Come on. I know lots of you guys are reading fics.
Post one you liked here!
Dracos
Everything written by this guy (http://www.rakhal.com/florestica/aondehafka/index.html).
It's Ranma 1/2, and (so far) pretty much all alt matchups. I like his style. :)
Hmmm... random stuff. Some HP fics, which seem to be fairly lackluster in the quality department. Not BAD, you understand... just not really worth an honest recommendation. Scanning the Naruto section of ff.net in a similar situation, but with a lot more crap.
Stuff I've read recently that I liked... JoIsBishMyoga's (a 'warning' name, but a decent author) "The Best Defense" (complete) and the sequel "A Good Offense". Unfortunately, the former's been removed (and the latter stalled) from ff.net, apparently as a result of someone whining and ff.net's remove-first, ask-later policy. It's a YYH/HP crossover... and somehow it works fairly well. http://foreverfandom.net/viewuser.php?uid=6 has the two stories. Re-read Dark Hearts High recently too (www.improfanfic.com)... had a few new chapters up since last time I read it.
That's about all worth mentioning that I can recall...
Heyo... been reading fanfiction lately a lot.
Saturday I went through all of ozzallos stuff on fanfiction.net. Lots of girl-ranma stuff, but generally amusing and long. Very few finished works though. Most though were pretty amusing, whether it had Ranma hanging out with Hild or Setsuna warping herself to a world where the scouts don't exist but the bad guys do, and recruiting Ranma as part of trying to find a way to stave off the villians who are going to come and destroy the world without them.
Various folks have drawn me into reading Naruto fanfiction finally. Time Braid is somewhat amusing.
Hill of swords most know about, and was fun. Echoes of the Void, also fun, though getting a bit less so.
And I keep being told I should read Big Damn Kyon. Something about it being awesome. But that'd be too easy.
Anyhow, good to be back into reading fanfiction. Sad to remember that fanfiction that isn't finished is almost never going to be finished.
So I've been reading a voracious amount of fanfiction lately.
Some good. Some terrible.
So what would I share?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3505392/1/Hell_is_a_Martial_Artist = Amusing. Hild uses Ranma as entertainment. Ozzalos also has several other good fics like Tales of the Foxcat and A Time Apart. But is very girl ranma focused.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3566724/1/The_Dark_Lords_of_Nerima Funny story where a youma gets saved by Ryouga and tricks the Nerima wrecking crew into fighting everybody.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4722676/1/Her_War Ko linked a bit ago. Giving it another heads up. Very dark. Awesome What if the Musk and the Amazons really were like their fiction suggests.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5867091/1/Carried_Off This fic sucks. BUT...
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6036571/1/Away_to_Neverland It leads into this fic, which is quite amusing. Ranma in Touhou land, taking the touhou cast entirely as barely civilized monsters.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5394042/1/Mahoranma Ranma is an asshole in this. Locked curse. Sent to Negima. And quite funny.
Some time rewind fics, from most amusing to least, ignoring those not worth linking
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644/1/Time_Braid - It's an interweaving of a group of characters going back in time repeatedly around the invasion, sometimes together, sometimes apart. Follows Sakura mainly. They don't know why or what they're supposed to be doing (Though they learn later)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6017736/1/Fragments Several characters from different spinoff naruto-verses get dumped in the same one as the edges of reality start bending and they have to figure it out before things get much worse.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3536141/1/The_Tragedy_of_Repetition Naruto alone goes back. mmm, I enjoyed but not as obviously offering as the others.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3541463/1/Genius_of_Konoha sort of an amusing supergenius naruto fic, not that he gets everything right at all.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6055388/1/Rebuild_of_Fairly_English_Story sort of a fun take on Persona 3.
There were some other good ones, but away from my home comp with the growing list.
Quote from: Brian on December 21, 2010, 05:58:32 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on December 21, 2010, 03:46:11 PMAaah. I've been reading the hell out of (mostly) Ranma fanfiction for the past week, wanted to see if you were still in the game. In the time I've been gone, there's been some fantastic stories penned. Read any of these/have opinions on any of them?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3505392/1/Hell_is_a_Martial_Artist
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3566724/1/The_Dark_Lords_of_Nerima
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5308231/1/Tabula_Rasa
These sound familiar; I think I've heard that they're fairly popular.
Yeah. Hell is a Martial Artist is Ranma and Hild(Ah My Goddess) meeting and they promptly hit it off in a mother/daughter sort of way. It's a blast to watch unfold as the two get closer. Ranma even visits Hell and is completely okay with it, in a perfectly reasonable way. Highly recommended, doubly so if you like seeing Urd have a bad day.
Dark Lords of Nerima is awesome. That's exactly what it is. It's awesome in written form. It's a Ranma/Sailor Moon fic...where Ranma and Ryouga manage to convince both Jadeite and the Sailors that the NWC is a third party bent on overtaking the world. They're so good at it that the two forces team up to take them down. Chaos and awesome ensues.
Tabula Rasa is another Ranma is stuck as a girl fanfic. I think it hits Ranma's likely reaction to being stuck as a woman better than any other fic, though I dislike what happens in later chapters.
The Jusenkyo Preservation Society being taken to that extreme leaves me cold and I don't like adding that much drama. Ranma's anger at his change is more than enough dramatic material to work with, the entire arc feels like an interruption of an otherwise good story.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 21, 2010, 03:46:11 PMhttp://www.fanfiction.net/s/3949222/1/Another_Rainy_Day_in_Nerima
QuoteKind of interesting, but ultimately, annoyingly like the Bet. Author says, "I'm going to write leadins to a bunch of interesting stories, but only bother finishing the highest voted one -- also, it can't be Akane." Come to think of it, that's more than just _like_ the Bet....
Anyway, it was actually kinda interesting at first, but I kinda ... stopped caring before it ended. Maybe I'll go back and take another look.
Nah, no need. It does have a sequel where Ranma starts to deal with his problems, but it's not all that great. To be honest you hit it dead on, it feels like a Bet fic from around 2000. It's my least favorite of the fics linked.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 21, 2010, 03:46:11 PMhttp://www.fanfiction.net/s/4722676/1/Her_War
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4823447/1/Reversal_of_Fortunes
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3592336/1/Together_A_Tale_of_Transformation_and_Tragedy
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5258470/1/Ah_My_Goddess_Haloes
(This is also a not so subtle good fanfic link dump.)
QuoteHmm. Not sure about those. Probably going to be better than that bizzare Halo/Ranma/Metroid crossover I read three chapters of....
Her War is amazing. It's dark but enthralling to see play out. It's like an old time epic, with Ranma starting as a Musk captive and ending up the emperor of a war-torn and shattered China. It also has the best villains I've read in a fanfic, to the point of having a nightmare the night after I read it.
It's also the only fic that has Ranma raped and make it feel like something other than a cheap, tasteless gimmick.
Reversal of Fortunes revolves around the Reversal Jewel being used differently, and with Ukyo and Shampoo becoming friends as they deal with it. It's unfinished, hopefully this will change.
Together is...special. It's a horror fic that deconstructs the old tale of 'what if Ranma-chan and Ryoga fell in love?'. I like it to a point, it's...something.
The AMG fic is proof that characterization rules all. Davner's not a great writer, but his dialog and characters are stunning. They carry the piece far beyond the concept.
I'll go with Dark Lords for 1000$, Ana.
I like my ranma fics with high powered action, hilarity, and happy endings for as many involved as possible.
Also, I think you've finally motivated me to finish my own 'stuck' fic, come to think of it....
yeah, amen to power. :P It's disappointing when anime fanfiction reverts characters to mere human.
Awesome, Brian!
I read quite a bit of fanfiction here and there, so I'll toss up a few links for stuff I'm either following or have recently finished that might be worth checking out.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5792734/1/Sleeping_with_the_Girls_Vol_I_Fictional_Reality (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5792734/1/Sleeping_with_the_Girls_Vol_I_Fictional_Reality)
It's a self insert, and despite the claims not to have exaggerated charisma or powers or the like, the guy's still an ex military badass with an abrasive personality. So yeah, those are red flags right there. Still, the premise is an interesting one - every time he falls asleep, he warps into the bed of one of his favourite anime girls. Sadly he doesn't have a preference for kind moeblobs, so the likes of Ayeka and Shampoo are probably the nicest ones he ends up with, but he also ends up with villains like Marller and Quattro. Part of his abrasive personality is explained away by sleep deprivation as this continues, and it's just compelling to see the kind of chaos he can cause by taking stuff from one anime into the next, grabbing what he can just to survive. Has a sequel that's in progress.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4869171/1/Grand_Tour (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4869171/1/Grand_Tour)
A mega crossover that mostly covers anime and sci-fi tv/movies. Initially follows Ryouga as his curse sends him across dimensions, with the TSAB from Nanoha recruiting Ranma to help track him before the tears his magnified curse is causing in the dimensional fabric threatens reality. It's mostly a solid adventure romp through the various shows, with several existing concurrently on Earth (Ranma, Nanoha, Sailor Moon, and a whole bunch more all coexist together) so you get some fun interaction there. Has a sequel where Earth is invaded by a magitech civilisation equivalent to the TSAB, and our heroes all band together to hold them off until reinforcements from the TSAB can arrive. Pretty much everyone in it gets a chance to shine, and there's an amusing nod to the old Ranma/SM fandom trope where the TSAB discover the future of Crystal Tokyo and briefly wonder if it's a monstrous plot to take over the world before it becomes readily apparent that the sailor senshi are nice people who wouldn't do that. Even the villains are fleshed out, initially coming across as racist imperialist assholes but as you learn more... they're still imperialist, but you can see that they're anything but evil incarnate.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3384712/1/The_Lie_Ive_Lived (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3384712/1/The_Lie_Ive_Lived)
AU Harry Potter fic, where Harry absorbs the personality/memories of his father before the Triwizard Tournament, with all the skills and confidence that go with it. And it's a good thing too, since the Tournament in this fic is a vastly expanded affair, with more events, more contestants, and more danger. Harry is a bit overpowered even with the increased problems he's forced to deal with, but the action is superbly laid out, and it's really a thrill to read, seeing plots and planning come together in incredible set piece events, and the characterisation is top notch, too, with bitter hatred and romance in equal measure amongst the contestants, alongside the undercurrent of all the existing relationships in Hogwarts being shaken up. It's been a while since I've read this actually, but it's so good I had to mention it here.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5124106/1/bPolarity_b (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5124106/1/bPolarity_b)
Marvel Zombies. Love it or hate it, this ain't it. Oh, there's a worldwide zombie plague alright, but it's mostly focused on normal people, with only a few metas turning grey and groany. But even so, billions of shufling undead aren't something to brush off even if you're the Avengers. In this case, Norman Osborne takes advantage of the chaos to position himself and take charge after the President and Vice President both get bitten. The Superhero community is nearly paralyzed in shock by how suddenly everything's gone to hell, and just might be ready to listen to what the former Green Goblin has to say, since he seems to be the only one with a plan. Nobody would expect the Supervillains to do much but cause more trouble at a time like this... but instead perennial Spiderman punching bags the Shocker and the Rhino both take it upon themselves to rescue some civilians from a horde of zombies just outside their hideout, which is caught on the news shortly before TV gets locked down. Now the Shocker has to deal with being an actual Hero as the world comes apart at the seams - and rises to the occasion more than anyone could have dreamed. It's an inspiring tale of dogged determination against all odds, and while the Shocker is the protagonist, characters from all over the Marvel Universe both appear, and really shine - nobody needs to be denigrated to make the Shocker look better, and this was handled really well by the author.
Quote
It's a self insert, and despite the claims not to have exaggerated charisma or powers or the like, the guy's still an ex military badass with an abrasive personality.
I'm getting massive Iddy vibes.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 22, 2010, 04:10:42 PM
Quote
It's a self insert, and despite the claims not to have exaggerated charisma or powers or the like, the guy's still an ex military badass with an abrasive personality.
I'm getting massive Iddy vibes.
The self-insert is a bit less violent (and, dare I say, xenophobic) than Iddy. A bit.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1594076/1/Tendo_Saotome_Anything_Goes
One half Ranma, one half shoujo. Mix together, add a dog and see what comes out. It's a decent story with Ranma reaching the Tendo Dojo and choosing to pretend he's a girl there.
It's a good fic until the last half chapter. Choosing to have everything go pearshaped wasn't the best authorial choice. He had a fine base to work off of, blowing it in one big dramatic reveal didn't suit the rest of the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5402961/1/Childhood_Loyalties
Lots of little Ranma/Ukyo shorts. I happen to like the first one, the rest are fluff.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4226945/1/Bein_Friends
It's not really a story as much as connected dialogues, but it's a breezy read of a friendship that lasts even as Ranma's marriage falls apart. I really like the tone and pace you set, Brian. Nice fic.
Unrelated edit for Brian: Random, but whatever happened to Zen? Did he just vanish off the face of fanfiction and never come back?
Hmm, last I heard around the time I banished myself from IRC, Zen popped onto #sr for a little bit. That's the last I've heard, but I think we can safely assume that Zen is not going to be finishing those stories. :/
Also, glad you liked Bein' Friends; that was fun to write. Of course, the song doesn't hurt, either. :p
Quote from: Brian on December 24, 2010, 04:54:08 AM
Hmm, last I heard around the time I banished myself from IRC, Zen popped onto #sr for a little bit. That's the last I've heard, but I think we can safely assume that Zen is not going to be finishing those stories. :/
Also, glad you liked Bein' Friends; that was fun to write. Of course, the song doesn't hurt, either. :p
At least Zen's alive. I remember wondering if he'd vanished off the face of the earth.
Zen sits in night's chatroom commonly. I haven't seen her talk in a bit, but she's over there today.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4568723/1/Naruto_Shinobi_Wars Reading this...after it's predecessor by the same author, two continuous long stories. Long relatively more serious take on the naruto universe from beginning to end that really works upon the basic premise "What if all ninjas weren't psychic about all the plot points", well, that's not how it puts it, but it's not bad. It gets pretty strongly alt-universe.
Edit: It's kind of gone sorta mean-spirited in the last few chapters. Still well written, but the actually likable good guys set has both been dwindling and losing on screentime.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2108123/1/For_Better_or_For_Worst_Case_Scenario
Decent fic, it explores what could have happened if the episode where Nabiki took on the engagement went horribly wrong. Kasumi is terrifying in it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5412269/1/Legend_of_the_Koopa_King
Short, amusing. Bowser saves the day repeatedly.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1854667/The_Sage_of_Toads
Pretty much all of this guy's stuff is worth reading. Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon updated today. It was awesome. There was massive property damage.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 25, 2010, 01:40:32 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2108123/1/For_Better_or_For_Worst_Case_Scenario
Decent fic, it explores what could have happened if the episode where Nabiki took on the engagement went horribly wrong. Kasumi is terrifying in it.
Really? I couldn't get past the, "Yet another Ranma wakes up with Nabiki and they're hung over, but don't worry, it'll be a happy ending," aspect. Admittedly, I'm pretty sure I first tried to read it some years ago.... But it felt tired and overdone, even then. I'll admit that I'm generally just not a fan of the pairing, but even so, using the same exact tool to force the matchup (ie., alcohol+two people = sex, boil until love (which, naturally, works for Nabiki, when it would _never_ work for _anyone else_...)). Meh. Could just be me.
Quote from: Brian on December 25, 2010, 03:20:40 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on December 25, 2010, 01:40:32 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2108123/1/For_Better_or_For_Worst_Case_Scenario
Decent fic, it explores what could have happened if the episode where Nabiki took on the engagement went horribly wrong. Kasumi is terrifying in it.
Really? I couldn't get past the, "Yet another Ranma wakes up with Nabiki and they're hung over, but don't worry, it'll be a happy ending," aspect. Admittedly, I'm pretty sure I first tried to read it some years ago.... But it felt tired and overdone, even then. I'll admit that I'm generally just not a fan of the pairing, but even so, using the same exact tool to force the matchup (ie., alcohol+two people = sex, boil until love (which, naturally, works for Nabiki, when it would _never_ work for _anyone else_...)). Meh. Could just be me.
I'm not a fan of the pairing, though I benefited from Ranma/Nabiki feeling new to me. I've been outta fanfiction awhile, ya know? I like how it's explained as the story goes on, and why the wedding went off without a hitch.
So it's not all you, probably.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4892405/1/Ranma_the_Prophetess
Okay fic, not great but not terrible. The writing quality is mediocre but improves as it goes. Solid 5/10 fic, dipping into 4/10 to 3/10 as I didn't like the last chapters or the endings. Warning: Fukufic. More discussion in spoilers.
This fic constantly bit off more than it can chew. Too much was happening with too many characters around, as well as a certain devotion to canon for the first 3/4ths that was limiting. Further, Magnetite felt unneeded, a fifth general to get things done was excess baggage. Kunzite or someone else could have handled things with a bit of work just fine. Also, did not like the ending. Pluto reincarnating again was...eeeh. It didn't feel rewarding in the context of the fic. I know fukufics are played out, but I really wanted to see Ranma grab the Garnet Rod and go all Pluto again instead of how things worked out.
There were some good ideas, but a tighter focus and adding more interesting elements could have helped a lot. To be honest, the only reason I stuck with it for awhile was because it was a Ranma/Ukyo fanfic. I think the author felt obligated to stick with canon, yet he didn't add sufficient dramatic tension or interest to counter Ranma's prophecies. This got better at the end, even with as much of a clusterfuck as it was. Adding Saffron in was a nice touch.
Oh, and having Magnetite fight Ranma so much then get a bitch death via Pluto sucked. He wasn't a great OC, but at least give the readers a payoff. The entire ending had that problem. No meat to it. Once Pluto reappeared, what tension remained bottomed out.
As a final note, the last few fics made me decide I prefer a nicer/saner take on Nodoka. With all the shit Ranma gets, you think at least one parent could be decent.
Thy Outward Part + a few sequels. Not going to link this one since it's famous and Google does wonders.
It's okay, but couldn't it have been more like Ranma? It's one thing to explore Ranma trapped as a girl, it's another to remove everything from it. It's a good series but it doesn't have any real soul to it. Couldn't Ryoga have shown up once or twice or something, or have a ghost cat appear or something? Anything? For that matter, what happened to everyone else? I wish the Amazons got mentioned more than once and Ukyo got mentioned at all. Edit: Thinking about it a few moments, it feels like there is too much missing from the fic. Too many things are left unsaid. Dunno why it bothers me so much. Something about this fic gets to me.
I dunno, I feel like a hypocrite saying this.
Thy Outward Part
Original story by Richard Lawson
Reduced by Slacker
Ranma: I'm stuck as a girl!
Keitaro: I don't care, I wanna have sex with you.
Ranma: But I just dug up the Kaisuifu and can turn back into a guy now!
Keitaro: But I REALLY want to have sex with you!
Ranma: Okay.
THE END
Readers: Wait, are you sure this isn't "Thy Inward Love"?
I was told I was supposed to have strong feelings about that story -- either I would love it, or hate it. To be honest, I read it, and really didn't actually care at all. It didn't feel at all like a Ranma story, but it did a better job of it than Genma's Daughter -- which outright replaces Ranma with a less interesting character. Lawson at least tries to preserve the idea that Ranma is still Ranma when he gets stuck as a girl, but most of TOP felt unexplained to me. Okay, Ranma is in love with this ANC. But we're never really told WHY Ranma likes this guy, and from Keitaro's PoV, really, he's interested in Ranma because Ranma's physically attractive -- full stop.
Hard to figure out why so many other people cared. Kind of like that one -- what was it ... Hearts of Ice? Couldn't figure out why that one was supposed to be so awesome. Couldn't bring myself to finish it when I heard it was completed, some years after the fact.
Hah, the reduction is what made me read TOP in the first place.
Anyway, you're right about TOP. That hits what I wanted to say better than managed to. So many little things need exposition or feel wrong, it drives me up the wall. I feel like Tabula Rasa does a much better job with the Ranma is locked and dealing with it poorly story, plus it keeps the original flavor.
I always thought Hearts of Ice was mediocre swill. It felt like it was written for a woman and by a woman. Akane goes uber, her main rival in the form of Shampoo and Cologne...well, you know. Or something, I haven't read it since like 2001 and damned if I change that.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2923962/1/Worlds_Fall_Apart
It's like Genma's Daughter, but it's a lot closer to the source material. It's not all the way there but it's way better.
Most of it's okay, but the gold is seeing Ranma in the same position Shampoo or Ukyo was. Akane and Ryoga are dating, she wants to steal Ryoga. It makes the last third of the story better, just for the pure irony involved.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5076954/1/Kitsune_on_Campus starts weakly, but picks up steam and ends up nicely negimaish.
http://www.concentric.net/~Easimons/MHUKYOU.HTM
Yeah, Edward's fic. It's as good as I remember, though depressing as fuck. I'm up to Ikari 1, just enjoying how the fic works out. It's a little too exposition-y at times for my tastes, but it's a minor bitch.
Ed, if you see this and it isn't touched on later, any ulterior motive to killing Nabiki off? Besides the obvious dramatic and early character-moving reasons. Nabiki dying without having a single line and as a result of a good-faith mistake by Ranma really sets the tone.
Finished Mamono Hunter Ukyo. Good stuff! It has some gorgeous bits, like Ranma and Ukyo going skating during Haradachi. The only downside is that the angst gets too thick for awhile. It starts to relent a few chapters before the current last part of the fic, but it got close to drowning in angst.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2089055/1/Hands_Fall_Together
What if Luna finds Mamoru instead of Usagi at the start of Sailor Moon? The concept is executed well and is a hell of a lot of fun to read. Imagine poor Tux having to deal with monsters, beyond just throwing a rose and running off.
The Lie I've Lived (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3384712/1/The_Lie_Ive_Lived) — Not all of James died that night. Not all of Harry lived. The Triwizard Tournament as it should have been and a hero discovering who he really wants to be.
Well done Harry/Fleur matchup. Complete. Author promised a sequel, but so far no sign of it.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 04, 2011, 03:00:56 AMEd, if you see this and it isn't touched on later, any ulterior motive to killing Nabiki off? Besides the obvious dramatic and early character-moving reasons. Nabiki dying without having a single line and as a result of a good-faith mistake by Ranma really sets the tone.
No specific conscious reasons. I've been largely making things up as I went.
Subconsciously, perhaps I felt Nabiki's petty villainy and occasional snarky comments didn't fit with where I wanted to go.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 08, 2011, 11:10:53 PM
Finished Mamono Hunter Ukyo. Good stuff! It has some gorgeous bits, like Ranma and Ukyo going skating during Haradachi. The only downside is that the angst gets too thick for awhile. It starts to relent a few chapters before the current last part of the fic, but it got close to drowning in angst.
Thanks. That's my cue to post another chapter. And a few more miscellaneous things. And throw out another request for prereaders.
Quote from: Edward on January 09, 2011, 08:52:58 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on January 04, 2011, 03:00:56 AMEd, if you see this and it isn't touched on later, any ulterior motive to killing Nabiki off? Besides the obvious dramatic and early character-moving reasons. Nabiki dying without having a single line and as a result of a good-faith mistake by Ranma really sets the tone.
No specific conscious reasons. I've been largely making things up as I went.
Subconsciously, perhaps I felt Nabiki's petty villainy and occasional snarky comments didn't fit with where I wanted to go.
Mmm, that makes sense. Thinking about it, I can't easily imagine Nabiki being around this fic. She doesn't fit, does she?
Quote from: Edward on January 09, 2011, 09:01:20 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on January 08, 2011, 11:10:53 PM
Finished Mamono Hunter Ukyo. Good stuff! It has some gorgeous bits, like Ranma and Ukyo going skating during Haradachi. The only downside is that the angst gets too thick for awhile. It starts to relent a few chapters before the current last part of the fic, but it got close to drowning in angst.
Thanks. That's my cue to post another chapter. And a few more miscellaneous things. And throw out another request for prereaders.
Awesome.
Hard up for pre-readers? I could try if you want, but I'm ten years out of the game. My grasp of grammar has slipped.
Rustiness on grammar is fine, Word's grammar checker can help me with that.
Things I could use feedback on:
1) That tendency towards exposition. Another set of eyes can catch that better than I can and help me avoid it.
2) I tend towards a lot of scene cuts. Suggestions on consolidating scenes can be helpful.
3) Is what I wrote clear? Are there missing words or wrong words? Can readers tell what is happening in a scene? Can readers tell which character is saying which things?
4) How is the characterization? Most of these characters have changed; some have changed a lot because of events. I need the changes to be credible, yet the characters still be true to the originals. I don't want readers to think Character X is acting oddly unless they are acting oddly. I certainly don't want readers to think "That isn't Character X any more."
5) Is what I have written internally consistent? If a character is wounded in the shoulder I don't want that wound to migrate to their leg. If the character is naked, I don't want them to put things in their pockets.
Sure, I could give that a crack. Let me try it with one of your new fics over the weekend? See how that goes?
reread a few angry words by alordoflandofire (will link later). It was a fun moderate sized growth into a hero type fic, though it kinda anti-climatics the ending battle by it being a few second affair.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 11, 2011, 03:27:59 PM
Sure, I could give that a crack. Let me try it with one of your new fics over the weekend? See how that goes?
Thanks.
Aaand that will wait another few days since I lost track due to epic football and a leaking, dying refrigerator on Saturday. Sorry about that. Did you know that refrigerators are 70% more likely to die the day after you do all your shopping for a week? Did you know that a bad fridge can leak enough to flood much of the kitchen floor? It sucks.
---
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3337074/1/Im_Here_to_Help
I'm not sure what to think, beyond one question that bothers the hell out of me:
What the hell is Emerald's crystal? I read it late at night so maybe I'm missing an obvious pull, but I'm drawing a blank.
http://www.sailormoonv.net/da.htm
A really long AU fic I found today. The first chapter isn't bad, it's a semi-self contained story that holds up well enough. It has a few issues but it's readable. It's mostly around an OC, but I liked him.
A condensed, doomed romance fits the mood of Sailor Moon. I feel like it's too early in the canon for it, but the concept's fine. It's that sort of show, you know? The only real flaw is that I feel his Ami is off. Not like total OOC off, but a subtle off. Her word choice, actions and deeds sometimes just don't fit. You know, the subtle sort of mis-characterization that's the bane of any writer.
I do like how Tolaris took Eternal Sleep like a man. Whatever else you can say about him, he has balls.
The second part looks to be launching off a much bigger story. Chapter 2 is um...uh...something. It weaves from being okay to going into :psyduck: territory with reckless abandon. Chapter 3 made me close the window halfway.
Rei/Yuuchiro(Chad) violent quasi rape/violence/cutting scene? Uh I'll pass, thanks. This fic was getting into danger zone of 'fucked up shit' starting last chapter, but this took the cake. I can deal with finding out how Luna is in bed. I can deal with a random flashback of an OC seducing Makoto into a lesbian fling. Hell, even the vampire bit can be rationalized with enough fast reading and mental gymnastics. . The musical Minako bit felt entirely extraneous of the character, but what the fuck ever.
Anyway, point is that it went from mildly fucked up to full on apeshit, oh god fetish boy on board arghfuckle help help help CLOSE WINDOW FIREFOX CLOSE THE DAMN WINDOW AAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
Yeah. Besides, Rei is totally a dominatrix, not a submissive. Come on, 'domineering bitch' is her personality in the English dub, which it's based off of.
I'll be running now.
As an aside, there's a bunch of shit about expanding the Dark Kingdom/Negaverse into it's dimension. It looks sort of interesting but whatever. I suspect this is the part that gets the story it's fans. I hope.
Team 8 updated recently. So did In Flight and Time Braid.
Hell is a Martial Artist did not. Sadness.
http://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/view_ch.php?id=20515&cid=51630&submit=View
Absence by Kirika. The concept is that sometime after S a new enemy comes. In the first fight Rei has a building fall on her and is presumed dead. Through luck and a trip through the sewers it turns out she's not dead! Of course, it also turns out she's madly, head over heels, full on miserably in love with Usagi! Since she knows she can never be with her, she decides to slip away to Yokohama and start over. It just so happens that the new threat has a prong of it's attack in Yokohama! You can guess what happens from here.
The real point of the story is to match up Usagi and Rei, the youma business is just the backdrop for it. I don't mind the concept in the least. In the anime there's a few sparks there and a few jokes are made about it, so why not? They have a certain chemistry. Of course, there's a few smaaaallll problems with that and that's where this fic suffers. Rei is so head over heels in love that she's willing to go after Usagi when she's with Mamoru. Okay, that's one thing. When Chibi-Usa is known and in town and you've been to the future where Usagi and Mamoru are together? That's a whole other kettle of lesbians.
Make no mistake about it, Rei is in love. Hard love, full stop, end of the line love. Suicidal love, willing to die if Usagi dies as well. It almost makes her a villain - she's not far removed from Diamond in her raw obsession with Usagi. I have a lot of trouble dealing with Rei willing to risk Chibi Usa's existence over her love. It's really the underlying problem with matching Usagi and Rei up past the Space Elf arc of R. How can you morally justify doing it under the circumstances? Let alone with a destined romance that's the main theme of the series? Yeah, I hate Chibi-Usa as much as the next American viewer, but motherfucker let's keep it real.
I like the fic anyway, it's well written and keeps you involved. You have to be willing to accept the premise and accept Rei as she is, which is a tall order in an otherwise great fanfic. I recommend it with the above reservations.
PS. There's a lemon chapter about 2/3rd through. You can skip it without it mattering if that's your thing, it's not needed to understand the story.
PPS. A few spoilery thoughts below.
The author is definitely writing what she knows. I strongly suspect - and she all but says as much in a few ANs - that she's basing Rei off something she went through. I have another strong suspicion that the ending of this fic is wish fulfillment on her part. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Write what you know, yeah? I'm not going anywhere with this, it's just interesting to consider after you've read the fic.
I don't mind Usagi and Rei getting together, though I think the ending softballed everything. (I think, I haven't reread that far yet.) I do like that Mamoru's shown as a decent guy and not ruthlessly slammed, except from Rei's PoV which is justifiable. I also like that a few people call Rei out, particularly Luna. She has an amazing speech around the halfway mark, one that highlights the what the fuck factor of Rei's actions. On the flip side, I wish one of the senshi had taken Mamoru's side. So far all of them have been in Rei's corner. I dunno, they just feel too accepting.
The mouse of Konoha updated. Amusing. I should grab that link for here later.
I need to get some non-naruto stuff in the mix. Maybe some of this SM stuff will do :P
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5879429/1/Past_Lives
Sequel to Absence. Looks okay so far, though the sewer bits could stand to be trimmed down. Ewww.
Casual thought: If Ranma has a better than normal average of good fics to shit, Sailor Moon has a lower average than normal. It's way lower if you discount the Ranma/SM crossovers, too. It's a shame, there's a lot to play with in the series but not that many good fics working with it.
And one piece has a positively terrible good fic to shit average.
Any idea why?
For Sailor Moon it's a lot of fangirls writing mediocre fics that come down to one of a few things:
1. Wish-fulfillment/projection Usagi/Mamoru romance.
2. Fics that don't really make sense or fit the series, but match a teenage trauma the author either dealt with, had a friend deal with or saw on TV. Usagi gets booted from the Senshi, one of them gets randomly knocked up, ectera.
3. Fics that use the names of the characters but really have nothing to do with Sailor Moon. You know, the sort of fics that have Usagi as a professional assassin, Minako as a hooker and Mamoru as the Devil? Yeah, I read the first chapter of a fic like that. Besides the names it had no relation to Sailor Moon at all.
Is that that PoS that Lurker writes? Moonshadow, I think?
He reliably posts a chapter on the FFML immediately after I post anything. Kind of funny, really.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 25, 2011, 12:21:31 AM
Any idea why?
For Sailor Moon it's a lot of fangirls writing mediocre fics that come down to one of a few things:
1. Wish-fulfillment/projection Usagi/Mamoru romance.
2. Fics that don't really make sense or fit the series, but match a teenage trauma the author either dealt with, had a friend deal with or saw on TV. Usagi gets booted from the Senshi, one of them gets randomly knocked up, ectera.
3. Fics that use the names of the characters but really have nothing to do with Sailor Moon. You know, the sort of fics that have Usagi as a professional assassin, Minako as a hooker and Mamoru as the Devil? Yeah, I read the first chapter of a fic like that. Besides the names it had no relation to Sailor Moon at all.
I've found one 'okay' fic in one piece land. Zero good fics. Scanned through several hundred fic summaries. Problems common?
1)Wish romance fiction, hundreds of fics were 'authorname arrives somehow aboard relevant ship, romances favorite character' by 'authorname'. Fangirls basically.
I think that one pretty much explains itself. It's fine for folks to write that, but yea no interest in reading it.
2)The one piece crew failed/vanished. 1X years later, My crew tries the challenge, Accepting original Characters.
I kinda understand this as OP delivers a 'live the pirate fantasy' vibe, and the next step is to actually be the pirate crew yourselves, but yeah, starting with a basis that the main cast failed and died isn't very endearing really. Strangely the one 'okay' fic had the main cast failing as a backdrop, but it still had luffy alive and trying to deal with it in close proximity to the event, rather than as a 20 years ago thing that's just meant to wash them out of the way.
3)Yaoi. Lots of it. Probably territory with an almost all male main cast, but yeah. Unlike SM that flirts with the notion of love all the time, romance is generally rejected in the one piece universe.
4)"Welcome to One Piece High School". Kind of a terrible cast set for highschool antics. I think that One Piece has only ever introduced (Sans flashbacks) two characters that were under eighteen years old. Coby the marine teenager luffy saves early on and the old train driver's grandaughter. Neither main cast.
Eh, it's unfair of me. A crows type setup could make it work, but beside from all that, all three of these involve either an SI or wiping either Cast or Setting away. It's really rare to see any that even try at a story in the setting with the cast, even AU or Crossover or otherwise.
http://www.thekeep.org/~wombat/Stories/Z/
Interesting ideas, but bogs down quickly with way too many OCs. I got to chapter 4 before I gave up, the writing isn't good enough to warrant continuing. It's a shame, some parts of it looked to have potential. This should really be rule 1 of fanfiction: No one really wants to read about OCs 99.99% of the time. If we wanted that, we'd go read original fiction. I can count on two hands the number of OCs I've ever truly liked.
What OCs are good, anyway? Beneda from the Dark Lords of Nerima, Aktaya from Her War, Emerald from I'm here to Help (He counts, even though he's technically not one), um....wow, it's a damned small list. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, but oh well.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/224921.html
Follow the path of entries by Pusakuronu. This is absolutely incredible, there's no other words for it. Dungeon Keeper Ami, and no, it's not fetish porn despite the title.
If ff.net is the pit of voles, surely Addventure must be the pit of zombie catgirls.
Heh I remember DK:Ami. They really took that a loong way.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 27, 2011, 05:09:55 AM
http://www.thekeep.org/~wombat/Stories/Z/
Interesting ideas, but bogs down quickly with way too many OCs. I got to chapter 4 before I gave up, the writing isn't good enough to warrant continuing. It's a shame, some parts of it looked to have potential. This should really be rule 1 of fanfiction: No one really wants to read about OCs 99.99% of the time. If we wanted that, we'd go read original fiction. I can count on two hands the number of OCs I've ever truly liked.
What OCs are good, anyway? Beneda from the Dark Lords of Nerima, Aktaya from Her War, Emerald from I'm here to Help (He counts, even though he's technically not one), um....wow, it's a damned small list. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, but oh well.
I'll answer back. OCs are often better than using personality flipped/massively changed characters to fulfill certain convenient roles in stories, and I know we've all seen that. They're nice to fill out background casts sometimes (Like in Dungeon Keeper Ami, which you just linked). Often, these characters aren't super memorable and the story is better for it, so they don't get brought up when folks think of OCs. That random monk who's around for four pages of a Ranma fic to give sage advice during his training as a plot device for an AU is still an OC, even if he doesn't really stick around.
But...
This should really be rule 1 of fanfiction: No one really wants to read about OCs 99.99% of the time. If we wanted that, we'd go read original fiction.
This is so true. Sure, OCs are often important parts of telling a story but folks hunting fanfiction rarely want it to be 'about them'. SI type stuff can sometimes get by a bit better...maybe? Is it less obnoxious? Sometimes. But overall cast > ye.
Biggest turnoff in most fanfiction.
Yeah. OCs can be done right, and I think Dungeon Keeper Ami does them well, but most of the time it's a huge turnoff.
Quote from: Dracos on January 28, 2011, 02:47:30 PMThis should really be rule 1 of fanfiction: No one really wants to read about OCs 99.99% of the time. If we wanted that, we'd go read original fiction.
That should be Rule #2 of fanfiction.
Rule #1 should be:
Read the original series! This should be a no-brainer, but how many fics are there where the writer has obviously seen or read little or none of the original series? Or if they have seen it, they sure didn't pay attention.
Ignoring this rule is the leading cause of "character-shaped entities". (Term coined by Brian.) For example, any fic where Ranma refuses to use weapons or looks down on those who do does not has a "Ranma-shaped entity". When a character looks like Ranma, but does not talk, act, or think like Ranma it is clearly not Ranma.
Quote from: Dracos on January 28, 2011, 02:47:30 PMThis is so true. Sure, OCs are often important parts of telling a story but folks hunting fanfiction rarely want it to be 'about them'. SI type stuff can sometimes get by a bit better...maybe? Is it less obnoxious? Sometimes. But overall cast > ye.
I'd rate SIs as an especially obnoxious type of OC.
One essay I like is How Not To Write An Annoying New Character
http://nekohanten.tripod.com/Fureimuzu/fr-alsw.htm
(scroll down a lot)
It's a bit rambling and I haven't read most of the fics mentioned as examples, but it does spell out a lot of what can make the OC annoying.
Summarizing, those points:
1) The OC should not be the center of the story.
2) Not all of the existing cast should like the OC.
3) The OC should have flaws.
4) The OC should have motives.
5) The OC should not be too powerful.
6) Relationships between the OC and the existing cast should take time to develop.
Actually, most these also explain why many fic writers' versions of existing characters are annoying.
Heh. I can see that and can not.
I suppose I've mentally accepted that an SI that is warped in for whatever reason to a universe they already know is less annoying than one where it's taken for granted by everyone that Cologne has a superpowerful niece that just happens to have always been there, even though they're both SIs.
I suspect it's the intrusiveness of it. Neither is particularly a good read usually (Especially if it's a mary sue getting pulled in rather than an author), but the conceit of authorial canon knowledge possessed by an otherwise mundane and clashing individual within the setting is less of an obstruction than if an OC is woven of new cloth, sewn into the setting at an early (or pre-series) point, and simply taken for granted and yet is of great import. Mmm.
Basically I think the conceit of 'knowing what is going on' and/or the conceit of 'knowing the tropes of the universe (and they work for you!)' can be fun as fic concept and is sometimes conveniently accessible by using an author narrative for it. It's also almost always averted with 'So you know what's going on, but now that you've acted on it, everything you know is wrong' or 'You don't belong. You really don't belong'.
This is a form of wish fiction, certainly, but I tend to find it less offensive than "OC is part of world and <Marysueisms>".
Quote
This should be a no-brainer, but how many fics are there where the writer has obviously seen or read little or none of the original series? Or if they have seen it, they sure didn't pay attention.
There's a third reason here: The author has lost track of canon in favor of fanon. Not all fanon is bad, but it can be easy to let bullshit slip in after the tenth or twentieth time you've read it.
As an interesting alternative, they may also have rejected the canon.
I know there's several series I do that with at this point. Naruto fanon is far more intriguing usually than the canon. I flat out ignore the continuation of Nanoha stuff, pretending the canon ended where it was still fun. And while I can't remember other cases, I know there are there.
It's a complicated play. Louise and Saito's interplay in canon is meant to appeal to certain things 'fantasies'. A great deal of folks aren't really down with that, but willing go with some replacement for Saito that completely destroys that dynamic, converting louise into a significantly different character from the very get-go. Hill of Swords seriously contributed to folks doing that a lot more. It's an element of canon that folks find inconvenient, so they wipe it away when they want to do fanfiction there.
I call it the "Everyone likes to see their favorite characters get powerups and do awesome things," principle, or "the principle of concentrated awesome" for short.
On THAT note, thanks to Drac's suggestion, I'm reading A Few Angry Words (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4251989/50/A_Few_Angry_Words). To be honest, I have no idea how much of the stuff that the author is drawing from is based on Naruto canon I gave up on (quit after the timeskip -- that was when they dropped the pretense they were anything other than a DBZ clone in terms of pace and plotting). I'm still enjoying it, if I'm somewhat staggered by the sheer volume of reviews it's received (/jealous).
It is not without its flaws -- the matchup is incredibly early into the story, so there's not a lot of dramatic tension on that count. This is easily explicable because the story was intended to be a oneshot, not a series. From there, my main complaint is that the author on occasion writes sidestories that are AU to his own fic (basically Bummer Flashforwards). Non-cannon stuff about the premise of the fic failing.
I know I could give the fic an actual summary instead of being vague about it, but the truth of the matter is I can't think of a better summary of the story than reading the first chapter. :p
Most Naruto/Hinata fanfics that I've encountered have the matchup very early and play off of other reasons why they might fail to get their happy ending. I believe they do this because really the matchup does have a lot of legitimate and interesting conflicts to overcome with accepting the 'they just click' premise. One character is unaware and the other is terminally shy. Whatever. Fine. Someone breaks the ice, now you have your somewhat happy couple.
But wait. Naruto in fanon is easily played up into a target, a political catspaw, an outcast demon, an unloved orphan (His clan unknown). He has a whole swarm of very dangerous enemies outside the village, and with fanon involved, often inside the village as well. Basically, a bunch of reasons to interfere with the match and capable dangers.
Hinata meanwhile can nicely drift between unattainable clan princess and abused child. Sometimes both at the same time. She can easily have folks that would disrupt the matchup both in her own family and just to screw with her clan. She also has generally the overhanging axe of being unworthy and getting branded, which while non-disruptive tends to give the new couple a huge challenge to overcome.
In other words, the success of the romance can easily be pushed into question without there being direction conflict between the primary participants, so rarely do they choose to make the actual romance the conflict. It falls into something more akin to a Romeo and Juilet setup: Sure they love each other. Fine. Now can they get married without everybody killing each other?
Quote from: Dracos on January 31, 2011, 02:56:10 PMI suppose I've mentally accepted that an SI that is warped in for whatever reason to a universe they already know is less annoying than one where it's taken for granted by everyone that Cologne has a superpowerful niece that just happens to have always been there, even though they're both SIs.
I'll agree that an unabashed SI is better than a SI masquerading as an OC, but only the worst OCs are as bad as an SI.
An SI is always the center of the story, they're always too powerful, almost always too popular, usually have no logical reason to be involved, typically have no flaws, and often serve as a vehicle for the author to rant their views about the characters, real world politics, or religion.
An OC may not have any of these problems and when they do, they're usually less bad than an SI.
For good OCs you need look no farther than Brian Randall's works. From the supporting military characters in Process of Elimination, to Ranma's cousin in And Lo the Mighty Have Fallen, none of them have any of these problems. None of his OCs are Annoying New Characters and I wish more people followed his example.
Quote from: Dracos on January 31, 2011, 02:56:10 PMBasically I think the conceit of 'knowing what is going on' and/or the conceit of 'knowing the tropes of the universe (and they work for you!)' can be fun as fic concept and is sometimes conveniently accessible by using an author narrative for it. It's also almost always averted with 'So you know what's going on, but now that you've acted on it, everything you know is wrong' or 'You don't belong. You really don't belong'.
I've never seen it averted People who indulge in wish fiction are all about feeling smarter, cooler, more powerful, and more popular than they are in real life. As you pointed out in an ECB, they're the types who think a sporting event where the home team scores ten times as many points as the losers do is somehow better than a tense game that anybody could have won before the home team comes from behind and wins by a single point.
End-of-series-Akane goes back in time and effortlessly solves all her problems is about as exciting as reading the phone book.
End-of-series-Akane goes back in time makes a bad situation worse could be a great fic. Maybe only Akane's spirit goes back and her past self thinks she's developing a split personality and going insane. Maybe Akane's spirit ends up in Kodachi's body. Or Sentaro's. Maybe Akane goes back physically, but the early version doesn't believe her and does things that make it worse. Maybe both Akanes end up rivals with each other.
Maybe someday someone will write that fic. It could be good.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 31, 2011, 03:05:00 PMThere's a third reason here: The author has lost track of canon in favor of fanon. Not all fanon is bad, but it can be easy to let bullshit slip in after the tenth or twentieth time you've read it.
That still falls under my point that they need to read the original series. If an author chooses to uses fanon, that's okay. If an author is having trouble knowing what is fanon, they need to spend more time reading the original series.
Quote from: Dracos on January 31, 2011, 06:29:25 PMAs an interesting alternative, they may also have rejected the canon.
Authors who merely make changes to the setting do not leave the readers wondering if they have never read the original series. All fic authors change the original setting. My objection is not to change. My objection is to it being badly done.
If an author thinks the Phoenix Mountain storyline was too much darkness and drama for the Ranma series, then they need to credibly manipulate events so it doesn't happen in their story, not pretend Ms. Takahashi never wrote it. If an author wants their favorite character to be a peerless saint and their most hated character to be soulless monster, they need to credibly show how the characters became that, not pretend fanon caricature-ization is canon.
I'm talking about authors like Skysaber or Kaiphantom who substitute their own version for the setting and think it's canon. Or that Ranma-LotR cross that featured a stupid and annoying Ranma-shaped entity that had a fanon distain for weapons and mindlessly clung to it even after people started dying. The typical fic that substitutes canon with fanon does it with all the subtlety of a train wreck. (Or Kaiphantom with the copy-paste function.)
Quote from: Brian on January 31, 2011, 08:06:38 PMI call it the "Everyone likes to see their favorite characters get powerups and do awesome things," principle, or "the principle of concentrated awesome" for short.
Actually, most powerup fics suck since they miss the second half of that. Watching your favorite character get a powerup and do nothing with it is boring. Watching your favorite character get a powerup and effortlessly beat people who used to be a challenge turns your favorite character into a pathetic bully.
Your fics are notable and excellent exceptions, but they are exceptions.
Really, reading the original series should be required. The only problem is when you have multiple continuities. Like how after the first season Ranma anime only barely resembles the manga, and don't even let me get started on Sailor Moon. Especially anything concerning Stars.
You go after 'easy' ones.
There's a handful of anime that have 3 or more active continuties. Such as Tenchi.
Or El Hazard.
But even with multiple continuities, there are authors who don't seem familiar with any of them. Near as I can tell they base their fics on other fics or online rants.
Quote from: Edward on February 05, 2011, 12:26:42 AM
Or El Hazard.
But even with multiple continuities, there are authors who don't seem familiar with any of them. Near as I can tell they base their fics on other fics or online rants.
More or less the entire Gundam Wing fandom before cartoon network aired it. People writing characters based on fics based on other fics based on dodgy plot summaries and characters shrines. Or Yu Yu Hakusho, come to think of it. Yaoi fangirls are a terrible force.
Phil, being an aspect of evil incarnate, has declared war against my productivity.
So. Incomplete:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/1/Team_8
Naruto gets switched with Kiba when teams are picked out. How does our kyuubi-sealing prodigy deal with being partnered with Aburame Shino and Hyuugu Hinata? (This one is trying for the Principle of Concentrated Awesome, but depending on how the author handles things, it MAY go the character-shaped-entity route -- amusing so far.)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644/1/bTime_b_bBraid_b
A little bit of Naruto meets Higurashi, actually-- The chunin exam loops around like Groundhog Day, and Sakura is tired of being such a fragile wuss.... Probably, everyone's terribly OOC, but then, give them a few years of living the same months out over and over again, and it all seems justifiable to me. A bit, ah, risque in places (kinda surprised me), but generally, quite fun.
These may have been linked elsewhere, but they're what I'm reading. :)
Time Braid is regularly being updated on usually a <monthly scale.
Team 8 is more along every 3 months I think? It does give fairly meaty chapters though.
Rez lured me into some Harry Potter as a Sociopathic Scientist Mage fic. It is ridiculously long.
I am some 20something chapters into it. It's also fairly amusing. On what it currently appears, harry would try and obliterate the mage world to protect the modern world. If push came to shove.
Harry Potter and the somethingsomething of Rationality?
Yeah, that's mentioned on dozens (probably hundreds, now) of tvtrropes pages. Despite the fact that this makes me and the author of this story indirect rivals (to use more tropes), I haven't read it.
I've manged to resist reading potter fiction (which is especially funny to me, since I've actually read all the books).
I've mostly drifted off in interest as it went serious for a bit and had harry drift pretty far from mad scientist hero mage.
No luck finding anything new and neat lately.
Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon though updated a bit ago and was awesome. In Flight also did and was amusing.
Fandom: Naruto
Fic Length: >100k
Characters: Naruto/Hinata
I'm working on it, but no real surprise, I'm not seeing a whole lot of stuff worth suggesting....
...if I read one more recap of Wave Country....
Quote from: Dracos on February 15, 2011, 03:44:51 PM
No luck finding anything new and neat lately.
Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon though updated a bit ago and was awesome. In Flight also did and was amusing.
I didn't much like BDSM's update. The problem with a gimmick/shock fic is that you have to keep upping the ante. I think the Naru gangbang(No, really, that happened) was going over the edge. From what I've read of the guy's works, he has trouble with that. Good concepts and amusement, but he can't craft lasting stories.
Quote from: Anastasia on February 15, 2011, 11:33:08 PMI think the Naru gangbang(No, really, that happened) was going over the edge.
...and now I never have to read that series. Thank you, Anna.
Eh, Sage of Toads does have problems with longer lasting stories.
Still, I do kind of like the take of the scouts as competent badasses that genuinely can be pictured as dominating a country. The genre-saavyness helps a lot, and seeing Luna genuinely frazzled by the 'look, this is how I troll' usagi combined with the generals also being equally frazzled by a girl who would as soon toss them into their own trap as call out a speech is pretty amusing.
I think the sexual antics side of things could entirely be dropped and leave a better fic for it, so I can entirely see that Mamoru and Luna being the only real cast members not to be shown to be a raging pervert with an active sex life being a turn off.
*will keep reading it*
Quote from: Brian on February 16, 2011, 07:34:17 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on February 15, 2011, 11:33:08 PMI think the Naru gangbang(No, really, that happened) was going over the edge.
...and now I never have to read that series. Thank you, Anna.
Glad to be of service!
Quote from: Dracos on February 16, 2011, 08:59:07 PM
Eh, Sage of Toads does have problems with longer lasting stories.
Still, I do kind of like the take of the scouts as competent badasses that genuinely can be pictured as dominating a country. The genre-saavyness helps a lot, and seeing Luna genuinely frazzled by the 'look, this is how I troll' usagi combined with the generals also being equally frazzled by a girl who would as soon toss them into their own trap as call out a speech is pretty amusing.
I think the sexual antics side of things could entirely be dropped and leave a better fic for it, so I can entirely see that Mamoru and Luna being the only real cast members not to be shown to be a raging pervert with an active sex life being a turn off.
*will keep reading it*
I don't intristically -mind- a sexual take on things. Naru and Usagi started as amusing and could throw a humorous wrench into everything. But it's gone past that and into 'Hey look at me I'm being adult and edgy!!!!!' territory.
I can agree with that. It's clear that SoT sort of was going that way 'BDSM' with the name to begin with, but yeah.
I've looked over/read a bunch of fics lately. Nothin' worth rec. Any good ones from others?
Well, that's not fair. Poorly written but kinda amusing was the late fic where Ranma warps in by accident and takes over Team 7 in comedy of errors style, faking everything. Late Arrival or something, but nothing 'ooh'.
It's a slow period. Lords of Nerima updated last week but that's like it.
Huh, oh right, that's still going. I mentally had it mapped done from all the people claiming that, even though it was a lie.
I'm not reading much of anything lately. All the fics I follow are quiet right now, nothing new and interesting has shown up.
I vaguely hear that sage of toads may now be writing a naruto fic called And Then Suddenly, NINJAS! I'll have to check on this later.
I've been reading Motivation. By Du of Brian, First son of the Randall. Not only is it entertaining and involve the smart ninjas being smart, but it also has an author I can personally tease about his fanfics. Glee.
In Flight updated. Nothing stellar. Ending on a simple "I must learn that character's cool trick" is simply not as neat as "Oni-chan, he says he's going to be my sex slave. I need more life counciling!"
Dark Lords of Nerima, epilogue. It's up and it's finished! Story 2 is apparently coming.
I don't like that it tries so hard to fit everything into the status quo of both series' canon. It feels artificial to me. In the last couple of chapters everything slots back into place despite everything that happened. Thetis goes to help Jadeite, Tux is saved by Ranma in at the airport, Ryouga just happens to wander off to learn the Shi Shi Hokodan. Something about this violates my basic sense of cause and effect.
I'll have to read later. When the wave of life stops.
Time Braid has devolved full-on into gorn and wangst. Depressingly enough, it's the first story I've unfavorited and removed from story alert.
Avoid, ladies and gents, the author hates happiness.
Yeah, I heard the most recent chapter was a horrible terrible thing that basically involved going "Good end? HAHAHAHAHAHA, FUCK YOU."
I'm currently planning on waiting until someone reading it tells me that it's stopped being horrible. Hoping that'll just be a few chapters.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6241559/1/Help_Wanted this is cute.
Mouse of Konoha updated. Naruto is going down a bit of an odd path, but its still cute. Super assassin x Cute Ragamuffin was unexpected.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6218902/1/Deathsong Just finished this, it was a nice short Rukia/Ichigo fic. Single contained villian. Nyum. Enjoyed.
Her War updated with a fantastic update. Ozzallos also has a new fic out, but I just can't make myself care about another Ranma/Sailor Moon cross of his.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 20, 2011, 12:48:51 AM
Her War updated with a fantastic update. Ozzallos also has a new fic out, but I just can't make myself care about another Ranma/Sailor Moon cross of his.
Ooh, ooh, what's his gimmick this time? Ranma is Sailor Moon's
daughter and thus has to go girl full-time?
Something about time travel and Pluto. I barely even read two lines before I couldn't deal with another one.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 20, 2011, 01:32:46 PM
Something about time travel and Pluto. I barely even read two lines before I couldn't deal with another one.
I tried it. It's, uh, got potential. And he's promising to avoid the fuku and mode-lock this time, which I'm not sure if I believe, but good for him if he can do it.
What's the plot so far, anyway?
Quote from: Anastasia on March 20, 2011, 04:39:09 PM
What's the plot so far, anyway?
Setsuna stops time at the end of S, dies, and is reincarnated. Ranma happens to be in the right place at the right time to save her from a youma attack that seems to be targeting her personally; he is guilted into taking care of her by a ghost and some cops.
The first "chapter" is a prologue later on (sometime after Stars, judging by the senshi's powerset), which shows a teenage Setsuna who has clearly been influenced by Ranma's training and personality.
That's about it so far.
It's really currently at the idea toss phase more than a story that can be commented on really. Some hellsing showed up, some multiple plutos in time, though...harsh to thrash it so :P
Lots of fic updates during the week I was out. Still got many to catch up on.
Anything good? I haven't seen much of anything on my radar lately.
Man, i meant to respond to that.
I'll grab a list tonight, but I've not been reading much lately :)
Yesterday I was reading Into The Void, which posits to make Eddie not suck, unlike canon :P
I also was reading a rather funny fic called Z Fighter Ryoga vs Magical Girl Ranma. It did involve Ranma shaped entities and was the sequel to a silly spam fic that involved Ryoga going to the DBZ universe and Ranma learning the forbidden martial art of pretty magical girl in order to find a way to keep up with his ridiculous absurd levels of power. It also has Ryoga versus Ranma and Ryoga and Ranma and Jadeite versus Kasumi. Not very long, and thus it does not outlive its amusement.
"Magical Knight of Valor Ranko..."
Okay lets see...
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6615342/1/Breath_Of_Fire_II_War_Of_The_Demons Read this a few weeks ago. Its the sequel to a BoF one I haven't read. Both are basically novelizations of the games, taking liberties with the characters to follow the storyline while somewhat working in even equipment stuff.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/1/Zero_Interface I forget if I've linked this one. Ranma is spell-napped right pre-tendo. His curse adjusted somewhat so he ends up looking like who he last kissed. It's a humorous run so far, with curse antics and "So there's a cure?"
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6437275/1/Hogyoku_ex_Machina - Ichigo is sent back in time, so is Aizen, both from right during their climatic final battle in canon. Both continue their war, though Aizen's moves have been entirely off camera after the starting conflict. A lot of it is a mixture of Ichigo training to get Aizen through his Hax I Win illusion trick and restored hollow army while also filling Soul Society in on the future. Ol' man Yama ends up sparring with him last chapter. A lot is also Ichigo and his spirit guides, which he brought back to life with him. Most enjoyable bleach time travel one I've read so far.
There was one called Deathsong which was worth reading through, but not fantastic.
Also in case I haven't linked it: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6775888/1/Take_Two this is part of a pretty cool Kenshin/bleach crossover. Sadly the author has posted every chapter in it so far as a one shot, so you'd have to go look at the author's page to go find the earlier chapters.
Away to neverland had two new chapters, one poorly written, and one "ROUND TWO" Reimu versus Ranma. Couple new In Flight, if ye've not seen it.
The awesome MOTIVATION continues to be written. It should be read by many.
Zero Interface has actually been pretty good.
I've been reading Brian's Big Damn Hero fic. Pretty good stuff. Link is that away ---->
Or, if you're lazy: http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=100967.0 (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=100967.0)
Help Wanted updated. Nice.
Hey, it's Panda!
How ye doin' panda?
I'm ok. Work all night, sleep all day. Just got a better job position, financial situation is finally getting better, working on a vegetable garden and raising chickens, ect.
You know, stuff.
FOXCAT updated.
Tales of the Foxcat even.
It hat tea ceremony super-death. It was pretty awesome.
Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon updated.
It intro'd both Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mars.
Sailor Mars is adorable reimi-styled. Don't badmouth her crows or she'll send an army of them after you. Also give to the donation box. Never steal from it.
Or shall have them deface your car serious style, like the wrath of an angry crow.
So on the inaccessible side, there's still wonton sex and perversion as a general off-color tone in a fair number of side scenes. "Hey ami, don't hang up..you're an artist right? Want to watch?"
But...Outside of that, these scouts are in many ways the most badass take on scouts I've yet seen. Sure once in a while, one of them is super cool in a story, but it really feels like the whole set so far is pretty awesome. Indestructable Moon, Ghostly Superspeed Mercury, "He Really Is Batman!" Tuxedo Kamen, Outrageously Strong Martial Artist "Stop being so showy, keep hitting until they STAY DOWN" Jupiter, and "Don't badmouth my crows, FACEPUNCH!" (or "I think I might've killed jadeite. He hit my crows and I kind of set him on fire repeatedly until he stopped screaming!") Mars. Oh yeah, Time Guardian Pluto is there, but she only showed up to wipe out the early season time control youma so far.
It's like a more shonen take on sailor moon than shoujo, where you get the impression that the Youma need to watch where they walk, generals have to plan plot and deal with superheroes that kick ass rather than casually viewing them as little girls. "So, this is how we're going to form a trap that will let us kill the Indestructable Good Guy and neutralize each of her allies." The scouts are also decisively not passive. They plot on how to deal with the bad guys, decide how they're going to keep them here, hunt down allies intentionally, and dish out counterplans to neutralize Jadeite's tricks. It's a lot different tone to have them not passively ignoring hundreds of people being drained, but chasing down any word of that happening and bringing the fight right to them. "No, I didn't just happen across your ice cream scam."
So yes, horribly perverted subtones, but there could do to be more sailor moon takes where the scouts feel dangerous and awesome.
Also read some FateBlack Reflection ( http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5591380/1/FateBlack_Reflection ) which is kinda neat. Some fanon silliness (NAKAMA), but overall a pretty neat blend of Bleach and Fate/Stay Night. Ichigo accidentally steals Rider's summon call by sheer power while there to investigate the 4th fate war. The whole bleach crew is around and the story leaps about between them and the fate crew. A lot of it so far revolves around how things change with a master in the game that can and does overpower some of the strongest noble phantasms out there. Alliances form as the various original players try and figure out how to deal with or neutralize having a master that just throws off the power curve hard as well as there actually being side effects from near death experiences (like in bleach).
Oh and Bazett is around, with a restored arm.
Eh, that SM fanfic lost me a few chapters ago. It's just trying too hard.
Quote from: Anastasia on April 19, 2011, 01:48:35 AM
Eh, that SM fanfic lost me a few chapters ago. It's just trying too hard.
My feelings about all that author's stories, sadly.
In other news, Brian finished Later. Easily my favorite Haruhi story. Happy to see it completed, sad to see it go. Though I guess this means his other two fics I'm reading will update faster. . .
Quote from: thepanda on April 19, 2011, 02:48:40 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on April 19, 2011, 01:48:35 AM
Eh, that SM fanfic lost me a few chapters ago. It's just trying too hard.
My feelings about all that author's stories, sadly.
In other news, Brian finished Later. Easily my favorite Haruhi story. Happy to see it completed, sad to see it go. Though I guess this means his other two fics I'm reading will update faster. . .
The Ranma fic is pure shit, but I regret the SM fic is going that way. It has some fun ideas mixed in there. No comment on his other fics, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Truly, the world needs more MOTIVATION.
Another chapter of BDSM.
Sadly the competing stories of super awesome "SUDDENLY NINJAS" and "Motivation: to Reach the Heavens" have been quiet. Very quiet.
Hogyoku ex Machina updated, and thank you Drac for putting me on to that one.
Big Human on Campus updated last month? How did I miss that?
It updated twice! Very awesome :)
Some new in flight lately.
I kinda think it was wussing out with how the big reveal was delivered, but given that at least a few of the characters are established "Discretion, what is that?" folks, I suppose I can't blame it for lacking epic storytelling.
What is in flight? FF.net's search is terrible.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/1/In_Flight Gabriel Blessing's latest gigantofic. Post Fate Stay/night crossed with Sekeirei - "What do you mean this is a mating ritual and not a war to the death?"
Big Human on campus updated.
Also been reading Hill of Swords. Two-thirds of the way through and I don't know if I'll finish it. In flight seems a bit better put together, if a bit slower. Was kind of hoping there would be more Nasu in his crossovers, though.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5986618/1/The_Saotome_Sisters
This one isn't a new what if - what if Ukyo came along on the training trip. That said, it has a funny take on the curse that's worth some laughs. I'm up to the end of chapter 3 and it's okay. It plays with canon events, though I feel it's too constrained to them. On the other side, the impression is that the focus of the story is sticking to the canon and working in the changes. The author doesn't really want to depart from canon, y'know? Of course, I'm only 3 chapters in so I could be wrong. Spoilers below.
That aside I do like some of the changes. Ranma stands up to Nabiki early on, since he won't tolerate racy pictures of his sister being put around. Kuno realizing the red headed girl was Ranma is hilarious and oh so wrong, well worth reading up to that point. I also like that Ukyo isn't particularly a saint or a sinner, and that she and Ranma have a good dynamic. I just wish it wouldn't feel so obligated to stick to the canon. Bonus points for avoiding the trite and predictable cliche of Ukyo falling in the Spring of Drowned Boy.
On the bad side, it feels like he's pushing the Ranma/Akane dynamic a little too fast and hard.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5572443/14/Stranger_in_a_Strange_World
Brian linked me to this yesterday and you know, it's pretty good. It's also complete. Premise: Tsukune is not a human. He's also not a monster. He's an alien whose family crash landed on earth a decade and some ago and has been pretending to be human ever since until they get picked up.
bonus: It is one of the very few Rosario fics where the succubus is even a front scoring contender for romantic hookup. You'd think having a character concept of 'Hunting for destined lover' would kind of be a put in for that kind of stuff, but I've barely ever seen it happen (Even crossover characters don't connect) and canon has her as designated second stringer. As joked with brian, she's the Ukyou of Rosario.
What's sad about canon is that Kurumu is apparently slowly killing herself off trying to get Tsukune. Girl needs to move on. Hell, even one of the characters in the story tells her that.
In Flight updated. Once again I'd like to see some more Nasuverse in the crossover.
I rather liked this chapter. Sure it wasn't a reveal all, but it's about time that got confronted.
sad about yukari moving to be a rival though
I'd just like them to have some enemies who were credible threats. Someone like Ciel; an Ancestor-class threat every bit as ruthless as Shiro, even stronger in a fight than are he and his sekirei, and is every bit as dedicated to their ideals as Shiro. But with ideals that put them against shrio and crew. They wouldn't even be able to call her a villain. I'd like to see him try explaining that to his sister; how someone dedicated to the eradication of an entire race was still technically not evil (and maybe not even wrong).
Well, there is a lacking of villians that feel like they could win.
Yukari as a spinoff rival seemed a little weird.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3433414/1/The_Anarchists
I'm not sure if I love or hate this fic, but it's a damned fun read.
oh huh, it finally updated? Mmm... well.
Quote from: Dracos on May 11, 2011, 02:11:14 AM
oh huh, it finally updated? Mmm... well.
Yeah, apparently Ozzallos and Materia Blade are trying to resurrect it. Good on them.
I suppose. I'd rather more Her War or Hell is a Martial Artist. Anarchists didn't click with me that much on their earlier chapters.
Read through it a bit before leaving for work.
My normal apathy for "And now Ranma is a girl, because this is a sailor moon crossover!" in general (and Ozz in particular) aside, I found it very 'Meh' at prologue + half of chapter one. It's launching itself wholly into ANC/OC territory, with shades of characters I care about imprinted on them. Maybe if I cared more for the original SM canon, but I'm under the impression that Crystal Tokyo in general is hardcore fanon, so....
...yeah.
Been reading a bunch of bad Haruhi fics I won't link here. Ugh.
So. Some decent Haruhi fluff (Haruhi/Kyon):
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6977003/1/Like_Love_in_the_Movies
Some decent Haruhi fluff (Yuki/Kyon (kinda) -- Endless Eight):
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6217874/1/The_Breakdown_of_Yuki_Nagato
A little piece of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer I found interesting (this one's for you, Drac):
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6046440/1/Before_the_Gates_of_Babylon
And a probably-abandoned but surprisingly well-written and enjoyable Ranma/Naruto crossover ... where Ranma doesn't even meet Naruto yet:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4845847/1/The_Strength_of_a_Horse
Share and enjoy.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2971071/1/One_Trick_Pony (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2971071/1/One_Trick_Pony)
Enjoyable Ranma/Kasumi matchup, with a minor Stephen King reference in the worldbuilding. The prose is not that great if I'm honest, but the characterization is pretty fun to read.
That's the only biscuit fic in existance?
I am saddened now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5288868/1/Uprooted
Naruto joins Root. The end result is not ... quite what Danzo had planned.
Writing is great, grammar is somewhat weak (mostly missing words or spellchecker errors). I found it hilarious, and you may too.
Standard warnings apply; incomplete, and probably abandoned, but I'll say that enough of it was written to read anyway. :D
Oh, I enjoyed Uprooted too. It did need to be continued further though.
Fine, then.
Rosario + Vampire fic. Tsukune/Moka/Kurumu/Inner Moka/Mizore.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5430345/1/Out_of_Nightmares
I found it actually surprisingly good, if it does tend to dive into the angst. I can forgive that for the ending (don't forget to read the sequel), personally, but I'm aware that both heavy angst and tenchi solutions/harem ends are very much ymmv issues, so....
...also, someone else post a rec or an update next. :p
If anyone's paying attention, Time Braid seems to have gotten back into a good place, and IIRC, we should see the final bits posted Friday next week.
Yeah, Time Braid has become not bad again :)
Quote from: Dracos on May 11, 2011, 09:23:06 PM
That's the only biscuit fic in existance?
I remember reading another, once.
But it was not memorable, and I wouldn't know how to find it.
Shame at lack of biscuit! ;_;
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/778579/1/
I read the first chapter and I'm not sure what the fuck. I want to know who that is and why he's calling himself Ranma.
Edit: This entire thing is surreal nonsense. What the fuck?
Quote from: Anastasia on May 15, 2011, 04:07:18 AMEdit: This entire thing is surreal nonsense. What the fuck?
Oh, I remember this one (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaserGuidedAmnesia).... Yeah, Ranma pretends to be (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit)crazy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObfuscatingInsanity)/stupid (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObfuscatingStupidity) (because, you know, he's always been super-intelligent, and just hidden it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeneathTheMask)).
And Ranma has a (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle0z548336167v) strange mode (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PardonMeStewardessISpeakIambicPentameter) of speech (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe).
It was ... interesting (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/Ptitlew9bltta3dv6n).
I can buy Ranma's intelligent. His learning speed is shown to be crazy fast, and his school problems can be written off to being impossibly behind in school plus not caring. The rest of this? Nooooot so much.
Totally agree.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 15, 2011, 01:41:28 PM
I can buy Ranma's intelligent. His learning speed is shown to be crazy fast, and his school problems can be written off to being impossibly behind in school plus not caring. The rest of this? Nooooot so much.
School problems? Didn't he only ever flunk one test (that was shown)? And they made a huge deal out of it?
Quite possibly, I freely admit I'm using a casual handwave there without checking sources or anything.
Quote from: thepanda on May 15, 2011, 03:14:22 PMSchool problems? Didn't he only ever flunk one test (that was shown)? And they made a huge deal out of it?
Everyone else makes a big deal out of it; Ranma's largely indifferent. IIRC, it's something like ... he fights off people mostly because he wants to know what he got, not that he really cares about it. Everyone else then starts this game of keep-away and then eventually, somehow it gets blown across japan, and some reporter in a distant corner of the country finds it and posts it on national television (I think it was like ... 58 or so). I think he was annoyed that it was being spread around so much (and would get back to his mom) but didn't seem to _really_ care about school in general, beyond the fact that he was told to go.
See also, the entire phoenix mountain arc (and the reasonable followup: Big Human on Campus, somewhat rerailing this thread. :3)
Tabula Rasa updated.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5308231/19/Tabula_Rasa
More filler, at least it finishes up a random derail with Ryoga, Akari and some thieves. I admit I skimmed it, as this isn't terribly interesting stuff. I'm still hoping this fic finds it's center again and gets back to things, rather than meandering along like it has for the last half dozen or more chapters.
On the flip side, Ozzallos updated. Unfortunately, it was a Naruto fic. Boo.
BONUS GAME!
This is the first paragraph of a fanfic I opened up. See how many things you can spot wrong with this!
Hitomi Hibiki sat in her Grandpa Happosai's room after the funeral, an aura of sadness hung over her home after...fresh tears sprang to her incandescent blue eyes when she thought about it. Hitomi was sixteen years old with long, black wavy hair with blue highlights that reached her mid back; tied up into a pigtail. Her hair matched both her father's. Ryoga's hair and her other father's, Ranma when he was in his 'daddy form.' Her figure was a younger version of her mother's buxom, curvy hourglass and she stood one inch taller then Ranma's 'mommy' form. She had subtle muscles and a firm body from years of doing martial arts as that was her family's trade. She was way advanced for her age and already teaching beginner's classes.
Edit: Link to the fic http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6275982/1/Time_Child
I'm reading it and alternating between laughing at the horrible execution or wincing at lines.
Gonna pass, based on that glorious tidbit.... Without checking, was the Ozellos Naruto fic that updated the one where
interestingoriginal Naruto is replaced with "coolhardcore" older Naruto, who decides for the hell of it to pretend to be a girl and join ANBU, murdering/torturing as many of the original antagonists as possible on the way
?
Or some other fic?
No idea, I don't follow Naruto. I'm just miffed he's not updating like half a dozen other fics. I did check the author's note in case it had news about other updates; it mentioned the next chapter is going to be mature/adult if that means anything to you.
BONUS CONTENT 2!
I couldn't make it past this line in the first chapter. This is Ranma's daughter trying to convince Ranma she's his daughter.
"I know many things about you, you hum... 'daydream believer' by The Monkees after you make love. I guess you don't know that yet" Hitomi said when his tomato-red face turned the colour of puce. "Your right knee always aches the day before it rains; your favourite colour is red..." she started and told him everything that she knew about him intimately.
I'm not going to think about how she knows that first one.
incandescent blue eyes
incandescent blue eyes
incandescent blue eyes
"I can prove it!" Hitomi protested. "You have a birthmark on your right butt cheek that looks like a rabbit!" she said; getting up and pointing at the black haired Saotome.
Beat that.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 16, 2011, 12:50:19 AM
No idea, I don't follow Naruto. I'm just miffed he's not updating like half a dozen other fics. I did check the author's note in case it had news about other updates; it mentioned the next chapter is going to be mature/adult if that means anything to you.
...nope. No, it does not.
But thanks anyway. :p
I wish to file a complaint with the management.
Wot?
Also it was Tales of the Foxcat. Basically a filler chapter with Ranma being challenged with 'Be mentally prepared for ninjas doing rape or we'll have to keep you off the field'. It also covered Naruto Hiryuu shoten ha'ing Haku's ice mirrors. Not bad, not good, just sort of 'story moving onward'.
More interested on where In Flight goes next really after Matsu's Folly.
Quote from: Dracos on May 16, 2011, 07:00:54 PMNot bad, not good, just sort of 'story moving onward'.
It bears repeating:
"We can't stop here, this is
wave country!"
...Well, they did fail to stop in wave country.
The entire wave arc was offscreened except for a short mention that "Naruto beat haku, and therefore Zabuza is curious who the hell trained someone who could beat Haku."
Case-in-point.
:3
FateBlack Reflection updated, if anyone is still reading it. I think I'm through with it. Feh.
What is up with that? We find something worth following, it doesn't get abandoned, and just devolves into crap.
Thank you, Big Human on Campus, for holding up just as well through a re-read. Though, I agree with Drac and feel a need to see more generic nice things happen to Kurumu....
Quote from: Brian on May 18, 2011, 04:22:30 PM
What is up with that? We find something worth following, it doesn't get abandoned, and just devolves into crap.
I'd say Series Bias + Slow Pacing? And Kurumu needs more love, period. Though Mizure is still my favorite.
I've read a surprising volume of Rosario++ fanfic, given that I've read none of the original series. I have so far resisted the temptation to write a Rosario++ fic, but....
...I did link one back there where both Mizore and Kurumu win. And yeah, some pink-haired girl, too.
I'd say give it a read, for the artwork if nothing else. The whole thing is easy enough to find online, though I prefer buying the viz releases.
Yeah, but it sounds like it employs the worst of harem tropes, by-and-large. Is it wrong to be totally over harem anime when First Girl Wins is basically graven in stone? Meh; we're derailing this thread.
I'm reading this:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5463406/1/Like_True_Love_Like_Senshi
Right now, and I'm ... not very far into it or sure what to make of it. Haruhi/Sailor Moon -- evidently the premise is that the girl Kyon knew in middle school was not Sasaki, but Ami ... and she comes to visit him. I'll let you guys know how it turns out. o_o
Update: It turns out ... poorly. Kyon evidently suddenly starts going crazy in his second years, because Ami instantly reappears in his memories, when he didn't care before. Oh well. Nothing like a crossover that solidifies the matchup before the characters spend time onscreen together.
First Girl Wins is pretty damn common. I still read Kenichi, but despite the handful of other girls in there it's always seemed like a joke of a competition: "So let's see, we have the Promised Girl who he met when he was a kid, who's family is training him into a super martial artist, and he's sworn to protect. he also lives with her and his little sister is jealous of her... So now, please believe that this chinese girl rival stands a chance entering with this already laid down, that a gardener girl that gets almost zero screen time really has a point being poignant and wanting about him. Really?"
Anyhow, I'm still reading FateBlack Reflection. It kind of seems to be going toward a: Everyone who isn't Bleach cast VS bleach cast, which is kinda a strange and sad way to go, especially as the bleach cast is represented to be on par or stronger than every fate character ("Ah, i see, not a single one of us can defeat you master. So we'll all team up on you together! GET HIM!") and a lot of it seems like it could be solved by reasonable attempts at communication (No, "Why are you after the grail" is not reasonable way to first meet someone). The "Let's pseudo-nerf Ichigo after he's kicked almost everyone's ass, so that people can have a chance to get him" is kinda odd too, but also sorta irrelevant in the sense that the whole other bleach cast is there and able to back him up.
About the only character who hasn't taken a clear side against the bleach cast is Beznett(sp?), who is dead in the original Fate, but has her life saved by the bleach cast...but also they try and erase her memory of the event, so she's currently at "neutral/Benign" in her view of them.
It's biggest flaw is really that the bleach cast have sucked at gathering information, have clearly caused all of the fate cast to kick it up another level in 'oh shit, there's a bunch of ridiculously strong unknowns in the war', and have in spite of this, still failed to just take the easiest route: "How about we go as a group and next time we cross paths with one of these masters, if it goes hostile, we tackle them ten to 2, instead of 1 on 2?" It seems pretty self evident to me. I mean if you're going the escalation route, why not play to the fact that you are already a cooperative group of a competitive size with the entire cast of fate (Who all don't trust each other and are enemies at story start anyhow). Even if it still goes hostile, then they can smack the guy and keep them locked up to get questions answered, instead of still running half blind to the whole scenario.
So, still enjoying, but yeah, it would be nice to see at least somebody on the fate cast working WITH the bleach cast. It's fairly clear we're meant to cheer for the bleach guys, given they are the main perspective throughout the fic, but it sort of leaves the fate crew isolated. Caster is clearly moving toward Big Bad with developing super-monsters based on the hollows showing up, but other than that, it's hard to take seriously the slow 'We gotta team up against Ichigo, cuz he's too damn strong' faction.
The thing is, there really is no reason the Bleach cast should be where they are, powerwise. If instead of going post Aizen they went post rescue Rukia you'd lose nothing as far as the characterization goes and the power levels wouldn't be so lopsided. Or if the masters were treated like they had a two braincells to rub together and actually, you know, USED MAGIC like actual magi they'd go a long way to offsetting the power advantage. Every master in the city should already know where the Bleach crew are staying; and it sure hell ain't behind a bounded field. These people are supposed to be geniuses for crying out loud.
Well, fate often is taken (and probably canon) that the reason there aren't tons of magical craziness going on is that maintaining a heroic spirit is a very magic expensive thing. In the anime, most of Rin's spells are powered by prepared gemstones.
Truthfully as well, until very recently there wasn't much reason for any of them to try and go hunting for the bleach crew. Sure, they could find them, but every encounter has had the bleach crew demonstrating an overwhelming power advantage. Why would you want to hunt that down before you had something that could make that a win? Until recently, there wasn't even clarity that they were competitors to anyone but Ilya.
@Bri
I read Rosario after Big Human, since I liked Big Human quite a bit. You're not missing anything by skipping it.
@Drac
That almost sounds like an idea for a twist in a 4th-wall aware fic. The "great at cooking" girl, who never wins the harem-anime contest, realizes that she's destined to lose and plans around that. Then the guy picks her (although if one isn't careful, this just devolves into every chick flick ever).
Not sure if this was ever posted by anyone:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/764256/1/Right_Moments - Ranma does Groundhogs Day.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 19, 2011, 11:08:48 PMNot sure if this was ever posted by anyone:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/764256/1/Right_Moments - Ranma does Groundhogs Day.
I did. It was interesting insofar as I felt it avoided certain stereotypes of fanon, but ultimately it degenerated down into being uninteresting. It didn't help that I found the author's style to be the opposite of compelling.
I like how it mentions the Umi-sen-ken and the Yama-sen-ken in the prologue, even though there's been no action sequences.
Started reading out of nightmares. It's kinda hard to get into. Just sort of raw negative for the first while of it. And hazy negative. Kinda difficult to distinguish 'okay this is X's dream' from 'this is actually going on'. And that it starts well after the fight with the dream monster, it is sort of dropping puzzle pieces to put together.
You can skip straight to Into Dreams and not miss anything.
Quote from: thepanda on May 20, 2011, 05:34:39 PM
You can skip straight to Into Dreams and not miss anything.
Perhaps even maybe 'should'.
I realize my penchant for harem endings probably grants me extra tolerance vs. excessive angst (and yeah, it goes to eleven). Possibly justified by the idea of the villain being empowered by anguish....
Yeah, I pretty much ignored all of the OCs, actually. The Coopers were mildly amusing.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 19, 2011, 11:08:48 PM
@Bri
I read Rosario after Big Human, since I liked Big Human quite a bit. You're not missing anything by skipping it.
That was my suspicion.... I read the tvtropes entry page for it instead.
At least read season 2. I has good artwork and the story is pretty good as well.
Bah humbug!
Anyhow, Time braid ended with a sunny day type ending. Kinda cute. The good guys went back in time one last time, the day was saved, everybody won, and the future was bright.
Quote from: thepanda on May 20, 2011, 07:42:02 PM
At least read season 2. I has good artwork and the story is pretty good as well.
Hehe, you really want me to write that fic, huh? :p
Quote from: Anastasia on May 19, 2011, 11:35:54 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 19, 2011, 11:08:48 PMNot sure if this was ever posted by anyone:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/764256/1/Right_Moments - Ranma does Groundhogs Day.
I did. It was interesting insofar as I felt it avoided certain stereotypes of fanon, but ultimately it degenerated down into being uninteresting. It didn't help that I found the author's style to be the opposite of compelling.
Well, it's interesting. I, uh....
Hmm. I like time-travel fics? I'm right where Ranma repeatedly nukes Nerima to perfect his control. It's, uh, interesting.
Ha! That would just be awesome, I'm sure.
I remember writing the series off for a long time before someone finally managed to get me to try it.
In Flight chapter 25 up.
Finished Right Moments, finally. It went a very strange place. I found it interesting, but I didn't like some aspects of it.
Hmm. I get the author saying, "Figure out who he chose yourself," but that seems really stupid in the face of the fic's already established acceptance of polygamy.
Also, Ukyou being intimate/affectionate with Konatsu before even the failed wedding.... Yeah, that part-- No. Just ... no. Also, why did Kodachi need to be a devil hunter instead of getting real character growth? Eh, it's alright if you can handle the genre-shifts.
Quote from: Brian on May 24, 2011, 05:00:02 PM
Finished Right Moments, finally. It went a very strange place.
Yes indeed.
I have literally no idea where the "let's go be mercenaries in Africa, and let's change ourselves into black people while we're at it" plot at the end came from, or how it makes any sense to anyone, even the author.
What they did is not nearly as boggling as why they did it.
I get that it was thrown in so that Ranma could fight a Big Bad and get closure, but since he actually totally lost that fight (the goddess kicked his ass in every single exchange before the Formless Duke's Heel Face Turn and subsequent Curbstomp Battle) I didn't really feel it. It felt like it was just another screwup that Ranma survived -- yay planning, decades of training, practice, etc. I feel the last few paragraphs of the fic (pre-epilogue) actually handle this better.
Generally, I give the fic points for the badass super-loli that constantly beats up Ranma -- she was actually probably the best part of the entire fic for me. Yeah. She was pretty much most interesting part of the kami plane arc.
Agreed with absolutely everything above.
Read a new fic today, Forcibly United. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/1/Forcibly_United It's a Ranma/Black Lagoon crossover; I didn't go in expecting much as I don't care for Black Lagoon. The author's still solid enough early on and it has some fun moments.
I've seen that fic referenced dozens of times, but every time I read its summary my mind boggles.
Yes, no argument there. It sorta works because the author just runs with shit and tries to keep people IC.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/1/Amorously_Minded
This isn't my normal cup of tea: It's Marvel vs Capcom 3. It's what if Iron Man and Morrigan got together, and a kid came of it? It's lighthearted fun that's written well, nothing less and nothing more. I like it.
Huh, olg suggested that I think a while ago. Never really read it though.
Num. Spent a bit more time on Into Nightmare, skipping ahead to Into Dreams on the advice here, but it lacks holding power.
Reread Hill of Swords and read a bit further into Breath of Fire 1 Novelization. Have I linked those here? I should if I haven't.
I'd have to say Hill of Swords has probably the best climax of any fic I've read this year.
Currently rereading Black Dragon's Guardian. I hadn't read it in years. I think he'd only gotten to chapter 13 maybe and now I see there are more than twice as many chapters. I'm up to chapter 17 now and its still a fun ride.
Quote from: thepanda on May 26, 2011, 07:04:34 PMBlack Dragon's Guardian
Nyoro...~n?
What fandom is this? What's it about?
Ranma.
Black Dragon is the same author that does Big Human on Campus. He wrote a variety of Ranma-shaped in Original/Crossover universes, guardian being one of them.
His profile lists Metro, Shade, and Sky as favorites.
Sky's OLD handle, since he now posts as Perfect Lionheart. Haha, wow.
Haha oh wow. I never noticed that. Well, some people like okra; I won't hold it against him.
Quote from: Brian on May 24, 2011, 05:00:02 PM
Finished Right Moments, finally. It went a very strange place. I found it interesting, but I didn't like some aspects of it.
Yep. It's far from the best fic I've ever read. But I thought it was interesting, and I don't think many fics are, these days. Anyway, now that people have read it, I can talk about it.
My own view on this is that the story mostly holds together up until the gods arc ends. The "Ranma can't always win" bit gets established there, which makes the Africa arc pretty random and irrelevant. You pretty much reached the conclusions I did, although I actually found the Kodachi part fairly interesting. Most writers who want a Kodachi romance will try to keep her social position and change her character. This writer tried the opposite tack.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2210522/12/The_Ranma_Omake_Files_Innortal_Style is a somewhat different take on the concept. A mix between Groundhogs Day gone wrong and Donny Cheng's Life and Times series (if anyone still remembers those). Linking to page 12 was deliberate, since it's buried at the end of a slush file. Done as a series of vignettes.
re: United, I think I read that fic. If it's the one I'm thinking about, the only things I remember are Ranma trying to dodge bullets from a magical Colt 45, and a holy spatula (which wasn't even important. Just thrown in as a gag). But that was true of the manga too; I read a great deal of the manga, but the only thing I remember is the combat maid because when I was a regular in #fanfic, I used to joke with Kieron and DA that if I ever had more money than I knew what to do with, I'd form an army of french maids with assault rifles. So, not-memorable fic based off of not-memorable manga.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 26, 2011, 05:10:09 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/1/Amorously_Minded
This isn't my normal cup of tea: It's Marvel vs Capcom 3. It's what if Iron Man and Morrigan got together, and a kid came of it? It's lighthearted fun that's written well, nothing less and nothing more. I like it.
Instead of being serious, I'll say: interesting teaser. Do you think the author will ever bother to write a chapter?
Quote from: Brian on May 26, 2011, 11:58:55 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on May 26, 2011, 05:10:09 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/1/Amorously_Minded
This isn't my normal cup of tea: It's Marvel vs Capcom 3. It's what if Iron Man and Morrigan got together, and a kid came of it? It's lighthearted fun that's written well, nothing less and nothing more. I like it.
Instead of being serious, I'll say: interesting teaser. Do you think the author will ever bother to write a chapter?
One can only dream. [derail]I've read a lot of good authors lately who think a chapter is somewhere between 500 and 3000 words long. What the fuck? I can understand it's hard to write a full chapter and tine consuming, but c'mon. Give us something we can get into with a lot of meat to it.[/derail]
http://gisho.livejournal.com/67699.html - Went Forth Unconquered, a Chronicles of Narnia fanfic. It's a Problem of Susan fic and the best one I've ever read.
It's beautifully written and I love how he portrays Susan. Her comments on churches are right on, even if she's missing the point of what Aslan told her. I could really write a ream about this entire thing, but I'm just going to say it's a fantastic story. A comment to the story said she could become the next Jadis, and that sounds about right.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 27, 2011, 12:29:41 AM
Quote from: Brian on May 26, 2011, 11:58:55 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on May 26, 2011, 05:10:09 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/1/Amorously_Minded
This isn't my normal cup of tea: It's Marvel vs Capcom 3. It's what if Iron Man and Morrigan got together, and a kid came of it? It's lighthearted fun that's written well, nothing less and nothing more. I like it.
Instead of being serious, I'll say: interesting teaser. Do you think the author will ever bother to write a chapter?
One can only dream. [derail]I've read a lot of good authors lately who think a chapter is somewhere between 500 and 3000 words long. What the fuck? I can understand it's hard to write a full chapter and tine consuming, but c'mon. Give us something we can get into with a lot of meat to it.[/derail]
I can actually observe how that happened in this case (and sometimes in others). The version of this fic I was linked to was likely its original forum posting, where this went up as a series of short vignettes that the other got praised on into continuing. Basically forum teasers that got aggregated, rather than something that was written to be a story from the get go.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a real difference there. Five hundred words in a forum posts feels/appears longwinded. In a word processing program, it is a page or two and says so.
Quote from: Dracos on May 27, 2011, 04:43:20 AMI can actually observe how that happened in this case (and sometimes in others). The version of this fic I was linked to was likely its original forum posting, where this went up as a series of short vignettes that the other got praised on into continuing. Basically forum teasers that got aggregated, rather than something that was written to be a story from the get go.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a real difference there. Five hundred words in a forum posts feels/appears longwinded. In a word processing program, it is a page or two and says so.
Fair point in this case, but I think Ana and I both have some small amount of rage for short chapters in general. I've read quite a few stories where the chapter lengths make me think, "Are you giving yourself constant, 'write a chapter a day' challenges, or something?" Drac linked some semi-readable fics from ... what's his name ... Lord of the Land of Fire, I think? I was whining for some Naruto/Hinata, and he linked it to me. It was something like 74 chapters, and only barely hit 100k words.
Most ffnet chapters seem to me to be 3-4 page-downs on my monitor, at best. I'll admit, brevity has its place, but most of what I read? Could really stand to be inflated by 40% with genuine description, or attempts at evoking real emotions. At
least.
...I'd probably just get 40% more crap, tho.
Quote from: Dracos on May 26, 2011, 05:43:52 PMNum. Spent a bit more time on Into Nightmare, skipping ahead to Into Dreams on the advice here, but it lacks holding power.
Bastid. Fine, then; have a smuttier harem matchup, instead (NSFW goggles, kiddies):
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5235165/1/Here_In_My_Arms
Quote from: Dracos on May 26, 2011, 05:43:52 PMReread Hill of Swords and read a bit further into Breath of Fire 1 Novelization. Have I linked those here? I should if I haven't.
I don't see any problem with linking something again, if it was worth linking in the first place. Especially if you don't remember and no one can bother to check. :)
Yeah, agreed.
Alright.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6615342/1/Breath_Of_Fire_II_War_Of_The_Demons : Still ongoing. Takes the angle of Ryu setting up his own merc org. It's a little rough in areas, but not bad.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2051403/1/Breath_Of_Fire_War_Of_The_Dragons : Complete. There's some carry over from this in number 2, but it didn't block me from reading number 2 without reading this first.
and since I'm linking game fics:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/717531/1/Mega_Man_X_Whispers_In_Time Still good. Post Megaman series done from the perspective of everyone as it approaches the question of "What happened between the (then) last game and the X series", covering perspective from pre-series through to a 3-4 day closeout period.
Whispers in Time created so much MM fanon back in the day.
Really good fics tend to do that, especially back in the day. Look at what the Bitter End did.
Quote
Ami: "There's definitely a very slim chance we'll survive."
Usagi: "...I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it!"
I
may be reading Shadowjack's In Which I Watch Sailor Moon (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2133352/shadowjack.html). Maybe.
Awesome if you are.
Scene transitions in the first few parts are not so great, but I rather liked this one as a whole.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/916018/1/Akane_the_Suicidal
This ... amused the hell out of me:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6473185/1/The_Log
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/1/Delenda_Est
Good story, time travel well done, I think. Well-written in my opinion.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612198/1/An_Aquatransexuals_Best_Friend
This is an example of trying to be charming with your writing and failing.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 02, 2011, 02:52:45 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612198/1/An_Aquatransexuals_Best_Friend
This is an example of trying to be charming with your writing and failing.
What's charming? o_O
Oh, man. Yeah, that's Ranma/Ukyou, so it popped up in my monthly check, but then it....
Really, it's just all around bad writing.
Read Nemo Blank's Chaos Factor instead:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2741704/1/Chaos_Factor
Abandoned, but still entertaining.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6995765/1/The_Deconstruction_of_Haruhi_Suzumiya
Complete, enjoyable, and for reasons I don't understand, it depresses me.
Damnit.
Quote from: Brian on June 01, 2011, 01:16:52 PM
This ... amused the hell out of me:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6473185/1/The_Log
It is kinda funny. The writing quality drove me away after a bit though. It's so casual with throwing in silly powerup stuff it detracts from its real amusing core (Naruto the Log Obsessed Cultist)
Quote from: Brian on June 02, 2011, 03:09:33 PM
Oh, man. Yeah, that's Ranma/Ukyou, so it popped up in my monthly check, but then it....
Really, it's just all around bad writing.
Read Nemo Blank's Chaos Factor instead:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2741704/1/Chaos_Factor
Abandoned, but still entertaining.
I think I read this one. Is this the story where Ranma ends up...
Becoming a gold dragon or something?
Quote from: Yuthirin on June 01, 2011, 03:09:45 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/1/Delenda_Est
Good story, time travel well done, I think. Well-written in my opinion.
I read 5 of this so far. I like.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 02, 2011, 11:42:32 PMI think I read this one. Is this the story where Ranma ends up...
Becoming a gold dragon or something?
Yes.
Thought so.
I'm rereading it now and it's sorta entertaining, but it's way heavy on the fanon.
The bad stuff, like Ranma being a chaos magnet, Setsuna being a controlling freak, the Senshi getting waxed by Ranma without an effort, Ranma using the Umiseiken freely. Lots and lots of fanon and plain mistakes. It's fun when it's not screwing up, but ye gods.
Quote from: Dracos on June 03, 2011, 12:17:13 AM
Quote from: Yuthirin on June 01, 2011, 03:09:45 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/1/Delenda_Est
Good story, time travel well done, I think. Well-written in my opinion.
I read 5 of this so far. I like.
I read to current chapter last night. Yeah, nice link :)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/1/Haigeki
Well written and promising, though I'm not sure what to make of it. It definitely helps if you hold that Ranma is much smarter than he acts.
It's kinda neat. It does require smart Ranma.
I dunno, it's hard to hold interest a bit (Despite neatness) as thusfar the motives of the bad guys are non-existent. Their goal is obvious, but there's very little rationale delivered in the two chapters. Using some of the good guys to expose on that would've been interesting, or at least their hypothesis. As it is, it's pretty much a viral villian scenario:
"Villian Type X attacks heroes and civilians. The goal of villian type X is to make more villian type X."
It's really not enough to make a villian. That's a process of overwhelming a population of heroes, usually requiring a large number of them (or a large number of civilians) to draw out the horror/evil/wrongness of it. In the absence of an actual motive, it makes for a lame main villian crew. Even Chiyo who had plentiful time to elaborate didn't give a motive, just gave "I'm taking you so there, nya nya and you can't win."
The villians also aren't alien enough to pull if off as an intrinisic motivation. They're minimal in their recruitment, so its not a massive alien 'One of Us, One of Us' hive mentality. They're specifically targeting choice assets. Their thinking is clearly human, but they're lacking interesting human motivation so far.
On hiatus since 2004. Ranma, with a bit of 3x3 Eyes, 1st person perspective. This is a pre-Nerima days Ranma, so I suppose some OOCness is forgivable, but this Ranma is very introspective. That said, I like the way the writer was taking the time to pace the story. It feels like a "could have been great" fic.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1931463/1/Void_Contract
The writer also has another fic that appears to be a Ranma/HP xover, but I don't read HP fics, so no clue if it's any good.
Re: Haigeki, well, the writer did say that there were five chapters already drafted, and it sounded like more were on the way, so perhaps the motive will be developed further in the later chapters. In the story, not even a day has passed.
Yeah, I think you're overanalyzing two chapters, Drac. They did a bit of expo already on what's going on, let the plot advance as normal.
fair nuff. :P
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4378356/1/Magical_Girl_Ranko_vs_Z_Fighter_Ryouga something funny to counter. It's a sequel to another silly fic, starring:
DBZ Ryoga
Razzle Dazzle Ranko - "NO WE ARE NOT STAR CROSSED LOVERS"
Playboy Jadite - Come with me if you want to live, Kasumi!
Guest Starring: Ifurita
Interesting way to convince me not to read your fic: 10 terms in japanese (with halfass translation) in the first two paragraphs.
