What are you reading?

[Dracos]

Saito who shows up later is the original familiar.  The entire story is far into left field from very early in it and yet makes apt usage of hooks in the original source material.  It's an excellent example how much meat is just left sitting on the table by the series as written.  The biggest early change is having Louise herself take on Guiche and having what's her name offer apologies.

Madoka had Kyubei basically only show up to offer wishes as I recall.  He came across in this as direct as he did in the original, immediately offering things to any nearby options.

[thepanda]

Just read this ponyfic.

Short, and it doesn't start out all that funny, but I was grinning by the end. I'd advise having this ready to play. You'll know when.

God Slaying Blade Works updated. I'd suggest holding off reading this one until another chapter is out.

Thinking about linking more ponyfic as that's mostly what I've been reading.

Did you know Admiral Tiger Claw of Sleeping With the Girls fame writes ponyfic? Because he totally does. The Arrow mission logs stuff is good.

[Jason_Miao]

Ah, good to know.  The only other Zero fic I've read was Gabe Blessing's Hill of Swords, the Touhou xover with Rumia, and various attempts at Ranma xovers that didn't make it past a few chapters.

Madoka had Kyubei basically only show up to offer wishes as I recall.  He came across in this as direct as he did in the original, immediately offering things to any nearby options.

In terms of dialogue, yes, since the whole series revolves around wishes.  The various bits of Faustian graffiti pretty much spells that out.  In terms of character role, Kyubei was a bit more than just a wish-granting machine.  He also served as a sounding board for the girls as they angsted over various events or results of decisions, representing a utilitarian counterpoint to their desires.  Even if he's not saying anything, he's often hovering in the background observing magical girl training or tagging along on witch hunts.  He's the personification of making a choice and living with the consequences.

Maintaining a sense of silent presence is hard in to do in prose, so I understand that Kyubei is a tough character to write.  And the fic is still enjoyable as is.  But not really writing Kyubei in makes the early chapters feel like those old Ranma/AMS xovers where some Random Goddess is used as a cheap plot device.

Of course, it's very different for a chapter or two before the twist is revealed, but that only served to highlight the difference for me as to how much he wasn't part of the fic early on.

[Anastasia]

God Slaying Blade Works updated. I'd suggest holding off reading this one until another chapter is out.

I like his work, really I do, but I'm amazed that he can use so many words and seem to move the story so slowly. Flip side, the next chapter is apparently going to be a Sakura interlude, and the first one was the best chapter of the story. Fingers crossed for a repeat.

Did you know Admiral Tiger Claw of Sleeping With the Girls fame writes ponyfic? Because he totally does. The Arrow mission logs stuff is good.

I'd wondered where he got off to. Too bad he's not writing more Sleeping with the Girls.

[Dracos]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8903072/33/Halkegenia-Online

Tried a good long chunk of this before just giving up.  Panda recommended it an age ago and it had a lot to read.  It's an epic attempt at a colossal merge of two settings, but there's just too much there, too little focus on a small set of perspectives, and too much juggling.

Problems:
1)The cast of FoZ is entirely subsumed by the Halkegenia cast.  They sometimes go full chapters without having an appearance and the main group pretty much could be written out with no appreciable change for the first 30 chapters.  Louise summons an entire world and then is promptly sidelined with 1 scene per 4-5 chapters as she's then treated as a remedial student.  Her mother actually has more screentime thus far than she does, and a random whiny noble OC has almost as much screentime as she does.  So far FoZ as a setting is so underutilized it could just be generic fantasy world with all OCs that the halkegenia cast came to.

2)The cast of Halkegenia online that is brought across is enormous, and since they're all pulled out of their comfort zone, there's lots of relationships to explain, characterizations adjusting to situation, etc.  I'm pretty sure that there's at least 35, maybe 40 named characters from that series plopped over and given screentime.  This is an enormous mess and results in even the two primary subgroups (both from that series) sometimes going a while without getting a word in.   There's just a lot of noise caused by it.

3)Basically the level of effect shown by having two worlds fused together is pretty small.  Thousands of people would normally come across a significant population spike for a small country like tristan, and the whole setup still seems to be rolling along with the plot of FoZ in the background.  Really, an army appears in a country you're going to invade, the landscape changes significantly, and wild monsters are going on and this doesn't change the political objectives of either adjacent nation?  Flying country is still on invasion route.  Germania is still going along its normal setup.

I got a bit further, but just...well, tired of it.  Too many characters, each chapter having very little progress.  Single event arcs are as long as entire books.

[thepanda]

Alfheim online, Drac. And, yeah, perfectly valid complaints. There's a stretch later where it flips and the FoZ cast take center stage for a long while but If you aren't enjoying it so far I'm not going to say hang on for that. I think I even complained in my rec about the lack of focus for the FoZ cast early on.

Mostly it's because it was written in snips instead of full chapters on spacebattles. The chapters in the first book are placed in order of writing rather than what would best service the story.

Fortunately, book two rectifies that mistake. He cycles through three subplots until they begin to merge much later in the story.

[Dracos]

Yeah, I got as far as Super-capable dragon riding fairy of vengeance and just couldn't care anymore as another group of named characters were trotting into the scene.  I could see why things were important to various characters, but my caring had just been exhausted by the size of the cast and the number of unfinished threads sitting out.

