to see they're still around.

[Jason_Miao]

Vacation Days is still my favorite thing he's written.

That was great too.  Not Ranma 1/2 based; I would have posted a link to that as well. :)

And why are we linking to ff.net instead of Florestia?

Obviously, it's becauseWHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!  Over there!  Oh, guess you missed it, nevermind.

Anyway, we were discussing DB fics.

Yardwork was Sousuke before FMP was written.
Some of his other fics involved guns
He also did a few multicrosses

[Arakawa]

Non-fanfiction, but I've been reading Awake in the Night Lands by John C. Wright. More interesting than it appeared at first glance.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Basically, the sun has been extinguished and the remainder of humanity is hiding inside a shielded arcology from Massive Cosmic Evils. The rest of the Earth is a completely uninhabitable Lovecraftian amusement park (the Night Lands). You know, mysterious hooded figures that eat your soul, evil sentient mountains, cannibalistic ape-men, poisonous wolves, poisonous forests, basically anything you can imagine in that vein has been thrown in, and it's all out to get the people who have to venture outside the arcology for whatever reason. Author has mastered the Lovecraftian technique of conveying horror via almost-comedic understatement. (Various incredibly dangerous megaliths of evil in the Night Lands are named things like "The Lesser Dome Of Too Many Doors".)

The civilization inside the arcology is correspondingly cheerful. Their calendar actually counts years down to the estimated final extinction of humanity. This has been calculated down to the year as one of the evil mountains is slowly advancing on the arcology and will arrive and eat it open at a precisely specified date.

Think that's pessimistic enough? (spoilers follow below)
[spoiler]So, if your soul isn't eaten by one of the menagerie of horrors and you get to live out a normal life, their universe has reincarnation, so you'll just be reborn in a later and more crapsack version of the same arcology. And then after the arcology is destroyed and there's nowhere to reincarnate to, in Part IV there's some kind of megaspaceship where Massive Cosmic Evil is pulling souls out of the aether and into synthetic bodies, presumably to mess them about some more.

Holy crap this setting is grimdark as all fuck. It had better resolve somehow on something besides that downer note.
[/spoiler]

Actually, it is technically fanfiction because it's apparently a massive expansion of an earlier 1912 story by William Hope Hodgson. I'm not sure which author invented which part of this charming setting, but the end result is... surely something, alright.

Update: Optimistically confusing Gainax ending!

[Ebiris]

I always liked the map of the Night Lands.



I figure the Thing That Nods is probably pretty chill.

[Arakawa]

http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightmap.html

*nods*

Now that I take a closer look, this is apparently a huge fandom, so this link may help to sort out where exactly Awake fits into it.

The Watching Things are a neat idea: http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightart.html#content

[Dracos]

That is a really neat/oldschool map.

[Dracos]

Wandering around Florestica, reading random ancient stories.

Read some of Silent Battles by Latin_D, and it had what I see as one of the classic not getting a character themes: The character is constantly worrying about the differences between their view of reality and others.  Okay, Ranma hides the curse is readable into canon, but Ranma hides supernatural things happen?  How would he even know to?  And if he did because people reacted poorly, how come he wouldn't have a normal way of interacting if he was staying with folks any length of time?

If giant orochi are normal history to a person, mentioning it is no big thing.  If it is a big thing, then if you've spent any time talking to people you're used to not bringing it up.  The time period where folks are awkward about vast swaths of their personal history and not an abuse victim is generally really small.  Is the character generally timid and embarrassed about themselves?  No?  Then they're not going to be aggressively playing the "I can't talk about myself game", because that just screams "Worried about how others perceive you".

[Dracos]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2822350/1/Fission

Go halfway through the second chapter before I couldn't take it anymore.  Fanon mess with terrible writing.  Dunno why I even bothered giving it that long.

[Jason_Miao]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2822350/1/Fission

Go halfway through the second chapter before I couldn't take it anymore.  Fanon mess with terrible writing.  Dunno why I even bothered giving it that long.

I remember that one.  Amusing spamfic concept - probably should have been a 3-parter at most.

[Anastasia]

I like Fission as light reading. The sort of casual thing you read to unwind and don't take too seriously, sort of like an action movie.

[Dracos]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7395979/1/Whatever_Happened_to_the_Likely_Lad

Someone linked this an age ago.  It's pretty cute.  Dunno if I read it back then, but I enjoyed this sort of happy go future take on Harry Potter.

[Jason_Miao]

Speaking of Ranma xovers, I did stumble upon https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5608842/1/Fate-Stay-Ranma which, despite the name, is not a Ranma/Nasu xover.

[Dracos]

Oh, hey it's bean.  Been a while since he's swung by.