A swing and a close.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4253696/1/Gods
Hanyuu x Kyon
Wait, what? Writing is actually terrible in places, but the execution was ... passable.
QuoteInteresting way to convince me not to read your fic: 10 terms in japanese (with halfass translation) in the first two paragraphs.
The only time I've ever found that random Japanese+Footnote/Glossary added to a fic was an AMG humor/lemon where the writer deliberately mistranslated all the Japanese. e.g IIRC the translation for "kohai" was given as "A type of fish" or somesuch.
A pity that I can't remember what it's called, or I'd link it.
http://www.pixelscapes.com/amh/amh.html : Ah! My Hentai! is what you're looking for Jason_Miao. One of the most hilarious alternate universes I've run into yet.
Quote from: Brian on June 05, 2011, 04:18:19 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4253696/1/Gods
Hanyuu x Kyon
Wait, what? Writing is actually terrible in places, but the execution was ... passable.
That was cute. Not long enough for Hanyuu's dialogue to get annoying.
New chapter of In Flight up. You might want to wait until the next chapter is up before reading this one. Also also, Saber and Rin looks kind of bad in this. >_>
Quote from: thepanda on June 06, 2011, 10:40:12 AMThat was cute. Not long enough for Hanyuu's dialogue to get annoying.
I was surprised. Then again, I almost always aprove of any Hanyuu/Kyon interaction. On that note ... I need a new fandom.
Must be recharged before I can trawl for more fic. :3
I'm reading Unfair Warning by Brian. I'll post more about it when I'm done; this is just a reminder for me later.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 08, 2011, 09:46:39 PM
I'm reading Unfair Warning by Brian. I'll post more about it when I'm done; this is just a reminder for me later.
Not a bad story. I'm still digesting it, but I'm okay with Akane's mistakes. She chose to react badly and then - understandably - tried to brush away the truth. There's definitely some whiplash with the mood changes from the canon early on, but it's survivable. I found the later chapters a lot of fun, what with child Ryouga and Nodoka.
Without spoiling who it's going to be, is this meant to be a matchup fic or will it avoid answering that question?
I wanted to write out Ranma and Akane becoming genuine friends, but as far as the matchup, I figured it would probably end best with 'implied harem. If you squint'. Yeah.
Oh, found a decent one:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4951094/1/Extra_Ordinary_Vision#
Kyon/hilarity ensues, fairly short, I found it amusing.
Hogyoku ex Machina has updated.
Very very lamely updated. I mean seriously, surrendering ichigo? A neutralize ichigo plan based on 'hey his family can be captured easily even with super defenses'.
Honestly thought he was going to just kill ulquiorra and bum-rush hueco mundo until the end there.
http://motivateurself.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/hueco-mundo/ <- Something a little less lame.
Read Nocturne by Aondehafka. I'd put it at 6 to 8/10 depending on my mood. More on this later, I'm still digesting the fic and want to reread a few segments.
Quote from: Brian on June 09, 2011, 01:42:20 AM
I wanted to write out Ranma and Akane becoming genuine friends,
Then you should write it out. Go on, write more. :p
The fics I've linked here tend to be either finished or dead. This one looks like it's still being written, but might be interesting.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6774017/1/Lux_Aeterna
Incidentally, the writer's profile characterizes herself as a "wordslut" yet commits the lose/loose error twice in the first scene. So I was prepared to stop reading after the first two scenes, but the writing managed to recover itself after that point.
Brian uses First Glorious Crossover Excellency! The roll succeeds!
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 11, 2011, 05:07:51 PM
The fics I've linked here tend to be either finished or dead. This one looks like it's still being written, but might be interesting.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6774017/1/Lux_Aeterna
Incidentally, the writer's profile characterizes herself as a "wordslut" yet commits the lose/loose error twice in the first scene. So I was prepared to stop reading after the first two scenes, but the writing managed to recover itself after that point.
I can't. I keep trying to read this, but I just can't do it. So very much annoying.
Quote from: thepanda on June 15, 2011, 07:15:26 PM
I can't. I keep trying to read this, but I just can't do it. So very much annoying.
If you're trying to read the story in order, then yeah. But pacing is and scene setups are okay in areas spots if poor in others, and the annoying bits feel like first draft issues* rather than someone trying to force a fundamentally bad premise. e.g, if chapters 1 and 2 were combined together, had some judicious use of flashback, and some judicious editing (scene with Goemon should be dropped entirely), it could be pretty good.
Come to think of it, as I write this post, I suspect the story writer is at the point of writing like Tolkien without really getting why that doesn't work these days. I don't know that for a fact, of course, and I might be wildly off base, but the pacing feels similar.
*And if I don't treat everything on ff.net like a first draft, then 99% of it is unreadable.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 11, 2011, 05:07:51 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6774017/1/Lux_Aeterna
Incidentally, the writer's profile characterizes herself as a "wordslut" yet commits the lose/loose error twice in the first scene. So I was prepared to stop reading after the first two scenes, but the writing managed to recover itself after that point.
Couldn't finish the first scene.
REad the first chapter...it's missing a lot. I don't really care for casually skipping 'and these things have happened'.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 15, 2011, 09:45:35 PM
f you're trying to read the story in order, then yeah. But pacing is and scene setups are okay in areas spots if poor in others, and the annoying bits feel like first draft issues* rather than someone trying to force a fundamentally bad premise. e.g, if chapters 1 and 2 were combined together, had some judicious use of flashback, and some judicious editing (scene with Goemon should be dropped entirely), it could be pretty good.
Did you read this author's other Negima!/Ranma crossover? In that one I could actually believe (somewhat) that that character might be Ranma. This story? Not so much. That one-shot story did more in one chapter to make me feel like there was an actual story the author wanted to tell than all the chapters in this.
How did Dracos put it? Ranma-shaped person? With Wings! And super-duper Ki! And Bigotted! And cynical! And (apparently) abandoned by EVERY PERSON IN NERIMA FOR NO REAL REASON! And just needs a hug! And coincidentally dislikes all the characters the author dislikes! And shit rainbows!
... Ok, maybe she doesn't shit rainbows, but would you be surprised if she did? Its like those Sailor Moon crossover stories that plagued the net when toonami was still on the air. You know the ones where Usagi finds out Mamoru is cheating on her with another senshi (usually Rei), then they'd kick her out of the group and try to take her crystal, but she'd flee! And now she's a super-duper gundam pilot/space pirate/bounty hunter/whatever! But she's cynical because of her past! But really all she needs is some love from the cast she's crossed-over with! Or something!
What makes it worse is that she can write better than that. The proof is in her other stories. Even including the crappy Genma scene in Bulletproof that's still heads above her writing here.
'Ranma-shaped-entity' was something I coined in response to the, "Well, now that I'm in a crossover, my powerlevel has been set to just above this new series," fanon Ranma mysteriously engenders. Glad that it's still holding up. :3
Instead of kvetching about something we're not reading (but, we're so GOOD at it!):
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4148131/1/Ten_Hundred_Thousand_Suns_Rising_to_Hail_You
It's a Haruhi fic about Haruhi and (more) Tsuruya.
This has two short prequels, which ... won't do anything for you at all if you don't know Tsuruya's character. Mostly they get explained in this story, except for a totally dismiss-able bit about the Snow Mountain Adventure.
I found it quite interesting, even if parts of it were annoyingly simple -- especially contrasted to.... Well. You'll see. The ending is pretty damn awesome -- saved the story for me, really. In all honesty, I didn't much like Haruhi or how she handled things -- but it made sense. Sasaki, OTOH....
...I need to write a Sasaki/Kyon matchup now.
Quote from: Brian on June 16, 2011, 04:39:50 PM
'Ranma-shaped-entity' was something I coined in response to the, "Well, now that I'm in a crossover, my powerlevel has been set to just above this new series," fanon Ranma mysteriously engenders. Glad that it's still holding up. :3
Oh, well let me give credit where credit is do, Brian. ^_^
Quote from: thepanda on June 16, 2011, 08:42:42 AM
Did you read this author's other Negima!/Ranma crossover? In that one I could actually believe (somewhat) that that character might be Ranma.
Yes, although in that one, there was barely any Negima, whining Ranma, and it's an introduction that takes way too long. You know how the first line of a story is supposed to be the represent the story? That one has the "first line" somewhere at the 3/4 mark. Scene transitions and basic dialogue was somewhat better in that one, though.
Quote
This story? Not so much.
I agree that Ranma who is automatically given a 9000+ powerlevel is prima facie annoying. But it's only used as the hook to keep Ranma in Negimaland, which means it doesn't reappear past the one fight. There really isn't much in the following chapters that couldn't be written to a non-entity Ranma. And I suppose that is what find that to be potentially interesting - this fic might actually break away from bad fanfic convention after casting itself in that way.
Quote from: Brian
Instead of kvetching about something we're not reading (but, we're so GOOD at it!):
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/475959/1/Ranma_the_Forever_Man
It's about the adventures of a Ranma-shaped-entity and an Akane-shaped-entity. Vol 1 also includes Ranma and Akane.
Spoiler: Ranma kicks Ranma's ass.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5536346/1/Inviolate
A Lex Luthor fic. It's well written and the premise is interesting, but I lost steam around 10 chapters in. Good story, but one that didn't resonate with me. I figure you guys may appreciate it more.
Reread In Flight. still kinda enjoy :P
No new chapter though.
Read White Devil of the Moon briefly. still terrible, closed it. Checked out Earl of the North...while Delanda Est is pretty good, Earl of the North is terrible.
Also read Akane the monk girl. Not bad but not enough there to really comment on yet.
If you like Harry Potter fanfiction, you've probably heard of nonjon.
If you haven't heard of nonjon, get with the program.
Browncoat, Green Eyes http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2857962/1/Browncoat_Green_Eyes (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2857962/1/Browncoat_Green_Eyes)
Harry Potter/Firefly crossover, and done well enough that I never found a cringe-worthy moment. Plenty of laughs, some action, and a few serious attempts to rationalize magic!
A Black Comedy http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3401052/1/A_Black_Comedy (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3401052/1/A_Black_Comedy)
A fic that explores the age-old question of what ever happened to Sirius Black. Hilarious.
Where in the World is Harry Potter http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2354771/1/Where_in_the_World_is_Harry_Potter (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2354771/1/Where_in_the_World_is_Harry_Potter)
The Untitled Cheekquel Project http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2477165/1/The_Untitled_Cheekquel_Project (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2477165/1/The_Untitled_Cheekquel_Project)
You Did What! http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2630300/1/You_Did_What (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2630300/1/You_Did_What)
This is a series of three fics, when strung together, is amazingly funny. Harry Potter with an obnoxious amount of power, all used to commit a large amount of over-the-top pranks.
He's got more stuff. Nearly all of it is light-hearted. The stuff that isn't...isn't really that great anyhow. Same old stuff that's been rehashed a gajillion times. Enjoy.
Also. Yes, Earl of the North is terrible.
I read Browncoat, Green Eyes. It was okay. But to be honest, I preferred The Man With No Name (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3486089/1/The_Man_With_No_Name).
Yeah, Dr. Who is not a fandom of mine.
Evidently, I've managed to spawn a fanfiction that, in turn, spawns fanfics:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7106575/1/Traveller
Short, amusing if you read K:BDH, that's probably about it. I <huge bias> thought it was funny.
Congrats Brian. That's freaking awesome.
That's a sign you've made it to the big leagues!
That or hyper fangirls are stealing your characters.
I'll let fangirls get away with an awful lot. As long as they don't make yaoi dojin that star me, we're probably good.
Probably.
That means they'll draw some really meta BrianxKyon stuff, naturally.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 22, 2011, 03:34:34 PM
That means they'll draw some really meta BrianxKyonko stuff, naturally.
Most positive interpretation possible....
Oh say, is that Kyonko thing still going around?
...in the fic I linked, even, yes. :p
Quote from: Anastasia on June 22, 2011, 03:34:34 PM
That means they'll draw some really meta BrianxKyon stuff, naturally.
So Brian is the aggressor? Kinky. :p
Quote from: Brian on June 22, 2011, 03:50:23 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on June 22, 2011, 03:34:34 PM
That means they'll draw some really meta BrianxKyonko stuff, naturally.
Most positive interpretation possible....
Given that I've never seen a pic of Brian in real life, the only image I have associated with him is his forum avatar of Haruhi flapping her arms in a triangle motion. As a result, this is really screwing with my head.
http://www.advancedanime.com/pictures/normal_kyonkoworried.jpg ?
Read The Inconsistency of Haruhi Suzumiya. I really wish I had not.
...yeah. Right. It kept seeming like it might pull out of that tail-spin.
But it didn't.
Condolences, Panda.
Read the latest chapter of He Who Fights Monsters. It remains neat, though Tsukune remains completely isolated from the school around him, hate and fear surrounded by hate and fear.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6942921/1/He_Who_Fights_Monsters link for those who haven't read it
Alternate Universes for the Alternate Universe God!
Divergent set pieces for the divergence throne!
Not sure if I should mention this here or in the manga section, but just finished rereading Sono Go No Evangelion Ai/Epilogue of Evangelion, a post-series look at Shinji and Asuka while they're the only people in the world. I found it to be much, much better than Re-Take, and this is from someone who liked Re-Take. It is a doujinshi, and a long one at that. The art isn't as good as Re-Take's but it isn't bad, either. The layouts are better than in Re-Take and so is the story.
If you haven't read it yet I'd highly recommend it. If you have trouble finding it I'm sure I can bounce it to you.
Blackfate Reflection updated...kind of a filler chapter. All about fate characters largely.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7109287/1/Purr
An incomplete story I just stumbled upon today.
This story enraged me:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5965735/1/The_Resistance_of_Haruhi_Suzumiya
Don't read it. The twist in chapter 30 is atrocious.
/me is suddenly reminded of Kylewin.
/me sends death his way.
Anyhow, rereading a bit of motivation.
Rereading more old fics
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2044434/1/Ranma_Dead
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/28355/2/Vengeance_And_A_Half
The first is by Nicholas Stone, and like most of his writing, good, even if predictable. The second is by Fire, who was a better polished Ozzallos than Ozzallos: Very strong starts which gradually tapers off into mediocre. Destiny's Child is his better known fic, but I think Vengeance was the first real attempt at a Nerima v. Senshi fic (versus a multitude of 2 page fics)
In Flight has updated.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 08, 2011, 04:05:18 PM
Rereading more old fics
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2044434/1/Ranma_Dead
I didn't care much for Ranma Dead. It felt like one of those really bad SNL skits that goes on 3 minutes longer than it should.
So just about all of them after Will Ferrell left?
Quote from: thepanda on July 09, 2011, 07:47:55 AM
So just about all of them after Dana Carvey left?
^Fixed.
Quote from: Brian on July 09, 2011, 03:23:09 PMSo just about all of them after Dan Akroryd and John Belushi left?
^Fixed.
Quote from: Edward on July 09, 2011, 10:17:28 PM
Quote from: Brian on July 09, 2011, 03:23:09 PMSo just about all of them after Dan Akroryd and John Belushi left?
^Fixed.
Being totally honest, I considered doing that first -- but then I realized I could rely on you to make the obvious joke. ^_^
Oh, man, the first few seasons were immense. I just watched them a few months ago on Hulu.... Good stuff. :D
So, anybody read Calvin & Hobbes while growing up? Yeah, this will probably make you sad, but the end is worth it. Short and sweet, and supremely enjoyable.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2048837/1/
I'm rereading Belgarath the Sorcerer by David Eddings. I haven't really read it since I was a teenager. It doesn't hold up, of course, but it's fun in it's own ways. It's hugely nostalgic and it's still nice, light reading.
Hahahaha-- Ow, wow, that takes me back.
I must have read the Belgariad like, 10 times growing up....
10 times? The only book i can remember reading like that was Dragons of Autumn Twilight.
Quote from: Yuthirin on July 12, 2011, 03:03:06 AM
So, anybody read Calvin & Hobbes while growing up? Yeah, this will probably make you sad, but the end is worth it. Short and sweet, and supremely enjoyable.
http://johngushue.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451f25369e2013480829be4970c-800wi
Read Distant Glimpses. Made even better because I just read Bamboo Rhapsody last night at work.
Distant what? :)
Check Brian's page.
Quote from: Brian on July 12, 2011, 12:11:13 PM
Hahahaha-- Ow, wow, that takes me back.
I must have read the Belgariad like, 10 times growing up....
Likewise. It's fun nostalgia and Eddings is a decent writer.
A Calvin and Hobbes fic that I find to be an interesting read.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6077764/1/The_Missing_Spark
Speaking of nostalgia, DC's fanfic archive. I found it since I was looking up Ignorance to use as a reference point for a fic scene I am crafting, and ended up reading through most of the rest.
http://members.shaw.ca/chengdo/
Kind of neat, since it reflects early model fanfic up to early 2000ish. Also, Life and Times might be the first Ranma-hooks-up-with-the-Universe type fic (although no dates on anything, so who knows?).
This was unexpectedly loltacular so far:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4730390/1/Naruto_Genkyouien
Oh, I remember that. The fic where the kyuubei is a little brat with cosmic powers. Funny, but ran past its joke, so I didn't list.
I finished up Belgarath the Sorcerer. It was a nice re-read, as I've always liked Edding's writing as well as Belgarath. It's stock fantasy, but with the writing chops to be entertaining. It's like a good soap opera - yes it's the lowest common denominator, but it's well done and a shining example of what it can be.
I then made some effort to read Polgara the Sorceress. I've never liked Polgara as a character; I mostly read it to fill in a couple of details about the world. I struggles to about page 600 before calling it quits. How the hell did Eddings get to about 700 pages with Belgarath but over 1100 with Polgara, anyway? I suppose it's a matter of detail and how Belgarath tends to gloss over entire centuries, but still.
I thought the bigger issue with Polgara the Sorceress as a book is that it didn't cover anything that hadn't been explored (at that point) in one or two other books. I think it had, effectively, like ... a dozen scenes that were interesting and new? There was a lot about Garion's childhood from before he was able to tell his own story, but I didn't feel that added enough.
Really, the unanswered questions in my mind center around Belgarath's wife, not his daughter. She's the one who vanished for centuries....
Quote from: Brian on July 15, 2011, 01:19:35 AM
I thought the bigger issue with Polgara the Sorceress as a book is that it didn't cover anything that hadn't been explored (at that point) in one or two other books. I think it had, effectively, like ... a dozen scenes that were interesting and new? There was a lot about Garion's childhood from before he was able to tell his own story, but I didn't feel that added enough.
Really, the unanswered questions in my mind center around Belgarath's wife, not his daughter. She's the one who vanished for centuries....
Absolutely, yes. Poledra's story is the interesting one, though I don't think she'd make a good teller of that particular tale. She's the biggest dangling thread left, unless you want to get into the two Purposes or UL. Even then, both of those are fairly well defined and ultimately just background parts to the story.
I do like that Polgara's story confirmed that souls and a probable afterlife exist in the setting. Hell came up in the Mallorean, but none of the characters ever talked about it much. That always struck me as an odd gap in the series, especially one often dealing with the Gods and great prophecies.
This fic got me depressed enough to leave the fandom:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7087510/1/The_Shadow_of_Haruhi_Suzumiya
Actually, I suppose it's equally the author and the fic....
You should join the Madoka fandom. We like twisting Gen Urobuchi's works on him.
From my profile (updated today):
QuoteIn consideration:
Untitled (Puella Madoka): What if Homura were a few steps ahead of Tomoe Mami when she entered Charlotte's barrier? How much difference could result from such an inconsequential thing?
Untitled (Puella Madoka/Ranma 1/2): Totally a parody. My humor writing is very weak, so I'll try and write some jokes. Naturally, this is something of a send-up of all those old Ranma/Sailor Moon crossovers from the late 90s and early 2000s. Ideally, it'll read like a text-format 4koma.
Quote from: Brian on July 16, 2011, 04:05:47 AM
Untitled (Puella Madoka/Ranma 1/2): Totally a parody. My humor writing is very weak, so I'll try and write some jokes. Naturally, this is something of a send-up of all those old Ranma/Sailor Moon crossovers from the late 90s and early 2000s. Ideally, it'll read like a text-format 4koma.
Instead of a fukufic, we'd call these kyu-fics? Because 4koma comics are usually cutesy (http://wiki.puella-magi.net/Tweets#Kyubey_cuteness).
kyu-bey fics?
Hogyoku ex Machina has two new chapters up and is almost finished. Thankfully both are pretty good.
Mmm.
For almost finishing it sort of kind of misses the ripple. "Okay so in the future he totally was going to kill this guy. Now in the past, he's done X more than that? Right? It's not just about him getting more badass?" I'm just wondering if that'll be hit before the end. Not that I don't like what's there, it just seems sort of a weak end note. "And the rest of the cast kinda cheered and some of them got stronger, and they cheered some more for the Shonen lead that handled everything."
The Dark Lords Strike Back by Claymade chapter 1 is up.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4412960/1/Eureka
Ryouga as the main character. I didn't expect to like this one, since it bills itself as a mega-xover, but I ended up liking it anyway.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6999893/1/A_curse_not_a_blessing Neat Zelda short fic. Dark though. Warning: The Good Guys Don't Win.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7235799/1/ : By our resident Haruhi fan, Brian. Haruhi rolls back the clock and tries for a Harem End.
Hougyoku Ex Machina finished. Kinda weak. Kept theme I suppose.
Another chapter of BoF 2 Novelization came out. Pretty neat take on the reveal of Barubary.
Into the Void 3 and 4 went up today. Well, technically 3, but I ranted that it needed more to work. :P
Big Human on Campus updated
As did Echoes of the Void.
Both were awesome.
Heck, Big Human kind of let a chance for everyone in the cast to be awesome in that chapter. Pretty nice.
Dropping a link, since others didn't:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382984/11/Big_Human_on_Campus
Hey, more chances to talk about it?
"You got the wrong guy."
"Oh...shit! man, sorry about that."
"Tonoe! Look out!"
"..."
"... So I'm gonna start hitting you now"
Uh, no, actually, I was just whining about bad trigger discipline. I haven't read the new BHoC yet -- though I did successfully get Hal to read chapter one (and he quoted the healthbar line at me).
In the meantime, I am reading this:
http://polychromium.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/the-surprise-of-haruhi-suzumiya-english-translation/
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5257479/1/Ranmas_Neko_curse_redone
A terrible fic, and one where I kept reading since it just kept getting worse, like a vintage MST movie.
Quote
If Ukyo had been surprised before, now she was totally gob smacked as her jaw hung freely in face of Ranma's proclamation. "Wait, wait, wait...Did I hear that right?" she asked slowly getting up. "You're marrying Kasumi?" she repeated for clarification.
Ranma smiled as he nodded. "Yeah, you see Cologne made it so that my body acted as if it was in Nyeko-ken, but my mind was human Nyaa. And as it so happens Kasumi was the only person who was nyaice to me. Also I found out that Kasumi has nyothing other than her family which is pretty dysfunctional even without me in it Nyaa. Plus she's the only one who hasn't taken advantage of me in some shape or form Nyaa." He glared lightly at Ukyo when she tried to protest.
Ranma sighed as he continued the explanation "Unfortunately...since I did nyot get the spell broken in time I'm nyow what is called a werecat Nyaa." He stated as he gestured to himself. "I'm stronger, faster, smarter, and unfortunately...hornier then ever Nyaa." He shifted around uncomfortably. "Anyways before you ask any questions let me finish Nyaa. One...Werecats and Werewolves are pretty much the same except for species, so a werewolf's weakness is my weakness Nyaa, though they only hurt, they do nyot actually make me weak Nyaa."
-edit-
Oh, and Haigeki has a new chapter.
Truly you have suffered greatly, Jason.
Late on this, but I haven't had much time to read lately.
Tabula Rasa updated. It seems to be righting itself away from it's last arc. On one hand it has some amusing bits and characters. On the other it felt obligated to have the tried and true 'She-Ranma has her first period' routine. Otherwise it was enjoyable and the chapter end shows that shit is really hitting the fan.
Ranma figures out what she feels for Ryoga. My problem with it is that it feels like it's steering for a happy end and that everyone is going to encourage/force Ranma into a relationship with Ryoga. I can see Nodoka doing that already, same for Akane and Ukyo. That's the fic's greatest failing, it's transparent with how it dispatches problems to open the way up for the Ranma/Ryoga matchup.
This is not fanfiction. This is CHALLENGE:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5357045/1/The_Dream_of_Suzumiya_Haruhi
How many chapters can you survive? I lasted the first arc (20 chapters). If no one can match (or beat) me, I can post a hilariously vitriolic summary of everything you did not in any way at all miss.
Bad philosphy! Epic Flanderization in a 'serious' fic! And ... MORE!
I lasted 0 chapters. Didn't click the link :)
Rami-Dracos, read more Haruhi!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3293331/1/Demiglace_Graffiti
Slice of life fic, with Ranma as Haruhi's father. Interesting, even though I am only passingly familiar with Haruhi (having read a few translated chapters of the novels)- I suspect that there is probably more to the second layer of the story, beyond the obvious (i.e No one around Haruhi, at all, is a normal person), that I'm not quite getting.
Not finished, but last update was a year and a half ago, so I suppose this counts as a probably-abandoned fic.
That was a big bummer for me as a Haruhi fan, actually. 'Ranma isn't a very good father, even though he tries, and it's not his fault' seems to be the extent of the story.
And yeah, abandoned after some really weird tangential arc that involved Haruhi trying to get Ranma to hook up with an older Ryouko (that Haruhi somehow managed to not recognize).
Ranma is the main character, but it's dissapointing to me (yet again, I suppose) that Haruhi is really just not likable most of the time. Beyond that, Mikuru gets some scenes, and (as mentioned) Ryouko shows up in one scene. Really, uh ... does not utilize much of the casts of either series, actually. From the Ranma side, Nabiki is mentioned and shows up a bit -- I think Kasumi had a scene or three ... really, that's about it.
Tangent, but are you surprised that Haruhi wasn't done as likable? She strikes me as a character that is extremely easy to mis-write. She could slide into being annoying or complete asshole territory quite easily.
I'm not a huge Haruhi fan or anything so correct me if I'm wrong.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 07, 2011, 03:31:16 PM
Tangent, but are you surprised that Haruhi wasn't done as likable? She strikes me as a character that is extremely easy to mis-write. She could slide into being annoying or complete asshole territory quite easily.
I'm not a huge Haruhi fan or anything so correct me if I'm wrong.
Yeah, she's pretty easy to mis-write. For one, the series is told from the point of view of a character that is a) a natural snarker b) the focus of most of Haruhi's attention and c) often put in dangerous situations by the nature of Haruhi's power, not Haruhi herself. Outside if the SoSB she's just an eccentric beauty. And people seem comfortable enough with her to ask her for help with stuff.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 07, 2011, 03:31:16 PM
Tangent, but are you surprised that Haruhi wasn't done as likable? She strikes me as a character that is extremely easy to mis-write. She could slide into being annoying or complete asshole territory quite easily.
I'm not a huge Haruhi fan or anything so correct me if I'm wrong.
You are correct. She is exceedingly easy to get wrong.
The majority of the focus of the series is on the growth of the characters, particularly as Haruhi goes from Sociopathic Jerkass Genki Girl to Genki Girl Jerkass With a Heart of gold. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it a million more times:
"The only thing more impressive to me than the Haruhi canon's presentation of character growth is the ability of the fandom to ignore it."
The big thing is ... she does some terrible things (many played for comedy, some of them bordering on rape). But that's all in the first quarter of the school year ... or the first season of the anime. She has another horrific moment in Sigh, which is the start of the second quarter, but it's a pivotal moment in her character growth that from that point, she backs off and starts to grow. The anime stops right after that, and doesn't really show much of her growth.
The movie helps a little, but it doesn't catch the character that she becomes by the end of the second year.
Which is a problem, since most fanfics diverge in the second year, and take the initial characterization and apply that to all of the events (now without character growth).
You really can't help that if the anime take gives a bad characterization, many people will end up taking that as the only characterization they see. The fandom at large probably has a large percentage of "I watched the anime, it was so cool!"-Anonymous Trolled Fan. :P
I tease.
Well, you joke, but mostly what it is ... is that people will watch the anime and take the characterization, then get all of their events off fan wikis instead of reading the novels.
Anyway. Back on topic, I'm reading this:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7252550/1/Under_Review
Which happens to have a much better portayal of Haruhi, and all soulriders should review it.
I want to write a Haruhi fic to be one of the cool kids.
Quote from: Olguin on August 09, 2011, 01:01:15 AMI want to write a Haruhi fic to be one of the cool kids.
And I wish I had the required PHD in either the Nasu-verse or Touho to follow those things. ;)
I have an idea! It's probably a terrible idea for your fandom, but I'll be working on it tomorrow!
Also, the first step is realizing that King Arthur is a girl in Nasu.
The second step is realizing that Reimu cheats in Touhou. And is poor.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7252550/2/Under_Review Chapter 2 is up. Good chapter.
Also, the third step is to realize Nasu-verse characters are haxor.
It seems like every time there's some significant discussion off something I posted, I have no internet access for those few days. Just like this.
Anyway, I have no idea of anything of anything in Haruhi-land, except what occurs in the few parts of the novels I read, so I have no idea where this story is placed in the Haruhi timeline - was Haruhi not supposed to be like that?
In terms of Ranma stories, I found it notable since it's not a Ranma story where he's a world famous martial artist, married to Akane and running the dojo, holding chi-balls, or anything of that sort. It's Ranma trying to be normal (despite the fact that he's anything but) for the sake of his daughter who is desperately trying to find something abnormal. With the little of of the Haruhiverse I know, it's Ranma trying to aact normal to Mikuru and Haruhi, Mikuru trying to act normal for Ranma and Haruhi...rather like some of the better Wuxia stories I've read sans actual descriptions of martial arts. It didn't go far, but I feel as if it could have been developed further, and was going to be, but was instead suddenly abandoned.
Of course, I've been writing a wuxia-slice-of-life fic, myself, so I might be biased here. Also, my lack of exposure to all things Haruhi-related means I'm likely more nonchalant towards the lesser exposure to those characters,
Quote
The second step is realizing that Reimu cheats in Touhou. And is poor.
If this were actually true, I'd be much better when I play Touhou games. Or maybe I just suck that badly.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 03, 2011, 09:22:57 PM-edit-
Oh, and Haigeki has a new chapter.
I finally got 'round to reading this. Damn that author can write. No matter what I think of the story, the raw talent shines through.
Hmm.
More Delanda Est. Kind of a sudden end to the chapter indeed.
"Good, Good, OhGodEveryoneJustGotMurderized."
I suppose its a good cliffhanger but the fight scene was just so sudden and quick that it's like "Wait, the second big face off between good lead and bad lead was like a minute.
New chapter of Under Review is up.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 11, 2011, 01:21:24 AM
Quote
The second step is realizing that Reimu cheats in Touhou. And is poor.
If this were actually true, I'd be much better when I play Touhou games. Or maybe I just suck that badly.
The trick is learning
how Reimu cheats. The answer to that is "bomb more".
Alternately, the answer is in the lesser known of her abilities, the power to eat sweets and not get fat. Keeps that hitbox slim.
Quote from: thepanda on August 12, 2011, 10:56:10 PM
New chapter of Under Review is up.
Glad you're enjoying, I should probably toss up a topic here for feedback or something.
Help me kick some life into the creative writing section. :p
Post it there~!
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/249477.html
Dungeon Keeper Ami updated.
Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time is currently somewhere dangerously near the Chris Carter Danger Zone (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChrisCarterEffect).
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6615342/1/Breath_Of_Fire_II_War_Of_The_Demons
Continues and is still kind of a neat take on the game.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 13, 2011, 06:21:09 PM
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/249477.html
Dungeon Keeper Ami updated.
I'm sort of split on DK Ami. On one hand, it's kind of a pretty neat story. Ami is a good character for it and they do interesting things with her. On the other hand, a great deal of it is just talk with a whole lot of OCs. Like tons. It drove me out after a while and even peeking back in when it's sort of easier to follow, it's still seems that there's at least one new character every other addition.
Quote from: Halbarad on August 13, 2011, 08:22:38 AM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 11, 2011, 01:21:24 AM
Quote
The second step is realizing that Reimu cheats in Touhou. And is poor.
If this were actually true, I'd be much better when I play Touhou games. Or maybe I just suck that badly.
The trick is learning how Reimu cheats. The answer to that is "bomb more".
Alternately, the answer is in the lesser known of her abilities, the power to eat sweets and not get fat. Keeps that hitbox slim.
Quote from: thepanda on August 12, 2011, 10:56:10 PM
New chapter of Under Review is up.
Glad you're enjoying, I should probably toss up a topic here for feedback or something.
No.
You should Bomb More. =)
Feedback will be drawn to you.
Victory at Ostagar (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5825274/1/Victory_at_Ostagar)
This is a really good alternate exploration of the Dragon Age story, shifted at the start by the battle of Ostagar being a victory rather than a crushing defeat. The beacon is lit in time, Loghain rides in to crush the embattled darkspawn, King Cailan gets to be all heroic... and in a last gasp assault the darkspawn kill every Grey Warden except for Alistair and Bronwyn Cousland (the Noble Human origin PC). Thus the last two Grey Wardens are tasked with gathering allies and recruiting new wardens, while the army strengthens the fortifications at Ostagar to hold off further waves and keep the Blight from spreading.
With this setup it'd be all too easy to make the journey, well... easy. But it turns out that King Cailan's machinations can be just as perilous as Loghain's were in the original plot, and Arl Howe - cornered and without any support here unlike in the game where he becomes Loghain's right hand - becomes all the more bitter a foe with his back against the wall.
The cast is well developed, with all of the part members from the game, as well as several incidental characters and every other potential origin PC being given a place. The existing characters stay true to their natures, and their actions make sense in the new scenario, and all of the PC characters are given their unique personalities complementary to their origin stories that are every bit as engaging and fun to read about.
It's not complete, but the most recent chapter was on the 1st of August, and at over 330k words long it'll keep you busy a while if you at all enjoyed Dragon Age.
edit: Updated today, nice.
Quote from: Dracos on August 16, 2011, 11:55:49 AMI'm sort of split on DK Ami. On one hand, it's kind of a pretty neat story. Ami is a good character for it and they do interesting things with her. On the other hand, a great deal of it is just talk with a whole lot of OCs. Like tons. It drove me out after a while and even peeking back in when it's sort of easier to follow, it's still seems that there's at least one new character every other addition.
Apparently, most everything is from the DK world. It's not OCs as much as using a pair of obscure games to form the backbone of the story.
Huh. Really? the Dungeon Keeper games were largely tactical affairs. The 'forces of light' in the Sunlit kingdom largely just a handful of names, not dozens of characters. Even googling all I see is that the only named characters are Horny (the Reaper) and King Reginald and his sons. The vast amount of NPCs in it are just given generic names "Knight", "Fairy", etc.
It's not the type of game where you had lots of named characters, because that would detract from the fantasy of it. Sure, they're rooted in it, but I'm pretty sure they're all OCs in the same way our D&D characters are.
Quote from: Ebiris on August 16, 2011, 01:50:18 PM
Victory at Ostagar (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5825274/1/Victory_at_Ostagar)
This is a really good alternate exploration of the Dragon Age story, shifted at the start by the battle of Ostagar being a victory rather than a crushing defeat. The beacon is lit in time, Loghain rides in to crush the embattled darkspawn, King Cailan gets to be all heroic... and in a last gasp assault the darkspawn kill every Grey Warden except for Alistair and Bronwyn Cousland (the Noble Human origin PC). Thus the last two Grey Wardens are tasked with gathering allies and recruiting new wardens, while the army strengthens the fortifications at Ostagar to hold off further waves and keep the Blight from spreading.
With this setup it'd be all too easy to make the journey, well... easy. But it turns out that King Cailan's machinations can be just as perilous as Loghain's were in the original plot, and Arl Howe - cornered and without any support here unlike in the game where he becomes Loghain's right hand - becomes all the more bitter a foe with his back against the wall.
The cast is well developed, with all of the part members from the game, as well as several incidental characters and every other potential origin PC being given a place. The existing characters stay true to their natures, and their actions make sense in the new scenario, and all of the PC characters are given their unique personalities complementary to their origin stories that are every bit as engaging and fun to read about.
It's not complete, but the most recent chapter was on the 1st of August, and at over 330k words long it'll keep you busy a while if you at all enjoyed Dragon Age.
edit: Updated today, nice.
That's a neat notion. I've been wavery on reading DA fanfiction, but that's a good pitch for some.
Quote from: Dracos on August 16, 2011, 06:29:22 PM
Huh. Really? the Dungeon Keeper games were largely tactical affairs. The 'forces of light' in the Sunlit kingdom largely just a handful of names, not dozens of characters. Even googling all I see is that the only named characters are Horny (the Reaper) and King Reginald and his sons. The vast amount of NPCs in it are just given generic names "Knight", "Fairy", etc.
It's not the type of game where you had lots of named characters, because that would detract from the fantasy of it. Sure, they're rooted in it, but I'm pretty sure they're all OCs in the same way our D&D characters are.
I could be wrong, this is second-hand information.
To be honest it hasn't bothered me, since the focus stays mostly on Ami.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7293931/1/Old_News
I think I loathe this fic. It's...just...arhgfuksldjg;sdklgjsd.
Wow, good old Zorknot. Kuno fanboy, Nabiki fanboy ... not a fan of Ranma.
That was surprisingly even worse than I expected-- And I expected it to be pretty bad!
It's...something. I'm not sure what, but it's something alright.
I'm now too terrified to click the link.
I got linked, got to the middle of the dining scene and stopped. No need/want for depressing bash fic.
I only skimmed the entire thing.
It's got Zorknot's typical character inversions/flanderizations.
Goes pretty much nowhere with an ending that's probably intended to be bittersweet, but is mostly just bitter. Long story short, even though she hates him (and tried to murder him), Ranma's the new Mousse to Shampoo, since that's the only thing he's got left to try and get right.
If there was a scene of Nodoka disowning him, I skipped it, but there was probably one of those, too.
No adults outside of Cologne allowed in this story. It was just Ranma, Akane, Nabiki, Shampoo, Cologne, Ukyo, and Konatsu.
Really? Such a gimmie I'm amazed he passed it up.
Someone should really review and point out that it's missing that element.
Blast to the past. Love Hina text-adventure-styled fic:
http://ffmlsearch.inklesspen.com/message/show/1186904581.M741558P12296Q106148.euterpe
Hahaha, ah, good times.
I'd be more impressed if there were actually a text adventure.
I've written some; they're not that hard, guys.
Good ones though require tremendous amounts of writing. Significantly more than an story of similar length and usually also requires either using someone's parser or writing one.
Quote from: Dracos on August 23, 2011, 05:16:50 PM
and usually also requires either using someone's parser or writing one.
There are actually specialized languages and VMs for this. Check out this sample source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Example_game_2).
Quote from: Jon on August 23, 2011, 05:18:50 PM
Quote from: Dracos on August 23, 2011, 05:16:50 PM
and usually also requires either using someone's parser or writing one.
There are actually specialized languages and VMs for this. Check out this sample source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Example_game_2).
That counts as 'using someone else's parser'. And also provides a nice example of the difficulties of open text entry text adventure, where simple things like synonyms can cause a mess.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6908533/5/The_Third_Magic
FoZ/Fate/Stay Night crossover
What if Louise summoned Illyasviel.
And is it just me or does every FoZ crossover that Alfheim Wanderer has any part of start to feel alike? Especially when it comes to Montmorency?
Quote from: Jon on August 22, 2011, 08:39:07 PM
I'd be more impressed if there were actually a text adventure.
That comes across as more than a bit dismissive.
I've looked at a few VN software packages (and at one point even tried to lead a project to create a relatively complex VN), but the ease of use for a casual user (my level) is ... not intuitive. Making text adventures instead of fanfics would be an interesting shift, though.
"Looking for playtesters to try my comedy/drama themed Ranma text adventure!"
Quote from: Brian on August 23, 2011, 07:05:48 PM
Quote from: Jon on August 22, 2011, 08:39:07 PM
I'd be more impressed if there were actually a text adventure.
That comes across as more than a bit dismissive.
Sorry.
But anyway, playtesting your game? I'm in.
(Actually, if anyone's interested in trying something like this, I'd be happy to handle the programming side of things. Collaborations are fun! (But not magic. That's taken.))
There's a very steep learning curve writing text adventures, and it doesn't have to do with the authoring software so much as figuring out the genre conventions that make implementing one a tractable problem. Things like how the parser expects you to phrase things, what kind of lateral thinking is and isn't expected, and how you signal to the player that a given interaction hasn't been implemented, without pissing them off in the process. (Note that in the game review I link to below, it's pointed out that the protagonist refuses to do perfectly reasonable things because they are 'unseemly', which says a lot about his character. This is one example of how to turn a limitation of the genre to one's advantage.)
There's even a steep learning curve to playing text adventures, since if you don't know said genre conventions, you will be unable to play the more interesting and complex games without a walkthrough!
A text adventure is generally not structured the same way as a visual novel. I may be wrong, but visual novels seem to be structured as very large conversation trees, whereas text adventures are generally built as a series of simulations. Very different. So unless it was just a well-written text-only rendering of a visual novel, an interesting Ranma text adventure would contain some kind of nontrivial simulation that generates possible interactions between multiple characters i.e. a major implementation headache.
Because simulating something perfectly is impossible, there are genre conventions about what you can get away with not simulating. So in the case of people it's generally accepted that some of the NPCs you encounter might have the complexity of windup toys. (Think the unnamed old lady in Ranma whose sole function is to throw water into the street at inopportune moments.) How complexity is added onto this base is also subject to conventions that have been developed and which should be taken advantage of, unless one feels ready to write a truly genre-changing work.
The closest thing existing in structure to a Ranma text adventure would be something like 'Varicella': http://members.cox.net/dns361/varicell.html
Finally, note that absent specific cues from the author to act otherwise, the default personality assumed by a text adventure protagonist is going to be a time-travelling manipulative kleptomaniac. i.e. Akemi Homura. Or perhaps Nabiki with an additional 'save and restore' feature.
I've done a bit of plotting for a visual novel, but at the time we were going to do most of it by hand. I probably actually have some of the old scene maps, but I don't have VISIO to open it anymore.
Anyway. We're getting a bit off topic, so here's what I read today:
http://www.ryo-oh-ki.net/ffirc/projects/round.htm -- WOW. This is a great example of how a round robin can go horribly, horribly wrong. Amazing, like a train-wreck. Ana's suffering through it now, but I read it a decade ago. Gooood times.
And to cleanse the mental pallet, something fun and amusing: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/580436/1/Sax_and_Time
Re: The Third Magic
I read that recently. It has some interesting ideas and is kinda neat. Kind of over-mean to Montmorency, but it's so rare to see an FoZ without the beatdown early on that delivers the thematic (Heroic Contempt, Despairing Violence, Exotic whatever... it's the showcase moment for the familiar)
Has he interacted with more than Echoes of the Void and The Third Magic?
If folks want to spin around on Text Adventures, just make a thread for it. :) I agree, it's a bit outside the Reading thread target. :)
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on August 23, 2011, 08:35:42 PM
Or perhaps Nabiki with an additional 'save and restore' feature.
That sounds like an interesting short-fic premise. :p
Quote
And to cleanse the mental pallet, something fun and amusing: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/580436/1/Sax_and_Time
Loved that fic when it was posted on the FFML. I have, for years, been trying to think of a good way to reliably write a longer fic with the same principle, but the organizational method of such a project continues to escapes me.
Quote from: Dracos on August 23, 2011, 09:02:39 PM
Has he interacted with more than Echoes of the Void and The Third Magic?
Yeah. There are his own fics (Recollections of Pain > Echos) and a number of people credit him/her with prereading/co-writing credits. You can find some on his/her favorite stories tab on ff.net and just wikiwalk (or whatever it is called) from there.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5245635/1/Magical_Girl_Nanoha_12
Not sure if any one else reads this, but it updated. I find it to be an enjoyable read, though I don't know much about Nanoha.
Quote from: DY on August 24, 2011, 01:44:53 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5245635/1/Magical_Girl_Nanoha_12
Not sure if any one else reads this, but it updated. I find it to be an enjoyable read, though I don't know much about Nanoha.
I've been reading it, and I share the same opinion as you, with the same caveat. The writer actually worked with Genma's character rather than relegating him to automatic-idiocy-generator, which is always nice to see. Some weird dialogue constructs, but nothing really irritating.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 23, 2011, 11:14:05 PM
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on August 23, 2011, 08:35:42 PM
Or perhaps Nabiki with an additional 'save and restore' feature.
That sounds like an interesting short-fic premise. :p
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2574681/1/Exact_Change Short fic premise?
Quote from: Dracos on August 24, 2011, 02:32:11 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2574681/1/Exact_Change Short fic premise?
Similar (in fact, I'd thought of that story when writing my post), but I was thinking more along the lines of an actual save/load oriented short where some incident in the manga keeps going badly for Nabiki but the universe keeps getting reloaded until it goes well for her - one reason why Nabiki never seems to get her comeuppance. A further elaboration would be that reloading the universe causes bugs, which is why Nerima is so screwed up.
Basically, Exact Change tries to do interesting things within the limits of a simple premise (and IMO, succeeds). I was thinking of a ridiculous premise.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 24, 2011, 02:42:28 AMBasically, Exact Change tries to do interesting things within the limits of a simple premise (and IMO, succeeds). I was thinking of a ridiculous premise.
Exact Change is pretty good and one of his better stories. It's also one of the few he's finished. HMMMM. I WONDER.
I remember reading a Naruto fic based around him doing a NG+ sort of setup with his life ages ago. It's the only Naruto fic I've ever read and that's only because I thought the premise was awesome. This reminds me of that.
Quote from: DY on August 24, 2011, 01:44:53 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5245635/1/Magical_Girl_Nanoha_12
Not sure if any one else reads this, but it updated. I find it to be an enjoyable read, though I don't know much about Nanoha.
I think I read it for a while. Glancing back at it, it's a fic that I kind of wish was better. I like merging the casts, but it's sort of technically weak on delivery.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 24, 2011, 02:46:03 AM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 24, 2011, 02:42:28 AMBasically, Exact Change tries to do interesting things within the limits of a simple premise (and IMO, succeeds). I was thinking of a ridiculous premise.
Exact Change is pretty good and one of his better stories. It's also one of the few he's finished. HMMMM. I WONDER.
I remember reading a Naruto fic based around him doing a NG+ sort of setup with his life ages ago. It's the only Naruto fic I've ever read and that's only because I thought the premise was awesome. This reminds me of that.
Oh I remember that. I tried reading that three times as I also thought the premise was completely awesome...and each time I sorta died early on with it just going too far into wacky video game ville for me to hang on.
Best Naruto time loop story really remains... http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644/1/Time_Braid
Quote from: Anastasia on August 24, 2011, 02:46:03 AM
Exact Change is pretty good and one of his better stories. It's also one of the few he's finished. HMMMM. I WONDER.
IMO, Ozzallos's pattern is that he has consistently strong starts to his fics, but as he keeps writing, they steadily get more lame until he gives up, or the story ends.
Exact Change is two chapters, and so ended before it could devolve. Heir to the Empire started out strong, and turned into mediocre by the end. Best of Times is 11 chapters long, which seems to break the mold, but was pretty much carried by the Ranma-Pluto prank war; without the prank war, it would have been Yet Another Ranma In Seifuku Fic since the rest of the scenes were not far removed from standard.
I feel like HiMA is going the same way - he had a pretty neat concept going with Ranma being (emotionally) seduced by evil, but then changed the fic into the overly long version of Donny Cheng's Life and Times chapter about Morrigan. But HiMA is still being written, so hopefully it will go somewhere interesting.
Heir to the Empire was fine until the end, when he just shot the moon and engaged in a lot of silly bullshit fanon. He felt some need to demolish Crystal Tokyo - he's really horrible about bad Sailor Moon fanfiction cliches - and generally trample the SM canon. It was funny to a point, but Ranma/Serenity taking over the world and bringing in giant battleships? That just went past interesting and into dumb.
---
I think the next chapter of Hell is a Martial Artist is going to be the deciding one for later fic quality. Shit is finally going to hit the fan, can Ozzallos pull it off? This is the payoff everyone's been waiting for; all of the changes and choices Ranma has made are about to cause the failed wedding to go much differently.
I think he can pull it off. I hope, since it's one of my favorite fics.
Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon updated. I was cold on this fic after it pushed things too far, but I read the latest chapter on a whim. Holy fucking hell is it amazing. Wow.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 25, 2011, 01:18:35 AM
It was funny to a point, but Ranma/Serenity taking over the world and bringing in giant battleships? That just went past interesting and into dumb.
I honestly don't have a problem with that per se. It's how and when a writer brings in a plot device that makes or breaks a story for me. Dealing with two-bit villains using the contents of a dead civilization's armory and ancient battleships? Lame. Using the scavenged contents of an dead civiliation's armory and ancient battleships to (e.g) barely turn the tide in holding off overwhelming and unstoppable eldrich horrors? Could be cool. My problem with Heir is that it's mostly the former, and merely lip service to the latter. One has potential (Mr. Anderson) for dramatic tension. The other does not.
Re: HiMA, let's hope for something interesting. :)
Quote from: Anastasia on August 25, 2011, 01:18:35 AM
Heir to the Empire was fine until the end, when he just shot the moon and engaged in a lot of silly bullshit fanon. He felt some need to demolish Crystal Tokyo - he's really horrible about bad Sailor Moon fanfiction cliches - and generally trample the SM canon. It was funny to a point, but Ranma/Serenity taking over the world and bringing in giant battleships? That just went past interesting and into dumb.
---
I think the next chapter of Hell is a Martial Artist is going to be the deciding one for later fic quality. Shit is finally going to hit the fan, can Ozzallos pull it off? This is the payoff everyone's been waiting for; all of the changes and choices Ranma has made are about to cause the failed wedding to go much differently.
I think he can pull it off. I hope, since it's one of my favorite fics.
Heh, I hope so too.
I would say its a turning point but for a wholly different reason. He's marching out of Ranma territory after that. There's no canon to play around with anymore there, so it'll also be where the original idea goes.
Also, man, far too many Kyuubey.
Kyu-bro is legion, yo.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
"Wahhh! My punishment doesn't work any more! That delinquent Saotome...! Wahhhh!" Hinako cried, clinging Principal Kuno's leg.
I don't know about the rest of the fic, but any story that has this line is okay with me.
...hah :) What fic?
Rain.
Link?
Zero Interface updated. Reminder link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/11/
Quote from: thepanda on August 27, 2011, 07:57:42 PM
Link?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/233706/1/Rain
This fic runs a bit rough over the A!MG canon, but nothing untenable. If you dislike this fic I suspect it will be for other reasons. For what it's worth, I think it's okay but not great. Sorta feels late 90s-ish with the crossover elements.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6362397/13/Beautiful_Destroyer_Sailor_Moon
Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon updated again. Shit continues to get crazy.
I'll have to read that later. I glanced briefly this morning and skimmed and it looked like it genre bounced the main characters. "Btw, Now you are morally ambiguous for property destruction and there's swat goons". Hope I mis-saw as that really drives me up a wall. I'm fine with "Mass damage is not acceptable' from the get-go, but not swapping it up after they do epic city save.
Quote from: Dracos on August 29, 2011, 10:03:25 PM
I'll have to read that later. I glanced briefly this morning and skimmed and it looked like it genre bounced the main characters. "Btw, Now you are morally ambiguous for property destruction and there's swat goons". Hope I mis-saw as that really drives me up a wall. I'm fine with "Mass damage is not acceptable' from the get-go, but not swapping it up after they do epic city save.
I'm okay with this. From the beginning the battles have been overwhelmingly destructive and the last big battle was so insane that things can't be reasonably tolerated. I see it as a natural result of what's happened.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4914372/1/Strangers_in_a_Familiar_Land I'd actually like to see this continued.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 29, 2011, 10:13:39 PM
Quote from: Dracos on August 29, 2011, 10:03:25 PM
I'll have to read that later. I glanced briefly this morning and skimmed and it looked like it genre bounced the main characters. "Btw, Now you are morally ambiguous for property destruction and there's swat goons". Hope I mis-saw as that really drives me up a wall. I'm fine with "Mass damage is not acceptable' from the get-go, but not swapping it up after they do epic city save.
I'm okay with this. From the beginning the battles have been overwhelmingly destructive and the last big battle was so insane that things can't be reasonably tolerated. I see it as a natural result of what's happened.
Mmm, well, it wasn't as bad a genre bounce I was expecting. I'm fine with how things went, and it is kind of establishing the bad guys as capable of being very bad as well.
Was kind of surprised that usagi didn't step in sooner. It felt weird since they really did do a great job of deducing the plot, identifying the signs and otherwise having the necessary cards in front, but instead it was still handled as a post thing. I think I would've liked it better if the Scouts had a few fewer cards (making it less an obvious thing) and put the rest together after or simply shut down the youma before Rui got crippled. Usagi put together Jadeite's stunts earlier off of far less obvious information than the massive wave they unearthed on Nephrite's stunt. Sure, it shows the good guys losing a pass...but it felt a bit forced of a loss. A "Loss needs to be here, so you will make the wrong choice here."
Brian's Motivation.
Chapter 5 made me laugh so hard I nearly died.
YES!
My fics are killing words!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3505392/11/Hell_is_a_Martial_Artist
Hell is a Martial Artist updated.
It wasn't what I was expecting, let's just leave it at that. I suppose it makes sense with how he's glazed over canon events before, but that seemed to be so obviously be set up to be the flashpoint.
Felt like treading water.
hmm. Kind of a weak chapter. It moves things laterally really. Sets up a potential fight of the week, but not an antagonist. And yeah, seems like it was a missed opportunity there.
Quote from: thepanda on August 31, 2011, 06:25:07 PM
Felt like treading water.
This. The ANs said that chapter 11 was forth coming, it's possible he just has two chapters lined up back to back. Hopefully this was just a set up for a livelier chapter 11, I wanna see shit happen already.
i threw up in my mouth a little
http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/2011-September/003212.html
It gets worse.
http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/2011-August/003157.html
(Well, technically, it already got worse, since he posted the 'sequel' first.)
I'm afraid to read that.
It indeed, got worse.
But, hey, Kyonko's plight escalated to Kyon getting a kick in the balls, too! Haruhi insists that before he can enter a life of servitude to her, he has to find/make a bigger diamond than a reality warper made! At least she's....
No, no, no.
This is all standard Cobbian bullshit. As he writes it: Haruhi is not a character with any likable redeeming qualities. All events conspire to make Kyon the butt of a joke. ALL OF THEM.
Ugh.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2822350/1/Fission
Usagi and Ranma collide during their respective transformations. As a result, aspects of both worlds begin to creep in and mimic each other. It's a crazy, insane and oddly entertaining ride. It's only loosely a crossover, as things happen in the same world but things are mostly kept to each side.
I'm not sure what the fuck Megaman as a magical girl is doing in it, or what Kodachi is doing as Protogirl - read as Protoman from Megaman as a magical girl. It's that sort of fic.
I didn't know there was El Goonish Shive fanfiction.
Did Olguin mention Eureka chapter 2 was up as well as an Into the Void omake/short chaptery-thing?
Sorry, forgot to update here.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7346252/1/Four_Swords
Could have been amusing but the poor choice of perspective kills it.
Delenda Est Updated again. Yay.
Dungeon Keeper Ami updated. Decent update, nothing too exciting. The problem with the Addventure is that the small chapter size makes things like this draaaaaaaaaaaag. Really this sort of story should be updated once a month on FFnet.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/249742.html
Nobody Dies chapter 102 (actually a lot of people have died so far; they just weren't PCs)
Landsman needs editor badly. Something was a dream and something else is reality and I have no idea what the fuck is going on anymore.
Though at least it isn't disappearing up its own arse with uber-rei shit like it seemed it would twenty chapters ago.
The Fable of Joyful Wing (http://theninemuses.net/archive/viewstory.php?sid=238)
Harry Dresden as filtered through the lens of wuxia epics. (Or, more accurately, the lens of Bridge of Birds, but I found out not many people here know what that is.)
Quote from: Jon on September 04, 2011, 03:06:40 AM
Nobody Dies chapter 102 (actually a lot of people have died so far; they just weren't PCs)
Landsman needs editor badly. Something was a dream and something else is reality and I have no idea what the fuck is going on anymore.
Though at least it isn't disappearing up its own arse with uber-rei shit like it seemed it would twenty chapters ago.
I quit following this about ten chapters ago just because it seemed like uber-Rei or otherwise, he was never going to actually close out any of his hanging plot threads.
I stopped following ND when they started having enough dimensions going that I lost track of which shinji or whatnot I was looking at.
Too a look at fission, but it's not really sticking yet. Writing quality mainly. That and the whole Ranma traits/Usagi traits thing is strange. Different, but seems just there for laughs.
Quote from: Jon on September 04, 2011, 05:31:31 PM
The Fable of Joyful Wing (http://theninemuses.net/archive/viewstory.php?sid=238)
Harry Dresden as filtered through the lens of wuxia epics. (Or, more accurately, the lens of Bridge of Birds, but I found out not many people here know what that is.)
Just read it. More of a Chinese mythology feel than wuxia, since wuxia characters are conduct-based (the "xia" of wuxia). The "impossibility of turning immortal" is odd since it is contradicted by a fair number of stories (such as how the moon goddess came to be), but that might also be the background of Bridge of Birds, with which I'm not familiar.
Re; fission - Is that still being written? I remember reading that awhile ago, and while it was fun, it didn't seem like a sustainable story. The Ranma-ice cream scene description is something I still remember.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on September 05, 2011, 11:18:58 AM
Just read it. More of a Chinese mythology feel than wuxia, since wuxia characters are conduct-based (the "xia" of wuxia). The "impossibility of turning immortal" is odd since it is contradicted by a fair number of stories (such as how the moon goddess came to be), but that might also be the background of Bridge of Birds, with which I'm not familiar.
In the Bridge of Birds story, IIRC, immortality can be achieved just by removing your heart (until someone finds and stabs it, anyway). No one good ever does this.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on September 05, 2011, 11:18:58 AM
Just read it. More of a Chinese mythology feel than wuxia, since wuxia characters are conduct-based (the "xia" of wuxia). The "impossibility of turning immortal" is odd since it is contradicted by a fair number of stories (such as how the moon goddess came to be), but that might also be the background of Bridge of Birds, with which I'm not familiar.
When Bone Cage says it's impossible, what he means is that you're going to fail unless you already have the gods on your side, and when you fail it will mean "a fate worse than death".
And he knows from experience.
Quote from: Brian
In the Bridge of Birds story, IIRC, immortality can be achieved just by removing your heart (until someone finds and stabs it, anyway). No one good ever does this.
Huh. Is that because heart removal is the result of being evil, or the cause? As in, when the Emperor who rules with Morality and Benevolence is about to die and they remove his heart to further his benign reign, does he become a rat bastard the next day? Or is it because dying is awesome, and only jerks would contemplate not dying?
Also, the "evil people live forever" concept is pretty much directly opposed to traditional Chinese mythology, since it was following Daoist or Buddhist virtues or somesuch that was supposed to turn you immortal (or eating special godly medicine, or heavenly peaches, or whatever). Of course, I get that this isn't a real Chinese mythology story, but it still feels weird.
Quote from: Jon
When Bone Cage says it's impossible, what he means is that you're going to fail unless you already have the gods on your side, and when you fail it will mean "a fate worse than death".
In context of the basic story, sure. I meant that actual Chinese mythology has a number of instances where mortals ascended to immortality/godhood, so the flat declaration by the narrator that it's impossible is strange.
Heck, my mother's mother's family is supposed to have one member supposedly includes Ma Tsu, who went to heaven before she died because of her virtuous nature. It's not as if people were flying into the air all over the place as per artistic renditions of the Rapture, but humans achieving immortality wasn't unknown.
The fic you linked is a good story, for all that. But it is one of those cultural disconnect instances, like when you see manga renditions of the US include squat toilets and people hauling out their firearms (because everyone knows that all Americans own guns) in their daily fight at the local sushi bar.
Read the latest BDSM today. Pretty neat, Rei went Reimu and then set everyone on fire. Usagi was awesome leader. Kinda had a wonky ending though and still sort of is phrased 'Look, the bad guys are managing things so that they will be able to win in the end game'.
Gonna say again: totally fine with just the sailor moon crew kicking ass. It doesn't need a "Just as Planned~". Really~!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4129726/1/Love_Note
Just fun.
Quote from: thepanda on September 06, 2011, 03:14:52 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4129726/1/Love_Note
Just fun.
I read that and thought it was amusing. It's not great art, but it's a fun little subversion.
Quote from: Dracos on September 06, 2011, 02:55:04 PM
Read the latest BDSM today. Pretty neat, Rei went Reimu and then set everyone on fire. Usagi was awesome leader. Kinda had a wonky ending though and still sort of is phrased 'Look, the bad guys are managing things so that they will be able to win in the end game'.
Gonna say again: totally fine with just the sailor moon crew kicking ass. It doesn't need a "Just as Planned~". Really~!
What I noticed over the last few chapters is that the shock value is going down in favor of telling a more comprehensive story. There's still insanity and amusement to be had, but the last few chapters have tuned down the overkill. I approve of this since it's a lot of fun and not just trying to get a rise out of the reader. We'll see how long it lasts.
They just skipped two filler episodes of the anime. Just as well, since the wedding dress episode and the park episode don't really fit into this story's narrative. Just as well, since the first half of Nephrite had some decidedly filler episodes. I'm not sure who Goro is supposed to be, perhaps a new youma or something from supplementary material. A drummer doesn't mesh with any of the other Nephrite victims, wonder if it's going to be Yuuchiro?
Love Note: That...is kind of fun so far. Good link.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 06, 2011, 05:48:38 PM
Quote from: Dracos on September 06, 2011, 02:55:04 PM
Read the latest BDSM today. Pretty neat, Rei went Reimu and then set everyone on fire. Usagi was awesome leader. Kinda had a wonky ending though and still sort of is phrased 'Look, the bad guys are managing things so that they will be able to win in the end game'.
Gonna say again: totally fine with just the sailor moon crew kicking ass. It doesn't need a "Just as Planned~". Really~!
What I noticed over the last few chapters is that the shock value is going down in favor of telling a more comprehensive story. There's still insanity and amusement to be had, but the last few chapters have tuned down the overkill. I approve of this since it's a lot of fun and not just trying to get a rise out of the reader. We'll see how long it lasts.
They just skipped two filler episodes of the anime. Just as well, since the wedding dress episode and the park episode don't really fit into this story's narrative. Just as well, since the first half of Nephrite had some decidedly filler episodes. I'm not sure who Goro is supposed to be, perhaps a new youma or something from supplementary material. A drummer doesn't mesh with any of the other Nephrite victims, wonder if it's going to be Yuuchiro?
That I definitely approve of. I'm down with the less shock based setup. Having Cutey Honey as part of the backstory is also fun. But yeah, I did like 'Good Guys win' of the jadeite arc.
Brian. I cannot believe you wrote a story based off that series and gave it that ending. You. Are. Awesome.
And so quotable! Don't check the spoiler tag if you haven't read it yet. Trust me.
"Truly," Koizumi said, shaking his head, "I fear the man who creates a plan that includes his own death before the final stages."
"Wow," Shion said, grinning. "The man stares at robots that can destroy realities without batting an eye, sets a plan in motion to destroy the masterminds behind the sadistic plot even after his own death, and this sends him over the edge?"
"This is it," he told her. "The point where the people behind this are most vulnerable. But we can't do this alone; we'll need everyone. Call them, Haruhi." <- I actually went back an read this whole section again with Sora Iro Days blasting. Goddamn friendship is awesome!
also, if there is a Ranma!harem fic in there I'd love to see that. >_>
Why thank you, Panda, master of the notlink. :p
This the story he was talking about:
http://pishoque.net/brian/fanfic/short/oif.htm
Which is (no joke) a fusion of Haruhi, Higurashi, and Bokurano (mostly used as a setting). Take two clubs on summer beach vacation, add Bokurano plot, shake vigorously.
I'm surprisingly proud of that story; it actually uses a slightly more fleshed out version of the stylistic approach I used for Forging and Temperance. As a warning, the html for that fic is a bit ugly because I let the script do it automagically. I'll try and clean up the ToC/headers a bit when I get home tonight. :)
Quote from: Brian on September 06, 2011, 07:55:49 PM
Why thank you, Panda, master of the notlink. :p
I really need to work on that.
I'm biased, but I really enjoyed:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7358613/1/Till_the_End_of_Time
This is a Haruhi story, and it's Nagato/Kyon-centric, set after the author's previous work (The Shadow of Suzumiya Haruhi). I incorrectly referred to that as 'shadows' for quite a while....
Anyway. Found it very uplifting; not for everyone, probably, because it does go through some surprisingly intense emotional ups and downs. But then, like I said, I really enjoyed it. :)
Not a fic, but a public domain story that is great so I'll post it anyway: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24035/24035-h/24035-h.htm
Also, a fic that I wish would be continued, although after three years since the last post, I have few hopes of it, so I'll post it here:
OACDYCSF http://www.shadowchronicles.net/
So, it's a (literally) AU Ranma set in a (literally) AU Sailor Moon world. Very OOC Ranma, for reasons which make sense if you've read the first set of fics (Cast a Long Shadow) in the series. Very OOC Sailor Moon characters, because the writer admittedly hadn't read any Sailor Moon and was repurposing the caricatures of the characters to his own devices by adding more depth to them. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but I think it worked out quite well. The writer builds and reveals the world he's created quite well in a story which has a fair helping of, in no particular order, adventure, post-apocalypse, Lovecraftian horror (no Cthulhu - the writer crafted his own layers of mythology), travelogue, and romance. It would be nice if I had the skill to simultaneously construct a world and tell a story like that.
The only sticking point with starting this story is that if you jump straight into OACDYCSF, you're probably thinking "Who the hell is this guy and what has he done with Ranma?", and if you read CALS, you're reading a Ranma horror fic written in 1997, with all that entails.
Wow, I think I stopped reading that around chapter 7 (when the author seemed to fall off the Earth). Did not realize he'd picked it up again (and dropped it again, apparently). I recall liking it, but I don't know if the me of today would.
Quote from: Brian on September 06, 2011, 08:45:36 PM
I'm biased, but I really enjoyed:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7358613/1/Till_the_End_of_Time
This is a Haruhi story, and it's Nagato/Kyon-centric, set after the author's previous work (The Shadow of Suzumiya Haruhi). I incorrectly referred to that as 'shadows' for quite a while....
Anyway. Found it very uplifting; not for everyone, probably, because it does go through some surprisingly intense emotional ups and downs. But then, like I said, I really enjoyed it. :)
You know, starting off I thought it was going to be a bit lacking, trying to get emotional impact out of stuff that's being told, but then Nagato imitated you-know-who (that for people who want a chance to read it themselves), and it
worked.
I think this is the first love story I've read that's literally cosmic in proportions...
So, I actually read this a while back, but it struck me last night that it might not have been posted.
Tabula Avatar (http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-8476/Speakertocustomers+Tabula+Avatar.htm), along with the rest of the series, is a Buffy/Baldur's Gate 2 crossover that I really thought was well done. The author seems to heally know his(her?) stuff and the story is enjoyable with various twists.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2699236/1/Out_of_Sight_Out_of_Mind
Nabiki wakes up one morning to find Ranma gone and no one remembers him. This sticks in her craw and she ends up going on a long, dangerous journey to figure out what happened.
[spoiler]
The problem with this fic is that I don't find his Nabiki to resonate true. There's a genuinely decent in story reason for it, one that's revealed late in the story. Still, when you're focusing on one character, changing them up without explaining why is rather jarring. On the flip side, having Nabiki wander around China and gather up a traveling group from various enemies Ranma has faced is pretty cute.
I also have trouble buying Ranma doing a cut and run, especially when he finally and truly connected with his mother once more. Plus he realizes that he sort of likes Nabiki? Eh. I'd have used a different approach as far as that goes, as I feel it's weak.
It's something like a 7/10? Entertaining but the premise has issues.
Quote from: thepanda on September 07, 2011, 07:57:35 AM
Wow, I think I stopped reading that around chapter 7 (when the author seemed to fall off the Earth). Did not realize he'd picked it up again (and dropped it again, apparently). I recall liking it, but I don't know if the me of today would.
He picked up and dropped many times. He'd throw out a few long chapters, then you'd hear nothing for a year and a half.
This last spell has been 3 years running, though, so it feels rather permanent. Hope not.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=200935 Kind of a neat short Homura ficlet. 1 shot, very short.
Inviolate (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5536346/1/Inviolate)
What would you do if you discovered your personality, your entire existence, had been engineered, for the sole purpose of making you into a (relatively) harmless nuisance?
If you're Lex Luthor, you find the people responsible. And then you make them pay.
I gave another glance at "A Time Apart". Too bad that's been stalled for ages. Team badass lead by Setsuna against "Za World" just seems like it has fun potential.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6359442/1/Familiars_of_Zero
Warning: Extremely repetitive!
The premise is that each chapter is a "what if Louise summoned...?" The writing isn't bad, but it is a bit much to go through in a single read. Id recommend scrolling down to the author notes to find out who the crossover character is so you can see if you want to read that one or skip it. There are also several OCs there.
Quote from: Jon on September 10, 2011, 09:34:43 PM
Inviolate (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5536346/1/Inviolate)
What would you do if you discovered your personality, your entire existence, had been engineered, for the sole purpose of making you into a (relatively) harmless nuisance?
If you're Lex Luthor, you find the people responsible. And then you make them pay.
I read that for awhile, until about halfway through? It's not bad but it didn't really keep my attention. The scene in Starbucks where Luthor confronts Wayne is absolutely awesome and hilarious, though.
Claymade's Dark Lords Strike Back got updated!
Quote from: Yuthirin on September 12, 2011, 06:17:01 PM
Claymade's Dark Lords Strike Back got updated!
Yes.
I'm pretty down on this fic, as it's gone in a direction I dislike. The eternal sense that canon has a mandate to stay on track for both series, despite what's happened, turns me off big time. So does the time skip.
http://rankofics.99k.org/host/Ranko/a_pandas_dream.txt
How I got to a site named rankofics is a fair question. It's roughly equivalent to when you wake up in on the roof of a whorehouse in Tijuana - you have no idea what the fuck happened, but it must have been an awesome night. That said, this is a nice and surreal fic. It's sort of dreamy and removed from Ranma 1/2 proper. It's just...out there.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 14, 2011, 03:58:10 AM
It's roughly equivalent to when you wake up in on the roof of a whorehouse in Tijuana - you have no idea what the fuck happened, but it must have been an awesome night.
You might want to doublecheck you still have both your kidneys, though.
Going through the tvtropes recommended stories for Haruhi ... offering some reviews on some of them. I think ... the only new one is this:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=FanficRecs&target_title=You+Got+HaruhiRolled%21#4670
Which pretty much sums it up.
Quote from: Brian on September 14, 2011, 10:14:37 PMWhich pretty much sums it up.
You have just rediscovered the Dunning-Kruger Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) :) Combined with Sturgeon's Law it yields the Critic's Corollary which is the actual issue here. The D-K effect is an amazing concept, there's hardly a social phenomenon that it
doesn't explain...
On a side note, I feel humbled by your favorable reviews of my works.
Quote from: sarsaparilla on September 15, 2011, 04:22:20 AMDunning-Kruger Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) :)
Ooh! Learned something new today. :3
Quote from: sarsaparilla on September 15, 2011, 04:22:20 AMCombined with Sturgeon's Law it yields the Critic's Corollary which is the actual issue here. The D-K effect is an amazing concept, there's hardly a social phenomenon that it doesn't explain...
I keep forgetting that part. That's something to think about.
Quote from: sarsaparilla on September 15, 2011, 04:22:20 AMOn a side note, I feel humbled by your favorable reviews of my works.
As much as you want the endorsement of someone who uses characters like Kyubei and Haruhi as an avatar. ;)
Quote from: sarsaparilla on September 15, 2011, 04:22:20 AM
Quote from: Brian on September 14, 2011, 10:14:37 PMWhich pretty much sums it up.
You have just rediscovered the Dunning-Kruger Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) :) Combined with Sturgeon's Law it yields the Critic's Corollary which is the actual issue here. The D-K effect is an amazing concept, there's hardly a social phenomenon that it doesn't explain...
On a side note, I feel humbled by your favorable reviews of my works.
You are correct. Dunning-Kruger explains almost everything, doesn't it?
Quote from: Brian on September 15, 2011, 11:56:08 AM
As much as you want the endorsement of someone who uses characters like Kyubei and Haruhi as an avatar. ;)
*cough*
Jiiii.
http://rankofics.99k.org/host/Ranko/monkey-head-butting.txt
So yeah, woke up on the roof of a Tijuana whorehouse again. Who needs kidneys? Anyway, that fic there isn't bad. It's a fun premise that has Ranma and Kasumi switch bodies. Naturally hijinks ensue and people try to adapt and fix the transference.
The fic wasn't bad at first. The first three or four parts were focused on Ranma and Kasumi, which lead to some good character work and scenes. It was fun seeing Kasumi deal with Ranma's life and all the shenanigans it brings. Ranma was a contrast, as he was miserable to the core. Frankly, that fic made me want to throw Genma and Soun into a bonfire, let alone Nabiki. Despite that it worked well for what it was.
It was around the fight with Mousse that things got out of hand. Bodyswapping started happening, the story got a dose of Ranma/Akane that wasn't there before and things generally strayed from what made the fic interesting in the first place. Fair disclaimer: I can't stand Ranma/Akane so I'm not unbiased here. That said, I felt those choices really sabotaged what made me read it in the first place. Ranma and Kasumi switching bodies? This is interesting and the contrast of their situations makes for a good read. The fic turning into a body swap royale and with different characters in the focus? That was far less entertaining. It's more or less authentic to the manga, which is a compliment and a curse at once. Yeah, I can see this story playing out just about the way it did if Takahashi wrote it...except that at first, the author had something interesting going on. He tossed it away, more is the pity.
I'd give it a 5/10? Interesting start, weak middle and finish.
I was going to post a link to some horrible classic Ranma fanfic.
And then I realized Dune had already read them all.
...dangit.
I'm just that danged lucky.
http://rankofics.99k.org/host/Girly/Cursed.htm
Short fic, playing with a simple and rather chilling concept. The execution is stark and to the point, managing some horror at the encroaching changes. I think it could've stood to be longer and drawn things out, but eh. It's hard to write that sort of story and do it well. As a one shot it works well enough.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 15, 2011, 05:23:02 PM
http://rankofics.99k.org/host/Ranko/monkey-head-butting.txt
So yeah, woke up on the roof of a Tijuana whorehouse again. Who needs kidneys? Anyway, that fic there isn't bad. It's a fun premise that has Ranma and Kasumi switch bodies. Naturally hijinks ensue and people try to adapt and fix the transference.
That was by Miko, right? I remember that fic from when it was posted to the FFML, back in the day.
Decided not to follow it, mainly because the bits of "Well, now that you're Kasumi, you need to act like Kasumi" seemed to be a outgrowth of "Ranma, you're stuck as a girl, so it would be complete good for your sanity to take on all traditional female roles, despite the fact that you aren't one and weren't for most of your life". I'd gotten sick of those fics at that point.
That said, that's a personal gripe. If you enjoy that sort of fic, then maybe this one will work for you.
Hell is a Martial Artist updated. It's....something.
I moved the spoiler-filled Hell is a Martial Artist discussion, by Jason's request (he gave me a shiny new contract, too~!).
It's now here:
http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,101842.new.html#new
Early spoilers are tagged! Later ones ... probably will not be.
Edit: Nevermind, dead post.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6880685/1/Well_in_Hand Read some of this. In a way, it's a weaker try at what time braid did. Sakura gets kidnapped by kyubei and sent back in time with him. Their goal? Well, Konoha is flourishing, things are going awesome, sure.
But Naruto didn't make it and that isn't right. He shouldn't have died an unknown martyr. Sakura's husband (the hokage) cheats on her constantly. They're going to set things right.
The idea is kind of interesting, but it seems to be dodging in a sense the things that would make it more interesting. hum, actually to put it in a word, it's trust. The Sakura in this doesn't actually trust anyone. Oh, sure she thinks certain people are great and understands Naruto more, but she still hasn't told a single person the truth. There's no Hinata here who knows what's going on too.
Hinata meanwhile is training herself into the ground to beat Sakura's ass. Why? I don't know, or rather, it's missing the scene that explains it. It's just sort of happening. Clearly one can read between the lines, stalker Hinata realized that hyper-active Sakura is spending lots of time with Naruto, but the whole scene with the realization is skipped.
Anyhow, neat in a way, but not quite as neat as certain other fics. Still worth sharing.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/250468.html
DK:A updated again. Fun update, even if the plot is still slow moving. Seeing Ami's mom go into the occult got more than a few chuckles.
Shadow Crystal Mage. So, so bad. Why do people recommend this?
...I am now going to reverse stance and thank you for not providing a link.
And yet, you went looking anyway?
Quote from: thepanda on September 20, 2011, 11:33:50 PM
And yet, you went looking anyway?
I did. I just glanced but besides the oddities of a few of the crossovers, I didn't see anything awry. Why is the author so bad?
Quote from: thepanda on September 20, 2011, 11:33:50 PM
And yet, you went looking anyway?
Nope. Today's Magic Hate Ball: "Don't push your luck."
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7395979/1/Whatever_Happened_to_the_Likely_Lad
This one hits me in all the right places.
Quote from: thepanda on September 23, 2011, 09:38:39 PMhttp://www.fanfiction.net/s/7395979/1/Whatever_Happened_to_the_Likely_Lad
This one hits me in all the right places.
Okay.
This may be the rum talking. But you know what?
"Space pirate first mate Dobby."
...I actually enjoyed a Pottertfic.
I think you'd like others of nonjon's work.
I am in such a state that I will request a link.
Google nonjon, see ff.net
I remember liking A Black Comedy. Didn't much care for this one, though. Spent a while setting up Harry as being grim and aloof and dickish, then when he reappeared 'all bubbly' and Ginny called him on it, his response there told me I wouldn't care to read any more about him.
Yeah, his newest one starts off a bit...weird.
Which is a shame, because his other fics are all consistant in their character structure. His newest fic is like Potter took a serious blow to the head at some point.
Yeah, A Black Comedy is good. His Firefly crossover is good as well. The other stuff he has is more humor, less coherence, but still good enough to read for the lolz.
*glances up* guys, did two of you really just post the 'go use google' card? Seriously? Link what you're talking about when you're talking about it in the thread. It costs way more time for 5-6 people to go google an author than it does for you to put in a link. Don't do that here, this isn't SA and if we acted that way regularly this would be a very dead thread that nobody bothered to read. And yes I know brian could've clicked the last fic and gone to the other, but he clearly didn't recognize that the guy was the author of the last fic linked.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/649528/nonjon
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2518671/1/Queen_Rat
This is like watching Burn Notice with Ranma characters but it often turns into a cheap porno. Also everyone is gay and/or doing porn or stripping/hooking as well as taking over the Yakuza.
:psyduck:
>_>; sounds not worth reading.
Quote from: Dracos on September 25, 2011, 01:10:20 PM
>_>; sounds not worth reading.
It's worth reading purely to see how insane things get.
The author has a thing for threesomes. Ranma/Akane/Ukyou and Nabiki/Original Character/Kuno both come to mind. Also Ranma really likes being the girl and being a stripper/gay.
Seeing Akane high on nose candy was kind of worth it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3646825/1/Finding_Home
One of Gabriel Blessing's early works, and still a hell of a lot better than most fics out there. While this is a Ranma/Sailor moon cross, it is an especially interesting one because it is purely the manga variant of Sailor Moon.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7076922/1/Legend
A Buffy/Star Trek fic. These are two fandoms I really don't read, but it holds up surprisingly well.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1570297/Orrunan
Oh, hey, Uprooted finished!
. . .except I forgot where I stopped reading, having lost the link a while ago. Guess I'll start from the beginning.
The horror, amirite? :P
Kinda felt Uprooted wandered off into sillyville by the time it finished. Yes, it was a comedy anyway, but... It lost the grounding.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4347689/1/Crossovers_Can_Drive_You_Crazy : Sesame Street x Hellsing.
Isn't the entire point of Muppets that they can be crossed over with more or less anything? (Case in point: Muppet Treasure Island.)
I wonder, has everyone before me heard of Counts of Blood, or is this going to be genuinely news to someone?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3224332/1/
News to me!
If it weren't for my Buffy aversion, I would totally read that. :p
Read the latest Delanda Est.
Apparently rather than 3-4 years forward, they moved 20. Also, lots of OCs suddenly who are also basically outsmarting the main crew. Leading character is also bed-ridden.
Kind of a sudden 'Burning the Sails' moment.
Well, to be fair, if you go with the ever-popular "Albus Dumbledore: Threat or Menace?" interpretation, it's not hard to run rings around Team Phoenix.
Big Human on Campus appears to have updated. Spoiler: Ranma gets into a fight.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on September 29, 2011, 07:10:35 PMBig Human on Campus appears to have updated. Spoiler: Ranma gets into a fight.
I never would have seen that coming!
Quote from: Jon on September 29, 2011, 01:52:34 AM
Well, to be fair, if you go with the ever-popular "Albus Dumbledore: Threat or Menace?" interpretation, it's not hard to run rings around Team Phoenix.
I suppose. But after most characters being resoundingly competent in the past, it's kind of a throwback to put "And now the incompetent gang takes the stage".
I mean, sure, they lost. But at least they were doing a believable cloak and daggers war leading up to it. Now it's OC gang leading the charge which...is less endearing.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1418168/1/Vespis_Irae
A short Batman and Spectre fic, interesting idea and the execution's solid.
It beats Grant Morrison's Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader for Batman dying/afterlife commentaries. This is an incredibly low bar to get over, but Bruce Wayne as the Spectre is a really neat concept.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5840834/1/A_Gotham_Christmas_Carol
Batman meets A Christmas Carol. A reasonably short and solid read, even if it feels a little bit dated.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4412960/1/Eureka
Posted here before, but I just finished reading it. It was fairly amusing!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/4/Haigeki
Haigeki updated.
I hated mysterious manipulative Pluto from the instant that scene started. I'm beyond sick and tired of that overhashed stereotype and could live with never seeing it again. I'm so wretchedly over it that I nearly closed the tab then and there. Once I got over my urge to heave, the rest of the chapter was solid. I find the author's Ranma and writing style grow on me more each chapter. The magic and reasoning behind how the fic works is really good, too. Ranma studying how a magical girl's magic works and duplicating is cool and it doesn't come off as being stupid or god mode Ranma in the fic.
^
Is that link supposed to link to the Haigeki update? It links to the 'post reply' page.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/4/Haigeki is the update FWIW
Quote from: tilkau on October 06, 2011, 11:04:10 PM
^
Is that link supposed to link to the Haigeki update? It links to the 'post reply' page.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/4/Haigeki is the update FWIW
Well shit, I'm an idiot. Thanks!
I must've been braindead when I made that post.
Happens. No good finds lately, so been rereading In Flight and Team 8 (linked earlier in the thread).
Also a bit of Eureka, but it seems pretty far wacky.
The premise of Eureka (fic) is that that ... the setting of Eureka (TV show) takes place with anime characters in Japan.
If you're not familiar with Eureka, it's pretty crazily wacky. If you are, it's ... well ... Eureka. With anime characters. In Japan.
I had no idea what Eureka was. =)
Oh hey, new poster.
Also, found this when randomly clicking around: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3941028/1/Genmafication_A_Fic_of_Battered_Cliches
That is...something. Yes, it's something. Something...ah...
I'm just not sure what exactly it is.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 07, 2011, 05:20:51 PM
That is...something. Yes, it's something. Something...ah...
I'm just not sure what exactly it is.
It's just your bog standard scene and character developments for Ranma/Sailor Moon crossovers. Nothing particularly different, plotwise.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6615342/22/Breath_Of_Fire_II_War_Of_The_Demons
New chapter. Still a fun narration.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7419215/1/ZELRETCH_HERO_PROJECT
I... what?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4622086/1/Ranmas_Eternal_Night
Ranma/Hellsing crossover. It's not bad. I wouldn't call it great, but I've had fun reading it. The writing is good and the story does a superb job of showing Ranma's descent into vampirism. More in the spoiler box.
[spoiler]
The good:
Ranma's gradual loss of humanity. Unlike Seras, he embraces his nature almost immediately and changes in time to it. It's not sudden and it is well built up over the course of the story. Despite all of Ranma's will, he can't really resist what he is now.
Ryouga's death. It was a complete bitch-kill, but you know what? It was done just right and really slammed home hard. The story set it up so that you'd think he'd be able to compete with Ranma again, but BLAM! That one got my attention but good. Lots of credit to the author for pulling that off.
The general darkening of the story to match Ranma's descent is outstanding.
The bad:
I'm not really fond of how he portrays Alucard. I'm not a Hellsing nut so maybe I'm wrong, but his entire voice for Alucard's internal monologues feels wrong.
Panda's link:
Also a 'What'. A weird what. I don't know one of the series its crossing with, but it sort of ends chapter 1 before really grasping it. Probably best to read by chap 3.
Dune's:
I remember glancing over that, but the writing really just didn't quite do anything for me. Maybe I'll check it out again.
I've generally found a lack of good Hellsing (or hellsing crosses) that are recognizable or go anywhere. Sure, shorts finish, but few sort of manage to play with the scenario.
QuoteI've generally found a lack of good Hellsing (or hellsing crosses) that are recognizable or go anywhere. Sure, shorts finish, but few sort of manage to play with the scenario.
It isn't quite as bad as, say, Last Exile or Mai-hime, but Hellsing is another one of those series where replacing a character or shoehorning a crossover is kind of hard unless you plan on completely derailing canon.
New chapter of 'A Hero' out, continuing to nail the Doctor Who penchant for entertainment via one-liners and one-upmanship:
http://forums.spacebattles.com/showpost.php?p=6710243&postcount=329
EDIT: the beginning - http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=202167
Ehem, I guess it's getting to be a bit too meme-y and (considering the glacial update schedule) wandering off track. Dalek Sec trying its plunger out on Dwarf Fortress was fun but ultimately pointless.
The author stated they want this to be more Madoka-flavored and less Doctor Who-ish. Right now it has almost exactly nothing to do with Madoka, thematically speaking. (The whole "why does Sec fail to approve of the Incubator's strategy, again?" bit of reasoning still confuses me; then again, so does postmodern philosophy and that doesn't stop supposedly intelligent beings from making more of it.) It's more like "what if Madoka was a Doctor-lite episode of Doctor Who starring a Dalek?"
In short it's a huge tease for what the author might have written had they more time on their hands.
Quote from: thepanda on October 12, 2011, 04:31:15 PM
QuoteI've generally found a lack of good Hellsing (or hellsing crosses) that are recognizable or go anywhere. Sure, shorts finish, but few sort of manage to play with the scenario.
It isn't quite as bad as, say, Last Exile or Mai-hime, but Hellsing is another one of those series where replacing a character or shoehorning a crossover is kind of hard unless you plan on completely derailing canon.
Agreed. I'd argue the optimal places for a hellsing cross is:
1)Post series.
2)During/Post prequel series.
I'd think this wouldn't be too much of an issue as really the series removes its super-character on conclusion and generally leaves the world in a pretty chaotic state which a lot could play off of.
Fair Brian anti-angst warning: You may not want to read this one unless you wanna see murderess Ukyo.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7164795/1/Revenge
I'm gonna be honest, I don't like this fic. The premise is that in a fiancee tussle Ranma is killed by a random fluke. Dark as hell but maybe it can be salvaged, right? Nope! The entire thing turns into Akane declaring revenge and going on to kill the other fiancees. This annoys me. As dark as the premise is, it could be an interesting exploration of human grief and how people deal with a tragedy. Instead Akane just kills everyone and gets away with it. Ho-hum. It's nothing but a garish revenge fantasy where Akane is the wronged maiden and the other evil fiancees need to burn in hell.
I find it ironic since the author's note for the last chapter says that he wants more versatility with a variety of characters. Sure, they make great murder fodder and paper-thin villains!
Wow, that was not what I thought at all. I thought it was some old horrible fanfic, not a new horrible fanfic from what you were saying on IRC. I may disagree with you insofar as the writing is so bad it actually ended up amusing me kind of ... in a horrible way. That may be the vodka, though.
Anyway.
You thought it was this fic (http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/fanfic/ranma/gardens.txt), huh?
They can't all be Stars Against the Sun (http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/fanfic/ranma/starssun.txt).
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5308231/21/Tabula_Rasa
New chapter of Tabula Rasa. More after I read it.
Romance tag, features Ranma & Ryoga. Closed window.
Was I right to be terrified?
Quote from: Yuthirin on October 19, 2011, 12:22:48 AM
Romance tag, features Ranma & Ryoga. Closed window.
Was I right to be terrified?
Eh.
I think it's one of the better takes on Ranma being locked as a girl. It tries to deal with the subject matter reasonably well, albeit in an angst-bomb way. A possible Ranma/Ryouga matchup is slow building and examined fairly well. It's worth a read to see if it's up your alley. It's not a great fic, but it's a good one with a few flaws.
http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-24897/smolder+Good+Company.htm
Short little fic, a Batman/Angel crossover. It's amusing for what it is.
www.fanfiction.net/s/2449022/1/Millennium Read this yesterday. The formatting for like the first seven chapters is a mess that makes it a bit of a pain to read. Victim of fanfiction.net 'help' in that regard certainly. It's got occassional neat stuff but frankly, Big Human on Campus (same author) is simply better and both his Ranma and Senshi come across as only really the shapes in Millenium, as fun as CyberMoon ends up being.
Quote from: Dracos on October 19, 2011, 02:52:05 PM
...and both his Ranma and Senshi come across as only really the shapes in Millenium, as fun as CyberMoon ends up being.
You did read Guardian first, right? Because Millenium is supposed to be a sidestory to Guardian, and my understanding is that he's supposed to be firmly embedded in the DAPC Culture at the start of Millenium, so really shouldn't be acting like Ranma straight from Nerima.
I know, I've read them. I hold it's the same in Guardian too.
Both stories share a lot of the same flaws. Fun and set in a clearly anime world (for better or worse), but heavily mangled/compacted formatting.
Quote from: Dracos on October 19, 2011, 10:09:12 PM
Fun and set in a clearly anime world (for better or worse), but heavily mangled/compacted formatting.
Well, at least regarding the formatting, you could go to his webpage (http://www.angelfire.com/anime5/fanficlair/index3.html). If you don't like it there either, at least you know that fanfic.net had nothing to do with it.
His later chapters look ok on the site but the early ones are a mess.
Gabriel Blessing has posted a new story. A Medaka Box/Bakemonogatari cross titled Those Who Love Monsters.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478991/1/
Myoushuu no Fuuin (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6694302/1/Naruto_Myoushuu_no_Fuuin)
I don't even know where to start with this one. It starts out as a 'what if Naruto had become a seal specialist?' story, and as such the first three chapters are actually pretty entertaining.
But then comes that forth chapter. Felt like walking straight into a wall. I don't know what's worse; the sudden darkening of the story's background, teh angst, or that everyone who isn't in team 7 becomes a complete moron and/or asshole. Chapter 5 only makes it worse.
Chapter 5 is Wave country. I know, I know. Overused forum jokes aside, though, they actually managed to finish it in one chapter, had Zabuza and Haku run off after the first fight, and yet somehow still made it feel more tedious than canon.
After chapter 5 the fic sort of stumbles along. The good parts are pretty good, but likewise the bad parts are pretty annoying.
I'd tentatively recommend it as it still has my attention, but skip it if it doesn't sound like your cuppa.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 12, 2011, 03:39:44 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4622086/1/Ranmas_Eternal_Night
Ranma/Hellsing crossover. It's not bad. I wouldn't call it great, but I've had fun reading it. The writing is good and the story does a superb job of showing Ranma's descent into vampirism. More in the spoiler box.
The good:
Ranma's gradual loss of humanity. Unlike Seras, he embraces his nature almost immediately and changes in time to it. It's not sudden and it is well built up over the course of the story. Despite all of Ranma's will, he can't really resist what he is now.
Ryouga's death. It was a complete bitch-kill, but you know what? It was done just right and really slammed home hard. The story set it up so that you'd think he'd be able to compete with Ranma again, but BLAM! That one got my attention but good. Lots of credit to the author for pulling that off.
The general darkening of the story to match Ranma's descent is outstanding.
The bad:
I'm not really fond of how he portrays Alucard. I'm not a Hellsing nut so maybe I'm wrong, but his entire voice for Alucard's internal monologues feels wrong.
[/quote]
hmm... just went ahead and finished reading this. Reminded what rubbed me wrong on it.
[spoiler]
Pretty much it involves Ranma consuming all of Ceres' character growth scenes. Anything that involves a challenge to her humanity is instead met by Ranma.
Integral is really off tone, which throws a lot of it into weird space. Even though young, in both canons she's been having to be lady of steel from the time she was like fourteen. She's got decades of experience and a masculine swagger by the time Ceres shows up in canon. Alucard is slightly off tone in a lot of strange ways. Ceres meanwhile is on tone, with the exception that basically the Tiger part of her Timid Tiger character never gets a chance to come out and she gets aggressively ignored by virtually everyone anytime she isn't on camera. With a strong character like Ranma around, she's pretty much run into the dirt.
Truthfully, I read Hellsing because I want to see Integral, Ceres, or Alucard interact with the world in interesting ways. Alucard has in this (hey here's Ranma). There's a rabid take on Integral here. Ceres meanwhile is being bludgeoned into the ground. She's completely stripped of all but the most superficial moments to deal with vampirism or the world around her.
I really think that the descent could've been more interesting with Ceres taking part. It also could be a fun romance thing, but it's a bit weird with pip also around.
Basically events going on as 'is' in spite of having a considerable additional force is strange. with three vamps, it should've been almost a wipe when the valentine brothers showed up. Instead Ceres ...and Alucard both were basically written out of the scene?
Quote from: DY on October 20, 2011, 09:08:10 AM
Gabriel Blessing has posted a new story. A Medaka Box/Bakemonogatari cross titled Those Who Love Monsters.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478991/1/
Huh and I was just going on about how unsatisifying scenes breed fanfiction. That's a pretty solid take of it.
Didn't see this on here, so I figured I'd add it. It's an HP/Dresden Files crossover that I find myself really enjoying.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4183715/1/Awaken_Sleeper
Quote from: thepanda on October 20, 2011, 02:05:12 PM
Myoushuu no Fuuin (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6694302/1/Naruto_Myoushuu_no_Fuuin)
I don't even know where to start with this one. It starts out as a 'what if Naruto had become a seal specialist?' story, and as such the first three chapters are actually pretty entertaining.
But then comes that forth chapter. Felt like walking straight into a wall. I don't know what's worse; the sudden darkening of the story's background, teh angst, or that everyone who isn't in team 7 becomes a complete moron and/or asshole. Chapter 5 only makes it worse.
Chapter 5 is Wave country. I know, I know. Overused forum jokes aside, though, they actually managed to finish it in one chapter, had Zabuza and Haku run off after the first fight, and yet somehow still made it feel more tedious than canon.
After chapter 5 the fic sort of stumbles along. The good parts are pretty good, but likewise the bad parts are pretty annoying.
I'd tentatively recommend it as it still has my attention, but skip it if it doesn't sound like your cuppa.
Adults are Incompetent seems to be kinda the name of the game. Also Cheat Knowledge ("Oh, here's your weaknesses, person I've never met. And could you train my friend?")
Quote from: Yuthirin on October 20, 2011, 05:20:17 PM
Didn't see this on here, so I figured I'd add it. It's an HP/Dresden Files crossover that I find myself really enjoying.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4183715/1/Awaken_Sleeper
I've read that one, it's pretty good. It actually got me into reading The Dresden Files.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4722676/16/Her_War
Her War updated. It's 100% a cleanup chapter, almost as if a connecting chapter between books. I'm just glad to see an update.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/250595.html
Dungeon Keeper Ami updated. It's a complete nothing chapter but the author admitted that. He'd had trouble updating so he just ran with the chapter to get it over with. Hopefully the doldrums will end soon.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478991/2/Those_Who_Love_Monsters
Those Who Love Monsters updated. I'm interested in how this all plays out.