[Pensive Rumination]

Post a link, so we can partake, should you suggest the fic (or even if you don't).  Add a summary or commentary if you like. The names of the story are kind of meaningless otherwise

Alright. First thread with index: http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/long-night-of-the-harvest-evangelion-me.279646/page-94#post-14268168
Second thread: http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/long-night-of-the-harvest-thread-2-me-eva-oedipalicious.300298/

Summary: Shinji Ikari faces the Shadow Angel Leliel and gets sucked into the Dirac Sea. Things happen, and Leliel dies.
Only unlike canon, Shinji does not come out.
Gendo, with his scenario gone, decides to give SEELE a big 'Fuck you' and decides to be one of the good guys.
5-ish years pass and the Pilots are now young adults. Gendo stepped down, making Misato Supreme commander of Nerv. Rei and Asuka kill the 28th angel, (which looks something like a Thresher Maw,) and are thrown off balance by the 29th appearing in Tokyo-3, looking like a mutated MP Evengelion.
Then Unit-01 falls out of the sky and kicks it's ass.
Turns out, Shinji was found with his Evengelion (and parts of Tokyo-3 that were sucked in by Leliel) by the Migrant Fleet. And Shinji finally found a parental figure.
Said parental figure is Urdnot Wrex.

Read it.  It's certainly amusing, especially the Geth "Angelic Combat Platform".  Gregg Landsman does good and awesome things with Evangelion.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7415078/1/Naruto-Ouroboros

One of those "Naruto is trained by Orochimaru" fics, BUT instead of beginning at the start of Naruto's apprenticeship, the first scene is the end of that particular relationship.  I found it a nice break from the usual "Naruto slowly levels up" stories since Naruto already has a fairly developed skill-set when the story begins.  Also plenty of Ninja Science and lots of focus on the Research and Development branches of ninja organizations.  Skirts the edge of all those abandonment/revenge stories out there, but in a reasonable fashion.  Does use the whole "Naruto isn't the Kyuubi container, his sibling is." approach though.

[Jason_Miao]

Read it.  It's certainly amusing, especially the Geth "Angelic Combat Platform".  Gregg Landsman does good and awesome things with Evangelion.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7415078/1/Naruto-Ouroboros

One of those "Naruto is trained by Orochimaru" fics, BUT instead of beginning at the start of Naruto's apprenticeship, the first scene is the end of that particular relationship.  I found it a nice break from the usual "Naruto slowly levels up" stories since Naruto already has a fairly developed skill-set when the story begins.  Also plenty of Ninja Science and lots of focus on the Research and Development branches of ninja organizations.  Skirts the edge of all those abandonment/revenge stories out there, but in a reasonable fashion.  Does use the whole "Naruto isn't the Kyuubi container, his sibling is." approach though.

That's one of those fics I read whenever I stumble across it through randomly clicking over FF.net, but never really felt the need to post about here.  IMO The prose is quite decently written, so if you want an Naruto abandonment story that seems to be more than someone projecting his pre-teen angst, or you enjoy reading comic books with a guy in a lab coat shouting "FOR SCIENCE!" and "FOOLS!  BUNGLERS!", then this may be your fic.

The later intensely irritates me, but since it's a staple of many comics, it appears that most people either don't have much of a problem with it or actually like those sorts of characters.

[Rukatin]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/10080850/1/Devil-You-Know

A great Dresden Files crossover fic that takes place when Harry is a teenager, not Chicago's Wizard PI.

The setting is, when Harry faces He-Who-Walks-Behind at the gas station, and banishes it by blowing up two fuel tanks, He ends up with a big shard of metal in his chest. Weakly pleading that he wants to live, his prayers are answered. Not by an Angel, but by a Devil.
Rather, by Satan. One of the four, anyway. Saved from death and turned into a devil/demon, Harry is now knight of the peerige of one Serafall Leviathan. Who as it turns out, has no idea that she has resurrected a Wizard. Harry then proceeds to face Justin Dumoure, defeat him in a duel of magic, and with help of his Fae Godmother, kills him without magic

The Fic is already at a good length, and written very well. Especially how it characterizes Dresden, sure he's still the Snarky Wizard we all know and love, but he's not the self-proclaimed protector of Chicago, here he's a hormonal teenager struggling and adjusting to the fact that he's not human anymore, he just killed his Foster Father, and he now has to go to school in Japan surrounded by gorgeous Devil-girls. 

[Dracos]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7922916/1/Mass-Effect-Pieces

I think Eb linked this an age ago.  Might've been Panda or someone else though.  Either way, it was quite a pleasure to read, even with the author visibly opening direction to his readers at points.

[Yuthirin]

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/15/A-Dead-World

A Dead World updated EEEEEEEEEEE

[Jason_Miao]

While randomly clicking links, I happened to notice https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6633749/15/Synesthesia, a Ranma/Eva xover, updated recently. 

I think it's been discussed in this thread before, but don't remember for sure.

Edit:

Oh, and https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5207262/12/Indomitable, which isn't a Ranma/Eva xover, did as well.  Perhaps this is dead-fic resurrection week?

[Dracos]

I read Synthesia, been meaning to do a post of a bunch of things here.

Anyhow, I'm in the group sorta disappointed at lack of Ranma presence in latest chapters.  It's been going with a Falling Apart theme for a bit.

Tried reading his Council's Ace fic ( https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5931891/1/The-Council-s-Ace ) which I guess is okay, but just never came together for me.  I could forgive the sort of vignette style scene hopping, but it seems like it goes too far in Idiot Council and Ranma goes a year in without recovering from the starting events of the fic.  The nerima crew all collectively tapping Nabiki's phone was the end for me.  Oz uses that too, but I just generally find the psychic "We all find out where to go, individually, using insane things" as a crude story technique, in a way a hired investigator, a single lone person finding out, and then getting followed (Really, so much easier a notion!), or them just following using their own techniques would not be.  "Son in law's gone?  Okay, doing some ancient chinese voodoo, and direction points to America." works for me in a way that "And all of us tapped nabiki's phone" doesn't.

Wow, I hadn't seen a shaperV fic in ages.  Neat to see, *goes to read*

[Dracos]

Not a bad Indominitable chapter, but I'm definitely loking forward to it getting done with the whole Morya bit.