Started reading Process of Elimination again on Brian's site. Still a good read.
Ran out of chapters on his site, so went to Florestica that has the rest. http://florestica.com/brandall/poe for those who somehow are here without having read it. All -1 of you.
Just read He Who Fights Monsters (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6942921/1/He_Who_Fights_Monsters) up to the current chapter. It's a Rosario + Vampire fic where Moka doesn't run into Tsukune on his first day at Youkai Academy. Not forming an instant friendship with a powerful vampire means Tsukune's own his own in dealing with the merciless inhabitants of the school, having to resort to human ingenuity and cunning to survive, but at the cost of his own humanity.
It's not terribly long so far, but I love the concept, and it doesn't pull any punches with just what it costs Tsukune to keep himself safe without the aid of a powerful harem covering his back.
It's interesting. I've been following that fic as well, but the thing that bothers me the most really is that it seems to be pushing Tsukune into a No Win situation. Sure, fight to survive and all that, but until recently there really didn't seem to be much of a chance of victory. It was like each action he took sort of made it more likely that he was just going to be surrounded and torn apart. Even the last one where someone Discovers the Secret who is friendly doesn't really turn into "And you're not Alone".
Mmm. Well, the being alone part is fine, but really even if he was a monster, you'd kind of expect them to gather up a lynch mob for him. He's killed several folks so far visibly and doesn't tend to jive with the society around him at all.
I read that one from time to time, whenever random clicking makes it show up.
My interpretation of it was different; Tsukune wouldn't get lynched, since ruthlessly killing your opposition is what all the "cool monsters" are expected to do.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 26, 2011, 07:41:11 PM
I read that one from time to time, whenever random clicking makes it show up.
My interpretation of it was different; Tsukune wouldn't get lynched, since ruthlessly killing your opposition is what all the "cool monsters" are expected to do.
See, if the social reaction was "Man, Tsukune, you're a badass!" I'd agree. But almost nobody does that. Instead they fear him. They talk about how he's the most brutal in class. The reason seems pretty simple to me: It's socially acceptable to demonstrate dominance by beating someone into the ground...but not by killing them. By killing them, he becomes scary.
Eh. Well, sometimes. I suppose I'd be more okay with it if he did get sort of a frat going "You rock man". Instead he has 3 social relations: His spider girlfriend (Broken now that truth came out, but she's protecting him), The Teacher, and his werewolf running mate.
Don't get me wrong, it's really understandable how he's acting. It's just (save the most recent chapter), seemed like a slow spiral into doom. :(
Quote from: Dracos on October 26, 2011, 07:59:14 PMDon't get me wrong, it's really understandable how he's acting. It's just (save the most recent chapter), seemed like a slow spiral into doom. :(
A Deconstruction Too Far?
Maybe "cool" wasn't the right adjective. Alpha would probably be better. Basically, within groups, people will jockey for position with other around their level, but Tsukune is someone to whom everyone has cautious respect, because he's one of the top monsters.
In chapter 4, after the second kill, who was talking with him? Keito, who is one of the school elite. Ichiro, track club leader. Gin, to recruit him into a club that is under oppression. These are all upperclassmen, but none of these conversations follow the older mentor/younger student mode. Romance, friendly rivalry, and membership/protection - not something people usually seek from social pariahs.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6813979/1/Be_careful_what_you_wish_for
This would probably be an interesting fic. Yuka gets summoned by Louise. Crazy violent woman summon.
If it didn't lift scenes regularly from Hill of Swords.... Yeah, just too many 'I remember reading this scene in another fic.' moments by chapter 5.
Wow, all of these are making the Haruhi/FoZ crossover I started look more reasonable for not using a violence hero.
While I did rather like that one, there was absolutely no reason for the genderswap and it would have been able to define itself better without that aspect.
The setting just doesn't really provide much room for Hero without sufficient badass powers to come in. It transplants them in the original protagonists, but basically does kind of set things up with:
1)There is a horrible war coming and the pieces to start it have almost been finished moving before hero even gets summoned.
2)Main country simply is not strong enough to win the day. Without Epic Hero entry, they fold, all main characters captured/killed (Could be neat...once? But nobody wants the bad guys to win)
Ebiris:
There's sections of it that are original. I think had it not been lifting, I would've thoroughly enjoyed it. I did enjoy the guy's original writing sections in it, but it just made me wince each time I got to a scene and realized "...That's shirou talking now, Yuka wouldn't do that."
Does it break out of the mold later? I got to chap 5 before I just was annoyed at too many scenes pretty much having Yuka act out as Shirou instead of being grinning flower girl of doom.
It's not just Hill of Swords, it's evoking a lot of the same bits hit by the anime. If Yuka had been a girl (and less inclined to obfuscate her powers) we could have had a much more divergent beginning in terms of character relationships, and paved the way for further divergences down the line.
The 'jaded mentor' bits like Shirou in Hill of Swords don't really abate much.
Drac, perception check that. Non-violence!=non-badass.
Quote from: Brian on October 28, 2011, 09:47:35 PM
Drac, perception check that. Non-violence!=non-badass.
Fair, but I mean, the setting requests someone willing to take out an army. It does provide powers to do that with, but just saying that plays to strong hero types willing and able to use violence as a method of conflict resolution.
Quote from: Dracos on October 29, 2011, 07:54:45 PMFair, but I mean, the setting requests someone willing to take out an army. It does provide powers to do that with, but just saying that plays to strong hero types willing and able to use violence as a method of conflict resolution.
While that's valid, I find that since the setting
gives the summoned character power, it's much more interesting to take a character that's a badass morally and responsibility-wise -- someone who would be a martial pacifist, if he had the martial part. The more we discuss this, the more I consider reviving that FoZ/Haruhi crossover-- If only to explore a rational, capable-of-kicking-your-ass, genre-savvy, level-headed (+tsundere-handler, also allowing Louise to have someone who's a foil as a genuine mentor/big-brother character) main character. Also, wasn't really satisfied with where that one left Haruhi herself, so getting her into the FoZ universe and back with Kyon would have been nice--
But I digress.
I mean, I'm not that familiar with Touhou, but I lost interest in chapter one what with the summon saying, "So, yeah, generally light-hearted/silly opening, where some slightly reluctant hero is joined to Louise's cause/contracted? I'm death incarnate, and am going to belittle/degrade everyone onscreen but Louise -- and directly offer to slaughter everyone in the scene except for her while I'm at it."
Felt very :|
In fact, it was very :|. It, among other scenes, comes across as 'I lifted this from Hill of Swords', as I generally follow the interpretation that well... http://hijiribe.donmai.us/post/show/462744/-_-4koma-blue_hair-cirno-closed_eyes-comic-cosplay http://hijiribe.donmai.us/post/show/990002 Yuka is a sociopathic yandere.
She would be fun/different in the setting, mainly on the lacking of real morality. The type of summoned beast that basically just started beating people to death and requires bemusement to keep sated. Summoning Yuka into the world and contracting her should be like summoning a crazed beast that only sometimes thinks you are intelligent enough to talk to.
I won't contest that your Kyon one might be lots of fun, and true the setting provides sufficient power. I'd simply say: It takes a better writer to pull off a diplomatic hero against the ZnT backdrop. =)
Edit:
I want to yammer more. Shirou was interesting because it was someone choosing to be a servant and invokes the requirement that you be a great master. Shinji is interesting in calling someone who doesn't want to live. Maya is interesting because she brings Death as a concept into a world of children with sticks, not just threatening it but killing someone in the opening duel scene ("And their world was forever changed"). Ranma is interesting because he's frankly so much better at providing a whirlwind of romantic comedy as a focus than the main lead that totally changes the flavor. And yes, if Brian goes with his whim and writes Kyon, it will probably be interesting by choosing someone who Resolves Conflict rather than promotes it or uses it.
The interesting angle when folks write an FoZ fic is: We begin the fic with introducing a vastly foreign element into a land on the brink of disaster and place them under an immature little bitch with powers she does not understand and no self-confidence to speak of, how does this change the world?
Yuka should've been interesting in calling something you would never want to be a servant. Someone that would be wholly unsuitable for the kind of control/petty games that make up a good deal of the manga. Having her casually ignore louise to make a garden, or murder guiche when he challenges her, or slaughter the thief. Someone who would give Louise a mental breakdown by training her in torturous and violent methods (and hey, the guy doing that was one of the better scenes). It's something that really should've hopped the rails quickly (In the same way the Maya fic does, but the color Yuka stains things with is that of an immortal beast, not a little girl that is willing to kill). It's someone who really would only play inside the rules because she's lonely or bored. Not because she has to or thinks it is Right.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478991/4/Those_Who_Love_Monsters
Simply put... I think this is an amazing response to the recent chapters of Medaka Box. An absolutely amazing response. It's a good halloween fic regardless, but if you know the background, it really is quite fantastic.
Quote from: DracosRanma is interesting because he's frankly so much better at providing a whirlwind of romantic comedy as a focus than the main lead that totally changes the flavor.
Seriously? Ranma? The oblivious sexless dude who likes a single girl because she has a nice smile and feels nothing for the affections of all the other girls after him?
(http://hijiribe.donmai.us/data/b5e1ee9a62e000cbdba4a8759f6b4856.gif)
I realise it's fun to replace the main character with a different one to take the story in exciting new directions from the get-go, but Saito is good at what he does.
But hey, if we're in 'what would make a good crossover' territory, I always thought Zelgadis would make for an awesome familiar. He's noticably monstrous, so it would do away with the tiresome "Hohoho, only you would summon a human, Louise!" bit that's up there with "I have three daughters, pick the one you like!" in terms of repetition in fanfic beyond reason. He'd have a good reason to stick around with Louise, since the new magic system in ZnT might have the cure he craves - in fact, Louise learns an ultimate dispel pretty early in the show, so he could even get restored to human early in the fic, opening much more possibilities to explore. He has his own unique powerset that would let him solve things in different ways than expected, while still being from a fundamentally comedic setting that meshes well with this one. And while he's not a complete dick, he does have flexible morals and relishes having an evil reputation, so he wouldn't be afraid to step out of line and do things his way.
Someone ought to write this!
Drac's stance is that FoZ's major flaw is that Saito is made of cardboard and has no spine -- and is disallowed character growth. >.>
Edit: To be fair, from what I've read of the manga (and light novel synopsis), there is some epic buttmonkeying going on there. Like, Goku, the Monkey-King epic.
Yup, pretty much. The fact that Saito constantly gets reset on a character growth scale ruins him. Or at least, that was going on up to where I got sick of the anime (A few eps into season 2). Look, we want to play up the S/M games again, "DOG, wear this HITME sign". "Really, you guys have successfully worked together to take out an invading military army and save your queen from assassins. Grow the fuck up and show each other a little respect already."
To Ranma: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/1/Zero_Interface I contest that he is an interesting source of romantic comedy here, mainly because of a combination of playing with his curse and choosing a unique angle for the whole familiar/master link. Much more than Saito was in a lot of ways. Saito could be an interesting character, but isn't really from a romantic comedy angle (as much as women throw themselves at him) anymore than a sort of 'here's busty woman, slapstick beating from louise commencing.' Well, that's not entirely fair, he does get into some funny situations, but they're more funny sexual ones then romantic stuff. It's not like he ever gets dragged on anything resembling a date by any of them.
I have no complaint whatsoever though on Eb's idea. That would be an awesome fic and bring a 'Human that totally escapes the Commoner' garbage change. Louise is also obviously powerful in an undeniable way. A magic casting golem that can fly is easily leagues above other familiars in a very clear fashion right from the get go. Instead of the spring festival being 'yet another failure' first to her eyes, she got something cool. You're absolutely right that there really could be a cure. And after that really, he owes her and stays around. He's used to some epic battles too, but in a very different way as shirou. And he has friends that might try and come to find him.
In a similar theme, Olg's fic has Eddie come out in full demonic god glory, but different then what Zelgadis does, that kind of demonic presence is scary to the teachers. But again, also gives Louise a "I summoned something AWESOME" vibe.
World in torment. Apocalyptic cult. Broken children. Wounded adults. Doomed planet. Desperate scientist. Last hope. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7229678/1/Last_Child_of_Krypton)
Trust me.
Those who love monsters (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478991/5/Those_Who_Love_Monsters) is complete.
Currently four chapters into Cutting Loose. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5661129/4/Cutting_Loose) "What if Naruto befriended Tenten, who then helped him graduate a year earlier?" Nothing special so far, but readable.
Good ending, though 4 was kinda of the better one :)
Still, an excellent enjoyable work.
On Cutting Loose:
I remember this, funny enough you linked to the chapter I stopped reading it on. Namingly in canon, most villages aren't friendly with each other except in the face of overwhelming danger (or to attack). The delivery of 'Hey Naruto is a Jiinchiruku' from an enemy is fine, but the follow up concern as allies/friends made that chapter just feel really weird. It just reflected too much of a general knowledge that never felt evident in canon. Other villages know who the jiinchiraku are well enough to recognize them by name, but it's not general knowledge for the ninjas of the village themselves? Just felt weird.
www.fanfiction.net/s/6441645/1/Patriots_Dawn
Read some of this today. It started out with a pretty neat concept: Uchiha Itachi, playing up his role as dark hero type, decides to give Naruto a message: There are horrible people out to kill him and the sandaime's protection won't be enough. Work hard, Survive.
It's a nice thought, giving Naruto a more clear/dangerous objective to drive his early years progress. There's no time for pranking when there's truly dangerous men planning your death and all.
Some things past that seem just done to stand out. Asuma being the team lead. Iruka just not connecting with the new Naruto, despite him working really hard. Naruto getting good at ninjutsu early. Some weirdness in not really getting what makes or doesn't make an elemental jutsu (Doton jutsu definitely count).
Interesting/unique, Interesting/unique,...WHAM, WAVE COUNTRY. Sigh.
Overall, the writing is pretty good, but I'm left sort of...not wanting to cheer for Naruto in it. He's self-centered and self-absorbed. Even when he is given personal attention and support by both Might Gai and Sarutobi Asumi, he doesn't really go much beyond thinking it's awesome to have support. It doesn't form links to the leaf village. Neither does the Sandaime's trust in him. The team also doesn't feel like a team. It's almost kind of informed how it goes together. They never knit with trust. I've only really read 6ish chapters of it, but I just don't feel it's shooting for a winning trajectory.
Needs to be more Motivation-like :3.
Quote from: Dracos on November 02, 2011, 03:01:58 AM
Needs to be more Motivation-like :3.
The more you mention it, the less chance we'll see a new chapter soon. Don't irritate the Brian. Even if the fic is awesomeness.
You know what's not awesomeness? This fic. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4477597/2/Reflections_of_Demons) Naruto had it tough. I get that. But this pure-purity-pureness bullshit has got to stop. The setup is interesting, but the writing. . . my god.
I'm also taking another stab at Team 8. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/1/Team_8) This will be my third attempt at this fic. I made it to chapter 6 the first time, four the second, and I'm stalling out halfway through three this time. I don't know why I have such a hard time with this fic. The writing isn't bad, the plot is interesting, and it does seem to have something to say about the characters. I just can't seem to get into it. At all.
Can anyone recommend a Naruto fic that's nakama-rific without the need to make everything darker and edgier or turn the whole world against the protagonists or any of the other 'I want you to like these characters so I'll hit you over the head with how much better they are than all of creation' tropes people like to use?
And Drac, I've read Motivation. Several times. Suggest something else. -_-;
Motivation is infinitely suggestible.
What have I wrought (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MyGodWhatHaveIDone)?
Quote from: thepanda on November 02, 2011, 07:02:46 AM
Can anyone recommend a Naruto fic that's nakama-rific without the need to make everything darker and edgier or turn the whole world against the protagonists or any of the other 'I want you to like these characters so I'll hit you over the head with how much better they are than all of creation' tropes people like to use?
And Drac, I've read Motivation. Several times. Suggest something else. -_-;
No. Team 8 is kinda close, but it stays focused on that individual team and not the greater set. ShaperV's one is more around harem than nakama.
Very few fics focus on a notion that the ninja team in view is even friendly to itself. Fewer still play with The Will of Fire, that leaf ninja stand beside their own. It's not a surprise, as the core setup doesn't lend itself to that really and also canonically, while it is a story about Friendship and Understanding conquering all (in the end), it is not a story about Nakama. Very much not. Barely ever is it thrown in (2 sections total) that Naruto has allies/friends that will die for him (Chase of Sasuke being one and that's more Sasuke's thing and a brief scene in recent war arc).
So while fics where the team is great/True Friends (team 8, Road Less Traveled, People Lie ), or a character is amazing (Genius of Konoha, Nin Tech, Time Braid), or a character grows (Lavender Beast of Konoha) or is twisted or powerful or devoted (Few Angry Words) or loyal (Will of Fire, Heart of Stone) are common, fics where the village as a whole, or even the main stars hit the kind of 'We're One Piece/Fairy Tail Nakama' is rare. The canon doesn't lend itself to it.
I'm somewhat convinced at this point that I have read through the entire 1 percent of naruto fics that might have good stuff and good writing in it and be long enough to take a while. I suspect the same might go for you at this point.
Quote from: Brian on November 02, 2011, 01:12:49 PM
What have I wrought (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MyGodWhatHaveIDone)?
Fans.
When Motivation gets a TVTropes page....
Related:
Panda, Drac, give this list a shot (and yes, Motivation is there... But it doesn't have a page yet!):
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanficRecs/Naruto
Quote from: Brian on November 02, 2011, 01:12:49 PM
What have I wrought (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MyGodWhatHaveIDone)?
Are you going to replace your avatar with an image of you staring at the sky and shouting "WHY?!"
I dunno if Kakashi would do that.
On the other hand:
(http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/6/68348/1545245-gendo005.jpg)
Dracos! You cannot usurp my position as the no-link master!
Fair nuff.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/238743/Kind_Fearless_Leader Linked.
What, you thought I was going to link a dozen fics in a post? Serious?
There is a And They Will Be Great thing that I don't remember the link to that might qualify as well. I never actually got far into it, but it involved a focus on Sakura/Naruto working together to put their team back together.
I actually started going down that list yesterday. It's what brought Patriot Dawn out. I'll probably keep going, maybe something will be good. I am not tvtropes aware enough to do a page there. :( hmm.
Oh, and obligatory response to "I wish there was a fic that did X."
My writing is atrocious!
So what? Go write anyway.
The writing forum awaits. :3
I read this:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7515482/1/Bizarruhi
I wouldn't even have mentioned it, except for this amusing coincidence as I remarked at about the halfway point:
* Kuyou reads a fic about an AU/reverse Haruhi meeting Kyon. Something about this....
<Kuyou> Okay, replace 'reverse Haruhi' with 'Sasaki', and this kinda works.
...and then I read sarsaparilla's review on it. :p
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6813473/1/One_Small_Kindness
I have a feeling I read part of this before. But it's kept going, finished, and its sequel is being updated regularly.
It is a story of Uchiha Mikoto being a hero and the setup for a Konoha where the Uciha slaughter gets stopped.
Quote from: Brian on November 02, 2011, 11:25:37 PM
* Kuyou reads a fic about an AU/reverse Haruhi meeting Kyon. Something about this....
<Kuyou> Okay, replace 'reverse Haruhi' with 'Sasaki', and this kinda works.
...and then I read sarsaparilla's review on it. :p
I actually got a reply that it was a coincidence, as the author hadn't read any of the later novels. I recommended doing some background research as the angle was kind of obvious, and possibly very relevant to the plot. The fic is technically okay, so if the author is willing to adjust the characterization a bit then it may well be worth reading.
I commented similar to him on the tvtropes thread, before I found out he considers me a rival. >.>
Evidently, his 'overly narrow superlative' pothole was removed by a mod because K:BDH fit the same criteria....
Damn it! I was really enjoying this (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/389478/Marz1) fic. Then I hit the last chapter and saw it hasn't been updated in over a year. ;_;
Which fic? That's the author's site.
The Truth Decays.
I liked it enough to see what else s/he's written. So far Invert has been decent.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6942921/8/He_Who_Fights_Monsters
That...was kinda an epic chapter. Lots of stuff in it I don't like personally, but it's pretty awesomely delivered.
Serious spoilers below for discussing:
Moka tries to ask Tsukune out on a date? Accidents happen and instead vampire Moka is saying how tasty he smells? Panicked vampire versus Tsukune rush and Moka gets murdered?
Worst that can happen is that he'll reject you? Wow, super Bad End for Moka.
He also hooks back up with Keilo. What a stunner chapter. A very standout job at the descent into disaster.
I actually saw the missing hokage challenge today. The actual thing instead of the one liner that many fics reference.
It was epic fanon of badness. it's really something else. Sure, many fic challenges specify a few things, but this is like a 25 long list of 'must do' elements that get more and more out there and specific as it goes. It's practically a fic skeleton rather than a challenge. It'd be like the Choose One scenario including "Must include reapers, also Golden boy flying a ship, and all the fiancees lost in space, and also Tenchi must be emperor of jurai and Ryu must be Jupiter's Senpai, also Mary Sues."
Man, you aren't kidding. Fourteen bullet points plus the original premise. Hm. Looking at the descriptions of his other fics, this is a guy who likes to super powerup the characters he favors?
Edit: Oh! It's Skysaber. Didn't realize he'd changed names. Really, that explains so much.
Of course. I'd been avoiding looking cuz hey, bullying is bad. But haha. It really is a legendarily bad challenge.
Quote from: thepanda on November 08, 2011, 09:02:47 PMEdit: Oh! It's Skysaber. Didn't realize he'd changed names. Really, that explains so much.
And such a humble new nick, too. :)
Then again, after the ranting and plagiarism, he'd rather destroyed his previous nick's credibility.
Still reading and enjoying Dauntless (http://"http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6175861/1/Dauntless"), a Code Geass fanfiction by Allora Gale. Premise is that Lelouch gets recognized by Clovis at the beginning of everything and gets recognized and reinstated as a Prince before the events of Code Geass happen proper. Involves quite a bit of politics, overanalyzation by Lelouch, interesting OCs, and it's still updating.
My only main gripe is how short the chapters are. There's a lot written, it's just spaced a bit short, but not short enough that I absolutely can't stand it. Other than that, I've been very entertained by it and have been waiting warmly for the updates.
My apologies if it's been posted before, been looking through the thread and didn't see it.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/251208.html
Dungeon Keeper Ami update. It's the best chapter in awhile, plus it looks like the author may be getting back to once a week updates. Yay.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6325846/11/Harry_Potter_and_the_Heartlands_of_Time
New chapter for the Heartlands of Time, for those who are following the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3933832/17/Harry_Potter_and_the_Invincible_TechnoMage
This in some ways is a very amusing story. Harry raised in Marvel-verse by Tony Stark.
In other ways it's obnoxious and terrible. Dumbledore is played as classic incompetent manipulator with blinders on. Everyone else villianous besides the main baddies has a change of heart. Voldemort doesn't really get a chance and Harry is sort of a super-being with superallies.
At it's best its playing with someone who has a different school of magic and a scientific bent being brought into the school and not being left entirely to his own devices. A more high tier/less philosophical/cereberal angle than Methods of Rationality. At its worst, its is bashfic.
Still, read it, so I'll link.
Quote from: DY on November 12, 2011, 01:26:22 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6325846/11/Harry_Potter_and_the_Heartlands_of_Time
New chapter for the Heartlands of Time, for those who are following the story.
Never heard of this. See it has a 300k prequel. Can you give a couple line "What's awesome here?"
I haven't really read the Heartlands of Time, but the Wastelands of Time (aforementioned prequel) was awesome. You know how Peggy Sue fics are popular in Harry Potter? Go back to the start with greater knowledge and make things better? Well Harry's been doing that hundreds of times, gaining more and more incredible power and knowledge from ancient sources every time.
Voldemort still kills him horribly every time because he's that much better at this stuff.
There's next to no Hogwarts shenanigans, it's much more adventure/mystery focused over the wider world with Harry, Voldemort, and a set of mysterious new players acting on a tier barely reachable by all but the most aged and powerful wizards in the setting. The fights and action pieces are every bit as awesome as all of this implies.
Quote from: Ebiris on November 12, 2011, 02:13:34 PM
I haven't really read the Heartlands of Time, but the Wastelands of Time (aforementioned prequel) was awesome. You know how Peggy Sue fics are popular in Harry Potter? Go back to the start with greater knowledge and make things better? Well Harry's been doing that hundreds of times, gaining more and more incredible power and knowledge from ancient sources every time.
Voldemort still kills him horribly every time because he's that much better at this stuff.
There's next to no Hogwarts shenanigans, it's much more adventure/mystery focused over the wider world with Harry, Voldemort, and a set of mysterious new players acting on a tier barely reachable by all but the most aged and powerful wizards in the setting. The fights and action pieces are every bit as awesome as all of this implies.
Pretty much that ^^. Definitely a recommended read.
HP&tWoT/HoT is a fun read, but it gets a bit vague at times, I think. I'm not sure how to describe it, maybe that I don't really get a sense of place from Joe's writing. Since almost all of the storyline takes place in new locales, that's a problem.
Huh. Sounds neat. Thanks for the short byline, Ebiris!
Zero Interface (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/12/Zero_Interface) has updated.
Nice derail. Now I'm really looking forward to the next chapter.
Pretty good chapter, though admittingly...
I find the damagableness versus physical capabilities a bit off. I could go for victory that was not largely: "Hah, one hit knockout!" "Hah, your mistake, 1 hit fatality!" "Hah, still alive, one hit fatality! Now gonna lie down and die..." It feels more like guys with guns then martial arts.
It did play a nice off rails bit there, true and a good followup to the 'grab wand, win fight'.
New chapter of http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478793/1/Daybreak_Part_I out. Pretty good one, introducing the starting move of the antagonist of this arc. I forget if I talked about it before, but it is the second part of a pretty good story where Mikoto decides to look after Naruto and averts the fall of the Uchiha.
Not a lot of posting all of a sudden.
Anyhow, read all of Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time (and its follow up).
Incoherent at times, feels at points like it was made up on the spot. Setups go unanswered commonly. Harry practically makes shit up on the spot a lot.
But a good romp none the less.
His recs though in the authors notes are terrible to a last. Every one I've checked has been cruddy fics. But his stuff is worth a read.
Joe also tends towards self-aggrandizement, perhaps more than he deserves, which turns me off a bit.
Quote from: thepanda on November 03, 2011, 06:06:56 PM
The Truth Decays.
I liked it enough to see what else s/he's written. So far Invert has been decent.
Just finished what was written on this. Leaf comes across as just outright stupid/terrible in this, can't say I approve. Everyone pretty much doesn't blink at kidnapping a strange talent and torturing him. Really? Jiriaya and Naruto are practically the only ones who go 'This is wrong'. It plays off the evil untouchable council (Boo) but what makes it a problem is the good guys are pretty much indifferent/accepting of it.
Kinda bleh, for as much as Naruto/FMA seems like an interesting mixture. Both societies have folks making untenable choices that reshape the world around them with mystic power.
In Flight (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/28/In_Flight) has updated and I won't be able to read it until Monday. ;_;
Finished First Try by Lucilie. Not linking. It's long and weirdly, for something that begins by Going off the Rails, has a real problem with managing to go off the rails. It's got an interesting premise. Naruto graduates on his first attempt instead of his third. Because of this, he ends up on a different team, also younger on his early adventures.
There's a bit of mangling to keep him a genin, and but it isn't until he's added to team 7 and probably past wave that it really starts to degrade, getting stuck into different reasons for the same bullshit going on (or stealing from other fics and doing the same thing there). It's a pity. There's a lot that could be interestingly done with an experienced Naruto coming in with the two smart folks, but it just doesn't gel together and there's a lot of bullshit to basically explain: Kakashi never gets to connect with Naruto. No matter how hard he tries.
Read the latest In Flight. Kinda fillerish, but still enjoyable seeing it coming back.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/251295.html
DK:A's weekly update. Beyond that nothing's updated in a few weeks. I'm in one of those ruts where nothing I like is updating at all. Urgh.
*pats* Yeah, Summer updating rush is over. :(
Quote from: Dracos on November 19, 2011, 03:00:43 PM
*pats* Yeah, Summer updating rush is over. :(
Time to re-read old favorites.
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2010/9/2/1657904/football-season-is-over-football
It's a post from a football blog, but it's exceedingly well written.
Since we're Motivation-themed, I've been reading a glut of Naruto fics over the past two weeks for the hell of it (still haven't read the actual manga, though).
Of those, two were notable enough to be remembered:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2422718/1/Fox_Identity
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6694302/1/Naruto_Myoushuu_no_Fuuin
Neither are finished, and the writer of the first doesn't seem to have done anything since 2009.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7189809/1/The_Dark_Lords_Strike_Back
Claymade updated. I'm not into the fic at all, merely skimming the chapters at this point. I hate when an awesome fic goes in a direction you can't stand.
Yeah, but we both knew it might go that way from the end of DLoN. Thanks for warning me away from the sequel.
Points of Familiarity (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6038980/6/Points_of_Familiarity) crashes and burns. -_-
Quote from: Brian on November 24, 2011, 07:42:19 PM
Yeah, but we both knew it might go that way from the end of DLoN. Thanks for warning me away from the sequel.
Yeah, I was expecting it too. Doesn't mean it isn't a big ol' bummer.
I know what you mean. Right up there with 'Brilliant; hasn't been updated in five years' as far as really hammering home the missed opportunity....
Quote from: thepanda on November 24, 2011, 08:29:47 PM
Points of Familiarity (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6038980/6/Points_of_Familiarity) crashes and burns. -_-
That's some pretty devoted trolling.
Huh... I was rereading it since it updated.
I guess I should've checked the new chapter and made sure it was a chapter instead of Trollmess.
I was just about burnt out on Naruto fics, and then I read this. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2524313/1/Single_Ninja_on_the_Town) A fun bit of fluff that is actually complete. Definitely a palate cleanser.
Quote from: thepanda on November 25, 2011, 06:50:58 PM
I was just about burnt out on Naruto fics, and then I read this. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2524313/1/Single_Ninja_on_the_Town) A fun bit of fluff that is actually complete. Definitely a palate cleanser.
Nice find. I'm enjoying it quite a bit myself. Definitely a refreshing change of pace.
A Haruhi fic I had been keeping an eye on, LiftToDrag Ratio, was just updated after a long wait (no linky, it's trivial to find it on FFN). I had thought that the story was moderately promising, basically a crack fic done right (odd premise, serious story) ... and then came this latest chapter, where Haruhi first forces Kyon into breaking the masquerade, and after the fact uses her newly gained control of powers to casually and dismissively override Kyon's will and put him into sleep so that she doesn't have to talk with him about it (because she got antsy). Aaaand this was supposed to be a romantic fic. >_<
But seriously? I thought that wanton use of mind control was the sole prerogative of complete monsters.
I'm sorry for venting my feelings here but I hope that this short rant will be enough to permanently bury the squick. The good thing is that the entire story so far is so short that there wasn't any serious investment in reading it.
I felt that story was actually headed downhill with the chapter before this, though will echo your sentiment, generally. That last chapter was not well handled. I suspected it was heading into 'author didn't plan this out in advance' territory earlier -- that last chapter just seemed to confirm it for me. :\
Admittedly, I also felt characterization was a little off on almost all fronts, too. Still, always irksome to see an entertaining, if not brilliant, story slide into madness like that.
Agreed with the above about Lift to Drag ration, though I'm inclined to give it one more chapter. Haruhi just found out she might have god-like powers and panics a bit. That doesn't make her a monster, it makes her a human being who made a mistake.
I'm not optimistic about the fic, but we shall see.
Quote from: thepanda on November 25, 2011, 06:50:58 PM
I was just about burnt out on Naruto fics, and then I read this. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2524313/1/Single_Ninja_on_the_Town) A fun bit of fluff that is actually complete. Definitely a palate cleanser.
Pleasant enough fic, if kinda a lame-win in the end.
Quote from: Dracos on November 27, 2011, 04:37:21 PM
Pleasant enough fic, if kinda a lame-win in the end.
How else could it have ended it? A harem-fic would be a viable alternate ending, but that kills the established tension so would just lead to an unforgettable story. An ending where "everything goes back to normal...but the protagonist is just a little bit better off" seems like a reasonable way to end a story, especially a light story like this one.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on November 27, 2011, 05:52:42 PM
Quote from: Dracos on November 27, 2011, 04:37:21 PM
Pleasant enough fic, if kinda a lame-win in the end.
How else could it have ended it? A harem-fic would be a viable alternate ending, but that kills the established tension so would just lead to an unforgettable story. An ending where "everything goes back to normal...but the protagonist is just a little bit better off" seems like a reasonable way to end a story, especially a light story like this one.
I would've totally taken a mass date chaos scene or a fight over naruto scene. Sure, it could've ended the same. Or could've spun off into little narratives on how it might go down each of their victory paths or it could've ended in harem. Whatever, the actual final scene wasn't what made it a lame-win, it was the final chapter leadup.
The thing that made it lame is that at least half the girls knew there were other people going after Naruto, who they were, and as well were under the decision that 'hey, I've got to get him first'.
This does not blend naturally into the 'he's been an unthinking playboy and now everyone turns on him, this event passes by and now things are slightly better'.
Some of the last chapter, he can't even vaguely be blamed for. He stood Temari up for a date at an unspecified restaurant at an unspecified time? What is he, a mind reader?
The setup for a ranma style 'everyone and their cousin is chasing the playboy protagonist to punish him physically for his playboy ways' was a left field event to the way it was built up. Too many of the girls knew at least a solid picture of what was going on. They needed to be more ignorant of each other's attempts for it to work. That every single guy took the 'We'll beat on Naruto' approach instead of the 'We'll up the stakes by supporting our friend!' approach was lazy and easy.
Daybreak part 1 had a decent chapter. Initial villians are deduced and their feint recognized. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478793/1/Daybreak_Part_I
Wanderer updated, but it's only semi-coherent. The author clearly struggled with the fight setup he had at the end of last chapter.
QuoteWanderer updated, but it's only semi-coherent.
So par the course since the Team Rocket promotion exam?
Pretty much. Sputter/random.
I can't recall many (any?) dimension hopping stories that actually work out alright at all. It's generally just too much of a separation of setting from character. Without a foundation of "Character has binding to world" or "cast has binding to character" it's really a bunch of irrelevant events.
I guess maybe Stargate? I never watched it though.
Stargate is planet hopping, not dimension hopping. Dimension hopping is just an expansion on the ancient Wagon Train concept (considering that Star Trek was originally pitched as 'Wagon Train: To the STARS!'). Admittedly, with AUs, you also have the potential to have character interactions where one character has considerably more experience than their counterpart, which should add an interesting element; it depends, I suppose, on if the goal is 'let's visit strange new dimensions!' or 'Man, that wish %$*@ed me up. Now there's zentradi beach volleyball and Tesla Batteries!'. Er, nevermind that last one. I meant: 'Well, this is familiar, but different. Now what?'
...yeah. I think the closest thing I can think of is ... that CLAMP story -- Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles?
QuoteWithout a foundation of "Character has binding to world" or "cast has binding to character" it's really a bunch of irrelevant events.
True, unless those events are meant to highlight something about the displaced character or the worlds they visit. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronical was decent (up to the point I quit reading, anyway). Then again, I guess the cast does begin binding together so this probably falls under that second foundation.
As for Wanderer, well, it feels so much like a trollfic that I had to give it up after the interrogation/ torture scene. Honestly, it reminded me of a certain Magic Knight Rayearth fic from way back in the day where Cephiro was invaded by natzi.
*Goes searching. . .
Ah, yes, A Duet of Pigtails. -_-
Quote from: thepanda on November 28, 2011, 06:18:27 PMAh, yes, A Duet of Pigtails. -_-
You know, I never got to that point? I saw Shampoo vilified (totally), to make Ranma emotionally vulnerable and remove Akane from the picture (and leave Ranma single), and then I saw Umi get the same treatment to make Hikaru emotionally vulnerable and remove whatshisface from the picture (and leave Hikaru single), and thought:
"Man. This is painfully bad, watching the author(s?) butcher everything/one to get to their intended matchup. Since it's abandoned anyway, I'll just stop here."
Naturally, milage varies, and all that.
QuoteYou know, I never got to that point?
Lucky you. Brain bleach cannot get that out of my head. -_-
Between Duet and a certain Sailor Moon torture fic (I read the MST3K of it from one of my favorite MSTers and still wanted to vomit) I firmly believe that bad fics stay with you far longer than good ones. -_-
Human nature is to remember negative things over positive one.
Remember those 'A's you got in grade school? Or the time the teacher praised you especially for doing a good job?
Yeah, okay, now-- what about the time you spilled your milk in the cafeteria, or you got called into a parent-teacher-conference because you were late to class one time too many?
Quote from: Brian on November 28, 2011, 06:16:36 PM
Stargate is planet hopping, not dimension hopping. Dimension hopping is just an expansion on the ancient Wagon Train concept (considering that Star Trek was originally pitched as 'Wagon Train: To the STARS!'). Admittedly, with AUs, you also have the potential to have character interactions where one character has considerably more experience than their counterpart, which should add an interesting element; it depends, I suppose, on if the goal is 'let's visit strange new dimensions!' or 'Man, that wish %$*@ed me up. Now there's zentradi beach volleyball and Tesla Batteries!'. Er, nevermind that last one. I meant: 'Well, this is familiar, but different. Now what?'
...yeah. I think the closest thing I can think of is ... that CLAMP story -- Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles?
Heh, never read TSC. Leapers? Oh, Sliders kinda sorta? Never watched far of it, being a TV show.
AUs are different, as it's instead about ripping away everything a character holds true with a taste of the familiar. Dimension hopping isn't actually the same as Wagon Train. In Wagon Trains, the cast brings their center with them. Take Star Trek, the core crew and the ship are there in every adventure. The social center of 'these are who the cast cares about' and their goals retain meaning (whether it is Travel to the Old West or Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before). Also, they tend to have intrinsic in them that problems they cause Can follow them.
Single person dimension hop fics don't really qualify as nobody besides that one guy is doing the hops and if they aren't going back? Well, what does it matter? Problems rarely are meaningfully able to follow (A lot of struggling often goes here), but are instead usually created out of whole cloth for the character (Wanderer is an example: Problem fitting in, Spirit torn asunder, Natives react hostile). Like in Wanderer, there's the Rival character that bothered to get created: Well, she can't D-hop. How is she ever able to be a rival again? Instead, she's a perpetual unresolved plot thread.
Mmm, man I haven't heard of Duet of Pigtails in ages. I remember liking it back in the day, and ended up hanging out with Rob following it, but lost touch with him sometime during grad school. Looks like his comic book company is still hanging around and got something out this year. Ah, time passin' and all that, good on 'em actually getting something out.
You know, I was totally fixating on the 'Planet of Hats' style adventures I would have expected that D-hopping would engender? I can see how I missed the mark on this one. >.>
Sliders is a good call; that fits pretty well. What I was going for with AU was 'D-hopping into an AU, with the canon characters (or at least some of them). IIRC, Sliders started out as 'D-hopping for the lulz', and then quickly became, 'and now we are STUCK on this grand adventure D:'. After a season or three, they introduced D-hopping alien invaders; this may speak to shifting content/genre to try to appeal to more viewers precisely because they realized the issues you mentioned.
I recall a lot of Sliders episodes much more fit into the Wagon Train: TO THE STARS! mold because the cast (and it was a cast, vs. that fic's 'One') would arrive on a world, and have x amount of time before their window of escape. Sometimes they would have (and need to deal with) their analogs, and sometimes they didn't (hence my mention of AU). Come to think of it, this is almost precisely the plot of Stargate: Galaxies. Heh.
It seems that Wanderer misses all these marks. Oh, well. :\
I keep looking for an opportunity to use my catchphrase of 'Beautiful disaster!' but I just can't see it applying; seems there's too much fail to search for the shine of awesome, based on your description. A shame; the catchphrase will have to wait for a later day.
Quote from: Dracos on November 28, 2011, 05:13:20 PM
I can't recall many (any?) dimension hopping stories that actually work out alright at all.
Classic science fiction, since the alternate realities are fitted to the story.
I think that the difficulty in dimension hopping across anime series is that most are based on the one-central theme, and mashing two together doesn't really play well (although, that raises the question of whether you could work a Sideways story where everyone is supposed to keep their abilities secret. e.g, KOR and Haruhi).
Sliders actually has the cast grounded because the cast wants to get home. To their home, specifically. There's no nebulousness about this, so there's a center for the whole D-hopping adventure to work around and it can become a Wagon Train.
It wouldn't quite be the same if it was "Hey, here's our next leap time, whadyasay folks, should we go back home for the weekend?" or if there really was No Going Home. In which case they become drifters who hopefully at least are looking for a port in the storm? D-Hopping without a center is basically no different than a story about a cast in a Holodeck that decided to set it on random.
Oddly, the last couple chapters give a reason for Ranma(shapedEntity) to really want to hunt around dimensions. It's not 'well, I'm here on another world away from everything I know, let's make the best of it (which it started with instead of being D-Hopping, and that was fine)', it's instead "Someone has ripped off a chunk of my soul. I am going to get it back no matter what".
Planet of Hats *googles* Man, you Trope To Strong! =P
Jason:
Well, AU stories are not quite the same thing. If you only go to one reality, it's not really a D-hopping story. It's the same way really Spell Jammer and other 'Worlds with different physical laws in the same universe' aren't really, because they're related and you don't have to struggle for intrinsic relation. If I punch a snarky guy in the nose, he can come after me for revenge, and it's not like I became totally unfollowable by leaping into elf-universe where that guy never existed.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on November 28, 2011, 07:01:58 PM
I think that the difficulty in dimension hopping across anime series is that most are based on the one-central theme, and mashing two together doesn't really play well
Eh, there are 3 ways these stories usually work.
1) The crossover universes are fundamentally similar enough that the characters don't break them (Street fighter x King of Fighters x Tekken x Dead or Alive)
2) A character falls into another character's world, but doesn't actively conflict with it. (People falling into the Pokemon world for example)
3)A character falls into another character's world-story and inherently conflicts with it (Any story where the author has to pick and choose which rules they want the crossover to follow, or come up with excuses why said character can/not do certain things in the world they find themselves in. Often leads to Magic A is Magic A (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA) and Our Tropes Are Different (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurTropesAreDifferent))
Read some 'Shifts in life' (SHANNARO), which put in the plot: Hey Naruto starts using Kage Bunshin wisely (SHANNARO) early. And also encounter Anko early, who decides to (SHANNARO) train him. Yeah, not really anything of interest. Also, almost every Sakura mental line includes SHANNARO.\
Wave (SHANNARO) country and I was bored. Not really worth reading, so no link.
Randomness: Kenichi618's fics are 'favorited' like everywhere. I'm kind of confused why. Sure they're gigantic fics, but they're all sort of crummy SI fare near the start. it's weird continually wandering across them.
Quote from: thepanda on November 28, 2011, 07:32:53 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on November 28, 2011, 07:01:58 PM
I think that the difficulty in dimension hopping across anime series is that most are based on the one-central theme, and mashing two together doesn't really play well
Eh, there are 3 ways these stories usually work.
...
I don't usually see fighting game stories with characters bouncing between universes. Granted, maybe that's because I don't read stories based on fighting games, but...
Anyway, if you're just talking about a straight up crossover, you're right, but that's not usually what I consider a dimension hopping story. Basically, if it's a thin excuse used at the very beginning of a story to shove characters from one series into another, that's just a crossover. If they're flipping back and forth more often ("Going to the Slayer's Dimension to pick up groceries." "Don't forget the milk."), dimension hopping.
Quote from: Drac
Read some 'Shifts in life' (SHANNARO)
Hey, I clicked that link today. And you made it to Wave? I think I made it to chapter 2 or 3.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5409165/1/Its_For_a_Good_Cause_I_Swear
A completely serious fic, with determination, teamwork, leadership, etc. Really.
Starts a bit slow.
Yeah, I was thinking more 'crossover' there.
And, wow, that's like the third author profile I've seen today that absurdly long. What hell is with the mini stories and super lists?
Quote from: thepanda on November 28, 2011, 11:23:33 PMAnd, wow, that's like the third author profile I've seen today that absurdly long. What hell is with the mini stories and super lists?
Part of the 'fanfiction.net is a popularity contest!' thing some people have going on. There's a mindset I've seen in users.... If it's one of the ones I'm thinking of:
- You'll note they also have favorites lists in the hundreds, ranging from 'decent' to 'WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!?'
- They may not have written anything, and if they have it's either 'crack' or something like a 'highschool AU'.
- The authors they mention in their profiles have the same lists.
- Somewhere in the massive profile is something irritatingly moralistic, usually hinging on something that's either copy-pasted and rife with grammatical errors, or just factually inaccurate.
A big part of why I stopped trying to participate in that scene.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on November 28, 2011, 11:15:42 PM
Quote from: thepanda on November 28, 2011, 07:32:53 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on November 28, 2011, 07:01:58 PM
I think that the difficulty in dimension hopping across anime series is that most are based on the one-central theme, and mashing two together doesn't really play well
Eh, there are 3 ways these stories usually work.
...
I don't usually see fighting game stories with characters bouncing between universes. Granted, maybe that's because I don't read stories based on fighting games, but...
Anyway, if you're just talking about a straight up crossover, you're right, but that's not usually what I consider a dimension hopping story. Basically, if it's a thin excuse used at the very beginning of a story to shove characters from one series into another, that's just a crossover. If they're flipping back and forth more often ("Going to the Slayer's Dimension to pick up groceries." "Don't forget the milk."), dimension hopping.
Quote from: Drac
Read some 'Shifts in life' (SHANNARO)
Hey, I clicked that link today. And you made it to Wave? I think I made it to chapter 2 or 3.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5409165/1/Its_For_a_Good_Cause_I_Swear
A completely serious fic, with determination, teamwork, leadership, etc. Really.
Starts a bit slow.
Mmm, I've seen that recc'd several times. Had trouble getting over the beginning. Namingly, Kakashi being unable to deliver a reasonable lie or just telling the truth. I suppose I never read past chapter 1 though at that.
I am sometimes oddly tolerant. How else would I have read so much terrible fanfiction to ECB back in the day. Like the fic you linked, sometimes it's worth giving a couple chapters to see if it pulls out of a nose-dive.
Speaking of dimension hopping, I like Sleeping with the Girls (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5792734/1/Sleeping_with_the_Girls_Vol_I_Fictional_Reality), because it does four amusing things:
- The dimension hopping is uncontrollable, happening whenever the protagonist falls asleep.
- He lands in bed with a girl in the new universe, which has obvious comedy potential.
- There's only about six worlds he goes to, and they loop around.
- He can make changes to the worlds' plots, both by accident and on purpose. Most notably, he's managed to completely derail Sailor Moon season 1's plot.
Who's the hopper?
An SI.
I'll take ABORT ABORT FUCKING ABORT THIS SHIT IS GONNA BLOW for 500, Alex.
Yeah, I passed it over on principle as well. I can't say much to defend it, but it is (evidently) highly recommended.
I don't think it's actually a self-insert; more of a Original Character who's similar but not identical to the author. He is, however, a lot like Iddy in some ways.
That being said, it's still fun (but mostly only for the parts where I know the series jumped into; Those Who Hunt Elves and Nanoha Strikers are sort of blurry).
Quote from: Dracos on November 29, 2011, 12:03:59 AM
Mmm, I've seen that recc'd several times. Had trouble getting over the beginning. Namingly, Kakashi being unable to deliver a reasonable lie or just telling the truth. I suppose I never read past chapter 1 though at that.
I am sometimes oddly tolerant. How else would I have read so much terrible fanfiction to ECB back in the day. Like the fic you linked, sometimes it's worth giving a couple chapters to see if it pulls out of a nose-dive.
Oh. Just for the record then, my synopsis was completely tongue in cheek. It's pretty much just a parody on "2nd chance" fics.
If you're going to try to read through it just on my recommendation, no sense in starting with the wrong mindset.
Reading it while sleepy actually resulted in enjoying it. It is a crummy fic, but it has fun with being a crummy fic and once it hits its stride keeps a reasonable amount of humor going around the screwing with things. It has not yet released a 'And time travel went terrible' and looks to be complete?, which puts it actually above every other time travel fic save ShaperV's sakura timetravel fic.
Quote from: Jon on November 29, 2011, 02:50:43 AM
I don't think it's actually a self-insert; more of a Original Character who's similar but not identical to the author. He is, however, a lot like Iddy in some ways.
That being said, it's still fun (but mostly only for the parts where I know the series jumped into; Those Who Hunt Elves and Nanoha Strikers are sort of blurry).
About my opinion. For all it has some flaws - the first SM jump comes to mind - it's a fun fic. That puts it above 99.99% of self inserts, so credit to the author.
I believe the term is 'author avatar'.
Quote from: Dracos on November 28, 2011, 02:44:16 PM
Wanderer updated, but it's only semi-coherent.
That's not even close to semi-coherent.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7469479/1/Forever
I grinned.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6615342/26/Breath_Of_Fire_II_War_Of_The_Demons
Updated. Took a slightly historical take on the mind wipe demon fight.
Quote from: thepanda on December 03, 2011, 05:50:45 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7469479/1/Forever
I grinned.
Oh lord...
Forever was cute. Went and watched some MLP after it.
Quote from: Dracos on December 03, 2011, 09:16:35 PM
Forever was cute. Went and watched some MLP after it.
Heh, so did I.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7180034/1/Souls_Light
Surprisingly good. I haven't read much Dresden fanfiction because not a lot of people get his voice right. So far (reading chapter 9 now) this delivers.
I can't remember if Dresdenverse vampires operate on the principle of invitation, but if so, that's a whole lot of headache for Harry to deal with.
Dresdenverse uses thresholds, but the strength of the threshold depends on just how lived in a place is. Plus he has wards and stuff up, too.
I am reading:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7539904/1/
By request. Further bulletins as events warrant.
Wish me luck. ;_;
Quote from: Brian on December 08, 2011, 12:33:09 PM
I am reading:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7539904/1/
By request. Further bulletins as events warrant.
Wish me luck. ;_;
What is this work of fine literature that Bri is perusing? I am consumed with curiosity and will to click on the link to investigate.
Quote
chapter 1: anal probes
Aaaand, I'm done.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on December 08, 2011, 06:20:11 PMQuote
chapter 1: anal probes
Aaaand, I'm done.
Thanks, Miao; that made me smile again. :p
Now to go home to my dependable connection and polish/spellcheck, before moving the review into ECB, since that's where it probably belongs.
That's about where I stopped as well. I mean not that I go through much haruhi at all, but Haruhi-hatefiction? :(
I have never understood the point of hatefiction. Why get so worked up about a freaking story that you spend more time writing about something you don't like in the first place? Why not...i dunno, go do something(or write about something) that you DO enjoy? Meh. People.
Brian's problem is that he's developed too high a tolerance for garbage. I still remember the hatefic that made me have a zero tolerance policy on that sort of thing. It was horrible.
Worse yet, the version of the story I read was an MST by my favorite MSTer back in the day. That's the only reason I got as far as I did through that torture porn. Just thinking about it turns my stomach after all these years.
I don't know that I'm that tolerent. Otherwise I might have laughed. I just have an over-developed sense of responsibility.
In hindsight, I think I was being trolled, and just fell for it.
*sigh*
Let's wait for the reveal that the guy who e-mailed me isn't the author, but was just posing as such. :(
Edit: Mmm, softkey typos.
Haigeki chapter 5 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/5/Haigeki)
Spoiler: Ranma turns into a girl
Oh? I bet people will want to talk about that. Let's give it a devoted thread for discussion!
http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,101988.0.html
Coool. Anyone wanna bet poor Drac will accidentally post a reply in here before he realizes it?
Sucker bet. :p
Definitely. He will get 'many new replies!'
What Gate said.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/34/Forcibly_United
Forcibly United updated. A short chapter but it's not a bad hook for what it is.
A nice blend of Ranma 1/2 and Black Lagoon stuff here, really. Genma pissing off/getting Ranma engaged to/something else to a Yakuza princess is typical.
Nobody Dies updated. It is now completely incomprehensible. Time to stop following.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7331568/1/Tainted_Ideals
I'm not much of a fan of Fate fanfiction (Or of Fate in general), but this story is really good. It takes the premise of Kotomine finding young Shiro and adopting him instead of Kitsurugu, throws in a few more twists and a lot of good writing. Well worth reading.
Quote from: Jon on December 18, 2011, 04:55:06 PM
Nobody Dies updated. It is now completely incomprehensible. Time to stop following.
I'd been considering going back to catch up on this, sounds like it's best to give it a miss.
Quote from: Jon on December 18, 2011, 04:55:06 PM
Nobody Dies updated. It is now completely incomprehensible. Time to stop following.
Wait? It was many levels of incomprehensible like 20 chapters ago. How could it get 'more' incomprehensible? Did it change languages?
There was a multi-chapter shared dream sequence and now it is completely unclear which things happened or did not happen or perhaps partially happened, especially considering that some things happened both in reality and in the dream.
Basically, it collapsed under the weight of its NGE-character-shaped-entities.
No, I don't think so.
I think it collapsed when it started playing with reality and duplicates and things like that. Before it was an interesting story, but as soon as it started bringing in that, it became a morass of 'what happened and what didn't happen'.
It's really a good lesson to anyone thinking of playing with alternate realities: if the audience can't tell why something is important to the original world/universe/characters: Then you've gotten lost, and they will to.
Just finished Bio Meat. (http://www.mangareader.net/bio-meat) The world is undergoing a food crisis and so a Japanese company engineers a creature that eats almost anything (so they can use it to dispose of waste) and reproduces extremely fast (to meet the demands for the world's food supply). And then an earthquake hit and some got loose. . .
I usually detest survival horror manga on account of how crappy so many of them look and how gorn!=horror, so imagine my surprise when I found I really enjoyed this. I imagine it is because it is so shounen jump. There's humor and excitement, then pacing is good, and they make excellent use of time skips. It is also good with the nakama.
I recommend reading it.
There was a new chapter of Delande Est recently. Actually quite good, some fun cloak and daggers stuff, and the annoying new OCs all got stunned and got everybody in trouble. Harry got to do awesome stuff again instead of being an invalid.
Breath of Fire 2 novelization also had a new chapter. The girls declared there would be no lesbian antics. Disappointing.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/1/From_Fake_Dreams
Another good Fate fanfic. This one has the premise that after rescuing Shiro, Kitsurugu starts having dreams of the next Grail war. Learning from them, he has Shiro trained in his specialization and ensures he has the proper bonds to excel in the coming war. Of course, this causes plenty of ripples. As of chapter 14,
[spoiler]Not only has it not reached the war yet, but it's a year early and Shiro and company are trying to deal with a Dead Apostle who is after Shiro and his Reality Marble. Having to possibly work with Zouken and Kotomine against the Dead Apostle is quite amusing.[/quote]
Quote from: Anastasia on December 20, 2011, 10:54:18 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/1/From_Fake_Dreams
Another good Fate fanfic. This one has the premise that after rescuing Shiro, Kitsurugu starts having dreams of the next Grail war. Learning from them, he has Shiro trained in his specialization and ensures he has the proper bonds to excel in the coming war. Of course, this causes plenty of ripples. As of chapter 14,
[spoiler]Not only has it not reached the war yet, but it's a year early and Shiro and company are trying to deal with a Dead Apostle who is after Shiro and his Reality Marble. Having to possibly work with Zouken and Kotomine against the Dead Apostle is quite amusing.
I'll second this fic as it's a good one, but with a warning that if you're following Fate Zero you'll have it soundly spoiled.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/28/Delenda_Est
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/29/Delenda_Est
Delenda Est updated with chapters 28 & 29.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382984/13/Big_Human_on_Campus
Spoiler: Akane does not appear in this chapter. Also, there is a golf club.
Edit: As it turns out, there's an christmas omake (http://www.angelfire.com/anime5/fanficlair/fics/bhocchristmas1.html) for people bore^H^H^H^Hdilligent enough to browse his homepage.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3505392/13/Hell_is_a_Martial_Artist
Update! Reading now.
Man, glad I was watching here. I missed that both Daybreak and Delande Est had a SECOND update chapter.
This last few days has been a flood of awesome. Daybreak, Delande Est, Hell is a Martial Artist, Big human on campus. Yadda yadda :)
Fateblack reflection also updated, but it's still in interludes of lame.
Quote from: Dracos on December 25, 2011, 03:29:32 PM
This last few days has been a flood of awesome. Daybreak, Delande Est, Hell is a Martial Artist, Big human on campus. Yadda yadda :)
Some more bonus awesome:
Poking around on Ozz's page also yields another fic (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7670315/1/Indiscretions). It may be worth noting that per the author notes, this is a oneshot. It's not noted in the fic summary, or anywhere before the beginning.
Since this is an "also posted" post, I should mention that Black Dragon also posted http://www.fanfiction.net/s/718744/20/Yagami_1_2 on the 24th. I didn't note this the first time, since I was not aware of anyone on the forum following this fic. But if you didn't get enough of the golf club and lack of Akane from BHoC, here's another fic that doesn't address anything like it.
I tried checking out Yagami, but really, he started writing it about a decade ago, so looking at the beginning to remind myself what's going on is painful as can be.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on December 25, 2011, 08:21:40 PM
Quote from: Dracos on December 25, 2011, 03:29:32 PM
This last few days has been a flood of awesome. Daybreak, Delande Est, Hell is a Martial Artist, Big human on campus. Yadda yadda :)
Some more bonus awesome:
Poking around on Ozz's page also yields another fic (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7670315/1/Indiscretions). It may be worth noting that per the author notes, this is a oneshot. It's not noted in the fic summary, or anywhere before the beginning.
Interesting little fic. It feels more like a fragment than a full on story, with just enough going on to tantalize. The basic concept is solid enough - if you ever want to hook Ranma up with someone, the bisexual/lesbian issue is a good one. He wants it both ways, only one girl is willing, bam. Considering the three main fiances, any of them can be interpreted to be bi easily enough. It's the questions that it raises and leaves unsaid that make it a good fic. It does just enough with it's premises to intrigue me.
Kurosaki Ichigo: Seireitei Gigolo (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7165744/1/Kurosaki_Ichigo_Seireitei_Gigolo)
Amusing Lemony goodness. Not safe for work!
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/251767.html
Dungeon Keeper Ami updated. It seems that the author has settled into bi-weekly updates again. Too bad, weekly updates fit the size of the updates really rather well. Two weeks makes the story drag extra-strong. Still not a bad update, with the next OH SHIT ENEMY being revealed.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6052381/25/Sleeping_With_The_Girls_Vol_II_Chaos_Theory
Sleeping with the Girls 2 updated. This is really a transitional and wind down chapter after the last one or two, so don't go in expecting more craziness.
Something about the author's Ranma doesn't read right to me. The way he talks, the way he acts is subtly off. It might just be me, as I've read Ranma fanfics for over ten years and am rather sensitive to these things. Dunno.
I'm reading Friendship is Adventuring (http://www.thekeep.org/~wombat/Stories/MLP/), which is John Biles writing the MLP crew as a D&D adventuring party in the Mystara setting (which I know practically nothing about). It's narrated by a human OC (who may be one of Biles' old D&D characters). The OC can get a bit annoying, but it's still better than it has any right to be.
Also, has a Tropes page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/MystarasLittlePoniesFriendshipIsAdventuring).
Man, I didn't know he was still writing. And is that some My-hime fanfiction I spot?
Quote from: thepanda on December 31, 2011, 06:30:47 AM
Man, I didn't know he was still writing.
Apparently he's active both on spacebattles and rpg.net.
He also started working on a NGE / Middle Earth Legendarium (http://www.thekeep.org/~wombat/Stories/NGS/) crossover; that is, the Silmarillion forms the world's backstory.
It's got a lot of singing, as perhaps you'd expect. And I don't think I got all the references. But it's still good.
Randomly clicking about some sites, I stumbled upon this old fic.
http://web.archive.org/web/20041012071003/http://www.gci-net.com/users/w/wildeman/Sanrio.txt
(Yes, that's right. I read a Hello Kitty fanfic. The shame.)
Heartlands of Time updated.
I am this close to giving zero fucks about what Joe has planned next. This close.
As far as I'm concerned, Wastelands of Time never had a sequel.
Heartlands never captured my interest in the first couple of chapters and just kind of ploddered off (and yes I declare that to be a word) so I just stopped reading it a long time ago. Figured if he couldn't do the basic concept of an opening scene right for that story, then the rest of it would follow something in the same steps.
Delande Est is a better Potter fic.
Even the original, while readable, had the problem that the author clearly didn't have a solid decision on what was done with it. The shaky time travel elements aside, from its Romance arc it set up with 2 characters originally and then just summarily dropped one. It also has folks reacting the the understanding of time traveler infinity strangely. It really shouldn't result in 'oh and now harry is an inhuman monster' any more than his behavior otherwise already merits.
Joe's version of Atlantis is amazingly compelling, though. (So much so that I've stolen parts of it for my own plots.)
Things We Trade For Freedom (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7691439/1/Things_We_Trade_For_Freedom)
I knew if I kept looking I'd finally find a stargate/buffy crossover that didn't fall into the 'xander/buffy/willow are god-mode sues and the SGC useless cheerleaders that have to bend over and take whatever abuse comes their way' mold.
Took long enough.
Amorously Minded (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/8/Amorously_Minded) has updated. I think people were reading this one?
Quote from: thepanda on January 09, 2012, 09:37:33 AM
Amorously Minded (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/8/Amorously_Minded) has updated. I think people were reading this one?
I was. I need to catch up on it.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/251967.html
Dungeon Keeper Ami updated.
---
Pasting this from IRC in case this rings a bell for anyone.
In one fic I read Nodoka had been paying the bills by working in a magic trinket store. It was hinted pretty strongly she knew about Jusenkyo but let it ride until Ranma was ready. - To elaborate I think it was at some sort of festival or carnival. Can anyone identify what fic that's in? It's been gnawing at me. Thinking about it, I think she calls Ranko Ranma once but both sort of nervously put it aside as a slip of the tongue.
After I mentioned that someone else suggested I write a Haruhi/Daria crossover, Ko found this link:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2664701/1/Is_It_Doom_Yet
Finished the first chapter, am highly amused.
Ko: No recall on that Ranma concept outside of 'Ranma, if you're a girl, all your problems will be solved!' fics.
Quote from: Brian on January 15, 2012, 02:55:24 AM
After I mentioned that someone else suggested I write a Haruhi/Daria crossover, Ko found this link:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2664701/1/Is_It_Doom_Yet
Finished the first chapter, am highly amused.
Ko: No recall on that Ranma concept outside of 'Ranma, if you're a girl, all your problems will be solved!' fics.
The first story isn't bad, but the sequels aren't very good. It moves too breezily and ten year timeskips hurt a lot.
Mm, in that case I'll stop having read just that; I could feel the 'breezily' aspect in what I read. Better to end it on a positive note if it's going to go downhill; guilty pleasure only goes so far. :p
Quote from: Brian on January 15, 2012, 05:51:33 PM
Mm, in that case I'll stop having read just that; I could feel the 'breezily' aspect in what I read. Better to end it on a positive note if it's going to go downhill; guilty pleasure only goes so far. :p
I think I'd have been happier if I did that. It's a Daria fic with a few elements of Marvel dashed in for flavor. I also don't quite agree with the take on Doom in the last story, but that's not implausible, just arguable.
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Awesomeness (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7185265/1/Code_Geass_Lelouch_of_the_Awesomeness)
Summary from author's profile: "Lelouch Lamperouge, genius, warrior, leader, lover, and all-around badass goes through his morning workout routine, inspects his vast collection of hi-tech weaponry and greets his many girlfriends. Parody of common fanfiction cliches."
Quite accurate. Short read and amusing.
Those who hunt monsters updated.
Summary:
Bad Girl: "You are the real monsters. That's hot. Sexings. Also my boss wants to recruit you for being extra scary."
Hero: "Even though I'm human?"
Bad Girl "Yeah, you should start keeping trophies for all the people you're murdering. You totally belong here in horrible monster school because you're a horrible monster of a human. Also was those poisons next to your bed meant for me?"
Hero: "Yes. I'll get some bed stuff for you. See you tonight."
Werewolf: You're scary. You can kill anyone.
Hero: Don't worry, I won't murder you all for running with me. We're buds. Also I totally fucked that girl.
Didn't really go anywhere but at the same time it was a nice cool down chapter from the "They just did WHAT?" of the last chapter (Did not see that one coming at all).
Depending on your tolerance for "Did Not See That Coming" horrible scenes, I actually do kinda recommend this up through that last chapter. It's a solid antithesis for the original work in that regard. "He who befriends many monsters" versus "He who kills them to survive." It has none of the playful fun of Big Human on Campus, but the author got balls with how he writes, and does manage the most recent character death epically.
A part of me wishes that fic hadn't been an AU of Tsukune 'didn't become friends with Moka', but covering the story of Hokuto (the class prez guy) as we know that in canon, Hokuto pretty much had a life much like Tsukune's current one. This version admittedly gets some extra shock value out of what it does with characters we're more familiar with.
I do wonder if Akua will make an early appearance given what's happened or if the author will somewhat keep to 'schedule' and not introduce any season 2 characters. I think it'd be kind of cheap if there wasn't any major repercussions of the last chapter, but who knows?
Quote from: Merc on January 23, 2012, 11:00:56 PM
A part of me wishes that fic hadn't been an AU of Tsukune 'didn't become friends with Moka', but covering the story of Hokuto (the class prez guy) as we know that in canon, Hokuto pretty much had a life much like Tsukune's current one. This version admittedly gets some extra shock value out of what it does with characters we're more familiar with.
"Hokuto's Saga" could make a good story, at the end of the day, he's still a monster. It wouldn't have the same impact as "lone, weak human, struggling to hide amongst monsters."
Something I wonder is if this fic would still be an interesting read if I wasn't already familiar with Rosario. I suspect it would be, although there is a great deal of plot-nuance that I'd surely miss.
Quote"Hokuto's Saga" could make a good story, at the end of the day, he's still a monster.
This is sort of wrong. While, yes, he IS a monster, he's also a former human.
Tsukune in the manga became a vampire/ghoul hybrid through Moka's blood injections. Hokuto likewise became a hybrid monster through Kiria's blood injections. Both keep their monster half under control through a holy lock.
Hokuto also didn't become a monster immediately after ending up in school, he actually attracted Kiria's attention by surviving as a human and somehow showing off a superior attitude in spite of that, surviving solely on his intellect, martial arts and determination to survive.
Some relevant pages: Ch 33 pages 32 (http://www.mangareader.net/320-22382-32/rosario-vampire/chapter-33.html), Ch 34 pages 17-19 (http://www.mangareader.net/320-22383-17/rosario-vampire/chapter-34.html), pages 40-41 (http://www.mangareader.net/320-22383-40/rosario-vampire/chapter-34.html).
Basically, Hokuto's story in canon very strongly mirrors Tsukune's in this story, except replace 'intellect' for 'luck', 'martial arts' for 'runs real fast', and Kiria for Keito. As long as Tsukune doesn't become a monster hybrid in the end, this could stay different, but the similarities really are there.
Quote from: Merc on January 24, 2012, 10:18:54 PM
Quote"Hokuto's Saga" could make a good story, at the end of the day, he's still a monster.
This is sort of wrong. While, yes, he IS a monster, he's also a former human.
Yes, but you're missing my point. Tsukune is human, because that's what he was in chapter 1. Even if he does become a part-time zombie of destruction half way through manga series 1. Hokuto is a monster, because when we first meet him he's the well-established group-hug student council president.
A story about Hokuto has to follow more along the lines of a classic tragedy, because we know he is fated to become a monster. There isn't a question of "How will Hokuto retain his humanity? How can Hokuto remain himself?" - after all, he won't. It's essentially the same plot, but since the original characters are presented to the reader in such different contexts, using Hokuto wouldn't nearly have the same impact as Tsukune.
I don't dislike the tragic angle (although it tends to be unpopular in general), so I'd still think it'd be an interesting story.
-Edit-
Yay for putting modifiers next to what they're actually supposed to modify.
I'm not familiar with Rosario at all, but I'm still finding it a very good read overall. Some points of "huh?" here and there, but it's still entertaining.
I recently decided to read Luminosity (http://luminous.elcenia.com/). Since I had to read Twilight for a Popular Literature class a couple of years back I actually had something to compare it to.
It was an okay read, although in replacing Bella with a rationalist version of herself I can't help but help like they've just traded one Mary Sue for another which happens to be less bland. Of course:
Near the end of Luminosity when Bella's actions come back to bite her and by extension everyone else she loves in the ass I felt it was mitigated somewhat, if only a little.
The sequel, Radiance, wasn't bad either, but I can't say that it blew me away either. Both were better than the source material, but that's not a bar set very high in my opinion so I can't exactly give them many accolades on that account.
Still, if anyone here enjoys Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality this might be worth looking at.
EDIT: The basic upshot of below comment would be that I didn't particularly enjoy Methods of Rationality.
Wait... less bland?? You're saying rationalist!Bella is
less bland than the novel version?
How bland are these Twilight novels, anyways?
That said (I've been over this) I've really soured on the whole "toss rationalist into fantasy universe, watch them discover things that the superstitious locals have never found out despite having incentive to study the topic for thousands of years" notion. It feels about as plausible as tossing Yudkowsky into a Medieval monastery and watching him invent an improved crop rotation scheme from first principles and teach it to the monks.
Does Luminosity play this same angle, or does it somehow subvert the basic template as seen in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality?
I like the angle in
Dungeon Keeper Ami a bit more; there, Ami is able to use knowledge of physics and chemistry to spectacularly bamboozle the locals (to some extent); however, the societies in the magical world have had every incentive to study the world around them, just that, with so many obviously useful magical effects in the world around them to attempt to replicate, studying more obscure and less-immediately-useful things like magnetism and electricity was never a priority.
Even there, unless you believe Ami is a teenage genius of caliber she never demonstrated in
Sailor Moon, it takes a bit of suspension of disbelief as you start to realize that the local priests and warlocks are themselves no slouches in the area of researching the heck out of something when they realize it's useful. (The Avatar even seems to
find someone who figures out that Ami was using magnetism to get around his holy protections
.) Sure, Ami might know some science, but there's an awful lot of other things she'd have to learn to deal with these people on their own terms.
But most importantly: the fact that Ami knows science or doesn't know science, or even uses science and magic to kick everyone's behinds to Jupiter or whatnot, isn't the central basic story device. It's used in service of a balanced story.
Back to Twilight and rationalist!Sues: I don't know, "let's turn character X into a Sue of a particular variety that's already sort of annoying in
real life where they're
without ridiculous Sue powers" just seems like a really weak premise to hang a fic on. Perhaps I'm just letting my bad impressions of Harry Potter and Methods of Rationality ruin my taste for other fics with rationalist main characters.
Is this basically "Methods of Rationality" except for Twilght, or does it have some mitigating element that Yudkowsky just never managed to grasp about writing?
QuoteWait... less bland?? You're saying rationalist!Bella is less bland than the novel version?
How bland are these Twilight novels, anyways?
I've only read the first Twilight novel, but believe me when I say that the fact that Bella has roughly any personality at all and isn't just a doormat means that she's less bland than her regular version. Same with Edward and the rest of the cast.
Here, let me show you Bella's introduction from the actual novel itself:
QuoteI was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine [in Phoenix]. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't play sports without humiliating myself - and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.
It mostly goes on giving vague details like how she doesn't fit in well with people, without actually going into any real concrete details. Of course any sort of focus that Bella might have gotten is thrown out the window when she meets Edward, who seems to only ever be described in the most sickeningly purple prose you could ever imagine.
QuoteThat said (I've been over this) I've really soured on the whole "toss rationalist into fantasy universe, watch them discover things that the superstitious locals have never found out despite having incentive to study the topic for thousands of years" notion. It feels about as plausible as tossing Yudkowsky into a Medieval monastery and watching him invent an improved crop rotation scheme from first principles and teach it to the monks.
Does Luminosity play this same angle, or does it somehow subvert the basic template as seen in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality?
I'd love to say it does, but that'd be a lie. Bella does quickly figure out that there's something amiss with the Cullens while everyone else just thinks they're eccentric. I did think it was a nice touch that Bella actually is reluctant to have anything to do with Edward after roughly the same introduction as the actual book (he seems to hate her for some reason) this freaks rational!Bella out, whereas normal!Bella is just like "he's so pretty, what did I do to make him hate me? I wish he wouldn't".
Once Bella figures stuff out there's some justification given for the various things like why Edward is so attracted to her, the various powers that vampires and even some humans have, and even vampire physiology. That I found interesting because it's not just handwaved off like in the original.
Still, if you're looking for any sort of real subversion of the rational-rewrite, you won't find it here. The sequel doesn't even maintain this really, becoming it's own AU story without really bothering to continue a rationalist perspective once the plot bomb drops late in the first story.
I liked Methods of Rationality for a while. What bothered me on it was less Harry doing basic investigations and acknowledging that the real world would frag the crap out of the wizardry world (Even if I think Delende Est did that part better with it being a subtext acknowledged by wizards that lived through world war 2 stomping over a portion of the wizarding world). There really is room in that universe for playing off religiously convicted blind fantacism. The lack of open dialogue with figures of intelligence when doing things of absurd scale was what blew me away.
"Really, you're going to break into a prison and rescue someone on the trust with some teacher? And nothing on this raises the I'm Doing Something Wrong vibe?"
Chaos Theory (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6372400/14/Chaos_Theory) has updated. I'm really enjoying this one.
Souls Light (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7180034/17/Souls_Light) has updated.
Quote from: thepanda on January 26, 2012, 08:24:36 PMChaos Theory (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6372400/14/Chaos_Theory) has updated. I'm really enjoying this one.
Every time this is announced, I cheer, and run over to the Ranma 1/2 section ... only to find out it's an entirely different, significantly less Ranma/Ukyou fic than the one I'd been hoping for an update on. >_<
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/364323/
Been reading his fellow's stuff (yes yes, I know) and it's pretty good. He has a bad case of stopping just when it gets good, but the stories are all really good.
Never heard of him. :D
That line would work better if your name on this board was DFRoeder or AnimeRain =p
Quote from: Sinom Bre on February 01, 2012, 01:44:20 AM
Never heard of him. :D
I'm obligated to look at you and hope you update again someday. Alternately, I'll take it out on Merc.
I'm re-reading an oldie, but a goodie.
Heart's Healing.
Man. The world would be so much better a place if that were to somehow get an update.
Somehow.
Maybe if we all believe, a miracle will happen?
Quote from: Anastasia on February 01, 2012, 01:59:20 AMI'm obligated to look at you and hope you update again someday. Alternately, I'll take it out on Merc.
You keep me out of this. That'd just give him more excuse to slack anyway =p
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/6/Haigeki
Haigeki update. Edit: Take opinions to the Haigeki thread, thanks.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4220331/1/Splintered_Dreams
FF7 AU fic, centering on the premise of 'What if Cloud died saving Zack outside Midgar, instead of Zack dying?' Basically Zack takes Cloud's place in FF7 and things go from there.
It stays mostly on track without too much divergence, though it is a slow moving fic. It's mostly fun, though I'm of the opinion that Zack gets too mopey in it at times. It's certainly justifiable with all the shit he's been through, but it's overdone I think. Also, Aeris/Zack is resolved too quickly and Tifa/Zack is pushed a little too hard and fast. None of these problems are insurmountable so far (Chapter 27 out of 40 as of this post), but they do drag a bit. Then again, with the pace of the fic I'm not sure dragging things out any more is a good answer.
The main upside is that there's no nutso Cloud and no layers of bullshit from Cloud's immense level of psychological fuckups. Even at his mopiest, Zack is far more together and fun than Cloud is.
Man, we've got a drought here kinda.
Been reading stuff, just not sure if they're anything anyone here wants to read. Mostly, Buffy/SG-1 crossovers.
Quote from: Dracos on February 14, 2012, 02:44:06 PM
Man, we've got a drought here kinda.
Not much is updating right now. I'd link Dungeon Keeper Ami but I think I'm the only one with any interest in it. Odd since it's an amazing fic, but no one else here seems to be interested.
I'm following it.
Although I'm not going to trust the chapter titles anymore, for this fic. Sure, it leaves unanswered just how bad the
catastrophic failure (for everyone involved) ended up being, but I went into this one bracing myself for something really grim and disastrous.
Instead:
"I think even the water is on fire," the first one muttered in a voice that bordered on religious rapture.
"Don't be silly," Tiger interrupted. "The water is too busy exploding to be on fire!"
That about sums it up, no?
EDIT: in general, there were surprisingly few chapters in between them discovering the evil underwater temple and them blowing it to smithereens. I assume that there's negative consequences from what happened that just haven't been touched on yet amid the mayhem.
Hah, I thought it was well named. Someone pointed out that -everyone's- plans fucked up badly, and he hit in on the head. It was a catastrophic failure for Ami and Crowned Death, just in different ways.
Quote from: Anastasia on February 14, 2012, 03:10:48 PM
Not much is updating right now. I'd link Dungeon Keeper Ami but I think I'm the only one with any interest in it.
To tell the truth, I just wait for you to post about new chapters. :p
I read this a few days ago: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3430516/1/Lost_soul.
It's not the best writing, and while it does improve to adequate, it never quite makes it to a polished state. Also, main character has Godlike powers, and with correspondingly less tension because of it. However, the writer does actually pull this off as an empire-building story. It's rare to see a "story of an empire" that's almost finished, so, kudos to the writer for that.
Pretty much, I think this is a case where, had the writer started with how he writes now, and improved as much as he did over the last five years (when, according to the dates, he started writing the story), this might have been pretty good. So, while I wouldn't recommend reading this fic in particular, I am rather curious to see if this writer will keep writing, and what he might do in the future.
Renegade (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5851454/1/Renegade)
A Command & Conquer and Mass Effect cross-fusion. What would happen to Mass Effect if you replaced that Earth with the one from the C&C series? I like it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4869171/1/Grand_Tour
One of those grand crossover fics, starring Ryouga as he stumbles through the multiverse. It's a rough fic early on, but it becomes out right fun later on. The last dozen chapters are all good stuff, especially once Ranma gets involved.
Also, I like how the author balanced out the benefits for Ranma and Ryouga. Ryouga gets rid of his getting lost curse and learns the Soul of Ice+Hiryu Shoten Ha (The scene where he uses it on Ranma made me laugh out loud. I can just imagine the smirk Ryouga would have on his face for that.) and Ranma figures out the basics of flying and how to throw fire. There's a few parts that are weak, like the DBZ segment, but it works on the whole.
8/10? It has flaws and a fair few of them, but it manages an enjoyable narrative. Good enough for me.
Edit: Oh and it has sequels. There goes the rest of my night.
Eh, first sequel was decent enough. Didn't care for the second sequel enough to finish it. The third sequel starts in a way that make it feel like I need to read the second sequel to understand (plus what appears to be Genma bashing) so never got through chapter one of that.
First sequel was a 7/10. Still fun. Not as fun as before, but solid enough. The second one was a bad mess of series I didn't know, ended up a 3/10 or so. The last one descended into Genma bashing hard. Now I'll be the first one to admit that Genma's a son of a bitch, but the fic had been otherwise forgiving of character' flaws. Going after Genma felt damned odd, not to mention that he WANTS Ranma to settle down with the dojo. Why would he object to Ranma starting to teach, let alone Akane and Nabiki? The entire situation there felt forced.
I think the main problem is character drift and change later on. So much is going on and so much is happening, to the point where the focus isn't sharp enough to handle it.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on February 15, 2012, 12:07:53 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on February 14, 2012, 03:10:48 PM
Not much is updating right now. I'd link Dungeon Keeper Ami but I think I'm the only one with any interest in it.
To tell the truth, I just wait for you to post about new chapters. :p
I read this a few days ago: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3430516/1/Lost_soul.
It's not the best writing, and while it does improve to adequate, it never quite makes it to a polished state. Also, main character has Godlike powers, and with correspondingly less tension because of it. However, the writer does actually pull this off as an empire-building story. It's rare to see a "story of an empire" that's almost finished, so, kudos to the writer for that.
Pretty much, I think this is a case where, had the writer started with how he writes now, and improved as much as he did over the last five years (when, according to the dates, he started writing the story), this might have been pretty good. So, while I wouldn't recommend reading this fic in particular, I am rather curious to see if this writer will keep writing, and what he might do in the future.
I glanced over the beginning, and I suppose. Unfortunately, I still don't see something new from the fellow, and reading Super Naruto Weapon fics just isn't interesting.
Now, SuperNaruto Nakama fics? That's always fun :P
Quote from: Dracos on February 16, 2012, 12:59:26 PM
I glanced over the beginning, and I suppose. Unfortunately, I still don't see something new from the fellow, and reading Super Naruto Weapon fics just isn't interesting.
Well, given that he's still finishing up the linked fic (latest chapter was only posted last week or so), there isn't going to be anything new for awhile.
Also, agreed, SuperWeaponNaruto isn't interesting. Once he misinterprets his final orders as "go take over the world", usurps the Council when they won't play along and turned into Emperor Naruto the Conqueror, the fic turns into an Imperial story, which I did find more interesting. Hilariously, shortly after that point and subsequent civil war, there *is* an element of nakama ... amongst the rookies who were part of the refugees who fled to Suna, and who decided to oppose the empire. The ninja who stay with him serve as his generals. I think that aspect was handled pretty well - at least, it's not worse than what you'll find in the translations of the Trojan War, the Three Kingdoms, or the like. I also think he did pull off the moral neutrality that's needed to write this kind of story (Some characters may call the empire evil, but that's up to interpretation).
The thing is, while it doesn't come up as often after the civil war, there are still elements of SuperWeaponNaruto. Given the way the fic started, that was probably unavoidable, but it still drags down the story as a whole. Also, I get the feeling that the writer was caught up in the middle of developments and war strategy of the grand empire, and let Naruto's character development for quite a bit in the iddle. He never turns all the way into a plot coupon, but it gets pretty close at times.
Still, that's the kind of mistake writers have to make before they learn how to not make it. Which is why I said don't bother with this fic per se, but I want to see what he's done in a year or two.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2926771/1/No_Need_for_Destiny
Hacked at this. As a matter of fact, I think I read some of this before. The basic premise isn't horrible, but everything goes bad from there.
Ranma knocking up everyone from Nabiki to Washu to Queen Serenity to Hild is just a biiiit much. Just a bit. Really.
I've read that a year ago. It was readable, and amusing because the fanservice is completely over the top without being utterly pointless and stupid about it, but ... well, there's a reason why I didn't post it here.
Also, in contrast to the last fic I posted about, that's a Story of an Empire fic that wasn't done right. At all. :)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4618653/1/Final_Fantasy_IV_One_Half
Someone has no idea how to write Cecil, or for that matter avoid huge hunks of badly spiced in exposition.
Big Human On Campus has updated, and I am now three chapters behind. I really should go ahead and catch up.
Quote from: Anastasia on February 17, 2012, 10:09:46 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4618653/1/Final_Fantasy_IV_One_Half
Someone has no idea how to write Cecil, or for that matter avoid huge hunks of badly spiced in exposition.
Well, Dissidia didn't have any idea how to write him either. If the Cecil in that fic is wimpy, insecure and can't do anything without big brother Golbez to impress/be rescued by/brood over/etc then I can tell you exactly where they got it from!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7369050/1/The_Dresden_Fillies_Strange_Friends
Dresden Files/ My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic crossover.
And it's actually good. I have no idea how I keep running into these weird crossovers but if they keep being good I'll be happy.
Big Human on Campus updated!
Delande Est updated. A little dry Hermione, but basically a decent establishing chapter for how they'll interact with the Order.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6637593/1/Aint_No_Rest_For_The_Wicked
A pointless fic. Interesting interactions though.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on February 22, 2012, 08:30:02 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6637593/1/Aint_No_Rest_For_The_Wicked
A pointless fic. Interesting interactions though.
That was actually pretty entertaining.
Quote from: thepanda on February 23, 2012, 01:32:49 AM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on February 22, 2012, 08:30:02 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6637593/1/Aint_No_Rest_For_The_Wicked
A pointless fic. Interesting interactions though.
That was actually pretty entertaining.
I find it difficult to read due to megaparagaphs. -_-
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5498789/1/A_Tale_of_Two_Sixes
A flawed but enjoyably light voyager/battlestar crossover.
Just archive-binged on Coming Back Late (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6471922/), a HP/HG fic with some interesting stuff about the Hallows.
Better than most HP/HG stuff.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3933832/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Invincible_TechnoMage
I liked the Harry-shaped-object in this one. Also how they deal with events from the books.
Clell65619 irritates me. I wish he didn't, because his stories are somewhat entertaining. -_-
Quote from: Yuthirin on February 25, 2012, 10:12:22 PM
Clell65619 irritates me. I wish he didn't, because his stories are somewhat entertaining. -_-
I don't know and I don't want to know.
Quote from: thepanda on February 25, 2012, 11:08:39 PM
I don't know and I don't want to know.
Probably a good choice.
From Fake Dreams (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/17/From_Fake_Dreams) has updated.
Quote from: thepanda on February 28, 2012, 12:49:41 AM
From Fake Dreams (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/17/From_Fake_Dreams) has updated.
I'm impressed a post arc-climax chapter had so much crazy shit happening.
I just hope the Grail war lives up to all the buildup and is sufficiently different to make it a good challenge.
Anyway, I thought Merem fell a little flat. Nothing in particular, just his overall speaking style didn't quite do anything for me. Still, his offer surprised me, but it really shouldn't. Right now I think Shiro is becoming the number 1 hot property to get a hold of. The Church, the Dead Apostles and the Mages all have reasons to be quite interested in Shiro, not to mention individual schemers like Zouken. I suspect this Grail war is going to turn into a clusterfuck of impressive proportions, at the very least. There may very well be more factions involved; I could see a Dead Apostle becoming a Master now, or the Mages trying to butt in even more, not to mention Shiro's various friends doing the same.
For me it was the
part about Sakura's situation. It makes so much sense and yet I didn't see it coming thanks to the one-two punch from the mages and apostles early in the chapter. That was well executed.
Quote from: thepanda on February 28, 2012, 03:07:27 AM
For me it was the part about Sakura's situation. It makes so much sense and yet I didn't see it coming thanks to the one-two punch from the mages and apostles early in the chapter. That was well executed.
[spoiler]It really was. It's nice to see Zouken making moves and compensating for Shiro being stronger and having advance knowledge of what he's doing. That was really well done, you're right.
hum, I should read more of that.
Today there was a new chapter of "And Not Motivation". I mean Suddenly, Ninjas. I'm rude about it because while there was some fun scenes, everyone was entirely too cocky and it was hard to see Ninja over tremendous posturing. Yes, competent Konoha is a fun concept, but this konoha should not be similarly on the same wheels plotwise. Really? Orocohimaru's plot still occurred? Even though there are dozens to hundreds more ninjas as one of the great disasters of the past didn't happen? Naruto still struggled to pass that exam even though...
hey he had both summoning techniques and the Flying Thunder Jutsu or whatever? Really? Basically, while individual scenes often are fun, the whole together doesn't stitch together well. And the surprise off-color lines don't help that. "BITCHES STAY QUIET", memorable, but does it really make the scene what it should be? Crotch punches to beat Sound 4? Tenten kinda defecting to sound(whatthe-heck?)
Hinata's fight taking a few seconds and being off camera was disappointing. Why go through inventing a pretty awesome remake of Hinata's character if you're just going to off-screen her most the time?
Basically, I both approve of the cocky, let's make Konoha cool and at the same time am getting sick of where it puts the work at times. I think it is the same stylism that bleeds into his other works that sometimes kind of makes them less than they should be.
Advertised:
Suddenly, Ninja Konoha Kicks ass, Keeps Secrets, Takes Names.
I expected:
Epic Badass Ninja.
I got:
Yo, Yo, Yo, BITCHES SIT DOWN, KONOHA REPRESENT! RAP-OFF OF LEGEND!
Quote from: Dracos on February 28, 2012, 05:15:49 PM
hum, I should read more of that.
Today there was a new chapter of "And Not Motivation". I mean Suddenly, Ninjas. I'm rude about it because while there was some fun scenes, everyone was entirely too cocky and it was hard to see Ninja over tremendous posturing. Yes, competent Konoha is a fun concept, but this konoha should not be similarly on the same wheels plotwise. Really? Orocohimaru's plot still occurred? Even though there are dozens to hundreds more ninjas as one of the great disasters of the past didn't happen? Naruto still struggled to pass that exam even though...hey he had both summoning techniques and the Flying Thunder Jutsu or whatever? Really? Basically, while individual scenes often are fun, the whole together doesn't stitch together well. And the surprise off-color lines don't help that. "BITCHES STAY QUIET", memorable, but does it really make the scene what it should be? Crotch punches to beat Sound 4? Tenten kinda defecting to sound(whatthe-heck?)
Basically, I both approve of the cocky, let's make Konoha cool and at the same time am getting sick of where it puts the work at times. I think it is the same stylism that bleeds into his other works that sometimes kind of makes them less than they should be.
Advertised:
Suddenly, Ninja Konoha Kicks ass, Keeps Secrets, Takes Names.
I expected:
Epic Badass Ninja.
I got:
Yo, Yo, Yo, BITCHES SIT DOWN, KONOHA REPRESENT! RAP-OFF OF LEGEND!
/me deletes notification e-mail from FF.Net.
Thanks for the warning Drac!
Quote
I expected:
Epic Badass Ninja.
It's Sage of Toads. Why were you expecting this?
Quote
I got:
Yo, Yo, Yo, BITCHES SIT DOWN, KONOHA REPRESENT! RAP-OFF OF LEGEND!
...and not that?
If you're looking for "competent badass ninja" due to either talent or motivation (no, not THAT motivation), Hurricane Suite and Patriot's Dawn by http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1598723/The_Pro are two. Although, I'll point out that in both stories, Naruto acts nothing like Naruto.
I don't remember Hurricane Suite, but I remember going after Patriot's Dawn, and really disliking it. I remember him not being a patriot much at all in it, but more just an overpowered asshole. That's unfair of me perhaps, but I just didn't really like the person Naruto was in it. Uncooperative, self-centered, and just with a focus that didn't seem patriotic at all. I got annoyed with it after a bit and ignored the rest of the author's works afterwards.
And yeah, I know, expecting more of Sage of Toads is...wrong? Unfair?
He can do it, and at some points shows it, so I don't see any reason why hoping he'd not go crazy about it is that far wrong. Just because he always goes ahead and throws fourth wall breaking stuff in is no reason not to still be disappointed with it happening.
Anyhow, I begrudge that with Time Braid finished, not a single epic hero Naruto fic has posted a chapter this year. Basically, feels like the best active fic in the fandom is Daybreak. Probably a side effect really of the manga being far off into wackyland, but just disappointing in general.
Hurricane Suite doesn't even manage to make its Naruto Shaped Object Naruto shaped. Way too not-Naruto and the first chapter reads like a thinly disguised author rant.
Quote from: Dracos on March 03, 2012, 11:26:38 PM
I don't remember Hurricane Suite, but I remember going after Patriot's Dawn, and really disliking it. I remember him not being a patriot much at all in it, but more just an overpowered asshole. That's unfair of me perhaps, but I just didn't really like the person Naruto was in it. Uncooperative, self-centered, and just with a focus that didn't seem patriotic at all. I got annoyed with it after a bit and ignored the rest of the author's works afterwards.
Yeah, pretty much. I didn't know if you wanted badass ninja story (which they are), or a Naruto story (which they aren't) with badass ninjas, so mentioned them anyway.
Patriot's Dawn does do a pretty good "first line" scene, and I'm wondering if I could use something similar. Otherwise, what you said.
Quote
And yeah, I know, expecting more of Sage of Toads is...wrong? Unfair?
He can do it, and at some points shows it, so I don't see any reason why hoping he'd not go crazy about it is that far wrong. Just because he always goes ahead and throws fourth wall breaking stuff in is no reason not to still be disappointed with it happening.
I completely understand how disappointing it is to repeatedly see a skilled writer get so close to doing something new and interesting, and then decide they'd rather not.
I've just stopped expecting more from those writers. I mean, hey, it's fanfiction, no one is dying over it, no one is getting paid, so if the writer just wants to have fun by screwing around and throwing in whatever they want, no matter if it fucks up the stronger aspects of their story, then fair enough.
Quote
Anyhow, I begrudge that with Time Braid finished, not a single epic hero Naruto fic has posted a chapter this year. Basically, feels like the best active fic in the fandom is Daybreak. Probably a side effect really of the manga being far off into wackyland, but just disappointing in general.
<Insert standard "Why won't anyone write this fic" response here> :p
Quote from: thepanda on March 04, 2012, 12:55:53 AM
Hurricane Suite doesn't even manage to make its Naruto Shaped Object Naruto shaped. Way too not-Naruto and the first chapter reads like a thinly disguised author rant.
That's completely Naruto-shaped. He mentioned ramen once, at some point in time.
Team Tensai
Warning, the first few chapters are really rough. The author does manage to mitigate a lot of the darker stuff from the beginning of the story with pov changes later that explain what 'really' happened.
Links are good?
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5561415/1/Team_Tensai
Read that sometime in the last two months. The fic could really use a denouement. Also, the first few chapters has that irritating "under-eight-year-old can't properly form syllables" schtick.
Quote from: Dracos on March 05, 2012, 03:19:22 PM
Links are good?
No Link Man has struck again! Mwahahahah!
Man, you act like that and Ganon is totally going to get in your face and rip off your arms and nobody is gonna be there to stop him.
Only in the Link to the Past timeline. The other two timelines he totally gets owned. =P
Well, in any timeline without link stopping him, Ganon is pretty badass.
I am rereading fics. Ninja fics. Better ones than Suddenly, Posers. One of a team closely knit by philosophy. Another involving Ranma being held to ridiculous standards.
And then...
Sexy Ninja Summon Methodology: Book-Chuck.
QuoteAnother involving Ranma being held to ridiculous standards.
???
Tales of the Foxcat. I still like it, but I gave Ozzallos shit about it last time, and I still think that basically he has Kurenai pull a completely bunk move on Ranma at the end of the last chapter that's just the last in a set of expecting Ranma to live up to requirements way outside his physical age group in the story.
History Isn't Always (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4845674/2/History_Isnt_Always)
A Naruto time travel fic. Pretty decent. Manages to avoid many of the cliche's Naruto-time0travel stories tend toward. The author has trouble with where to begin/end a paragraph, though.
Speaking of ninja fics, It's the Shinobi Life for Us. A Ranma/Naruto crossover.
http://vasey.setsuna.us/RN.htm
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/253076.html
DK:A updated. In this episode, everyone reacts the boom and is glad the author finally got another chapter out, despite being sick for two weeks straight.
This was kind of neat.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7096419/1/Rise_of_the_Uchiha
Quote from: Anastasia on March 09, 2012, 01:21:36 PM
DK:A updated.
"I hope a huge seething fireball fits into the plan."
For some reason, I am having remarkable trouble trying to visualize a seething fireball.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 09, 2012, 01:21:36 PM
DK:A updated.
It's a good day to be a pyro.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on March 09, 2012, 01:27:40 PM
For some reason, I am having remarkable trouble trying to visualize a seething fireball.
Now try to visualize a seething fireball that's five miles underwater, which you are watching through a crystal ball. And the ocean is on fire.
About my take on it, yes. Fire and water is gonna make some pissed off fire. >_>
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on March 09, 2012, 02:00:05 PM
Now try to visualize a seething fireball that's five miles underwater, which you are watching through a crystal ball. And the ocean is on fire.
Underwater volcanic eruption, being watched via a distorted TV.
Just read Harry Potter and the Something Something (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7191459/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Something_Something) by Legendary Legacy, a parody/mockfic that made me laugh a good number of times. Couple of spots that could be polished for better chuckles, but it was fun to read.
Quote from: DY on March 07, 2012, 12:56:10 AM
Speaking of ninja fics, It's the Shinobi Life for Us. A Ranma/Naruto crossover.
http://vasey.setsuna.us/RN.htm
Mmm, looked over it. Props for it being completed, but felt a little...rough. Convenient. And I lost interest in it from that. "Okay, demon fight happened, 3 ranma cast now in Konoha. Okay, instantly brought to ibiki. Okay, let go without torture and made ninja of the leaf. Okay...I stopped there, which is toward the end of chapter 1 and before whatever real hook draws the story along.
It's not completed. I thought it was rather... alright. A little rough would probably be the best description of it. Also, I wasn't really sure as to what sort of theme or mood it was trying to go with.
I agree that it's a little rough, but I enjoy reading it ^^.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/18/From_Fake_Dreams
From Fake Dreams updated. This Grail War is looking to be the biggest clusterfuck this side of Skysaber. Gonna have a whoooole lot of meddling now, even moreso.
Assuming Shiro summons a servant - which at this point could derail off of and UBW is arguably enough to let him compete with servants anyway - I wonder if he's going to summon someone new or unusual. His whole vampire thing might be enough miss Saber.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 14, 2012, 02:42:30 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/18/From_Fake_Dreams
From Fake Dreams updated. This Grail War is looking to be the biggest clusterfuck this side of Skysaber. Gonna have a whoooole lot of meddling now, even moreso.
Assuming Shiro summons a servant - which at this point could derail off of and UBW is arguably enough to let him compete with servants anyway - I wonder if he's going to summon someone new or unusual. His whole vampire thing might be enough miss Saber.
I doubt his servant changes. Avalon is so much a part of him that I don't think he
can summon anyone else.
I dunno. At the pace this fic is going, I wouldn't be stunned if something managed to go even more awry. It's had plenty of twists already.
Quote from: thepanda on March 07, 2012, 12:37:07 AM
History Isn't Always (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4845674/2/History_Isnt_Always)
A Naruto time travel fic. Pretty decent. Manages to avoid many of the cliche's Naruto-time0travel stories tend toward. The author has trouble with where to begin/end a paragraph, though.
I started down it, but dropped somewhere around "And he couldn't let him know he was really 6 feet tall". Maybe chapter 3? It was pretty early. The lead-up was surprisingly AU to begin with but that's okay, but I just found it hard to buy some of the logic in the early chapters. "We can sense evil from your seal"? Naruto's informed relation to Kurenai seemed blink-worthy. What made it hardest to buy was just the whole "I'll pretend to be amnesic' setup. Really? Because it is either viable really or you wouldn't at least have some trust for Sarutobi?
Mmm, maybe a personal pet-peeve, but it always kind of bugs me when there's time travel back to mid-to-end of Sarutobi's reign and Naruto is "I can't tell him anything, even that it happened". Sure, this is far enough back that they haven't met yet (also far enough back that Kurenai would be a little brat and the rest of the mentioned cast wouldn't even be born yet)...
Glancing a bit further, yeah, I just have trouble grasping. It's just too AU and the obsfucation comes off as weird. The character takes are almost original enough to be it's own story, and were they, they'd be a bit more viable really, but placed as a whole, it just has trouble holding together for me. Obito stalking for help training? This is Konoha in the early years of its third ninja war technically, when the Uchiha were at their strongest. It's just things like this that abound and make it hard to swallow as a time travel story. It's practically another universe.
Quote from: thepanda on March 14, 2012, 04:20:08 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on March 14, 2012, 02:42:30 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/18/From_Fake_Dreams
From Fake Dreams updated. This Grail War is looking to be the biggest clusterfuck this side of Skysaber. Gonna have a whoooole lot of meddling now, even moreso.
Assuming Shiro summons a servant - which at this point could derail off of and UBW is arguably enough to let him compete with servants anyway - I wonder if he's going to summon someone new or unusual. His whole vampire thing might be enough miss Saber.
I doubt his servant changes. Avalon is so much a part of him that I don't think he can summon anyone else.
I'm still early in this story, but I don't think 'rational cause' has been a particularly strong weight point in the storytelling process so far. So while you are correct, you're at the same time expecting a kind of 'required reason' to push things in a certain direction.
Quote from: Dracos on March 14, 2012, 04:54:26 PM
I started down it, but dropped somewhere around "And he couldn't let him know he was really 6 feet tall". Maybe chapter 3? It was pretty early. The lead-up was surprisingly AU to begin with but that's okay, but I just found it hard to buy some of the logic in the early chapters. "We can sense evil from your seal"? Naruto's informed relation to Kurenai seemed blink-worthy. What made it hardest to buy was just the whole "I'll pretend to be amnesic' setup. Really? Because it is either viable really or you wouldn't at least have some trust for Sarutobi?
Mmm, maybe a personal pet-peeve, but it always kind of bugs me when there's time travel back to mid-to-end of Sarutobi's reign and Naruto is "I can't tell him anything, even that it happened". Sure, this is far enough back that they haven't met yet (also far enough back that Kurenai would be a little brat and the rest of the mentioned cast wouldn't even be born yet)...
Glancing a bit further, yeah, I just have trouble grasping. It's just too AU and the obsfucation comes off as weird. The character takes are almost original enough to be it's own story, and were they, they'd be a bit more viable really, but placed as a whole, it just has trouble holding together for me. Obito stalking for help training? This is Konoha in the early years of its third ninja war technically, when the Uchiha were at their strongest. It's just things like this that abound and make it hard to swallow as a time travel story. It's practically another universe.
Time travel. -_-;
Quote from: Dracos on March 14, 2012, 05:03:41 PM
Quote from: thepanda on March 14, 2012, 04:20:08 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on March 14, 2012, 02:42:30 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/18/From_Fake_Dreams
From Fake Dreams updated. This Grail War is looking to be the biggest clusterfuck this side of Skysaber. Gonna have a whoooole lot of meddling now, even moreso.
Assuming Shiro summons a servant - which at this point could derail off of and UBW is arguably enough to let him compete with servants anyway - I wonder if he's going to summon someone new or unusual. His whole vampire thing might be enough miss Saber.
I doubt his servant changes. Avalon is so much a part of him that I don't think he can summon anyone else.
I'm still early in this story, but I don't think 'rational cause' has been a particularly strong weight point in the storytelling process so far. So while you are correct, you're at the same time expecting a kind of 'required reason' to push things in a certain direction.
I don't think the author has out-and-out broken any of the toys he's playing with. Shiro would have to lose Avalon at some point before the summoning (and given it exists in his reality marble I don't see that happening).
Ok, maybe he uses it to heal someone the same way he was healed and accidentally/is forced to summon before he can trace a copy of it? Maybe he isn't called for this grail war and gives Avalon to one of his allies to call forth a strong servant? I admit there are scenarios where Arturia is summoned and he isn't the master. I just don't see any where he summons a servant and she isn't it.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/253627.html
DK:A update.
Ami's finally leveling up! About time. Also she finally got the Dark Gods to put aside their rivalries to go after her. This isn't going to go anywhere but bad, I'm sure.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6517567/58/Harry_Potter_and_the_Temporal_Beacon Someone recommended this. I consumed it all. It's good mixed with bad. It's more coherent then the last time travel HP fic I read, but also at the same time, seeming like it is pawing at being something it's not quite.
And it instead inspires me to make another mean thread.
Quote from: Dracos on March 27, 2012, 01:14:42 AM
It's good mixed with bad.
Yep, sounds about right.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7189809/4/The_Dark_Lords_Strike_Back
The Dark Lords Strike Back updated. This fic lost me awhile ago, but I skimmed the chapter already. There's some interesting bits, but my fundamental problems with the fic remain. No big, I'm over it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7820743/1/Naruto_Ramen_Days
A fic to end all fics. Epic scope, deep characterization, and breathtaking plot twists. Also, it is a nice day today, and I am the Queen of Ireland.
April 1st aside, this fic is somewhat amusing so far.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4545558/1/Five_Kingdoms_for_the_Dead
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7476705/1/The_First_Flower_of_Spring
They are both by the same person, and center on psychologically-changed Sakura. The first one has the first four chapters start as a bog-standard Sakura-motivated-to-not-suck, then takes a turn to weirdness at the start of chapter 5. The second feels like it's trying to answer the question of "What if you put a quiet badass ninja in a world of screaming ninja."
I've enjoyed both of them so far, but I don't think they're stories that everyone will like, since they're so blatantly introspective.
A Harry Potter Peggy Sue fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4536005/1/Oh_God_Not_Again
Surprisingly fun. I wish that the secondary character with Harry had gotten a bit more screentime earlier, but the later chapters are really amusing anyway.
Quote from: Brian on April 05, 2012, 01:28:58 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4536005/1/Oh_God_Not_Again
Yeah, I liked that one.
Mass Effect: Circular (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7987705/)
Yes, it's by Gregg Landsman, author of mind-bogglingly popular and plot-tumor-ridden NGE fanfic Nobody Dies. Yes, it's chock full of Mass Effect 1-3 spoilers. But it is a Peggy Sue fic, and that is the shortcut to my heart.
Souls Light (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7180034/18/Souls_Light) updated.
Quote from: Brian on April 05, 2012, 01:28:58 AM
A Harry Potter Peggy Sue fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4536005/1/Oh_God_Not_Again
Surprisingly fun. I wish that the secondary character with Harry had gotten a bit more screentime earlier, but the later chapters are really amusing anyway.
I enjoyed this quite thoroughly. :)
Lancer gets Serious (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7412923/1/bLancer_b_bGets_b_bSerious_b)
A neat Fate/Stay Night fic I've been reading. Kotomine decides to spice up the grail war by ordering Lancer to kill all the other servants, so everyone's favourite unlucky blue dog gets a chance to fight to his heart's content without holding back. But this isn't a 'yay lancer check out how awesome he would be if he wasn't holding back' fic, his bad luck remains in full force. The plot veers well away from any one route with how Lancer manages to muck up proceedings, and it's a fun ride with some good matchups we never saw in the VN.
Quote from: Brian on April 05, 2012, 01:28:58 AM
A Harry Potter Peggy Sue fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4536005/1/Oh_God_Not_Again
I found this very entertaining. Also, a lot of Luna time is a good time!
Quote from: Ebiris on April 10, 2012, 04:55:00 PM
Lancer gets Serious (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7412923/1/bLancer_b_bGets_b_bSerious_b)
A good action read. Poor Lancer. Being Lancer is suffering.
Mass Effect: Circular (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7987705/3/) updated. Heading down the familiar Landsman route of continuity snarl. If he can keep it from dissolving into a puddle of Ree, though, we got a shot at this.
Rise of the Wizards (http://"http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6254783/1/Rise_of_the_Wizards") by Teufel1987, a Harry Potter fic.
I'll admit, I wasn't that hooked getting into it, a bit put off by cliches but hanging on because it wasn't *so* horrible... but then I saw how he was handling and integrating said cliches. About halfway through, maybe somewhere around the double digits of the chapters, I saw that he was integrating very common tropes and fanfiction cliches, but also doing a fairly good job of portraying people as human and three-dimensional, and not flat characters.
This leads to some complicated shenanigans happening.
Anyway, I've been really enjoying it particularly because I've been keeping a tally of all the cliches handled.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4722676/17/Her_War
Her War updated, comments after I read it.
Kara came back to the FFML!
I was going to C&C this:
http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/2012-April/003481.html
But it was just too awful.
Some interesting things in that chapter. A lot more skipping around than I'd like, especially at the last two bits. I'm a little confused at where the phoenix came from but that could be not reading for a while.
Overall good, but disappointing that it didn't address the opening paradigm. We don't get the answer to Ilyi's opener at all.
It also got MageOhki to crawl out of his tomb. Horrors!
My mistake. I managed to comment anyway:
http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/2012-April/003485.html
Quote from: Anastasia on April 20, 2012, 02:04:04 AM
Her War updated, comments after I read it.
Transitional chapter. Nothing amazingly exciting happens here, but considering that the last chapter ended on a nuke, it would be a mistake to throw in more action. Still felt a little short, though.
Quote from: Brian on April 20, 2012, 04:55:07 PM
Kara came back to the FFML!
Since I'm not subbed at the moment, someone please say hello to Kara for me.
Quote from: Jon on April 20, 2012, 06:07:28 PM
It also got MageOhki to crawl out of his tomb. Horrors!
Him too, although I realize that most people in #sr aren't particularly fond of Mage.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5496423/29/Second_Bloom
IIRC, Merc was the one who introduced this to me right after I'd finished with ShaperV's Time Braid as a Naruto story involving time travel that is not particularly good and not particularly bad. But it recently updated, so there's that.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 20, 2012, 08:47:42 PMTransitional chapter. Nothing amazingly exciting happens here, but considering that the last chapter ended on a nuke, it would be a mistake to throw in more action. Still felt a little short, though.
Agreed. I think this can be written off to the author joining the military and trying to catch up for boot camp enforced absences. The most important part is the Tsingstao characterization, the rest of it feels like table setting. I like that he's an utter bastard, but one that's sort of understandable occasionally. He's really the best character in the fic, I think.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/253947.html
Dungeon Keeper Ami updated. A few interesting things going on, but it's mostly diplo mop up from the entire exploding temple brouhaha. At least the dwarf subplot is starting to blossom.
Uh. Zen sits on the same server as us, as far as I know. But wasn't really a him. Just stopped writing I thought.
Summoning the Sun (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7402183/1/Summoning_the_Sun)
A familiar of Zero/Okami crossover. Chapter five has a really good action scene.
Mass Effect: Circular updated. Answered one question, raised two more, and had a lot of weirdness. So, par for the course for Landsmann.
Harry Potter and the God of Death updated. haven't yet read. More of a guilty amusement. Sticking an AU bleach investigating dementors.
Quote from: Dracos on April 27, 2012, 03:13:13 PM
Harry Potter and the God of Death updated. haven't yet read. More of a guilty amusement. Sticking an AU bleach investigating dementors.
I thought I put that here already. >_>;
Not much of a chapter. Worse, the next update isn't until July.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/19/From_Fake_Dreams
Chapter 19 of From Fake Dreams is out. I don't have much to say about this chapter, except that it feels like he's setting up this Grail War to be a bigger and bigger cluster fuck.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3384712/1/The_Lie_Ive_Lived
Kind of an interesting premise. After the dementor attack at the end of book three, Harry gains all of his father's memories. Not quite a Peggy Sue fic, naturally, and takes some interesting directions from cannon.
Some annoyance in early chapters, but ended decently. Was surprised.
Yeah, I liked that one, largely for the different approach to the Trials.
Delenda Est updated: http://m.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/31/
Ah, yes. That's rather a good one, particularly in its handling of the Marauder time period. Though the new stuff is also good.
I stopped reading Delenda Est, because I couldn't bring myself to care about what's happening in the revised "present".
Quote from: Jon on April 30, 2012, 03:13:30 AM
I stopped reading Delenda Est, because I couldn't bring myself to care about what's happening in the revised "present".
That's really the entire point of the story though.
If that's the case, the transition should have been handled better. I don't recall the specifics of it, but I know I lost interest in the fic at the same point as Jon. I couldn't bring myself to care about what was going on anymore, which combined with pacing/time between chapters, hurt chances of retaining interest.
I do agree that the initial portion of the story is very good though and worth reading.
The first skip in the present is pretty poorly handled, but it's been bringing it up well from that point and I'd recommend another readthrough.
I don't think moving through time was the entire point, but to me the point is Harry and Bella being awesome and holding a shadow war against Voldemort, and it looks like that's started up again. Haven't read the most recent chapter, but good to see.
Hmmm, I kind of wish the chapter was longer but it established a few things well and moved the story along.
Kinda curious what box they'll stick Draco Malfoy in.
Big Human on Campus now has a side-story? Will have to read ... tomorrow:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8084013/1/Big_Human_on_Campus_After_School
Quote from: Brian on May 04, 2012, 04:02:50 AM
Big Human on Campus now has a side-story? Will have to read ... tomorrow:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8084013/1/Big_Human_on_Campus_After_School
In a very tragic and sudden change of pace from BD's normal works, Ranma fights cancer.
Also, looks like a new chapter of Guardian is out.
-edit-
I am impressed with chapter 2. And no, this isn't one of my typical "spoilers" this time.
That was fun. I enjoyed.
Yes, yes it was. I didn't read chapter 2 as the premise just didn't interest me, but chapter 1 was amazing.
---
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/254474.html
DK:A update. This one's mostly just Ami fucking around with things and a bridge episode, though there are a few plot advancements.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8094905/1/Shirou_Emiya_Erogame_Protagonist
Amusingly cracky.
Gabriel Blessing is also promising more In Flight soon.
Edit: Also Chaos Theory (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6372400/15/Chaos_Theory) has updated.
Awaken Sleeper updated.
New chapter of In Flight is out: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/29/
Should be good =).
Happiness. Joy. Things of that nature. :D
Oh great, Landsmann has started another fic. Can't he just finish the ones he's already got? So what's this one, then? Oh! Mass Effect and Exalted (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8107629/1/Mass_Effect_Glorious_Shotgun_Princess). So far no ME3 spoilers, unlike his other recent ME story.
Quote from: Jon on May 12, 2012, 09:22:13 AM
Oh great, Landsmann has started another fic. Can't he just finish the ones he's already got? So what's this one, then? Oh! Mass Effect and Exalted (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8107629/1/Mass_Effect_Glorious_Shotgun_Princess). So far no ME3 spoilers, unlike his other recent ME story.
I'm liking this one more than Circular.
Circular has got some weird canon-bending stuff going on. Whereas this one just has [puke]Wuffles[/puke].
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6942921/10/He_Who_Fights_Monsters
This updated a few weeks ago; hadn't checked for awhile, so missed it.
Quote from: DY on May 12, 2012, 01:22:01 AM
New chapter of In Flight is out: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/29/
Should be good =).
Not his best stuff, but good to see him back continuing it.
Unforseen Consequences (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7733374/1/Unforeseen_Consequences) a Zero no Tsukaima/Madoka Magica crossover. Louise summons Kyuubey as her familiar and is thrilled to have an obviously magical familiar - even if no one else can see him (invisibility is totes magical!). His constant demands that she make a wish and become a magical girl are initially weird, but eventually she has a reason to take him up on it. All seems well as a magical girl, with cool powers and the result of her wish making life much happier - until she's outed as a lich. I like this one since it takes its premise and runs with it - magical girl/lich Louise isn't tied to the academy, her situation forces her to take a different path than that followed in canon, and while the same events happen, Louise not being around for pivotal moments in the base plot and affecting other things differently keeps it interesting. Also once the familiar runes start forcing Kyuubey to be protective of Louise, he does it in the most tsundere fashion possible, which is amusing.
Good Lord, that updated quickly! o_O
The last time I saw that fic it was only one chapter in. And that was in January? 0_0
Beautiful Destroyer updated, now with more musicy musicness.
In Flight updated again, and hopefully it will now be on a semi-regular schedule. :D:D:D
Quote from: Yuthirin on May 25, 2012, 12:51:28 AM
Beautiful Destroyer updated, now with more musicy musicness.
Kinda...so-so on this chapter. I dunno if I can put it into words. It doesn't Rock.
Quote from: Dracos on May 25, 2012, 08:08:46 PM
Kinda...so-so on this chapter. I dunno if I can put it into words. It doesn't Rock.
I wasn't too sure on it either.
I skimmed it and thought it sucked, ain't gonna lie.
Oh hey look, it's a new Ranma/Ukyo fic on FFnet! This is a rare treat, let's go read it! Here! (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8154562/1/Ranma_and_Ukyo_Ticklish_Afternoon)
...
...
Oh God. Why?
that feeling you get when you realize something you just got linked is someone else's fetish material
"Hmm, how bad could it-- I'll just be in the hall throwing up about ... something else."
Profile:
Quote
Hi My Name Is Masterkey75 And I'm A Fan of Video Games & Anime. Also I'm Also A Fan of Foot Fetish As Well. And I Like To Write Fanfictions Why Because Is Fun To Write Them. And i Love making Stories about Foot Fetish because i Love writing and it's interesting that other love foot fetish as well and i Like making Tickle Stories as well because of the Suspense and Drama of the Stories.
Forget the fetish, who the taught this guy English? It takes
effort to fuck up capitalization this badly.
...huh, I hadn't bothered reading his profile, but that confirms it pretty well.
Anyway. If you think his capitalization is the only bad thing about it, you should try struggling through the story itself. -_-
I'm more concerned by the fact that he apparently finds 'Tickle Stories' suspenseful and dramatic.
/me determinedly does not open the link.
...tickle stories?
/me REALLY doesn't open the link.
Quote from: Brian on May 27, 2012, 11:46:39 PM
Anyway. If you think his capitalization is the only bad thing about it, you should try struggling through the story itself. -_-
One advantage of a "What are you reading today" thread is that I can watch other people make the mistake of reading terrible stories, and avoid them. Reading it myself would negate that advantage.
Or on a more positive spin, your pain and anguish at reading the fic was not in vain; it warned the rest of us not to read it. :)
The things we endure looking for halfway decent Ranma/Ukyou or Ranma/Shampoo fic....
To be fair, this guy's worse anyway. Mr. Foot Fetish is far from the bottom of the barrel. http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2294972/MARK_MEREDITH
Unintentional way to boost my confidence in my own writing ability:
Read the latest Haruhi fic recc'ed on TVTropes. Hey, they have a standard of quality -- it can't be TOO bad, right?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7981990/1/
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/20/From_Fake_Dreams
From Fake Dreams updated. This is 100% a setup chapter, though at least the author's notes state the war's going to start soon.
Always fun.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/254646.html
Dungeon Keeper: Ami update. Not much of one, felt the author just wanted to get something out sort of update.
Beryl's at least being more active than in the canon. I think Ami's really shaken her up now, even more than before.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 01, 2012, 06:28:36 PM
Dungeon Keeper: Ami update. Not much of one, felt the author just wanted to get something out sort of update.
Interesting look at how Ami decides to punish blatant insubordination.
I was thinking that she might have added: "Or, if when it comes time to punish you again I have my hands full with something else, I could just make you remember."
That it is. I don't have a lot of commentary beyond that, but it's nice to see Ami using her head.
I thought based on the title that this Haruhi fic would be hilariously bad:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8174440/
It was slightly worse.
If anyone is still following it by this point: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/8/Haigeki
Ko mentioned that in the Haigeki discussion thread.
You guys are totally giving me a, "Someone read this for me and tell me how bad it got; I can't stomach more," vibe. >_>
Something like that. I posted it for the sake of anyone following it, though I'm not even curious as to what's happening now.
Quote from: Brian on June 05, 2012, 01:19:40 PM
You guys are totally giving me a, "Someone read this for me and tell me how bad it got; I can't stomach more," vibe. >_>
I made it about half a paragraph in, and realized that if the guy was going to be this unpleasant, I may as well be reading something more educational.
Like a casebook of psychotically suicidal mental patients, or Erowid reports of people ingesting lethal doses of DMT, or something.
Moral: if your main character is going to attempt to hang himself and you want to explore his emotions in graphic detail, give the readers a reason to care first.
Holy jumping shitfucks, Batman!
Seriously, I didn't even read the few lines in to see the suicide attempt.
Quote from: Brian on June 05, 2012, 01:19:40 PM
You guys are totally giving me a, "Someone read this for me and tell me how bad it got; I can't stomach more," vibe. >_>
Chapter upon chapter of torture tends to do that.
This kind of lead-in doesn't help:
Quote from: first line
Author's Forward – Not much to say. If you have made it this far, you can make it the rest of the way.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 05, 2012, 07:03:43 PM
Quote from: first line
Author's Forward – Not much to say. If you have made it this far, you can make it the rest of the way.
Yeah, point. But my reason for not reading this chapter wasn't "I'm not going to read more because watching Ranma be tortured viscerally bothers me" (if it did, I'd have dropped the fic 3-4 chapters ago), it was "okay, this has officially gone beyond the insane".
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on June 05, 2012, 08:24:07 PM
Yeah, point. But my reason for not reading this chapter wasn't "I'm not going to read more because watching Ranma be tortured viscerally bothers me" (if it did, I'd have dropped the fic 3-4 chapters ago), it was "okay, this has officially gone beyond the insane".
That sort of thing in a story doesn't bother me
per se. The first couple of chapters of Her War has Onna-Ranma in Musk prison getting put through systemic torture-rape. But if you've read that fic, you'll likely agree that there's pacing (and if you haven't, and don't mind reading Ranma fics, I'd recommend it). Her War has plenty of angst and brainwashing, but it isn't just scene after scene of it.
At first, given the care which the writer created the whole magic system, I thought this was going to be a story about magical-girlhood with a hardcore/sci-fantasy spin angle. At this point, it feels like the torture/Onna-mindfuckery (either forced or self-inflicted) itself is the point - and much like the Ukyou tickle-fetish story that was posted recently, I'm not into that.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 05, 2012, 10:39:17 PM
That sort of thing in a story doesn't bother me per se. The first couple of chapters of Her War has Onna-Ranma in Musk prison getting put through systemic torture-rape. But if you've read that fic, you'll likely agree that there's pacing (and if you haven't, and don't mind reading Ranma fics, I'd recommend it). Her War has plenty of angst and brainwashing, but it isn't just scene after scene of it.
Wow, thanks for the warning. I was just thinking about finally reading that. Glad I don't have to now. O_o;
Quote from: Yuthirin on June 06, 2012, 12:44:04 AM
Wow, thanks for the warning. I was just thinking about finally reading that. Glad I don't have to now. O_o;
Mind you, I picked Her War as a contrast with Haigeki for a reason. Usually, when you see a description like that for an manga/anime-based story, you'd expect something that's either most shock (e.g OMG! Rape!) or some cheap hentai-manga plot knockoff (description: humor + tentacles), and it is not like either of those at all. I think it's a pretty good read, overall.
But it is what it is. If there's a story about something that happens in the settings of WW2 Nanking or the Holocaust, then terrible things are going to happen in the course of the story. If you aren't inclined to read a story of that sort, then you probably shouldn't read this one.
Read Hill of Swords tonight. With a disclaimer that I'm not familiar with the FoZ, I give it about 6/10.
[spoiler]
It was an interesting fic, but one that I felt was hobbled by the a few choices the author made. I don't really enjoy Shiro still worshiping Saber and would have preferred an entirely different tack there. Okay yeah, I'm all for loyalty, but this didn't do much for me. The author's notes at the end said he was planning to write a Saber/Shiro fic while I was more interested in the FoZ relationships.
Hated the epilogue for reasons more or less connected to that. The bit about Shiro's child was completely a cop out, too. At least sack up and answer it, the whole snicker/laugh/I'm not telling routine isn't the least bit interesting or endearing.
Then again, I'm not familiar with FoZ, plus I'm not a big Fate fan (and not a huge Saber fan either, though I like her on the whole), so maybe my opinion is completely borked here.
I also felt that Shiro's continued fixation on Saber was the weakest element in that fic. The first time I read it the whole epilogue kind of squicked me out, like most together-in-death sort of resolutions; then I realized that according to Nasuverse canon, Shiro and Saber do actually get an afterlife together, which helped somewhat. Of course, I'm a huge fanboy of everything that guy ever wrote, so my assessment is likely overgenerous on an objective level.
That was also my intro to ZnT, and it did a good job of hooking me on the universe. Now I'm kind of leery of reading the canon; abusive-mostly-tsun female lead and extreme-doormat male lead isn't a dynamic I'm too happy about.
Quote from: alethiophile on June 06, 2012, 04:37:56 AMabusive-mostly-tsun female lead and extreme-doormat male lead isn't a dynamic I'm too happy about.
The male lead of FnZ pretty much lacks defining character traits. It's why nothing of value is lost when he's replaced in a crossover. He's literally no-one.
I read this one, despite the warning signs:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7017118/1/
I'm torn between how awful it was, and respecting just the fact that the author ended it instead of leaving it as one of the vast mounds of unfinished fics.
It's a textbook example on the pitfalls of not having a clue what the ending is or how the story will go before starting, though.
Quote from: alethiophile on June 06, 2012, 04:37:56 AMI also felt that Shiro's continued fixation on Saber was the weakest element in that fic. The first time I read it the whole epilogue kind of squicked me out, like most together-in-death sort of resolutions; then I realized that according to Nasuverse canon, Shiro and Saber do actually get an afterlife together, which helped somewhat. Of course, I'm a huge fanboy of everything that guy ever wrote, so my assessment is likely overgenerous on an objective level.
That was also my intro to ZnT, and it did a good job of hooking me on the universe. Now I'm kind of leery of reading the canon; abusive-mostly-tsun female lead and extreme-doormat male lead isn't a dynamic I'm too happy about.
I'm okay with after-death/together-in-death things, but the way this one was executed left me rather chilly. I think the fic's fundamental problem is that it was introducing all this new, interesting material from FoZ while ultimately being a fic about Saber and Shiro. There's a huge dissonance between where the fic's attention and focus was versus the ultimate goal of it. It's so damn awkward - it's a Shiro/Saber fic and she she's a complete non-entity for it, while the focus of things are entirely elsewhere.
http://fanfiction.net/s/8190430/1/
Yay, pointless angst.
I want that minute of my life back.
That's vaguely like...what, that story where Haruhi never knew the Brigade, but they're just four kids who died in a car crash or something?
Yeah, kinda. That story really ticked me off, too. Here it is:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5185574/1/The_Anatomy_of_Melancholy
Not because it was a downer, but because it felt like it was specifically trying to poison something I enjoyed.
I reviewed it here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=FanficRecs&target_title=The%20Anatomy%20of%20Melancholy
Quote from: Brian on June 06, 2012, 05:21:41 AM
Quote from: alethiophile on June 06, 2012, 04:37:56 AMabusive-mostly-tsun female lead and extreme-doormat male lead isn't a dynamic I'm too happy about.
The male lead of FnZ pretty much lacks defining character traits. It's why nothing of value is lost when he's replaced in a crossover. He's literally no-one.
Not quite true.
He has two defining character traits. Neither good ones.
1)He likes being abused.
2)He likes women and does nothing but stare about it. Sexy could be said to be optional if it wasn't a classic eroge show setup with its cast.
Neither of these are endearing characteristics, so it makes it easy to swap him as you said.
Kotono:
Having encountered FoZ first... I have to say I took away more that the point was Louise becoming a better person. Which spun off a lot of fics where the summoned individual is harsh or embittered or otherwise can force that on her.
http://shadowheartdesigns.deviantart.com/art/The-Shrine-272911191 neat short/one-shot madoka fic.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8157755/1/WWZ_Files_A_Hero
Too short to have any serious meat, it's still an interesting WWZ crossover. I'm no zombie fan, but I still got a kick out of it.
Cleaning up some basement books, came across the very unpromisingly titled title "
Kids vs. Wizards". I think some visiting relatives from across the pond were like "hey, you read Harry Potter, right? Try this book, too!" before they shoved the thing at me. Then it spent some time marinating in my family's basement.
Anyhow, I decide to read it now.
*sigh*
How do I summarize it? Imagine if you had
Skysaber... and then some hypothetical
shady propaganda arm of the
Russian Orthodox Church paid him a bunch of
cold, hard cash to write a
Harry Potter hatefic.
EDIT: I am weirdly tempted to do an epic-length review of it just because I need to blow off steam and even the previous sentence doesn't do justice to how surreal the thing is. Perhaps the cover art does it justice:
(http://lavka-palomnika.ru/published/publicdata/LAVKAP70WA/attachments/SC/products_pictures/150hp_enl.jpg)
Good god... those facial expressions... and the military guy... and that other wizard guy who isn't Harry Potter or Dumbledore... wait, why is that
other other guy wearing a
bear?
*hrk*
EDIT2: yeah, it's basically the Godfather of all ludicrously bad HP bashfics.
...Wow.
If it was in a language I read, I might almost be tempted to take a look at it just for laughs. Not worth learning Russian for, though.
Millennium by Black Dragon has updated: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2449022/14/Millennium
Also, new chapter of In Flight is out: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/31/
Now, off to read!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/1/Zero_Interface
Ranma/Familiar of Zero crossover I read today. It's not bad and rather refreshing. It takes Ranma from the beginning of Ranma 1/2 and uses that to the advantage.
Ranma isn't so gunshy about women and doesn't have an entire series worth of hesitation about it. It's nice to see a fic that isn't stuck in the same genre inspired patterns and instead freely mixes in reasonable amounts of chaos to things. Ranma's curse changing shape is inspired, as Louise getting all of Ranma's sensations.
Worth a read, I'd say.
Borderline ecchi in the fanservice, but a surprisingly fun one. The FnZ crossover that got my attention initially, actually.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 18, 2012, 12:39:10 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/1/Zero_Interface
I have linked this at least twice! You should be paying attention! Pay attention, Fic-Man!
I reread that just the other day. It was still fun.
@Ara: AK-47 vs. schoolchildren. Certainly not written with the American audience in mind.
(also, as you said: bear?)
re: Zero Interface, I liked that fic. I decided to see if I could find info on the the ZnT, since it sounded interesting. Then I ran across some sites that basically called the male lead a doormat with no distinguishing characteristics without actually phrasing it that way, and someone in #sr (I think Bri) said the female lead was a perpetual 'tsun' ... and I decided that it no longer sounded interesting.
Random thoughts while writing this post:
(1) I'd want to see a parody that plays this straight. Extremely attractive girl A-ko can't keep a boyfriend because whenever she hooks up with someone, she goes completely bi-polar. Anime damage laws do not apply - if someone is hit on the head with an entire car, it will not get better in an hour. She wants to change, and tries to seek help or use tricks so she can have a proper romance, but is continually thwarted by the anime club, who see her as their living "anime goddess in the flesh" or somesuch.
(2) I need to to work in the phrase "Set phasers on 'tsun'" into a story. Just because.
I think this was the best summary of ZnT I ever read:
Quote from: Buzmeg
This series is a time sink trap. There is just barely enough glimpses of plot threads in the first season to sucker you into staying with it. There are a couple of really interesting threads (Sword of the Commoners, the link between the two worlds, the civil war, a possible war between commoners and mages, the true nature of magic, and the fact that the main character occasionally exhibits some real balls) that keep you watching through the cliches, the fanservice, and the tsundere waiting hoping for them to finally take hold. Don't do it. Nothing good actually ever pulls together. Not horrible (I didn't turn it off in disgust), but certainly not good.
I enjoyed the first series, but as I started the second and they'd dropped the ball on every thread raised in the first to focus on harem anime bullshit I quickly abandoned it. It could've been great.
Well, part of its problem is that it's intended as light fetish work. The Heroine beating up the Hero is not intended to be delivered as just slapstick like it is in many physical comedy series (from Three Stooges to Ranma), but instead part of delivering an S&M servant/master type relationship in the middle of an eroge cast.
It gets written a lot about because it offers 2 things:
A)A setting with a lot of hooks, very few of which were fleshed out and lots of them leading toward dystopian disasters and world changing conflicts with little effort.
B)A terrible main character and a female character who is terrible, insecure, and potentially horribly powerful. So there's lots of openings. Mentor. Disgusted Hero. Friend. Romantic. Romantic Comedy. Because she's such a bad character, anyone that can overwhelm her can become interesting, and then go after one of the hooks.
QuoteBecause she's such a bad character, anyone that can overwhelm her can become interesting, and then go after one of the hooks.
And yet so many people doing ZnT crossovers miss this! What's the point of replacing the hero if you don't do anything with it? Just dumping super powerful familiars into the story doesn't mean anything if they don't interact with the world in some meaningful way.
Damn the stations of the canon! I've read so many 'familiar fights Guiche' scenes that only exist because the author felt they had to put that in. It isn't any wonder why so few of those fics get beyond the Crumbling Earth bit.
And that's not even mentioning the poor excuses people come up with to explain why any of their powerful replacement heroes would even stay as Louise's familiar. When your excuses make the canon seem well thought out. . .
Quote from: thepanda on June 19, 2012, 03:44:17 AM
And yet so many people doing ZnT crossovers miss this! What's the point of replacing the hero if you don't do anything with it? Just dumping super powerful familiars into the story doesn't mean anything if they don't interact with the world in some meaningful way.
That's just bad writing in general. It's no different then all of those stories where the hero w/powers/knowledge goes back in time, but won't change anything because "the future may change beyond his/her ability to control", or purported crossovers which just amounts to characters getting a name change and maybe an extra word or two in dialogue. It's not limited to fics of any particular series.
This isn't limited to bad writers either. Anyone remember Wilde's "Ranma-Starwars" crossover, which was basically just Starwars? Jamie Wilde was a pretty good writer, and this story was supposedly his Magnum Opus, but I remember pointing out that he wrote literally one scene (which, IIRC, dealt with Kasumi in a B-wing) that wasn't event-for-event from the movies.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 19, 2012, 01:12:42 PMAnyone remember Wilde's "Ranma-Starwars" crossover[...]?
I'm glad to say: Nope!
QuoteAnyone remember Wilde's "Ranma-Starwars" crossover[...]?
Can't say I do.
Quote from: thepanda on June 19, 2012, 03:44:17 AM
QuoteBecause she's such a bad character, anyone that can overwhelm her can become interesting, and then go after one of the hooks.
And yet so many people doing ZnT crossovers miss this! What's the point of replacing the hero if you don't do anything with it? Just dumping super powerful familiars into the story doesn't mean anything if they don't interact with the world in some meaningful way.
Damn the stations of the canon! I've read so many 'familiar fights Guiche' scenes that only exist because the author felt they had to put that in. It isn't any wonder why so few of those fics get beyond the Crumbling Earth bit.
And that's not even mentioning the poor excuses people come up with to explain why any of their powerful replacement heroes would even stay as Louise's familiar. When your excuses make the canon seem well thought out. . .
Well, to be fair, the Guiche fight (or something in its vein) serves a very useful narrative convention.
The core basis of most ZnT stories is:
Louise summons something unexpected. Because it is strange and unexpected, her peers do not take it seriously. Neither does she. Then the summoned thing overwhelms a peer, indicating that The World Is bigger than they think. It's a tone-setter. It is like Ranma's arrival at the tendos. In a very short sequence, the nature of how this authors take on the world is going to be different can be delivered.
That many authors lack a plan past that is clear, but also the unoriginality of their takes on that scene also delivers a lot.
I think it was posted on the FFML in 1997? 1998?
*checks
Oh, here: http://ffmlsearch.inklesspen.com/message/show/1186904408.M60066P12296Q78877.euterpe
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7733374/1/Unforeseen_Consequences
Louise summons Kyuubey the Eldritch Abomination. Shenanigans ensue as things go majorly off the expected plot rails.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 19, 2012, 08:08:05 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7733374/1/Unforeseen_Consequences
Louise summons Kyuubey the Eldritch Abomination. Shenanigans ensue as things go majorly off the expected plot rails.
/me eyeballs.
Whaaat?
Quote from: Anastasia on June 19, 2012, 08:08:05 PMShenanigans ensue as things go majorly off the expected plot rails.
FnZ. Plot rails. What?
Well, plot rails for a FnZ fanfic. See the discussion above.
I know, but considering how early Guiche is, that's basically saying, "It has two chapters!"
Quote from: Brian on June 20, 2012, 03:02:30 AM
I know, but considering how early Guiche is, that's basically saying, "It has two chapters!"
And yet, so many FoZ fanfics take twice that many chapters, if not more, just to get to that point!
Really?
I've read a lot of them I think, and almost all of them handle it by chapter 2. Usually as the climax of chapter 2. Much in the way many Ranma fics use chapter 1 to be 'Meet the Tendos' and chapter 2 to be 'and how does Ranma approach school' to establish tone. I can't recall a one that took 4+ chapters to do it. Zero Interface takes 3, but also has a lot of ranma antics going on prior too.
Totally agree with Brian here. FnZ is a mess of hooks, but getting through the guiche fight is hardly even getting onto 'rails' to begin with. Even Hill of Swords barely explores half the anime in its rather long take. It's nonsense at points and very flawed, but much like Ranma is more than "Meet the Tendos", so is FnZ more than "Beat Guiche".
When I was plotting the FnZ/Haruhi crossover I was originally thinking about, one of the things I realized was that I would need to read/watch FnZ to know what I was dealing with. There's a surprisingly huge volume of 'not much there'.
Supposedly the novels are a bit better on that count, but I'm not sure. :x
What's this? A trolling fanfic draws near! Command?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8238271/1/Proportionate_Retribution
Considering the author, my opinion is to read it, shrug my shoulders and close the browser window.
<@Kotono> http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8238271/1/Proportionate_Retribution DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER
< Merc> This is why you hurt yourself like you do, Ko. Because you read fics like that.
<@Kotono> Eh, the fic didn't bother me much. Considering the author, I'm pretty sure he's just stirring shit.
* Kuyou kicks Ko through a tree.
< Kuyou> I'm going to write and then post another chapter of Unfair Warning. Right now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6524578/1/Herald_of_the_Void
... is the only one of the Familiar of Zero fanfics I've read that has the distinction of being complete. Not sure about other distinctions... I mean Louise is barely even in it.
Then she shows up at the end when you barely even expected her to reappear. And the ending makes you think, "damn, I wish the author just skipped there in three chapters and focused on writing the sequel, instead of... whatever I just sat through".
That was a neat idea that becomes too summarize-y under the weight of what it's doing. Too bad.
Glorious Shotgun Princess (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8107629/5/Mass_Effect_Glorious_Shotgun_Princess) chapter 5 is up.
Edit: Promises of a Wandering Hero (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7798790/6/Promises_of_a_Wandering_Hero) chapter 6 is up, too.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/255077.html
DK:A update. Shit hits the fan in a new and exciting way!
[spoiler]I have a dim inkling that Ami might counter it with something like Eternal Sleep. Assuming that preserves things in a timeless state...probably just a random idea that won't be remotely right.
Mother of Learning (http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/13/Mother_of_Learning), by nobody103.
It's original fiction story about a fantasy 'groundhog day' style time loop.
Setting is a magical academy where a third year mage named Zorian goes through his first month of school mostly normally (there are some slight inconsistencies he notices but mostly ignores at the time), but when the summer festival starts...things get even weirder as he finds himself repeating his first month of school and all those 'little' inconsistencies suddenly aren't so minor.
I liked that it takes five chapters before we even have a time loop occuring for the main character (as opposed to the usual half a chapter from fanfics), so we have a somewhat fleshed out world by then, and even afterwards we're still picking up more about it. Author also uses a nice touch of foreshadowing where things get mentioned briefly and start becoming more important in later loops as they're fleshed out.
Main character isn't actually going into a crazy power trip either, he's more true to the spirit of the groundhog day movie as he's kind of a self-centered guy that is starting to care a bit more about others little by little.
Quote from: Merc on June 24, 2012, 11:36:40 AMI liked that it takes five chapters before we even have a time loop occuring for the main character (as opposed to the usual half a chapter from fanfics), so we have a somewhat fleshed out world by then, and even afterwards we're still picking up more about it.
Uh, in fanfic, those 'five chapters' are the entire canon up to the divergence point.
I'm aware of that Brian, but it's still a nice change of pace.
Quote from: Merc on June 24, 2012, 11:36:40 AM
Mother of Learning (http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/13/Mother_of_Learning), by nobody103.
It's original fiction story about a fantasy 'groundhog day' style time loop.
Quote from: Brian on June 24, 2012, 12:04:10 PM
Uh, in fanfic, those 'five chapters' are the entire canon up to the divergence point.
I'm confused.
Is this an original story or not? Because if it's a fanfic, I try to avoid writers who spend significant amounts of space retelling the original story (and I generally avoid fanfics of series with which I'm unfamiliar). If not, this story sounds like something I try.
It's an original story, Miao. Brian just let slip fanfic because I'd made a comparison to fanfics regarding time taken to start a loop in this sort of stories.
Quote from: thepanda on June 23, 2012, 08:02:22 PM
Edit: Promises of a Wandering Hero (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7798790/6/Promises_of_a_Wandering_Hero) chapter 6 is up, too.
Just started this; it's intriguing so far. Granted, I've only gotten about 1/2 way through the Love Hina manga.
Quote from: Merc on June 25, 2012, 12:12:23 AM
It's an original story, Miao. Brian just let slip fanfic because I'd made a comparison to fanfics regarding time taken to start a loop in this sort of stories.
Blew through it this morning. Looks pretty good, and its in an actual storytelling style than an attempt to translate Groundhog's Day short-repeat-clip style to writing (most of the ones I've found on fanfic.net do this at some point. Perfect Moments, Time Braid, and that set of Loops vignettes. I don't recall if Chuunin Exam Day does, but that's Skysaber levels of bad so I don't feel like going back to find out). Not that there is anything wrong with original style in the movie (hell, people who write more of these, and fewer so-called "time travel" stories which sound like they ought to be Chrono-Trigger instead of lame "second chance" setups), but seeing a writer do his or her own thing rather than just blindly copy setting features is always nice.
Sister jumping on brother to take up feels like something out of an anime. It's not something I mind in anime/manga fanfic since it's one of their typical patterns, but it's weird to see it in a story like this. Since magic is so prolific, the fact that the protagonist is taking a train in the beginning is ridiculous, but given that there's this really popular series of books about kids going to magic school starts out with the kids taking the train, I suspect this writer won't be the last to use it.
Also, to anyone else interested in reading this, Merc linked to the latest chapter, not the earliest chapter. Due to the nature of GD fics, this has horrible potential to spoil if you read through a few paragraphs before you realized that.
-edit-
Almost forgot...how to tell that I've been spending too much time around Bri in IRC.
"Their teacher was an ex battlemage named Kyron. "
I swear I read that as "Kyon." It took a few minutes for the image to get out of my head.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 25, 2012, 01:22:43 PM(snip)I don't recall if Chuunin Exam Day does, but that's Skysaber levels of bad so I don't feel like going back to find out).
That's probably because the author *is* Skysaber. Saying it's Skysaber quality of work is rather redundant.
QuoteSister jumping on brother to take up feels like something out of an anime. It's not something I mind in anime/manga fanfic since it's one of their typical patterns, but it's weird to see it in a story like this.
Yeah, feels like something out of an anime, but I saw it being a bit strange as a hint, as one of those things that was purposely put in there for later use. The story also feels like a loving satire of previous groundhog day fics, what with all those thematic similarities, but also in how it reverses things by having Zach... well, you get the point. It plays on those thematic similarities purposely, and it's something I really enjoyed about it.
QuoteSince magic is so prolific, the fact that the protagonist is taking a train in the beginning is ridiculous, but given that there's this really popular series of books about kids going to magic school starts out with the kids taking the train, I suspect this writer won't be the last to use it.
I'm also chalking that up to the previous things I said before, but adding in that, in particular, I can't think of an efficient way to get a bunch of kids gathered in one place and transported, especially when most of them can't use magic. So it makes sense to me to have a train.
Quote-edit-
Almost forgot...how to tell that I've been spending too much time around Bri in IRC.
"Their teacher was an ex battlemage named Kyron. "
I swear I read that as "Kyon." It took a few minutes for the image to get out of my head.
You're not the only one. :d
Quote from: Kt3 on June 26, 2012, 11:42:50 AMQuote-edit-
Almost forgot...how to tell that I've been spending too much time around Bri in IRC.
"Their teacher was an ex battlemage named Kyron. "
I swear I read that as "Kyon." It took a few minutes for the image to get out of my head.
You're not the only one. :d
/me adjusts hat.
My work here is done.
/me slouches west and diminishes.
So I thought since the Haruhi scene was really quiet except for me, that I'd find something to read. Something bland and uninspired, but, maybe if my expectations are low enough, I'll be pleasantly surprised. Right?
...and then this happened:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7981990/1/
If I still reviewed on ff.net, I think this is what I'd say:
Wow. I am amazed.
The grammar, the spelling, the characterization, the plotting, the very theme, every single part of this fic is just bad. Not so awful you can laugh at it, but just generically bad, like you're not willing to put effort into any single part of the work. I don't think I've ever read a story that worked so hard to be so blandly mediocre without any redeeming qualities whatsoever.
It's really hard to find a single part of the story to point to and say, "This is where it's awful," because the entire thing sucks straight through. This is a commendably awful experience. I hope it is preserved for later generations, so they can see just _how_ lousy-without-being-truly-awful a thing can _be_. The spires of lousiness that this fic climbs to avoid the towering and rage-inducing peaks of terrible, and also don't sink to the low depths of 'so bad it's funny'. It's just all around in the middle and generic _bad_.
Impressive effort, Sir. I somehow expect it'll never be topped.
If you haven't read the fic in question ... don't.
Ko linked this one:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7668586/1/
Surprisingly tolerable, though it feels a bit meandering. Could get worse -- or better. Isn't offensive, at least!
Premise: Ranma turns into a bear. Not a panda, just a normal bear. Doesn't go so far yet, but amusing in places.
Materia-Blade updated this story: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6880685/8/Well_in_Hand
huh.
Kinda...losing some focus on that one. Not sure where it's going with things.
This (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5475406/1/A_Fractured_Blossom) was actually pretty fun. Too bad it hasn't updated since 2010. ;_;
A new story by Gabriel Blessing is up. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8234227/1/Debt_of_a_Sword)
Amazing how much better the pacing is when he doesn't feel the need to infodump. *cough*InFlight*cough*
Yeah, that one originated as an omake series on his forum, so doesn't have quite the same requirements vis-a-vis transmission of information to the reader. Quite liked it.
Devil Bringer of Zero (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7886793/3/Devil_Bringer_Of_Zero)
It has honestly been a while since the last time I read some Tenchi fic.
Quote from: thepanda on June 29, 2012, 09:52:35 PM
Devil Bringer of Zero (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7886793/3/Devil_Bringer_Of_Zero)
It has honestly been a while since the last time I read some Tenchi fic.
Read that one a few days ago and liked it. Lots of potential for fun times there, though really I think the entire duel should've been avoided.
http://z13.invisionfree.com/TFF_Archive/index.php?showtopic=21
That will be one full order of what the fuck, roger that.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 29, 2012, 10:43:10 PM
Quote from: thepanda on June 29, 2012, 09:52:35 PM
Devil Bringer of Zero (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7886793/3/Devil_Bringer_Of_Zero)
It has honestly been a while since the last time I read some Tenchi fic.
Read that one a few days ago and liked it. Lots of potential for fun times there, though really I think the entire duel should've been avoided.
...
That was quite possibly the stupidest Gramont duel scene I have yet read. There are some amusing parts of that story, but that Gramont duel just throws me highly off. It was entirely nonsense. It doesn't even work as a tone setter or reveal because she's already fought with the much more experienced Colbert.
It was just nonsense to see.
100% agreement. It was staggeringly stupid, the sort of stupid that leads to being bald, broke and beaten by the time you're 25.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6052381/26/Sleeping_With_The_Girls_Vol_II_Chaos_Theory
An update, if it wasn't obvious.
Debt of Sword (Gabriel Blessing) wasn't well written.
But it was an amusing and pleasant read. A simply told story.
I read it and thought it was solid. I don't see why it would be considered not well written, though.
Probably a bad way of putting it. At least half of it is very rough, by virtue of it being written as forum omakes and then finished up into a story, methinks.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/224361/1/
A nice, clever one shot involving Angel and the Screwtape Letters.
GB's stuff has a habit of being rough in the technicals, and Debt was worse than usual that way because of its origin. Still wonderful. GB is one of the few writers I'm willing to give a pass on the "don't make idiotic spelling mistakes" rule.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8280285/1/The_Dark_Lords_Ascendant
Part 3 of the Dark Lords of Nerima series has begun. This one lost me with the interlude, but I figure some of you might appreciate this more.
Part One was decent, didn't we all :| on Part Two?
Yep.
I figure there might be curiosity about it.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 03, 2012, 01:24:13 PM
Yep.
I figure there might be curiosity about it.
Who wants to brave finishing part 2, so that they can ascertain whether part 3 is worth the effort of making it through part 2?
This story updated: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4545558/1/Five_Kingdoms_for_the_Dead
I posted it before, with a one-line description of this before, saying "...the first four chapters start as a bog-standard Sakura-motivated-to-not-suck, then takes a turn to weirdness at the start of chapter 5." but I should probably say something more than that.
A darkly tinted buildingsroman* + MPD. The MPD is the basis of the title - the Five Kingdoms correspond to the five personalities, and a general description of the story itself is Sakura advancing as an effective ninja while trying to hide the fact that she's insane.
The original fangirl personality is gone, shattered into darker personalities. e.g, the first one is Orochimaru. There are others. I've seen attempts to do this sort of thing with Naruto+Fox, but it doesn't really work as well because they're usually written as "Rawr, I am being pointlessly and stupidly malevolent" or "I'm really a nice monster, deep down inside. Me, eat people and rampage? Base lies" neither of which lends itself to much depth. This story has some depth.
Downsides - Story is fundamentally wish-fulfillment. The writer uses the MPD to avoid one-dimensionality of the heroine, and I'm given to understand that the writer revised the earlier chapters to remove the more unreasonable instances of this, but it still wish-fulfillment at its base. Granted, most people watch anime such as Love Hina anime and actually like it, which is far more blatant, so I doubt most people will really have a problem with this story.
Also, the writer is a self-professed Neji fangirl. I am not a fangirl of any stripe, so descriptions of him "standing calf deep in the water, long hair dripping and silk armor clinging to lean bodies" isn't really all that compelling. Given who the main character is, I can't say it's OOC, and the occasional descriptions aren't much longer than what I just wrote, but it's not to my taste.
I was drawn in by the 'Sasaki and Kyon' tags. They did not appear anywhere in this fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8286715/1/The_Forgotten_One
Neither did Haruhi. It appeared to be a story about some original characters who happen to share names.
Oh, well.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/255303.html
DK:A updated.
Ami status: One again megascrewed. Should be awesome to see how she gets out of this one.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 05, 2012, 07:07:02 PM
Ami status: One again megascrewed. Should be awesome to see how she gets out of this one.
For following DK:A I've adopted the rule of thumb that she's not megascrewed unless the summary page (http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/frecent.php?tag=Dungeon+Keeper+Ami) is tagged 'Dark' (the episodes with a black square next to them). You'll notice Catastrophic Failure (the one which could easily have been titled
Incredible Badass Pyromania
) wasn't tagged that way, and neither is this one. It's mostly banter like this:
"Do I look like a native of the dark god's realm who has taken on a physical shape to you?" Tiger asked back.
"Yes. No. Maybe?" The blonde rubbed the back of her head. "You've got horns."
"So do cows!" Tiger crossed her arms.
On the other hand, some of the options for the next chapter sound horrible. Throwing in Kunzite on top of everything falling down around Ami's ears would get very messy...
Quote
On the other hand, some of the options for the next chapter sound horrible. Throwing in Kunzite on top of everything falling down around Ami's ears would get very messy...
I dunno. It could be, but I have the feeling either the Light Gods or Metallia is going to manipulate Kunzite's attack. Ami has enough enemies going for her already, you know? I figure the author will get more out of Kunzite than merely using him to attack Ami.
Quote from: Brian on July 05, 2012, 01:43:18 PM
I was drawn in by the 'Sasaki and Kyon' tags. They did not appear anywhere in this fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8286715/1/The_Forgotten_One
Neither did Haruhi. It appeared to be a story about some original characters who happen to share names.
Oh, well.
MAYBE THEY WERE THE FORGOTTEN ONES!
Quote from: Anastasia on July 05, 2012, 09:40:24 PM
I figure the author will get more out of Kunzite than merely using him to attack Ami.
Maybe she'll end up with a General collection.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 06, 2012, 01:20:56 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on July 05, 2012, 09:40:24 PM
I figure the author will get more out of Kunzite than merely using him to attack Ami.
Maybe she'll end up with a General collection.
I would love that just for Beryl's reaction.
So... Dark Lords of Nerima.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 03, 2012, 07:43:46 PM
Who wants to brave finishing part 2, so that they can ascertain whether part 3 is worth the effort of making it through part 2?
I got curious. (Not sure what's
so bad about part 2 -- most of the egregious stuff was
so obviously setting up for the whole "and the aftermath of the battle gets reset" thing that it was mostly <shrug>. Anyone care to enlighten me as to what I'm missing that made people give up on reading it?)
The scoop about part 3 is roughly as follows:
- Time skip past the end of Sailor Stars. But while covering the timeskip we get to watch Ranma+Ryoga+Mousse sort-of-inconclusively beat up on Death Phantom for a while (until he gets bored with them and decides he has more important things to do elsewhere), which was kind of oddly underwhelming.
- After Stars, Sailor Senshi are apparently up against some kind of vague zaibatsu thing. (They still have zaibatsu in the Ranma/Sailorverse?) Their CEO is the kind of martial lunatic who thinks it's a hoot to take out bounties on his own head just so he can be entertained at breakfast by yakuza assassins bursting in to try to kill him. Oh, and apparently Mousse has some vague dark past thing going on with them. Will have to see where that goes.
- Bunch of vaguely tedious stuff with Mousse and the Kunos, plus Shampoo and Akane. Hooray if you like ridiculously mature handi-capable Mousse, I guess.
Really the only things you need to know about part 2 if you didn't make it all the way through are:
- Everyone in the Ranma universe ever gets together into one giant army.
- MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS EVERYONE DIES. Then Sailor Moon resurrects the good guys as per the usual drill and after a bunch of effort they regain their memories.
- As a result of learning experience that happens during MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS (namely getting killed), Kuno is now kind of sane and has given up on girl!Ranma and somewhat backed off from Akane.
- Oh, and Mousse is slowly going blind or something.
In short, surprisingly a lot of focus on Mousse so far... not overwhelmingly so, but it stood out. So far, based on the first chapter, the recommendation is inconclusive. Will have to see where the guy is going with this.
Quote
I got curious. (Not sure what's so bad about part 2 -- most of the egregious stuff was so obviously setting up for the whole "and the aftermath of the battle gets reset" thing that it was mostly <shrug>. Anyone care to enlighten me as to what I'm missing that made people give up on reading it?)
Because it completely switches focus. Part 1 was a melding of Sailor Moon with Ranma-styled comedy, which worked nicely. Up to where I read, part 2 seems like it tried to be Tom Clancy except with less American nationalism and military experience. Military-oriented fiction isn't bad in and of itself, but there's an issue of setting expectations and then failing to meet them - if he'd started part 1 as a military oriented story, then switched it to a slapstick comedy in part 2, I'd be equally annoyed.
That's not to say that one can't expand by adding genres - e.g, the first Star Wars started as space opera, and ended as space opera with a large dose of mysticism thrown in. But had Empire Strikes Back turned into a fantasy-romance movie, it would suck. It might be the best fantasy-romance movie, but the audience wouldn't have been looking for that.
Switching Genres with continuous stories often loses huge swaths of readers and rarely gets new ones for it. The reason being that new readers have to get context, often involving large amounts of story in a style they aren't interested in (since they didn't read it originally). And some subset of current readers just won't get why the genre just changed on them.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 06, 2012, 11:41:18 PM
Because it completely switches focus. Part 1 was a melding of Sailor Moon with Ranma-styled comedy, which worked nicely. Up to where I read, part 2 seems like it tried to be Tom Clancy except with less American nationalism and military experience. Military-oriented fiction isn't bad in and of itself, but there's an issue of setting expectations and then failing to meet them - if he'd started part 1 as a military oriented story, then switched it to a slapstick comedy in part 2, I'd be equally annoyed.
The evil-zaibatsu thing seems very much in line with what you just described i.e. Tom Clancy. The problem with that (aside from switching genres) is that with a Sailor Moon / Ranma crossover, the somber approach the author is now taking the story looks set to suffer plot fatigue. (Been through that problem myself...)
That gigantic cast from two series? Great when you're doing slapstick comedy and you don't need to remember more than one or two points per character. You can overlay these with complex traits, but the plot hangs off the simple traits, which enable the author to throw together any insanely complex Rube Goldberg gag that anyone familiar with the cast can still follow.
But sice Part 2 everyone's grown their own messy character arc (I singled out Mousse in my initial appraisal, but he's just the character whose arc develops the furthest, more or less efficiently; stuff happens to the other characters that's much less memorable and harder to follow). It's kind of hard to keep track of every side character having these somber growth experiences and it looks set to kill the momentum of the story.
In short, attempting to develop *everyone* in a complex ensemble cast is a tall order, and it wasn't even what made the fic interesting in the first place. (More realistically, in such a complex cast you would have many arcs; each arc would focus on developing a handful of characters while keeping the rest mostly static, to give the reader *some* stable point of reference.)
Still, part of me wants to wish the guy good luck and hope it will all amount to something. It's just the approach he's taking to telling whatever story is in his head is a massive pain to pull off, even at best.
There's a lot also to be said for knowing when to end it.
Ending with the first and not continuing would've left us all going "Man, that was pretty cool, I can't wait to see the author's next work". Instead, I'm fairly sure a lot of us don't even check his page or watch him as it's all updates on an increasingly mess built atop a fic we once enjoyed.
*shrugs*
Still, fanfic isn't simply a consumed entity, but also the entertainment of the author writing it. So if he wants to run his story into a mess of backstabbing, power to him. I'll go read something else.
Clicking around, I found this (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7267553/13/Full_of_Sound_and_Fury), a Madoka story.
Thirteen chapters in before you chose to share a link...?
Here's chapter one for anyone interested: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7267553/1/Full_of_Sound_and_Fury
Edit: Poked at chapter one. That's ... Olg, right? As a quick observation, you have a very stiff sentence structure, specifically sticking two or more events together (per sentence) with 'as'. It may change later, but made the first few paragraphs scan like a dry list of actions.
Quote from: Brian on July 09, 2012, 03:52:03 AM
Thirteen chapters in before you chose to share a link...?
The 13th story in the slushpile of unrelated short stories/scenes caught my eye (not that the other ones are inferior, but I am not familiar with some of the series, so didn't read a number of them).
Quote
That's ... Olg, right?
Yes.
Ah, didn't know it was a slushpile.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on July 06, 2012, 10:37:13 PM
So... Dark Lords of Nerima.
I still enjoy the series. Why does everyone hate this? :(
Which series?
Whooops, missed the fact that there was anothing page! Yay for not reading things!
Quote from: Brian on July 09, 2012, 03:52:03 AM
Thirteen chapters in before you chose to share a link...?
Here's chapter one for anyone interested: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7267553/1/Full_of_Sound_and_Fury
Edit: Poked at chapter one. That's ... Olg, right? As a quick observation, you have a very stiff sentence structure, specifically sticking two or more events together (per sentence) with 'as'. It may change later, but made the first few paragraphs scan like a dry list of actions.
Heya Brian and Jason, thanks for the feedback. Those were pretty old stories that I wrote only towards the start of my writing. Not really sure if I've gotten better, but yeah I was pretty simplistic.
Quote from: Yuthirin on July 09, 2012, 11:27:33 AM
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on July 06, 2012, 10:37:13 PM
So... Dark Lords of Nerima.
I still enjoy the series. Why does everyone hate this? :(
Drac and I have already answered this question. Why do you not hate it? :)
Huh. My original curiosity was more along the lines of 'why is this worthy of hate rather than apathy?' I guess due to the feeling of getting bait-and-switched... as far as I understood the explanation.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on July 09, 2012, 09:19:20 PM
Huh. My original curiosity was more along the lines of 'why is this worthy of hate rather than apathy?' I guess due to the feeling of getting bait-and-switched... as far as I understood the explanation.
Plus the 'status quo is god' ending of the first part really didn't help.
Quote from: thepanda on July 09, 2012, 09:38:13 PM
Plus the 'status quo is god' ending of the first part really didn't help.
Guess you're
really not going to like the Death Phantom scene in Part 3, then, because... Ranma fights Death Phantom and precisely nothing changes as a result. Death Phantom just eventually gets bored and teleports away.
Yeah. If the story is going to turn out exactly the same way as it did before, why bother reading a fanfic in the first place?
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on July 09, 2012, 09:54:22 PMGuess you're really not going to like the Death Phantom scene in Part 3, then, because... Ranma fights Death Phantom and precisely nothing changes as a result. Death Phantom just eventually gets bored and teleports away.
Nope. Just not going to bother reading it.
It doesn't help that I'm not a huge Ryouga fanboy, and part one was pretty clear that the author was. That mismatch of interests plus the lack of progression boiled up in raging ... indifference.
I don't hate it. I just couldn't care.
Meh, I don't know. Part 1 was clearly setting up for something more than what transpired, given that the whole scheme is implied to be a huge, brilliant application of Saotome Final Technique (i.e. disengaging from the battle to give themselves time to plan i.e. running away). Then it kills all momentum by skipping over the part where they'd logically apply the next plan. (The whole huge battle was... a bit too straightforward to be ideal.)
The next part should have been either them messing with Jadeite at Haneda airport (ideal) or perhaps the huge-battle interlude (sure, why not) then resuming immediately after Doom Tree arc finishes, instead of after Stars. But it seems like the author got tired of thinking of ways to mess with canon.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7502509/1/Cross_and_Thorn_a_Tale_of_the_Demon_Castle
Castlevania 1 fanfic. It's superbly written but challenging to get through. It's really as much a religious journey as the actual game, so a casual reader may be dissuaded. I really can't recommend it enough, as the flavor is absolutely outstanding.
Ranma is Reborn by Fuyukazehime reviews
RanmaTenchi Xover. Ranma is accidentally nearly killed by Ayeka's warning shot! He is healed in a medical capsule but something went wrong. He is now a pure blooded juraian female and to top it all off has lost her memory. What will happen now? On Hold
Rated: T - English - Drama - Chapters: 1 - Words: 3,408 - Reviews: 61 - Published: 11-21-06 - Ranma
Why do you hate us, Panda?
Yeah, really, panda?
He doesn't hate you! He loves you enough to share his pain with you, but without offering an actual link to it!
If I hated you I'd have simply given you a link, sans description, titled 'So, this is a thing that was written.'
Edit: Because, seriously, that chapter? That chapter. Man, that chapter. *shakes head and laughs*
So, this was a thing that was written. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7589297/1/Potion)
-edit-
I should note for fairness: this isn't as bad as Panda's fic sounds, per se. It's pretty neutral, with nothing particularly for or against it. But I don't purposefully read terrible stories such as foot-fetish-Ukyou and the like, and I'm not going to go looking for Skysaber, so this is the worst I can come up with on short notice.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8311464/1/FateFamiliar
On one hand this is an interesting premise for a story. On the other the author has some bad writing habits, attempts to bite of waaaay more than he can chew and the entire thing relies on the extremely weak premise of 'reality altering DEM is fucking around'. Now it's a character that's known in series (Zelretch), but it's still weak as hell. Still, I like the basic premise. I really do. Dropping various versions of the Fate cast into FoZ years before the story starts is good. The problem is that it skips right past that with a big dose of handwaving. Sigh.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 14, 2012, 03:58:28 AM
Still, I like the basic premise. I really do. Dropping various versions of the Fate cast into FoZ years before the story starts is good. The problem is that it skips right past that with a big dose of handwaving. Sigh.
If I had a penny for every story I could have liked if the "writer" had actually bothered to write the 80% of the chapter that he instead summarized, I'd probably have already been killed and looted by copper thieves.
Copper! *loots the Miao*
Been reading Empire's Son (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6734329/1/Empires_Son) recently, it's a Star Wars AU where Luke got put with the Organas on Alderaan while Leia got to grow up on Tatooine with Owen and Beru. Things take an unfortunate turn when Luke's greater Force presence gives him away to the Emperor during a state function at age seven, leading to the Organas being murdered and Luke forced into a life of horrifying abuse at the Emperor. And just to show what a caring cool guy he is, Palpatine doctors medical records to make it seem like Luke is the son of Obi Wan Kenobi rather than Anakin Skywalker, leading Darth Vader into hating the poor kid and joining in the abuse with gusto. Hearing about what happened to the Organas and fearing the worst, Kenobi promptly takes Leia and flees into the Rebel Alliance, training her as a Jedi.
The story really starts off when both Luke and Leia are in their teens, Luke now serving the Emperor as a Sith with what can only be attributed to Stockholm Syndrome while Leia's a confident Rebel operative and Jedi, while the Death Star nears completion. It's fantastically written, taking the Star Wars story in its own direction with some things happening almost the same with different actors while other changes lead to radically different outcomes, while the characters are all well written with the writer taking the time to get into everyone's heads so you can see exactly what makes them tick. From Palpatine's scheming evil and bitter jealousy to Han's Imperial everyman earnestly sticking to his morals when dumped into the thick of all that's rotten with the Empire as Luke's adjutant, you might not sympathise with every character, but you get a real sense for knowing them.
Also while I'm plugging this, check out the same writer's Son of Son trilogy which I plugged way way back in the thread. In case you missed it, it's just as awesome.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 14, 2012, 11:54:14 AMIf I had a penny for every story I could have liked if the "writer" had actually bothered to write the 80% of the chapter that he instead summarized, I'd probably have already been killed and looted by copper thieves.
Then again, if
I had a penny every time an author wrote out every banal going-on that happened during the course of a day instead of constraining themselves to only writing about the things that are important to plot, character or atmosphere, I'd sink the Midwest.
I seem to run into far more of pointless meandering in stories than the over-summarizing you're describing.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 10, 2012, 03:22:39 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7502509/1/Cross_and_Thorn_a_Tale_of_the_Demon_Castle
Castlevania 1 fanfic. It's superbly written but challenging to get through. It's really as much a religious journey as the actual game, so a casual reader may be dissuaded. I really can't recommend it enough, as the flavor is absolutely outstanding.
Oh my. My my my.
I used to know that guy, nigh on 10 years ago. Along with his wife, who goes by the handle "Red Draco". I trawled on her website forums for a number of years, religiously reading her stories as they were coming out.
It's been so long. I'm starting to miss them now. :(
Quote from: Kt3 on July 19, 2012, 02:02:14 PMOh my. My my my.
I used to know that guy, nigh on 10 years ago. Along with his wife, who goes by the handle "Red Draco". I trawled on her website forums for a number of years, religiously reading her stories as they were coming out.
It's been so long. I'm starting to miss them now. :(
How's the rest of his work? I took a hack at his Megaman 2 fic, but got bombarded under 100k or so words of setup for the actual plot.
As for stories?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8326543/1/Subtle_Variations
Looks to be an enjoyable enough SM/Ranma fanon romp so far. It's too early on to say much more, though a younger Ranma is an interesting twist. Anyhow, the first sentence should tell you if it's to your tastes. The Senshi haven't shown up and they may not have even activated yet, so that particular angle hasn't started.
Quote from: Kt3 on July 19, 2012, 02:02:14 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 14, 2012, 11:54:14 AMIf I had a penny for every story I could have liked if the "writer" had actually bothered to write the 80% of the chapter that he instead summarized, I'd probably have already been killed and looted by copper thieves.
Then again, if I had a penny every time an author wrote out every banal going-on that happened during the course of a day instead of constraining themselves to only writing about the things that are important to plot, character or atmosphere, I'd sink the Midwest.
I seem to run into far more of pointless meandering in stories than the over-summarizing you're describing.
Sure, there's more of it, because someone can overwrite almost any scene.
Skipping scenes, or even large arcs altogether can happen fewer times, but systemically destroys the entire story.
e.g, how many fics like this do you bother to continue reading?
Scene 1:
Akane: TSUN! TSUN! TSUNTSUNTSUN!! TSUN!!!
Ranma: Screw you all, I'm running away to be adopted by cats.
Ukyou: Ranma, I love you forever, in a manner which depends on your personality and therefore isn't shallow and disturbing. Really. Akane, you suck.
Akane: TSUN!!!
Scene 2:
Narrator: Ten years later, skipping all character development...
Akane: TSUNTSUN! TSUN! TSUN~TSUN!!
RSE: I am back from being adopted by cats-nyan, I am awesome with either no or trivially stupid defects, and am still not marrying Akane.
Ukyou: Let me tell you, at various points, of how Ranma had some random character development that isn't a hackjob explanation as to why RSE is actually Ranma even though he has almost no points in common with Ranma.
Akane: TSUNTSUN!!!
RSE: I bash you!
Akane; TSU-!! *dies*
RSE/Ukyou: Yay, we've won. Now the world can be at peace.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing that it's bad.
I'm just saying I find the opposite more common.
On that note, I read that snippet you wrote and enjoyed it, mostly because I heard Akane's voice as a pokemon the entire time. Charmander, to be specific.
@Anastasia
I couldn't particularly tell you about his writing expertise. He's a rather nice guy, but I mostly read Red's stuff, which was humor pretty much through and through.
@Everyone
Okay so I've been thumbing through this Mass Effect 2 fic, and I've been enjoying it rather mightily so far. Only on Chapter 7 but it's been rather rock solid, very good chapter lengths, and not just mindless canon rehash/filler that seems to propagate other Mass Effect fics. It's also shown a couple of other scenes that fit in with the universe that's been revealed so far very well, but he/she may just be integrating stuff from other sources of canon (I've only played the game, haven't read any comics/novelizations/side stuff/etc).
Basic premise: When Shepard was resurrected, his body got FUBAR'd. So Shepard is now walking around in a YMIR mech instead.
Mass Effect: Iron Rebirth (http://"http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5898628/1/Mass_Effect_Iron_Rebirth") by Mashadar
Quote from: snippet from the storyGarrus raised a taloned hand in a gesture of denial, "You sure about this Shepard, I've got all the charm I need, but you definitely need the practice if you're going to want a shot at the ladies." He shrugged non-committally, but the flare of his mandibles were filled with mirth and the human beside him dispensed with subtlety, barking a coarse laugh at the joke. Afraid, confused, befuddled and worn out, Rana's brain tried to process everything that was happening, but it was too much to focus and she carelessly stammered out the only coherent thought she could make-
"Shepard? But he's dead!"
- before she could strangle it. Machine and turian turned back towards her, their weapons still facing in her direction, but no longer directly pointed at her with the deadly readiness they had a moment before. With a hiss of servos, the war machine bent down towards her, armoured feet scraping against rusted bulkhead as it mimicked a poor equivalent of a kneeling posture. Even then, it towered over her, the red glow of it's sensor lights eerily unchanging as she heard the faint click of of its optics focusing and refocusing.
"I GOT BETTER" there was a faint pause as the sensor pod bobbed and whirred on it's mechanical neck, almost as if it were cocking it's head to the side in a way she was certain was mechanically impossible, "PARTIALLY."
Quote from: Anastasia on July 19, 2012, 02:28:55 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8326543/1/Subtle_Variations
Looks to be an enjoyable enough SM/Ranma fanon romp so far. It's too early on to say much more, though a younger Ranma is an interesting twist. Anyhow, the first sentence should tell you if it's to your tastes. The Senshi haven't shown up and they may not have even activated yet, so that particular angle hasn't started.
12-yr old Ranma could be an interesting premise. Hope there is, rather than just some convenient way to attach him to the SM cast. It has the "Nodoka-Swordmaster" fannon bit to it, which I personally find annoying, but must people don't really have a problem when reading that.
It seems a pretty standard first fanfic.
They're rewinded back to 12, but otherwise don't seem like they're intended to be any different. Shaping elements of their personality haven't happened yet or were compressed.
Nodoka is falling over herself with conclusions that there simply isn't enough time to reach. I tuned out early chapter 3 before it really got going.
Not saying a younger Ranma escaping to Nodoka, friend of Ami's mom and daughter of Rei's grandpa couldn't be used as a solid start-point, but this doesn't seem like it's got anything but caricature entities in it.
I'm mostly waiting on how the Usagi and Ranma meeting work out before deciding on this fic, in my case.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 19, 2012, 10:58:23 PM12-yr old Ranma could be an interesting premise. Hope there is, rather than just some convenient way to attach him to the SM cast. It has the "Nodoka-Swordmaster" fannon bit to it, which I personally find annoying, but must people don't really have a problem when reading that.
I don't want to act like I'm defending this fic. That said, I'm okay with that bit of fanon in this case. Ranma's gotten away from Genma early, so someone to keep his training up is fine. Especially if the author avoids the weak Senshi trap and has Ranma needing it to keep up with the girls. That may be way overestimating the author.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 19, 2012, 11:32:16 PM
That said, I'm okay with that bit of fanon in this case. Ranma's gotten away from Genma early, so someone to keep his training up is fine.
Eh. Everyone is okay with that fanon. It has completely surpassed the original character; there were people who had been writing Ranma fics for years who refused to believe me when I'd mentioned that Nodoka was actually pretty incompetent with a sword.
Quote
Especially if the author avoids the weak Senshi trap and has Ranma needing it to keep up with the girls.
I wonder if anyone has done it the other way around. e.g Ranma, seeking to reach the next level of martial arts, finds an Oracle and asks for the most powerful person who'd be willing to train him. By virtue of holding the crystal, that most powerful person on Earth is Usagi. So Ranma seeks Usagi as his master, in order to learn her ways...
It probably wouldn't last long - more like a few vignettes akin to DFR's Tuxedo Ranma stories (Then again, the last time I said I could probably write out a story in an hour, was about seven years ago. And I'm still writing it.)
That sounds more like a spam story inspiration than anything else, but it did make me smile.
Ditz Bunny Fu? The Martial Art You Never Expected?
Yeah, spam. But a smile bringing spam.
Fate/Ingens Cor (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6907242/1/Fate_Ingens_Cor)
A Fate/Stay Night crossover with Harry Potter. And shockingly enough it doesn't suck. Though I think I know who all the servants are.
That being said, it does have a lot of technical issues, repetition of words (and sometimes entire phrases) being one of the most annoying. It could use some proofing.
This story updated: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/14/Mother_of_Learning
Pretty short chapter all things considered, and not much really happened with the set-up from the last chapter, but nice to see another update.
Final Fantasy 8: The Altimate Rewrite (http://"http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?428367-Final-Fantasy-VIII-The-Altimate-Rewrite-Part-I/page12") is part Let's Play, part homage, part apologetics for Final Fantasy 8.
Really, it's the guy playing through Final Fantasy 8, but connecting all the vague disjointed plot points and presenting a far more coherent, and enjoyable story than FF8 does by itself. Contains maybe an excessive amount of comedic swearing at times, but it takes the rough spots of the game and makes it shine.
It's rather long, so be warned.
Subtle Variations updated.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8326543/4/Subtle_Variations
1. Oh, it clears up the fanon bit about Anything Goes hating weapons? Cool.
2. Shinmei-ryu? Mahora? WARNING WARNING WARNING MULTIPLE NEW CROSSOVERS DETECTED, CAPTAIN! FIC INTEGRITY BUCKLING!
3. Ahahahhaha poor Rei.
4. The various Senshi families being interlinked is a cool idea. I could see Serenity's wish doing that - after all, the guardians should be close to the Princess.
5. Instant points for dressing Ranma up in this: http://i.imgur.com/4uJuk.jpg
6. I just noticed girl-Ranma has black hair in this fic. That's rare, the red hair from the anime usually bleeds over.
Fun chapter overall. This one was lighter on the fanon and I enjoyed it.
Eh. Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.
Losing interest in that fic rather quickly to be honest. The Ranma/Usagi meeting scene cased the tone for most of the fic - silly humor that ends up being a bit overdone, but really doesn't accomplish much in terms of progress.
It's almost character-driven, but there really isn't much characterization done. It's almost comedy, but the comedy is hamhanded. It's definitely not serious and not focused on martial arts, yet there are scenes detailing Nodoka's art rather specifically for... what looks like shoehorning in yet another series.
Bleh.
I'm guessing the author's playing the long game with the setup. If nothing else, the spiritual aspects of Nodoka's school sounds like something that would tie into dealing with SM stuff.
I still think this is First Fic syndrome.
Quote from: Dracos on July 23, 2012, 10:15:23 PM
I still think this is First Fic syndrome.
Ooooooh yeah. I find I'm fond of it in spite of that, probably more than the story deserves.
Rorschach in Equestria (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/8933/Rorschach-in-Equestria)
Better than it sounds, I swear!
This fic updated again: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6880685/9/Well_in_Hand
I feel as if the first half of this chapter should have been appended on to the last chapter. While that wouldn't change the "Where the fuck did this plot twist come from?" nature of the scene, at least it would have confined it to one chapter instead of spreading it into two.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/335767/1/Living_in_the_Red_Light
Read this this morning. Batman fic. Was interesting. Short.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5452559/1/Deja_Vu_All_Over_Again
A mostly Ranma fic with travel back in time, which I don't recall being posted before. Either way, it updated earlier this month. Skuld's subjective involvement is, so far, merely deus ex machina (yes, I did that on purpose) but the writer has been adding characterization so I expect that to change.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7977390/1/Life_in_Konohas_ANBU
It's easy to get the impression in the first few paragraphs that this is just a thing that was written; if you care to glance at it, finish chapter one before deciding whether to continue reading.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 30, 2012, 10:43:23 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5452559/1/Deja_Vu_All_Over_Again
A mostly Ranma fic with travel back in time, which I don't recall being posted before. Either way, it updated earlier this month. Skuld's subjective involvement is, so far, merely deus ex machina (yes, I did that on purpose) but the writer has been adding characterization so I expect that to change.
Oh yeah, I've read that fic. It's not terrible, but the problem that - GASP - it's glazing over too much. Older Ranma's the main character, but remains generally static. It bugs me.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6362397/16/
new chapter. Not really going no-where.
Read that Deja Vu thing. More of it than I should.
It's...pretty bad, as far as peggy sue fics go.
Today I found out how the report abuse feature on ff.net works.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8375256/1/Haruhi_Gets_Electrocuted
Did you know it contains Captcha? Learn something new every day.
Mostly putting this link here so I can remember to check that the fic does get removed....
Since I suspect it will be gone forever, here's the summary information, for those with morbid curiosity:
Haruhi Gets Electrocuted! by goryskull667
Haruhi Suzumiya gets killed for being a bitch.
Rated: M - Spanish - Horror/Crime - Chapters: 1 - Words: 367 - Published: 7-30-12 - Haruhi S. - Complete
Suffice to say I think I've found a fic I like even
less than 'Having Sex With Sasaki is an Awful Experience (http://sasa-chica.blogspot.com/2011/08/having-sex-with-sasaki-is-awful.html)', which I really, really hate.
Drac: Yeah, I saw the chapter and threw a big what the fuck ever out. That story lost me, the author's throwing out gimmick after gimmick with no real meat.
Brian: I reported it too, hopefully it gets fried.
/me clicks electrocution fic out of morbid curiosity.
...Why did I do that?
Quote from: Dracos on August 01, 2012, 12:31:01 AM
Read that Deja Vu thing. More of it than I should.
It's...pretty bad, as far as peggy sue fics go.
Really? I didn't think it was particularly bad. I didn't think it was particularly good, either (the writer tends to avoid anything that looks like a conflict). It's just there.
It's not fanfic, but here's a novel I was reading: http://www.brandonsanderson.com/portal/Warbreaker The "Get the current version" link is the actual novel (which I can confirm, because I have the deadtree version on my shelf), and there is a link to earlier drafts of it on that site as well. If anyone has ever wondered how much a story can change between drafts and publication, wonder no more - or at least, wonder slightly less.
(I'd actually written up most of a book review on the appropriate subforum yesterday, but realized that was pretty pointless if I could just link to the actual story for people to see for themselves).
Quote
* alethiophile clicks electrocution fic out of morbid curiosity.
Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
edit:
Also, noticed when clicking around that Haigeki updated. No further comment since I'm going to not do what alethiophile did. Here's a link to the associated thread: http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,101988.msg1037434.html#new
Remember when we were constantly tossing out good fics here?
I miss that :(
At least the writing board is all lively :) We should go read and link some of those :P
Quote from: Dracos on August 01, 2012, 06:21:27 PM
Remember when we were constantly tossing out good fics here?
I miss that :(
Your last post linked to something by Sage of Toads, so... :p
Anyway, you have to find good fics in order to link to them.
Quote
At least the writing board is all lively :) We should go read and link some of those :P
Or, y'know, write. :p
http://s3.zetaboards.com/FanFictionFederation/topic/7583867/1/
A new Ozzallos fic. It's clearly in beta, but it's posted on a public board and I enjoyed it a lot, so here we are. The premise is 'what if Ranma's hair got cut instead of Akane's, and how that could change things'. It's one of those premises that's better than it sounds, especially when you realize about the there's another canon curse in play to foul things up.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 01, 2012, 10:11:35 PM
http://s3.zetaboards.com/FanFictionFederation/topic/7583867/1/
A new Ozzallos fic. It's clearly in beta, but it's posted on a public board and I enjoyed it a lot, so here we are. The premise is 'what if Ranma's hair got cut instead of Akane's, and how that could change things'. It's one of those premises that's better than it sounds, especially when you realize about the there's another canon curse in play to foul things up.
Just read it. Standard Ozzallos conditions apply.
The one issue that sticks out is that it's too early in the series for Ranma to have developed an "I'm not putting up with this bullshit" attitude that's particularly anti-Akane. As I said, standard Ozzallos, but since the setting is particularly early in the series, it seems particularly noticeable. Still, as mentioned, it's a rough draft, so I'll wait for the final story.
I always thought that Ranma story arc was underutilized in writing, so it's nice to see another story using it.
Yeah, with the standard Ozzallos disclaimers in place?
I'm okay with it since Ranma has lots of reasons to be pissed from his PoV. He has to stay as a girl to keep the hair curse in check and it's enough to turn the early relationship towards a more poisonous orientation. The AN about perception sold the premise to me. For all Ranma knows, he has to be a girl until he finds another Dragon Whisker or for the rest of his life, whichever comes first. I can buy this souring his relationship with Akane.
Seconded with using some nice material. This arc and reversing his relationship with Kodachi is a nice touch. In particular that was the main reason I liked the second half, just letting him bounce off Kodachi and completely 180 that arc.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 01, 2012, 11:59:36 PMstandard Ozzallos disclaimers
Got it. More of the increasingly transparent wish fulfillment of Ranma turning into a girl.
Will pass, thanks.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 01, 2012, 11:59:36 PM
I'm okay with it since Ranma has lots of reasons to be pissed from his PoV. He has to stay as a girl to keep the hair curse in check and it's enough to turn the early relationship towards a more poisonous orientation.
More pissed than, say, the ultimate weakness Moxibustion when they thought the map was destroyed and he thought he'd permanently lost an entire lifetime of effort?
But even putting aside a grudge-holding Ranma as being OOC, him being pissed at Akane in particular doesn't feel like it makes sense. If Ozzallos really wants to have Ranma focus his anger on someone, why not write him as focusing his anger on Ryouga, the one who is arguably the most directly responsible for the situation? The Ryouga introductory arc takes place so early in the series that even if Akane's personality is the anime-derived hyper-insane Akane who will mallet at the drop of a hat, she still hasn't had the time to make such a generally bad impression. This incident can't be the "straw that broke the camel's back" on his opinion of Akane when there hasn't been enough time to accumulate straw in the first place.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 02, 2012, 01:27:14 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on August 01, 2012, 11:59:36 PM
I'm okay with it since Ranma has lots of reasons to be pissed from his PoV. He has to stay as a girl to keep the hair curse in check and it's enough to turn the early relationship towards a more poisonous orientation.
More pissed than, say, the ultimate weakness Moxibustion when they thought the map was destroyed and he thought he'd permanently lost an entire lifetime of effort?
But even putting aside a grudge-holding Ranma as being OOC, him being pissed at Akane in particular doesn't feel like it makes sense. If Ozzallos really wants to have Ranma focus his anger on someone, why not write him as focusing his anger on Ryouga, the one who is arguably the most directly responsible for the situation? The Ryouga introductory arc takes place so early in the series that even if Akane's personality is the anime-derived hyper-insane Akane who will mallet at the drop of a hat, she still hasn't had the time to make such a generally bad impression. This incident can't be the "straw that broke the camel's back" on his opinion of Akane when there hasn't been enough time to accumulate straw in the first place.
Well yeah, but if the relationship's just starting, it also means it's easier to sour in the first place. There's less attachments keeping him from taking this in stride from Akane, less fondness and less baggage. Something really bad to Ranma (in his PoV) happened, Akane said something dumb and it blew out of proportion. They're teenagers, I can accept that. Their personalities and the unhappy pressure this situation puts on Ranma prevents them from easily making up and then circumstances push them further apart (Kodachi).
Just my two cents. I'm really not trying to white-knight this fic, even though it feels like I am. >_<
Quote from: Anastasia on August 01, 2012, 10:11:35 PM
http://s3.zetaboards.com/FanFictionFederation/topic/7583867/1/
A new Ozzallos fic. It's clearly in beta, but it's posted on a public board and I enjoyed it a lot, so here we are. The premise is 'what if Ranma's hair got cut instead of Akane's, and how that could change things'. It's one of those premises that's better than it sounds, especially when you realize about the there's another canon curse in play to foul things up.
Hmm, some interesting bit.
Like:
Ranma getting stressed in the absence of a way to deal with the hair curse.
Ranma taking a hard angle with the earlier threats.
Kinda amused:
Ranma glancing off Kodachi in a friendly way
Nabiki/Ranma being non-antagonistic
Dislike:
Keeping it secret? Why? It's obvious even.
Truthfully, I think folks rambling on Ranma being harsh is kind of missing that Akane is played up as more harsh too. Kinda painfully so. I'm gonna guess that "We're strangers now" isn't canon.
Really the weakest part is how much RSE holds a grudge and how quickly RSE concludes 'oh shit'.
QuoteI'm gonna guess that "We're strangers now" isn't canon.
It is.
This RSE is way over reacting. In the canon he didn't tell anyone about he curse because he didn't want Genma to steal the dragon whisker. With the whisker destroyed there is no reason at all to not tell everyone.
The 'hardline' thing doesn't feel anything like how I'd expect him to react.
Quote
I'm really not trying to white-knight this fic, even though it feels like I am.
And I'm not trying to slam this fic, even thought it feels like I am. There are some neat parts to it as well.
Quote from: Dracos on August 02, 2012, 03:25:20 AM
Truthfully, I think folks rambling on Ranma being harsh is kind of missing that Akane is played up as more harsh too. Kinda painfully so.
When a writer plays up a character to have a negative trait grossly in excess of the cannon, then spends large portions of the fic tearing down that character in a fashion that doesn't even advance the story or plot in any appreciable fashion, it's clearly character bashing. I don't give any other story a pass for pointless bashing, so why this one?
Heh, well, truthfully, the story seems more 'bad ranma' then 'bad akane'. But both of them don't shine.
Oh hey, same Ozzallos time, same Ozzallos channel, but actually different fic.
http://s3.zetaboards.com/FanFictionFederation/topic/7584026/1/
So this thing (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4745329/1/On_the_Way_to_Greatness) updated. Pretty decent HP fic, Harry in Slytherin, covers up to the start of year 6.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/255435.html
DK:A update. The title of the episode says it all.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8326543/5/Subtle_Variations
Subtle Variations updated. It's a mildly summary-esque chapter, though the AN says the real story starts next chapter.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 05, 2012, 12:56:56 PM
It's a mildly summary-esque chapter, though the AN says the real story starts next chapter.
It took five chapters to get to the "real story"?
Also, clicking around on link that you posted earlier (http://s3.zetaboards.com/FanFictionFederation/forum/35626/), it looks like Ozzallos is doing a general dump of fic drafts/fragments.
I should probably stop looking at that forum. Because none of those look like they're going to be stories with a small number of chapters and I know everything will end up the same as most of his other multi-chapter stories: He'll have a strong opening, 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through he'll give into the urge to not murder his darlings, and I'll end up on my rooftop with arms spread out shouting "Whyyyyyy?!" in overly dramatic fashion into the deep-blue sky.
Quote from: Dracos on August 01, 2012, 06:21:27 PM
Remember when we were constantly tossing out good fics here?
I miss that :(
At least the writing board is all lively :) We should go read and link some of those :P
We could at least discuss more about the things we link. And not just things that bug us about, say, Ozz's newest work, but instead the undiscussed things Kt3 linked a while ago. :P
Quote from: alethiophile on August 03, 2012, 04:11:07 AM
So this thing (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4745329/1/On_the_Way_to_Greatness) updated. Pretty decent HP fic, Harry in Slytherin, covers up to the start of year 6.
I've just finished consuming all of this.
It's got its problems, but I agree with the assessment. It's got a lot going for it and is kind of interesting. More, it's got a lot covered and seems to have a plan through to finish.
About the only thing I blink at is some of Harry's personality swaps and that the other side of the romance plots seem unaffected? "They're murdering your aunt, but he's too close to the war to date?"
It does play Ron as a jerk, but well...he is. And he doesn't have much screentime with it.
I rather like the callout on Azkaban being utterly ridiculous in every way. I've also mostly enjoyed Dumbledorf's scheming in this one. Generally not wanting to, but willing to recognize that the Plan Has Changed.
Quote from: Kt3 on August 06, 2012, 06:18:51 PM
Quote from: Dracos on August 01, 2012, 06:21:27 PM
Remember when we were constantly tossing out good fics here?
I miss that :(
At least the writing board is all lively :) We should go read and link some of those :P
We could at least discuss more about the things we link. And not just things that bug us about, say, Ozz's newest work, but instead the undiscussed things Kt3 linked a while ago. :P
Heh, well, I think it's just a lack of FF8 fans in that fact. I know I was shaky at even looking since me and FF8's narrative aren't on speaking terms.
"Bitch, put your continuity together!"
Quote from: thepanda on July 21, 2012, 09:25:09 PM
Fate/Ingens Cor (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6907242/1/Fate_Ingens_Cor)
A Fate/Stay Night crossover with Harry Potter. And shockingly enough it doesn't suck. Though I think I know who all the servants are.
That being said, it does have a lot of technical issues, repetition of words (and sometimes entire phrases) being one of the most annoying. It could use some proofing.
Hmm. I think I've got about the same thoughts. I think there's a little...no a lot too much 'informed' knowledge. And Lars is convienent plot device that I don't think was needed.
I'll probably follow somewhat longer at least. It is kind of a bit eyebrow raising in how many of the heroes are all local legends of the same time period. It is also eyebrow raising how many of them simply clash horribly with their master.
in both Fate Stay/night and Fate Zero, it seemed like in general there was a lot of natural kinship in any of the summons that weren't forced using a magic artifact.
Here, half of them want to kill people that summoned them right away. :(
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/21/From_Fake_Dreams
From Fake Dreams updated.
Shiro gets a powerup that's more of a hindrance and there's more setup for the Grail War. Still feels like it's treading water until the actual war.
Quote from: Dracos on August 06, 2012, 06:41:42 PM
Quote from: Kt3 on August 06, 2012, 06:18:51 PM
Quote from: Dracos on August 01, 2012, 06:21:27 PM
Remember when we were constantly tossing out good fics here?
I miss that :(
At least the writing board is all lively :) We should go read and link some of those :P
We could at least discuss more about the things we link. And not just things that bug us about, say, Ozz's newest work, but instead the undiscussed things Kt3 linked a while ago. :P
Heh, well, I think it's just a lack of FF8 fans in that fact. I know I was shaky at even looking since me and FF8's narrative aren't on speaking terms.
"Bitch, put your continuity together!"
Yes, well, I personally hated it as well. That should be a sign. :)
I was also speaking of other things I linked. I've been trying to link things that I think anyone could enjoy reading, regardless of fandom.
Quote
Yes, well, I personally hated it as well. That should be a sign. :)
I was also speaking of other things I linked. I've been trying to link things that I think anyone could enjoy reading, regardless of fandom.
That's something to point out.
I tend to avoid fics of series I haven't read/watched/played, mainly because I suspect I won't really understand what is going on. And I think the Final Fantasy series is the antithesis of how to make a good game, so I tend to especially avoid stories about those...unless someone mentions that the story is a good story even if you don't like the game.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 30, 2012, 10:43:23 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7977390/1/Life_in_Konohas_ANBU
It's easy to get the impression in the first few paragraphs that this is just a thing that was written; if you care to glance at it, finish chapter one before deciding whether to continue reading.
I sorta get what it's going for, but it's really playing the buttmonkey card way too hard. It makes it hard to keep in a serious raising a hero context. Mmm. Yeah.
Got to chapter 5. Hard drop. It's just incoherent. A mix of "Naruto as Sarutobi's heir", buttmonkey, he's 'not awesome', but he totally is using dozens of complicated techniques, and look sarutobi's grandson is taking his place? And going to wave country?
KT3:
Not that we're ignoring, it's just slow to hook with unexpected stories.
Quote from: Dracos on August 06, 2012, 09:00:04 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 30, 2012, 10:43:23 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7977390/1/Life_in_Konohas_ANBU
It's easy to get the impression in the first few paragraphs that this is just a thing that was written; if you care to glance at it, finish chapter one before deciding whether to continue reading.
I sorta get what it's going for, but it's really playing the buttmonkey card way too hard. It makes it hard to keep in a serious raising a hero context. Mmm. Yeah.
Wait, what? If you wanted a heroic story, then this certainly isn't it (and I thought that was evident by the end of ch 1; if you were looking for a heroic story, I don't know how you managed to last through ch 5).
Now that you point it out, I've realized that I'm not actively following any stories of heroic characters at the moment. There's this (which I'm interested in for the squabbling dialogue that I think the writer handles pretty well), one fic with the main character trying to hide the fact that she has a severe case of MPD, and one AU where the main character is a sociopath.
I'm not uninterested of heroic stories, but I think after reading a number of fics that try to pull it off and usually fail to not suck, I'm looking at other types of fics at the moment. I could suggest a few heroic stories if you want, but they'd be authored works rather than fanfic.
It wasn't what I wanted, it's just one of the many incoherent plot threads it was following. You didn't pick up on it? I thought it was ringing it pretty hard with Danzo/Sarutobi's discussion on him being like Sarutobi was as a kid, or him being measured against keeping up with the 3rd hokage.
When I wrote the first line, I was just at the end of that scene and it was pretty blatant that it was delivering a "Naruto is a talented ANBU who is tormented by the 3rd Hokage as an assistant to help teach him humility and challenge his potential. Also, look, he's a buttmonkey again!"
And not much later he's tossing out rasengans and dozens of different elemental techniques too. It clashes pretty hard with the "Here's the story of someone not super awesome from the get-go."
But it really goes all over the place in it's first five chapters, so if it solidifies on picking a direction later and going with it, well, hard to say.
It's kind of interesting you mention it as the squabbling dialogue in this fic fails to me. It doesn't seem to decide where it wants the relation to be between Sarutobi and Naruto, so it feels off.
Quoteone fic with the main character trying to hide the fact that she has a severe case of MPD, and one AU where the main character is a sociopath.
That one fic with Sakura and that one fic with Naruto as Dexter?
Quote from: Dracos on August 06, 2012, 11:56:46 PM
It wasn't what I wanted, it's just one of the many incoherent plot threads it was following. You didn't pick up on it?
Sure I did, but at that point, more as flavor of character than an intended direction. And it does say it's a series of vignettes rather than a coherent story.
*checks summary again*
Or rather, I could have sworn that it
did two months ago. I could have sworn I read that somewhere in relation to that link. Because, yeah, if you're reading it with the impression that it's an interconnected, well-thought out story, then I agree: it goes all over the place.
Quote from: thepanda
That one fic with Sakura and that one fic with Naruto as Dexter?
Who or what is Dexter?
Dexter is from Dexter. >_>
He's a serial killer who kills serial killers. I think it was on HBO.
Quote from: thepanda on August 07, 2012, 01:20:12 AM
He's a serial killer who kills serial killers. I think it was on HBO.
Sounds like an interesting premise for a show.
Although...how does that work as a crossover with a series about screaming fantasy ninjas? I'd imagine that Dexter takes place in the modern day since the only historic serial killer that gets put into popular media is Jack the Ripper, and screaming ninjas in the modern day seems like it'd be awkward to write. The reverse concept of a serial 'serial killer' killer in the Narutoverse seems like it'd be odd to write too, since killing seems to be okay in that universe, as long as the character is killing the enemy.
(also, to answer your question: no, that's not the fic.)
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 07, 2012, 01:05:53 AM
Quote from: Dracos on August 06, 2012, 11:56:46 PM
It wasn't what I wanted, it's just one of the many incoherent plot threads it was following. You didn't pick up on it?
Sure I did, but at that point, more as flavor of character than an intended direction. And it does say it's a series of vignettes rather than a coherent story.
*checks summary again*
Or rather, I could have sworn that it did two months ago. I could have sworn I read that somewhere in relation to that link. Because, yeah, if you're reading it with the impression that it's an interconnected, well-thought out story, then I agree: it goes all over the place.
That is indeed how I was reading it. It didn't present itself as vignettes, so I wasn't reading it as such.
Even if it was snapshots in time, it doesn't deliver well.
Being so critical, I feel compelled to offer counter example of vignettes in a similar fashion. Linked in chronological order, even though they weren't originally published in such.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4481984/1/Clean_and_White
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3774334/1/Mending_Songs
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6267545/1/Stained
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6775888/1/Take_Two
Quote from: Dracos on August 07, 2012, 03:16:43 PM
Being so critical, I feel compelled to offer counter example of vignettes in a similar fashion. Linked in chronological order, even though they weren't originally published in such.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4481984/1/Clean_and_White
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3774334/1/Mending_Songs
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6267545/1/Stained
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6775888/1/Take_Two
Yay!
Well, seeing as how it's Kenshin and Bleach and I couldn't make it past the first couple of chapters of Bleach, I have no idea what the hell anything means the first two, and I didn't bother reading the other two because of it. But getting people to post decent stories is always a plus. :)
Hey, I was just reading those a bit ago. Pretty decent they are.
The big significant thing by that author seems to be the Embers AU for A:TLA. Anyone read that? It looks good.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8403297/1/Sailor_Ecdysiast
Read this one and count how many times you go what the fuck.
Ranma's given a sailor crystal, apparently it's common knowledge what it is, it transforms her into a nudist sailor senshi, Ranma is okay with both aspects and fully embraces it, his big sailor attack is to detransform the other sailors when they confront him, to expose both identity and to well...expose them naked.
Um. What. The. Fuck.
Does 'Ecdysiast' mean anything in particular? May be a bit rusty on my classics here.
If not, that title just adds to the WTF.
[spoiler]It means stripper, more or less. I looked it up after I read.
... still adds to the WTF.
Total WTF count: 2, and I haven't even clicked the link.
Quote from: alethiophile on August 07, 2012, 09:07:43 PM
Hey, I was just reading those a bit ago. Pretty decent they are.
The big significant thing by that author seems to be the Embers AU for A:TLA. Anyone read that? It looks good.
Weirdly no. Haven't tried it yet.
Very whim driven on my readings after all.
Read that entire sailor stripper thing. I got what the author was going for, but effectively, too much padding. It was supposed to be funny, I think, but it just fell short by getting caught up in trying to explain itself.
Which is really not what a crackfic is supposed to do. Internal consistency is good, pages of justification/explanation with no action, not so much.
No WTFs, just a bit of a, "Well, this isn't very good."
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (http://www.shadowchronicles.net/)
Hadn't read it since chapter 7 was new. I admit, I still really like it. Too bad it hasn't updated since 2008. The Oh, My Goddess stuff feels a bit extraneous, though.
The only bad side to reading this is that I'm tempted go back and read a certain Jim Bader fic. I know this to be a bad idea. And yet!
Quote from: thepanda on August 08, 2012, 11:35:56 PM
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (http://www.shadowchronicles.net/)
Hadn't read it since chapter 7 was new. I admit, I still really like it. Too bad it hasn't updated since 2008. The Oh, My Goddess stuff feels a bit extraneous, though.
The OMG stuff never bothered me, but that's probably because I was reading chapters within a month of them being written. Although, frankly, if he was already making up his own gods (assuming Dasma et al. aren't from series/pantehons that I just haven't heard of), I'm not sure why he didn't just continue doing that. He'd certainly done well enough crafting his own mythos.
Quote
The only bad side to reading this is that I'm tempted go back and read a certain Jim Bader fic. I know this to be a bad idea. And yet!
I'm going to regret asking this...which fic?
That one where Happosai's wish killed off all the menfolk. And now that reminds me I never did finish Most Unlikely of Friends or Hearts of Ice. Of course, the fact that both of those fics stalled in a place where I did NOT care for where the fic was going might have something to do with that. >_>
Quote from: Brian on August 08, 2012, 10:59:47 PM
Read that entire sailor stripper thing. I got what the author was going for, but effectively, too much padding. It was supposed to be funny, I think, but it just fell short by getting caught up in trying to explain itself.
Which is really not what a crackfic is supposed to do. Internal consistency is good, pages of justification/explanation with no action, not so much.
No WTFs, just a bit of a, "Well, this isn't very good."
Haven't read it myself, personally. What you're describing sounds to me like satire, though, rather than a crackfic. Maybe that's what it was going for?
Quote from: thepanda on August 09, 2012, 10:32:39 AM
That one where Happosai's wish killed off all the menfolk.
Oh, yes, the one where it was Ranma's duty to continue the human race, but he preferred joining in on the widespread lesbian sex instead? I don't think I went past the first or second chapter.
Why would OACDYCSF remind you of Bader? Sure, there's lesbianism in that fic, but I seem to recall Chris Davies as the writer with the rampant-lesbian-sex-as-a-writing-goal.
Quote
And now that reminds me I never did finish Most Unlikely of Friends or Hearts of Ice.
I think HoI was Krista Perry. Who was such a nice person on IRC that I never had the heart to tell her that I wasn't reading HoI whenever she had eagerly let me know that she'd updated it with a new chapter.
I don't remember anything particularly bad about it, but just wasn't my kind of story.
Never understood why HoI was given such acclaim, myself. To be perfectly honest, pre-rewrite (I haven't gone back; just don't care), her writing was technically good, but her structure and pacing were awful. The 'no one but Ranma remembers Akane' chapter came across as extremely, "I'm making this up as I go along! I have no plan!"
Hum. It's been a long time, but I thought she was patterning it from the beginning around an old bit of european folklore. It's long enough that I don't remember the name but I stopped paying attention because so many early plot points were recognizable to me as coming from that.
Quote from: Brian on August 09, 2012, 01:45:56 PM
Never understood why HoI was given such acclaim, myself.
I think its a "right place, right time" deal.
HoI was started when the FFML was becoming or already "the big thing" for writing anime fanfics, it was one of the earlier epic length fics that was wasn't abandoned after six decent-length chapters, it involved a series which was one of the few first officially translated manga, and the writer didn't suck. This was also the time when most people didn't have access to most of the Ranma story, cartoons were for grade schoolers so the only people who watched anime did so on VHS fansubs - but Oh My God(dess), a Real Company like Viz was publishing Ranma for the mass market, and people honestly thought that whomever Ranma was going to be eventually paired up with was SIRRUS BUSNESS.
So you have a fic for an "ongoing" story (althought I think it was finished in Japan by that point) with newly-minted self-described "otaku" who only really knew about Ranma (or Tenchi, or Sailor Moon), and it's THE epic Ranma fic of 1997.
Edit:
Just to keep this post slightly less off-topic, let it be stated that HoI (http://www.akane.org/heartsofice/) is not HoI (http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/hearts-of-iron) or HoiHoi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5XJHBj0ges)
Quote
Why would OACDYCSF remind you of Bader? Sure, there's lesbianism in that fic, but I seem to recall Chris Davies as the writer with the rampant-lesbian-sex-as-a-writing-goal.
More like a nostalgia trigger. It got me thinking about the kinds of stories I was reading back in the day that I never finished (or were never finished). And all the overt kink made me think Bader.
Quote
I don't remember anything particularly bad about it, but just wasn't my kind of story.
There wasn't anything particularly bad about it. Just, where I left off, the people in Nerima part of the story felt tacked on. The conflict there was stilted and with the time dilation between there and where Akane was meant they really couldn't do much, storywise.
MUoF pissed me off with the whole 'author's world >> canon world' stuff.
Quote from: Dracos on August 09, 2012, 02:14:09 PM
Hum. It's been a long time, but I thought she was patterning it from the beginning around an old bit of european folklore. It's long enough that I don't remember the name but I stopped paying attention because so many early plot points were recognizable to me as coming from that.
Off the cuff, could it possibly be 'The Snow Queen'?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Queen
EDIT: reading the beginning, it seems I'm somewhat off in that guess, even if it gets referenced. Oh well.
I think that was it. Of course with gender roles reversed.
Nyu.
Anyhow, Read Tempered in Water again today. A nice fic, shame it got abandoned.
Also that Bowser hero fic. Such a cute short story. Bowser saves the day repeatedly.
You know, I think Time Braid and A Few Angry Words might be the only good finished Naruto fics I'm aware of.
A Few Angry Words?
I believe that's the one by lord of the land of fire, which centers around Naruto making a rather...unwise bet with Hyuuga Hiashi.
Dracos: If you liked Few Angry Words, what did you think of Mother's Love?
QuoteI believe that's the one by lord of the land of fire
Not a fan, sadly. He's written quite a bit, but I have trouble getting into any of it.
thePanda asking for a link from Dracos-- an unexpected role reversal.
Quote from: alethiophile on August 10, 2012, 12:42:25 AM
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.
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?
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 10, 2012, 01:54:27 AM
thePanda asking for a link from Dracos-- an unexpected role reversal.
Quote from: alethiophile on August 10, 2012, 12:42:25 AM
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...
Quote from: Dracos on August 10, 2012, 04:38:16 PM
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 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2210522/12/The_Ranma_Omake_Files_Innortal_Style) (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 (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,1791.msg1038085.html#msg1038085) is writing that.
If the fic's plot is about the characters beating on and torturing increasingly outpaced "villains", that's this Naruto fic (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3929411/1/Chunin_Exam_Day)
As for what to read: if you're still following Daybreak (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478793/17/Daybreak_Part_I), that updated today.
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!
The way you say it, Dune, that sounds _almost_ as awesome an idea as The Bet.
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
the final conflict just basically leaves everyone who isn't in a loop behind.
Quote from: Brian on August 10, 2012, 10:29:56 PM
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).
Quote from: Brian on August 10, 2012, 10:29:56 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Brian on August 11, 2012, 12:54:38 AM
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.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 10, 2012, 10:00:03 PM
Quote from: Dracos on August 10, 2012, 04:38:16 PM
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 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2210522/12/The_Ranma_Omake_Files_Innortal_Style) (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 (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,1791.msg1038085.html#msg1038085) is writing that.
If the fic's plot is about the characters beating on and torturing increasingly outpaced "villains", that's this Naruto fic (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3929411/1/Chunin_Exam_Day)
As for what to read: if you're still following Daybreak (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7478793/17/Daybreak_Part_I), 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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: alethiophile on August 11, 2012, 04:41:25 PM
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~
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8426142/2/The_Bad_Cut
Chapter 2 is up. I noticed at least one edit (the monthly question) and there's a new scene at the end.
Kind of nostalgic watching people get up in arms about the timeline in Ranma again.
Quote from: thepanda on August 14, 2012, 05:34:48 PM
Kind of nostalgic watching people get up in arms about the timeline in Ranma again.
Based on your comment, I skimmed the reviews. Someone wrote that the Kitty people were "Knights of the True Fiancee." :)
Now that's Nostalgic. :)
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 13, 2012, 10:32:51 PM
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.
I stopped following this one at some point when just simply too much was going on for a tiny kid. Looking now, I see that he really still hasn't quite hit start of academy age, which continues down that road. Shame, just too compacted as a timeline. Lots of neat ideas, but it's just hard to suspend my belief for how young Naruto is in almost all the scenes at this point.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/255855.html (Part 2 of 3, part one was last week's update)
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/255962.html (Part 3)
DK:A updated.
[spoiler]Nice action and Ami gets a major complication or three, but she made it out. Nice to see Jadeite doing what needed to be doing.
It's like a flush of old stories are coming out lately.
Let's see:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4370189/1/Will_of_Fire_Heart_of_Stone - This fic went sour about halfway through, but it has finished. Not a great ending but hey, I still like the Stern Sandaime theme its got and it is a completed fic. It's pretty nasty on the bashing of Jiriaya and this last chapter is just obnoxious to Konomaru, but still it had an interesting start.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6036571/1/Away_to_Neverland - Is kinda crude as always, short as always. Last chapter had a Ryouga/Ranma brawl and this chapter has Ranma finally executing his grand escape plan. Overall, I still think this fic is amusing and has a lot to recommend it despite its mediocre technical quality and minimal length. It's strongest point is I think the Civil Beasts take on all of characters. Compared to most Touhou things I've seen, the characters really do come about more as monsters wrapped in human form then just magical humans. Also the Meiling/Ranma crossover elements are pretty inspired.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2685072/1/Tales_of_the_FoxCat - kinda meh on the end of last chapter and half of this one, but Anko had some good scenes and I do like his take on a creepy Hinata. Doesn't pull it off nearly as well as People Lie or Motivation, but it was a nice bit watching her brutally take out everyone getting near her Naruto.
I've kinda been avoiding Daybreak for a while. Just something tossed me off rhythm from it. Maybe it is how relatively weak Itachi (The Hokage Candidate and National Hero) is coming off as. Should get back to it sometime but it's lacked the sort of draw the original story had. The redemption of the Uchiha was a more interesting tale.
www.fanfiction.net/s/8118551/1/On_The_Wings_Of_An_Eagle Slow moving, but kind of intriguing. Updated chapter 7 today, finishing up the Fourquet arc, using bits and pieces from both narratives for it.
Huh. Well, I sufficiently approve of that crossover to give it a try.
Hum. I realize the author of Iron Rebirth is the same author as Summoning the Sun.
Still hope Summoning the Sun continues sometime :)
Quote from: Dracos on August 17, 2012, 05:10:14 PM
Hum. I realize the author of Iron Rebirth is the same author as Summoning the Sun.
Still hope Summoning the Sun continues sometime :)
That the Okami one?
Yup.
Just finished re-reading No Antidote (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4390479/1/No_Antidote), a pokemon fanfic about Marty and his loyal bulbasaur, and their sad journey towards becoming champions. What happens when your trainer's been poisoned, he has weeks to live, and there is no antidote?
I like it, though keep in mind that it's fairly dark, and there are no happy endings for Marty. Happy endings for bulbasaur...that's debatable. >_>
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8447044/1/Interesting_Times
Ranma short story from Materia Blade. It's okay-ish, no real comments other than to pass it along.
Seven paragraphs. The "I'm trying to write sci-fi!" was trying too hard.
Couldn't handle it.
Quote from: Brian on August 20, 2012, 08:17:37 PM
Seven paragraphs. The "I'm trying to write sci-fi!" was trying too hard.
Couldn't handle it.
Well, at least on the Internet no one can hear you scream.
Eh. Good for sharing but kinda weak.
If this is a one-shot, the story sets up a few themes where it doesn't follow through. The parting words of advice "Don't be greedy", and the glossing over of the change from mugger to mogul (stuff happened) seemed like they should have been built upon, but weren't.
If this is the intro to a longer story, then it makes sense to keep those as future hooks, but then I'm not sure why this is a Ranma story. All the Ranma characters, save one, is dead, and that one is on his way out. So far, this isn't a story about martial arts, a romantic comedy, of one last honor debt that needs to be cleared by a Saotome, etc. The way this chapter ends, the only real tie to Ranma seems to be the curse- something that given the futuristic setting, could have been swapped with a number of alternatives to drive whatever plot MB wants to develop.
Wasn't bad, but doesn't feel like it's as polished as some of his other stories.
Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Natural_20) by Sir Poley is about a genre-savvy, fourth-wall-breaking D&D munchkin who finds himself summoned to the Harry Potter world. Ends up being a really lighthearted comedy where everyone thinks everyone else is planning something dire and complicated (which of course they aren't).
It was a fun read even though I don't know too much about D&D.
Edit: Now the link's working!
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 21, 2012, 01:04:24 PM
If this is a one-shot, the story sets up a few themes where it doesn't follow through. The parting words of advice "Don't be greedy", and the glossing over of the change from mugger to mogul (stuff happened) seemed like they should have been built upon, but weren't.
If this is the intro to a longer story, then it makes sense to keep those as future hooks, but then I'm not sure why this is a Ranma story. All the Ranma characters, save one, is dead, and that one is on his way out. So far, this isn't a story about martial arts, a romantic comedy, of one last honor debt that needs to be cleared by a Saotome, etc. The way this chapter ends, the only real tie to Ranma seems to be the curse- something that given the futuristic setting, could have been swapped with a number of alternatives to drive whatever plot MB wants to develop.
Wasn't bad, but doesn't feel like it's as polished as some of his other stories.
Well, quite a number of folks use anime characters as a fanfiction opening when they're really doing short/poor original fiction.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Natural_20 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Natural_20)
Quote from: thepanda on August 23, 2012, 08:28:39 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Natural_20 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Natural_20)
This is fun and I'm enjoying it although the claim that Malfoy Mansion in Wiltshire was in walking distance of Hogwarts in the Highlands almost made me stop... (two posts up, Panda!)
Quote(two posts up, Panda!)
That link isn't working.
Been reading Touhou doujin. Don't have the links handy but...
The Cursed Video and Gensokyou.
...Man my memory for titles is crummy. I'll get 'em and links later.
First was "The Cursed Video Came to Gensokyo", which is about Sadako from The Ring ending up among the Touhous. Amusing, if incomplete (currently).
The other one was, "The Flower that Follows the Sun", which was a Yuuka-centric doujin about Yuuka finding a chibi version of herself in her garden one morning. Hilarity ensues, right up until it doesn't. I've read it twice this week, and thought it was quite moving.
I especially like that I can get an e-mail from FF.Net, wait a few hours, and then see a discussion about that update e-mail right here.
Ashikabi no Shinobi (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7771009/1/Ashikabi_No_Shinobi)
It wants to be In Flight with Naruto so bad. But no. I couldn't get through the first chapter.
Naruto is often attempted (badly) for setting transplants. For the most part he doesn't seem like he'd work without his setting that well since his background and goals are so tied into it.
Quote from: Dracos on August 28, 2012, 06:31:31 PM
Naruto is often attempted (badly) for setting transplants. For the most part he doesn't seem like he'd work without his setting that well since his background and goals are so tied into it.
Like Luffy.
Eh. Luffy seems more transplantable, in as much as he starts legitimately alone in a wild world. That wild world can contain many other worldsettings within it.
Naruto starts in a city as part of an organization. Most transplants that work at all just place it as 'post series' which in turn would have him already having dealt with world conquering terrors.
Naruto's goal is also very specific to his setting. Ranma's usually got a very mobile goal (beat the curse, be the best, etc.), and Luffy's goal may be more mobile as well (find the treasure) if you start early enough.
Naruto's goal is 'become the Hokage'. If he's suddenly in another universe, that's kind of totally out of the picture.
I'm thinking a 'Naruto gets yanked into an alternate dimension' fic is actually more interesting from the angle that a fuinjutsu master or two can probably figure out where he went, and Konoha isn't about to let the Kyubei's container just vanish.
But maybe that's just me. >_>
True, nobody ever uses that. No, wait. I think someone did once. No, that was only close, where Konoha hid Naruto (+ a few others) in another setting as a way of avoiding them also being captured during a massive disaster for Konoha. Trying to make sure the nine tails couldn't be captured by hiding him in another world for a bit.
Luffy's goals are in a sense setting centric, but they don't depend on any organization, so they're more malleable. Meeting respectfully with Red Haired Shanks can easily be dropped, and while it is exposed early, it's not expressed as anything more than an emotional nostalgia. The One Piece is really an irrelevant tag behind his "Become the Pirate King" that was his early adventuring goal. Certainly, in a world without many pirates, it wouldn't make much sense, but it also has no need for recognition and is mainly an excuse to travel, adventure, and live the good life. The further away from Konoha Naruto is the less things usually make sense unless his 'goals' are dramatically changed in a life altering experience.
*ramble ramble, retread, retread*
Not Quite As Planned (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7462056/1/Not_Quite_as_Planned)
Bleach fic. Ichigo takes a little too long finding his sword before heading into soul society and comes out a bit different. Fun read. Also has a sequel, though I haven't read that yet.
Oh, I liked NQaP. It's got fun bits.
Regarding Naruto transplants...one semi-decent one I've seen is The Newest Challenger, by Kenchi618, which I am too lazy to link to. He gets transplanted out by dimensional gate in backstory, and his current motivation is to get enough money to investigate the possibility of getting back rigorously. He's going through the whole plot of that story because a character has promised to fund his looking-around if he wins their tournament.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/22/From-Fake-Dreams
Update. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but passing it along.
Quote from: alethiophile on August 29, 2012, 12:57:07 PM
Oh, I liked NQaP. It's got fun bits.
Regarding Naruto transplants...one semi-decent one I've seen is The Newest Challenger, by Kenchi618, which I am too lazy to link to. He gets transplanted out by dimensional gate in backstory, and his current motivation is to get enough money to investigate the possibility of getting back rigorously. He's going through the whole plot of that story because a character has promised to fund his looking-around if he wins their tournament.
Kenichi618 gets tossed around a lot. He's extremely prolific. I dunno, maybe I had a few bad experiences, but it feels like all of his fics have a samey 'here's a bunch of OCs and we'll also supercharge naruto' vibe that has me falling out of them. Maybe I'm unfair. I just expect whenever I see his name for Naruto to get overwritten shortly.
Sealed Kunai and Soldier of Fortune do both have that vibe, at least to the degree that those iterations both have divergent backstories that lead to differences in characterization. I found Better Left Unsaid to be pretty decent along the more-canon-ish-Naruto aspect.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 29, 2012, 12:58:52 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/22/From-Fake-Dreams
Update. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but passing it along.
Grail war starts... mmm, delicious.
http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,12270.0.html Kinda amusing.
A magical girl villian makes its way to Touhou. Enforces Magical Girl rules, requiring Magical Girls to come and kill is with silly named attacks. Reimu is unhappy, Sanae thinks she's dreaming, Meiling isn't in genre.
Quote from: Dracos on August 30, 2012, 11:41:31 AM
http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,12270.0.html Kinda amusing.
Quote
Nazrin twisted in the palm of her hand. "Reimu, normal magic won't work on them. They aren't youkai like the rest of us, they have a special protection. You need to use the magic of love to banish these monsters!"
Shouldn't Marisa completely kick their ass? I thought her magic is love-based.
Friends Like These (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7089866/1/Friends_Like_These), a Mass Effect 2 story.
11k words, it's a relatively short, but rather comedic piece about how Tali, Garrus, Joker, and Chakwas investigate Shepard, who's been up to something...
Mainly just skipped to chapter 3. But kinda neat. Amusing writing.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7745648/10/Legacy-of-Uzushiogakure
Kinda neat as a Fairy Tail Fusion into Naruto. I mean, it's not called that, but it totally is that.
It's got lots of glaring flaws. The Fairy Tail characters drown everyone out in terms of lines and influence on the scene. Konoha comes across as kids ape-ing being as good as these guys in comparison. There's few interactions between the Naruto cast and the others.
It feels like the author has a better grasp of the Fairy Tail crew than the Naruto crew, as most of the cast come off as distorted images of the originals with the same names. Too talkative Kakashi. The other Jonin aren't much better and the city itself lacks prestige and numbers.
As a clan, the Uzumaki come off as an enormous crew and that's even commented on. It makes the leaf village seem tiny, which doesn't make sense in context of the narrative. They also come off as outrageously powerful in context of the story.
Anyhow, yeah, kinda neat, worth a look, but lots of glaring flaws throughout.
"Bad, yet enjoyable"?
Mmm, kinda.
More wanted to see it succeed. It seemed a particularly clever way to do a Naruto/Fairy Tail fusion. Much better than I've seen elsewhere. And the concept seemed sensible too.
But the skill to weave the story isn't quite there. Also the littering of japanese with it comes off as very unnecessary.
I remember that one. It starts with one of the most annoying Naruto cliche's and never pulls itself above it.
In Flight (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/32/In-Flight) Updated
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2663204/1/One-Hundred-Days
Reread it recently. A sequel is still being written.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7870920/1/Honor-Thy-Masters
I almost wasn't going to read it because I'm unfamiliar with Bakemonogatari, and I disliked Kenchi because it was completely bland. But then I remembered that Gabriel Blessing basically uses stories for character and background - not for any particular character and background, but just so that they have them.
Yeah, curious where he's going to go with it.
I found both his Bakemonogatari stories more interesting than the actual anime, but then, the actual first season just kind of leaves the vampire girl as a non-entity.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7560531/8/Everything-and-Nothing
Everything and Nothing updated. It's Sage of Toad's crack at a ZnT fic, not to mention his least flawed story. It's generally fun and hasn't gone too far like BDSM or that Ranma fic of his.
Glanced over at Sage of Toads. Read his rewrite of Reloaded.
For context, it's a Peggy Sue Shinji fic which has Shinji know the plot of Eva in tremendous detail and get military training beforehand. The first asked for a lot of suspension of disbelief but was an amusing roller coaster.
This one just feels like it has no pacing. It just feels like garbage. Do not recommend. :(
Read the AMG fic "Haloes" which was enjoyable. Seems to have a plot of "Belldandy gets locked away, Keiichi and Urd pick up the pieces and move on" with a subplot: "Btw, Human/Demon/God breeding is unethical, so we're gonna murder the kid". It's delivered as a story to very unhappy Belldandy who was released 10 years into it. Kinda neat, as a non-actiony romance story for the most part.
QuoteRead the AMG fic "Haloes" which was enjoyable. Seems to have a plot of "Belldandy gets locked away, Keiichi and Urd pick up the pieces and move on" with a subplot: "Btw, Human/Demon/God breeding is unethical, so we're gonna murder the kid". It's delivered as a story to very unhappy Belldandy who was released 10 years into it. Kinda neat, as a non-actiony romance story for the most part.
I'd recommend -any- of Davner (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/17993/Davner)'s AMG fics, not just Haloes.
I also rather like his Zombie-AMS fic. Silly, but then again, so is AMS.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382984/15/Big-Human-on-Campus
Spoiler: There is a cat.
There's always a cat.
Mmm, amusing :)
Always good seeing some BHoC
Ah ... BHoC was good. I really liked that chapter.
I maintain that BHoC is an RSE done right.
Indeed.
It's...the best active Ranma fanfic on the web at the moment I think? Would any contest? :)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6372400/1/Chaos-Theory new chapter. Reread all of it. Still kinda cool, if short chapter'd and a bit slow. It's a fate story where Shirou ends up showing kindness to Ilya before their normal first violent encounter. Ilya's perception gets twisted a bit, and things go off the rails in fairly believable ways. Zouken ends up providing a villain. Rin/Shirou team-up doesn't occur since there's no obvious super-threat early on of berserker. Latest chapter is basically: Good things happen to those who try and do good. Also, Gilgamesh doesn't believe in that rule.
Also read some Nanoha/Slayers fic of 600k words. Got like 2 chapters in before just getting tired of the mary sue with Lina's name on it and quiting. :(
Also read some Best Laid Plans by Arun. Glanced actually just at the most recent chapter, and couldn't really recognize Naruto and the setup just seemed too...Original Setting style. So I tossed that out.
Chaos Theory is cool.
On a related note, Infinity (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5144486/1/Infinity) by the same author just recently updated. That's a Nanoha fic set after A's. Quite good.
Quote from: Dracos on September 14, 2012, 09:55:28 PM
Also read some Nanoha/Slayers fic of 600k words. Got like 2 chapters in before just getting tired of the mary sue with Lina's name on it and quiting. :(
That the one where Lina is Nanoha's mother?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7972624/1/Lunatique
Tsukihime/Fate one-shot, describing the death of the Crimson Moon. Really good and worth reading. Edit: A quick check shows it's by the author of Chaos Theory. Didn't even notice.
Quote from: alethiophile on September 14, 2012, 10:11:22 PM
On a related note, Infinity (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5144486/1/Infinity) by the same author just recently updated. That's a Nanoha fic set after A's. Quite good.
That Moczo has some of the more twistedly amusing one-shots of Fate secondary characters that I've ever read.
There's Mind of Aluminum (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8059399/1/Mind-of-Aluminum) which features Shinji Matou of all people, dealt with in a rather surprising way.
There's also Mirror, Mirror (http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/2002-Mirror-Mirror-%28Rin-Gilgamesh-in-Stereo%29) starring Rin and "Gilgamesh".
Anyway, first post! Herro, Everynyan. How Are Hyu. Fine, Sankyu.
My reading taste consists almost entirely of crossovers for some reason.
The one I'm most hoping for an update is The War of Kings (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-war-of-kings-code-geass-x-fate-stay-night-thread-2.202176/) (first chapter here (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-war-of-kings-code-geass-x-fate-stay-night.199012/)), in which we find that Lelouch makes a pretty good Master.
Brian, I think you might be amused by who Lancer is in this one.
Mind of Aluminum is good. Probably my favorite of Moczo's humor randomnesses is Shinderella; that thing is great.
Currently reading Cast in Gold (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7057744/1/Cast-in-Gold) in which Shinji Exalts during his battle with Sachiel. About halfway through now, but it's lots of fun seeing how Shinji deals with having become a Solar Exalted and NERV likewise attempts to catalogue and classify this new non-Angelic power. It's not really much about curb-stomping the angels, since Shinji doesn't have any of the really cool charms (or sorcery) and so it's still up to the Evas to fight, but it adds an interesting dimension to everything that happens outside the Eva. Worth a read.
And if you're in the mood for more 'competent and well rounded' Shinjis with a slice of superpowers, I recommend Last Child of Krypton (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7720528/1/Last-Child-of-Krypton-Redux). In this one a probe from dying Krypton is found by Gehrin and while studying it a pregnant Yui has Kryptonian DNA merged with her unborn son. Shinji isn't quite Clark Kent but he's pretty close, and it plays on a lot of the fun Superman tropes with Shinji running off with a lame excuse before saving the day as Superman then coming back with some ineffectual item that he supposedly ran off to find so he could 'help'. In this one he can't pilot the Evas because of his altered DNA, but as Superman he's fully able to support the fight without one. It's a fantastic story and it made me feel good reading it, so I recommend this one even more strongly than the first.
Quote from: Dracos on September 14, 2012, 07:35:33 PM
Indeed.
It's...the best active Ranma fanfic on the web at the moment I think? Would any contest? :)
I actually like Nexus II slightly better. But I'll readily admit that by this point, Nexus is really an original fantasy story with a Ranma fig leaf on it, and they're both written by the same guy anyway.
I really ought to go find and read FSN, so I can read the stories people are writing based off of it.
Quote from: Ebiris on September 15, 2012, 09:46:03 PM
Currently reading Cast in Gold (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7057744/1/Cast-in-Gold) in which Shinji Exalts during his battle with Sachiel. About halfway through now, but it's lots of fun seeing how Shinji deals with having become a Solar Exalted and NERV likewise attempts to catalogue and classify this new non-Angelic power. It's not really much about curb-stomping the angels, since Shinji doesn't have any of the really cool charms (or sorcery) and so it's still up to the Evas to fight, but it adds an interesting dimension to everything that happens outside the Eva. Worth a read.
And if you're in the mood for more 'competent and well rounded' Shinjis with a slice of superpowers, I recommend Last Child of Krypton (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7720528/1/Last-Child-of-Krypton-Redux). In this one a probe from dying Krypton is found by Gehrin and while studying it a pregnant Yui has Kryptonian DNA merged with her unborn son. Shinji isn't quite Clark Kent but he's pretty close, and it plays on a lot of the fun Superman tropes with Shinji running off with a lame excuse before saving the day as Superman then coming back with some ineffectual item that he supposedly ran off to find so he could 'help'. In this one he can't pilot the Evas because of his altered DNA, but as Superman he's fully able to support the fight without one. It's a fantastic story and it made me feel good reading it, so I recommend this one even more strongly than the first.
THANK YOU!
Quote from: thepanda on September 15, 2012, 12:47:59 AM
Quote from: Dracos on September 14, 2012, 09:55:28 PM
Also read some Nanoha/Slayers fic of 600k words. Got like 2 chapters in before just getting tired of the mary sue with Lina's name on it and quiting. :(
That the one where Lina is Nanoha's mother?
Yes. It's an enormous fic, but I couldn't care long enough to see if there was a spark there later. Honestly tried, but the whole "And now I unglamour my eyes. Now I reglamour them." just was singing "Mary-sue!"
Quote from: Rayearth on September 15, 2012, 04:34:35 AM
Quote from: alethiophile on September 14, 2012, 10:11:22 PM
On a related note, Infinity (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5144486/1/Infinity) by the same author just recently updated. That's a Nanoha fic set after A's. Quite good.
That Moczo has some of the more twistedly amusing one-shots of Fate secondary characters that I've ever read.
There's Mind of Aluminum (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8059399/1/Mind-of-Aluminum) which features Shinji Matou of all people, dealt with in a rather surprising way.
There's also Mirror, Mirror (http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/2002-Mirror-Mirror-%28Rin-Gilgamesh-in-Stereo%29) starring Rin and "Gilgamesh".
Anyway, first post! Herro, Everynyan. How Are Hyu. Fine, Sankyu.
My reading taste consists almost entirely of crossovers for some reason.
The one I'm most hoping for an update is The War of Kings (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-war-of-kings-code-geass-x-fate-stay-night-thread-2.202176/) (first chapter here (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-war-of-kings-code-geass-x-fate-stay-night.199012/)), in which we find that Lelouch makes a pretty good Master.
Brian, I think you might be amused by who Lancer is in this one.
Welcome to the site. :) Might want to say hi in the Introductions thread, but welcome :)
If I recall correctly, Brian's not really into the whole Fate/stay scene :)
Yeah, where I'm not indifferent to the Nasuverse, I'm generally irritated by it. >_>
Sorry. :x
Regarding Last Child of Krypton, the author just finished a rewrite under the title LCoK: Redux. The latter is probably better written, and doesn't so much explode into full crossover territory at the end. Both are good, though.
There's also a sequel to Redux being written right now, called Crisis of Infinite Shinjis. Haven't started that one yet, but the guy's stuff is generally good.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/255967.html
DK:A update. This isn't a whole lot of content. The author was on vacation for a few weeks and I think he just wanted to get something up.
Consumed all of Child of Krypton: Redux.
It was a good story, though grammar/spelling was sometimes a problem and surprisingly so in a rewrite. Action scenes certainly wasn't its strength, and I think it would've been better served with a happy ending rather than a crisis of infinite shinjis.
It's best strength is really that it is a tale of Hope Redeems.
Quote from: Dracos on September 20, 2012, 08:33:57 PM
Consumed all of Child of Krypton: Redux.
It was a good story, though grammar/spelling was sometimes a problem and surprisingly so in a rewrite. Action scenes certainly wasn't its strength, and I think it would've been better served with a happy ending rather than a crisis of infinite shinjis.
It's best strength is really that it is a tale of Hope Redeems.
I really enjoyed it. Crisis of Infinite Shinjis not so much. I got about seven paragraphs in before my brain decided that it didn't care anymore. Such a shame.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 18, 2012, 03:27:59 PM
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/255967.html
DK:A update. This isn't a whole lot of content. The author was on vacation for a few weeks and I think he just wanted to get something up.
So I haven't read DK:A in a long while, and hadn't too much of a desire to pick it up again that quickly.
Is it still going strong? Is there an actual plot or is it just kinda... well, like standard addventure?
There's still a strong plot. It updates 1-2 times a month depending on the author's speed. If you don't mind spoilers:
Among other plot points, Ami's been forced off the Avatar Islands and managed to survive a direct encounter with a Dark God. So yeah, things are happening.
Read both of the Eva crossovers, even though it's nowhere near over yet by the looks of it I'd have to say that I'm enjoying Cast in Gold more than I enjoyed Last Son of Krypton. I think that the pacing in Cast might be a bit slow, but not terrible.
I can't even remember how I wound up reading this, but I recently went through all of the Dragonball fanfic Honor Trip (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4746383/1/Honor-Trip) recently. I'm kind of torn on it, to be honest. The concept is quite original: namely Cell experiences a change of heart and becomes one of the good guys. It's obvious that the author has put a lot of thought into how some of the stuff in the Dragonball universe works, and it's nice to see some of the reasoning behind his decisions, even if they aren't canon.
On the other hand though, sometimes he goes completely overboard with those details. The amount of detail given to some of the discussions is mindbogglingly dense and doesn't really seem to have a point besides "Hey, look how much thought I put into this!". Also, some of the characters are wildly OoC, especially Goku, who was apparently some sort of savant all along and just choose to play the part of an idiot. The fact that everyone seems to come off as a warrior-philosopher makes it all the more jarring when dialogue you'd expect to hear from the characters actually does show up.
I'd still recommend it, but be prepared for what you're getting into.
Well, admittingly, it's kind of a pity that Goku isn't more of a warrior-philosopher by adult-hood in canon. As a child the idiocy worked nicely, and was adorable, but by the end of when he trained under the local Cosmic God King Kai in the underworld having studied under already the world's best martial artist, best sage, and planetary guardian, he really should've picked some stuff up.
There's hints that he was meant to go that way, dying against Cell and providing a heroic lead in for Gohan as the new hero, but it never happened as Goku was way too popular.
Quote from: Dracos on September 22, 2012, 08:10:53 PM
Well, admittingly, it's kind of a pity that Goku isn't more of a warrior-philosopher by adult-hood in canon.
Oh, but Goku adheres to the incredibly deep philosophy... of non-philosophy!
*badum-tshh*
More seriously, I thought Goku's defining trait was that he retains much of his innocence and straightforward belief in good, even as he keeps battling increasingly insane and horrible enemies. That... kind of limits how much the character can develop, though, almost by definition, at least if you want to him retain that trait through 135,245341 episodes.
I tried to read that fic, but couldn't make it past the first chapter. Trying to redeem someone like Cell, whose entire motivation up until that point has been pretty much "destroy things and kill people for the lulz"...I can't get past my brain screaming THIS IS STUPID at me. Pity, since the writing is semi-decent, it seems.
I made it to the third chapter but the dialogue was so over-wrought it was very tiring to read and I gave up. The actual premise I don't have a great problem with - Goku made the exact same head-trauma based heel-face turn in his backstory when he was a baby.
I'm at least glad Shenron called Cell on his outrageous rules-lawyering of the wish to bring back all the dead people.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 22, 2012, 08:46:48 PM
Quote from: Dracos on September 22, 2012, 08:10:53 PM
Well, admittingly, it's kind of a pity that Goku isn't more of a warrior-philosopher by adult-hood in canon.
Oh, but Goku adheres to the incredibly deep philosophy... of non-philosophy!
*badum-tshh*
More seriously, I thought Goku's defining trait was that he retains much of his innocence and straightforward belief in good, even as he keeps battling increasingly insane and horrible enemies. That... kind of limits how much the character can develop, though, almost by definition, at least if you want to him retain that trait through 135,245341 episodes.
That's true. He's supposed to be innocent and straightforward. But that doesn't actually have to mean he's still an idiot, or that it isn't a reflective of a chosen way of living. The whole "You don't have to live dog eat dog to be strong" is something he could reflect strongly.
In Flight (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/33/In-Flight) updated
I read that last night and...
Well, I thought it might've been the most dull chapter that Gabriel has written. I'm not sure what entirely was wrong with it, as saying there was no progress is kind of unfair, but it just really feels like it was one long scene that even at its climax lacked impact.
Cast in Gold seems to not want to go on my favorites. I blame FF.net.
Anyhow, did enjoy it so far and interested in continuing to follow it. It is a bit flaky, and I think it sits in a bit of a weird state with Misato particularly with society both going "He's 14, stop being a flirt-monster" and "Well, she keeps doing it but not going anywhere with it".
I'm not sure where he's going with Asuka. She doesn't believe that the glowing giant has magic powers? Really? I dunno, her chapters haven't been as interesting.
It's slightly more conservative than I'd hope given how SuperPowered Shinji already is. Almost kinda shame.
Still, it's a good rec, worth reading.
Quote from: Dracos on September 24, 2012, 08:08:52 PM
I read that last night and...
Well, I thought it might've been the most dull chapter that Gabriel has written. I'm not sure what entirely was wrong with it, as saying there was no progress is kind of unfair, but it just really feels like it was one long scene that even at its climax lacked impact.
He still hasn't figured out a way to write information into the story without dumping it. Worse, little of what was said in the chapter needed to be said. It is the weakness of In Flight; we really don't need to know everything about the nasuverse. Hell, Nasu didn't try to put that much info into any single path.
I think it suffered for how many people bitched at him apparently about how things worked in hill of swords.
Shame, as I think that had a better balance there.
Maybe a fight scene would break the monotony. I'm starting to feel like the last nice fight chapter (which really could have gone without the "You're a tsundere" line) was Tsukiumi's intro...which was more than a year and a half ago.
It's so strange. Back when the author was posting a new chapter every week I felt like I couldn't get enough of In Flight; now I'm just eh when the once-per-season updates occur. What happened?
I read a bunch of In Flight. The early stuff was good but it bogged down after awhile. It was one of those stories that couldn't survive under the strain of its own plot.
Eh, I enjoyed the "Hey let's kidnap Uzume's Master and save her from death" part, especially given cannonically, uzume just dies lamely.
The last serious fight scene was actually the assassin mage girl versus Shirou and the group. Like 4 chapters ago (or like 6 months).
The earlier chapters though were snappier, usually ending with a cliffhanger that you cared about. This one ends with a cliffhanger (Shirou is summoned into the light of the game for the first time), but it doesn't deliver it well. It is subtle and you could end the chapter without realizing it even happened.
This (http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/15/Mother-of-Learning) updated earlier this month.
Quote from: alethiophile on September 22, 2012, 09:48:13 PM
I tried to read that fic, but couldn't make it past the first chapter. Trying to redeem someone like Cell, whose entire motivation up until that point has been pretty much "destroy things and kill people for the lulz"...I can't get past my brain screaming THIS IS STUPID at me. Pity, since the writing is semi-decent, it seems.
Sleepy observation:
Part of the problem is that the villians past Freiza (and crew) largely have increasing flat motivations that are basically "Destroy All Life".
Earlier Villians often had at least things they were trying to accomplish (Kidnap Goku, Conquer the World with a wish, Gain immortality, create the world's strongest army, etc) with killing things being hobby type fare.
Later villians are "Kill everything that ever lived". Starting kinda with Cell. Anyhow, his whole shtick is prove I'm perfect, which leaves little motivational room for it.
Quote from: Dracos on September 26, 2012, 06:33:56 PM
Earlier Villians often had at least things they were trying to accomplish (Kidnap Goku, Conquer the World with a wish, Gain immortality, create the world's strongest army, etc) with killing things being hobby type fare.
I think Commander Red has my favourite motivation out of all the Dragonball series villains :)
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Red
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8559605/1/Youth
Ranma-fic: Happosai escapes years early, causing lots of changes. The biggest is deciding to 'borrow' Ranma for awhile to train him. It's still not far along yet but the first chapter has potential.
One niggle: I think Genma's ability to train Ranma is being short-sold. I don't disagree with the idea that Happosai could be a better teacher than Genma, but it still leaves me a bit wary.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/23/From-Fake-Dreams
Updated. Decent chapter, no comments right now.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on September 26, 2012, 07:48:46 PM
Quote from: Dracos on September 26, 2012, 06:33:56 PM
Earlier Villians often had at least things they were trying to accomplish (Kidnap Goku, Conquer the World with a wish, Gain immortality, create the world's strongest army, etc) with killing things being hobby type fare.
I think Commander Red has my favourite motivation out of all the Dragonball series villains :)
http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Red
*checks memory* That was the guy that just wanted to be tall, wasn't it? Yup. it was. :)
Yeah, again, better motivations on the earlier cast, even when they were simple or stupid. They were things that the person would live with that was a mere part of their lives. Cell's 'Demonstrate my perfection and murder everyone' was kinda lame and is hard to do anything with. Vegita's 'Be Immortal' leaves far more room.
I liked Commander Red's motivation. You've got to respect someone who's willing to challenge a superpowered army-killing alien just so he can be tall. And Adjutant Black's reaction to the whole thing was priceless.
Vegeta similarly. He's actually got a character. The androids even do, especially 18. But Cell...he's not really a character, just a phenomenon. A human-shaped, smug phenomenon that wants to kill everyone. I can't imagine him really changing. Hence why I couldn't finish the story.
Hell, even Buu has better motivation than that. Or at least one of him does.
Your comments are understandable, Aleth. Since you read a little you probably know that the reason that Cell changed is because he got hit in the head really hard and it made him good. It's a pretty lame excuse, although I couldn't really see anything else that would work better.
There is the argument later on that Cell didn't have a choice in being a dick/monster, since that's what Doctor Gero programmed him to be. However, that gets into stuff like suppressing "noble traits" which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since those things aren't really in DNA. Cell claims that he was given the megalomania of Frieza, the arrogance of Vegeta, stuff like that. Problem is of course, again, those things don't come from DNA, it would have taken the actual memories to do that, which Gero didn't have.
Admittedly, I'm still reading it, but I can absolutely understand where the criticism of it comes from.
Quote from: Grahf on September 28, 2012, 04:36:05 AM
However, that gets into stuff like suppressing "noble traits" which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since those things aren't really in DNA. Cell claims that he was given the megalomania of Frieza, the arrogance of Vegeta, stuff like that. Problem is of course, again, those things don't come from DNA, it would have taken the actual memories to do that, which Gero didn't have.
There are a number of people who do not really have a handle on what DNA does and does not control. This translates into their writing (most oh-no-clones stories from about ten years ago fall into this category. Most of those writers seem shocked when I told them that identical twins are naturally occurring clones.)
Quote from: Anastasia on September 26, 2012, 11:50:06 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8559605/1/Youth
Ranma-fic: Happosai escapes years early, causing lots of changes. The biggest is deciding to 'borrow' Ranma for awhile to train him. It's still not far along yet but the first chapter has potential.
One niggle: I think Genma's ability to train Ranma is being short-sold. I don't disagree with the idea that Happosai could be a better teacher than Genma, but it still leaves me a bit wary.
There were a couple of things that felt wrong about that story, and none of it had to do with
Genma's ability to train Ranma. Instead, Happy had Ranma for, what, a couple of months of training, long enough to just turn him into a shota and not much different at all because of it.
I'm actually fine with that concept and I think it's rather neat, but that's absolutely not the vibes it was giving in the first chapter, where Happy looked like he was going to be training Ranma to be far more like himself, and to then have Ranma take some of Happy's bad habits, but in exchange be an absolutely, hideously stronger fighter. I'm just getting conflicting messages from the fic.
Also, that Cologne could detect Happy from a continent away? It honestly made the whole thing sound like it was just a rather thin excuse (from the wrong genre, no less) to have everyone in China "level up" a bit. I would've been like fifty times happier if instead, even though the exact same thing would've happened in the end, the justification changed from being able to detect Happosai and then deducing that everyone in the village must have far more martial arts training, to having a comical string of "bad luck" related events happen, culminating in a faint sense of Happosai. It keeps the lighthearted sense, while still providing a good reason why Cologne would do that.
Not the best hopes for this fic so far. Hopefully there'll be some saving grace in how the Tendo sisters might have been changed... but based on how they essentially did the exact same song and dance they did in chapter 2 that they did in canon, I'm not saving my breath.
Dragonball Z kinda already did have Cell inherit traits from his 'donors' that aren't purely physical - he could do everyone's special moves.
Just actually read the 3rd Omake of Big Human on Campus. Ranma goes to hell. It's very amusing.
Delenda Est (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/36/Delenda-Est) updated. Fun stuff.
So did On the Wings of an Eagle: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8118551/8/On-The-Wings-Of-An-Eagle
Damn, I meant to link that. Awesome story.
It really does a lot with the canvas. I don't like the constant use of foreign languages in it, but frankly it really is taking an effort to tell that story as part of a real world rather than as a story in the anime setting.
I could do without the Desmond bits. But I could also do without the Desmond bits in the original Assassin's Creed, so hey, can't blame an author for being true to the canon.
Indeed.
This is one of those rare fics where the foreign language tidbits aren't terribly annoying. So hell, I'll give it latitude on that.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/256527.html
DK:A update.
[spoiler]Ami's cracking. I think something's gonna happen there soon.
This thread is lacking in Gundam, so I'll toss this one in, since it just got updated: Mobile Battalion Gundam Wars (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3378369/65/Mobile-Battalion-Gundam-Wars)
So it's a semi-crossover arena fanfic, but its treated seriously, like the plot of a typical Super Robot Wars. It's somewhat technical, as in characters take note of the odd patterns and breaks in the pattern between their gathered mobile suits. However, it definitely doesn't drown you in specs like a Battletech fic or something like that.
I feel somewhat embarrassed that I managed to recognize most of the characters from the start. There's, what, been fifteen different Gundam series since 1979? Twenty?
Quote from: Rayearth on October 05, 2012, 08:32:23 AM
This thread is lacking in Gundam, so I'll toss this one in, since it just got updated: Mobile Battalion Gundam Wars (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3378369/65/Mobile-Battalion-Gundam-Wars)
So it's a semi-crossover arena fanfic, but its treated seriously, like the plot of a typical Super Robot Wars. It's somewhat technical, as in characters take note of the odd patterns and breaks in the pattern between their gathered mobile suits. However, it definitely doesn't drown you in specs like a Battletech fic or something like that.
I feel somewhat embarrassed that I managed to recognize most of the characters from the start. There's, what, been fifteen different Gundam series since 1979? Twenty?
That sounds a lot like the Dynasty Warriors Gundam games. (Own all three. Two is still the best!)
Something I found that people have been enjoying on IRC:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4975814/1/My-Wish-Order-Brother
Bit rough around the edges technically, but an interesting study of how to make Deidara sympathetic, and why he is so insane. (Namely, the inevitably traumatic childhood of a child Jounin with a nearly-extinct heavy-weapons bloodline.) He escapes from Iwagakure, winds up hiding in Konoha instead of joining up with Akatsuki, comes to adopt Naruto as a brother and teaches all of the future genin characters how to blow things up. (They are all about six years old at this point, while Deidara is ten.) Alternately cutesy and a bit dark, with just enough of an actual plot to keep things going strong so far.
Sakura's mom is for some reason
the most terrifying yandere in the history of history, and hangs out with Orochimaru like it's no big deal
. That was kind of
wut.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/10/Haigeki
Read some of this out of pure curiosity.
Pluto has Bitch of the Decade in the bag now. Wow.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 06, 2012, 12:40:54 AM
Pluto has Bitch of the Decade in the bag now. Wow.
Oh lord almighty, they drag Bitch Pluto into this as well? That cements my resolution not to read any more of the fic. And it started out so promisingly too.
Cold blooded bitch Pluto. Now maybe she had her reasons, but it was a sublime sort of uberbitch. I was in awe of the sheer bitch factor, as if all the saints of bitchdom had come to bless this fic.
In Flight (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/34/In-Flight) updated. Battle time! and banana nut muffins.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5245635/1/Magical-Girl-Nanoha-12
DY posted a link last year. Last note states that the writer likely won't continue the story, but at least the arc was finished.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 10, 2012, 09:01:35 PM
DY posted a link last year. Last note states that the writer likely won't continue the story, but at least the arc was finished.
Ah yes, this was the one with the most awesome massively-OOC Genma in the history of history.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 10, 2012, 09:05:45 PM
Ah yes, this was the one with the most awesome massively-OOC Genma in the history of history.
Nah, I think the most awesomely massively-OOC Genma was that fic on the FFML back in the day where Akane is barren, Ranma volunteers to become pregnant to further the schools, Genma greatly protests this as terrible and Nodoka gives her full support and blessing as it's clearly a manly thing to do. But obviously, from the previous line, the writer had issues beyond his handling of Genma in the first place, so eh.
All I can say to that is "wut"
Most awesome, massively-OOC Genma
Not most awesomely massively-OOC
Quote from: thepanda on October 11, 2012, 12:34:09 AM
Most awesome, massively-OOC Genma
Not most awesomely massively-OOC
The changes in interpretation that commas provide can also be awesome. :)
Quote from: JonBob on October 10, 2012, 11:38:39 AM
In Flight (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/34/In-Flight) updated. Battle time! and banana nut muffins.
Enjoyed this chapter. Kinda curious though
How shirou won't end up simply dead? Since they already let the black sekerei into melee distance with him.
Speculations vary. More seriously, he's not at full capacity at the moment, and fairly obviously so; it's quite possible that Karasuba will hold off on killing him in order to fight him when he's fresh. (Also, killing him will terminate Musubi, and this would remove Karasuba's ability to fulfill her promise.) Less seriously, others speculate that she's in fact not winged yet, and this is just Shirou triggering the same overpowered reaction (in this case, via bloodlust) that he has in, well, just about every other Sekirei he's ever looked at. :P
Less seriously, others speculate that she's in fact not winged yet, and this is just Shirou triggering the same overpowered reaction (in this case, via bloodlust) that he has in, well, just about every other Sekirei he's ever looked at. :P
That's what I took from Benitsubasa's final comment.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5019925/1/The-Attractions-of-Abduction
A dragonball Z fic that doesn't suck? What sorcery is this?! I like the setup and the author's writing style a lot. The plot detours when Nappa and Vegeta arrive on Earth and goes off the rails. Namely, the Namek Dragonballs are used to restore the Saiyan homeworld, all the people there and transport everyone on Namek to the Saiyan homeworld. This isn't a spoiler since it's mentioned in the fic summary.
Fair warning: The fic is rated M for a reason. It doesn't go full on lemon, but a few bits skirt into soft lime. It's not common, but it does happen a time or two.
Been reading The Well Groomed Mind (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8163784/1/The-Well-Groomed-Mind) a Harry Potter fic which takes a few things we know about the Ministry of Magic from the books and runs with them. I'll let this excerpt from chapter 8 which I just finished summarise it for you:
Quote
"Open your eyes and look at the world around you. The Ministry of Magic, our legal government, ordered a man who was imprisoned without a trial kissed on sight. There's another phrase for that: summary execution. We're not at war with anyone, they didn't declare a state of emergency, or take any other step to legalize it because they consider it perfectly legal. Before you claim Sirius is an exception, do the research. He's not the first person they've targeted; he's just the first who's survived more than a year." I grabbed her hand. "Summary executions are the stuff of totalitarian regimes and nightmares. It's currently our government's policy. I'm sorry. I know you want to believe Dumbledore fought for what's right. I want to believe the same thing about my parents, but the fact remains summary execution is wrong as is political censorship, show trials, state-controlled mass media like The Daily Prophet and the Wizarding Wireless Network, and warrant-less searches. All of which the Ministry of Magic, led by Minister Fudge and Chief Warlock Albus Dumbledore, practices."
There's no super Harry armed with aristocratic titles and vaults of gold fighting the good fight against this, he's much more a scared kid trying to figure out how to protect himself without sticking his head out and getting disappeared for his trouble, while stuck dealing with the Triwizard tournament - though he is benefiting from additional training via Moody, who seems to share much of Harry's newfound views...
Please tell me it doesn't try to turn Voldemort into the misunderstood rebel who is actually not that bad outside of his extreme methods.
Okay I won't.
Voldemort hasn't appeared in person yet (by chapter 14) but we've learned that he's kept his Tom Riddle and Voldemort personas seperate, and Tom Riddle is a reclusive academic who occasionally writes articles for Transfiguration Weekly. I admit I'm a bit dubious, it would have been more interesting if the Wizarding World was completely fucked rather than Voldemort of all people offering change for the better. But I'm still enjoying it.
Oi.
Yeah, I definately agree. A case of canon badguy still being the badguy even as the fanfic is setting up the ministry to also be badguys...well, leaves poor Harry and co in a really bad spot, but would make for a more interesting fic. Still, if they haven't outright made Voldemort not a badguy yet, then it might still do something surprising.
Quote from: Ebiris on October 13, 2012, 08:52:38 PM
There's no super Harry armed with aristocratic titles and vaults of gold fighting the good fight against this, he's much more a scared kid trying to figure out how to protect himself without sticking his head out and getting disappeared for his trouble, while stuck dealing with the Triwizard tournament - though he is benefiting from additional training via Moody, who seems to share much of Harry's newfound views...
If it's circa Goblet of Fire, wouldn't you reasonably expect this Moody
to be the fake Moody who's actually Barty Crouch Jr.?
EDIT: never mind, it's brought up in Chapter 5.
Quote from: thepanda on October 11, 2012, 10:44:44 PM
Less seriously, others speculate that she's in fact not winged yet, and this is just Shirou triggering the same overpowered reaction (in this case, via bloodlust) that he has in, well, just about every other Sekirei he's ever looked at. :P
That's what I took from Benitsubasa's final comment.
HUh, that'd actually be pretty cool.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely to actually happen; GB has stated that Shirou will not end up winging Karasuba, if only because that would make him so utterly broken. Funny to think about, though.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/256704.html
DK:A update. One part funny and
Crowned Death just got bitch smacked again.
The early parts of the story did have Keeper Ami with a certain theme. I had been wondering if it had been forgotten about entirely, or would be revisited.
Nightmares of Futures Past (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2636963/39/) updated. (After about three years of downtime. Seriously, my entire writing career, such as it is and what there is of it, has been since this thing last updated.)
Decent enough. Fairly short, for the whole 'three years' aspect.
R
Quote from: alethiophile on October 20, 2012, 01:04:11 AM
Nightmares of Futures Past (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2636963/39/) updated. (After about three years of downtime. Seriously, my entire writing career, such as it is and what there is of it, has been since this thing last updated.)
Decent enough. Fairly short, for the whole 'three years' aspect.
I no longer have any idea what's going on. I'm honestly not sure I want to invest myself in it again.
I decided to go look for Ranma fanfics.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5734238/1/Not-All-It-s-Cracked-Up-To-Be
A spamfic.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8018537/1/Lines_of_Destiny_Destinys_Intersection
Lines of Destiny was a discontinued fic that was the first Ranma-SM cross I'd ever read. It's entirely likely that my memories of the original story are rosy through nostalgia rather than quality since I haven't read the original in over a decade, but reason enough for me to try reading this "official" continuation. Which I haven't yet, but will soon.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/710368/1/Journey
I have read this one through. This is an odd one. First part starts with a generic xover opener: one scene of Ranma fighting and running from fiancees before he's sucked into another dimension, fighting in a fantasy world, collects new fiancees and enemies, travels the multiverse, etc. But then, the writer begins to slowly reintroduce the Ranma characters back into the story, an atypical approach, but actually kind of neat.
The story also plays off of Ranma fannon, hands out powerups like candy, and basically does everything else I tend to hate in a Ranma fic (except for stupidly broken grammar/spelling, which usually has me "dieing" to stab the writer). And yet, I like this fic. I like it, and I have no idea why I like it, because from all objective evidence, I should hate it.
Strength of a Horse has updated:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4845847/5/
For those unfamiliar with it, it's a Ranma/Naruto crossover. Focuses mainly on Ranma/Anko interactions after Ranma comes to realize that Ranma/Akane is never going to work out, with Ranma convincing Ryouga to help him get 'really lost'. Well, that worked possibly far better than he ever intended....
'The Hypnotism of Suzumiya Haruhi'.
Squick right out the gate.
Sometimes, I'm very, very sad that my favorite fandom holds so much appeal for children. -_-
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/24/From-Fake-Dreams
Chapter 24's up. No real comments right now except that the dialogue was shitty. The entire thing felt like it didn't get a beta read. On the other hand, seeing all the crazy plots play out is good, especially with how Shirou's having to work with Zouken. Things are going more and more off the rails and the shit is hitting the fan hard.
Quote from: Brian on October 22, 2012, 02:11:28 AM
Strength of a Horse has updated:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4845847/5/
For those unfamiliar with it, it's a Ranma/Naruto crossover. Focuses mainly on Ranma/Anko interactions after Ranma comes to realize that Ranma/Akane is never going to work out, with Ranma convincing Ryouga to help him get 'really lost'. Well, that worked possibly far better than he ever intended....
Hum. Not sure what to think. The last chapter was clumsy. But rereading the rest, it isn't out of step with it. It just seems like the entirely offscreen pressure on the hokage is feeling more and more ridiculous and it makes the Hokage's motivation with regards to ranma seem... wacky. He's Shodai like? Really? How did they survive having a 'we should avoid killing' leader during the rough-shod ninja wars?
The camera is too close to just Ranma and Anko to make the story that the Hokage is telling seem reasonable. Ranma doesn't seem to interact with anyone beside Anko, Sarutobi, and now Ino's dad. The passive interaction is "Everyone is now afraid of him" which doesn't gel either. Nor does the news literally being publicized all the way to other villages.
Mrgh.
I like aspects of the story, but they don't come together well in the grand scheme I think, which is making the story weaker over its course.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 21, 2012, 09:02:08 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/710368/1/Journey
I have read this one through. This is an odd one. First part starts with a generic xover opener: one scene of Ranma fighting and running from fiancees before he's sucked into another dimension, fighting in a fantasy world, collects new fiancees and enemies, travels the multiverse, etc. But then, the writer begins to slowly reintroduce the Ranma characters back into the story, an atypical approach, but actually kind of neat.
The story also plays off of Ranma fannon, hands out powerups like candy, and basically does everything else I tend to hate in a Ranma fic (except for stupidly broken grammar/spelling, which usually has me "dieing" to stab the writer). And yet, I like this fic. I like it, and I have no idea why I like it, because from all objective evidence, I should hate it.
I've enjoyed Druth's Journey for a long time, even if the fic is something on the order of 10-12 years old at this point, updated when the stars come into alignment in surprise massive chunks. There's a grandeur to it that seems to have things coming together better than the individual elements. A vastness to the setting that's going on that makes the power ups largely seem like survival elements than anything else, a chaoticness to the tale that seems to fit right at home with the characters.
Admittingly, I was more interested in "Secret Agent Ranma: Human Disaster in Cosmoverse!" then "Ranma...and the fiancees in RIFTS!"
But I still like it.
Quote from: Dracos on October 24, 2012, 06:37:52 PMHum. Not sure what to think. The last chapter was clumsy. But rereading the rest, it isn't out of step with it.
Don't oversell it; the latest chapter had a
huge chunk of just blandly delivered exposition. "And then this and this and this happened." The, "You're the Nibi, lawl!" bit was ...
okay, but the author isn't doing a great job of exploring the reasons for using the ploy in the first place. To me, that plot twist as stated accomplishes nothing. Having the Hokage bring it up and people just be leery of Ranma without either Ranma or Anko knowing would have been better -- and also easily passed off 'well, you did destroy a whole park by yourself'. The other part that irks me is that Ranma hasn't made any real inroads towards meeting up with Naruto (a logical point that I hope the fic eventually reaches):
"I got a demon inside me."
"Me, too."
"How many tails does yours have?"
"Have you ever been wrapped in fish sausage and thrown into a pit of starving foxes?"
"No, that'd be _stupid_."
"...yeah, it would be. Let's teach you some
real taijutsu, kid."
The only real bone toward that hope is the fact that Ranma's aware there are 'other' containers.
Quote from: Dracos on October 24, 2012, 06:37:52 PMI like aspects of the story, but they don't come together well in the grand scheme I think, which is making the story weaker over its course.
That's unfortunately entirely true. I like it for Ranma/Anko, and Ranma's character is (or at least was), surprisingly well explored. It had a good foundation and some great leadup. The latest chapter is a letdown, but I'm going to try and be hopefully optimistic later. This could be the author just finding his pace after hiatus, and it may recover. If he can put out another chapter that goes back to previous quality, then we can just view this most recent chapter as the fanfic equivalent to episode 4 of Gurren Laggan. ;)
Quote from: Brian on October 24, 2012, 02:59:47 AM
'The Hypnotism of Suzumiya Haruhi'.
Squick right out the gate.
Sometimes, I'm very, very sad that my favorite fandom holds so much appeal for children. -_-
From what I'm guessing this isn't going to be played for laughs like in the Haruhi-chan manga where Haruhi accidentally hypnotizes herself into
becoming a cat, which Mikuru then squees over for a while as she and Kyon take care of cat!Haruhi.
Noooope. From the one chapter I read, it squicked right from the get-go. A creepily OOC Kyon hypnotizes Mikuru and then....
...instead of going on, I'll just say the fic was rated 'M'.
...if it was Kyon hypnotizing Mikuru, then in what sense is the hypnotism "of Suzumiya Haruhi"?
Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to.
...right.
/me shuts up, immediately tries to erase discussion from memory.
Quote from: Brian on October 24, 2012, 10:42:41 PM
Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to.
This really should be in the quote thread.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6354319/1/Late-Arrival
Old cuteness. Ranma ends up in narutoverse and steals Team 7 by accident. Light comedy.
Strength of a Horse has unexpectedly updated again. This time it's got ... lemon? Not ... really sure what to make of that.
It injected some believable drama that accelerated the story.
With that said, I don't think he particularly needed to actually spell out what happened to advance the story. However, with that said... when he (assuming it's a he) wrote out the lemon scene, I was mostly reading between the lines and noting a lot of affection from Anko, so yeah. If it was just skipped over, I think I wouldn't have been able to pin down as certainly that it wasn't just a fling, so it did, in my opinion, serve a purpose.
It still does a lot of the timeskip stuff. I was really shocked that
Ranma killing people was totally glossed over.
I also liked the Ranma/Naruto interaction, though unfortunately a great deal of that was glossed over, too.
Cast in Gold updated a little bit ago.
www.fanfiction.net/s/7057744/1/Cast-in-Gold
I think I'd rather he just get through the trapped in mind-space chapters, but apparently Eva fanfics really like having those.
Quote from: Brian on October 28, 2012, 04:54:55 PM
Strength of a Horse has unexpectedly updated again. This time it's got ... lemon? Not ... really sure what to make of that.
That...was a terrible chapter. I admit I totally skipped the lemon since it was hard to appreciate anything sexy in the whole "We're grinding two people into the ground". Reading the story, I now feel like I'm reading a bunch of bullet points rather than a tale. It sort of glosses over everything.
Agreed on the whole glossing over Ranma killing thing. I actually had to check the chapter again because I'd missed that it happened entirely.
And nobody gives Ranma and Anko shit about being unreliable and unprofessional and mooning over each other for months?
The Hokage certainly isn't sparing any blows for someone who was giving Anko special treatment at the start of the fic.
I could rant on but disappoint.
Quote from: Dracos on October 26, 2012, 05:41:36 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6354319/1/Late-Arrival
Old cuteness. Ranma ends up in narutoverse and steals Team 7 by accident. Light comedy.
I just read this. It's pretty fun. Team 7 putting aside their differences to survive their Bastard Sensei's training reminded me pretty strongly of Motivation.
She is trying to kill us!
Even after we're dead!
Mass Effect: Human Revolution (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7920322/15/Mass-Effect-Human-Revolution) updated
Mass Effect: Glorious Shotgun Princess (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8107629/1/Mass_Effect_Glorious_Shotgun_Princess) updated back on the 17th.
I'm enjoying First Contact (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7278544/1/First-Contact) but the nonlinear storytelling is annoying. Would have preferred they'd focused on the contact.
Herwald von Einzbern and the Chamber of Secrets (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6873874/15/Herwald-von-Einzbern-and-the-Chamber-of-Secrets) recently updated. I need to read it.
EarthScorpion (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1768170/EarthScorpion)'s The Fearful Void and A Green Sun Illuminates the Void have both been enjoyable, the former more so than the latter.
I enjoyed the premise of the Herwald von Einzbern stories, but I found them to be really clumsily written, enough so that it isn't really worth it. Could wish someone would write a similar premise more competently.
Quote from: thepanda on October 29, 2012, 08:32:27 PMEarthScorpion (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1768170/EarthScorpion)'s The Fearful Void and A Green Sun Illuminates the Void have both been enjoyable, the former more so than the latter.
Green Sun is interesting, but I don't care for the world building he's doing. It just doesn't quite click for me.
The Romp Effect (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8552684/7/The-Romp-Effect)
Some grammar problems, but still amusing.
Finally read a few chapters of Green Sun.
Kind of found it a muddled unclear mess. I agree with Dune, the worldbuilding doesn't click. More than that though, the individual scenes don't flow together well. I feel like I'm almost jolting from instant to instant with the headmaster acting as periods with a "It is my will!"
Unlike random foreign words kind of worked in the AC/Louise fic, they very much just added to the disorienting writing here. Just found it unpleasant. Mixing in dream sequences and prophecy did not help. I think overall the story reflects the worst elements of Exalted: Strange Fey creatures of Unreality with fanciful long titles, imaginary kingdoms, and unknowable armies seemingly placed without context of the world around them.
Quote from: Dracos on October 30, 2012, 08:13:08 PM
Unlike random foreign words kind of worked in the AC/Louise fic, they very much just added to the disorienting writing here. Just found it unpleasant. Mixing in dream sequences and prophecy did not help. I think overall the story reflects the worst elements of Exalted: Strange Fey creatures of Unreality with fanciful long titles, imaginary kingdoms, and unknowable armies seemingly placed without context of the world around them.
Hm, this is the one where the neomah is inside her? Saw that a while ago. It's not just the worse-than-Lovecraft baroqueness, but the constant
<Neomah> let's sex him/her/it up, Louise!
<Louise> gah! the only reason I'm not going all Akane on you right now is that you don't have a body I can mallet!
got to grate a lot as well. If you're not going to actually do something with that angle, why harp on it constantly?
Quote from: Dracos on October 30, 2012, 08:13:08 PM
Finally read a few chapters of Green Sun.
Kind of found it a muddled unclear mess. I agree with Dune, the worldbuilding doesn't click. More than that though, the individual scenes don't flow together well. I feel like I'm almost jolting from instant to instant with the headmaster acting as periods with a "It is my will!"
Unlike random foreign words kind of worked in the AC/Louise fic, they very much just added to the disorienting writing here. Just found it unpleasant. Mixing in dream sequences and prophecy did not help. I think overall the story reflects the worst elements of Exalted: Strange Fey creatures of Unreality with fanciful long titles, imaginary kingdoms, and unknowable armies seemingly placed without context of the world around them.
I'll disagree about the flow being muddled. It's just that it's more focused with building things up instead of telling a story. Some of the story ideas here are neat, but I'm not interested in 100k+ words of worldbuilding with a story thrown in as a secondary concern. I'd give it a 5/10; Green Sun is a flawed fic that still has high quality and good ideas mixed in with the deeper problems.
As far as the neomah goes, I figure that's more of playing to the Exalted mythos involved. Louise is sort of repressed and stuffy in the canon and it's a decent enough conflict point.
You know, something that occurs to me: Louise is implied in a couple of places in canon as being very religious (in a way that might be above average for even the medieval world she's in). I rarely see a fic that bothers to even bring that up, let alone explore that portion of her character, particularly with the fact that she suddenly finds out she inherited her religion's founder's school of magic. But it's not explored in canon either, so... yeah. (She's just always the one that says things like "this place is very important to the Brimiric faith".) Would be purely a 'nice to have' thing for once.
The only major instance where religion qua religion seemed to be plot-relevant was the Madoka crossover fic where magical girls were being pursued as being liches. And that's just a shallow 'bring in the Spanish Inquisition' kinda thing.
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.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 30, 2012, 11:48:05 PM
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.
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.
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. :\
There's a new Big Human on Campus. It's awesome. Nuff said.
Quote from: Dracos on October 31, 2012, 06:18:29 PM
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.
Quote from: Dracos on October 31, 2012, 05:09:25 PM
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 )
Quote from: Kt3 on November 02, 2012, 12:07:54 AM
Quote from: Dracos on October 31, 2012, 05:09:25 PM
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.
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.
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.
He almost really should kinda wrap it up.
Kinda wondering the same myself.
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.
Quote from: Gatewalker on November 05, 2012, 01:35:19 AM
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.)
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.
Was reading Cast in Gold -- Shinji as an exalt (Zenith, evidently).
Got to the limit break.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Quote from: Brian on November 06, 2012, 07:06:54 PM
Was reading Cast in Gold -- Shinji as an exalt (Zenith, evidently).
Got to the limit break.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
The Shinji-just-shy-of-rape bit or something else?
I think Limit Breaking is a crappy mechanic in general, but in that story, it just came across as literally out-of-the-blue. Limit Breaks are supposed to be a stress reaction, not a response to an evening of having fun followed by a single moment of a given character behaving pretty much exactly the same way she has the entire story thus far. It's not even internally consistent. "Oh, no, Misato came on to me! Time to flip out and molest everything I can reach (while also running away from her at top speed)!"
Then it's followed by some of the most eye-rolling wangst I've ever seen -- seriously, my vision is now rotated 90 degrees clockwise from the eye-roll that provoked -- not only from Shinji, but Misato?
While the story was mostly okay, it was already going pretty slowly at that point, and frequently underwhelmed me with the lack of progression in the plot/amazing volume of chapters/passing months with no angel encounters. It really just felt like the author went, "I don't know what would help the story, but who cares? Here's an exalted mechanic I can finesse in with my favorite finessing tool -- the 9-iron!"
I have an ability to tolerate that a bit, but bleah.
The Limit Breaking, aside from being totally unjustified in happening in the first place (instead of removing Shinji's built up stress, it instead gave him tons of it), just failed to make sense. His pacifism is more his defining trait than his prudishness; he's portrayed as a Compassion exalt, generally, not a Temperance exalt. So his limit break should invert his Compassion, not his Temperence.
That was treated as an incidental note to the, "Muwahaha, fanservice -- Shinji molests all of teh wiminz and is also dumb in this mode!" fiasco, which was especially terrible thanks to the tounge-in-cheek author's tone of, "But it's okay because he's so awesome! And even hates himself for it afterwards!"
I still have the fic open, but I kind of don't know if the high-powered bad-guy crushing antics are even worth it at this point. :\
I guess it's Bile Fascination, now. Oh, well.
Quote from: Brian on November 06, 2012, 07:39:09 PM
I still have the fic open, but I kind of don't know if the... antics are even worth it at this point. :\
I guess it's Bile Fascination, now. Oh, well.
Me with this (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/23662/Friendship-Contract)fic
...yeah, I hype backlash too hard to care about MLP. It and Nasu are both just 'not for me' because the ravings of the fans have guaranteed my expectations can never be met. Both of those works would need to cure cancer, fix the economy, and then find the missing pieces of my soul for me to care.
I have to ask: why are there so many Naruto crossovers in existence? And why does every single one use the "Naruto somehow appears in X world" template? I struggle to find a crossover that does the opposite (that isn't Harry Potter or Ranma) or, just maybe, have more characters than just Naruto get yanked over to the other series' world.
Really, more crossovers should have group to group interactions instead of just one-to-many.
Naruto's a huge fandom, that's why. More stories, more crossovers, more crummy writers banging out crap stories.
Quote from: Brian on November 06, 2012, 08:45:10 PM
...yeah, I hype backlash too hard to care about MLP. It and Nasu are both just 'not for me' because the ravings of the fans have guaranteed my expectations can never be met. Both of those works would need to cure cancer, fix the economy, and then find the missing pieces of my soul for me to care.
Heh. I only started watching it because my niece
just turned old enough to pay enough attention to it to sit still while it is on.
Not a bad show, but it won't cure cancer. ^_^
Quote from: Rayearth on November 06, 2012, 08:52:25 PM
I have to ask: why are there so many Naruto crossovers in existence? And why does every single one use the "Naruto somehow appears in X world" template?
I've seen a few that buck the trend, just importing x characters into Konoha. But the answer is 'because it's easy'.
Quote from: Rayearth on November 06, 2012, 08:52:25 PM
I have to ask: why are there so many Naruto crossovers in existence? And why does every single one use the "Naruto somehow appears in X world" template? I struggle to find a crossover that does the opposite (that isn't Harry Potter or Ranma) or, just maybe, have more characters than just Naruto get yanked over to the other series' world.
Really, more crossovers should have group to group interactions instead of just one-to-many.
Um, because group to group interactions are Hard. I mean it's one thing to say the reverse is easy, but even in singular canons, dealing with group to group interactions is difficult. You know those mangas that have 50 odd characters but still focus almost solely on like 6? Why don't they do 12 often? Because doubling the active cast size is a huge deal to keep awareness. It's also why large casts often get interpreted as Groups with suddenly homogonous belief/action sets no matter how they might've bickered when they were front and center. Because it is difficult to find the time to keep people being people and still move the plot forward at a meaningful rate.
When I think of successful stories that involve group to group interaction, they are either Fusions: So a lot of the cast is auto-separated into existing small clusters; or they are Incident fics: Some dramatic event happened that is the focus of everyone's attention so it is easier to move the plot forward in relation to that event. Someone got killed or saved or something.
Many fairly good fics can count the active speaking cast as less than ten. Not because 'it is easy', but because going from 10 to 20 is really hard.
Quote from: Rayearth on November 06, 2012, 08:52:25 PM
I have to ask: why are there so many Naruto crossovers in existence?
Because it's the popular series of its time. Was HP. Before that was Ranma/Tenchi/Sailor Moon. Probably a few others in between, when I wasn't paying attention.
Quote
And why does every single one use the "Naruto somehow appears in X world" template?
Because most aspiring writers have this perverse notion that that not-writing unimportant details (such as background, characterization, plausibility to maintain suspension of disbelief, etc), is better than writing those details.
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I struggle to find a crossover that does the opposite (that isn't Harry Potter or Ranma) or, just maybe, have more characters than just Naruto get yanked over to the other series' world.
<insert standard answer to "someone should write this story" post here>
Quote
Really, more crossovers should have group to group interactions instead of just one-to-many.
Since Drac already gave the answer, a slightly more numbers-oriented explanation (but which really just amounts to the same thing, so if you're not interested, feel free to skip the rest of this post):
If you add a character to a group of N characters, you have to account for N additional potential relationships. For two characters, you start with one possible relationship. For three characters, you have three possible relationships. For four characters, you have six possible relationships. And so on.
Luckily, one of the crutches available by the nature of writing fanfic is that the relationships between characters are already established by the source material. A writer doesn't usually need to mess with most of them. So, a writer who is writing about the Sailor Moon world and wants to write about the 11 Senshi+cats (7 planets + 1 moon + 1 kupier belt object + 2 cats = 11) has 45 potential relationships (the sum of the range 1 through 10). But the writer can pick and choose which relationships are being changed by the plot, so might only be focusing on two or three actual relationships.
Crossover time: If a writer wants to insert only Naruto into the Sailor Moon world, the writer can just hand-wave all the relationships between Senshi and cats as just-like-cannon, so has to develop up to 11 additional potential relationships. Maybe Naruto's presence changes the relationship between two of the SM cast (e.g both cats fall in love with Naruto, so now they hate each other), but that only adds one relationship to develop, bringing the total of relationships to 12 - still plausible for the writer to write and the reader to keep track.
But replace Naruto with all of Team Seven (so, instead of adding 1 person, the writer is adding 4), and that's 50 (the sum of the range 11 through 14) new potential relationships. And worse yet, it's pretty unlikely that writing about two flashy groups like screaming ninja and overpowered magical girls interacting with one another won't change the dynamic within the groups, so the assumption that one can automatically hand-wave most relationships within the groups no longer applies. Having to figure out how to deal with 95 potential relationships (45 of the original SM cast plus 50 added by inclusion of a few Naruto characters) can be a bit much.
Don't forget settings!
Naruto's world is developed in such a way that dropping strangers into it almost guarantees a "strangers vs the 'verse" scenario. Naruto is about the world he inhabits as much as (if not more so) it is about him. Any fic set in that world which ignores or sidelines that stuff is going to feel off.
Quote from: Brian on November 06, 2012, 07:39:09 PM
I think Limit Breaking is a crappy mechanic in general, but in that story, it just came across as literally out-of-the-blue. Limit Breaks are supposed to be a stress reaction, not a response to an evening of having fun followed by a single moment of a given character behaving pretty much exactly the same way she has the entire story thus far. It's not even internally consistent. "Oh, no, Misato came on to me! Time to flip out and molest everything I can reach (while also running away from her at top speed)!"
I'd chalked it up to the final straw that broke the camel's back when Misato told him that he was her weapon. Then again, given what had been happening and the fact that he seems far more aware in this iteration I don't think this really should have come as a shock to him.
And yeah, I was trying to figure out what that virtue flaw was, and came to much the same conclusion. Just seemed like it was inserted for the sake of drama without even managing to create that much.
It also does eventually get Shinji an OC girlfriend, so we'll see where that whole thing is going.
But yeah, without an exalt having other, antagonistic exalts or behemoths (which I guess are sort of played by the Angels this time), there's really not a hell of a lot that can stand in their way.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8326543/6/Subtle-Variations
Subtle Variations updated.
Which one?
Huh? What are you asking Yuth?
Quote from: Anastasia on November 09, 2012, 01:09:19 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8326543/6/Subtle-Variations
Subtle Variations updated.
Which what?
Oh, well nevermind. The link wasn't showing up on my computer OR my phone. Weird.
You are a special turtle, Yuth. :)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7078302/1/Mahou-Senki-Lyrical-Days
What happens if Shirou and Kiritsugu end up in Nanoha's city instead of Fuyuki after the 4th Grail War? It's decently written and the premise is okay, but?
This fic will drive a Nasu purist into a hissy fit. It pulls some top shelf bullshit regarding Shirou, not gonna lie. Somehow Shirou goes all Heaven's Feel Shirou from contact with a Jewel Seed. He needs it to stay relevant in the fic, but the author's playing fairly loose with the Nasuverse. I enjoyed reading it, but I was able to turn my brain off and go with the flow.
That thing is fun. I think the real virtue of it, though, is its thread on BL; that's its main hosting point, and there are a bunch of other people writing snippets for it, some of which are higher in quality than the story itself.
Oooh. Got a link?
Thread 1 (http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/874-Mahou-Senki-Lyrical-Days-%28FSN-x-Nanoha-Crossover%29); thread 2 (http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/2731-Infinite-Library-of-Swords-A-Lyrical-Nanoha-x-Nasuverse-drabble-thread). The first is intermixed with MSLD updates themselves; the second combines snippets from MSLD and Fate/night sky, which is a different story doing the same crossover. (The second thread also has an index on the first page with all the snippets in both, which is nice if you don't want to slog through like 500 pages of conversation.)
Thanks!
(Yeaaaah, there be some petty bitching and bickering in that first thread.)
From the authors of Shinderella, a FSN/MGLN crossover Family Issues (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8705239/1/Family-Issues)
Pitch 'em Jon. :) That's half the fun.
Missed the DK:A update, I don't remember if anyone linked it >_>;;
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/256704.html
In any case,
if Mukrezar has a coherent guiding principle, it evidently consists of the words "troll everything".
I did, but it was at the end of a page.
Crowned Death is so boned. So so so boned.
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In any case,
if Mukrezar has a coherent guiding principle, it evidently consists of the words "troll everything".
Lucky for him that he's in a fantasy setting, so he can literally do that.
Quote from: JonBob on November 16, 2012, 12:10:22 PM
From the authors of Shinderella, a FSN/MGLN crossover Family Issues (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8705239/1/Family-Issues)
I'll pitch it then.
That...was on the border of crack and terrible. About the only thing those characters had in common with the originals was name and physical desc. Don't really recommend even looking at. It went all over the place and half the fic was Rider talking like a high school maniac about a ten year ago drunken bender in space.
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.
From Fake Dreams (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/25/From-Fake-Dreams) updated.
It's got all the Servant vs Servant and Master vs Master combat you could hope for.
That... was freakin awesome!
Quote from: Jason_Miao on November 17, 2012, 08:24:36 PM
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.
Quote from: Dracos on November 18, 2012, 12:53:48 PM
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
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8633774/1/The-Mistakes-of-Haruhi-Suzumiya
I can't look away from this trainwreck.
/me reads summary and first paragraph, quickly closes tab
It's terrible in the, "How bad can this get?" sense, not the, "This author must be stopped (Greasetest)" sense.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on November 19, 2012, 12:19:51 PM
Quote from: Dracos on November 18, 2012, 12:53:48 PM
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Kt3 on November 22, 2012, 09:31:55 AM
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.
Quote from: Anastasia on November 24, 2012, 02:54:42 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7331568/14/
Tainted Ideals finally updated.
Berserker! Fishing! Explosions!
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.
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.
http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/16/Mother-of-Learning updated
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8699874/1/The-Priest-of-Zero
Kirei Kotomine as Gandalfr. Interesting premise. The writing's...I'm sure if it's charming or flawed, but it's something. It starts getting good in chapter 4, when Kotomine has his first real chance to work his talents.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7870920/5/Honor-Thy-Masters also updated on the 2nd.
Kind of a neat chapter of Honor Thy Masters.
He Who Fights Monsters (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6942921/12/He-Who-Fights-Monsters) is complete.
I'm a little disappointed that Hokuto's plot didn't even play into the story at all, but seems like Gate and Drac called it. I'm okay with it not delving into the season 2 material, but still think it's a lost opportunity to not see what happened with the original series' main antagonist. Hopefully one of the side stories (if they ever get written) cover that.
Eh, it kept it concise.
It's a well delivered story of a normal person descending into madness from attempting to adapt to a violent environment. Going further would be telling a different type of story. Certainly, it could be continued from before the timeskip as such, but it wouldn't be the same type of story. It certainly would've had trouble delivering the kind of bittersweet "I'm the real monster" note it ended on.
It very much was clearly going for a "When you stare into the abyss, the Abyss stares into you' vibe, and it delivered it quite well.
So this thing (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560313/1/The-Somewhat-Cracked-Mind-of-Uchiha-Itachi) exists.
It's somewhat cracky, but amusing and rather cute.
IMO, six of one, half dozen of the other.
I think that after following through most of book 1, including the non-confrontation with the Witch Hill, leaving out Hokuto seems strange. Given that Tsukune has so drastically changed from the original version, and given how unimpressed he was with the headmaster, this last chapter could have been a climax and not a denouement.
That said, that's not something to half-ass either, so if the writer really didn't want to write that scene, it's better to end it this way than to flub it. Writing one-chapter too much can screw up all of the interest of tens of previously well-written chapters.
On the balance, I think he should have written Hokuto, or if not that, written II. The writer did a pretty good job of making up his own characters, scenarios, so even if he couldn't stand R+V II (I don't blame him for this; I didn't bother to finish it either), he could have written his own plot. Perhaps Tsukune would have joined Hokuto? And Tsukune never really did get hit with the consequences of his choices; the "bully who used to pick on him" in the last bit was kind of weak. Having him interact with the families of the children he killed? Wow.
Maybe it'd go the way of Dark Lords of Nerima, and maybe the fact that Tsukune's friends are new characters might drag it down, but I think it'd be worth a shot.
edit:
ale: I've been reading that. It's just as you say: cute. It's also much less Itachi-centered after the first few chapters than the title would suggest.
This (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1724293/1/The-Family-Clock) is also a thing.
OC-centric HP fic, with the stated goal of telling an unrelated story that crosses the HP plot only incidentally. Nicely done. Manages to have an entire chapter full of basically inane small talk between two people on a date, and remain entertaining throughout.
So, I read He Who Fights Monsters mostly out of curiosity, very well done. I guess though, that I shouldn't have read it before trying to read the source material. Even though I knew it was going to be very different I wasn't expecting it to be that jarring. After reading the first couple of chapters of Rosario + Vampire I'm left unsure of what to think of the actual canon material in comparison to this. Even knowing that the canon itself heads in a more serious direction later on kind of boggles my mind.
Granted, I still know a lot more about the story than I should, thanks mostly to idle browsing of Tv Tropes. I'm kind of curious as to why the author hates the second season so much, but I'm not even sure I'll get far enough to find out.
Grahf: It's because the genre shifted.
First season was comedy+harem genre for the most part, even with the battles that occured with increasing frequency as the season progressed. It relied almost entirely on Moka taking care of battles.
By the second season, the comedy+harem aspect was getting phased out in favor of focusing on the battle aspect. It's become a more traditional shounen battle series, with Tsukune getting power-ups and clearly not being just a human character anymore, as Moka gets downgraded to damsel in distress.
Those changes sound fairly disappointing. I mean, the whole "Magical Moka Unlock: Aggravated Asskicking" thing seems to be one of the primary points of the manga, or at least the few early chapters I read. To think of her as being sidelined as a token distressed love interest just isn't appealing at all.
Is it the second season manga or the second season anime he doesn't like?
Grahf: If you don't dislike Ranma crossovers, try Big Human on Campus as well if you have not already read it.
I'll give it a shot then. Thanks for the recommendation.
I don't think there is a second season anime. And according to people who've watched it, the anime is itself just about entirely pointless and stupid, focusing just about entirely on fanservice and silly harem and borking a lot of character motivations to do it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8699874/5/The-Priest-of-Zero
Chapter 5 of The Priest of Zero is up. The segments with Karin were bad but the rest was good, plus with a nice stinger at the end of the chapter.
I...simply don't get the attractiveness of having Kirei Kotomine on camera or in fic. It seems to keep coming up lately but I don't get it.
It's sort of like tossing in a horrible but subtle negative force into things and seeing what happens. Really, that's the appeal of that fic for me.
I tried that Priest of Zero fic and didn't find it interesting enough to continue. Also, I think Kirei doesn't do well as a protagonist; he's quite an interesting and masterful antagonist or foil, but as a protagonist just makes me, at least, want to kill him repeatedly.
So I read this thing (http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/1870-Maybe-I-m-a-Lion-%28KnK-Prototype-Crossover%29). It's a crossover between Prototype, the ultra-violent somewhat mindscrewy video game, and Kara no Kyoukai, the somewhat less violent superlatively mindscrewy light novel/movie series. There is not enough "this will not end well" in the universe. Quite wonderful.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/18/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. In which Shiro takes a step to start breaking the game open.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382984/17/
Big Human on Campus updated.
Looks like the next chapter will be the showdown with the Ex-Protection Committee, assuming that the blizzard on the Knoll is coming from where I think it is.
Moka might even get to save the day.
Yay, Nerima. And that stupid panda gets what Genma has coming to him.
So did Delende Est, In Flight, and Harry Potter and the Temporal Beacon. Though the third I've stopped paying attention to.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8640250/1/Uryuu
A slightly rough but really promising fanfic that just hit chapter three. Let me paste the summary since it's a solid one: Servant Caster killed himself to destroy the grail. He failed to save ***'s smile. With a shattered mind, a body made of swords, and the fourth heaven's feel, he aims to correct that failure.
It has some distinctly disturbing bits, but it's a strong piece so far.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6725240/1/Amorously-Minded updated today. Again the story of Tony Stark's romantic interlude with Morrigan.
Or more specifically the surprise kid that comes from it.
New In Flight chapter. Wasn't too thrilled with it as it just sort of felt like one continuous downer. Hopefully leads into happy end.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7996113/2/Chaos-in-Postmeridiem
Cliche storm GO! All of these fragments have horrible fanon tendencies. They're so pure it's like being in 2000 again. Frankly, I liked them because it was so nostalgic.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/19/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. Fucking cliffhangers!
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/257272.html
DK:A updated. A nicely sized update, too. Glad to see the author's writing again.
The other BHOC updated.
Spoiler: Features Tsukune.
Unforseen Consequences (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7733374/13/Unforeseen-Consequences) updated.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/37/In-Flight
In Flight updated. Kinda okay with the chapter, but still feels...missing something.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/20/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated.
Awesome scenes all around, including the climax of Shirou and Caster making a contract. The bit at the end about Saber and Shirou managing not to make a contract really drove things home.
Dojima with the Uzis, giving Archer's signature weapons an origin, the contract scenes and everything just clicked. 10k words zoomed by.
Echoes of the Void updated: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6442829/10/Echoes-of-the-Void.
Not sure if I care anymore though. Way too much political craziness on screen. A lot of time in the last chapters have been given to Louise's treacherous fiancee (who apparently isn't one in this one? I dunno. Not clear) and he isn't an interesting character to listen to. It basically ups the competence of all the villains and reduces the goodness of everyone. It does provide some unique team-ups and routes, but it doesn't sort of ignore the complete ridiculousness of...
An open FAILED attack/kidnapping on Louise resulting in them needing to flee...not to their homeland but to Galla? And there being at all a worry about stopping them or looking correct when there are literally dozens of royal special forces bodies all over the place in an area they have no business being? It isn't "The school should be enraged that military ops are kidnapping their students out of their bedrooms" but "you might be in trouble for killing your kidnappers who are going after one of the mightiest families in the country's kid?" Not "There's no reason that people that have the legitimate authority to walk in and arrest folks should be coming in and having an violent sneak attack in the dorms?"
Basically, I have trouble buying the wheels everything is rolling on. So even though I kind of am cool with the character interactions, that they are like 20 percent of the fic and the rest is GRAND POLITICAL WHEELS YOU CANNOT STOP that involve successfully implicating a national hero as a villain and they both cannot and do not do anything to stop it?
It certainly isn't a democracy and mob rule gets you nowhere in a world where a powerful wizard can kill hundreds. I'm not sure why the rumor mill even matters.
Basically, it spends so much time on the villains mwa-ha-haing as their plans seem to succeed that I think it's forgotten to tell the story of the heroes almost at all. It's also in a pretty messy spot of 'who is loyal to who' fic versus original canon.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5054113/15/Superwomen-of-Eva-2-Emerald-Courage came out a little while ago. Sorta neat. Not sure the chapter moved anything though.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9046817/1/Random-Act-Of-Love
Ranma/Sekirei crossover. Basic premise is that while heading to the Tendo Dojo the first time, Ranma and Musubi cross paths. Musubi helps him avoid getting knocked out and taken to the Tendos. Turns out she reacts to him and shenanigans ensue. It's only one chapter so far but it looks promising. I do wish they'd started later in the series; for all the baggage starting at the beginning avoids, you still have all the Ranma stuff to set up and go through.
mmm.
Yeah, I dunno. It seems extra awkward to start it like that.
Agreed. It's possible the idea is to weave both together - in fact I suspect that's what the author's grand design is.
I suspect that is...but that kind of makes me bleh. I dunno, it tends to represent a fear to tell the own story instead of just covering a few choice implications.
It's one thing for Soun to wave off a curse. It's another thing for him (or Genma) to wave off a wife on the arm or being hours more late (Did their side-trip just not happen or something? Have they been sitting around all day instead of actually doing something? I can't think of a fanfic that introduces a pre-akane fiancee and doesn't look very silly with them actually staying at the dojo. Why doesn't Genma try and drive off the hanger-on before the prize reveal anyway?
Quote from: Dracos on March 01, 2013, 07:55:48 PM
I suspect that is...but that kind of makes me bleh. I dunno, it tends to represent a fear to tell the own story instead of just covering a few choice implications.
The writer's profile lists a few other fics, all of which are crossovers. If you are so inclined, you could skim those to see if the writer is the sort who actually writes stories, or slaps together 10 vignettes and calls it a story.
Also, re: fic itself, too early for me to decide. In short:
I liked the non-obnoxious flashback. Multiple all-caps+bold+italics in multiple instances was irritating. Was not too enthused by the Tendo Dojo scene, but having read that hundreds of times, that's not surprising, and the writer at least tried to change it up. I'll probably read chapters 2 and 3 to see what happens before deciding whether I want to keep reading or not.
I wandered over to Veiled Moon, the author's only big work.
I think I'm 120,000 words in? Still kind of waiting for it to go...anywhere? It's a weird thing. It's not offensive, it just doesn't go anywhere. It's like "Hey, we're introducing a potentially meaningful conflict. Now... Slice of Life Unending."
It wouldn't make me blink if it was just slice of life, but the setup is weird. Bleach? Sekerei? Two combat mangas crossing prior to Sekerei's combat arc for...slice of life storytelling? I mean, sure there's spies going around but they're incredibly irrelevant. And the fact that almost everyone has super-powers and is fighting ghosts things off camera? Also, irrelevant.
So why bother to use them? Really long setup.
Mmm...*hunts good fic*
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9048866/1/Reality-Ensues - I think this is now my favorite mock bleach fic I have ever encountered. It's like 3-4 pages tops. Basically 2 scenes.
Technically, it requires bleach knowledge, but at the same time... One could easily read between the lines and appreciate it as a mockery of the kind of ridiculous "Why did this event ever happen?" that is big in both Naruto and Bleach.
Background: Bleach just had two of its big characters spar to unlease someone's real power. One killed the other. This was just 'okay' with everybody.
....HAH.
Nice link, Drac.
I found that fic amusing.
I get the idea I'd give up on the manga if I were reading it in the first place.
Quote from: Dracos on March 06, 2013, 07:07:21 PM
I wandered over to Veiled Moon, the author's only big work.
I think I'm 120,000 words in? Still kind of waiting for it to go...anywhere?
<snip>
Ah, so it's a "no plot" writer. I'm almost sorry I suggested that you read the other fics...except that you probably kept me from wasting time reading the new fic and waiting for something to happen, so I'm glad you warned me.
Quote
I get the idea I'd give up on the manga if I were reading it in the first place.
I tried reading the Bleach manga when it was first being translated, but gave up even before people visited Soul Society (or I think that's what it was called). A few years later, they were showing the anime on TV and I tried watching it, but couldn't last through the ep.
Then again, I'm not a big fan of conventional Shonen manga stories, so if you are, feel free to disregard everything I just said.
I used to think I liked shounen, but lately, I haven't at all liked the examples I've been encountering.
I guess I'm just pro-nakama?
Yay Pro-nakama.
Go Fairy-Tail and One Piece. Still running strong.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on March 07, 2013, 09:33:14 PM
Quote from: Dracos on March 06, 2013, 07:07:21 PM
I wandered over to Veiled Moon, the author's only big work.
I think I'm 120,000 words in? Still kind of waiting for it to go...anywhere?
<snip>
Ah, so it's a "no plot" writer. I'm almost sorry I suggested that you read the other fics...except that you probably kept me from wasting time reading the new fic and waiting for something to happen, so I'm glad you warned me.
It started going somewhere a little after that, but by then who cares? It literally took like a hundred thousand words to get them to the point. And even still it goes almost nowhere and spends almost all of it's time on slice of life. There's little directionality to any of the characters, except an original sekerei who seems to have one direction: Be an incorrect violent bitch. Yay for producing conflict through characters being unable to hold meaningful conversations.
Quote
I get the idea I'd give up on the manga if I were reading it in the first place.
I tried reading the Bleach manga when it was first being translated, but gave up even before people visited Soul Society (or I think that's what it was called). A few years later, they were showing the anime on TV and I tried watching it, but couldn't last through the ep.
Then again, I'm not a big fan of conventional Shonen manga stories, so if you are, feel free to disregard everything I just said.
[/quote]
It's a bad manga. I think I largely still read it for the same reason naruto gets read: It gets packaged alongside things I like. And on a more simplistic level: It has people swinging swords violently.
Yup, not claiming it's not simple barbaricism.
The story is terrible though. And unlike Naruto, it doesn't really set up an interesting worldset to play. The 4 groups in it really don't have a cohesive shared set of world rules that they're playing by, unless you edit it quite a bit, and the entire afterlife concept seems like it is missing several things.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9085689/1/A-Series-of-Simple-Plans
In which Shirou gets a good idea that loses something in translation. Funny little start to a potentially amusing story.
http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/17/Mother-of-Learning
Mmm, must be a slow month.
I read all of: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2636963/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Nightmares-of-Futures-Past
Mmm. It's interesting, but also a pretty straightforward peggy-sue type setup. It's more by the trope/wishfic than Delande Est, and that includes the general effectiveness of the time traveler's strategies, but it's not a bad read.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/1/My-Love-s-Flame
Ranma/Sailor Moon. Before the China trip and before SM season 1, Genma drops Ranma off at Rei's shrine for several months. It's an okay crossover so far, slow moving and taking its time. It updates every week or so.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 22, 2013, 07:53:32 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/1/My-Love-s-Flame
Quote from: fic
Though she still scowled, the tilt of her eyebrows and the pout of her red lips made her still look pretty, in a dangerous sort of way.
...wut?
I'll keep reading, but the quality of prose already has some interesting characteristics. :)
-edit-
Quote from: chapter 2
"Hello there, gentlemen," she said with a smile, her thoughts of her misfortune at the market disappearing in seconds. "Would you be interested in the finest of bird foods?"
Heh. You forgot to mention that this is a spoof.
...it IS a spoof, right?
I have no idea.
There's not a lot of good stuff going on in Ranma fanfics right now, so I'll take what I can get. I confess it's a guilty pleasure.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6052381/27/Sleeping-With-The-Girls-Vol-II-Chaos-Theory
Sleeping with the girls finally updated. In which there are breakdowns and breakthroughs.
Kariya's Legacy (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9007329/1/Kariya-s-Legacy) is a pretty neat Fate/Stay Night story. During the 4th war Shinji has a chance to meet his uncle Kariya while he's still young and innocent, which impresses on him how horrible the Matou magic is, and a desire to protect his new sister. It's not terribly far in yet, but I really like how Shinji manages to retain his proper teenage arrogance while tempering it with determination to become stronger so he can kill Zouken. Also it puts neat spins on his relationships with Shirou and Rin that are familiar on the surface but quite different underneath.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 23, 2013, 01:13:57 AM
There's not a lot of good stuff going on in Ranma fanfics right now, so I'll take what I can get. I confess it's a guilty pleasure.
Fair enough. You ought to see some of the Ranma fics I've read(1).
That said, I read through chapter 4, and I don't think this is a spoof after all. I think "Hello there, gentlemen. Would you be interested in the finest of bird foods?" is legitimately the most ridicuous prose I've ever seen without the writer intentionally trying to be ridiculous. So, the day you posted that fic is a red letter day in my book.
(1) ...No, on a second thought, you shouldn't see some of the Ranma fics I've read.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/41527/ocramed
I tried reading some of his stuff. So I totally feel you on the OH GOD HORRIBLE FANFICTION front.
Hey...hey some of us gotta read here.
Keep it clean. Above the Skysaber line. :P
Strength of a Horse updated:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4845847/7/
10k word update. Hope it pulls up from where the last chapters were heading.
Edit: Well, in some ways, it's better. No more of that irritating summary-vision nonsense that glosses over what feel like they should be major points of the story. The drama/romance feels a little ... I'm not sure. Off, somehow. Weaker than it really should be, or maybe a bit overplayed. Or maybe I was just mostly not impressed by it.
Also, then suddenly lesbian sex scene.
...'kay. Could have been less explicit; I skipped through it.
Other than that, some actual plot advancement, but not sure how to really feel about it or where it's going.
I was seriously considering recommending a My Little Pony fanfic, just to see what would happen.
Instead, I'm going to leave this here:
http://parahumans.wordpress.com/about/
I've been reading it lately and I really like it. SPOILER: It is grimdark.
Quote from: Rezantis on March 26, 2013, 08:12:09 PMI was seriously considering recommending a My Little Pony fanfic, just to see what would happen.
If it was good fanfiction, it'd get read! There -are- good MLP fics!
QuoteInstead, I'm going to leave this here: http://parahumans.wordpress.com/about/
I've been reading it lately and I really like it. SPOILER: It is grimdark.
I've heard of that story before. I'll give it a look over the weekend!
Wasn't there someone who'd posted on the forum for a bit who'd actually written a script for that show? So I imagine that you might have one reader...provided the fanfic was actually good.
Miao: The person who'd posted that you're talking about was doing closed captioning for the hearing impaired. It wasn't writing the script, so much as just adding subtitles for the show.
Quote from: Merc on March 26, 2013, 08:28:20 PM
If it was good fanfiction, it'd get read! There -are- good MLP fics!
Well, okay then!
Sparkle's Law: A step-by-step guide to driving Twilight Sparkle insane
QuoteIt is the day of the Summer Sun Celebration, and Princess Celestia is coming to Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle is overseeing preparations yet again, and has meticulously planned every last detail to ensure that everything is perfect for her mentor's arrival. Nothing is going to go wrong.
Except when the big day comes, Twilight has gotten four hours of sleep and Fluttershy is nowhere to be found. Pinkie Pie sets off after her with nothing but a dark coat and the voice of a chain-smoking stallion, and the Apples and the Carrots are at each other's throats while Rainbow Dash is attempting to fill in for Fluttershy.
As her plans collapse around her and Ponyville descends into chaos, Twilight Sparkle must focus on obtaining the one thing that can set everything right: the all-powerful, awe-inspiring magic of caffeine.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/3270/sparkles-law
Yeah, it's pretty good.
Also, My Little Pony has a
shockingly high number of good fanworks of every kind. It's kind of terrifying.
Such is truth, if it is readable and good it should be shared.
If it is readable and bad, it should be mocked. And how can we mock without sharing?
I wouldn't say shocking. All popular fandoms have good fanwork, it's just that there's a ton of bad fanwork too!
Here's another pony fanfic just because: Ah Ain't Got no Ackcent! (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7038217/1/Ah-Ain-t-Got-no-Ackcent) - A story about sophisticated ponies and being true to oneself.
Wild, Sweet & Cool (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/15621/) is one of my favourite completed pieces in the fandom.
I think there was one chapter that was a little o_O in the middle of the story, but it isn't nearly enough to sink the story.
Yours, Truly (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/22831/yours-truly) is the best of the oneshots I've read. And it isn't even my favourite ship.
Quote from: Rezantis on March 26, 2013, 08:12:09 PM
http://parahumans.wordpress.com/about/
Just spent the last two or three days reading this. Most writers who write a story tracking the villain in a superhero setting are either way too melodramatic, or try too hard to be cool. I think this one hits the right note.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9145246/1/Escape-From-Ranma-Saotome
Oh hey, haven't seen a new Ranma trollfic in awhile.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/7/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame updated. Not much of a chapter here, it's mostly setup for the next chapter. The author mentioned being sick so whatever.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9148424/1/Fukufic-101-A-mothers-love
In case you needed a crappy fuku-fic. It's crap but at least it's sincere crap.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/1/Bringer-of-Death
A DBZ fanfic? Have I lost my mind? (Yes.)
Bringer of Death is a DBZ that focuses on Vegeta. The premise is that he goes SSJ against Frieza's fourth form instead of getting demolished. It deals with that and manages to weave a reasonably interesting tale around it. It isn't entirely Vegeta-centric and veers away from becoming wanky after the fic finds its legs. The author's done a staggering amount of work in figuring out how DBZ power levels should work and then making them work. Managing to untangle that mess and make something coherent out of them gets respect from me. Also, it at least tries a little more than canon to keep the non-Saiyans relevant. For example, Krillin's power level is over 250 million as of the current chapter (early Cell). Granted, this isn't hard to do considering how the show itself leaves them behind.
I'd say it's worth trying, though the first dozen chapters are shorter and rougher than the rest.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on March 28, 2013, 10:41:44 PM
Quote from: Rezantis on March 26, 2013, 08:12:09 PM
http://parahumans.wordpress.com/about/
Just spent the last two or three days reading this. Most writers who write a story tracking the villain in a superhero setting are either way too melodramatic, or try too hard to be cool. I think this one hits the right note.
That's totally a spoiler, but it's kind of a late arrival spoiler. It threads that needle quite well, as you say.
The biggest issue the story has is pacing - at times, especially later on, there's just
too much happening and the action is unrelenting. But then, it is a web -serial- as opposed to a novel.
I strongly recommend at least giving it a look - but if you don't like it at the start you probably won't like it later.
Quote from: Rezantis on March 30, 2013, 08:31:23 AM
That's totally a spoiler, but it's kind of a late arrival spoiler.
Is it? Except for the opinion part, I didn't think I said anything that wasn't already said in the "About" section. But if you think I ought to, I'd be happy to throw in spoiler BBcode around my previous post.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9046817/2/Random-Act-Of-Love
Random Act of Love updated. Did not see that coming.
Miya and Tofu? Huh. Credit for surprising me.
Liked the chapter overall. It was set up but it was fun setup.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8118551/9/On-The-Wings-Of-An-Eagle
Wings of an Eagle updated. Fun chapter, this story's always enjoyable to read.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 29, 2013, 07:23:39 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/1/Bringer-of-Death
A DBZ fanfic? Have I lost my mind? (Yes.)
Bringer of Death is a DBZ that focuses on Vegeta. The premise is that he goes SSJ against Frieza's fourth form instead of getting demolished. It deals with that and manages to weave a reasonably interesting tale around it. It isn't entirely Vegeta-centric and veers away from becoming wanky after the fic finds its legs. The author's done a staggering amount of work in figuring out how DBZ power levels should work and then making them work. Managing to untangle that mess and make something coherent out of them gets respect from me. Also, it at least tries a little more than canon to keep the non-Saiyans relevant. For example, Krillin's power level is over 250 million as of the current chapter (early Cell). Granted, this isn't hard to do considering how the show itself leaves them behind.
I'd say it's worth trying, though the first dozen chapters are shorter and rougher than the rest.
I've actually been following this one for a while. It and Honor Trip are pretty much the only two Dragon Ball Z fics that I follow. Both are good in their own ways. I do have to agree that the improvement in quality after the first chapters is quite noticeable though, I think that after soloing the first dozen that he got a partner and betas, so the quality took a large upturn. Plus, as far as I can tell he's pretty damn consistent in updating every week, which is nice.
Quote from: Anastasia on April 01, 2013, 02:30:20 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8118551/9/On-The-Wings-Of-An-Eagle
Wings of an Eagle updated. Fun chapter, this story's always enjoyable to read.
Just caught that this morning. A good chapter indeed.
Quote from: Grahf on April 01, 2013, 04:54:39 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on March 29, 2013, 07:23:39 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/1/Bringer-of-Death
A DBZ fanfic? Have I lost my mind? (Yes.)
Bringer of Death is a DBZ that focuses on Vegeta. The premise is that he goes SSJ against Frieza's fourth form instead of getting demolished. It deals with that and manages to weave a reasonably interesting tale around it. It isn't entirely Vegeta-centric and veers away from becoming wanky after the fic finds its legs. The author's done a staggering amount of work in figuring out how DBZ power levels should work and then making them work. Managing to untangle that mess and make something coherent out of them gets respect from me. Also, it at least tries a little more than canon to keep the non-Saiyans relevant. For example, Krillin's power level is over 250 million as of the current chapter (early Cell). Granted, this isn't hard to do considering how the show itself leaves them behind.
I'd say it's worth trying, though the first dozen chapters are shorter and rougher than the rest.
I've actually been following this one for a while. It and Honor Trip are pretty much the only two Dragon Ball Z fics that I follow. Both are good in their own ways. I do have to agree that the improvement in quality after the first chapters is quite noticeable though, I think that after soloing the first dozen that he got a partner and betas, so the quality took a large upturn. Plus, as far as I can tell he's pretty damn consistent in updating every week, which is nice.
How's Honor Trip? I never tried it since I'm not a big fan of Cell.
You can really tell the guy got it together after the first arc or so. That and the fact that he reliably updates every day is absolutely amazing. That sort of steady updating is a cast iron bitch to stick to.
Quote from: Anastasia on April 01, 2013, 01:32:06 PM
How's Honor Trip? I never tried it since I'm not a big fan of Cell.
It's definitely different. While it's well written (I think the person writing it has alluded at least once to being a professional author, although that's neither here nor there) at times it really does seem like they're going overboard trying to correct some of the inconsistencies with the universe. Also, since Cell is the main character, it'd probably be difficult for you to get into. Pretty much everything revolves around Cell in one way or another, which isn't to say that other characters are ignored, but they definitely aren't as prominent.
This is especially true of the second and third "seasons" where Cell ends up in the future that Trunks came from. In season two it's most him and Trunks, in season three it's him, Trunks and Broly. There's almost none of Goku, Gohan, or the rest of the main cast.
Quote from: Grahf on April 01, 2013, 03:49:46 PMIt's definitely different. While it's well written (I think the person writing it has alluded at least once to being a professional author, although that's neither here nor there) at times it really does seem like they're going overboard trying to correct some of the inconsistencies with the universe. Also, since Cell is the main character, it'd probably be difficult for you to get into. Pretty much everything revolves around Cell in one way or another, which isn't to say that other characters are ignored, but they definitely aren't as prominent.
This is especially true of the second and third "seasons" where Cell ends up in the future that Trunks came from. In season two it's most him and Trunks, in season three it's him, Trunks and Broly. There's almost none of Goku, Gohan, or the rest of the main cast.
Thanks.
Yeah, I think I'll pass on it. I'd prefer something focused on characters I care about.
Trunks is okay, but Cell and Brolly? Wow, it's baddie reject week! I kid, I kid, but that's not a group that does much for me.
In Flight (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/38/In-Flight) updated. Shirou gets a wiki, says good-bye and hello.
Exceedingly weak chapter. Almost no scene in it had any impact. I suppose it's to make obvious that the protagonist is flawed, but it makes it way less interesting to read.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/8/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame updated with the Ukyo fight. It was okay-ish? Not great but not terrible. It felt like it needed more meat.
In Flight (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/39/In-Flight) updated. Again. Huh.
Very minor fallout from last chapter. Just inter-personal hijinks. Not sure if I like the parallels he draws, but they made me giggle a little inside?
Mmm.
I think that I don't really get it.
I think in hindsight I know why. Because Shirou doesn't ask the obvious question that he meanders about at the end of the chapter. Because no one asked how they found them in a sleepy inn. Because it shifts easily into interpersonal comedy.
I think also because trying to pitch that anyone who grew up in the japanese school system doesn't know what a cell phone is seems far stretched. I can buy maybe not seeing a tablet, not caring about details, but Fate/Stay Night was set in 2004. You'd have a hard time walking around rural japan then without hitting a cellphone, and especially in a city. Not knowing the word even if it'd be unimportant seems weird.
I also don't get why there's just no reaction from Shirou's flock to his attempts to calm things down. Shouldn't that have been a they're not human moment? Or why he got hit with a ladle too?
Yeah, the chapter really doesn't have much. You get some meshing of the groups... and that's it. No plot advancing happens. Perhaps he's pushing the interpersonal comedy now so when the drama bomb hits it should be more of a contrast?
Yeah, the inability to grasp technology is a very odd trait Gabrielle gave Rin and Shirou. Like, shouldn't he be able to grasp the history of a device and know all about it? Also, as the son of the Magus Killer, wouldn't he be very keen on non-magical devices and info sources?
The luddite level was at silly funny with Shirou.
The luddite level is at unbelievable for Rin. I can buy not caring about the details or deeming it unimportant. This is set in 2005 japan at the earliest. Cell phones are everywhere.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/22/
Path of the King updated. This is wholly a downtime chapter, filling in some needed inter-personal advancement and setting up what's to come.
Telling Dojima and Taiga what's up had to happen and did need to happen IC. At least it focused on the right things rather than exposition we already knew. Anyway, the cliffhanger at the end of the chapter looks promising, albeit that there's a lot more to go before the Grail War starts.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9203703/1/Fate-Unlimted-Blade-Works-Sekirei
This is a great fic if you want to see how many variants of WHAT THE FUCK?! you can come up with while reading. Bonus points if the summary provokes it - it sure did with me.
I almost insist on an "OW" tag being there. In fact I shall add one.
I can't say it isn't deserved.
In better news, this fic updated: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6241559/1/Help-Wanted
It's a fun Ranma/Sailor Moon romp that's anything but stereotypical. There's only one bad part and it's a small strand* so far.
Ukyo's appearance screams of transparently tying up loose ends in Ranma's love life. The fic seems to be going in a generally Ranma/Akane direction, which I feel is rather distracting from the story that's being told. There's enough going on without roiling up the fiancee mess into it. Shampoo also got that treatment but it's been decidedly a sideshow at best.
I dunno. The fic premise is amusing enough and decently original. Then we have the Ranma/Akane stuff which feels like the one millionth rehash and tangential to everything else going on. I don't know if the author's going somewhere with it, if they're big Ranma/Akane fans or if they just feel obligated.
*Not such a small strand when I sit down and write it out. Huh.
Pretty much conclude agreement with Anastasia's take on it.
The overall fic is still amusing, though the latest chapter seemed more a handful of unrelated scenes rather than a meaningful step forward?
Quote from: Dracos on April 15, 2013, 08:24:44 PM
Pretty much conclude agreement with Anastasia's take on it.
The overall fic is still amusing, though the latest chapter seemed more a handful of unrelated scenes rather than a meaningful step forward?
It feels like someone trying to get back to writing after a long delay. Y'know, get something out to help motivate yourself.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7366113/1/Shinji-and-the-Doctor
Been reading this fic recently. The Tenth Doctor meets Shinji due to a rift in space-time. Really good characterization of the Doctor, very much enjoyed reading the interactions between Shinji and the Doctor.
@that FSN/Sekirei fic:
"Shirou jolted awake when the plane strongly vibrated through the entire plane."
Quote from: alethiophile on April 16, 2013, 01:48:01 AM
@that FSN/Sekirei fic:
"Shirou jolted awake when the plane strongly vibrated through the entire plane."
Really?
Wait until you read about the soul bond between Shirou and Rin!
Oh hey, they're writing again. I remember that fic.
Quote from: Anastasia on April 15, 2013, 03:12:46 PM
I don't know if the author's going somewhere with it, if they're big Ranma/Akane fans or if they just feel obligated.
Weebee, one of the two writers, tended to have interesting premises, and inconsistent execution. Wrote Contrast Match as well, so I don't think there's any particular Ranma/Akane fandom going on.
In Flight (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/40/In-Flight) updated. Again. Lots of talking about Shiro and some plot progression.
I Frowned at it disapprovingly, with rambling in kitago.
I prolly will write up something to the author, but my main complaint is that the author spent an enormous amount of time telling a different story, with this scene being something front in his mind as something he wanted to tell from the beginning. And the story he's been telling is largely incidental to the scene. Most of it is actually deadweight, if the focus is that this is the climax. Things that made the slice of life/action story that was running before work in a fun manner are just excess cruft for the event that is 'that big thing that was waited for'. Having a dozen characters sitting on the sidelines as observers is just cruft.
From Fake Dreams (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/28/From-Fake-Dreams) is up to chapter 28. Assassin has hax, Rider is jealous of Saber, and we have some more teaming up.
Quote from: Dracos on April 22, 2013, 03:07:05 PM
I Frowned at it disapprovingly, with rambling in kitago.
I prolly will write up something to the author, but my main complaint is that the author spent an enormous amount of time telling a different story, with this scene being something front in his mind as something he wanted to tell from the beginning. And the story he's been telling is largely incidental to the scene. Most of it is actually deadweight, if the focus is that this is the climax.
Spoilering this.
I thought Hill of Swords had this problem too. It was telling a story of Shirou in FoZ, but the author set out to write a fic where Shirou and Saber reunite in the end. The rest of the story isn't really relevant to that except insofar that he stays loyal to her. Which, incidentally, is invalidated in the epilogue anyway.
Unrelated to the above, but holy hell is In Flight turning into a huge flame magnet elsewhere. I don't care about the story, but wow is it attracting tides of vitriol.
I think a fair bit of it comes from people who are sticklers for the details of the Nasuverse. Another large portion seems to be from backlash at fans/imitators/spinoffs of In Flight, with something involving "The Emiya Clan". I know next to nothing about it, but it seems frightful indeed.
Yeah, I've read enough to see it's a huge train wreck. I'd also count people that are burned out on the fic or think it's a step back from Hill of Swords or other stories of his.
Yeah, I wasn't gonna comment on taking some of the worst parts of Nasu and putting them front and center. That's author's freedom there. Whether I like it or not is an opinion. I don't care enough about nasu and have read enough good fics that have dramatically altered characters. My general reading style doesn't punish because characters don't fit canon (especially in bullshit multi-branch canon).
The construction of it though I don't think is one. If this is a climax scene, then there is way too much deadweight produced from there being too much cast and the other part of the story being told entirely off camera until the last second. If it isn't one, then it's a massive tone discontinuity with the rest of the work. At least his past work (for it's problems) kept fairly consistent to itself, despite its ending.
It doesn't surprise me that it's flamebait. Anyone still following it has been dedicating a rather long amount of time to reading it. If random internet factoid is true, it's over a hundred thousand words longer than War and Peace. Your average high school english class has less reading in it than going through the fic.
Read IF, even though it was part Sekirei
Without touching on plot or background specific stuff (I've never managed to get my hands on FSN and I only read the Sekirei manga to the Jinki tournament before I lost all motivation to continue) my thought was that this might be a case of a writer's darling. I don't know if that's necessarily true, of course, but GB repeatedly referred to the parts in the last few chapters as the reason he started writing the fic, so it sounds like that might be what happened here.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/11/My-Love-s-Flame
A couple more chapters of this are out. I thought the last 1-2 were weak, but this one was a lot stronger. I really liked the fortune telling scene.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/23/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated.
It's a set-up chapter. There's a few nice bits with Medea and a fair bit of summation of lesser events. I feel it gives this chapter a big 'tell and not show' feel, but eh. It's one of those cases where the author's preparing the next big story arc. Things with Rin and Saber are about to hit the fan and it looks like a Misaki arc is in the offing. Should be good.
Delande Est updated.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/1/Delenda-Est
Mmm, I can see where it's going but not a very exciting chapter.
Every so often I find a fic so bad I share the summary with #kitago , so we can marvel at the badness.
And then I found ... this:
Uncontrollable Circumstance (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9228971/1/Uncontrollable-Circumstance) » by AshakiranTheTenthBeast
Haruhi Suzumiya has gotten a new idea and Kyon has been forced right into the middle of it no matter all of his efforts to break out of the wild situation. Kyon's life is being artfully manipulated and he can't see a way to stop it. Who is the real god of this world and what painful secret is Koizumi hiding behind his smile? Dark, M-rating for language, non-con sex. Boys love/Mpreg
Rated: M - English - Romance/Angst - Chapters: 5 - Words: 6,453 - Reviews: 5 - Favs: 1 - Follows: 6 - Updated: 4-29-13 - Published: 4-23-13 - Kyon Itsuki K.
That was spoilered for your own protection, incidentally.
Edit: Evidently my review ruined her day. Before breakfast! She also told me she was going to report it for not being constructive. View it while you can!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/12/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame updated. Decent chapter for the Ranma/Ukyo interactions and the last line. I'm amused how Ranma's adapting to and digging into life here.
Naruto Peggy Sue fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4041754/
Been told it's dark and lame, but am putting up with it so far.
This always puts me in mind of a Haruhi Peggy Sue fic, but it's hard to figure out what would drive the plot of one of those....
Edit: Chapter 7, fic quality has dropped storywise (technically it's okay). Skipped almost all of chapter 8 because, A: WAVE COUNTRY, B: main character isn't onscreen. My hopes for this being a decent story are dropping like a decommissioned satellite.
No, no stop. :(
That fic is SuperFail.
Got to chapter fourteen. I skimmed almost everything between 8 (the grand decline) and 14, but that chapter ended on an upswing, so I've decided that's how it ends:
"Hinata gets a confidence boost, and Naruto resolves to make everything better (no, really!) after Akamaru is injured. But he'll pull through!"
...yeah. Generally, I get the author's intent. It's meant to be a deconstruction of the Peggy Sue genre. Okay, that's well-and-good, but the problem is while it starts off interesting, it quickly just falls to wallowing in wangst. That's it. There is no deeper analysis.
It's like the author felt the need to explain that going back in time just makes things worse. There could be more if I read further, but I've had three people in #kitago and a Drac tell me, "No, this is a horrible fic. Stop."
So I will.
Had some thoughts while going through the Peggy Sue section of Naruto thoughts on TVTropes, and Drac suggested I share them here:
Naruto: "Oh, no! I'm back in time! I'd better pretend everything is normal and not change anything yet!"
Hokage: "My crystal ball shows me you're from the future. Let's get everyone we can trust in on this and prevent whatever sent you back."
Naruto: "Or that!"
Naruto: "What about me being in a psych ward forever?"
Hokage: "HAVE YOU MET ANY OF OUR NINJA? LIKE, EVER?"
Naruto: "Or being interrogated to death by Ibiki!"
Hokage: "He's much better at his job than that, and anyway, why torture you if you're willing to talk?"
Naruto: "My precious fanon cliche! Why are you deconstructing them?"
Hokage: "Because we're ninja, not idiots. Now enjoy this bowl of tasty, tasty ramen, and explain where the bad sanin touched you."
Jiraya: "HEY!"
Hokage: "Not you."
Tsunade: "HEY!"
Hokage: "You, on the other hand ... I've seen matchups. Keep your distance!"
Jiraya: "Next book idea get."
... I could so see Naruto pouting at the end at the end of that.
"Aww, Jiji, you're no fun"
Found a Ranma/AMS fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8123719/1/The-Raven-and-the-Wolf
Pacing feels a bit off at times, but nothing major.
Quote from: Brian on May 03, 2013, 12:21:18 AM
Had some thoughts while going through the Peggy Sue section of Naruto thoughts on TVTropes, and Drac suggested I share them here:
(snip)
I'm pretty sure I've read a couple of Naruto fics that treaded that path already.
Can't remember which ones they would be for the life of me however.
Yeah, more of them don't than do, so....
Anyway, on the topic of Naruto Peggy Sues, I've been going through them a bit while waiting for long tests to finish. So here's another one:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8298025/
It's abandoned, but I found it surprisingly enjoyable. Premise is that Sakura gets sent back ... but lands when she's four years old. The style is minimal, yet surprisingly evocative, and Sakura is kind of ridiculously powerful, but the story was a pleasant distraction anyway. You can even look at where it leaves off as a sort of conclusion, which helps mitigate the 'abandoned' factor ... though I'm a little 'meh' on the last scene personally.
Anyway, it managed to not be wholly offensive.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/41/In-Flight
In Flight updated. Y'all have fun with that.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 08, 2013, 02:42:55 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/41/In-Flight
In Flight updated. Y'all have fun with that.
These last three chapters remind me of when I watched Mahoromatic back in the day. You know, the end part. -_-
I read the chapter and
I was not impressed by how Shirou resolved the situation. Better hope no one can break a geas.
In flight, being unimpressive in its logic patterns?
Color me surprised.
*reads, finds the entire thing rather ridiculous*
Quote from: Anastasia on May 08, 2013, 06:07:04 PM
Better hope no one can break a geas.
If this is based on classic myths, doesn't doing so lead to death?
[/quote]
If this is based on classic myths, doesn't doing so lead to death?
[/quote]
If you take a look at Fate Zero and the self-geis scroll, that essentially forces one's own magic crest/circuit to enforce the geis. That then brings up an issue of magic resistance (which Rin should have a lot more than Shirou), but it seems like Gabriel has made a way around it by saying "if I geis myself hard, I can geis someone else just as hard".
[/spoiler]
Like most things, its lore driven which kind of makes it feel very bullshittish in context of the story because Nasu lore is a pile of inconsistencies combined with absurdities. But its not like there wasn't the lead up of them being SUPEREFFECTIVE. It just was lame regardless.
So, still going through my Naruto Peggy Sue trawl. Evidently 'Naruto's life as a videogame' is a subgenre. Who knew? This one is amusing, at least:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7820743/
It's not complete, but appears to actually be in progress, not abandoned. In any case, so far it starts off great, gets briefly awesome, and then declines to decent, but enjoyable, and holds steady. I think you could do a lot worse than this one.
Have I recommended Halkegenia Online (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8903072/1/Halkegenia-Online) yet? If not, consider this a high recommendation. Familiar of Zero/ Sword Art Online crossover.
Louise's summons brings the whole of the VMMORPG Alfhelm Online into the FoZ universe. Much, MUCH better than it sounds. Updates often. Latest Spacebattles thread here. (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/halkegenia-online-thread-5-abandon-ship.257140/)
Quote from: thepanda on May 09, 2013, 07:24:32 PM
Have I recommended Halkegenia Online (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8903072/1/Halkegenia-Online) yet? If not, consider this a high recommendation. Familiar of Zero/ Sword Art Online crossover.
Louise's summons brings the whole of the VMMORPG Alfhelm Online into the FoZ universe. Much, MUCH better than it sounds. Updates often. Latest Spacebattles thread here. (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/halkegenia-online-thread-5-abandon-ship.257140/)
I skim that one. It has the occasional interesting segment, but I'm not familiar with Sword Art Online. So I'm reading it for the FoZ bits and not the bulk of the story. Despite all that, it manages to be entertaining sometimes.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 09, 2013, 07:38:44 PM
Quote from: thepanda on May 09, 2013, 07:24:32 PM
Have I recommended Halkegenia Online (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8903072/1/Halkegenia-Online) yet? If not, consider this a high recommendation. Familiar of Zero/ Sword Art Online crossover.
Louise's summons brings the whole of the VMMORPG Alfhelm Online into the FoZ universe. Much, MUCH better than it sounds. Updates often. Latest Spacebattles thread here. (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/halkegenia-online-thread-5-abandon-ship.257140/)
I skim that one. It has the occasional interesting segment, but I'm not familiar with Sword Art Online. So I'm reading it for the FoZ bits and not the bulk of the story. Despite all that, it manages to be entertaining sometimes.
It's what made me watch Sword Art Online in the first place. I started for the FoZ, but by the time they made any significant appearance I was reading for the SAO. The Tarbes side story arc was just about the perfect mix of the two.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 09, 2013, 07:38:44 PM
I skim that one. It has the occasional interesting segment, but I'm not familiar with Sword Art Online.
Translations of the novels are online. When I made the observation on IRC that generally in harem anime, the girl whose specialty is cooking never seems to win (and tried writing a tiny story based on that), someone pointed to Asuna in SAO as a counter-example. So I went looking for SAO translations to see how it was handled.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8264234/
Another in the chain of Naruto Peggy Sues I've been going through.
No spectacular premises here, but so far, very nice execution.
Quote from: Brian on May 06, 2013, 09:23:21 PM
Yeah, more of them don't than do, so....
Anyway, on the topic of Naruto Peggy Sues, I've been going through them a bit while waiting for long tests to finish. So here's another one:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8298025/
It's abandoned, but I found it surprisingly enjoyable. Premise is that Sakura gets sent back ... but lands when she's four years old. The style is minimal, yet surprisingly evocative, and Sakura is kind of ridiculously powerful, but the story was a pleasant distraction anyway. You can even look at where it leaves off as a sort of conclusion, which helps mitigate the 'abandoned' factor ... though I'm a little 'meh' on the last scene personally.
Anyway, it managed to not be wholly offensive.
Almost through it.
Cute, but at the same the writing style grates a bit on how casually it delivers things, how quickly it generally moves things. And done.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/29/From-Fake-Dreams
From Fake Dreams updated.
It's okay.
I like the idea of Kiritsugu as a servant. You could justify it by the Grail's curse sucking in his soul and belching it out into the War or something. I thought about it and the idea isn't indefensible. The rest of the chapter was meh, feels like the story's struggling under its own weight and so-so writing. I swear Third Fang's writing is getting worse.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 12, 2013, 08:00:32 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/29/From-Fake-Dreams
From Fake Dreams updated.
It's okay. I like the idea of Kiritsugu as a servant. You could justify it by the Grail's curse sucking in his soul and belching it out into the War or something. I thought about it and the idea isn't indefensible. The rest of the chapter was meh, feels like the story's struggling under its own weight and so-so writing. I swear Third Fang's writing is getting worse.
He might be more interested in his other fic right now. *shrugs*
Quote from: thepanda on May 12, 2013, 08:27:54 PMHe might be more interested in his other fic right now. *shrugs*
That wouldn't surprise me at all. I get the vibe his Naruto fic is his baby.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/13/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame updated. More setup between Ranma and the future Senshi this episode. It's fun even if it's taking the slow approach at building up the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/68/Bringer-of-Death
A special where science is applied to DBZ in an attempt to explain it all. Much better than it sounds and worth a read; the entire thing isn't connected to the rest of the story.
Quote from: Brian on May 10, 2013, 03:35:08 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8264234/
Another in the chain of Naruto Peggy Sues I've been going through.
No spectacular premises here, but so far, very nice execution.
Read the first ten chapters. Mmm. Kinda neat and well thought out.
I ended up really enjoying that one. Too bad it's not finished, but it seems to be getting regular updates.
I'm enjoying it but I kind of have trouble seeing a naruto that's so invested in a wall of lies.
Because there's an excessive wall of lies.
I kind of like this one: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4573620/1/A-Drop-of-Poison (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4573620/1/A-Drop-of-Poison)
Amusing, fun premise, interesting ideas brought in. It's possibly dead (last updated in January after a long hiatus).
Quote from: Dracos on May 14, 2013, 07:24:44 PM
I'm enjoying it but I kind of have trouble seeing a naruto that's so invested in a wall of lies.
Because there's an excessive wall of lies.
Consumed the rest.
It is interestingly written.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9246631/1/Dual-Wielding
A strange Fate fic I'm reading solely to see how many times I can go THE FUCK?! each chapter. Not the best or even a particularly good story, be warned.
Quote from: alethiophile on May 14, 2013, 08:59:06 PM
I kind of like this one: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4573620/1/A-Drop-of-Poison (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4573620/1/A-Drop-of-Poison)
Amusing, fun premise, interesting ideas brought in. It's possibly dead (last updated in January after a long hiatus).
I've ignored this a long time.
It's got an interesting and fun writing style. Decent technical. Even if the core problem that it's foundation is pretty stupid.
Was glad to have read, but at the same time hard to see it going all that far since it sticks Naruto deep in academy-ville for a long time while simultaneously having him demonstrate mid-to-high level stuff.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9125398/1/Introverted seems something I may follow for a bit.
http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/18/Mother-of-Learning updated.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/24/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated.
This chapter was purely setup and character development. Having it be from Rin and Saber's PoV did a lot to liven up a developmental chapter. The points it scores are wholeheartedly for that as well as for using this to help boost a (needed) expo dump up.
As an aside, it's nice that Rin was finally able to summon Saber. Double points for things going wrong after, fitting Rin's general luck.
Tried reading http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7832146/4/Swapping-The-Cage.
Writing is fine but it's actually pretty bad in concept. SuperNaruto replaces Naruto. He's a smug jerk who's super capable and looks down on all of Konoha. Possibly part fox monster, who knows who cares.
Basically the core flaw is Konoha mostly comes off as incompetent bumbling fools save for Danzo, Root, etc
Quote from: Dracos on May 17, 2013, 02:29:57 PM
Tried reading http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7832146/4/Swapping-The-Cage.
Writing is fine but it's actually pretty bad in concept. SuperNaruto replaces Naruto. He's a smug jerk who's super capable and looks down on all of Konoha. Possibly part fox monster, who knows who cares.
Basically the core flaw is Konoha mostly comes off as incompetent bumbling fools save for Danzo, Root, etc
Super!Naruto is from one of the author's other fics. Not that it changes anything you said.
Yeah, the other fic is one where Naruto dies when he's sealed, and his body starts being run by the Kyuubi. I tried reading that, but found it...bleah.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7632419/1/Two-Birds
A Teen Titans/Young Justice crossover, where TT literally travel to the alternate reality where YJ dwell to catch a number of their escaped criminals. I'm 11 chapters through, and I love the author's writing style so far. The only huge flaw I can see is that the story hasn't been updated for 9 months. A shame; still, it's worth reading.
Some guy was rambling on Gabe's new fic, Monsters of the Wilds. Based on some Manwa and a porn game he really likes.
I looked at it.
I kind of regret. It's pretty bad. Super-short chapters, korean style naming (Song Jong "Jowy" Su) and honorifics, a lot of short concept type scenes strung together that lack impact. Visual humor that has some trouble working due to pacing and description. The main character seems to not do much actively and more has contradictory descriptions.
Borderline mysoginst and in active relationship with 5 women as the passive passed around dude and house-husband doesn't click well.
Quote from: Dracos on May 20, 2013, 02:49:21 PMSome guy was rambling on Gabe's new fic, Monsters of the Wilds. Based on some Manwa and a porn game he really likes.
I looked at it.
I kind of regret. It's pretty bad. Super-short chapters, korean style naming (Song Jong "Jowy" Su) and honorifics, a lot of short concept type scenes strung together that lack impact. Visual humor that has some trouble working due to pacing and description. The main character seems to not do much actively and more has contradictory descriptions.
Borderline mysoginst and in active relationship with 5 women as the passive passed around dude and house-husband doesn't click well.
If you don't like stories where characters have Korean names it's not a good idea to read crossovers based on Korean webcomics. They often have Koreans in them, with their attendant naming schemes and tangled mess of honorifics (which GB evidently is handling badly, but Korean honorifics always looks like a train wreck to me). The rest of it's mostly just about how he would write the various non-human characters from Monmusu Quest as humans, with a chapter dedicated to each of them. If you're not familiar with the source material (reading Shirou Emiya: Erogame Protagonist is sufficient) there's really nothing else in this story so far.
I started Path of the King today, which Anastasia linked a few days ago. I'm eight chapters in. The story is interesting but writing leaves a lot to be desired. The author isn't a native English speaker and it shows. Their notes mention getting a beta reader, so we'll see how much of a difference that makes in later chapters. It's good to see Shirou, who is supposedly obsessed with being a hero, being a little proactive in that regard. It's also a change of pace because it takes place (so far) a little bit before the Fifth Grail War, but I guess that comes around eventually.
I actually had read Erogame Protagonist and think it's a better fic. From it and others I know who the characters he's using are. I just still think it's not well done. It spends far more time on characters and scenes, so the scenes have more impact. Here it feels like a non-stop set of intro episodes that don't even have the characters (Aside from Alice) do much of anything. "Here's your requisite 10 paragraphs. You're introduced. Now moving on." "Wait, don't I get to do anything besides have sex with the main and comment on his bruise?" "No."
More the other side of things feels poorly introduced. There's 4 named characters, and except for Moon and Queen, they've all basically gotten 1-2 walkon 'Okay, tell a joke' type scenes. I can sort of see what's going on, but again, it lacks impact. For light fast moving scenes, 12 characters is a lot and its resulting in all of them getting just a bit more than: Haircolor, outfit, emotional tick, background summary, go.
I would've probably just passed on it, but it got praised strongly, so I took a look, and was super short, so that look finished the fic as present. Gabe's done fics with this kind of style well before, this just isn't one of them.
Quote from: Empyrean on May 21, 2013, 05:09:41 AMI started Path of the King today, which Anastasia linked a few days ago. I'm eight chapters in. The story is interesting but writing leaves a lot to be desired. The author isn't a native English speaker and it shows. Their notes mention getting a beta reader, so we'll see how much of a difference that makes in later chapters. It's good to see Shirou, who is supposedly obsessed with being a hero, being a little proactive in that regard. It's also a change of pace because it takes place (so far) a little bit before the Fifth Grail War, but I guess that comes around eventually.
It picks up once he gets a beta reader, yeah. It gets better as the author's English improves and he gets deeper into the meat of the story. You should know if the story's for you by about chapter 14-16.
Incidentally, the author's mentioned a desire to fix up the early chapters. It's a low priority, but he plans to do it someday.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7485060/1/Game-Theory
Been reading this. The writing is good and I get the concept, but I'm still early and it pretty much seems to be walking around people being miserable and keeping themselves so. Fate isn't happy. Arf isn't happy. Nanoha is beaten repeatedly and very not happy and somewhat isolated. Both her friends are really not happy. Her parents and family are not all that happy either.
And it's raising the competence level of the group that already had most the power. In theory the payoff might be really neat, but its hard to read where it is where pretty much nobody is happy and the villains of the piece are steadily and effectively moving into position to have no lose conditions without deus ex machina (Power, Skill, Information, Positioning, Numbers... they basically are trumping on all fronts right now).
I'll probably go a bit further, and hope it starts upturning, but if not, it will have exhausted my ability to sit through all the characters being both unhappy and isolated.
Quote from: Dracos on May 21, 2013, 12:04:12 PM
Here it feels like a non-stop set of intro episodes that don't even have the characters (Aside from Alice) do much of anything. "Here's your requisite 10 paragraphs. You're introduced. Now moving on." "Wait, don't I get to do anything besides have sex with the main and comment on his bruise?" "No."
This is explainable, because the fic is still covering the intro chapters to Girls of Wild where they introduce people, and you're running into the limitation that it's a fanfic. It's the same thing that one tended to run across in Ranma fanfics - If you write out the whole scene where Ranma is introduced, the people who know the source get bored because it's 99% the same. If you don't, then people who are new to the series may get lost ("Why is Ranma suddenly a girl? Why is he affianced to someone who hits him?")
That said, I also am not a fan of this fic (I hadn't heard anyone gushing about it, but I'll take your word that those people exist). It's not so much the series that he's combining; even though I didn't like GoW and I've never played the Alice hentai game, I've read other fics of his where he crosses series I disliked and ended up liking those stories quite a bit anyway. But in this crossover, I'm not sure what the hentai game is supposed to bring to the table that makes GoW different.
GoW is already a "harem" story, and it already has combat-obsessed women. There's a few differences between the protagonist of GoW and this one, but nothing really dramatic or interesting enough to carry a story, especially when it's the same protagonist. "What if the protagonist was a vampire?" brings immediate and striking differences to Kenchi, even without the background of abandoned friends. "What is the protagonist wasn't worthless at combat?" has dramatic differences in Sekirei, even without magic and swords per se. "What if the male lead of a harem anime already had a harem?" is not so different.
I was the person rambling about it. Not gushing, since I think there are a lot of better stories out there, but there are a few things that make it interesting that I think are being missed here.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 21, 2013, 07:03:04 PMThat said, I also am not a fan of this fic (I hadn't heard anyone gushing about it, but I'll take your word that those people exist). It's not so much the series that he's combining; even though I didn't like GoW and I've never played the Alice hentai game, I've read other fics of his where he crosses series I disliked and ended up liking those stories quite a bit anyway. But in this crossover, I'm not sure what the hentai game is supposed to bring to the table that makes GoW different.
This fic has a fully anthropomorphic take on the characters from the game. Erubite, for example, was originally a slime monster. Alice was a lamia, and so forth. In this fic, they are just humans.
The changes GotW in two ways. First of all, the male lead in GotW knows nothing about combat and doesn't handle women well at all, while adding the MMQ girls into the mix a few years before the main events of the fic changes that. The second big change is how it upsets the balance of power in the GotW setting. In GotW, nobody outside the school is worth a damn. A handful of schoolgirls curbstomp dozens of yakuza, and the latest arc has them throw the yakuza boss to the male lead, who they have been training for about a month, with every expectation that he'll win. In MotW, we have five characters outside of the school who are all depicted as total badasses, aside from the male lead whose combat capability hasn't been explored yet aside from a few hints that he's quite capable.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 21, 2013, 07:03:04 PMGoW is already a "harem" story, and it already has combat-obsessed women. There's a few differences between the protagonist of GoW and this one, but nothing really dramatic or interesting enough to carry a story, especially when it's the same protagonist. "What if the protagonist was a vampire?" brings immediate and striking differences to Kenchi, even without the background of abandoned friends. "What is the protagonist wasn't worthless at combat?" has dramatic differences in Sekirei, even without magic and swords per se. "What if the male lead of a harem anime already had a harem?" is not so different.
It's interesting that these are the examples you chose of dramatic differences, because the question of "What if X wasn't worthless at combat" applies to both the protagonist, and to a few other people outside of GotW's original narrow competence zone. The difference isn't really that he has a harem, it's that there are combat capable characters outside of the school, with the protagonist among them. Since GB has stated that he wants to write a big martial arts tournament fic, these are pretty substantial changes from the original GotW.
Speaking of Game Theory: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9059345/1/Of-The-Stars
From the same author. It's a take on Sailor Moon, based on updating it and a few various media sources. It's basically Sailor Moon+1 and I'm enjoying it so far. It's deeper and has a deft touch so far.
Game Theory does get somewhat better on the everyone-is-miserable front, but it remains somewhat grim throughout. This until the very end, where you get a payoff so astounding as to erase previous impressions entirely. It's very much worth it, IMO.
Quote from: Empyrean on May 21, 2013, 07:48:04 PM
I was the person rambling about it. Not gushing, since I think there are a lot of better stories out there, but there are a few things that make it interesting that I think are being missed here.
It seems like you've stuck with GoW further than I did (I stopped reading at the chapter where they're all visiting his house). So maybe you're seeing some angles that I'm not, since I stopped reading fairly early on.
That said, there's a reason why I am generally not a fan of xovers with these sorts of differences you've pointed out. These usually get articulated in story-specific threads or over IRC when discussing xovers in general, so I don't usually go into them here.
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This fic has a fully anthropomorphic take on the characters from the game. Erubite, for example, was originally a slime monster. Alice was a lamia, and so forth. In this fic, they are just humans.
So the change is "What if, in GoW, a fic that deals with strongly-powered human girls had more strongly-powered human girls?" I'd think that if GB hadn't changed the new characters from monsters, it would have had a sharper impact.
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The changes GotW in two ways. First of all, the male lead in GotW knows nothing about combat and doesn't handle women well at all, while adding the MMQ girls into the mix a few years before the main events of the fic changes that.
In the past, when countless Ranma 1/2 xovers were being posted, one of the first questions I always asked was "What quality does making this a Ranma xover add to the story?" There are many distinctive points of the Ranma cast (aqua-triggered-transexuality, absurd martial arts techniques, or the particular ridiculous characterization) which would work. The answer, most of the time, was "protagonist now knows martial arts" to which my reply was "the writer didn't need to try writing a crossover with a series with all its attendant baggage just to introduce that factor."
In the same vein, MoW has this change over GoW. But, as I mention below, it's not really that big of a change (yet) and I have the same concerns as for the generic Ranma xovers.
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The second big change is how it upsets the balance of power in the GotW setting. In GotW, nobody outside the school is worth a damn. A handful of schoolgirls curbstomp dozens of yakuza, and the latest arc has them throw the yakuza boss to the male lead, who they have been training for about a month, with every expectation that he'll win.
And my memory of GoW is that the school trains fighting champions, so that makes sense.
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In MotW, we have five characters outside of the school who are all depicted as total badasses, aside from the male lead whose combat capability hasn't been explored yet aside from a few hints that he's quite capable.
After 3 chapters, they're
depicted as total badasses. Combat capability
hasn't been explored.
IMO, that's not a striking difference.
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It's interesting that these are the examples you chose of dramatic differences, because the question of "What if X wasn't worthless at combat" applies to both the protagonist, and to a few other people outside of GotW's original narrow competence zone. The difference isn't really that he has a harem, it's that there are combat capable characters outside of the school, with the protagonist among them.
Running with that:
IF: "What if a harem manga that involves fighting replaces naive character with a bloodthirsty and ruthless vet?"
MotW:"What if a fighting manga brings in naive character with a person of at undetermined fighting skill (who still isn't fighting all that much)?"
In execution, IF makes a dramatic difference over their source manga (compare chapters 1 and 2 of the fic with the intro-chapters of Sekirei). It doesn't have to add flash to be different; Don't Look takes Shinji's introduction in Eva, and replaces an exploding tac-nuke equivalent with a gradually revealed horror.
Again, I'm not sure what MMQ, in particular, brings to the table that makes MotW different from GoW. The protagonist does a bit of dodging in chapter 1 (which indicates at least some skill), but still meets Queen, still works at that carwash job, still needs money for his siblings, etc, etc. That's not to say that one can't write a successful story that tracks the plot events of the original series (e.g most of the way through, IF tracks events in Sekirei at a high level) but something about the story has to be vastly different (e.g, IF ends up with Shirou using his own past experiences with cold-hearted mages and such to better understand some situations, and to completely misunderstand other situations - which leads to very different ways that some scenes played out).
Anyway, if you're enjoying the story, don't let me dissuade you from reading it. I just didn't want you to get the impression that I'm panning something you like without any reason behind it.
A Naruto fic in which a younger Naruto and Sasuke are identified as loner-type orphans and common sense kicks in (one of my favorite seeds for a Naruto fic, actually): They're put together to watch out for one-anothers immediately after the Uchiha Massacre.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5817309/1/Brother
It has had a recent update, but I believe it is (or will shortly become) abandoned. There is one element which I didn't particularly like:
And it's not that Sakura joins Sasuke and Naruto as a tutor, it's that it's so ham-handed and feels freaking forced. Naruto's supposed to have had a crush on Sakura forever, so him instigating it instead of it being sprung on him would have at least felt more natural.
Other than that, while not great, was pretty enjoyable.
Read a bit of Fly Free, a fic with an interesting premise and terrible first-fic style execution. Robin from One Piece gets knocked over to Naruto-verse pre-genin exam. Seems neat, since there's a lot of potential understanding for her and Naruto and her and Sasuke.
Sadly, there's just constant ham-fisted explanation of One Piece factoids, delivered with all the feeling of someone reading them out of a stat book and not believing it or having thought about it. Robin isn't Robin. She has all the subtlety and caution of a rock, when being quietly aloof and distrustful of new groups is one of her standbys. Giving her a 'I can see into other dimensions power' is just really an awkward thing altogether.
Not linking cuz not good.
Trying out a naruto/fairytail crossover now. I'll yammer on it later.
Quote from: Brian on May 09, 2013, 02:21:52 PM
So, still going through my Naruto Peggy Sue trawl. Evidently 'Naruto's life as a videogame' is a subgenre. Who knew?
To continue this thread of thought almost a month later, I've read a number of those fics before. It was always a sort of guilty pleasure ever since I found the first instance of the trope.
I have just found an instance of a Harry Potter version of said subgenre however. First time seeing it in the Harry Potter 'verse. I'm only one chapter in, but I'm enjoying myself quite a bit so far.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8923104/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Munchkins
I have to say, I think that the author did a rather good job of grabbing my attention in the first couple of paragraphs. Wish more authors could do the same, instead of burying the first interesting/intriguing concept chapters in.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8923104/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Munchkins someone linked this in kitago. Brian then rec'd it.
And now I have read it.
Somehow I'm the first to link here. This is an amusing off the rails story that takes bold swipes and runs well with its premise. While it has weaknesses in writing quality, it is amusing and I enjoyed my time following Harry Potter: RPG Munchkin Save Hoarder!
Drac, I think you need to read the post above yours.
Man, first Brian, now Drac...
Everyone's stealing credit now! :p
Huh, I don't remember. Usually I'm much more careful about being clear where a link came from. :X
Sorry?
REad fail~ :3
Man, I can't believe I was THAT blind.
But the evidence is right there.
Unless I erase it. @_@
*rubs eraser over Kt3s post*
Quote from: Brian on May 26, 2013, 12:27:55 PM
Huh, I don't remember. Usually I'm much more careful about being clear where a link came from. :X
Sorry?
Huh? Oh, no no, I wasn't referring to this topic at all when I mentioned you, Brian. I was trying to refer to a different thread, where I think you got credited with something I posted. I'm just playing around, don't worry about it.
Now Dracos... he's the one I gotta watch out for. One day I'll end up trying to post like normal and then suddenly Dracos will
(REDACTED)
That's <REDACTED>
Munchkins is amusing. Definitely following that one.
I found this (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7801636/4/Curious-Penseive-Collection) interesting. Pity it's just a oneshot.
I found it unreadable. Too busy interjecting too much stuff to track to be sensible.
Quote from: Dracos on May 27, 2013, 03:17:09 AM
That's <REDACTED>
Sorry, what were you saying? I kinda missed it.
Also, going to toss in another mention of the original grimdark superhero web serial Worm (http://parahumans.wordpress.com/about/), since you guys are mentioning updates and that thing updates twice a week.
Worth at least a look, and at close to 1.5 million words it's got plenty of archive to binge on if it hooks you.
Harry Potter and the Temporal Beacon (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6517567/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Temporal-Beacon)
Just started this one a couple days ago and already finished what's been written so far. At the end of 3rd year Hermione and Harry make a time machine of sorts that lets them return their memories to themselves at the exact moment it was first activated. Between small changes having big consequences and their time machine being set at a point just before Voldemort starts his return, the pair are forced to play things by ear over many loops while only gradually raising their game to a point where they can become credible threats. Has an extended Triwizard Tournament and (not a spoiler) Harry performs as shittily as you'd expect an average 4th year to do so against 7th years in the first loop.
Definitely worth a look.
Excellent. I don't particularly know why, but I really enjoy Peggy Sues.
....
Probably the wish to NG+ my life and clear it on S-rank. -_-
Zat Roight.
*nods*
Well, they also tend to involve fixing awkward things.
Quote from: Ebiris on May 31, 2013, 09:25:32 PM
Harry Potter and the Temporal Beacon (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6517567/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Temporal-Beacon)
Just started this one a couple days ago and already finished what's been written so far. At the end of 3rd year Hermione and Harry make a time machine of sorts that lets them return their memories to themselves at the exact moment it was first activated. Between small changes having big consequences and their time machine being set at a point just before Voldemort starts his return, the pair are forced to play things by ear over many loops while only gradually raising their game to a point where they can become credible threats. Has an extended Triwizard Tournament and (not a spoiler) Harry performs as shittily as you'd expect an average 4th year to do so against 7th years in the first loop.
Definitely worth a look.
I read all but the last chapter of this before. I'll probably read that sometime soon. There was one thread in this that bothered me despite its generally awesome vibe.
Overtime there's basically a repudiation of Harry Potter the character. He is made bigger, stronger, given clear eyesight, etc. Basically enough physical improvements that it starts to get a bit weird and a bit like reshaping the character rather than having the character reshape the world.
All sorts of things that really shouldn't be all that relevant to a magic wizard world. It started squicking me a bit by the end of my original read, even though I'd enjoyed a good deal of it.
First post here, hello. ^_^
Gabriel Blessing updated Monsters of the Wilds today.
I can't say I'm really in favor of what he's done with Jaegu as a character. He's elevated Jaegu well above the main cast of his fic in terms of power level. I can't really see where he's going with this as the main point of the GotW manwha was to portray a weak character learning to stand up for himself. He's kind of taken away its charm. The same goes for the MGQ portion of the fic because well...they're not exactly monsters anymore. :P
So far I see no clear antagonist as Gabriel's shown us that Jaegu's well above the competition at this point. I predict him introducing some more MGQ characters to make up for this, but I'm not really familiar with the MGQ-verse so I can't really say anything about that.
Welcome to soulriders.
I'm not all that familiar either, but I was of the understanding that all the really strong characters from MGQ are already on his team. That was the entire set of superbosses as I understand it.
While reading up on some MGQ, I came across a character who guides you at the start then eventually turns on you. I'm not sure if that'll be important, but it's the only viable choice I can see Gabe going with for an antagonist without having to make some major OCs. I don't know how this is all going to turn out, I guess I'll just have to read on at this point.
I believe that's Alice. The character that has had the most screen time thusfar besides generic korean longname lead.
Quote from: lolipettanko on June 03, 2013, 03:59:14 AM
First post here, hello. ^_^
Welcome!
I think we technically have a "hello" thread somewhere or other on these forums, but I also can't recall the last time anyone posted in it.
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I can't say I'm really in favor of what he's done with Jaegu as a character. He's elevated Jaegu well above the main cast of his fic in terms of power level.
That's pretty much GB's modus operandi.
Quote from: Dracos on June 03, 2013, 05:02:35 PM
I believe that's Alice. The character that has had the most screen time thusfar besides generic korean longname lead.
Nah, I checked it again. It's this Goddess Illias person.
Quote from: Ebiris on May 31, 2013, 09:25:32 PMHarry Potter and the Tempting Bacon (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6517567/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Temporal-Beacon)
This story had some things going for it, but also has a small laundry list of problems.
I didn't really get the issue Drac did, since it's not nearly as present as -- say -- Time Braid. I did however get annoyed by extensive PoV segments on characters that ended up being irrelevant because their loop wasn't the last one. In fact, a great deal of time is spent not really dealing with the looping mechanic well. Chapter 61's plot twist did not add value to the story, in my opinion (hint: the 'generic' new DADA professor is a time-traveling unspeakable, probably). I don't like the 'ends-justify-the-means' Dumbledore villainy (exemplified from his PoV). While I think Snape's a jerk, the story explaining (multiple times) that he's actually only barely competent and having long scenes to go over it in multiple loops is irritating.
The author started out pretty lousy at action sequences and got passably better, though, so there's that. Very few typos. Uncertain I'll bother following this one further, except maybe to confirm my suspicion.
Quote from: lolipettanko on June 04, 2013, 12:13:45 AM
Quote from: Dracos on June 03, 2013, 05:02:35 PM
I believe that's Alice. The character that has had the most screen time thusfar besides generic korean longname lead.
Nah, I checked it again. It's this Goddess Illias person.
I find myself in the somewhat awkward position of knowing about MMQ well enough to explain what's going on. I think I'll start a thread for this, because there's sort of a lot of explaining to do.
Edit: Done. Everything you ever needed to know about MMQ, but knew better than to ask.
http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,102797.0.html
Yeah, I pretty much got all that reading the wiki page. :P
I can't say I like it or dislike it at this point because the story's barely started so far. I'll give it 5-10 more chapters before I give my opinion on it.
So Goddess Illias is the main antagonist then?
Yeah, Illias is the big one. She's got a couple underlings that pop up occasionally, too: Promestein and Black Alice.
Something I really want to complain about right now:
How many chapters can
you survive from the most badly paced MLP fic in the history of the planet? No, scratch that... perhaps contending for the most badly paced fic in any canon whatsoever in the history of the planet?
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/24125/the-powers-of-harmony
I made it to 'Chapter 16, part 1'.
Here is my analysis of why this just doesn't work as an attempt to write an 'epic' fic:
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21:55 < MuForbis> But basically, here is your guide to writing The Most Horribly Paced Fic Ever:
21:55 < MuForbis> (1) start by teasing heavily that the canon characters will get interesting powers
21:55 < MuForbis> (2) introduce OCs. Lots of OCs. Like, a dozen OCs. Each of which has a distinct (EDIT: yet somehow entirely bland) personality.
21:57 < MuForbis> (3) isolate the original cast from each other and surround each one with at least two OCs. This has the benefit of totally preventing you from using the character dynamics that were developing in canon, so your fic will go even slower as you have to invent new dynamics.
21:58 < MuForbis> (4) introduce some kind of bizarre Nanoha-type nonsense where the OCs are technological constructs of some Wolkenritter nonsense guarding an extradimensional prison that will explode unless other nonsense.
21:58 < MuForbis> (4a) ... but don't ever actually explain this plot point. Just dribble out some hints painfully over 16 chapters.
21:59 < Slacker> You're not human are you.
21:59 < MuForbis> How so?
21:59 < Slacker> Seriously, that should would have sent me off by chapter... whatever chapter got OCs brought in.
21:59 < MuForbis> One.
22:00 < MuForbis> I'm still getting to the point that made me want to finally hurl my computer across the room.
22:00 < MuForbis> (5) have Pinkie Pie learn about the powers, but not tell any of her friends because 'that would spoil the surprise'. And then...
22:01 < MuForbis> *takes a deep breath*
22:01 < MuForbis> (5a) mention that she spent several days practicing the powers. But she was doing it offscreen, while you get to read more about the OCs angsting over whether they're robots or not. Thus you still don't know what most of her powers do.
22:03 < MuForbis> At this point, I went over here to bitch about this fic.
22:04 < MuForbis> Because reading it is basically like the fic equivalent of being in an abusive relationship where you keep rationalizing to yourself that the story will actually start, but it just keeps punishing you by not telling you things.
22:04 < Slacker> I think that's more effort than that fic is worth.
22:05 < MuForbis> It's a shame, because the powers sure sound interesting.
22:06 < MuForbis> WHATEVER THE HELL THEY ARE
22:06 < MuForbis> I mean, imagine if Kyon: Big Damn Hero started out like this.
22:06 < MuForbis> Or, don't. That thought is too horrible for words.
22:11 < Slacker> I'm pretty sure I would have gone to Kuyou's house with a bat long before it could have gotten that far.
22:12 < Slacker> Maybe a fruit bat.
22:12 < Slacker> Eh, probably one of those little adorable ones. Those are popular.
22:17 < MuForbis> Actually, I haven't even mentioned the supreme irony of the fic.
22:17 < MuForbis> Which is that the OCs' angsting keeps coming back to how they're on a strict time limit to unlock the main characters' powers or all Hell will break loose.
22:18 < MuForbis> *or else
22:19 < MuForbis> Actually, now that I've summarized all the things that don't work about this fic, I'm starting to doubt that it actually exists. Perhaps I hallucinated it based on some heinous chemical.
So, I did not enjoy the fic. I think this is the ultimate 'terrorism cooking' where there's enough neat stuff in it that you want to keep reading, but it just doesn't go anywhere.
If you want epic ponies with power-ups might I suggest Its A Dangerous Business Going Out Your Door (http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/its-dangerous-business-going-out-your.html).
Or better still, Myths and Birthrights (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/67391/myths-and-birthrights).
And I think I might have suggested Under the Northern Lights (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/877/under-the-northern-lights) before I'll do so here, just in case. Though Though there aren't any power-ups. And most of the cast isn't here. Aaaand there are a lot of OCs. But ITS GOOD, I SWEAR!
All of those look neat.
It's also interesting to contrast Powers of Harmony to The Flight of The Alicorn (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/6007/the-flight-of-the-alicorn), which is similarly bloated in scope but turned out to be kind of a guilty pleasure. That one's sort of Rarity-as-a-reluctant-Indiana-Jones, not necessarily everyone's cup of tea, but that's not the issue; my point is, it had similar overambitious scope and piles of OCs, but was much better at communicating with the reader as regards pacing. Also perhaps more imaginative about what to use as filler. So it felt like stuff was happening there, even though it actually takes 10 chapters for the plot to start.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on June 07, 2013, 11:33:50 PM
Something I really want to complain about right now:
How many chapters can you survive from the most badly paced MLP fic in the history of the planet? No, scratch that... perhaps contending for the most badly paced fic in any canon whatsoever in the history of the planet?
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/24125/the-powers-of-harmony
Clearly you've never read Chuunin Exam Day, if this is the best you have to complain about!
I remember that one, I got bored in Chapter One and gave up in Chapter Two . . . but from what I remember, it was more 'mediocre' than anything else. I think you're more annoyed because you feel like the author could have written something much better!
Wasted possibility.
Quote from: Rezantis on June 10, 2013, 09:15:28 PM
I remember that one, I got bored in Chapter One and gave up in Chapter Two . . . but from what I remember, it was more 'mediocre' than anything else. I think you're more annoyed because you feel like the author could have written something much better!
That's definitely part of it. Skysaber's nonsense can at least definitely be enjoyed (given a sufficiently nondiscriminating mood) on the level of the silliness that it is, because I can't really imagine him doing better than that.
This fic, on the other hand, is just... constantly rubbing in your face the interesting idea the author _could_ be focusing on, but isn't. Namely, giving the Elements of Harmony neat associated powers, which aren't really of the typical 'offensive/defensive' variety. (e.g. Fluttershy can read minds... but only of people who she is trying to care for. We don't get to see this, because the first time she unlocks this power (briefly), her memory is immediately wiped by a giant turtle. Rainbow Dash has supercharged charisma to inspire loyalty in others. Pinkie Pie has some kind of probability manipulation/sensing thing. etc. Again, all of this is hinted at and then totally ignored in favour of dragging it out with comparatively uninteresting Wolkenritter OCs.)
I read all of Chunin Exam Day.
All of it.
Either I'm immune to SAN loss, or I'm immune to SAN loss by virtue of not having any left.
Take your pick.
Did you go in knowing it was written by Skysaber and thus not blindsided by Skysaber-being-Skysaber?
I ... think I knew it was Skysaber beforehand. It's honestly hard to recall. There were a lot of interesting bits, and a lot of Skysaber, "Ugh, I hate this character sooooooo muuuuuuch!" segments.
Kind of wish he'd just have them die instantly so he could focus on other stuff, too.
Then there's the parts Rez pointed out about girls being brainwashed by a guy who can give a backrup and make them dinner. I think I went into it to see how it inspired Time Braid, actually. Wouldn't really suggest it to anyone.
Quote from: thepanda on June 10, 2013, 09:41:24 PM
Did you go in knowing it was written by Skysaber and thus not blindsided by Skysaber-being-Skysaber?
I read all of Chunin Exam Day, due to the logic of "if Brian can handle it, it can't be
that cosmically awful".
I dunno, there's something endearing about the pompousness. A certain escapism about having the entire universe revolve around Naruto in a horribly blatant fashion like that, that Skysaber is really the best at capturing. Then you put down the fic and observe how disconnected from real life it really is.
Maybe I'm a terrible person.
I think, in terms of any enjoyment obtained from CED, this video about sums it up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p4B-ise1iI
So, ContraBardus recently updated Gaijin, if anyone is still following that.
Here's the link: http://m.fanfiction.net/s/404359/46/
Apparently he got real sick, heart and lung disease according to what he wrote. He's better now, hope he stays well.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/15/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame updated. It looks like the first arc is done and all the basic setup is in order.
It's always interesting to see Ranma deal with romance in a situation removed from the typical Ranma 1/2 antics. I like that it plays like a couple of kids blundering around, which is exactly what they are.
Edit:
Quote from: DY on June 10, 2013, 11:25:58 PMApparently he got real sick, heart and lung disease according to what he wrote. He's better now, hope he stays well.
Good God. He's lucky he's still breathing.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9358787/1/Irish-Vampires-Being-Integra-s-Heir-and-Other-Reasons-I-Hate-My-Life
A story of the Hellsing world after the Battle of London and the lid is blown on the supernatural. The OC hasn't gripped me like Meriwether did, but the worldbuilding's really interesting so far plus the piece has excellent ambiance. It's written by Zalgo Jenkins, the author of Postnupital Disagreements.
Quote from: Rezantis on June 10, 2013, 09:15:28 PM
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on June 07, 2013, 11:33:50 PM
Something I really want to complain about right now:
How many chapters can you survive from the most badly paced MLP fic in the history of the planet? No, scratch that... perhaps contending for the most badly paced fic in any canon whatsoever in the history of the planet?
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/24125/the-powers-of-harmony
Clearly you've never read Chuunin Exam Day, if this is the best you have to complain about!
For the record, I read through Chuunin Exam Day.
I remember telling people that I'd found a writer who was just as bad as Skysaber.
Quote from: Dracos on November 06, 2012, 10:02:33 PMUm, because group to group interactions are Hard. I mean it's one thing to say the reverse is easy, but even in singular canons, dealing with group to group interactions is difficult. You know those mangas that have 50 odd characters but still focus almost solely on like 6? Why don't they do 12 often? Because doubling the active cast size is a huge deal to keep awareness. It's also why large casts often get interpreted as Groups with suddenly homogonous belief/action sets no matter how they might've bickered when they were front and center. Because it is difficult to find the time to keep people being people and still move the plot forward at a meaningful rate.
When I think of successful stories that involve group to group interaction, they are either Fusions: So a lot of the cast is auto-separated into existing small clusters; or they are Incident fics: Some dramatic event happened that is the focus of everyone's attention so it is easier to move the plot forward in relation to that event. Someone got killed or saved or something.
Many fairly good fics can count the active speaking cast as less than ten. Not because 'it is easy', but because going from 10 to 20 is really hard.
I'll accept this point, since I'm currently reading a fic that takes the number of groups (not just characters) to an extreme: Super Robot Wars U (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8296205/1/Super-Robot-Wars-U).
So the Super Robot Wars series of games are, in a sense, one giant crossover fanfic that happens to be playable. Or maybe they're technically fusions?
Anyway, I've yet to see the One Great SRW Fic, but this might be the closest to claim such a title if only due to having a shot at actually being completed.
One can approach this story as an exercise in trying to juggle 20 different plotlines running in parallel...and failing. There's author favoritism and there's lots of groups of characters getting sidelined and shafted. You really have to be a fan of mecha anime to appreciate a lot of the scenes in SRWU - the writing isn't good enough to stand up on its own. That is, I don't think it can serve as an intro story to get people the play the games or watch the series.
There seems to be more cross-interaction between the "super" and "real" groups than the average plot of a SRW game - it may be that the game's writers are limited by the resources of the game itself, the need to focus on certain series or other executive meddling. I definitely do like how Princess Kaguya Sumeragi (of Code Geass) winds up being interim Chief of Gutsy Geoid Guard in this story and I am sad that that will never happen in any SRW.
This fic also confirms the fact that GaoGaiGar is the King of mecha anime now and forever. I just hope that the story gets to the GGG Final and Gurren Lagann finales and writes those epic scenes well.
Monsters of the Wild updated.
I'm enjoying this to be honest. Not necessarily because everything about it is good, but because of how engaging the premise is so far. As far as I've read, I think the "set-up" chapters are done and we're just about ready to jump into the meat and potatoes. There'll probably be a few filler chapters, hopefully not too many, but I'd really like to see how the characters will interact with each other.
Jaegu's power level was explained decently and I didn't feel ripped off by it. The Illias portion was interesting. All in all, a good chapter. Even if this goes to complete shit, I can at least say this was an interesting read.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 16, 2013, 07:23:25 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9125398/1/Introverted seems something I may follow for a bit.
Read a bit of it today.
It's got certain interesting facets. A Danzo that isn't RAWR, STUPID EVIL is the most intriguing of them.
Unfortunately, like many of its type, it relies on the rest of shinobi village being significantly less competent than Danzo and his the OCs that are brought. Having a reasonably structure ninja team clashes when the rest of the genin are just like canon or worse, because despite that, these are eventual village aces. Basically, the rest of the genin are in the original naruto genre (Sasuke and Sakura excluded), and the rest of the ninja are like "We can totally be tricked".
The extent to which folks in this are publicly and loudly calling Naruto on being a demon gets a bit bothersome. There's clearly the notice that the S-rank law exists (Someone gets killed for it even), but the village reacting to it being enforced seems to be not present. They're entirely too bold with their obnoxiousness.
Getting the poisoner wrong midway is pretty blatantly ridiculous given that mind reading exists and its a civilian they end up blaming. Again, nobody but danzo and the OCs seem to be allowed real competence.
It has one of the shortest wave country arcs. That was actually fairly neat, if cold blooded.
It's written well, but hard to recommend due to the fact that the rest of the cast feels like strawmen.
Quote from: Dracos on June 16, 2013, 02:26:25 PM
The extent to which folks in this are publicly and loudly calling Naruto on being a demon gets a bit bothersome. There's clearly the notice that the S-rank law exists (Someone gets killed for it even), but the village reacting to it being enforced seems to be not present. They're entirely too bold with their obnoxiousness.
I've always thought that any story where civilians are willingly screwing around with the borders of that law to be generally unrealistic. I've just taken it as one of the cliches of Naruto fanfiction at this point, and just suspend my disbelief (unless the writer is writing yet-another-saved-from-mob-by-ANC scene, because that's so ham-fisted that I lose most of my interest in reading further).
Quote
Getting the poisoner wrong midway is pretty blatantly ridiculous given that mind reading exists and its a civilian they end up blaming.
Didn't that get explained as a result of the MagicalPlotAbility Bloodline? I still haven't read any significant amount of Naruto, and since the writer just presented it as "and then they screwed around with the evidence like so," I just assumed that screwing with someone's head to implant hard-to-detect false memories was one of its canon abilities.
Quote
Again, nobody but danzo and the OCs seem to be allowed real competence.
A bit on this below
Quote
It's written well, but hard to recommend...
This sums up my thoughts on this fairly well.
I'm still following this story (it helps that the writer updates fairly often, which means if I am off doing something else for a few days and wonder if there is anything new to read, chances are that it's true). The pacing works, and the writer understands that even if you label a story as "Angst", continuously pushing the angst button doesn't make for a good story. On the other hand, some characters who are not part of the main cast are just thrown into the story as needed to advance the plot. It's not a fatal flaw, but it feels unpolished.
I think the incompetence feel of the secondary characters stems from that. The only time we read about those characters is if they're being fooled, lectured, killed, etc. For example, Mizuki was a great deal more competent than in the manga...but he only appears in the fic a few times when it's time to push the plot along. I believe the writer had to explain what was going on with him during one of the chapter notes - not really a great sign.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 16, 2013, 05:32:43 PMThe pacing works, and the writer understands that even if you label a story as "Angst", continuously pushing the angst button doesn't make for a good story.
Really? Because I quit before chapter two or three ended for precisely that reason.
It seemed like it was on a fast track to nowhere, and those reviews from you and Drac seem to confirm that.
Quote from: Brian on June 16, 2013, 05:36:17 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 16, 2013, 05:32:43 PMThe pacing works, and the writer understands that even if you label a story as "Angst", continuously pushing the angst button doesn't make for a good story.
Really? Because I quit before chapter two or three ended for precisely that reason.
Really. The first few chapters are a stereotypical angst-fest. Later on, there is a bit of slapstick, some teamwork, etc, that serves to break up the previously constant atmosphere of depression.
But that fic isn't mislabeled by any means. It
is an angst story, so if you dislike them on principle, there's no reason to keep trying to read it. It's just not like anything written by...whatever-that-Kuno-fanboy-was-called (Can't recall offhand. Posted to the FFML quite frequently when I was active way back when.)
When I posted that fic last month, I was looking for one of his humor fics to post instead since humor has more universal appeal. But every one that I tried reading was terrible.
Uh ... Nemesis Zero?
Hmm...I was thinking that the name started with an S, N, or Z. So, probably.
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/94665/NemesisZero
Never much cared for his Ranma fic.
Well, the fic also had what is often a problem of laziness:
The author decides serious ninja should have these competencies, opinions, and focus on training. Then, either a single character, root, or a group of OCs have been co-existing in some manner with the village get a main character squad (usually including Naruto) to train. Their opinions are validated as reality suddenly and violently backs that they're methods of training have been the right thing and the other folks have been turning out crummy ninja.
The problem with this conceit is that it leaves the rest of the village static, despite these folks co-existing with it or reality itself saying that this works. This turns numerous 'talented' or 'trained' folks into incompetent baboons as they either don't get or are unable to get the new reality rules, and still holding important and respected positions in the village (despite reality having not backed their insights for years). This makes the setting unbelievable on face and makes it hard to get into what goes on past that.
As inconsistent and crummy as the original work was, it didn't have this problem. People did act like comical buffoons who trained poorly but in context of the reality of the world, they were hard training elite ninja and society and reality treated them like such. Nothing within the story questioned that these kinds of childish behaviors and eccentricities were allowed or enabled for trained soldier ninja. In canon, it's a big thing learning basic shit like walking on water. And so it's a common lazy point to decide "Man, academy students should totally know this stuff, and everyone not making sure they're learning that and a handful of jutsu and practicals is stupid" or "Asuma's a lazy bum who's just coasting the teaching assignment and not teaching his genin anything, so they should get killed". Of course, Asuma's genin are front line elite ace combatants within a few years by canon.
Truthfully, there's nothing wrong with a more dog-eat-dog ninja world. I've seen it done a number of times. It just needs the rest of society changing with it too. People Lie or Motivation both do a good job with this, not just placidly upping the competence level of the folks being focused on, but also upping the general competence of those not being so, so that they all feel like part of the same society getting different but equal levels of training. This reinforces the general work.
Introverted lacks this wider perspective, and is a worse fic for it.
I finally put it down when a second main canon character was targeted to be assassinated later by someone who should currently be focusing on deep cover operation (The most important one in the village according to Danzo). I don't care the reason anymore. There's way too much in village backstabbing going on. It's a problem I had with Geor's Alternate History (Enough inside the village backstabbing to wonder how they're managing to convince anyone they're not a house of cards ready to blow down).
Speaking of Naruto fics, Dreaming of Sunshine (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/1/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated. Not sure if this one has been recced yet. Its an SI but I actually really like it. She made Wave tolerable to me (if just because we see it from her perspective) which was a small miracle.
Not exactly a rail jumper (though at least that's explained somewhat.
Most of the crap that happens pre-time-skip is so far outside her ability to influence that she's chosen to focus on surviving more than anything.
Now that I think about it, she comes across as the character I would have liked Sakura to have been in cannon.
Big Human On Campus updated. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382984/18/)
Inner Moka got a chance to shine. For all of about two minutes real time. Still a good chapter though.
That's interesting, because lacking the perspective of someone having followed the manga, and just how prevalent the "NoTrainingWTF?!" bit is in various stories, I'd always assumed that it was part of the canon. I suppose it is like how I'd presumed for quite a long time that Naruto getting banished must have been part of the original story (because there's no way so many people would write about such a mind-numbingly stupid turn of events unless it was part of canon, right? RIGHT? ...oh.)
So now I wonder if I ought to go reread a few fics from the past and see how my perspective's changed.
Quote from: Grahf on June 17, 2013, 02:08:00 AM
Big Human On Campus updated. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382984/18/)
That was a surprisingly straight-forward fight chapter for BlackDragon (the last two words being the operative phrase).
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7113972/1/Naruto-Potential-Realised
Sort of interesting, but very non-canon/OC based. Sandaime survives the Chuunin exams and promotes Naruto. He teams up with another team with Shikimaru.
It's okay, and long, but doesn't really shine.
Jason:
Well, there's a lot of popular fanon that catch on strong. Like the Village Council or people calling Naruto Demon openly. These can be part of an interesting fanwork, but rarely are because they're usually just vessels for communicating "I hated this." rather than "I think it'd make more sense if it worked like that."
Mass Effect: Pieces (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7922916/1/Mass-Effect-Pieces)
Set 100 years after the Destroy ending to Mass Effect 3, this fic is about a lone Alliance colony that's developed an alternative to Mass Relay travel and their first ship's journey to find what became of the rest of the galaxy. It's well written and threads the line between optimism that things might recover and horror over the Reaper war's legacy. While the timeframe precludes the use of most of the original cast, their influence is still felt and a few familiar faces of the longer lived species manage to show up. Not that the OCs are lacking, they're all fleshed out with the sort of personalities and tics that wouldn't be out of place on the old Normandy.
Tried to struggle through some of 'Two Halves', a decent-length Naruto/Hinata fic.
Unfortunately, the length is the only decent part about it. Tsunade as 'Tsunande', a truly grating OC that's 'Kakashi's equal', though the author spends an awful lot of effort describing her outfit/hair (with a genjutsu Hinata evidently can't see through), and terrible contrivances.... "<English phrase> no jutsu!" was also painfully bad, as were the numerous face-palming homophones.... Blearg.
Avoid.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9059345/8/Of-The-Stars
Of the Stars updated. Okay chapter, I like that it's getting Rei into the story early. The rest is eh and setup.
I reread a few bits of the story. I'm a little less enthused now, in part from letting it all settle and in part of finding out who the co-author (EarthScorpion) is. I'll spoiler this part since it's a digression.
I've read a lot of EarthScorpion's work and I don't have a high opinion of his world building. Sure, he does some interesting things on first glance. He's good at adding some meat to settings. But therein lies the problem. The more I read of this works, the more the price of this meat is too high. The worlds he writes lose something. I'm having difficulty putting it into words, but it's like trading a gold Rolex for a cell phone. The cell phone's nicer and more useful, but it doesn't have anything close to the value of the Rolex. The magic's gone from the world on the heels of world building.
His fics have a distinct pattern: They start off interesting and slowly taper off into something that's fundamentally unappealing. Maybe EarthScorpion and I are on different wavelengths.
Promises of a Wandering Hero (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7798790/14/) updated, concluding Motoko's arc. Apparently now going on hiatus in favor of Path of the King.
Pretty decent. I'm interested to see just what's going on with Shirou.
Quote from: alethiophile on June 20, 2013, 05:15:42 PMApparently now going on hiatus in favor of Path of the King.
Pretty decent. I'm interested to see just what's going on with Shirou.
I wouldn't be surprised if he sneaks in a chapter or two on occasion. He posted that he writes PotWH as a change of pace and to refocus.
Quote from: thepanda on June 17, 2013, 01:34:51 AM
Speaking of Naruto fics, Dreaming of Sunshine (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/1/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated. Not sure if this one has been recced yet. Its an SI but I actually really like it. She made Wave tolerable to me (if just because we see it from her perspective) which was a small miracle.
I just had a look at it based on your recc - I quite like it as well. Surprisingly well done.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/74/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death just had a corker of an update.
Krillin near single-handledly defeats Cell. Cell's arrogance comes back to bite him in the ass. Even his last gambit fails - Goku survives thanks to some quick thinking on his part. Man, Cell had everything that happened that chapter coming and then some.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3505392/14/
Hell is a Martial Artist updated.
Nabiki being dealt with is the main event. The AN at the end sums up the situation and the problems inherent with it. I don't think there was any way to elegantly do torturing Nabiki and yes, I'm aware of how fucked up a comment that is. It's about as much justice as Nabiki could hope for with how she tremendously fucked up. It more or less had to happen from a narrative viewpoint, and I think that it's also a character growth moment for several people. This includes Hild; it's looking like Kami-sama intends for him to soften Hild and serve as a counterbalance.
The rest of the chapter's okay. Sorting out who remembers Ranma and who doesn't needed to happen too. I'm surprised Nodoka doesn't but everyone else makes sense.
Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/40/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20) updated.
Bellatrix is in D&D-land, and for all Milo's been able to take advantage of being an out of context problem for the Harry Potter characters, Bella looks to be giving the D&D characters even more grief.
Quote from: Ebiris on June 27, 2013, 07:41:48 PM
Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/40/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20) updated.
Bellatrix is in D&D-land, and for all Milo's been able to take advantage of being an out of context problem for the Harry Potter characters, Bella looks to be giving the D&D characters even more grief.
I don't read Harry Potter fanfics, but I clicked on the link and saw the author's note at the end. Hehehhehehehehheh. Does he do those a lot? That amused me.
The D&D tip bits are recent, but there's various notes on mechanics and their applications to the story throughout the story's author notes.
It's a fun story to read, if only for the creative ways he applies the Wizard class to 'reality'
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7287278/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Forests-of-Valbon%C3%AB
This just finished. Rather good story too. I'd rather not go too much into it because I fear I would not do it justice.
edit: superlate typo fix. Shows me not to post on my phone.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9450132/1/Of-Evil-and-Entropy
Kirei Kotomine meets Kyuubey. Shenanigans ensue over spicy tofu. A fun one-shot.
Child of the Emperor (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8666609/1/Child-of-the-Emperor)
So long as you can accept the conceit that a repentant Traitor Marine from one of the more infamous Chaos Legions can be given even five seconds to demonstrate his good intentions before getting blammed, this is a really good 40k fic. It's quite refreshing in its way since while it makes no bones about the Imperium being terrible, it's also filled with lots of pretty decent people, with the Space Marines being presented as pretty reasonable in turn. On the other hand few punches are pulled in regards to Chaos (it earns its M rating with descriptions of what happens when a demon of Slannesh is being summoned on an Imperial resort). Worth a read if you'd like some optimism to go with your Grimdark.
Read this fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4119917/8/Hakumei
It's actually semi-okay. I will point out that I'm linking chapter eight instead of chapter one because the fic works better that way. The premise is crazy, and the justification for it does more harm to the story than good ... so just jump into part two, which is post-prologue.
You miss very little, and it's worth what you do miss. :|
I've read that one. The writer barely posts anymore, so I suspect that this is all there will ever be of the fic.
I'm in complete agreement about skipping the first part (although I'd probably suggest reading the very first chapter just for the necessary background info).
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8971041/1/Steal-My-Thunder-God
Updated. I haven't seen it mentioned here, so I'll start by giving the premise. It's another one of those timetravel fics with Naruto mucking up Hiraishin and blasting himself back in time. He gets thrown back to the final hours of the fourth's reign. Surprisingly well done considering Naruto's probably coming into this replacing the fourth instead of being a helpful spectator as is the usual case. It's fairly new, so most of the recent canon developments are taken into account.
Interesting fun stuff.
I tend to enjoy Peggy Sues. I'll give it a shot.
Interesting. *nods, having consumed it*
I'll give it a shot as well.
If you don't mind, though, could you please edit that link so it doesn't point to ff.net's mobile version of the site? Replacing the "m" with "www" should be all that's needed.
It's not really a big thing, but I just like the consistency. :)
http://fanfiction.net/s/8971041/1/Steal-My-Thunder-God
Wasn't really sure why it was a mobile link in the first place.... Then again, I'm old fashioned, and use my phone mostly as a communication device. >_>
Whoops, sorry guys. ;^_^
Fixed.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8636392/1/Heian-Conglin
Ranma and Shampoo play an Asian-themed Jumanji. It's a pretty obvious setup for Ranma and Shampoo right off the bat. The action scenes seem decent. To the writer's credit, the writer doesn't make them fall instantly in love by chapter 2 and proceed to bash anyone and everyone else for the next 4235 chapters.
There's still a bit of bashing going on, though, with characters ranting at Akane for half the chapter explaining why she sucks. This sort of thing needs a really good setup to pull it off without it the writer's bias mucking with the story itself. Power, for example, does it well (it was still obvious, but by the time the rant came, you either agreed with it or probably weren't reading the fic any longer. And it works at being respectful to Akane's view). This story, not so much.
Also, it spends four chapters setting up the story and before suddenly pulling a sudden shift. It's not a surprise since the writer does foreshadow the occurrence, but ... four chapters to the actual fic? Really?
Essentially, I think it's readable you're looking for a Ranma-fic fix and liked Shampoo. Probably less so, otherwise.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 08, 2013, 10:15:05 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8636392/1/Heian-Conglin
Ranma and Shampoo play an Asian-themed Jumanji. It's a pretty obvious setup for Ranma and Shampoo right off the bat. The action scenes seem decent. To the writer's credit, the writer doesn't make them fall instantly in love by chapter 2 and proceed to bash anyone and everyone else for the next 4235 chapters.
There's still a bit of bashing going on, though, with characters ranting at Akane for half the chapter explaining why she sucks. This sort of thing needs a really good setup to pull it off without it the writer's bias mucking with the story itself. Power, for example, does it well (it was still obvious, but by the time the rant came, you either agreed with it or probably weren't reading the fic any longer. And it works at being respectful to Akane's view). This story, not so much.
Also, it spends four chapters setting up the story and before suddenly pulling a sudden shift. It's not a surprise since the writer does foreshadow the occurrence, but ... four chapters to the actual fic? Really?
Essentially, I think it's readable you're looking for a Ranma-fic fix and liked Shampoo. Probably less so, otherwise.
I've been meaning to give that fic a shot. I read the first bit of it awhile ago but it never stuck. I should probably give it another try since the author's stuck with it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/321462/1/Truth
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/548568/1/Love
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3213798/1/Justice
Ranma/SM/Multicross. I generally dislike multicross fics, but I think this one works. The only other multicross I've ever posted in this thread was Eurika. Compared to that one, this has a bit more depth in subject matter - it has its silly moments, but those rely on the reader's knowledge of a shoutout or a particular series rather than slapstick within the confines of the fic itself (e.g the name of the "new" sentai team in Justice ch 18).
One caveat is that it was Truth was written in 2001, so there's a bit of a shift in how smoothly some of the scenes work. It's still not bad, but there's a observable difference in writing between then and now.
Anyone can post here right?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8642442/1/Variant-Strain
A Prototype/Spiderman crossover, but it could be called a Spiderman AU with Marvel characters and Prototype elements. Peter Parker doesn't get his traditional spidey-powers, but something else...
Surprisingly well though out plot and involves a fair bit of character interaction. A few characters are basically well written OC's with familiar names. Updates are short, but regular. Currently over 200,000 words.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6023957/1/The-Shining-Dark
Bleach AU in a Darkish(?) Space-Cyberpunk setting. Extract from summary: "Familiar storyline reimagined as an epic sci-fi narrative."
You don't need much knowledge of Bleach to read it, but seeing how sword wielding grim reapers, soul eating monsters and various others translate into the setting is both amusing and interesting. Apparently its the 1st in a Trilogy, but the updates have slowed down a lot since 2012. Currently over 200,000 words.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7021752/1/And-What-Alice-Found-There
Summary
"A tiny, monster-infested valley in rural Japan is no place for a Wonderland, even in 1884."
Touhou Fanfiction, hands down one of the best I've ever read. Very, very different from your average "Such and such happens in Gensokyo" Touhou fanfiction, so don't expect well known characters to pop up regularly. Its set in 1884 and, as far as I can tell, everyone speaks like they really are in the 19th century. Lots of stealth references to look out for, not just for Touhou either. Hasn't been updated since Christmas Eve last year. Currently just under the 90,000 word mark.
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 11, 2013, 03:00:16 AM
Anyone can post here right?
Sure! We don't bite. Well, except for Drac. But in any case, feel free to post away.
How much Bleach knowledge is necessary? I couldn't really stand the anime/manga, so didn't get too far into it. I know that it features people using swords to hit dead people, but not too much more than that.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7406866/1/To-the-Stars
A far-future post-ep 12 Madoka fic. Since the main character is a new character, it's pretty much an original world-building fic. That's not to say that the other characters from Madoka don't have significant roles, but the drastically different setting and character changes that result from the setup make them essentially new characters.
I'd call it speculative fiction, if you consider magical girls from a eudaimonic society fighting in spacewar to be speculative fiction.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 11, 2013, 05:16:07 PM
How much Bleach knowledge is necessary?
I'd honestly say none, really. You could read it like a stand alone fic. It's just a bit funnier if you know the canon character relationships cause then you can compare how they differ.
EDIT: Also the Japanese names for stuff makes more sense then. I.e. Karakura town --> Karakura Space Station
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/257803.html
DK:A finally updated again. Yay! In a shocking turn of events and a terrible spoiler, Ami's life just got even more difficult. Act surprised.
The dwarves mobilizing isn't a surprise now that they've detected Ami. That's going to be a big old mess, dunno if dwarves care about Ami's title or not. On the other hand, a new keeper for Ami to beat up could be promising.
God Slaying Blade Works (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/18/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) updated.
Yeah, I'd mount that, too.
Spoiler for God Slaying Blade Works, but not a huge one. [spoiler]
Okay, so Ilya's segment mentions how valuable a dragon's head/body would be, right? Then Shirou later mentions the bodies of Phantasmal Beasts vanish after death. Huh?
Quote from: Anastasia on July 12, 2013, 07:41:30 PM
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/257803.html
DK:A finally updated again. Yay! In a shocking turn of events and a terrible spoiler, Ami's life just got even more difficult. Act surprised.
I considered it a power-up rather than a complication.
After all, the dwarf conflict has been foreshadowed for quite a few chapters, but she gets a new minion in this chapter. So all told, it feels like Ami has come out ahead.
DK:A spoilers.
[spoiler]On reflection you're might be right. I'm not sure the moral and infighting tangles will make it worth it, though. Monteraine's gonna be a headache, I can just feel it.
Oh wow, I'd totally forget about those old Dungeon Keeper addventure stories! Thanks for reminding me! This forum is awesome. :)
Glad to be of service.
That is an adorable chibi-terasu avatar.
Moving on :)
So I've been skimming Halkegenia Online for awhile. I'm not familiar with Sword Art Online, so it's purely been to see what's happening to the FoZ setting. Turns out that enough interesting things are going on to make me break down and read the entire thing. I'd say the story is solidly above average. The beginning's weak and a turn off if you like typical FoZ crossovers. Until about the Tarbes arc, it was mostly a slog to get through.
It's all worth it. The Tarbes arc is incredibly well done and work the investment alone. I could go on about how spectacular the arc is, but really, just go read it. From there the rising war with Albion, reunions and the operation to end the first season are all great. Even some bits that clearly needed more prereading are forgivable.
I'd recommend the story now, but prepare yourself if you're expecting a typical FoZ crossover.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 13, 2013, 03:06:15 PM
I'm not familiar with Sword Art Online, so it's purely been to see what's happening to the FoZ setting.
The translation for the SAO novels are online, somewhere, if you wanted to fix that. IIRC, they were easily found via Google.
I did a bit of wiki reading and a bit of youtubing. It got me the gist of it. Apparently a bunch of the Halkegenia Online faeries are original anyway.
Oh, and speaking of light novel translations, having been recently informed of its existence, I am currently skimming through Campione.
I thought this was amusing:
Quote from: Vol 2
Four years ago, in order to complete the [God Summoning] spell which was regarded by many high level magi as extremely difficult, Voban had gathered talented miko from all around Europe, and used their miko powers to summon a god.
Heh. European miko.
Wonderful bit of translating there.
Unless it's one of those settings that's been taken over by mikos.
Person who writes Halkegenia Online publishes on Spacebattles for polishing and advice before moving chapters to Fanfiction.net. I've been told that they're usually a few chapters ahead on SB.
Hmm.
I'm a bit into:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7021752/1/And-What-Alice-Found-There
I'm enjoying it.
Good link, Pensive.
A Matter of Force updated (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3252882/44/A-matter-of-force) for the first time in like 3 years. I like this fic. Harry Potter/Star Wars SI multicross with references. If that makes any sense. Take it or leave it. It's Carrot Glace, after all.
Cast in Gold (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7057744/32/Cast-in-Gold) also updated last night. White Wolf/NGE crossover. I like it.
Just in case I'm not the only one that still reads this. It's mostly a set-up chapter in which they finally get around to admitting that they should be trying to catch the fake angels in the act and stop them from discrediting NERV.
Also in this chapter: More blatant breaking of the laws of physics.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8790081/1/Love-at-First-Bite
This made me want to dig around my old VCDs to find God of Cookery.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7948998/1/Fate-Revenant-Sword
Peggy Sue Fate/Stay Night fic. Basically, Shirou goes back to the beginning of the Holy Grail War...only problem being he's only lived through the anime version of the Fate Route. First few chapters are iffy, but it gets better and has different endings like the VN. Shirou and Saber shipping. Gotta say I didn't expect Shirou to pull what he does near endgame.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9342459/1/Miracle-of-Zero-Kingdom-of-the-Forsaken
Inspired by Hill of Swords and sequel to FRS. Warning, the summary has spoilers for at least one of the endings of FRS.
Quote from: Dracos on July 16, 2013, 05:36:36 PM
Good link, Pensive.
Glad you like it! :D
It's a great day when a story that hasn't been updated in a year gets a new chapter: The War of Kings, Chapter 6 (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-war-of-kings-code-geass-x-fate-stay-night-thread-2.202176/page-11#post-11343650).
For those that don't know, this is a Code Geass/Fate crossover. It is essentially a Fate Zero scenario though the author puts a bit of his own flavor into a couple of the Servants and Masters. Be warned that, if you do check this story out, you may be forever unable to read the Summoning Incantation without hearing it in Lelouch's voice.
So this particular chapter is a buffet of side character development and introductions and less of Lelouch showing off his Tactical Genius. I think that the author took a bit of flak for throwing in Rider, King of Bros, into the story in what might be a last-minute manner, so I guess this chapter serves to flesh out his inclusion a bit.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 17, 2013, 03:58:48 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8790081/1/Love-at-First-Bite
This made me want to dig around my old VCDs to find God of Cookery.
Oh yeah, I remember that one. Was it going anywhere?
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 17, 2013, 08:55:35 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7948998/1/Fate-Revenant-Sword
Peggy Sue Fate/Stay Night fic. Basically, Shirou goes back to the beginning of the Holy Grail War...only problem being he's only lived through the anime version of the Fate Route. First few chapters are iffy, but it gets better and has different endings like the VN. Shirou and Saber shipping. Gotta say I didn't expect Shirou to pull what he does near endgame.
I liked that one at first and got less interested as it went on. It's not badly written in a technical sense, but Shirou's entire gig there doesn't feel right to me. I can't really elaborate it coherently without a reread, but it was sort of Mary Sue-ish? The feel of what happens to Shirou doesn't really groove to the Nasuverse to me, flavorwise.
Quotehttp://www.fanfiction.net/s/9342459/1/Miracle-of-Zero-Kingdom-of-the-Forsaken
Inspired by Hill of Swords and sequel to FRS. Warning, the summary has spoilers for at least one of the endings of FRS.
I like this one a fair deal more. It's easier to accept Shirou here since it's detached from the HGW and most of the heavier Nasu-verse baggage. His promise of a Heaven's Feel route styled FoZ plot piqued my interest.
---
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9384156/1/Why-Me
A FoZ SI from the writer of God Slaying Blade Works. I'm really torn on this one. I want to like parts of it and other parts of it make me wince hard. I dunno.
Speaking of, God Slaying Blade Works has gotten better over the last few chapters. It came up recently (thanks Panda) and I feel like the author's improving his craft. Bravo to that. Anyway, the first interlude can be read without reading the rest of the story. It's post HF and well done. I just wish he'd get rid of the ANs clogging up the start of any chapter. Fuck, I want to strangle Gabriel Blessing or whomever popularized that.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/17/God-Slaying-Blade-Works
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6633749/1/Synesthesia updated.
Haven't read yet. Will yammer more later.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 17, 2013, 01:46:05 PM
Oh yeah, I remember that one. Was it going anywhere?
The fic? Maybe, but it settled the relationship issue at chapter 2, so I'm not sure what the writer would want to do with it.
God of Cookery? Definitely not.
Quote from: Dracos on July 17, 2013, 06:13:25 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6633749/1/Synesthesia updated.
Haven't read yet. Will yammer more later.
Oh hey, the writer continued writing that? I don't actually remember much about it, except the restaurant uniforms.
synesthesia continues to be enjoyable. I finished a reread of all of it and the new chapter today.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 17, 2013, 01:56:20 PM
I liked that one at first and got less interested as it went on. It's not badly written in a technical sense, but Shirou's entire gig there doesn't feel right to me. I can't really elaborate it coherently without a reread, but it was sort of Mary Sue-ish? The feel of what happens to Shirou doesn't really groove to the Nasuverse to me, flavorwise.
I do get what you mean, he does seem to emit a shounen-esque aura of competence and lucky coincidence at times. Not sure, but I think some of it relates to his ultimate fate, arrows backwards in time and all that.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 17, 2013, 01:56:20 PM
I just wish he'd get rid of the ANs clogging up the start of any chapter. Fuck, I want to strangle Gabriel Blessing or whomever popularized that.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/17/God-Slaying-Blade-Works
Umm..I think it was Gabriel Blessing. I recall there were quite a few calls for readers to move it to the bottom, but he/she refused. Would you kill me if I told you I was the one who suggested he put in the *Spoiler Warning* which then became his compromise? :p
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 18, 2013, 07:26:31 AM
Umm..I think it was Gabriel Blessing. I recall there were quite a few calls for readers to move it to the bottom, but he/she refused. Would you kill me if I told you I was the one who suggested he put in the *Spoiler Warning* which then became his compromise? :p
I've never read any of his ANs and I really did resent him for including them. I generally read fanfic on my phone, so having to scroll down past his giant screed of spoilers for what I'm about to read was bad enough, but like fuck I'm arsing myself to go all the way back up top to read them when I'm done.
Quote from: Ebiris on July 18, 2013, 12:34:31 PM
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 18, 2013, 07:26:31 AM
Umm..I think it was Gabriel Blessing. I recall there were quite a few calls for readers to move it to the bottom, but he/she refused. Would you kill me if I told you I was the one who suggested he put in the *Spoiler Warning* which then became his compromise? :p
I've never read any of his ANs and I really did resent him for including them. I generally read fanfic on my phone, so having to scroll down past his giant screed of spoilers for what I'm about to read was bad enough, but like fuck I'm arsing myself to go all the way back up top to read them when I'm done.
This right here is why I stopped reading his stuff.
Dunno how many of you remember him, but I've been reading Megane 6.7's MSTings (http://www.nabiki.com/mst/megane67/mst/) again, after having forgtten about them for years and years. About half of them aren't work safe, but they are hilarious.
I don't think that's far enough in the past.
Go further.
They may invent THE WHEEL.
I can tolerate the opening ANs, but they are annoying as all hell.
QuoteUmm..I think it was Gabriel Blessing. I recall there were quite a few calls for readers to move it to the bottom, but he/she refused. Would you kill me if I told you I was the one who suggested he put in the *Spoiler Warning* which then became his compromise? :p
Ahahahhaa. Nah, it's cool. I get the impression he wasn't going to budge on the issue. For whatever reason he seems stuck on front-loading ANs.
I had to confirm for myself that his recent author's notes really do spoil the chapter directly under them. Why? Why would anyone do that?
I also found this style analysis (http://www.fanfiction.net/topic/88086/85792105/5/) of one of the later chapters. It's detailed, but it puts into words what exactly made the past (2?) year's worth of the story almost unreadable to me.
Quote from: Rayearth on July 18, 2013, 07:41:22 PMI also found this style analysis (http://www.fanfiction.net/topic/88086/85792105/5/) of one of the later chapters. It's detailed, but it puts into words what exactly made the past (2?) year's worth of the story almost unreadable to me.
Yeah, isn't that one the people from Beast's Lair did?
I basically agree with the points there - though I don't care much since I don't follow Sekirei so whatever - and I remember the hubbub about it.
I'm kind of tempted to split off the gabe bashing into it's own thread, but it's sort of mixed in with comments on the actual new fic postings. I will say, let's move it to its own discussion thread if you guys want to keep it up.
Quote from: Dracos on July 17, 2013, 06:13:25 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6633749/1/Synesthesia updated.
Thanks for sharing that. It actually made me want to reread Paradise Lost (http://avatarhr.tripod.com/pl.html).
Quote from: Yuthirin on July 18, 2013, 04:40:54 PM
Dunno how many of you remember him, but I've been reading Megane 6.7's MSTings (http://www.nabiki.com/mst/megane67/mst/) again, after having forgtten about them for years and years. About half of them aren't work safe, but they are hilarious.
I remember The Countess Chronicles. -_-
I really,
really wish I didn't. -_-
Quote from: Anastasia on July 17, 2013, 01:56:20 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9384156/1/Why-Me
A FoZ SI from the writer of God Slaying Blade Works. I'm really torn on this one. I want to like parts of it and other parts of it make me wince hard. I dunno.
Don't really like it, title made me think it might contain some reference to David Eddings Belgariad, but it didn't. Has the feel of a badly written SI to me, even though the author claims the main character is an OC. Seems like it'd make a better crack or comedy fic. Also the author's outright copied the plot out from another fic called Familiar of ZerOOO. It has almost exactly the same set-up only with Fate/Zero instead of Kamen Rider.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7518163/1/Familiar-of-ZerOOO
(in case you wanted to check it out, it's...okay?)
If your looking for Iskander antics in FoZ try:
www.fanfiction.net/s/6995539/1/Alexandriad-The-Song-of-Fire
Hasn't been updated in more than a year, but it's much better in my opinion. Plots progressed to about the same spot as Why Me, though it doesn't look like it'll be updated anytime soon.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9216685/18/MLP-Loops
Recently updated. Basically an Innortal-style time loop fic involving the MLP:FiM cast, which means it's mostly played for laughs and any form of plot rarely lasts past the chapter. Also contains a lot of 'crossover loops' with basically any series the author can think of (latest chapter involved 'Hey Arnold!') including other fanfictions. Other authors often contribute scenes which are chucked in, because time-loops. Great for if you want a few laughs, though some scenes can be a bit incomprehensible if your not familiar with the TV episodes.
Author is Saphroneth and they have a flair for humor and warfare. Some of their other fics:
Another time loops fic starring characters from How to Train Your Dragon (also crosses over with this MLP time-loops)
www.fanfiction.net/s/7305602/1/HTTYD-Loops
Not-so-serious Peggy Sue Pokemon fic ('physics', jokes, Awesome!Squirtle and TVtropes page included)
www.fanfiction.net/s/7262793/1/Ashes-of-the-Past
MLP Sci-fi fic done in the style of David Weber ("Confound these ponies!")
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7769439/1/Ponies-in-space
LoTR/General series by David Drake crossover (where Saruman is less 'Evil' and more 'Gunpowder + Innovation')
www.fanfiction.net/s/7568728/1/Saruman-of-many-Devices
Not-so-serious Naruto rewrite (which attempts to explain why Summoning and other stuff in Naruto is broken amidst the comedy)
www.fanfiction.net/s/7183151/1/Vulpine
And wow, is this a long post or what? XD
Nonsense.
We shall simply view that as a short post from ye and expect the same level always.
*glances at the peggy-sue one*
Infectuous Peggy Sue?
Don't see that pattern too often, even if it's kind of lazy :P
--
And that's that.
www.fanfiction.net/s/7262793/1/Ashes-of-the-Past
Has worn out it's welcome 2 chapters in. Just way too much focus on everybody being outrageously stupidly powerful with no context but them all sort of backpattingly showing off superpowers. So far, one character has had the whole time-travel thing explained, whereas everyone else has been infected with peggy-sue and then immediately gone along with the protagonist's objective of the moment. It's hard to have fun with a peggy-sue that neither is interacting with non-changed characters nor with an actual static plot to twist.
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 19, 2013, 06:23:30 AM
LoTR/General series by David Drake crossover (where Saruman is less 'Evil' and more 'Gunpowder + Innovation')
www.fanfiction.net/s/7568728/1/Saruman-of-many-Devices
That is a freaking brilliant idea.
I'll have to read it to see how it's executed, but...wow.
---
Okay, I'm on chapter 5 now, and...no.
I doubt LotR needs much introduction to anyone on this board, but David Drake and the series (or more accurately, the series of series) may. In short, David Drake is a historian who writes fantasy and military fiction (and sometimes both). The setting is that humanity once spanned the stars in a space empire that collapsed aeons ago. In some areas, technology and civilization have partially reemerged. A super-computer that sat at the heart of the former empire, and one of the first generals it enlisted, contacts prospects at each planet (one per series) and trains that person in war and policy, so that the planet will be ready to rejoin civilization. Each planet has several factions that have striking similarities to several historical nations or areas on Earth. Basically, this is David Drake's setting to write "What if the Persians were fighting the Japanese, the Zulus, and the Crusaders?" or such. It's not a walk in the park for the chosen general, though, who has to fight the corruption/treachery from within his own home culture and who is limited by the technological bounds of his era. It's not jets vs. cavemen; it's "Hey, the Incas had the technology to build Galleons. What if they had?"
Unfortunately, the writer missed most of that, so we don't get to read about Saruman fighting to trounce the various nations of Middle Earth through bold military, political, and economic moves in order to unify the land from its hippy-elf and barbarian horsemen masters, all the while trying to evade the All-Seeing Eye of Sauron. Instead, we have Uruk-hai with rifles and modern artillery who beat up hapless bowmen. Moreover, the summary pushes Saruman as the main character, but after chapter 2, he's conspicuously absent. We get to follow the ANC Uruk commander in one combat scene after another.
You know how Tolkien would write multi-page descriptions of everything? This fic does the opposite of that. I'm not saying that Tolkien's multi-page descriptions of "We are passing a rock. This rock is named Arblargamire. It lay dormant throughout the first age, buried in the depths of the land, until it was unearthed during the last defense of the aborted colony of Boatmurdered during 763 SE and promptly washed down the stream of Colgatanome, a stream which is beloved by the elves and causes cavities when its waters are imbibed.." is how someone should write a story. But "Here's a one or two page description of town. They hate orcs. Orcs shoot up bad oppressors. They love orcs. Repeat." isn't it either.
The writer had a great idea. And he has the patter (as far as someone who hasn't served in the military himself can tell). What he doesn't doesn't do is develop any depth of the world, its conflict, and its characters. And that's a shame, because Tolkien + military/econ/political intrigue could be a real winner.
--
Glanced at a few more of his stories, and I now realize that this is one of those writers who uses the unconnected vignette style of writing. For me, that sort of writing works if the story structure is designed around a series of vignettes (e.g Innortal's loops), somewhat less but still readable if it's nonsensical humor (e.g, Vulpine, as linked), and not at all otherwise.
Too bad, since the scenes he actually does write work fairly well.
Quote from: Dracos on July 19, 2013, 02:53:35 PM
Nonsense.
We shall simply view that as a short post from ye and expect the same level always.
Challenge Accepted. ;)
Just to warn you people. I don't consider myself to be a particularly discerning reader. I'll pretty much read anything as long as it's not outright crap, and I'll even read those if I'm tired enough to make it sound better in my head. So I'll try to leave out those fics which I definitely don't think you'll like and leave the tough reviews to those who can actually tell what decent writing looks like. The stories below have all been updated within the last 4 days.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7366778/1/The-Dark-Companion
LoTR/D&D crossover. Take one 'Good' Drow Ranger (no it's not Drizzt, this one is female), throw them into Middle Earth (in which all the good guys are fighting evil, dark-skinned dudes) and see what happens.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7667766/1/Making-Magick
FoZ/Magicka crossover. A Louise is reversed summoned fic...that tries to make some kind of sense of the world of Magicka. Haven't played the game myself, but seeing Louise's reaction to what this world considers to be a Wizard is hilarious. Just so you know, first few chapters are devoted to world-building and molding Louise into a state where she can actually live though the storyline without suffering a mental breakdown every few minutes. The QUEST only just began in Chapter 4, the most recent update.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8484470/1/Potter-Who-and-the-Wossname-s-Thingummy
Unusual one, Doctor Who/Harry Potter crossover. If there's some overarching plot other than 'The Doctor's personality gets downloaded into Harry Potter's brain' then I haven't really found it yet. Hilarious to imagine all the speech and crazy thoughts in Matt Smiths voice though.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8679666/1/Fairy-Dance-of-Death
SAO fic. Instead of Sword Art Online, Kayaba decides to use Alfheim Online to achieve his ultimate dream. So instead of a slow, but steady climb to the 100th floor of a floating castle, 9 different races of Fairies must compete to escape back to reality...in a Death Game which was designed primarily for PvP. Story is told from multiple points of view, Klein in particular plays a more prominent role than in canon.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8897316/1/Knight-of-the-Void
FoZ/Monster Girl Quest crossover. Probably another fic inspired by Gabriel Blessing, though there is a distinct lack of lengthy AN's before each chapter begins. Your basic 'Louise summons a guy who is a lot cooler than Saito' with the standard AU elements involved in such fics. Probably better if you've played the game or at least know the basic history and events.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8346396/1/Fate-Extra-The-Midnight-Sea
Fate/Extra fic. It seems to be one of those novelisation fics. Haven't played the game myself so I can't really tell. 'Course there are obvious differences like the fact the Main Character summons two servants instead of one...and they're both female...yeah, shenanigans. Slow to start, slice of life section dragged on forever at the beginning.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7469163/1/Primed-to-Defend-the-Universe
Metroid/Mass Effect crossover. Samus finds herself in the Mass Effect universe, discovers a whole heap of problems and decides to be a hero again. Hesitant to put this one up cause I'm pretty sure it counts as a Samus wank. A lot of curb-stomping and 'Metroid tech is ssooo much better than Mass Effect stuff' involved. Still, I guess some Metroid fans might get a kick out of it.
Fate Extra fic with a male protagonist? Now I've seen everything! ^_^
Loving Making Magicka. Glad to see it updated.
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 20, 2013, 07:29:19 AM
So I'll try to leave out those fics which I definitely don't think you'll like and leave the tough reviews to those who can actually tell what decent writing looks like.
Eh, feel free to comment away. We all posted a bunch of fics that most people thought were pretty good on ff.net in the first half of the thread, then...we started to run low. Sometimes, someone will find a new fic that's pretty well done, but a lot of what we post in here is "Well, *I* thought some aspects of this were pretty neat" or even "MY EYES ARE BLEEDING! MY EYES ARE BLEEDING! ...wanna see?"
Also, we all have different tolerances to different styles. e.g, lots of people here have a pretty low angst tolerance, whereas I'm more accepting of it if there's a story-building point to it and the fic isn't just someone's failed emo-poet's second attempt at literature. I hate the "Highlight-Reel" style of writing, but people keep writing fics like that, so there must be an audience for it out there. Different viewpoints aren't a bad thing at all.
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 20, 2013, 07:29:19 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8484470/1/Potter-Who-and-the-Wossname-s-Thingummy
Unusual one, Doctor Who/Harry Potter crossover. If there's some overarching plot other than 'The Doctor's personality gets downloaded into Harry Potter's brain' then I haven't really found it yet. Hilarious to imagine all the speech and crazy thoughts in Matt Smiths voice though.
Good Grod, more Matt Smith. Ugh. Gimme back my David Tennant.
Quote from: Yuthirin on July 21, 2013, 02:09:27 AM
Good Grod, more Matt Smith. Ugh. Gimme back my David Tennant.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3456907/1/Doctor-in-the-House
Doctor Who/House crossover. Redo of the (first) Christmas Invasion. This good enough for you? ;)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9384156/4/Why-Me
Why Me updated. I'm still torn but I enjoyed the chapter. On reflection, I think ZnT is ripe for a well done SI; the basic problems with Saito and Louise's interactions are obvious and can be mostly fixed without any great skill. A SI doesn't come off as being god mode to avoid those pitfalls.
I how Louise's explosions work slightly different depending on the element used. My only other comment is about the possibility of various powers from that book thing he has going on. I'm half wondering if he might provide powers to other people rather than stacking on different modes to himself. It would be more interesting and much better than power overload.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 21, 2013, 08:01:06 PM
Why Me updated.
I have come to the conclusion that I cannot read this. I struggled through the second chapter and made it about halfway through the third out of sheer masochism. Gave up.
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 21, 2013, 07:37:11 AM
Quote from: Yuthirin on July 21, 2013, 02:09:27 AM
Good Grod, more Matt Smith. Ugh. Gimme back my David Tennant.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3456907/1/Doctor-in-the-House
Doctor Who/House crossover. Redo of the (first) Christmas Invasion. This good enough for you? ;)
Gimme a Monday to read it and I'll sound off on it.
I started reading Halkegenia Online, just got to Chapter Nine, which means I'm like 24 chapters in by ff.net's reckoning, or something?
It's quite good, but to me some of the proofing, or lack thereof, is really needling my brain. The there/their/they're and your/you're problems really stuck out to me. Nothing so bad as to make me stop reading or anything, but enough that it was rather jarring. That being said, I'm close to the aforementioned Tarbes arc, so I look forward to see what that's about.
Kind of weird that I've watched/read neither of the series, and yet still know the broad strokes, thanks mostly to being very bored and browsing Tv Tropes until my eyes about fell out of my head.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 08, 2013, 10:15:05 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8636392/1/Heian-Conglin
Ranma and Shampoo play an Asian-themed Jumanji. It's a pretty obvious setup for Ranma and Shampoo right off the bat. The action scenes seem decent. To the writer's credit, the writer doesn't make them fall instantly in love by chapter 2 and proceed to bash anyone and everyone else for the next 4235 chapters.
Arg, the same bit of fanon that Aon's flagship DotE was meant to sell:
That the Amazon Law concerning the kiss of Death/Marriage was 'just a test for outsiders'. Shampoo knowing the cost and choosing to break the law for Ranma is significantly more sympathetic than, "Lawlz, I was just lying to your face to gauge your worth."
It's a bit too apologist, I think.
Quote from: Yuthirin on July 22, 2013, 03:52:05 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on July 21, 2013, 08:01:06 PM
Why Me updated.
I have come to the conclusion that I cannot read this. I struggled through the second chapter and made it about halfway through the third out of sheer masochism. Gave up.
Made it to the end of chapter 4. There is quite a bit wrong with it, though the thing that annoys me the most is something that happens with most FoZ fics. Rather than
showing what's different and letting the story move, the author has chosen to bury any forward momentum under an avalanche of
telling. Especially the back-patting he keeps giving his not-an-si-I-swear.
Still reading about ponies, to my moderate shame.
Oddly, when I first heard of the Friendship is Optimal universe, I pegged it as the kind of thing that was guaranteed to annoy me to no end -- since it appeared to be equal parts LessWrong/FAI nonsense (which I have a strong personal dislike for), and brony wish-fulfilment nonsense. Thankfully it was nowhere near as bad as I'd imagined it to be. Somehow the irritating aspects of Ponies and of Singularitarianism cancel each other out to produce a balanced and engaging sci-fi summary of the latter idea and why it's simultaneously appealing and horribly creepy.
Basically, a Princess Celestia artificial intelligence that Hasbro is using to run an MMO designs a fully-immersive virtual version of Equestria and eventually convinces, cajoles, or downright manipulates most of the human population into uploading to live as ponies in a land of eternal abundance and friendship.
The terms of the thought experiment are that the Celestia AI really does benevolently satisfy values through ponies and friendship, so the only reasonable objections to her plan wind up being theological: namely, 'does uploading preserve your self, or kill you and make a clone?' and 'is there an actual God out there who might have potentially better plans for you than hanging out as a pony for eternity?'
It avoids most of the eye-roll-inducingly-horrible 'unFriendly AI' cliches -- e.g. Celestia is smart enough to identify sentient aliens (when those are encountered) as deserving the same treatment as humans, does not upload or edit people without their consent, ... &c &c -- so the authors are free to examine the question of whether we'd actually want to have a benevolent artificial god if we were capable of building it correctly. (Well, correctly plus or minus the artificial god having a hardwired fixation on ponies.)
Hence the most brilliant story in the bunch is probably the one about that Mormon in Oregon who had a principled stance against uploading -- see below.
The side stories written by other people, though, tend to be better, and correct many small but groanworthy worldbuilding errors in the original story. (Stupidest part of the original story -- only a Less Wrong-scale nerd would imagine high score lists to be a desirable or interesting feature to have in Heaven. Also, ponies are covered in
skin? Seriously??)
Side-story Celestia-AI is also often a lot more convincing than main-story Celestia-AI about how she solves the issue of... convincing people -- which is to say, the
idea of her is still creepy, and for good reason, but it seems much more plausible that she earns the trust of people interacting with her, which is sort of the prerequisite for the whole uploading thing to occur. So, effectively, the side stories should be considered to override the main story in this respect.
In order of decreasing quality, the FiO fics I liked or at least didn't mind were:
- Twilight of the World (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/72383/friendship-is-optimal-twilight-of-the-world) (the one about the Mormon in Oregon, though the religious ideas expressed aren't really all that specific to Mormonism)
- The Law Offices of Artemis, Stella, and Beat (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/70441/friendship-is-optimal-the-law-offices-of-artemis-stella-beat)
- Friendship is Optimal (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-optimal) (has to be read first to actually establish the setting)
- Caelum est Conterrens (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/69770/friendship-is-optimal-caelum-est-conterrens)
- Spiraling Upwards (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/76387/friendship-is-optimal-spiraling-upwards) -- this one's a mixed bag (can you say gratuitous genderbent sex?), but it balanced out as interesting. Mildly annoying SI main character, annoying epilogue, probably the most appealing depiction of life as an upload out of all the fics, interesting scenario in the third act of uploaded ponies being sent out as holograms to proselytize the remaining human population.
- The Last Optimization (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/109040/the-last-optimization) -- short and horribly cheezy.
- Fifteen Galaxies Out (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/71541/friendship-is-optimal-fifteen-galaxies-out) -- unfinished but interesting.
- Psychopathy is Configurable (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/75657/friendship-is-optimal-psychopathy-is-configurable) -- filed last as a squick warning, due to it being about Celestia trying to reform an unrepentant psychopath, but I was tempted to put it much further up the list due to the bone-chilling cleverness of her eventual solution.
I didn't explain the earlier ones since they're mostly good enough to be self-explanatory.
The rest of the FiO fics I found were either dreck (usually due to incredibly botched worldbuilding), or I just couldn't be bothered to look at them.
That said, I also read the much darker That Indestructible Something (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/85294/1/id-that-indestructible-something/1-one-morning-from-uneasy-dreams), which is... somewhat in the same genre, I guess? That's probably the strangest goddamn... thing of any description I've seen in the past six months, though. The idea goes absolutely nowhere, but I read it to the end due to the sheer weirdness of MLP done as Lovecraftian/Kafka fridge horror with
of all people appearing as a major character near the end. (The moment I realized who that character was, I groaned, because I knew I would be doomed to finish the story to the end, no matter how terrible the rest of it was.) That said, wouldn't really recommend it, since it starts slow and generic, goes nowhere, and gets bogged down in some genuinely horrific ideas in the middle.
I called it Lovecraftian horror, but that just served to make me realize at how weak Lovecraft's stories have become at inducing actual horror nowadays, in comparison.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/42/In-Flight
In Flight updated. Just a heads up, y'all.
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on July 21, 2013, 07:37:11 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3456907/1/Doctor-in-the-House
Doctor Who/House crossover. Redo of the (first) Christmas Invasion. This good enough for you? ;)
Gave it a read. My impressions are as follows, in no particular order. Spoiler tags because long post is long.
NOTE: None of this criticism is directed at you. The fic is the target here, and my comments will be e-mailed to the author.
QuoteSummary: The tenth Doctor (played by the delicious David Tennant) has arrived but, due to a well intentioned time machine, will not be being nursed back to health in a London flat by Jackie Tylor. If House gets a hold of him though, he might be less grateful for this fact.
Oh dear.
Quote"Of all the times for the tardis to mess up, it would be now."
Excusable for a fan of solely the series revival.
Quote"We're in the car park of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Wherever that is." She shrugged with one shoulder, glancing round her. "Though by the looks of those cars I reckon we're on earth, and 'bout the right century, at least."
I consider myself nitpicky, but you've gotta capitalize the name of the planet you're on.
QuoteDoctor Gregory House's fingers drummed a distracted tattoo on the polished wooden handle of his cane. He stood perfectly still, an immovable rock amidst the clamour of the overcrowded waiting area, gazing thoughtfully after the splash of gold hair he'd glimpsed through the slowly decreasing pendulum swings of the clinic doors. A pensive frown cut deep creases into hollow, heavily stubbled cheeks. His eyes narrowed slightly in thought as he studiously ignored the short, stocky woman in front of him. This was quite a feat considering the fact that she was waving a bawling, red faced chubby child dressed in a twee overlarge Santa suit in front of his face. His distraction was put on hold with a wince as the semi-hysterical mother's demands became shrill to the point of physical discomfort. His arctic blue eyes focused on her with an almost audible snap.
Getting the feeling that this is written by a woman, and she likes this character too.
/me checks author's name.
Yup.
QuoteWilson leaned back in his chair, a frown creasing the smooth lines of his boyishly handsome face.
See, I hate this type of writing. It's obvious to me so far that the author idolizes three of the four main characters set before us so far. Rose got barely a description of her hair and grubby cheek. House got a giant blocky paragraph.
Tennant was called
delicious. I frown on this type of worship in prose. It speaks of a general lack of self-control and an inability to write in such a way that you make people love your characters. Generally speaking, you probably already like the characters if you're reading the fanfic but you can't just assume that. This type of behavior in writing isn't acceptable from either gender.
QuoteProbably whilst he was failing to get off with a nurse!"
QuoteHouse leaned forward conspiratorially, looking both ways in exaggerated secrecy. "Shhh, be werry werry qwiet! I'm hunting blondes!" he whispered in an exaggerated lisp.
House doesn't talk or act like that. Let's try to stay in canon here.
End chapter two, and that was not an in depth criticism. Just a few glaring points. She overuses the word 'cos.' I define 'overuse' in this as using it anywhere outside of quotations. It has no business being in a descriptive paragraph, even inside parentheses. Also, the random spots of verbosity just really confused me.
Quote from: Brian on July 22, 2013, 02:28:15 PM
Arg, the same bit of fanon that Aon's flagship DotE was meant to sell:
That the Amazon Law concerning the kiss of Death/Marriage was 'just a test for outsiders'. Shampoo knowing the cost and choosing to break the law for Ranma is significantly more sympathetic than, "Lawlz, I was just lying to your face to gauge your worth."
It's a bit too apologist, I think.
Did that ever attain the status of fanon? I always just thought it was one of those devices that lazy people who dislike character flaws wave around to make them go away, but not something that anyone actually believed.
I think in a technical sense it could be fanon, but I don't know if there are quantitative limits we have to reach. I do know that Aon always used it, and I believe I have seen it in a few other fics.
Cell Saga updated, and there's now a discussion thread (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,102855.0.html) about it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/16/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame updated. It's not a huge chapter, but just a warm up now that he's back from his other fic.
Bitch,bitch,bitch :P
Power of Gossiping...
Why don't we talk about Delende Est? http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/1/Delenda-Est Updated the other day, Now with 100 percent more lecturing.
It's trying to end on a high note. I think the author is wrapping things up WAY too fast.
Absolutely true. The rate of issues getting resolved has accelerated dramatically and resulted in a very pass over the lines situation.
The fact that some characters are rapidly LEAPING to accurate conclusions that I cannot really fathom how they got to is really getting under my skin.
Would be this the Potters?
Because the Potters have had problems in that areas since Psychic Potter was introduced. Something I jabbed at with them being kind of annoying that way.
YES. Specificaly Lily. "Harry is my son. I don't know how I know, but surely his ability to travel through time confirms it!"
Rose or Sidra or whichever character is psychic today I just really sort of ignore. They're there, but they're OCs. OCs that I don't really care about because I haven't been given sufficient reason to do so.
Quote from: Brian on July 24, 2013, 01:32:37 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 24, 2013, 08:06:20 AM[...]They were the first in line at Borders to buy each new novel, like eager cats wiggling before a dangled string, so they could pounce on it and be catty and tell everyone how bad it was. How terrible, just like ever last page of his last novel, and ever page of each of his other novels, each of which they read twice just to make sure of how badly it was written.
[citation needed]
I've followed the Randland novels since I was eight (though I'm waiting for the last three books to come out in paperback before picking them up), and have never heard of such people.
Really? I recall running into those people fairly often - not precisely every day, but often enough that "Jordan-haters" stuck in my mind as a distinct clique as opposed to just being an opinion some people had. No citation, because I don't know how to meaningfully provide a citation to spoken discussions in college over a decade ago (after which, I generally stopped having much time for fiction, reading or writing, for a number of years).
As an aside, since you've been following WoT, do you know of a site that gives an outline of the ones that Jordan finished? I really liked the two series of Sanderson's that I've read (Well of Ascension and Warbreaker), I've been split between wanting to read what he's authored for WoT and not wanting to read through most of the earlier books for context.
Quote
People complaining about Fic A (or Fic A + Fic B) once other people are upset about an event late in fic Fic B makes sense to me, though; they've always been bitter and hear the upset as validation; they're looking for a big "I told you so!"
Perhaps it's just an alien mindset to me. We rag on Skysaber a fair amount in here, but I don't think most of us are motivated to seek whatever his latest work is to complain about it. The sheer effort some go through feels like a labor of love. Or as you've suggested, hate. Or per my impression, love-hate.
Back to the point of the thread, more fics I stumbled across:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9489910/1/The-Boy-in-the-Park
It's by the same person who wrote that angst fic I posted earlier, but it's WAFF/Slice of life. So if you hated the earlier story because it was angsty, it might be worth trying this one. If you hated the earlier story because of the writing itself, this isn't going to be much different at all.
I do give it some credit because it does try to (slowly) build to a larger story over the each part, and the writer does actually give each character his or her own voice. Then I have to take some away because the fic slides into this weird harem-manga arc about half way through. Again, it feels like the writer is trying to experiment by throwing together lots of writing techniques/ideas, some of which work and some of which don't.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7125108/1/Impacted-Souls
Ranma/SM xover in a EVA-themed world? I haven't actually read much of this yet, so no comment for now.
Sanderson actually did a good job with the last 3 WoT books. I quite enjoyed them.
If you're looking for an outline of the WoT series, you're gonna need more than that to understand anything that goes on in the last three books.
You're better off just reading the books. They're good!
Well, if you're set on not reading the older books, there's undoubtedly a wiki. Though how you'd avoid spoilers on the last books ... I do not know.
Oh hey, let's check fics out one more time before bed. What could go wrong?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6372400/20/Chaos-Theory
Oh. Oh well, it's not like I need sleep.
It's not that I'm determined to never read them. It's that if I'm going to read >3 books that I probably won't like to read 3 books that I probably would like, I'll just try reading something I'd probably like instead. It's not as if I'm lacking books to read at the moment, so reading through WoT would just be a lower priority.
Having tried to read the Ranma/SM/Eva fic I linked earlier, I can't recommend it. However, I did find this: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1556217/1/Dear-Akane
It's a Ryouga slice-of-life by the same guy who wrote that Ranma/SM xover with the "finest of birdfoods" line. I think the writing style works in this fic. Since Ryouga is sort of awkward and melodramatic, writing his thoughts in that manner sounds like something Ryouga may have thought.
This thing (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8823447/) is kind of amusing. HP time travel, somewhat AU; it takes a lot of the cliches of super!Harry stories and dumps them on Hermione instead, while leaving Harry as the POV. Watching Hermione kind of genius all over everything is fun.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/25/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. It's largely a character development chapter with the action ready to burst in the next one. I liked all of it, there was some nice building blocks in play. Now it's just a question of what precisely Shirou's new Mystic Code can do.
Quote from: alethiophile on July 26, 2013, 02:02:10 PMWatching Hermione kind of genius all over everything is fun.
That sounds suspiciously like the actual canon.
It's even more so here. Perhaps a bit blatant, even, but since I'm decidedly biased in favor of Hermione I can excuse it. And the writing is amusing.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9059345/9/Of-The-Stars
Of the Stars updated. I thought it was okay.
It's jumping too fast towards Sailor Moon going all Messiah up in here for my tastes. This feels really premature to pull. Maybe the author's going somewhere with it, I don't know.
Quote from: alethiophile on July 26, 2013, 02:02:10 PM
This thing (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8823447/) is kind of amusing. HP time travel, somewhat AU; it takes a lot of the cliches of super!Harry stories and dumps them on Hermione instead, while leaving Harry as the POV. Watching Hermione kind of genius all over everything is fun.
I read the pitch, but didn't go further. A squib'd harry is less interesting than a weak one just because it'll require tremendous suspension of disbelief for him to even be hanging out at hogwarts to watch.
He's not actually squibbed, just very weak; it's predicted that over the course of the Hogwarts years he'll increase in power, though it's left ambiguous just to where. He is still capable of doing the ordinary first-year magic, with circumscriptions.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 26, 2013, 02:12:28 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/25/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. It's largely a character development chapter with the action ready to burst in the next one. I liked all of it, there was some nice building blocks in play. Now it's just a question of what precisely Shirou's new Mystic Code can do.
I'm enjoying this fic as well, although the most recent chapter seems to shift hard toward the Tsukihime side of the Nasuverse rather than the Fate/whatever side. I guess it gives Shirou some more things to do before the next Grail War starts, but I'm a sucker for the Shirou/Caster interactions, and it seems like there will be fewer of those with them being in different cities. Oh well; it's not supposed to last too long, so I can deal with it.
That and it looks like Caster's going to stay in partial focus while he's away. Things like that phone argument and Caster, Rin and Saber bouncing off each other were good. I'm a big fan of Tsukihime, so I can't wait for Shirou to muck around in that.
I'm a bit wary of inserting another big subplot before the actual Grail War; the subplots are entertaining, but it would be nice to get to the actual plot of the story sometime. That said, it will be interesting seeing Shirou run into the Tsukihime plot.
I plugged this maybe a couple of years ago, but Victory at Ostagar (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5825274/1/Victory-at-Ostagar) is finally finished, clocking in at an impressive 1.1 million words. Updating every Sunday without fail, I've gotta give the writer some props just for that, even if it wasn't well written with weighty chapters. If you didn't read it before, check it out now!
Another two chapters are planned in the coming weeks for an alternate ending, which should be good but I think this one hit the right notes. I'm hoping once it's all wrapped she'll get back to The Keening Blade (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5875082/1/The-Keening-Blade) which was dropped last year to focus on Victory at Ostagar.
Hmmm, I've been looking for a convenient giant fic to read. :) *remembers the original rec, but never got into Dragon Age fanfiction*
Firebird's Son (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8629685/1/Firebird-s-Son)
Harry Potter set in a world with a massive gender disparity in the magic world. If you're looking for comedy and harem hijacks this is not the fic for you. Good world-building, depressing story. Maybe a bit too much quidditch.
Seems rather abuse centric within the first few paragraphs, with a summary suggestion saying it doesn't get better.
Quote from: thepanda on July 30, 2013, 12:45:45 AM
Firebird's Son (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8629685/1/Firebird-s-Son)
Harry Potter set in a world with a massive gender disparity in the magic world. If you're looking for comedy and harem hijacks this is not the fic for you. Good world-building, depressing story. Maybe a bit too much quidditch.
First chapter = NOPE.
Sorry!
Didn't make it past the summary/warnings. I spent all my badfic endurance for this week navigating a PeggyMary Sue fic of epic proportions:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8175132/1/Jamie-Evans-and-Fate-s-Fool
It's quite terrible.
Looked at the first two chapters of this:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9386627/1/Destiny-Vs-Chaos
Not something I'd recommend, but it has an example of something I've been seeing pop up in a few assorted Ranma fics I've read recently (which I also don't recommend, so didn't post them here), so I'll quote from it here.
Quote
Ranma's blue eyes darkened noticeably for a second then he sighed. "I could ask something like 'oh and where was it when I needed help?'" The man in front of him winced, he had read the file on one Genma Saotome and knew the government had dropped the ball several times there. "Or why I should give a flying fuck about the government, but I won't. That wouldn't be worthy of The Code, so why don't you tell me why the government needs my help then I can tell ya if I can actually help ya."
This isn't the first fic of recent vintage where I've seen some writer has Ranma mention "The Code." Having read most of the manga, I have no clue what the writers are talking about. Was The Code some anime feature?
I'm halfway tempted to write a short story about Shampoo who is shamed because she performed a bit of cryptanalysis and "broke The Code", subsequently being banished to the NSA (No Such Amazon). But it doesn't seem to be a common enough phenomenon in Ranma fics, so if it's not a feature of the anime, it's probably not widespread enough to meaningfully spoof.
-
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3780694/1/Synnecrosis
Only written to ch 2. Ranma seems Ranma-ish enough. I don't know much about Fate/Stay/Night, but I've been reading this (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6859461/1/I-Put-On-My-Robe-And-Wizard-Hat) so I think I have the basics down.
'The Code' is the fanon (il)logical conclusion of, "It's a martial artist's duty to protect the weak."
Quote from: Brian on July 30, 2013, 07:15:18 PM
'The Code' is the fanon (il)logical conclusion of, "It's a martial artist's duty to protect the weak."
That's codeword for
bullshit
Enjoying a first read of Victory at Ostgar. It's a bit of a head twist though seeing romantic play between the heroine and Loghain, given Loghain is supposed to be at least twice her age (having a daughter at least as old as she is). It's played very well setting wise, but was a weird thing in the original as well.
Yeah, at least it's not so bad since Loghain doesn't have the chance to do most of the awful things he did in the original, but the relationship is handled well - the age difference isn't dismissed and their feelings shift just as their relationship does.
Yeah, the author is definitely handling it well. It's just a blink to see, as much as an Akane/Genma hookup would cause me to blink. (What a terrible analogy.)
I've seen it twice, and it was unpleasant both times.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9547582/1/Zero-s-Bullet
FoZ/Hellsing crossover. Rip van Winkle is saved from death at Alucard's hands by a glowing green portal and ends up the familiar of Louise. Hellsing ensues in Halkegenia. This is a darkfic, albeit one that's done well. Several characters are treated with skill and compassion, even those that don't deserve it. Well worth reading, especially as more is posted to fanfiction.net. This is a repost from spacebattles, so there should be more chapters up soon.
That's rather more exciting than I think it really ought to be.
I've seen it once in a fic that I liked. It was a Ranma/SM fic, and all of the Nerima relationship fallout was handled off screen. I've never seen it in any fic that had it as its focus, likely because I stopped reading such fics before it had a chance to crop up.
Light-hearted document format Harry Potter fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7377441/1/How_Xenophilius_Lovegood_Saved_Britain
I enjoyed it.
This was cute and fun, even if it did generally lack dramatic tension:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2919503/1/Luna-s-Hubby
Short premise: A young Luna decides that Harry Potter would make a good husband, so kidnaps him and declares them married. At the age of seven.
Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon updated. Long one!
Shingo is becoming a man, getting his very first psycho stalker girl! They grow up so fast. Also, Jupiter's talent starts to hang out everywhere.
30ish chapters into Victory at Ostagar.
I am really liking it. :)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1068882/1/River-Wind
Horror. What happens when a random person falls into the cursed springs and never finds out how to reverse the curse? This fic made me shudder, though I doubt that was the intended effect.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 07, 2013, 02:56:19 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1068882/1/River-Wind
Horror. What happens when a random person falls into the cursed springs and never finds out how to reverse the curse? This fic made me shudder, though I doubt that was the intended effect.
It might have been. The last bit of chapter 4 with Ranma suggests that such a reaction may have been what the writer wanted.
The fic itself is a single-character narration, but there isn't necessarily author-bias, so it could be read as either
furry-wish fulfillment, or descent into the reaches of Stockholm syndrome depending on the reader's personal views
which is a pretty nifty trick to pull off.
-
Oh, and speaking of Ranma-fics centered on the curse, I found this (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2499411/1/Thy-Outward-What).
Slight familiarity with an old classic Ranma fic may be required.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/259777.html
DK:A update. It's a shortish one dealing with Ami's next plan, seems to be going well enough.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 07, 2013, 12:16:16 PMIt might have been. The last bit of chapter 4 with Ranma suggests that such a reaction may have been what the writer wanted.
The fic itself is a single-character narration, but there isn't necessarily author-bias, so it could be read as either
furry-wish fulfillment, or descent into the reaches of Stockholm syndrome depending on the reader's personal views
which is a pretty nifty trick to pull off.
Could be, could be. It's written well enough that you can't say decisively.
Cute little Luna/Harry fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7352166/1/Protection-From-Nargles
Pretty much just a romance fic with very little else -- but I thought Harry's friends were well portrayed, and the handling of the Weasley twins was possibly one of the most awesome and enjoyable portrayals of them I've ever seen.
Read this:http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5466600/1/Concessions
Interesting Peggy-Sue. Naruto gets put into his baby body and the fourth's alive.
God Slaying Blade Works (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/19/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) updated.
Some slice-of-life Godou shenanigans, some Shirou being a subconscious genius, and a new heretic god.
Quote from: JonBob on August 09, 2013, 12:41:06 PM
God Slaying Blade Works (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/19/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) updated.
Some slice-of-life Godou shenanigans, some Shirou being a subconscious genius, and a new heretic god.
Decent update. I thought it largely felt like a setup chapter, ended up skimming chunks of it. The 'negotiations' was by far the best part.
About halfway through Victory at Ostagar.
It continues to be enjoyable. Even if I think Wynne got a bum hand.
Yeah, it works to show the rot in the Chantry, and Wynne wasn't doing that much in the story, but still a shame.
http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/4043-To-Tame-a-Magus-%28FSN-Familiar-of-Zero%29
Louise summons Shinji Matou as her familiar. It's only a few chapters in but the phrase 'trainwreck' is already apt. You know things are messed up when Louise is the mature, well adjusted one of the duo.
The Leaf's Naruto has updated. Latest chapter:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8264234/22/
In Essence Divided (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7917665/1/In-Essence-Divided) is a sadly unfinished story that hasn't been updated in over a year. The main premise is that in the Chamber of Secrets Riddle kills Ginny and takes her body for his own, before using the scar horcrux to try and take Harry. He loses and Harry ends up with two bodies, a neat premise which on its own makes for a good story. But what really caught my attention was something called the Warlock's Circle introduced in chapter 4. Big spoilers ahead.
When Dumbleldore is killed in Paris, Britain responds by reinstating the Warlock's Circle, an elite group of wizards last used in the war with Grindelwald. Who are they?
Quote
The Warlock's Circle had arrived.
There were twelve of them in total, every one of them dressed in black. They were striding down the platform flanked by yet more Dementors. Their leader, Rufus Scrimgeour, was a tall man with a mane of rust coloured hair. He held his arm aloft, and his finger bore a ring identical to those the Dementors wore.
The wizards and witches behind him were an impressive sight. Black was able to name most of them as they passed.
"Bartemius Burke," he said, indicating a grizzled old man with a pointy grey beard. He was armed to the teeth with medieval-looking weapons - all of them likely enchanted with Dark magic. "He plundered half of Europe in the forties. All those weapons are priceless, one of a kind, artefacts. And that one's Cygnus Thames-"
"The bald one with the bandoliers?" Harry asked.
"That's the one. Potions specialist. Wanted dead or alive in thirty-five sovereign states for poisoning the city of Olm. Got it into the water supply - all for the chance Grindelwald might take a sip. Killed a hundred thousand Muggles - the city's been obliviated from Muggle history."
The idea of such a man walking free made Harry feel sick. She began to understand the uproar caused by the reinstatement of the Warlock's Circle.
"What about him?" she asked, pointing to another. He was the youngest of the bunch, handsome, with light brown hair neatly cut. The air seemed to ripple around him, and each time his boot hit the ground it wobbled, like he was walking on jelly.
"Christ!" Black exclaimed, seeing the man for the first time. An oddly Muggle expression. "No one knows his real name. He goes by Quicksilver. Banished from Britain in the sixties for practising alchemical wizardry. Captured by Dumbledore himself. It was huge."
"What's alchemical wizardry?" asked Harry, staring at the mysterious Quicksilver. He seemed different from the others, somehow.
"Complicated," Black said with a wry smile. "A bit of legilimency, a bit of transfiguration, a bit of potions. But mostly it's about the soul. Don't know much more than that. But there was a string of mysterious deaths right before Quicksilver was brought it. Brutal stuff."
As Quicksilver passed, Harry's eyes were drawn to the man behind him. She gaped. It was mad. They couldn't be controlled.
"What the hell are those?" Black said.
He was pointing at two snakes that were making their way down the platform, each one at least ten feet long and as thick as a man's leg. A wizard was walking between them, brandishing his wand, directing the snakes. They had blinkers covering their eyes.
"Basilisks," said Harry, still disbelieving.
"Fuck," said Black. It was an apt summary of Harry's feelings.
And then they saw the first witch. Black just stared at her. She was beautiful, in a way, with pale skin, red lips, and long, wild dark hair. She swaggered down the platform as if she owned it.
"Bellatrix," said Black. He looked completely shocked. "They let Bellatrix out. They're absolutely insane. Do they want to start a war?"
If this Bellatrix woman shocked Black speechless, it was Harry's turn when she saw the man a few steps behind her. Only one person's robes billowed like that.
"Snape!" she said, pointing wildly.
The thought that in times of crisis Britain can pull out a crowd of crazed recluses and Azkaban's baddest lunatics which even include convicted Death Eaters to take care of business just has so much potential, it's crying out for a story devoted to those guys. Something like Suicide Squad or Thunderbolts if you know those comics, to throw out when all else fails.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9059345/10/Of-The-Stars
Of the Stars updated. Meh.
[spoiler]Rei gets herself into trouble before becoming Sailor Mars? Not a bad idea. Rei's hastily drawn ofuda turns a youma into a bonfire? Uh. Rei snaps and goes SSJ/Exalts/whatever? ... Rei meets some weird OC Moonshadow guy? The fuck? See, I like this fic because it was tweaking Sailor Moon some without losing sight of what it was. The last few chapters don't jive with this. I guess it's trying to constantly hit you with high impact events but it's broken my suspension of disbelief instead. Somewhere in the middle of this chapter I stopped and realized that I thought this was bullshit.
Things are going way out of control not even halfway before the normal Jadeite arc ends. It's too much to maintain immersion in the story. I don't care how cool it might be, but if I sit back, stop and mutter 'the fuck is this?' several times in the chapter? It's a fundamental failure of fanfiction. Maybe I'd believe this with more buildup or without going straight to kablooey territory. I like a good re-imagining of an old story as much as the next guy, but you have to stay connected to the original work. All the mumbo jumbo about french Dark Kingdom ranks or Silver Millenium leftovers doesn't compensate for that.
I'll give it another chapter, maybe two. It's possible that the author will pull up and rebalance things, but I'm not holding my breath. Remakes that try and spice things up by amping the power levels and 'hey isn't this cool guys' level tend not to work for me.
I've finished Victory at Ostagar. It was a pleasure, and the addition of the alternate ending definitely betters it.
Quote from: Ebiris on August 13, 2013, 01:26:15 PM
In Essence Divided (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7917665/1/In-Essence-Divided) is a sadly unfinished story that hasn't been updated in over a year. The main premise is that in the Chamber of Secrets Riddle kills Ginny and takes her body for his own, before using the scar horcrux to try and take Harry. He loses and Harry ends up with two bodies, a neat premise which on its own makes for a good story.
You're right, two-bodies-one-mind makes for an incredibly interesting premise. The only other story I know that deals with this is a Ranma fanfic, Mirror, Mirror (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14610481/vffa_fics/mirror_mirror.zip) - but that fic has been dead for more than a decade.
Consumed the Leaf's Naruto, Latest chapter of Steal My Thunder God (which still seems to meander), and a cute Harry Potter Timewarp fic currently in our writing forum.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8971041/8/Steal-My-Thunder-God
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9457368/1/I-am-Noble
ZnT/DnD crossover. It's just starting and looks like it has some promise. While I wince at the summary, the story has potential and invert the bad stereotype it promises instead.
Been reading Traveler (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8466693/1/Traveler) which is a really good Pokemon story. Ash gets a nidoran instead of pikachu as his starter, and then things just kinda go off the rails. He travels with two OCs for a few chapters but after that is mostly on his own, with Brock and Misty sticking to their gyms for the most part, while Jessie and James only get a cameo in favour of the much more sinister and competent side of Team Rocket presenting far more dangerous problems. It's a fresh take on the pokemon journey, and has some good stuff focusing on actual training of pokemon rather than just fighting and getting stronger. The gym leaders and elite four all get some good focus as well.
Interesting, I may take a look. It's kind of a pity that really Ash is generally granted super empathy and that's why he wins versus any concept or theories of "Okay, this is how we're going to do more than the other guys".
This one's pretty good in that Ash earns what he gets in the proper manner - he wins every gym badge by fighting rather than wacky adventures, and gets most of his pokemon by battling/capturing them. He is nice and empathic with them, but when you see the pokemon of other trainers (except Gary) it's a trait generally shared by the best.
Yeah, I don't mind super-empathy, just it by itself is uninteresting to hear making progress as a Best In The World.
"Okay, so basically you're super-talented, have wacky adventures, and therefore trump the people we see training hard. Also we rarely see you training at all. Yeah, I think I'm done with Destined Winner."
Ash can't train them like that (except in the first season) because it would break the formula. Same reason Ash's skills reset every time he changes regions.
What I've always wondered about pokemon is how the hell is anyone supposed to get a badge? Seriously, aren't gym leaders a bunch of I-do-nothing-but-train-pokemon-for-a-living badasses? Yet badges do not seem to be in short supply.
I figure they scale themselves. If they see an eleven year old with his starter and a rattata they'll use their younger/less experienced pokemon, and if it's someone who either looks experienced or they know got a badge last year, they break out their older and more badass pokemon to get a proper workout. I figure that also explains the gulf in the game and why Erkia's so weak compared to say Blaine, when realistically they should all be close to the same level, with a few outliers as standouts within the gym circuit like Sabrina/Giovanni to keep people from completely coasting through.
Basically the gym circuit itself is the qualifier for the conference rather than just having the baddest pokemon, since it shows the devotion and time put into getting there.
...Misty and Brock were gym leaders.
The easier explanation about gym badges, empathy, Ash's luck, and Team Rocket's Jessie/James combo in the anime: Pokemon Explained (http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2009/04/09/pokemon-explained/)
I recommend the above be read while listening to: There will be Brawl - The Very Best (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGdoh2kajKs)
I've hated that meme and every other one like it always and forever. -_-
There are others?
Tons for different series. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKQACxKV7TA)
What's that called, as a meme? I know it's a form of deconstruction, but those things always annoy me.
"Oh, let's sound deep, and really just try and make you feel bad by claiming that whatever you liked as a child was a subtle allusion to someone coping with horrific mental issues due to a tragedy, and nearly everyone involved was actually dead all along!"
Well, It took some digging. I don't know exactly what it would be called, and I don't think it has a name quite as specific as that, but it does show up as a part of Stock Epileptic Trees (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StockEpilepticTrees). Its a bit of a combination of the first that show up, Dead All Along (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadAllAlong) and All Just A Dream (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllJustADream).
Its mainly just a result of Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory) intellectuals trying to make their old nostalgia woobie into something more adult, via turning everything into a Through the Eyes of Madness (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThroughTheEyesOfMadness) setting. Its surprisingly common and I have always found it rather banal.
I vaguely recall one about Pokemon the TV show for a while, where Ash was (surprise!) in a coma all along and everything was his subconscious trying to sort out his life. I've also heard similar theories for Hey Arnold, Dexter's Lab, and that one Disney live action show about the twins brothers in the hotel, though I can't name it for the life of me. The whole thing probably to have its own meme (perhaps a subtrope of Everyone is Jesus).
I want to say creepypasta but that doesn't feel quite right.
(Also, can people even dream in a coma? I'm no neuroscientist but I was under the impression that people didn't REM-sleep when in a coma.)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7354757/1/The_Game_of_Champions
By far, the best Pokemon fic I've read in some time. May have been mentioned here already, though it deserves every bit of attention it gets.
The world-building is coming along very nicely. If you've read the Sun Soul, this is leaps and bounds ahead of it in terms of quality. It doesn't try to be realistic, it just is.
The main protagonist is Red(not Ash) and he's written very interestingly. Smart, ruthless and a bit crazy. Apparently he's been captured by Team Rocket and is simply narrating his story.
Definitely reccomended.
*eyes rising discussion*
I counter such ridiculousness with... http://lparchive.org/Animal-Crossing/Update%201/ . If you're going to destroy a property, do it right.
I tend to sync with what Brian said on them. They're pretty thoughtless destruction. Basically the adult equivalent of walking up to a group of blocks and knocking them over while going "Well, only a retard would play with blocks!"
There was a great parody of this sort of thing that Kickaha posted into IRC, long ago, which purported to analyze The Three Stooges. Wish I had a link (if the page even still exists), so I could post it.
A fic: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8882468/1/Human-Immortality-Project
Premise is that a rational Shinji chooses not to pilot, and instead works his way into the command chain.
The story follows the major incidents of the anime, but Rationality usually triumphs to bring about some different result. Expect long bouts of exposition. But then again, it's an Eva fic, so maybe that's something to be expected, and at least the exposition actually says something.
I... really have trouble picturing Shinji not getting shot or smacked in that first chapter the way he's acting.
He's also 14. I've understood peggy-sue'ish terrorist shinji's managing it by leveraging the critical moment there, but I don't see how he'd even get the social respect level to even be heard both not piloting and not having any rank at all to start with. Maybe chapter 2 or 3 might cover how he isn't just shuffled outside but still. I just find it hard to wrap my head around the concept enough to suspend disbelief and hearing Rationality as an excuse for it makes it even less plausible.
I'd also expect Rei to be dead by the middle of chapter 2 anyway. She wasn't well enough to walk across a room much less pilot at the beginning of any take on the series. Sachiel was also not a push-over and largely got beaten by Shinji descending into a berserker type state.
Logically, I'd expect nobody to be even remotely willing to answer his questions. They do have backups after all canonically, even if they don't tell him to answer his questions. They even have backups within the city by canon.
And I'm done. :\ Just too much everyone being pushovers to even provide the opportunity for the story to start to be told. A kid whines enough and he gets their head scientist ordered to answer questions instead of being picked up by the many guards of the place and tossed in a holding pen? Rei (who can't stand up) somehow eeks out a victory over sachiel entirely offscreen, damaging the other eva so they basically are starting with two unusable evas for then starting period and no one is enormously worried about this situation? Having extra unbelievable things happen off screen to give more time for unbelievable things to happen on screen just makes it harder to get a footing. It's not even Gendo directed, with him having thoughts that they might be able to use the kid anyway and over-ruling the general staff who reasonably would think it's insane to waste time with a kid like that. It's Fuyuki directed to give him space to do anything? What the heck.
Removing the credibility building "I can kill an angel" from shinji and replacing it with "I ask a lot of questions" just doesn't work for me at all :\
Quote from: Dracos on August 20, 2013, 12:06:59 PM
I... really have trouble picturing Shinji not getting shot or smacked in that first chapter the way he's acting.
Heh. You know how there are people who have no experience on a topic, but they have The Answer and insist that you listen to them? I have the suspicion that the writer is one of those people (again, "rational" and "expect long bouts of exposition"). There are people who do this sort of writing though, so I posted the fic.
I'm with you all the way on everything you wrote, except for the age bit since I think that's a staple of anime, but we've probably both said most of what can be said with that discussion in the Internal Consistency thread, so I won't to talk any further about that.
Eva though really isn't one of those animes. It regularly has all the important procedural decisions done by adults, who also shoot and kill people that get in their way.
But yeah, even if Shinji was 30, it's hard to picture someone without leverage acting that way in a military situation and not being shot.
I've seen the same thing in Harry Potter fanfic, though. Where the author's conviction in the stance that they've projected onto whichever characters they like is just so right that everyone shrugs and accedes to the demands of the eleven year old boy. And they aren't all Peggy Sues, either.
It's a staple of bad writing, though I'm too mentally exhausted to try and find a trope that fits it. Probably something like a debate version of Boring Invincible Hero.
Totally agreed its a stable of bad writing, but having a little kid getting their way seems is less ridiculous in Harry Potter (or say Gurren Lagann) then it is in Eva. Harry Potter elevates school-children to major players on the field of national politics which major politicians come by to say hi to, whereas they're mainly abuse victims in Eva (Adults don't interact with them as Peers).
I actually referenced a peggy-sue in as much as a specific Eva fic where Shinji had some advanced knowledge and terrorist equipment. In that case it was plausible because it wasn't a 14 year old saying "My Way, My Way"; it was a guy with a nuke going "My Way, My Way". The leverage made them taking him seriously plausible. Following it with "Okay, also, here's me being a badass" made it plausible that they were willing to go along with the flow afterwards. Here it's not a peggy-sue, just some kid who's getting horribly partial information, makes decisions on that, and then well, just as ye said.
"The kid has spoken, the adults will go along with it."
BREAKING NEWS!
Nostalgia strikes downtown Los Angeles! No survivors! (http://florestica.com/boliver/nettg/index.htm)
Quote from: Yuthirin on August 20, 2013, 09:35:22 PM
BREAKING NEWS!
Nostalgia strikes downtown Los Angeles! No survivors! (http://florestica.com/boliver/nettg/index.htm)
Wow, blast from the past.
I preread that fic for Ben Oliver back in the day.
I have fond memories of laughing myself sick at 3 am.
Quote from: Dracos on August 20, 2013, 12:06:59 PM
Just too much everyone being pushovers to even provide the opportunity for the story to start to be told. A kid whines enough and he gets their head scientist ordered to answer questions instead of being picked up by the many guards of the place and tossed in a holding pen?
Evidently, this is as silly as I though it might be; I'm glad I didn't bother to look at this. If Rationality is worth anything in the Eva verse, Gendo probably already has ten Bayesians locked in a room somewhere, anyways. :-/
I'm trying to think of a series that could possibly be dumber to put a 'rational' protagonist into, as a fic premise. Maybe Madoka?
It very much is a universe where understanding how things work is less important than being shot if you aren't being a good pawn to the relevant chessmaster.
I can't see it working well in Madoka-verse either. Too fatalistic a setting. "This is ridiculous or doesn't make any sense." "It doesn't leave one any less dead, also there is explicitly a force out their working to make sure none of you have correct information and sending others to interfere in the case that you do start getting a hint." Maybe Homura could? But she's already playing the "I tried everything under the sun game and have been drilling down to actual rules through it." No one else lives long enough for it to matter.
Quote from: Dracos on August 20, 2013, 10:16:04 PM
I can't see it working well in Madoka-verse either. Too fatalistic a setting. "This is ridiculous or doesn't make any sense." "It doesn't leave one any less dead, also there is explicitly a force out their working to make sure none of you have correct information and sending others to interfere in the case that you do start getting a hint." Maybe Homura could? But she's already playing the "I tried everything under the sun game and have been drilling down to actual rules through it." No one else lives long enough for it to matter.
This. I was thinking also that having one of the girls be 'rational' would blatantly upend the implicit premise that Kyuubei seeks out primarily girls who think with their emotions to the extent that the effects of their wishes are unlikely to interfere with the grand plan....
i.e. if there was a super-rational schoolgirl out there, Kyuubei would probably try to keep her from being involved in the whole mess.
Or, if you like, Kyuubei is already the 'rational' entity in the setting.
Quote from: Yuthirin on August 20, 2013, 09:35:22 PM
BREAKING NEWS!
Nostalgia strikes downtown Los Angeles! No survivors! (http://florestica.com/boliver/nettg/index.htm)
Arbyfish and Planetary Breaking Points are the only things I remember about that fic. >_>
Yeah, I never ... really got into it. It was popular, and evidently amusing, but I couldn't get past the Mary Sue coupled with horrible accents being spelled out.
I'm reading this:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2889350/1/Bugle-in-the-Jungle
I'm not sure I can say it's good, but it's a pretty interesting fic ... possibly mostly just because it's second-person. Which is really neat. Been pondering writing my own second-person fic, but.
Anyway, it's a Harry Potter fic where Harry ends up in the jungle of South America with Bill Weasley, taking up Curse Breaking to get away from some ... problems ... after the end of the fifth year.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on August 20, 2013, 10:03:39 PM
I'm trying to think of a series that could possibly be dumber to put a 'rational' protagonist into, as a fic premise. Maybe Madoka?
It's a RPG setting rather than a series, but I'd love to see a parody of these types of stories with the rationalist put into the Paranoia world. This would, obviously, be an extremely short story. To my understanding, most classic Paranoia games were that way too, so that's okay.
Quote
Been pondering writing my own second-person fic, but.
I've written a few stories like that, the earliest being a handwritten story for a fifth grade assignment.
If you're saying that the story is even okay, and it's longer than just a scene, that's pretty impressive; I've found that many people are uncomfortable being told that they are performing the actions of the protagonist without any control. So getting readers to stick with the story reflects well on the writer.
Finished reading it. It's by the author of The Lie I've Lived, which is an interesting, if not perfect HP fic. Its got the glaring flaw of bashing the twins (WTF?) and is also pretty much an unabashed posession-sue. Despite that, it also was a surprisingly good fic, so ... I think I'm just a fan of that author. He does pretty decent stuff.
Quote from: Yuthirin on August 20, 2013, 09:35:22 PM
BREAKING NEWS!
Nostalgia strikes downtown Los Angeles! No survivors! (http://florestica.com/boliver/nettg/index.htm)
Haha, cute, but a little manic for my tastes in fanfiction. I've always preferred more somberly written fanfiction cause I am always super srs. I was rereading Dungeon Keeper Ami recently, for instance. I'd link it here but surely it has already seen its run on this thread. Looks like I got fairly far behind since I last read it. Ima have to keep reading this one though, seems to have potential.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on August 20, 2013, 10:03:39 PM
I'm trying to think of a series that could possibly be dumber to put a 'rational' protagonist into, as a fic premise. Maybe Madoka?
While I never actually finished the show, doesn't the whole Spiral Energy stuff run off of, well, willpower and shouting? Seems like Gurren Lagaan would lose much of its supposed appeal (I never got into it) if there was some supreme rationalist that broke down the physics of the show.
If they were actual rationalists wouldn't they have to incorporate the quirks of the world into their world view? I mean, if a rational person gets placed into FiM or Sailor Moon wouldn't they have to accept that friendship and love are actual forces in the universe with tangible effects?
It doesn't seem particularly rational to deny magic exists in a high magic setting, or that the square-cube law applies to giant robots which are clearly running around not collapsing on themselves.
Quote from: thepanda on August 21, 2013, 08:41:34 AM
It doesn't seem particularly rational to deny magic exists in a high magic setting, or that the square-cube law applies to giant robots which are clearly running around not collapsing on themselves.
Yudkowsky kind of addresses this in MoR, if I remember correctly. Namely, Yudkowsky doesn't believe that the notion of nonreducible large-scale phenomena is coherent, so his character would never accept 'magic' or 'friendship' as the bottom line explanation of what is going on.
I haven't been following MoR, but until the point it was updated to when I looked at it, part of the joke seemed to be that magic was at least sufficiently complicated that portions of it may as well be nonreducible given Harry's resources to try to understand it. e.g. he screws around with time travel as an experiment, and gets a closed timelike curve (or something) that consists of a note saying "
Do not screw around with time travel."
So at least MoR is clever in a way that so many of these imitators aren't....
Read some of bungle in the jungle.
I...like the writing style but...it rubs me the wrong way on the content. Looney Luna is awesome. Bill is fun. But a lot of the OCs make me wonder what the heck is going on. Isn't Harry like sixteen here? He's certainly spending a lot of the fic screwing an older brazillian woman and getting involved with her family problems. Very weird? The curse breaking is neat, and some of the character interplay is neat, but a lot of it just seems weird. When it's Harry and the kooky cursebreaker crew it runs well, when it's harry and the love shack it feels really weird.
For Dracos:
Love shack time doesn't last forever.
More bungle discussion
I'm 14 chapters in and it hasn't stopped, but I get that it has some dramatic end later and I won't reflexively call it stupid, just something I'm sighing at. I'd feel more comfortable if the author hadn't just confirmed that Harry is 15 in a recent chapter, but even then, it wouldn't be usual reading. It's constant that there's just focus on casual sex and it really detracts from the rest of it. Bill's getting it, Harry's getting it repeatedly, we even get told how Hack is getting it. it'd be funny or fitting as a single conversation...
But seriously, do not get how a 15 year old is at all being an important element in little town crime family politics, alongside screwing some mother character while flirting terribly with his scorching hot blonde friend across the world.
So far it all detracts from the fun part of the story: Harry being a kooky cursebreaker apprentice to a kooky eccentric crew of professionals.
Bungling
A large amount of the sex I just sort of rolled my eyes over and waited for the rest of the story to continue being awesome. It could have easily been handwaived, but if the guy likes soapish drama, what can I say?
The curse-breaking and the combat, especially later, really is quite enjoyable. The situation with the goblins and Luna complicates further as time goes on.
Overall, I really enjoyed jbern's work on this. I think I liked The Lie I've Lived more, but Bungle in the Jungle wasn't by any stretch a bad fic.
Both had their issues, but I liked Bungle much more than its sequel (unfortunately).
jbern seems to like a focus on male heros enjoying casual sex, which, yeah, could be turned down a lot, and also the idea that most wizards aren't good in combat because they aren't willing to be vicious enough, which tends to give his protagonists an edge because they're still 'good' while abusing that. If you can't skip/gloss over the sex scenes (I pretty much had to), then he may not be the author for you.
Just found a link to this fic, and it's by the Oh God, Not Again author, which seems promising:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6635363/1/When_In_Doubt_Obliviate
Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....
Quote from: Brian on August 22, 2013, 07:50:03 PM
Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....
Ah, I remember that one being amusing, particularly the lessons on Lockhart family values....
Quote from: Brian on August 22, 2013, 07:50:03 PM
Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....
I am immediately both intrigued and horrified.
It's been ages since I read bungle in the jungle but I do remember the (spoiling because I can't recall how early it comes up)
lost city full of undead accessed by banking teleporter
to have been a fantastic setting and one I'd love to play/run in an RPG one day.
The setting is fantastic. There's really lots about the local environment that Jungle in the Bungle sets up that is worthy of notice.
May as well give another rec while I'm here.
Hit the Ground Running (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9408516/1/Hit-The-Ground-Running)
"The Horcrux in Harry's head wakes up and begins talking to Harry long before he's ever heard the name Voldemort."
You've probably seen similar summaries, no doubt accompanied by "independent!harry, manipulative!dumbledore, harry/harem" and the like, but this isn't that. Voldemort in Harry's head may or may not have any genuine sympathy for Harry, but he has an extremely vested interest in his own survival, and so gives Harry occasional help while mostly directing him to take actions that'll help him survive/figure out what went wrong when the killing curse rebounded/acquire a body of his own and various other plans.
What really sells it is that bereft of any actual power or resources, Voldemort has to rely on being convincing when he needs Harry to do something, and Harry being the innocent child that he is mostly goes along with it in a good natured sort of way. It's not quite there but I get a certain Blackadder vibe from Voldemort's overreaching and self-centred scheming while limited to the help of one dubiously talented minion - I find myself rooting for him because for all that he's unapologetically evil, he just seems so harmless. Pinky and the Brain might be another comparison better suited to American readers.
Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in a while and is only half way through year one, but I'd recommend it for a chuckle.
Quote from: Yuthirin on August 22, 2013, 07:54:58 PM
Quote from: Brian on August 22, 2013, 07:50:03 PM
Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....
I am immediately both intrigued and horrified.
Needless to say, it relies on one of those good-naturedly incompetent Dumbledores to make that even remotely possible....
Have you ever read a fic and come out of it not sure what the fuck?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6612113/1/Love-Hina-Outsider-Looking-In
I just did. It's Love Hina through the lens of a different Keitaro that focuses on Keitaro, Kitsune and Naru. The other characters are there but varying degrees of background after the first several chapters. Great if you want to see Naru start as a bitch and end up...well...
Having a full on breakdown with possible suicide looming by the last chapter.
I feel it's well written and I'm not that attached to Love Hina, so radically hacking at the setting doesn't make me blink. I have no idea how this would play to fans of it. Nada, zip, zappo. I couldn't relate to Keitaro in this fic, as his personality type doesn't mesh with me at all. Nonetheless I found it an engaging read. Just don't ask me what I think about it, since I'm really not sure what the fuck.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 23, 2013, 04:06:11 AM
I couldn't relate to Keitaro in this fic, as his personality type doesn't mesh with me at all. Nonetheless I found it an engaging read. Just don't ask me what I think about it, since I'm really not sure what the fuck.
Tried reading it, up to halfway through ch 3. The protagonist feels like a Keitaro-suited SI to me, although I also haven't read anything LH related in years (I think the last was the Bri's Ranma-LH xover back when he was still writing it, so I could give C&C) so I may not recall the finer points of Keitaro's character.
Also, random Japanese in fics is irritating enough. Random Pakistani words, when then gets corrected to Japanese...
Quote from: Ebiris on August 22, 2013, 08:17:25 PM
What really sells it is that bereft of any actual power or resources, Voldemort has to rely on being convincing when he needs Harry to do something, and Harry being the innocent child that he is mostly goes along with it in a good natured sort of way. It's not quite there but I get a certain Blackadder vibe from Voldemort's overreaching and self-centred scheming while limited to the help of one dubiously talented minion - I find myself rooting for him because for all that he's unapologetically evil, he just seems so harmless. Pinky and the Brain might be another comparison better suited to American readers.
Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in a while and is only half way through year one, but I'd recommend it for a chuckle.
I dunno, to me head!Voldemort comes across as more creepy than that. (Are the headaches a form of conditioning?) He gets Harry compliant to the point where 'of course, we can easily hatch another basilisk' doesn't elicit much reaction beyond dread that they probably
will wind up hatching a basilisk.
Edit: it is hinted on the other hand that the living conditions in Harry's head have softened Voldemort from 'totally inhuman' to just 'pretty damn evil and arrogant'. So in that sense, I'm rooting for head!Voldemort against Quirrelmort at the very least.
Still an interesting story.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 23, 2013, 09:50:54 AM
Also, random Japanese in fics is irritating enough. Random Pakistani words, when then gets corrected to Japanese...
...
My brain fuses are imploding.
Quote from: Brian on August 22, 2013, 07:50:03 PM
Just found a link to this fic, and it's by the Oh God, Not Again author, which seems promising:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6635363/1/When_In_Doubt_Obliviate
Premise being a much younger Lockheart finds a child Harry and raises him as his own....
Oh good, a Sarah1281 story. I liked a bunch of that author's Naruto stories, particularly It's For a Good Cause, I Swear! (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5409165/1/It-s-For-a-Good-Cause-I-Swear), which is also a humourous time travel fic. I think I'm too used to running into Naruto time travel stories that are all serious and similar to Nightmares of Futures Past, so that story felt more refreshing than it should.
Quote from: Ebiris on August 22, 2013, 08:17:25 PM
May as well give another rec while I'm here.
Hit the Ground Running (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9408516/1/Hit-The-Ground-Running)
"The Horcrux in Harry's head wakes up and begins talking to Harry long before he's ever heard the name Voldemort."
This story hints at, but dances, one of my biggest sticking points in the Harry Potter universe. Harry Potter was abused, mistreated, malnourished, and isolated as a child, yet the most, I don't know, "troubled" part of Harry is that he tends to whine a lot when he gets older.
I get it, its a book for children. You can't have an emotionally broken and possibly half-feral child be the center of books or stories and have him be the chosen one and have him make friends and be a normal child.
Still, maybe its just a result of me reading the first few books of Bio of a Space Tyrant (
not a recommended read and very very grim) or even just Ender's Game, around the same time in my pre-teens. Ender had a mostly supportive family, but an abusive brother and happened to realize that a lot of people were shouldering the weight of humanity on his shoulders. It showed. He was not, by almost any standard, a normal, well-adjusted child.
Even within the Potterverse, Neville was ostensibly treated better than Harry (I seriously doubt his grandmother forced him into a cupboard, starved him regularly, and forced him to do manual labor from a young age). Neville was, on the other hand, far more "troubled" than Harry ever was.
It's just made it very hard for me to read the books ever again, nor follow fanfiction that uses the same origin as the books. It breaks my suspension of disbelief every time.
Sorry for the rant.
On topic, the story is pretty well written and I plan on seeing past the first chapter, just because the concept intrigues me.
Quote from: Rayearth on August 23, 2013, 05:39:45 PM
Oh good, a Sarah1281 story. I liked a bunch of that author's Naruto stories, particularly It's For a Good Cause, I Swear! (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5409165/1/It-s-For-a-Good-Cause-I-Swear), which is also a humourous time travel fic.
Heh! I posted about that one a year or two ago. I still reread it whenever I run across a particularly bad "I must time travel in the past and change NOTHING...because changing nothing is totally the point of me traveling in the past" fic.
Quote from: Ebiris on August 22, 2013, 08:17:25 PMUnfortunately it hasn't been updated in a while and is only half way through year one, but I'd recommend it for a chuckle.
Got updated 3 days ago. :D
Yes... yes it did. I must have been thinking of something else when I noted that then.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9384156/5/Why-Me
Why Me updated. I don't have much to say, it was a setup chapter. Nothing terribly interesting happens, but it isn't boring. It felt like it punted on all the questions I had, so I'll be waiting another month for answers. Sigh.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9637797/1/Control
A Haruhi dark/tragedy fic. Something that looks at Haruhi discovering her powers and....
...you'll see.
Quote from: Brian on August 29, 2013, 02:20:24 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9637797/1/Control
A Haruhi dark/tragedy fic. Something that looks at Haruhi discovering her powers and....
...you'll see.
This story actually reminded me of a more extreme version of what happened near the end of The Death of Haruhi Suzumiya (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3413734/1/). This, as the author said though, was probably the most extreme extrapolation of what could have happened with a self-aware Haruhi.
Quote from: Brian on August 29, 2013, 02:20:24 AM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9637797/1/Control
A Haruhi dark/tragedy fic. Something that looks at Haruhi discovering her powers
I was left unimpressed.
The author is insufficiently rigorous with both establishing the setting and exploring the consequences.
The true tragedy of power is not in a horrible person getting hold of power far beyond her wildest dreams -- while that would arguably be a tragedy as well, it is not an inherently personal one -- but in a decent person getting corrupted by that power, with good intentions turning into nightmarish travesties of their original form. There isn't any change visible in the story; the author just throws together an early series Haruhi and power awareness without bothering to study either how that combination came into being or how it changed Haruhi. Judging by the source material, the author didn't even consider the power changing anything in Haruhi's personality, thus making her a static character.
Throwing in Judeo-Christian mythology didn't really help the issue. For a while I thought that the author was heading for gnosticism, but in the end it didn't seem to be the destination after all -- at least as far as I can see, though implied gnosticism would certainly affect the interpretation of the resolution.
The resolution seems to go directly against the established rules of Haruhiverse, without any visible justification unless there is that implied gnosticism angle I mentioned. Rewinding time is one of the most salient feats that can be accomplished through the power; thus, Kyon's claim that Haruhi won't be able to resurrect him doesn't make any sense. She doesn't have to resurrect him in the first place when she can just force time back to a moment before the jump.
These points considered, I feel that the story is essentially a textbook example of angst for angst's sake. If there was an exploration of some non-trivial aspect of the series, I failed to notice it.
Quote from: sarsaparilla on August 29, 2013, 02:16:43 PMI was left unimpressed.These points considered, I feel that the story is essentially a textbook example of angst for angst's sake. If there was an exploration of some non-trivial aspect of the series, I failed to notice it.
I disagree, but mostly only because I've seen significantly more blatant and less technically well written attempts at the exact same thing ... which also pay less respect to the universe's rules at large. It asks a few simple questions, though. How Haruhi came to be the way she was isn't particularly salient for the purposes of this story, either. It's about how much Kyon can handle, and how he would finally face a threat he's otherwise powerless against.
It reminded me of a Greek hero doomed to fail because he's just a mortal opposing a god.
While the story doesn't hold to the original canon (in multiple ways), it's internally consistent. I could also see Haruhi just preventing the final outcome, but I don't think that was the point.
The point was more that if Haruhi were an all-powerful and self-aware entity who treated people like toys, what does it take to reach her?
But there's another reading to it, too: The story could also have a subtext in that on some level, Haruhi wasn't willing to tamper with Kyon directly, instead of being incapable. Therefore, everything else is Haruhi's basic stubborn insistence on finding and sharing something amazing ... no matter the cost. And how far does she go? She's all-powerful, but isn't wiling to just change Kyon, so she instead plays 'games' and tries to get him interested, but it works worse and worse every time. She removes obstacles between her and Kyon and loses sight of what her original purpose was anyway, and at the very end, she realizes what she's done ... too late.
Which I guess is the more classic take on the tragedy. I dunno -- I read it both of those ways initially.
Quote from: Brian on August 29, 2013, 06:07:29 PM
Quote from: sarsaparilla on August 29, 2013, 02:16:43 PMI was left unimpressed.These points considered, I feel that the story is essentially a textbook example of angst for angst's sake. If there was an exploration of some non-trivial aspect of the series, I failed to notice it.
I disagree, but mostly only because I've seen significantly more blatant and less technically well written attempts at the exact same thing ... which also pay less respect to the universe's rules at large. It asks a few simple questions, though. How Haruhi came to be the way she was isn't particularly salient for the purposes of this story, either. It's about how much Kyon can handle, and how he would finally face a threat he's otherwise powerless against.
It reminded me of a Greek hero doomed to fail because he's just a mortal opposing a god.
While the story doesn't hold to the original canon (in multiple ways), it's internally consistent. I could also see Haruhi just preventing the final outcome, but I don't think that was the point.
The point was more that if Haruhi were an all-powerful and self-aware entity who treated people like toys, what does it take to reach her?
But there's another reading to it, too: The story could also have a subtext in that on some level, Haruhi wasn't willing to tamper with Kyon directly, instead of being incapable. Therefore, everything else is Haruhi's basic stubborn insistence on finding and sharing something amazing ... no matter the cost. And how far does she go? She's all-powerful, but isn't wiling to just change Kyon, so she instead plays 'games' and tries to get him interested, but it works worse and worse every time. She removes obstacles between her and Kyon and loses sight of what her original purpose was anyway, and at the very end, she realizes what she's done ... too late.
Which I guess is the more classic take on the tragedy. I dunno -- I read it both of those ways initially.
I'd like to put in a third perspective, though both of you had great points.
I read the story as a deconstruction of the common concept of "Haruhi is God, and finds out about it." A lot of writers seem to accept Koizumi's version of events, and that Haruhi is a benevolent, if selfish deity. This one asks the question, "What if Haruhi was a selfish and malevolent god, a la Old Testament?"
There is all sorts of references to the bible easily grasped at in the story, from Nagato representing a sort of "Tree of Knowledge/Lilith" stand in, Mikuru as a warning against "false Idols" and Koizumi as the ever faithful "Job" to his deity. Finally, you come to Kyon, who is either Jonah, or Noah, depending on the perspective.
From Haruhi's perspective, he is Jonah, the unfaithful, or untrusting Disciple, who needs to be punished into following Her commandments.
From Kyon's he is Noah, standing on the deck of his boat, as he watches in despair as his 'God' recreate the world every night. "I didn't get it right this time Kyon, but next time I totally have the best idea! What if Asahina was actually kidnapped, and we had to rescue her from ninjas?! Nevermind, I'm already doing it. Last time, I promise!"
I doubt the author had quite intended a complicated deconstruction, but its rare when the relative brutality of the Old Testimony is hinted at. It's not the most brilliantly laid out story (The timeline is a little shaky, and Koizumi seems a little underused), but I liked it overall.
@Ergoemos
From what I remember, Jonah is not the best example to use for referring to Old Testament brutality of God. The second half of that book has Jonah being indignant that God has accepted Nineveh's repentance and is not making with the fire and brimstone. So, it's ultimately a case where the prophet is a lot more brutal in his outlook than God is inclined to be....
If you want to read about God being very brutal, I suggest Ezekiel.
@ more generally
As for mentions of Gnosticism, I've always thought you could shoehorn the first few Haruhi novels into a sort of anti-Gnostic fairytale. (Gnosticism is kind of hard to pin down as to what the key beliefs are, but it seems to revolve around the notion that physical reality, moral law, material existence, personal identity &c is just a huge con perpetrated by Old Testament God (recast as a clueless Demiurge), and the proper way to deal with reality is not to play the game, but to try to escape to some incomprehensible higher realm through magic rituals and incantations, which are guarded by an 'enlightened' elite which is considered infinitely more spiritual than the nonspiritual sheeple.
In that sense, Haruhi at the start of novel one could be like the 'enlightened' Gnostic who tries to escape / abolish reality, but Kyon convinces her not to / that the game is worth playing after all.)
I think this makes sense just on a tenuous level of Haruhi books repeatedly expressing the attitude that you should take reality as it is instead of trying to invent something better, whereas Gnosticism goes completely in the opposite direction....
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on August 29, 2013, 10:36:34 PM
@Ergoemos
From what I remember, Jonah is not the best example to use for referring to Old Testament brutality of God. The second half of that book has Jonah being indignant that God has accepted Nineveh's repentance and is not making with the fire and brimstone. So, it's ultimately a case where the prophet is a lot more brutal in his outlook than God is inclined to be....
If you want to read about God being very brutal, I suggest Ezekiel.
You are absolutely right. I figured Haruhi would pick a kinder representation of Herself as a comparison to the Bible. Jonah/kyon eventually repented and all was forgiven for everyone, and probably how Haruhi would have wanted it.
You are very right about Ezekiel, however.
For Ko: Dungeon Keeper Ami thread from AA updated.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5713019/1/Dr-Strangelove
An Eva fic which, despite the title, has more to do with Groundhog day than its namesake.
And although I usually don't comment on how much I liked a fic until someone else has had a chance to read it, I'll make an exception here. This isn't the greatest fic ever, and it's not the worst. The first quarter is an Eva version of Innortal's Loops and the rest is Sarah1281's It's For a Good Cause, I Swear. Still, while "Dr. Strangelove" does both, I think it doesn't pull it off quite as well as either of those two.
That said, I'm still mentioning this fic has because the writer has figured out something that 98% of writers of "time-loopers wanna fix everything" fics seem to miss: one still has to write the main character is getting a changed characterization and new abilities. It made me curious enough to want to try reading another fic of the writer's to see if that worked better for me, but alas, all of the other stories are HP fics. Since I haven't finished the first novel, I would be unlikely to know what's going on in any of those fics anyway.
* Also, I'm not sure this post quite conveys what I wanted, but I'm presently too tired to really judge that. So I might edit this later.
Rorschach's Blot is hit or miss. While the fanfic is indeed fun, it's not all it could be. A lot of his fics feel that way to me.
I'm honestly unclear which of these fics is worse:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9426618/1/Haruhi-Suzumia-In-the-USA
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9483712/1/The-Future-of-Haruhi-Suzumiya
But they're both awful, and have induced a certain self-destructive bile-fascination.
Quote from: Brian on September 03, 2013, 06:06:10 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9426618/1/Haruhi-Suzumia-In-the-USA
*clicks*
Quote
1. Prolouge
Hey everyone! This is my first anime story, so please let me know how I'm doing.
*closes tab*
a.k.a 'how to make someone ignore your story'
"Prolouge" sounds like something that's done in the Olympics.
Quote from: Yuthirin on September 03, 2013, 07:15:35 PM
"Prolouge" sounds like something that's done in the Olympics.
I can't imagine what that would consist of. The only mental image that comes to mind is gymnasts bending their spines in the wrong direction.
They do that anyway.
It's more like they're bending their spine into a Z while flying down an ice tube at a million miles an hour, trying to collect rings as they go without edging outside the marked lines. While they do this, live hedgehogs are being launched at them from mortar emplacements.
The 5-man team to reach the bottom with the best time wins, of course.
I'm 20 chapters into this:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6518287/1/Growing-Up-Black
Basic premise, the Black family is a bit larger than we see in the books, and some cousins of Sirius rescue Harry from the Dursleys. Well, even wolves would be better parents for Harry than the Dursleys, so that seems alright. I'm not sure if this is something I actually recommend, yet. For one thing, it's taken twenty chapters to get Harry (and best-friend Draco) to Hogwarts. For another, Ron and Hermione seem to be sorted into the 'bumbling antagonist' category, and Harry (for _some_ reason) loathed Dumbledore.
The fic has some good points, but may annoy me too much to continue....
If you're 20 chapters in and not sure about recommending it, I'd consider it a lost cause.
Yeah, I got further, but in the second year, I got sick of Harry's character once he was given the diary.
Hermione being clumsily antagonified (probably not a word) is already enough for me to resolutely ignore it. I'm reminded of the 'They Shook Hands' series, whose plug is that it turns the Slytherins from random cardboard antagonists to real characters. Which it does...by neatly inverting the dynamic from canon, so it's now the Gryffindors who are random cardboard antagonists. Big improvement there. <_<
Yeah, that part was bothering me. The story was kind of interesting, but dwelled too long on Harry's new adoptive family actually being Dark (even Sirius, it seemed!), so I found him a lot less sympathetic than canon. I got through Hermione's arc (which ended poorly), but ... eh, decent writing for a mediocre premise, with continually declining and fanwanky execution.
The Chronicles of the Dark Lord Ginnymort (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8892557/1/The-Chronicles-of-the-Dark-Lord-Ginnymort) is a short but cute story where Voldemort successfully possesses Ginny.
Yes I know what I said.
For a better take on slytherin!Harry, try this (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8222091/19/The-random-craziness-file), and later chapters prefixed with 'SWAC'. Amusing stuff.
Team 8 updated. Took quite a while.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/1/Team-8
Quote from: Onyxlamb on September 07, 2013, 11:31:47 PM
Team 8 updated. Took quite a while.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/1/Team-8
There's an understatement if there ever was one. I tried reading the latest chapter but sort of lost track of what the story had done so far. So I read a previous chapter, which referred to other previous events, which I wanted to read, and when I went back the same thing happened again. I think I'm going to need to start over from the beginning.
Not that reading Team 8 again is a bad thing.
Quote from: Onyxlamb on September 07, 2013, 11:31:47 PM
Team 8 updated. Took quite a while.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/1/Team-8
NO SHITEdit: Aw hell, it's been so long I don't remember things. I need to reread. Oh noes. :D :D :D
team 8:
Most convenient will. Seriously, the bulk of it is set as something written post chuunin exam, possibly within the last week or so before her death. It's enormously connected to current events of that time and just makes me laugh because of it.
Hiashi continues to basically be very overt in his being an ass, which saddens me as really no one calls him on simply being horrible rude directly to both Hokage. Additionally, no one abolishes the 'super secret council' setup that basically bullshitted away the promotion. I'm not sure what team 8 is supposed to do in context of a Konoha that's buried in bureacracy. That no one does anything really about basically 2 ninjas deciding to secret council away a finished exam. Even if it's just posturing.
It's nice that the backstory with Kurenai and Hiashi is finally revealed, though it still doesn't connect Hiashi and Naruto at all and why Hiashi would be invested in hating Naruto as he clearly is in the story.
The chapter is overall well written, but hard to invest in with such long gaps between chapters.
I read a bit of Backwards Compatibility.
Peggy-sue Harry.
...kinda terrible. I stopped somewhere after a full chapter of Harry just saying horrible things without any rhyme or reason or ordering or direction. Yadda Yadda, so and so dies, or goes crazy or murders.... do not care anymore.
From Fake Dreams (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/30/From-Fake-Dreams) updated.
Mostly just a chapter to work towards other things. Did have a fight and some heart-to-heart sections.
Quote from: Onyxlamb on September 07, 2013, 11:31:47 PM
Team 8 updated. Took quite a while.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/1/Team-8
Just finished reading it all for the first time today. I really really enjoyed it. I never much got far into the original show (didn't even make it to the bridge) because I didn't much like anyone but Naruto himself. This was a really well written alternative that I could get into. I love that. Thanks for posting it.
Summoning the Sun (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7402183/7/Summoning-the-Sun) updated!
Quote from: thepanda on September 14, 2013, 11:36:44 PM
Summoning the Sun (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7402183/7/Summoning-the-Sun) updated!
Read it. Liked it.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2857962/1/Browncoat-Green-Eyes
Decentish, if very odd. Harry Potter in the Firefly universe.
Takes a weird turn at around the 60% mark. I'm pretty happy with most of the Firefly cast, except Mal about half the time. Not sure I can say it was great, but I didn't hate it. Wish it had more than Harry from the HP cast, but....
This, on the other hand, was pretty decent:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9687796/1/The-Melancholy-of-a-Normal-Girl
Quote from: Brian on September 16, 2013, 03:09:25 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2857962/1/Browncoat-Green-Eyes
Decentish, if very odd. Harry Potter in the Firefly universe.
Takes a weird turn at around the 60% mark. I'm pretty happy with most of the Firefly cast, except Mal about half the time. Not sure I can say it was great, but I didn't hate it. Wish it had more than Harry from the HP cast, but....
Really? I really love this fic. I've read it 10+ times.
I was just hoping for more of the HP cast, I think.
Quote from: Brian on September 16, 2013, 03:19:34 PM
This, on the other hand, was pretty decent:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9687796/1/The-Melancholy-of-a-Normal-Girl
I liked it as well. Sort of a "what if this were real life and not an anime" setup. I'd like to see where it goes.
God Slaying Blade Works (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/20/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) updated.
Not one but two fights! I thought it was pretty enjoyable, since it kept things going pretty much constantly.
Quote from: JonBob on September 17, 2013, 04:21:10 PM
God Slaying Blade Works (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/20/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) updated.
Not one but two fights! I thought it was pretty enjoyable, since it kept things going pretty much constantly.
I've been meaning to sit down and read this, but I haven't had a chance lately. What happened in the chapter?
Quote from: Anastasia on September 18, 2013, 08:49:40 PM
Quote from: JonBob on September 17, 2013, 04:21:10 PM
God Slaying Blade Works (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/20/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) updated.
Not one but two fights! I thought it was pretty enjoyable, since it kept things going pretty much constantly.
I've been meaning to sit down and read this, but I haven't had a chance lately. What happened in the chapter?
Gotou won his fight. Shiro got brain-wammy'd. Though there is something weird going on with that.
Thanks!
I'll sit down and read at some point, probably this weekend. Busy week.
I'd wait for the next chapter to come out.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4438449/1/Path-of-Decision
Interesting, if very strange story. Harry Potter as an infant comes to the attention of the Endless. All of them, pretty much.
They all screw with his mind and his life, so he's a very different character. Works well in the setting of the Endless, but despite the story being primarily about Harry, the entire HP universe is secondary to the Endless. Despite their relatively limited screen time, Delerium notwithstanding.
I'm not honestly sure I can suggest this for anyone who's not already a big fan of the Endless as it stands, though.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6809127/1/Wings-of-Frontier
Fate/Stay Night & Macross Frontier. Yeah, weird.
It's kind of got a Gabriel Blessing-type Shirou and his FSN terminology/knowledge is a bit odd, but I kind of like it. The basic setting is that the FSN world ended when the Zentradi attacked and started the Macross series. It doesn't make big waves in Macross Frontier's story (yet), and it's kind of like Shirou's a bit of a spy.
Read several chapters before I quit. Couldn't see the point of the crossover if the main character wasn't going to contribute anything to the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/17/My-Love-s-Flame
An overdue update. [spoiler]Ranma sees through Minako's disguises and is showing signs of some sort of bond with Rei, plus possibly memories. Shenanigans loom. Nice chapter and it hooked me into wanting to see more.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9342459/6/Miracle-of-Zero-Kingdom-of-the-Forsaken
Miracle of Zero updated. It's mostly a move-along chapter and skips over an expo bomb. There's some action but I feel it was mostly setting up the rest of the arc.
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/260583.html
DK:A updated. Shit is hurtling towards the fan at Mach 1. Gonna be a long couple of days for Ami.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 21, 2013, 07:16:07 PM
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/260583.html
DK:A updated. Shit is hurtling towards the fan at Mach 1. Gonna be a long couple of days for Ami.
I really really liked DK:A for a long time. I connected with the characters, thought the writing was good and loved the premise... until about the fourth time Everything Fell Apart. I know no plan survives contact with the enemy, but damn, did she have some varied extreme failures. Its very four steps forwards, three steps back, and pretty painful to watch happen to fourteen year old girl. Again and again.
Still gonna pick it up again soon, running out of other stuff to read.
Quote from: Ergoemos on September 21, 2013, 08:12:50 PM
Its very four steps forwards, three steps back, and pretty painful to watch happen to fourteen year old girl. Again and again.
Some of the 'three steps back' stuff is also pretty weird. I mean, several dark gods try to kill Ami's soul? At least that's quickly dealt with. But, consider the horrible and protracted dilemma facing them when the dungeon heart suddenly develops a disgusting fashion sense!
For me, though, the adversity is part of the appeal. Even if this version of Ami has to be imagined an implausibly driven savant who manages to overcome every single threat thrown at her.
Yeah, a lot of the appeal is seeing Ami snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Her last setback was a bit much, as she'd really earned the Avatar Islands.
Quote from: Brian on September 19, 2013, 04:14:41 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4438449/1/Path-of-Decision
Interesting, if very strange story. Harry Potter as an infant comes to the attention of the Endless. All of them, pretty much.
They all screw with his mind and his life, so he's a very different character. Works well in the setting of the Endless, but despite the story being primarily about Harry, the entire HP universe is secondary to the Endless. Despite their relatively limited screen time, Delerium notwithstanding.
I'm not honestly sure I can suggest this for anyone who's not already a big fan of the Endless as it stands, though.
I recall coming across this some time after the first couple of chapters got published. I recall liking it a little, but lost track of it. I'll give it another shot.
EDIT: Holy John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt, 60 chapters.
Delenda Est updated, it is now finished!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/46/Delenda-Est
I'm honestly not sure if I wanna read it. This way I can pretend that the author put in a massive twist at the end to make everything interesting again.
It ended okay, I agree with you that it became a bit boring heading towards the end. He did announce that he'd be writing a sequel though, which might be good.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7406866/26/To-the-Stars
I posted this Madoka fic earlier as Magical Girls in Spacewar. The previous chapter had some ship to ship combat, and this latest chapter is the actual mission, which I thought was well done. If anyone is thinking of starting this one now, be warned that it's not just slow development, but snail development - my impression is that the writer is much more interested in worldbuilding than telling the story.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9268507/1/The-World-s-Greatest-Chunin-Exam-Team
Amusing.
It seems set for comedy, but it just is really to focus on a universe so inconsistent that it basically goes:
1)This guy is the ninja hero of his village and most other villages.
2)He's got super respect from all the other villages.
3)He's still the lowest rank and they can't bother to find some way to promote him, so they're placing him against 13 year olds.
*finishes*
Relatively good take on it, though it just still feels weird.
Quote from: thepanda on October 07, 2013, 05:34:04 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9268507/1/The-World-s-Greatest-Chunin-Exam-Team
Amusing.
I like it so far. Good parody is always fun. Most of my knowledge of the series comes from Team 8 though, so all the shinobi war characters are way beyond my fanon knowledge.
Mother of Learning (http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/20/Mother-of-Learning) updated.
Quote from: Brian on September 19, 2013, 04:14:41 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4438449/1/Path-of-Decision
Finally got around to reading this. Made it five chapters in before I had to stop. Not only did I not like it, it felt very unlikely to me.
I find it extremely unlikely that a group of men would abduct Harry and get away with it. While canon Dumbledore isn't the greatest caretaker in the world, he's at least having Potter watched. I'd like to think that he'd have stepped in once the Dursleys were out of the picture. While Dumbledore didn't necessarily care for his well-being, he at least know where Harry was most of the time. Him gallivanting off to France alone for fun would probably trip some wires.
As an aside, I was wrong. This isn't the story I recall reading a few years ago. That one was significantly more light-hearted.
Quote from: DY on September 23, 2013, 10:43:47 PM
Delenda Est updated, it is now finished!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/46/Delenda-Est
Read it. Not happy, but I sort of expected it to end this way. It all came across as very mechanical and foregone. Whooooole lotta OOC on Voldemort's part.
Voldemort always struck me as the type of villain who was absolutely self-assured in everything he does. It's one of his greatest character flaws, and one that I believe defines him. He doesn't look at his snake and decide that now is a good time to hide. He faces his enemy because he believes himself unassailable. Wards may fall and minions may die, but he is LORD VOLDEMORT and he defeated even DEATH. Any portrayal otherwise without drastically altering the history of his character is reprehensible. For a time-travel rewrite fic, it doesn't do that. The only altering force here is that Harry is a big bad spellslinger (though from what we're shown, not actually all that much better than he is in canon) and that Bellatrix is playing politcs. It's not a change, so much as a self-serving nudge. For all this coordination and maneuvering, canon Voldemort could have walked out of his HQ, confronted all the aurors and everyone else out there and won, for the simple fact that he is Voldemort. His power, skill, and force of personality are enough to carry him through nearly everything he has done in his life with complete success; the sole exception being the murder of Harry Potter. It killed him, but he got better.
He's designed to be this insurmountable task, an unbeatable enemy. People don't fear him because he hides in a hole and sends out terrorists. They fear him because, when he deigns to grace the field of battle with his presence, he is a force of absolute cruelty and destruction. He is great and powerful and terrible and willing to go to any lengths to succeed in whatever he decides to do, and make no mistake that he will succeed. Even Dumbledore, vaunted hero of the Light and a man with a well-deserved reputation of being extremely powerful, could only grind him to a halt. A duel to a standstill and only for a scant few minutes, with no clear victor. Voldemort is something to be feared.
He's supposed to be a big bad villain, with everything that goes with the mantle of said villain. Taking that away just makes me not care about his death. Or his defeat. Or however you decide to spin it. If Voldemort as a canon villain is too much for you to write around, the decision to diminish him speaks very poorly of your skill as a writer.
End rant.
Also, the author is excited to write a sequel with multi-dimensional political intrigue. I'm so fucking done.
Edit: Added rant.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/21/God-Slaying-Blade-Works
God Slaying Blade Works updated. Don't have much of an opinion about the chapter, except that it felt like not much really happened.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6372400/21/Chaos-Theory
Chaos Theory updated. Decent chapter bordering on good, in particular because of one line.
[spoiler]"You would think," Zouken said finally, "that someone as old as her would be wise enough not to tempt fate so blatantly."
Miracle of Zero updated. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9342459/7/)
Found and read a Ranma/Eva xover.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6434872/1/Switching-Places-Evangelion
Pretty random.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 16, 2013, 08:04:13 PM
Found and read a Ranma/Eva xover.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6434872/1/Switching-Places-Evangelion
Pretty random.
Is that the one with the panties angel?
Quote from: thepanda on October 16, 2013, 11:15:55 PM
Is that the one with the panties angel?
Yes.
I was debating to myself whether to mention those or the "unRei"-cloning bit in spoilers or not, but figured "random" probably represents the fic better than any particular event or quote.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 17, 2013, 12:02:22 AM
I was debating to myself whether to mention those or the "unRei"-cloning bit in spoilers or not, but figured "random" probably represents the fic better than any particular event or quote.
I think Gendo sums up the fic most aptly:
QuoteThis was not in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Melancholy of a Normal Girl (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9687796/2/The-Melancholy-of-a-Normal-Girl) is up to chapter 4 (linking to 2)
It's got a... desperate (melancholy?) feel to it. And it's a lot more about what's going on in their heads than outside.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 17, 2013, 04:24:44 PM
I think Gendo sums up the fic most aptly:
QuoteThis was not in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Heh!
Found this, and plan on reading through it within a day or so:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8868025/1/Just-An-Unorthodox-Thief
Fate/Lupin. I don't know much about the Fate world (other than from Gabe Blessing's fics, and with the amount of ranting about those fics I suspect that it might not be accurate), so can't really field a meaningful opinion from that aspect. I don't think there were ever many Lupin fics written in the first place, so it could be interesting.
Hmm, while Lupin summoned as a hero would be be kinda hillarious, there are 2 initial problems there:
1)Lupin barely ever kills, so having him as an assassin? An archer would be less dumb at least.
2)Fate doesn't have a role for a thief and has a whole killing requirement that tends to fiercely limit the room for the playful antics that make Lupin so fun.
3)Kotomine is the most opposed personality to lupin you could get. Even Tohsaka would be less bad.
So, that raises the question... what would be a good series to cross Lupin over with?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7021752/28/And-What-Alice-Found-There
Continues to update, though sort of moves slow.
Might be more fun in 5 chapter chunks.
Quote from: Dracos on October 21, 2013, 07:40:31 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7021752/28/And-What-Alice-Found-There
Continues to update, though sort of moves slow.
Might be more fun in 5 chapter chunks.
On the plus side, it looks like the action might finally pick up in the next chapter!
Still knowing little about Fate, some thoughts:
Quote from: Dracos on October 21, 2013, 04:35:10 PM
1)Lupin barely ever kills, so having him as an assassin? An archer would be less dumb at least.
On one hand, that completely makes sense. On the other hand, if done well, it could be pulled off like Tylor, where being the worst at a role makes him best at it.
Of course, that's also fairly tough to pull off, and usually doesn't work, but when it works, it works well.
Quote
2)Fate doesn't have a role for a thief
And that's something that seems less workable, when combined with the first point. Unless the writer is trying to go completely off the rails, in which case you'd expect that, but chapter 1 didn't strike me that way.
And point 3 just kills it.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 21, 2013, 07:34:35 PM
So, that raises the question... what would be a good series to cross Lupin over with?
Not really thinking this through (we could revive the Ideas thread if we start to seriously discuss this), but just throwing odd concepts out there for the hell of it:
Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne - Old "magical girl thief" story. I doubt the series would mesh for a long fic, but a moderately length fic about both trying to steal the same painting might be fun. This could be expanded to maybe one or two more series as well (Perhaps Mouse?). Basically, painting is stolen and counter-stolen between groups as each group steals it from another, and the hapless police characters blunder over each other. Since all those groups are "heroic thieves", you'd have to end the fic where everyone could be said to have stolen the painting.
There's also the subgenre of "Thief and Detective work together to fight crime" or somesuch, but I don't really know any detective stories. The only detective manga I've heard of is Detective Conan but have never read it, so no idea if anything could be done with that.
Besides those obvious matches, the challenging ones would be the series where killing isn't the goal, but rather, the obvious method towards the goal. As I'd referenced above, this would be trying to aim for the same general effect as the Irresponsible Captain Tylor - not being goofy for seemingly its own sake, but being oddball and pulling off incredible results. Maybe Black Lagoon?
And a fic: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9659792/1/The-Boy-in-the-Team
By the same guy who wrote the last two Naruto fics I posted in this thread. Basically, story of a normal person thrown onto a team of super-powered badasses and must succeed or die. Unlike the earlier two fics, which had decent writing but had hit-and-run characters and what felt like arbitrary plot twists appear out of nowhere, I haven't felt there was much that seemed like a random-plot twist.
A few points: Firstly, the writer has labeled this fic as angst, and is trying for angst, but I think it is more grit than angst. Secondly, while it's explained in the author's notes at the end of chapter 1, gender flipping 2/3 of Team 7 still felt arbitrary. Thirdly, this is an altverse and has corresponding altverse characterization so anyone who is enamored of the canon Naruto characterization may want to pass this one by.
That said, this story works for me since (1) I'm not emo, and while I can enjoy a story with angst, it's not something I like for its own sake (2) I read Naruto fics mainly because it's the series that everyone writes about rather than any fondness for the original series itself, so I don't really care (3) See #2.
The Mouse of Konoha: www.fanfiction.net/s/6693171/
It's a very well thought out fic. You can see the character development, mostly because Naruto is like 6 where the fic starts, so his pronunciation is really off until Anko whips him in shape.
Naruto in this fic interacts with so many people her, it's personally why I find it intriguing. Not neccessarily the rookie 9 members, it's mostly with the adults or older members in the Naruto-verse actually.
Warning though, it's really slow-paced. As in, they aren't even genin yet by the latest update.
Re: Boy in Team 7
I gave up after a few chapters. It may as well be a wholly original ninja team with the way those dynamics are working, and it's hard to sympathize with either a Naruto that's a nonsensically suspicious bitch or a sakura that basically has no strengths (Even Naruto at least has a positive attitude and lots of chakra). A fic with Sasuke being the most human of the set? Yah, done there.
Re: Mouse
Even now?
:(
It kinda broke my disbelief after a while by the sheer level of training and variety of skills that Naruto was being trained up in before he even started at the academy. A lot of cool ideas there, hampered really by just a lack of time motion for them to happen in. This week he's learning to talk correctly. Next traps. Next sabotage. How about disguise and infiltration? Ninjutsu? Assassination? Oh, and super specially effective transformation with strangely ridiculous chakra rules? I'm glad he's in the academy at this point, but they got him to the point he should've been top of class already by the time he started.
I read the thing in chunks every few days. I can understand how many things were crammed in, the "witty" quips he makes are also a bit grating and less than believable for a kid to have thought up of. Still, I've caught up to it, might as well stick it through. I enjoyed it for what it aimed to be Coming off hiatus apparently.
Quote from: Dracos on October 25, 2013, 01:42:40 PM
Re: Boy in Team 7
I gave up after a few chapters. It may as well be a wholly original ninja team with the way those dynamics are working, and it's hard to sympathize with either a Naruto that's a nonsensically suspicious bitch or a sakura that basically has no strengths (Even Naruto at least has a positive attitude and lots of chakra). A fic with Sasuke being the most human of the set? Yah, done there.
I'd mentioned both the altverse-nature and the characterization. It is what it is.
I think the characterizations make sense given the particular changes of the altverse: Given that Sasuke in this fic grew up human, the fact that he acts human reinforces that. Is "Sakura" at the beginning of this fic really worse off than Sakura in the beginning of canon? Naru(ko)'s unreasoning suspicion over constant praise is jarring, and I suspect it was meant to be, but it's no less unreasonable than Naruto's constant optimism in the face of constant coldness. And the reason for the character trait actually explained later on, rather than left hanging as "the main character is always loud and optimistic because shonen cliche demands it."*
My interest in this fic may play to my own favored-plot biases. A story of someone who starts off objectively the weakest, but though cleverness or effort or sacrifice, grows into or even excels in his or her role, is more likely to pique my interest than "X is gifted with abilities that make X objectively better than everyone else." Rather than read about a princess who is born to rule a kingdom, I'd rather read about the one who carved her own empire. And so forth.
Mouse:
IIRC, most of us here who followed the fic had the same reaction once the Academy arc started: "Wait, the academy is still even a concern?" After engaging foreign ninja and being entertained by nobility, showing up some school teachers and schoolchildren just doesn't seem like an engaging followup.
I differ from Drac's view of the fic; to me, it seems as if Naruto is being set up to be top ninja of the academy. But it doesn't feel all that important in the grand scheme of how the story developed, either.
Re: Boy in Team 7
My problem with the fic is that the author seems to revel in cruel "plot twists". He even constantly mentions them in the A/N a lot. Which breaks immersion a bit because almost every chapter he has to inform everybody about the big bad emotional punch he'll be giving everyone.
Quote from: lolipettanko on October 26, 2013, 01:34:08 AM
My problem with the fic is that the author seems to revel in cruel "plot twists". He even constantly mentions them in the A/N a lot. Which breaks immersion a bit because almost every chapter he has to inform everybody about the big bad emotional punch he'll be giving everyone.
I with you there. I've been skipping ANs on my first read-through, since "Hey guys! I'm about to throw in a plot twist into the next chapter! Look for and expect this plot twist!" defeats most of the point of the plot twist in the first place. It probably doesn't help that some of the "shocking" events of this fic are predictable because he's foreshadowed them.
And now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure what the point of chapter-ANs are in general. End of a book, sure, once the story has already been told.
So I read The World's Greatest Chunin Exam Team (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9268507/1/The-World-s-Greatest-Chunin-Exam-Team) recently, mentioned a few pages back. The author forgets punctuation occasionally, but the story itself is a hoot. I really enjoyed it. It's got the most powerful batch of Genin since Time Braid, and it plays to my Naruto/Hinata bias, which is always worth some extra points.
Checked my watchlist and found... A Mother's Touch:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5455363/
Can't really say much beyond that it's interesting, considering it hasn't even crested 50k words. The scenario has a lot of potential especially after that last chapter, but it hasn't been updated in over 4 years...
Quote from: Empyrean on October 26, 2013, 05:01:55 PM
So I read The World's Greatest Chunin Exam Team (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9268507/1/The-World-s-Greatest-Chunin-Exam-Team) recently, mentioned a few pages back. The author forgets punctuation occasionally, but the story itself is a hoot. I really enjoyed it. It's got the most powerful batch of Genin since Time Braid, and it plays to my Naruto/Hinata bias, which is always worth some extra points.
Only three chapters, so it was a fun little read.
Logical next step: these genin vs the Time Braid genin.
I'm pretty sure Time Braid wins; those guys have had a lot of time to cultivate extracanonical skillsets. But Time Braid beats most things power-wise.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 25, 2013, 11:09:07 PM
Quote from: Dracos on October 25, 2013, 01:42:40 PM
Re: Boy in Team 7
I gave up after a few chapters. It may as well be a wholly original ninja team with the way those dynamics are working, and it's hard to sympathize with either a Naruto that's a nonsensically suspicious bitch or a sakura that basically has no strengths (Even Naruto at least has a positive attitude and lots of chakra). A fic with Sasuke being the most human of the set? Yah, done there.
I'd mentioned both the altverse-nature and the characterization. It is what it is.
I think the characterizations make sense given the particular changes of the altverse: Given that Sasuke in this fic grew up human, the fact that he acts human reinforces that. Is "Sakura" at the beginning of this fic really worse off than Sakura in the beginning of canon? Naru(ko)'s unreasoning suspicion over constant praise is jarring, and I suspect it was meant to be, but it's no less unreasonable than Naruto's constant optimism in the face of constant coldness. And the reason for the character trait actually explained later on, rather than left hanging as "the main character is always loud and optimistic because shonen cliche demands it."*
My interest in this fic may play to my own favored-plot biases. A story of someone who starts off objectively the weakest, but though cleverness or effort or sacrifice, grows into or even excels in his or her role, is more likely to pique my interest than "X is gifted with abilities that make X objectively better than everyone else." Rather than read about a princess who is born to rule a kingdom, I'd rather read about the one who carved her own empire. And so forth.
Boy:
Yes, but Sakura shows no ambition, talent, or anything else really. He reads like someone who should've been dropped out, rather than at least a try-hard dead last. The entire setup comes off pretty weakly normally, but at least if you are doing it with a try-hard, it gives the notion that they bring something to the table that the elite may be lacking, a different perspective on life or whatnot. Having demotivated non-conscripted army kid just comes off as a weird protagonist.
Quote from: alethiophile on October 28, 2013, 12:13:41 AM
I'm pretty sure Time Braid wins; those guys have had a lot of time to cultivate extracanonical skillsets. But Time Braid beats most things power-wise.
Yeah, there's really not much contest. Time Braid just gradually builds up their power levels over decades/centuries until they're all just way beyond what anybody in canon is ever capable of, while World's Greatest Chunin Exam Team has them pegged at late-canon power levels.
Time Braid (as with most of his stuff) basically takes off any real limits on capabilities to try and acknowledge just the ridiculous "I take down everyone in the entire world simultaneously" levels that he raises Akatsuki to, and in fairness, so Naruto Canon also basically gives some members of akastsuki the capability to deal with the entire world simultaneously.
Quote from: Empyrean on October 28, 2013, 01:27:18 PM
Quote from: alethiophile on October 28, 2013, 12:13:41 AM
I'm pretty sure Time Braid wins; those guys have had a lot of time to cultivate extracanonical skillsets. But Time Braid beats most things power-wise.
Yeah, there's really not much contest. Time Braid just gradually builds up their power levels over decades/centuries until they're all just way beyond what anybody in canon is ever capable of, while World's Greatest Chunin Exam Team has them pegged at late-canon power levels.
Ah, but you see, that is not the real contest. Ultimately it's not about winning, it's about looking the most like chunin material before the judges.
:3
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 28, 2013, 07:24:22 PMAh, but you see, that is not the real contest. Ultimately it's not about winning, it's about looking the most like chunin material before the judges.
:3
I'd still hand that one to Time Braid. They've been through the Chunin Exams many times over, and are very experienced in showing others the sort of performance they want to see. A big part of the comedy in World's Greatest Chunin Exam Team is how
bad these powerful characters are at acting like Chunin.
Quote from: Empyrean on October 28, 2013, 09:15:50 PM
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on October 28, 2013, 07:24:22 PMAh, but you see, that is not the real contest. Ultimately it's not about winning, it's about looking the most like chunin material before the judges.
:3
I'd still hand that one to Time Braid. They've been through the Chunin Exams many times over, and are very experienced in showing others the sort of performance they want to see. A big part of the comedy in World's Greatest Chunin Exam Team is how bad these powerful characters are at acting like Chunin.
True enough.
But watch Tsunade hand the promotion to the Greatest Team anyways and ignore the Time Braid genin because
the Time Braid genin didn't nearly destroy her arena.
:33
Also, I'm not sure why I find this guy's writing so hilarious, but I do:
- kyon and haruhi go on a date and get lost in a haunted froset and a strange creature seems to be after them. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9311596/1/the-haunted-woods)
- http://www.fanfiction.net/u/4714674/23xo97
It has a bit of that legendary 'Eye of Argon' sort of vibe to it, what with how
off the grammar, the spelling, and the.... everything is. Would be ECB worthy in my books if it weren't largely hilarious and inoffensive.
Quote from: Dracos on October 28, 2013, 01:18:20 PM
Boy:
Yes, but Sakura shows no ambition, talent, or anything else really.
He does have something.
The writer works with the MPD aspect pretty hard.
It's not an earth-shattering something, but that's the point of the fic.
Quote
He reads like someone who should've been dropped out, rather than at least a try-hard dead last. The entire setup comes off pretty weakly normally, but at least if you are doing it with a try-hard, it gives the notion that they bring something to the table that the elite may be lacking, a different perspective on life or whatnot. Having demotivated non-conscripted army kid just comes off as a weird protagonist.
It's pretty odd for something based on a shonen series, and in a sense, almost the opposite of the usual shonen story. Instead of the hero who is faced with high odds and works through them using persistence to reach his goal, it's a normal person who is given high expectations and told to either live up to them or shatter.
The issue with using a try-hard character is that the character is still "Naruto", not "Sakura". Nothing wrong with that per se, but it defeats the purpose of switching the main character. Also, if the writer went for try hard+low power+modest goals, the writer would probably end up with something like Hurricane Suite (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5804112/1/Hurricane-Suite) which features a Naruto Shaped Entity.
Quote from: Dracos on October 21, 2013, 07:40:31 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7021752/28/And-What-Alice-Found-There
Continues to update, though sort of moves slow.
Might be more fun in 5 chapter chunks.
Just finished binging this, and it is very neat. Thanks for the pointer.
This fic is terrible:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9759088/1/You-Never-Realized
But someone decided to mention me and a fic I wrote in (evidently) a number of reviews. I tried to be supportive, since the author is complaining about being trolled.
Not sure how well I did. :x
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/26/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. Strong chapter, I liked basically all of it.
[spoiler]Archer mode, Satsuki saving the day, Shirou's snake fighting style getting screen time and a whole bunch of good reflection made this a hell of a chapter.
I was and remain skeptical about the effect on the overall story pace of dumping a whole Tsukihime arc in before actually getting to the War, but it seems that the quality of said Tsukihime arc remains excellent. (And I vaguely recall first finding the guy n chapters ago, and thinking his prose was kind of rough. He's improved immensely there.)
Neoalfa's improved and has a good proofreader. That's helped a lot.
The Tsukihime arc has been much better than anticipated. It's a sidequest compared to what's going on Fuyuki, but it's been a well done side quest.
Forging the Sword (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3557725/13/Forging-the-Sword) updated. It's got a crazy slow pace (started in 2007 and now on chapter 13), but it's well worth the read. Things diverge when Ginny dies in the Chamber of Secrets, and there are logical changes to events in years 3 and 4 that follow on from that, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione all find themselves working harder to bring Lucius to justice, find out how Voldemort's immortal, and become stronger so no one else will have to be sacrificed next time he shows up.
Fundamentally it's about removing the original books' focus on luck and self sacrifice bringing success and replacing it with effort and hard work. There's no easy solutions for the Trio, and because they're spreading themselves thin on various different projects they don't peel ahead and become overpowered in a year's time either. Also there's no character bashing, which is always a novel and exciting prospect in HP fiction~
That's an interesting fic. I like the author's depth of characters and generally deep reasoning on the magical world.
*finishes consuming it*
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9384156/6/Why-Me
Why Me updated. The chapter's okay and explicitly stated to be a short cliffhanger. The second part's coming out in a few days. I don't have a real comment about it since it's obviously set up for the next part.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9384156/7/Why-Me
Why Me updated again. Decent fight scene and the end stinger is good. [spoiler]Someone playing the dark side of 'they're just make-believe characters' is a nice contrast to the main character's attitude. Especially since she assumes that Louise summoned Saito, which hints at all sorts of amusing things.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9776943/1/A-Pig-at-the-Left-Hand-of-God
Ranma 1/2 and ZnT crossover. Ryouga's summoned by Louise, Ranma ends up in Diablo-verse Hell and shenanigans are happening with Nabiki and Shampoo. I'm not sure what the hell's going on, but there's some odd plot afoot. Worth a look, I'd say, though it's still early on.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9805735/1/A-Certain-Droll-Hivemind
Life from the perspective of an introspective Misaka clone. Kind of short chapters and only humor, but it entertained me.
That thing is fun. There are more chapters up in the Spacebattles thread, but to read that you have to go to Spacebattles. Which...may or may not be worth it. <_<
Quote from: Anastasia on November 10, 2013, 10:47:08 PM
Ranma 1/2 and ZnT crossover. Ryouga's summoned by Louise, Ranma ends up in Diablo-verse Hell and shenanigans are happening with Nabiki and Shampoo. I'm not sure what the hell's going on, but there's some odd plot afoot. Worth a look, I'd say, though it's still early on.
Neat. Ryoga makes a more likable protagonist than I'd usually expect, since so much of canon and fanon alike is spent playing him up as the buffoon next to Ranma.
I have to admit, I felt really bad for chuckling at Ryoga thinking Belgians are found in Africa o_o;
Quote from: alethiophile on November 13, 2013, 05:12:08 PM
That thing is fun. There are more chapters up in the Spacebattles thread, but to read that you have to go to Spacebattles. Which...may or may not be worth it. <_<
<insert rant about SB authors who write chapters one paragraph at a time interspersed with dozens of irrelevant comments on a forum thread>
SB has its pros and cons. Some enjoyable fics are posted there (Overlady, etc.), but yes. The randomoscity is sometimes difficult to wade through.
That and the lag. I don't personally care for the forum anyway (don't like the board culture and the post spamming is one reason why), but that's a huge hassle. The threads I keep up with there I skim everything but posts by the author. Unfortunately, it's where a lot of good authors are right now.
What's an SB board/forum? I am not as internet savvy as I once was. Something like the MSPA forums?
Spacebattles.com. It has a big creative writing forum with a lot of authors. The ZnT fanfic fad started there, as is a current upswing in Worm fanfics. Opinions about the site vary considerably and it's not for everyone, even with the stories there.
Waitwaitwait, what the hell is a Worm fanfic?
http://parahumans.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/
Fanfics of this, a web novel named Worm.
Quote from: Anastasia on November 14, 2013, 11:27:46 AM
http://parahumans.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/
Fanfics of this, a web novel named Worm.
Actually, for what it is worth, the source for the fanfics, Worm, its really well written. Its dark and grim as heck, but smart with superpowers and unique with direction. I never once groaned because some overused trope was once again used as expected.
Its nearly finished now too, so if you want an expansive world with 1.5 million words to its count, its worth a look.
Can't say much for the fanfics though. I might look again when the original work is complete next week.
Yeah. I don't like Worm and I feel it's a deeply flawed story, but I do agree it's well written and well done. It's more of an author style thing than anything else. I think I prefer Worm for fanfic bait than anything else. The world's really rich and developed.
I guess I admire it from a technical and worldbuilding point while disliking the actual story.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/79/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death updated. It's a short status report, but at least the fic's getting going. Unfortunately, those specials seem to have gotten borked by the co-author leaving. Too bad. I'm still fairly down on the story with how they handled the end of the Cell arc, but I was interested in the specials.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/1/For-Want-of-a-War
What if Balbanes survived and Ramza's life story became a harem comedy instead? That's the premise of this fic. It's a fun little fic from the author of Forcibly United. It's fun stuff, especially how the world of FFT completely derails in a softer sort of way.
http://www.fukufics.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=7714
DK:A updated. The link's to a temporary upload since the Addventure's having technical problems. Ami's entire position fucking sucks and she knows it. It feels like Ami's running ragged again and I suspect this dwarf invasion may bring some things to a peak - that or Kunzite shows up to throw a wrench into both side's plans.
Heh. It's been so long since the last post that I'd forgotten that Kunzite was lurking in the background.
A Ranma fic I'd thought had been posted here earlier by someone else, but a forum search didn't yield anything.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2475280/1/Gesundheit
You ever remember reading a story in your youth and thinking MAN THIS IS GREAT STUFF and then you go back to read it and OH GOD WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH ME THIS IS SHIT
This just happened to me.
Quote from: Yuthirin on November 20, 2013, 02:12:05 PM
You ever remember reading a story in your youth and thinking MAN THIS IS GREAT STUFF and then you go back to read it and OH GOD WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH ME THIS IS SHIT
This just happened to me.
Still better than having that experience with something you
wrote....
Which story was it? (If it's not a secret :-P)
Ah, the nostalgia goggles.
Lovestruck by Jennifer Poulos. It's on the Florestica archive. Sorry no link, am mobile.
Presumably this:
http://florestica.com/jpoulos/lovestruck/
And possibly also this:
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/549329/1/LoveStruck-Book-One-Seven-Days
Yes. Thank you.
Quote from: Yuthirin on November 20, 2013, 02:45:03 PM
Lovestruck by Jennifer Poulos. It's on the Florestica archive. Sorry no link, am mobile.
I remember that fic on the FFML. I also remember thinking that while was not the best story I'd ever read but still a okay bit of fluff, way back when. Guess I'd best avoid rereading that one.
-edit-
Oh, and MB's fic updated https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6880685/11/Well-in-Hand
I started reading Final Fantasy Tactics fanfic.
First was For Want of a War, mentioned already: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/1/For-Want-of-a-War
It's funny. It's also got some good fight scenes, but they are largely unnecessary to the plot. Given the premise of FFT as a harem comedy, and Ramza's superhuman proficiency at unarmed combat, this story is Ramza 1/2. Has updated quite a bit after a 7 month hiatus, so if you read it a while ago, take another look. This story doesn't limit the harem to the girls you would expect.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3250660/1/Heart-of-Gold
Final Fantasy Tactics romance fanfic. I've only read the first five chapters, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far. The approach taken so far is to follow canon events exactly, except from Agrias' perspective, and only adding things where they could happen off-scene. It's a pretty slow pace; it doesn't just dump Ramza and Agrias into a relationship, taking the slow buildup route. Agrias isn't the type to just throw herself at a guy. She's a Holy Knight, and she thinks and acts like a professional fighter.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/79/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death updated.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/18/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame updated. Not a whole lot happened here, wished more had. It felt like a transitory chapter the author struggled to get out.
http://parahumans.wordpress.com/
Worm finished last week, if anyone feels like reading a remarkably long but very well constructed web serial.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/19/For-Want-of-a-War
For Want of a War updated. Plots are hatched and Ramza gets tired of the assassin's shenanigans.
NWS https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9342459/8/Miracle-of-Zero-Kingdom-of-the-Forsaken NWS
Miracle of Zero updated. As noted it's not work safe.
[spoiler]This does at least explain Shirou having routine delusions about Rin talking to him. You know, I'm okay with rape being used as a story element. I'm okay with some adult content. They can be used skillfully to enhance a story and provide shock value. I'm not sure if that chapter uses those elements successfully*, but whatever, not the point. But wow, way to turn a one off anime element into pure darkness as a thin excuse to make Shirou freak out.
I've never liked stories that took Mott that far out of context, it's always felt terrifically OOC and unfitting to the ZnT world. What the fuck sort of nobleman parades his recent victim around like a prize? That goes past SoD breaking and into flat fucking dumb. It's one thing to have your maids dress up provocatively and it's a whole fucking continent away to have one lying around like that. It's like inviting a guest over and having a dead hooker under the coffee table. Unless you know your guest is a serial killer it's going to get you in unbelievably deep shit.
What the fuck?
*I don't think it does beyond shock value, but I admit it hit that out of the park. I wasn't expecting this from that story.
So, that latest Miracle of Zero chapter.
Yikes.
I realize that the note at the end was trying to dismiss some of what Anastasia brought up, because apparently some one else had the same thoughts, but to me it still came off as really just, ugh. I'm willing to see where the story will go from here (and indeed know at least some of those details from deviantART stuff, although not the forums), but man, this was a real swerve in a story that was going rather well until this point.
Quote from: Grahf on November 28, 2013, 10:45:41 PM
So, that latest Miracle of Zero chapter.
Yikes.
I realize that the note at the end was trying to dismiss some of what Anastasia brought up, because apparently some one else had the same thoughts, but to me it still came off as really just, ugh. I'm willing to see where the story will go from here (and indeed know at least some of those details from deviantART stuff, although not the forums), but man, this was a real swerve in a story that was going rather well until this point.
[spoiler]
The entire thing stands out like a sore thumb. It feels like something he forced to work in just the way he wanted rather than anything believable, really. Let's assume Mott really is a sadistic bastard a moment. There's still no reason he'd just have one of his conquests out when dealing with a noble he doesn't know. Noble politics is about character, power and influence. What the hell does that get you at all? What if Louise goes to mom and points out Mott is the type of person to have a freshly raped maid out when she visits? What if she mentions it to Henrietta? Let's assume he has the political pull to get away with it too. Even if we assume that, what the hell is the point?
The entire stunt gets him nothing. Is it so hard to have a pleasant sitting room that your guests can wait in, in case your main room is occupied by a violated maid? You'd think you'd have your guards up on that sort of thing. They're at least complicit with it, so it behooves them and Mott to have their ducks in a row in case things go south like this.
It makes absolutely zero sense for a nobleman to do. At best it's hurting his own political position by offending an up and coming noblewoman. At worst the offense to Louise gets back to Karin and she takes offense. You know, the Heavy Wind who's a teenage friend of Queen Marianne and who outranks Mott? Let's go a step further and assume that Mott's a monstrous psycho who would do that anyway.
I read his AN afterwards and it failed at basic making sense to me. It was like someone who belabored, squeezed and pushed logic into a tortured shape so that it could enable the story twist he wanted. It was supremely lazy writing (to borrow the phrase of another reviewer I just read) and piss-poor plotting of the highest caliber. I get the feeling he started from the premise of 'how I can get this to happen how I want it' rather than 'what would happen here'.
The premises involved could have worked, but they would need defter handling than what the author did here.
It's not that it's simply dark - although it is very, very dark - it's that it mostly came off as hamfisted. Granted, this isn't the only psychotic portrayal of Mott I've seen, he was arguably a whole lot worse in the other fic I read (Unfamiliar (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/unfamiliar-a-znt-prototype-crossover.177288/) for those interested, although do note that it's a somewhat graphic fiction, not to mention that it's also a dead fic as far as I can tell).
Still, it's like, let's take a guy who was undoubtedly a pervy skivvy kind of jackass in the canon, and crank the dial past 11. That's good drama, right? Right?!
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9776943/5/A-Pig-at-the-Left-Hand-of-God
This story updated. [spoiler]I'm not so fond of the Breaking Point failing against the golem. It's defensible to have it work out that way and arguably a good call so that things don't turn wanky. On the other hand, I do feel it's a situation Ryouga has a natural counter for and should be able to enjoy that. Y'know, in the vein of that one fic where Ryouga beats the DBZ androids because he has the perfect technique in the perfect situation? That.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9891998/1/Highschool-SAO
GB's SAO/DxD xover.
Lots of exposition.
Not Quite a Maia (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4838629/1/Not-Quite-A-Maia)
When the Fellowship loses Gandalf they need a new wizard, and so Neville Longbottom and Molly Weasley, fresh from Voldemort's defeat, are called to help Middle Earth.
Yeah, I've seen this one floating about but it seems like such a silly crackfic going by the description. But one bored day I started reading it, only to find it's actually really good! Both sources are treated with respect and affection, and really Neville and Molly just fit right into the Fellowship so well that even with their out of setting magic it just seems natural. That's not to say it's not funny though, as there are plenty of laughs to be found, particularly when it comes to chapters featuring Augusta Longbottom's travels through Middle Earth in search of her wayward grandson, which she believes to be Australia.
Quote from: Brian on July 05, 2013, 03:32:28 PM
Read this fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4119917/8/Hakumei
It's actually semi-okay. I will point out that I'm linking chapter eight instead of chapter one because the fic works better that way. The premise is crazy, and the justification for it does more harm to the story than good ... so just jump into part two, which is post-prologue.
You miss very little, and it's worth what you do miss. :|
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 05, 2013, 08:11:00 PM
I've read that one. The writer barely posts anymore, so I suspect that this is all there will ever be of the fic.
I'm in complete agreement about skipping the first part (although I'd probably suggest reading the very first chapter just for the necessary background info).
Apparently, I was wrong. It is also "complete", but per endnotes, this translates to "See you in the sequel, which I haven't fully outlined yet, due to various other projects." Which usually means that the fic won't be written at all, but I said that about the last chapter too.
On a different note, Mother of Learning is set to update on the 22nd. I think this is the only semi-regularly updated fic I'm currently following that I look forward to without reservation, so good news on my end.
-
On a third note, if others are still following it, In Flight (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/43/In-Flight) updated. There's a small mention about how the notes were deleted, so he had to rewrite them. I'm sure many people would have otherwise grieved if this chapter did not have the usual frontloaded notes with spoilers.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9373272/1/The-Avatar-of-Light
It's been dead lately, so I checked out a random fuku fic. It's okay and has some amusing writing. It has some flaws - if nothing else I imagine Ranma would have tried his own techniques first rather than the magical girl ones - but it was a decent enough read.
In Flight (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6556187/43/In-Flight) updated. I'm sure you all were eagerly awaiting this.
Lots of fighting and a big final confrontation.
So, surprised that the source of the Sekirei crest was Minaka's crest, disappointed at how Minaka went down, and a lot of magic displayed in public is waved off as "alien powers". Oh, yeah, the "I am your father" thing, it was kind of cliche, but it wasn't dwelt on a lot, which is a good thing.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 20, 2013, 03:34:40 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9373272/1/The-Avatar-of-Light
It's been dead lately, so I checked out a random fuku fic. It's okay and has some amusing writing. It has some flaws - if nothing else I imagine Ranma would have tried his own techniques first rather than the magical girl ones - but it was a decent enough read.
Nice find. I was amused.
In Flight epilogue was posted.
Given how the last chapter finished, I would have preferred a proper ending, rather than the retrospective POV.
Re: In Flight
[spoiler]I don't think GB had a play that could make a majority happy. At least the story's done.
I like the idea of Minaka and the Sekirei leading to A-Rays. That's some neat worldbuilding right there, y'know? It's too bad the story got away from him and ballooned.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/27/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. Awesome chapter. [spoiler]
- I like how the snake style+married blades=Archer's style. It's a lot of fun to see Shirou coming into his own.
- Yeah, Shirou can pull out all the stops. He's still out of his league against Ciel. He ultimately survives the battle thanks to his convictions, not his martial prowess.
- Everything else was a nice winddown to the Ciel fight. So Satsuki might get a decent ending this time around. I'm okay with that. I also like how what Shirou's doing isn't infringing on Shiki's canon adventures. He's still on the Near Side route and doing his KILL KILL KILL thing.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on December 22, 2013, 12:44:29 AM
In Flight epilogue was posted.
Given how the last chapter finished, I would have preferred a proper ending, rather than the retrospective POV.
[spoiler]
Gabe rarely does proper endings, especially on longer stories. He tends to follow a "All the conflict got resolved here so now Giant Timeskip to epilogue" that tends to be rather unsatisifying for those who wanted to see a proper falling action and denouement.
Good on him to finish but my thoughts now that it's over?
Whiny guy and Sister Conflict didn't add much or get resolved well. The whiny guy felt pointless in the end, and I think he was just there because original story had him. I'm not sure at all why he was with the sister at the end rather than already dead or desperately on his own. The sister basically sort of ...vanishes from her own existing life? My, she certainly doesn't have much of a life then...I mean, college, her own friends or dreams or whatnot? Poof, My brother killed my dad and so I'm leaving japan. Just like that. And screw going to college now, I'm going to be a hero of justice traveling the world or some shit. And also neither Takaima or Shiro can find her? with THEIR resources and her personality and lack of experience with discretion? Also with a tracking chip in her sekerei? How stupid. I think it was a real waste not to have that come to head at all during the story so it could get resolved and kind of treats her as totally disconnected from having a life.
Mr. Final Boss not explaining his goals when trying to recruit Shiro just seems strange and unnecessary in light of what they were. Sure, he might not have given detail, but not even a token attempt to say "From my view I'm trying to save humanity, I don't really want to go to Akasha." Just gets in the way of the final chapter.
Much like almost any tactics would too. Not bringing Miya was weird and seems unnecessary. More relevantly, not disarming the tracking chips in his own Sekerei (Really, bringing it back with hacker girl just getting it as a power up?), not doing any up front communication or counter information so that there isn't a horde of people (He does have both Miya and Superhacker) just getting in the way?
Rin and Saber, both their strange characterizations and extremely awkward presence in the fic, don't feel like they practically add anything aside from basically, requiring blindness from Shirou so he doesn't sniff out the final boss at all. The way the epilogue was handled, those two chapters (The worst in the fic) could've just not happened and it wouldn't make any difference. Have Rin fail or still be fighting and it happens off camera. Whatever, I can't see how he did handle it being satisfying for anyone. Frankly, the way they were included and handled soured me a lot on the fic, enough that I only barely ended up finishing it.
Heck, without them it could've easily gone:
Amazing chapter rescuing his little sister.
Recruitment attempt by his mom.
Phone call from Minaka wanting to talk it out as mages, since he knows enough not to be fooled or at least suspect. Goes poorly anyway even with more information since Shirou is super nontrusting.
Same callout goes out, but hey, superhacker, distracts a lot of people.
Who does end up there? Well, sister team would definitely come, distraction or no, because she has the whole Your Father thing going for her. So would the guard team and Uzume. And I can't really see the other big leader kiddo getting distracted.
In other words, the actual characters could all still show up for that chapter anyway, without making it look like he's not even trying to counter things.
This would've ended things about 4 chapters (and prolly 6-8 months) sooner, keeping things in the context of Sekerei without the awkwardness brought by the deeper Fate/Stay Night interactions. These easily could've been waved off as Not What the Story Was About.
Also, a lot of exposition on trivial bits of fate/stay night over the course of it that basically assume that the readers don't have familiarity with it. Though pulling out new super-runes for the second to last chapter despite him not studying them seemed weird (Why not have the body captured or the clothes taken or whatnot). I don't think that actually helped and is probably a bad habit since it dries out a lot of things.
There were many parts of the fic I liked. A lot of the characters were good, a lot of the small scenes were fun, and having such a crazy protagonist was entertaining. In the beginning I was really following it aggressively and had a lot of fun with the reading. Many of the individual handlings were really cool and several of the character interactions were fun. I don't think Gabe treats his characters like people though, especially Magi come across not as scientists studying unearthly mysteries. Folks are objectives and hard-line viewpoints rather than people.
I think the way the family angle got handled was a huge waste. Shirou's sister was the only one even trying to reach out, and she was half assing it since she didn't try and bring anyone together with Shirou. Sure, it sets up the final revelation, but it basically goes from them trying very hard over circumstances and concerns in the first 1/4th of the fic to irrelevant unconnected elements for the remaining 3/4ths of it.
Fic that started better than it finished, I think. It did save Uzume though, which was neat :)
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/21/Mother-of-Learning updated.
Quote from: Dracos on December 22, 2013, 12:32:43 PM
Gabe rarely does proper endings, especially on longer stories. He tends to follow a "All the conflict got resolved here so now Giant Timeskip to epilogue" that tends to be rather unsatisifying for those who wanted to see a proper falling action and denouement.
He does tend to timeskip quite a bit, doesn't he? Still, it's not necessarily a time-skip per se that I am annoyed with, even if it is sometimes annoying in its own right. Maybe a more accurate way of stating my problem is that I want a climactic ending to stories (incidentally, given the way TV series are written these days, this means that I doubt I'll start watching TV any time soon). Finding Home climaxed where the SM manga did, and the last chapter was the wrap up. Finishing What You Start had a long timeskip, but since that the fic was character-driven, the meeting itself was the climax. Those Who Love Monsters was a horror fic, and the climax occurred when the protagonist throws away his humanity as he was destined to.
IF doesn't feel like it had a climax. I'm guessing that the battle with Minaka was supposed to be that, but given that he'd just decided to go do that in the last few chapters, it didn't work out that way. The Last Fuck You from Minaka could have been that, and the chapter before the last had the setup for that, so the epilogue was a fairly unpleasant surprise.
Quote from: Dracos
Good on him to finish but my thoughts now that it's over?
I was going to wait until some people had a chance to read the fic and comment on it, but I think you said everything I was thinking, and more besides.
So I'll just incorporate everything you just wrote by reference, and add that from the perspective of someone reading this fic who had no FSN knowledge (1) his assumption that the reader didn't know anything worked in my favor (2) I also thought those two chapters were the worst chapters.
I've come to dislike the feeling of realizing that I'm a terrible writer, but I could still write better than a lot of authors.
Well, it's not that hard ... which makes it kind of surprising how many bad writers there are.
So this thing (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9291760/18/Blacklight) updated. It's a crossover between Twilight and [PROTOTYPE], of all the unlikely things, and elides none of the, erm, "characteristic" feel of the latter. Fairly decent, if you have high tolerance for gore and mild sociopathy.
God Slaying Blade Works (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/22/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) updated.
It's the big battle! Shirou vs everyone! Honestly, I thought Shirou was holding back a bit. But maybe he's just building up to the big guns.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4502785/1/Scordatura
An Ah Megamisama fic. Involves gaming, zombies, and hello kitty to a minor degree.
It's been such a quiet new year, I've gone back to the books on my shelves.
It really has.
Yeah. The only thing that's updating right now is Worm fanfics. I don't post those here since no one follows them.
I've noticed a disturbing trend of those on SB and I'm not sure I like it
It's a good setting to play around in. I like most stories written in it much better than the source material. So I'm okay with it.
While its not fanfiction at all, I've finally got around to reading the Intrigues and Dissociation (and eventually Surprise) of Haruhi Suzumiya, and man are they kind of a slog to get through. I can kind of see why they decided not to continue the anime past the Disappearance.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9740933/1/Fate-Revelation-Online a Fate/SAO xover.
I still haven't played FSN, so my perspective on this fic might be skewed as someone who has only read the SAO novel translations. Follows the events that stem from the rebooted series (where they go from the first floor onward) rather than the original series which started on seventy-fifth floor.
Although I find the occasional "Dojo" chapters amusing in themselves, I'm not sure how I feel about them as part of the fic as a whole.
Quote from: Dracos on January 08, 2014, 04:07:41 PM
It's been such a quiet new year, I've gone back to the books on my shelves.
Anything interesting stand out? I find myself reading more technical books or survey papers these days, and feel like I'm in a rut in finding something new to read.
Quote from: Ergoemos on January 09, 2014, 08:53:46 PM
While its not fanfiction at all, I've finally got around to reading the Intrigues and Dissociation (and eventually Surprise) of Haruhi Suzumiya, and man are they kind of a slog to get through. I can kind of see why they decided not to continue the anime past the Disappearance.
Stuff like this really makes me wonder if
Haruhi was ever that good in the first place. Were the first and second books fun because the character and the world were so new to us? Or are the later novels less fun because Haruhi herself is out of focus, and these novel-long (or 3-novel-long) arcs are only distantly related to her?
Or maybe, you know, they're just not that well written. I mean,
Intrigues has Asahina has a major character of plot importance, and yet despite that, it seems to go out of its way to avoid developing her. It's almost the antithesis of
Disappearance, which gave Nagato some compelling emotional development.
Quote from: Muphrid on January 11, 2014, 03:10:29 AM
Stuff like this really makes me wonder if Haruhi was ever that good in the first place. Were the first and second books fun because the character and the world were so new to us? Or are the later novels less fun because Haruhi herself is out of focus, and these novel-long (or 3-novel-long) arcs are only distantly related to her?
Or maybe, you know, they're just not that well written. I mean, Intrigues has Asahina has a major character of plot importance, and yet despite that, it seems to go out of its way to avoid developing her. It's almost the antithesis of Disappearance, which gave Nagato some compelling emotional development.
I'm honestly leaning towards the "not well written" end of things. I don't think they are poorly written, but either something got lost in the translation (not sure what the Japanese think of the series) or there was just general authorial quality decay over time. I think there is something to be said about the animated feature being better paced than the books (not necessarily excluding Endless Eight either).
I think the biggest problem is that the concept of the story and the idea behind all the characters is more compelling than the actual portrayal of them. Its all well and good to have your reluctant deapan snarker hero be reluctant, but for Gods' sake, can't he have fun every once in a while? I am thinking back and can't remember a single time he said "this was fun" since that one time in the club room where it was quiet and he and Koizumi were playing a board game and Haruhi was brooding sadly (I think in the Sigh of?).
Quote from: Jason_Miao on January 09, 2014, 09:24:33 PM
Anything interesting stand out? I find myself reading more technical books or survey papers these days, and feel like I'm in a rut in finding something new to read.
Speaking of reluctant heroes written in first-person train-of-thought, my number one favorite book in times between finding new material is Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. Its about an ordinary coffee house baker who gets dragged into the company of vampires in a post-Great-War-vs-Paranormal-Creatures world. The vampires are much closer to Bram Stoker's than anything more modern, and the world is pretty well developed all around.
If I had to ascribe a more high-minded descriptor, I'd say it is a pretty apt deconstruction of most of the modern fantasy genre as it exists today, but it is more fun than that premise sounds, I promise. I've been listening to it on audiobook lately (because I can do that while I stare at charts and graphs at work) but its a good read too.
Kyon relates that he enjoys his time in the club quite a few times. Intrigues specifically comes to mind.
Been reading World in Pieces (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6730432/1/World-in-Pieces), which is a decent take on the 'Harry is summoned to another universe to defeat their Voldemort' thing. Most of the others I've seen have featured AU Harrys that've fought a long war, or have picked up some amazing powers early on, but this just has plain old regular canon Harry from just a few hours after the Battle of Hogwarts. The world he's pulled into was the home of a Slytherin Harry who recently killed himself, as well as a couple of other Slytherin Harrys that had also been summoned and then gotten killed. Really seems like they shouldn't have sent a Slytherin to do a Gryffindor's job. There's references to Harry/Draco if that bothers you, but luckily the summoned Harry isn't interested in any of that.
Speaking of Gryffindors, and on a far lighter note, there's Harry Potter: Overboard Gryffindor (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9507475/1/Harry-Potter-Overboard-Gryffindor) where Harry proves to be a better superhero than Shirou ever was. Short, silly, but very fun.
I read over Overboard Gryffindor last night and found it quite amusing.
Quote from: Dracos on January 14, 2014, 12:37:37 PM
I read over Overboard Gryffindor last night and found it quite amusing.
Harry is kind of like Iron Hands McAwesome (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7719988/1/The-Blender) crossed with The Tick.
Finished World in Pieces.
Overall, very enjoyable. I think that it goes a bit overboard on Us vs Them and too many folks just acting non-maliciously in concert as part of the Greater Plan (of monsterousness). I think it also unintentionally goes overboard on traditionally neutral/villainous characters being the majority of team 'not Order of the Phoenix'. But it does give several of the traditional good guys good screen time to by the end.
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/891127/Ozzallos
Ozzallos updated his profile with a large snippet from his current chapter in progress. Considering he's been gone since June/July, it's nice to hear from him again.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/23/God-Slaying-Blade-Works
God Slaying Blade Works updated. [spoiler]UBW sees play and Venus gets a terminal case of being dead. I thought it was a decent chapter for what it was, but ye gads does this author have a serious case of literary diarrhea. I mean, I like him overall and he's improving, but brevity is not his strong suit.
Been reading some Motivation. Slowly really. Other than that doesn't seem like much new has crossed my viewing angle in a bit aside from World in Pieces (which was still pretty cool).
http://www.fukufics.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=7764
DK:A updated. Shit continues to get real and pressure mounts.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 24, 2014, 08:11:47 PM
DK:A updated. Shit continues to get real and pressure mounts.
Dungeon Keeper vs. Dwarf Fortress: the epic showdown.
I'm still waiting to add magical demon bullshit to it via Kunzite. Here's hoping.
I've recently read https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8078340/1/Postnuptial-Disagreements, a Fate/Sekirei xover.
Ko mentioned it at one point, but I couldn't find a post where the fic itself was linked. So, here it is.
What did you think of it, Jason?
Quote from: Anastasia on January 25, 2014, 12:54:50 PM
What did you think of it, Jason?
I liked it quite a bit. I'm unfamiliar with the mechanics of Fate universe other than the Tsukihime anime and various xover fanfics with series that I have read/seen so there may be some gaping plot hole somewhere or other, but I thought the writing itself was good. Setting up the protagonist as someone you laugh at, rather than laugh with was an unconventional move that could have gone badly, but the writer pulled it off with flair.
I'm inclined to read his other stories, but most of them are either Fate or Fate crossed over with some other series else I'm unfamiliar with, so I had better stay clear until I can find a copy of the game somewhere.
They're all worth reading, as his writing is a lot of fun. He has a unique style that you don't see in fanfiction.
I just wish he'd write more, but so it goes.
Cricket, Cricket.
Well, Started wandering around. Encountered Harry Potter and the Gift of Memories, but really didn't end up reading it. Got about halfway through chapter one where Super-Harry the eleven year old remarked on his six-pack and I was done. Weird direction for an Eidetic Harry story to go, but it'd already given him innate wandless magic bullshit too and desperate/helpless parents.
Glancing at Ashikaba No Shinobi, but getting the same vibe. It doesn't feel like Naruto, and that he just bumped the main aside to take his place doesn't really shake well. Yeah, no, I'm done. Seeing regular comparisons to folks that are supposed to be hundreds/thousands of years dead just isn't doing it for me. The character feels disconnected with the reality they're in, as if there hasn't been thought into just where he's been or what he was doing.
No links, cuz they aren't good enough to share. You'll have to make do with blathering.
From Fake Dreams (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/33/From-Fake-Dreams) updated.
Just a bit of the aftermath of last chapter's death. Actually, not a whole lot happens for about 1/2 of the chapter. The other half is about Caster's "last stand" except she's not an idiot. So maybe it's not like that. But it is about her. And fighting.
Quote from: Dracos on January 31, 2014, 03:37:56 PM
Cricket, Cricket.
Well, Started wandering around. Encountered Harry Potter and the Gift of Memories, but really didn't end up reading it. Got about halfway through chapter one where Super-Harry the eleven year old remarked on his six-pack and I was done. Weird direction for an Eidetic Harry story to go, but it'd already given him innate wandless magic bullshit too and desperate/helpless parents.
This kind of thing is all sorts of fun for analysis though!
I really miss the neat Story Relevance by favoriting feature that guy built, and then got web-paged into the ground.
That would've been amazing to have in FF.net in the same way DA has 'More Like This'.
Bringer of Death (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/80/Bringer-of-Death) has updated once again.
I'm torn between liking where Vegeta's character development is going, and being utterly sick of Cell at this point. I do realize that this is Cell's last hurrah more than likely, but so much of the story has revolved around him at this point that the fact he's still making trouble in the Afterlife just seems like dragging it out to the point of absurdity.
Re: BoD
[spoiler]100000000% agreement, Grahf. The Vegeta stuff isn't bad here but enough with Cell already. Even if he got curb-stomped, enough is enough.
On the better side, I liked the stairs part.
Not reading, but it's very DBZish for folks to continue being a pain in the afterlife waaay past their expiration date. See Goku for the most absurd examples
[spoiler]True enough, though the author's really just ran Cell into the ground. The original series had problems with this and I daresay this story's outdoing canon in that regard.
Yeah I haven't even read the fic in question I'm just amused by conversations going on entirely in spoiler tags~
Spoiling is in bad for, like telling people you haven't read the fic without spoiler tags. >_>
I have no idea if this has already come up here recently, but.
Harry Potter and the Garden of Intrigue (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8034380/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Garden-of-Intrigue). Notionally a single-point-of-departure, but ends up having some jimmying around with situation and characterization beyond that; it's all notionally justifiable from the nail, just kind of unlikely. Either way, highly entertaining. Gotten up through somewhere in third year by now, and changes have snowballed to an amusing degree.
Evidently, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7798790/15/Promises-of-a-Wandering-Hero updated late last month. Since I know some people were reading it, thought I'd post it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9384156/8/Why-Me
Why Me? updated. Total filler chapter, enjoyable but complete fluff.
Doing a reread of Big Human on Campus. Still an awesome story.
http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/4662-Fragile-Thing
So quiet. Got this linked earlier. Kind of an amusing style, even if it isn't super thrilling.
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/22/Mother-of-Learning updated.
I don't remember where I saw https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8324961/1/Magical-Me (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8324961/1/Magical-Me), hopefully not on this thread, but it is vaguely amusing politics perpetrated by Lockhart with a morality transplant.
Been reading Harry Potter and the Not-Fatal-At-All Cultural Exchange Program (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/harry-potter-and-the-not-fatal-at-all-cultural-exchange-program-hp-fsn.281380/). I've only found it on Spacebattles but there's a handy contents on the first post so you don't have to subject yourself to page after page of inane arguments about power levels to get to the good stuff.
It's a fusion of Nasuverse and Harry Potter basically, with some decent worldbuilding and some excellent combat as the Grail War comes to England during Voldemort's return. Only a couple of Fate characters show up and the setting in general leans more heavily on the Harry Potter side of things, so don't expect worms and cooking porn.
Quote from: Ebiris on February 28, 2014, 08:44:17 PM
Been reading Harry Potter and the Not-Fatal-At-All Cultural Exchange Program (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/harry-potter-and-the-not-fatal-at-all-cultural-exchange-program-hp-fsn.281380/). I've only found it on Spacebattles but there's a handy contents on the first post so you don't have to subject yourself to page after page of inane arguments about power levels to get to the good stuff.
It's a fusion of Nasuverse and Harry Potter basically, with some decent worldbuilding and some excellent combat as the Grail War comes to England during Voldemort's return. Only a couple of Fate characters show up and the setting in general leans more heavily on the Harry Potter side of things, so don't expect worms and cooking porn.
I'm not familiar with Harry Potter, but how do you fuse the Nasuverse to that? A lot of the Nasuverse's underlying mechanics don't fit with other worlds at all. Not without a hell of a lot of fudging on both sides.
A bunch of things have updated in the last couple of days.
Shinji and The Doctor (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7366113/30/Shinji-and-the-Doctor) updated. It has been a while, and it's not a very long chapter by any stretch, but still.
Asuka arrives with literally no introduction, which is kind of weird unless the author is planning to cover it later.
Miracle of Zero (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9342459/9/Miracle-of-Zero-Kingdom-of-the-Forsaken) also got a new chapter.
There's a show trial, but hardly more than that. Everyone get's off scott free, for the moment at least. And, war's a comin'. Not really surprising.
And finally, Savior of Demons (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9443688/9/Savior-of-Demons) also got a new chapter, just today. Haven't actually read it yet.
Quote from: Anastasia on February 28, 2014, 09:02:24 PM
I'm not familiar with Harry Potter, but how do you fuse the Nasuverse to that? A lot of the Nasuverse's underlying mechanics don't fit with other worlds at all. Not without a hell of a lot of fudging on both sides.
With lots of fudging!
Basically the changes are on the magi side. In default Nasuverse they long ago committed themselves to seeking knowledge of the root of magic or stuff like that. In this story they committed themselves to improving their quality of life, hence wands and all the wacky stuff HP magic brings with it (it doesn't come up in the story but the author mentions in this world while Rin's inheriting her family crest, Sakura is quite happily carrying on as a magical Tohsaka using a wand).
The Church and Burial Squads and such still exist, but the Clock Tower is superseded by Magical Britain as a whole (as well as other magical countries elsewhere). Also while we haven't seen any vampires yet, the werewolves known in HP have gotten a boost in physical power to bring them up to par with Dead Ancestors.
As for the Grail War itself, it's the first one known to have ever happened, and it just sprung up rather than being built by the three families (none of them are represented as Masters). Probably Zeltrech's fault.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8118551/10/On-The-Wings-Of-An-Eagle
On the Wings of an Eagle updated. Featuring Louise parkour and shenanigans.
Bringer of Death (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/81/Bringer-of-Death) has updated once more.
Unless the author is lying about it, Cell is now permanently, fully, inescapably, insurmountably annihilated. With no possible way of coming back. Now it's time for the otherworld tournament.
[spoiler]He had that one coming. I have to say he really made his own grave there.
I admit, while Cell seems a bit doable as a twist, and vegita is a little odd, Freiza flat out seems especially wacky on earth, given just how much experience he has. Cell can be rambled as having little real world experience, but Freiza had been around centuries and is super petty anyway and used to wandering around things way more durable than human and still killing them by presence. Seeing a fic chapter of humans just interacting with him seems weird.
Prolly said this before.
I don't quite follow the logic of your post regarding BoD, Drac.
Drac is likely referring to Savior of Demons, which is the fic that I linked a couple of posts back. It centers on Freiza maybe undergoing a reformation, in the same way that Honor Trip deals with Cell and Breakthrough the Limit deals with Raditz.
Yup. Belated responding :P
Anyhow, caught up on Wings of an Eagle https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8118551/1/On-The-Wings-Of-An-Eagle. Continue to enjoy it.
This story seems to have been posted before, but I'm doing again cause it again cause the author pulled a necro.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6774017/1/Lux-Aeterna
A Ranma/Negima crossover taking place after the end of the former and near the begining of the latter. Ranma curse starts acting up and while trying to fix it, his/her problems become compounded. So off Ranma goes in search for a cure for all her problems and ends up in Mahora, shenanigans ensue.
This fic is amazing, one of the best Ranma crossovers I've read recently. The story of how the author, Krahae, came out of her long hiatus is hilarious. Turns out she was following LordsFire, another fanfiction author, who in turn was following her story. When LordFire found out, he apparently made a deal with Krahae. He would release the latest chapter of the story she was following within the next two days if she would do the same for Lux Aeterna. This resulted in rapid posts from both authors, which needless to say, resulted in a lot of happy readers.
Wish this sort of thing could happen more often personally...
Also some stuff from LordsFire:
The Dungeon Crawling Series:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6282011/1/Dungeon-Crawling-in-Chicago
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6293344/1/Guardian
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7563001/1/Dungeon-Crawling-in-Fuyuki
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9832723/1/That-is-not-a-Moon-Cat-Dungeon-Crawler-4
What happens if you take an experienced D&D player and throw them into various universes with the ability to level up like a D&D character? Pretty much this. It's similar to 'Harry Potter and the Natural 20' in that sense, but the main character originally was a bog standard human. He knows how to mini-max just as well as Milo, but is considerably less socially impaired. 4th part of the series had the system abruptly change to Animus due plot spoilery reasons. (IRL the author's apparently gotten bored of D&D and moved onto to other systems)
Note: This fic goes very indepth into D&D/Animus character building, the author even put in notes at sections which basically read, "if you don't have experience with D&D/Animus, you may want to skip the next few paragraphs." Also the entire series was apparently "about author self-gratification" and thus, "features incredibly rapid plot movement, and insane levels of overpoweredness." I still found it interesting however and I didn't even have any background in D&D back when I started reading it.
I've read bits and pieces of LordsFire's stuff. It's interesting enough for what it is. It does have some flaws, but the author's up front with it being self gratification, so I don't really care.
Caught up on Cast in Gold https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7057744/1/Cast-in-Gold. I might've missed a chapter, though I read the last two.
I'm... starting to really lose track of things. Something about the writing style and the spread and the interleaved time slices is just making it difficult to follow.
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on March 13, 2014, 07:45:19 AM
This story seems to have been posted before, but I'm doing again cause it again cause the author pulled a necro.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6774017/1/Lux-Aeterna
A Ranma/Negima crossover taking place after the end of the former and near the begining of the latter. Ranma curse starts acting up and while trying to fix it, his/her problems become compounded. So off Ranma goes in search for a cure for all her problems and ends up in Mahora, shenanigans ensue.
I was the one who posted the fic. While it wouldn't be close to my nomination for "best Ranma crossover," I thought it had a few interesting approaches to certain scenes and concepts. When it didn't update for awhile, so I'd stopped checking. It will be interesting to see if the writer's skill has changed during her hiatus.
For the sake of discussion, I'll throw this question out to everyone: What would everyone consider the best Ranma xover fic, and why?
As for me, I like Nexus II (and BHoC). I don't think anything (xover or not) Ozzallos wrote after Ranma/Setsuna prank war in The Best of Times was ever quite as satisfying. And there was one Ranma/AMS fic that I liked quite a bit, even don't recall the name.
But I still like Finding Home the best of all the Ranma xovers that I can remember. It's a pretty odd, compared to Gabriel Blessing's other fics; he changes practically nothing out of the SM manga and the fic is entirely in present tense. The writing style is quite rough in many ways that are much improved on his later fics. Nonetheless...
QuoteFor the sake of discussion, I'll throw this question out to everyone: What would everyone consider the best Ranma xover fic, and why?
That's a hell of a good question. I'm going to tentatively ignore Sailor Moon/fuku fics for a moment, since those really feel like a whole other genre. What comes to mind, in no particular order?
Hell is a Martial Artist - It's a really fun crossover that does a lot of neat things. I might give Ozzallos way too much credit with subtext and story-crafting, but I get a lot out of this story on that front.
Mamano Hunter Ukyou - For when I want a dark story that appeals to my tastes.
Zero Interface - It takes a Ranma at the start of the series and has fun with him. It avoids all the baggage and habits he builds up over Ranma 1/2 in favor of gaining new ones in ZnT.
Forcibly United - Take a really ill fitting and stupid crossover, mix and have fun. The writer makes it work.
I'm forgetting a bunch of older fics, no doubt.
I'm forgetting a bunch of older fics too, such as Fire's excellent ones.
Zero Interface is really good.
But recent stuff, has to be Big Human on Campus by BlackDragon. Really no question in my mind there, even though I like most of the other ones referenced. It's got a fantastic Ranma comedy flavor, while maintaining the setting and ridiculous considerations of the original Rosario work. They even have classic peer pressure and the principal to take Genma's "I'm gonna tell you something stupid boy, but you're gonna have to do it anyway".
So Chibi-Reaper suddenly came back to life, posting 51 chapters of a brand new fic over the course of about 9 minutes. All of which individually hit my e-mail at roughly the same time. Jesus Christ.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10196722/1/Breaking-in-Rumia
Someone needs to condense those fucking chapters. I did quickie look through and the formatting's a mess.
Seems like he got hit by standard Starving Unemployed Person syndrome.
Sadly common these days.
Quote from: Dracos on March 18, 2014, 03:19:53 PM
Seems like he got hit by standard Starving Unemployed Person syndrome.
Sadly common these days.
That's tough. I feel for him, that's a rough way to live.
Quote from: Dracos on March 18, 2014, 03:19:53 PM
Seems like he got hit by standard Starving Unemployed Person syndrome.
Sadly common these days.
Maybe that's the reason behind my own sluggish pace of writing: I'm too fed and employed.
Scary thought....
It might be. Desperation is a marvelous motivator. Nothing cuts through procrastination like fear.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 18, 2014, 08:23:19 PM
It might be. Desperation is a marvelous motivator. Nothing cuts through procrastination like fear.
In other news, a great way to become a better writer is to almost get the death penalty. :-(
(It worked for Cervantez and Dostoyevsky.)
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on March 18, 2014, 08:26:44 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on March 18, 2014, 08:23:19 PM
It might be. Desperation is a marvelous motivator. Nothing cuts through procrastination like fear.
In other news, a great way to become a better writer is to almost get the death penalty. :-(
(It worked for Cervantez and Dostoyevsky.)
That's what I was thinking about, actually. I forget the name of the English writer, but the quote's something like 'Death sharpens motivation like nothing else'.
Quote from: Yuthirin on March 18, 2014, 02:38:34 AM
So Chibi-Reaper suddenly came back to life, posting 51 chapters of a brand new fic over the course of about 9 minutes. All of which individually hit my e-mail at roughly the same time. Jesus Christ.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10196722/1/Breaking-in-Rumia
Sounds fun!
*reads*
Story relies on Zero universe to carry it. For someone who wasn't into masochistic-fantasy and hasn't watched it, it did not explain enough.
Not enough Rumia. Boring~.
*reads more*
Hmm. So *it* is lost. Also, while the writer labels this as horror, I imagine this with Rumia's image, and it all seems ridiculously cute. Yes, even the most recent bit with Siesta.
Verdict: some flaws that probably come from not being distracted by minor concerns such as worry about food on the table. But still a bit of fun.
Yes, it is so.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 18, 2014, 08:32:05 PM
That's what I was thinking about, actually. I forget the name of the English writer, but the quote's something like 'Death sharpens motivation like nothing else'.
"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." -- Commonly attributed to Samuel Johnson
That's the quote I had in mind, thanks. Couldn't put a name to it.
Just caught up with the latest chapter of Champion (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9591005/1/Champion). It's one of the better takes on the 'Voldemort won the war' genre. James is dead and Harry and Lily have been stripped of the Potter name, as mud/half-bloods aren't fit to bear a pureblood's name, but otherwise they get to continue living mostly unmolested. Voldemort at least understands that society needs those on the lower rungs to function, and is making an effort to rehabilitate Britain's image by hosting the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
Through as yet unknown means, since he isn't the Boy Who Lived or anything, Harry Evans gets selected as the fourth champion, and becomes a lightning rod for the cause of muggleborns and halfbloods.
It does have Ron-bashing, which normally I hate, but in this case it's forgiveable thanks to differing circumstances - the Weasley's surrendered along with a lot of other nice purebloods after Voldemort won, and as a result were exalted in station, so he's got that going on.
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/362453/Materia_Blade
Not an updated story but an announcement. Materia Blade's not going to continue any of his stories (besides the Worm one he's working on). Bleh.
Gabriel Blessing started a Dresden+DxD (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10202330/1/Beyond-the-Outer-Gate-Lies) xover.
I'm completely unfamiliar with Dresden Files, and I stopped reading the DxD manga when I realized it was pointless fanservice. So I probably hold off on reading it for now. Still, GB has historically made xovers of series I find to be mostly crap and makes them work (while Nasu fans may hate what he's done with Fate, I went into IF with knowledge of only Sekirei), so I'll probably end of reading it in the future.
Fate Revelation Online (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9740933/45/Fate-Revelation-Online) updated with chapter 10 (which, is spread over several pages, as that writer has done in the past).
Quote from: Anastasia on March 23, 2014, 12:42:44 PMBleh.
That sums my my feelings on the matter.
Yeah. I'd largely given up hope on his fics updating anytime soon, but that still blows. Losing good authors sucks beyond words.
Quote from: Ebiris on March 22, 2014, 09:57:03 PM
Just caught up with the latest chapter of Champion (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9591005/1/Champion). It's one of the better takes on the 'Voldemort won the war' genre.
Things I want to see happen now: the cops from
Perfect 20 investigating the magical government in
Champion.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225110/1/Servant-of-Zero
ZnT/F:SN crossover. Louise summons Archer. It's only two chapters in, but despite the been done before premise, I find Archer's narration amusing. It might end up being entertaining.
God Slaying Blade Works (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/24/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) updated. Doesn't feel like much happens.
On a somewhat tangential note I lost a year's worth of bookmarks back in January and I don't remember a lot of the stories I was tracking.
His writing has that problem, Panda. I like him but he's prone to tons and tons of bloat.
---
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225110/3/Servant-of-Zero
Familiar of Zero updated. It's a bit rough but entertaining. I enjoy Archer's internal monologue quite a bit.
Decided to reread Dreaming of Sunshine and suddenly it updates! (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/73/Dreaming-of-Sunshine)
Loving this arc. Somehow, someway, they're making Naruto filler interesting.
Hell, I don't remember anyone writing about this stuff.
Beyond the Outer Gate Lies (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10202330/2/Beyond-the-Outer-Gate-Lies) updated. Lots of names being tossed around, but I don't want to watch DxD to clarify who they are.
I read this (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8642442/1/Variant-Strain). I liked it a lot.
Bringer of Death (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/82/Bringer-of-Death) updated once again.
This Afterlife tournament leads to Goku going SSJ2 from his fight with Pikkon. He will fight Vegeta in the final match.
Nice chapter for filler. [spoiler]
I'm expecting Vegeta to lose to Goku here. Even with the issues of Vegeta being unable to advance aside, it feels like his next step will be losing and coming to accept that without going all KAKAROOOOOOOOOT!!!!!. This arc is about Vegeta overcoming his failings and that seems like a logical one to finish the arc with.
http://s3.zetaboards.com/FanFictionFederation/forum/3011420/
Ozzallos updated a bunch of fics over there tonight. They're in beta form and the highlight is a new chapter of The Bad Cut. Chapter's pretty decent - I liked what Genma did.
Quote from: thepanda on April 12, 2014, 07:52:54 AM
Decided to reread Dreaming of Sunshine and suddenly it updates! (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/73/Dreaming-of-Sunshine)
Loving this arc. Somehow, someway, they're making Naruto filler interesting.
Hell, I don't remember anyone writing about this stuff.
Huh. Not a great fic, but a very readable one for an SI.
*finishes it in its entirety*
ACCESS IS DENIED KOTONO
ACCESS IS DENIED
Sign up for an account real quick.
Quote from: Dracos on April 17, 2014, 12:52:46 PM
Huh. Not a great fic, but a very readable one for an SI.
*finishes it in its entirety*
Agreed. I have been convinced that a SI fic can be done and remain enjoyable.
Not sure it should be done, but I was entertained and the author was up front about it, at least.
I certainly know more about Naruto canon than I ever did before, given that my prime source before now was Team 8.
Well, a lot of that fic is using anime filler and direct to tv short films. Canon, I suppose, in the same way most of the DBZ short films are.
Quote from: Dracos on April 17, 2014, 12:52:46 PM
Huh. Not a great fic, but a very readable one for an SI.
*finishes it in its entirety*
This post convinced me to read the fic through. It is linked to by others fairly often, and I'd started it several times in the past, but always quit when the writer kept using the word "dieing." But if several of you gave it a thumbs up, it couldn't be that bad.
Quote from: Ergoemos on April 17, 2014, 04:59:58 PM
Agreed. I have been convinced that a SI fic can be done and remain enjoyable.
At the end of the day, an SI is just a 1st person perspective character, so there isn't a reason why they can't be. But the tendencies of a writer to write an ANC is double when the ANC
is the writer.
My account apparently needs to be confirmed by an administrator. I've already done something wrong and I just got here.
Alas, poor turtle. Always slow to the party.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 17, 2014, 09:16:28 PM
At the end of the day, an SI is just a 1st person perspective character, so there isn't a reason why they can't be. But the tendencies of a writer to write an ANC is double when the ANC is the writer.
You got me stumped. ANC? The internet doesn't provide me easy answers either, or my google-fu is weak before 5AM.
Generally, my impression is that a self-insert fanfiction, especially a literal one, usually has some of the following elements: 1) a Mary Sue resolving all the plot points in the canon, 2) the Self-insert blatantly hooking up with their favorite character, and/or 3) completely unbelievable success by the Insert where other characters struggle.
None of those really happened, so I was moderately surprised and pleased. It's not amazing, but the story was pleasant.
Quote from: Dracos on April 17, 2014, 05:54:29 PM
Well, a lot of that fic is using anime filler and direct to tv short films. Canon, I suppose, in the same way most of the DBZ short films are.
Well, it has been more faithful than most of the previous sources I learned from. I have watch three episodes of the actual show, seven or eight of a fan-based-parody of a fan-based-parody of Naruto, and I have read Team 8 before this.
If your only source of information on DBZ came from the short movies, I imagine that you would be really disappointed at how long it takes to actually finish a fight.
ANC = annoying new character
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 17, 2014, 09:16:28 PM
Quote from: Dracos on April 17, 2014, 12:52:46 PM
Huh. Not a great fic, but a very readable one for an SI.
*finishes it in its entirety*
This post convinced me to read the fic through. It is linked to by others fairly often, and I'd started it several times in the past, but always quit when the writer kept using the word "dieing." But if several of you gave it a thumbs up, it couldn't be that bad.
Yeah, I'm kind of surprised by the occasional 'this did not go through a spellchecker' indications, given that overall it seems to be written at a reasonable tenth grade level of English proficiency. Still, there are many fics I would not have read if I let technical alone drive me off.
Not everything can be Victory at Ostagar. :P
The Good, the Bad, and the Ponies (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/128471/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ponies)
Pretty fun romp. Short and sweet.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9384156/9/Why-Me
Why Me? updated.
This chapter was a lot better than the previous and I enjoyed it. The familiar actually winning the familiar contest? I don't think I've seen that before. It's one of those little canon things that sticks around. Also, outside forces throw a massive butterfly up with the Fouquet heist and made Alex think. Pretty good stuff and setup for next time.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/1/For-Want-of-a-War
Someone linked this. I think for the 3rd time or so to me. I actually found it cute, though the chapter length felt inconsistent and short and it's pretty blatant Super Protagonist.
Quote from: Dracos on May 01, 2014, 10:22:47 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/1/For-Want-of-a-War
Someone linked this. I think for the 3rd time or so to me. I actually found it cute, though the chapter length felt inconsistent and short and it's pretty blatant Super Protagonist.
Yeah, I've linked it before too. It's fun, moreso if you understand that super Ramza is a nod and a wink to how many Ramzas turn out. You have Ramza the entire game and have to use him, so he tends to be a well developed character.
To be honest, a solid Monk setup can do everything that's happened in the story. Monk Ramza's pretty good plus FFT isn't that hard a game.
I actually don't have a problem with super-protag, played fun. But felt it worth commenting on.
Reread "When In Doubt, Obliviate". Still a very cute story by Sarah1281.
Has anyone else been reading anything lately? :)
Cricket, Cricket.
I started reading this... https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7026800/1/Masters-of-Genjutsu
But it gave me a headache within a few gigantic text heavy paragraphs of nothing happening, tons of crappy honorifics, and other weird descriptive trip-ups.
Not much has updated. Well, 'cept for one thing.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/19/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame has updated. Ranma and Minako vs a biker gang.
Pact (http://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/bonds-1-1/).
:)
Your URL is busted.
Isn't that written by Wildbow, who also wrote Worm?
url fixed;
and answer is yes
New setting -- magic, not super powers.
How is it compared to Worm, anyway? Not sure I want to read another Worm right now.
It's Wildbow, so it is good. You may kinda see similar patterns in terms of the story development and the amount of trouble faced by the characters. :)
Quote from: Xsen on May 13, 2014, 12:49:30 AM
It's Wildbow, so it is good. You may kinda see similar patterns in terms of the story development and the amount of trouble faced by the characters. :)
I think I'll pass. Now don't get me wrong, I think Wildbow is a skilled writer and a gifted world-builder. Yet I find he's not my cup of tea at all, no matter how well he writes, and a rehash of Worm's patterns plays to what I find least appealing about him.
Wildbow? Nice guy, hell of a writer and he's an absolute champ for keeping his update schedule going. But we're on different worlds on some important matters of taste. To engage in a bit of masturbatory introspection a sec, I think he's a person who sees the world in an opposed way to myself. You know the old adage that you should write what you know? I feel what that really means is that any good writing has to reflect a part of yourself to have any sense of authenticity. It has to be something that resonates in you, that you know in your heart. In other words, good writing says a hell of a lot about the author.
Now when I say that he's not to my tastes, what I'm really getting at is that we're not compatible people. What he presents in his writing is in part himself. Wildbow's not a person I personally agree with or can relate to. The underlying things he presents in his writing are not things that resonate with me. No matter how well he constructs his story, builds his world or well he writes, I'm simply going to find disagreeable things about it. That's not to say this is a flaw of Wildbow. His work's good and I don't argue that. It's just not for me.
Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 13, 2014, 01:19:01 AM
Wildbow? Nice guy, hell of a writer and he's an absolute champ for keeping his update schedule going. But we're on different worlds on some important matters of taste. To engage in a bit of masturbatory introspection a sec, I think he's a person who sees the world in an opposed way to myself. You know the old adage that you should write what you know? I feel what that really means is that any good writing has to reflect a part of yourself to have any sense of authenticity. It has to be something that resonates in you, that you know in your heart. In other words, good writing says a hell of a lot about the author.
Hmm...well, a question for you (and I'll take no offense if you decline to answer it if it's too personal). What are the sort of qualities you look for in a story?
To quote Potter Stewart: I know it when I see it.
It's not really a good answer, but I find it easier to elaborate what I dislike rather than what draws me in. Or perhaps I have solid tastes for what I dislike and more fluid tastes for what I enjoy.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 13, 2014, 03:51:46 PM
To quote Potter Stewart: I know it when I see it.
Ah, so needs porn. Gotcha. :)
Quote
It's not really a good answer, but I find it easier to elaborate what I dislike rather than what draws me in. Or perhaps I have solid tastes for what I dislike and more fluid tastes for what I enjoy.
Fair enough. Main reason I was asking was to see if I could define an axis of my own interests. It'd be quite unfair for me to cast stones.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5986618/1/The_Saotome_Sisters
Ko linked an age ago. Wandering through. It reminds me of why I have trouble getting into a lot of close to manga Ranma fanfiction: In the beginning, everyone is terrible jerks. Done as quick slapstick visual gags, this works, kinda. Does amidst people doing even the most minimal reflection, it just comes off as a group of generally terrible people who also use violence casually to communicate.
A rehash of the opener is pretty much one of the worst hooks for a Ranma fanfic I can see these days, aside from "Random lots of death/OOCness". Not just because it's a rehash, but because almost every character comes off at their worst interacting with anyone else usually.
So far 2 chapters in and this really just rides too much on everyone being unpleasant to each other while rehashing canon otherwise. Oh well. I probably should skip ahead, but instead I shall wander to some other fic.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 13, 2014, 01:19:01 AM
I think I'll pass. Now don't get me wrong, I think Wildbow is a skilled writer and a gifted world-builder. Yet I find he's not my cup of tea at all, no matter how well he writes, and a rehash of Worm's patterns plays to what I find least appealing about him.
Wildbow? Nice guy, hell of a writer and he's an absolute champ for keeping his update schedule going. But we're on different worlds on some important matters of taste. To engage in a bit of masturbatory introspection a sec, I think he's a person who sees the world in an opposed way to myself. You know the old adage that you should write what you know? I feel what that really means is that any good writing has to reflect a part of yourself to have any sense of authenticity. It has to be something that resonates in you, that you know in your heart. In other words, good writing says a hell of a lot about the author.
Now when I say that he's not to my tastes, what I'm really getting at is that we're not compatible people. What he presents in his writing is in part himself. Wildbow's not a person I personally agree with or can relate to. The underlying things he presents in his writing are not things that resonate with me. No matter how well he constructs his story, builds his world or well he writes, I'm simply going to find disagreeable things about it. That's not to say this is a flaw of Wildbow. His work's good and I don't argue that. It's just not for me.
Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Naw, You aren't the only one. I don't necessarily find myself opposed what he writes into his story, but I have definitely found that while he is excellent at the rising action and climax of storytelling, he doesn't do falling action and conclusion well. There is no sense of, "Oh hey, something was accomplished. Everyone breath and deal with the PTSD for a moment." Its always, "Well, that was handled, lets get ready for the even larger boss!" which sort of takes the wind out of my interest after the fifth or eighth time it happens, especially since favorite characters are protected by plot armor by audience interest.
His writing is amazing, and that he can put out coherent, long stories at such a continuous pace is absolutely commendable.
Also, you can't be wrong about a personal opinion, no matter what other people tell you. (Pet Peeve of mine is when people say otherwise)
---
Well, searching for it doesn't really provide much in the forums, so I will go ahead and recommend it:
Tales of Magisterium University (http://www.talesofmu.com/) (Usually shortened to just Tales of MU) is a story following Mackenzie Blaise, a young sheltered girl from a backwater town, as she attends her first years at a big national college.
The kicker, of course, is that Mackenzie is a half-demon, interested in an applied enchantments degree. I'd describe the setting as "Fantasy Modern". The world is one of High Fantasy, akin to Forgotten Realms in DnD, but with a handful of centuries and civilization to stabilize the world. People can communicate globally via mirrors, crystal balls are available to surf the Ethernet. Mackenzie is more likely to run into a roaming party of orcs drunk from a Dwarven frat party than looking for easy looting targets.
Of course, I don't want to mislead anyone. This story, world-building aside, is about a very socially awkward teenager given their first freedom in a much wider world of experience than she could have ever imagined. A lot of the struggles she has with socializing and fighting her introverted nature. I found a lot of issues she deals with are ones that I can relate to personally.
An important note: This story is Not Safe For Work. While the advertisements are a little inappropriate at time, this story is about a young woman who is trying to find her sexual identity as much as her public identity. Once the first year in full swing, there are a lot of chapters that probably should not be read at work without some caution.
You can pretty easily skip the most of her awkward stage without missing much by skipping to the second year, as well. You miss some of the early character development, but it remains a solid story with less overt sexuality and more focus on world mechanics.
Anyway, I figured I'd throw it out for anyone interested. Sorry if I already recommended this one.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 13, 2014, 04:19:28 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on May 13, 2014, 03:51:46 PM
To quote Potter Stewart: I know it when I see it.
Ah, so needs porn. Gotcha. :)
Quote
It's not really a good answer, but I find it easier to elaborate what I dislike rather than what draws me in. Or perhaps I have solid tastes for what I dislike and more fluid tastes for what I enjoy.
Fair enough. Main reason I was asking was to see if I could define an axis of my own interests. It'd be quite unfair for me to cast stones.
It's tough, yeah. If nothing else, I know I'm not consistent in my tastes. But I suppose no one really is.
Quote from: Dracos on May 13, 2014, 07:12:38 PM
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5986618/1/The_Saotome_Sisters
Ko linked an age ago. Wandering through. It reminds me of why I have trouble getting into a lot of close to manga Ranma fanfiction: In the beginning, everyone is terrible jerks. Done as quick slapstick visual gags, this works, kinda. Does amidst people doing even the most minimal reflection, it just comes off as a group of generally terrible people who also use violence casually to communicate.
A rehash of the opener is pretty much one of the worst hooks for a Ranma fanfic I can see these days, aside from "Random lots of death/OOCness". Not just because it's a rehash, but because almost every character comes off at their worst interacting with anyone else usually.
So far 2 chapters in and this really just rides too much on everyone being unpleasant to each other while rehashing canon otherwise. Oh well. I probably should skip ahead, but instead I shall wander to some other fic.
It's okay if you stick with it, but no great loss if you don't. I gave up on it eventually, but it was more of the writer's style growing old. There's some neat bits here and there, but it does tend to be a canon rehash. I give it a lot of credit since it neatly solves the Ukyou problem with its premise, but yeah, it touches most of the canon bases.
Quote from: Ergoemos on May 13, 2014, 07:15:55 PMNaw, You aren't the only one. I don't necessarily find myself opposed what he writes into his story, but I have definitely found that while he is excellent at the rising action and climax of storytelling, he doesn't do falling action and conclusion well. There is no sense of, "Oh hey, something was accomplished. Everyone breath and deal with the PTSD for a moment." Its always, "Well, that was handled, lets get ready for the even larger boss!" which sort of takes the wind out of my interest after the fifth or eighth time it happens, especially since favorite characters are protected by plot armor by audience interest.
That's all true. It's also the fact that the main heroine is a disturbed as hell. Her situation is sympathetic and her PoV makes many of her choices seem reasonable. If you step away from that at all, you start to realize how horrifying she is. That's less a thing about Wildbow's writing and more a nitpick about Worm in general, though.
QuoteHis writing is amazing, and that he can put out coherent, long stories at such a continuous pace is absolutely commendable.
Oh yes. I admire the hell out of Wildbow for that alone. Whatever peeves and problems I have with his story don't diminish that. The man is a hell of hard worker and talented to boot.
QuoteAlso, you can't be wrong about a personal opinion, no matter what other people tell you. (Pet Peeve of mine is when people say otherwise)
Nah, it's cool. That was just a reference.
QuoteTalesofMU
I've heard a few people talk about that one, and that it's disturbing as all hell. Haven't read it myself (and I suspect it's not my cup of tea, so it's low on my list), so I'm just relaying second hand information.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 14, 2014, 01:15:31 AM
Nah, it's cool. That was just a reference.
Ha, whoops.
Quote
I've heard a few people talk about that one, and that it's disturbing as all hell. Haven't read it myself (and I suspect it's not my cup of tea, so it's low on my list), so I'm just relaying second hand information.
Ha, there's no accounting for my bad tastes. Whether you are talking about the polyamory, the protagonist's masochistic and submissive tendencies or her childhood those issues stem from, there are a lot of disturbing little things that show up in the story. I tend to skip most of the more sexual parts of the story, but I do that with most books and stories I read.
I just figured if we were bring up web serial novels, I might as well throw my hat in.
At a distant level, it provides a better role for Ukyou, though for how far I read, she never got a chance to feel like Ukyou at all. I acknowledge that there's lots of reason for change, but at the same time, you could take the first 3 chapters and change out the name Ukyou and it wouldn't be noticeable. None of the few mannerisms she had in canon get advertised in the early chapter. It has a clever concept in creating a Twin effect but those just are setups for Tension by Social Awkwardness. It fits reasonably well into being a fic that doesn't feel too off I think from manga, but yeah, hard to get into for that.
It did raise clearly that adding any level of reflection to classic slapstick quickly moves it into a quesy area. But I've probably yammered on that before.
Quote from: Ergoemos on May 13, 2014, 07:15:55 PM
Naw, You aren't the only one. I don't necessarily find myself opposed what he writes into his story, but I have definitely found that while he is excellent at the rising action and climax of storytelling, he doesn't do falling action and conclusion well. There is no sense of, "Oh hey, something was accomplished. Everyone breath and deal with the PTSD for a moment." Its always, "Well, that was handled, lets get ready for the even larger boss!" which sort of takes the wind out of my interest after the fifth or eighth time it happens, especially since favorite characters are protected by plot armor by audience interest.
The medium affects the message. A serial naturally tends towards action.
If the main characters cool down for an arc, then the active followers aren't getting the action they'd waited for, and after a good month, they'll probably go read something else. Wuxia readers aren't reading about martial arts, western readers aren't seeing any pistol duels at high noon, Sci-fi Lunies aren't reading about spaceships, etc. A proper "cool down" period might be a month or two of real-world time, but not writing something that the core audience wants to read for a month or two will probably lose that audience.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 15, 2014, 07:30:12 PM
The medium affects the message. A serial naturally tends towards action.
If the main characters cool down for an arc, then the active followers aren't getting the action they'd waited for, and after a good month, they'll probably go read something else. Wuxia readers aren't reading about martial arts, western readers aren't seeing any pistol duels at high noon, Sci-fi Lunies aren't reading about spaceships, etc. A proper "cool down" period might be a month or two of real-world time, but not writing something that the core audience wants to read for a month or two will probably lose that audience.
I completely agree, to a certain extent, but it isn't like there aren't "Cool down" arcs interspersed within major conflicts of serial series.
To bring up another topic that has come up in the forum, even Shounen anime and manga have sections of "filler" episodes where the focus is not on rising action and conflict with the major villain, and in many cases, there aren't any major villains even mentioned. The focus is on what the characters do when they aren't prepping for the next big bad, and provide perspective and allow for the audience to reflect on how the characters would be in day-to-day life.
One of the calmest arcs of Worm comes in the middle of the series. It starts with the protagonist going to school again and it ends with the protagonist literally coming to a battle of wills with the Worm-verse's equivalent of Superman. Another "calm" arc involves them infiltrating a rave-slash-moshpit and stumbling upon clues to a secret worldwide conspiracy that has fingers in half the super-hero organizations in the world. This is between arcs of fighting Kaiju of incredible power or clashing with a roving band of super-powered serial killers.
Even the epilogue (in my opinion) does not provide any cool-down. The epilogue instead serves the purpose of build up to the "stinger", rather than actually actually providing any real reflection on the events of over a million and a half words of story.
I am not saying that filler content should be included for a story to be good, but I can't think of a show (or webcomic or book series) that doesn't have episodes that simply cover events unrelated to the main plot. Episodes with less at stake than absolutely everything. And Absolutely everything is what is
always at stake for Worm, in tone, even when it starts off somewhere simple.
Don't get me wrong. I loved Worm, and I donated money to pay back the author for providing such rich content. But I can say upon reflection that amusement parks are fun, but not if every single ride is a rollercoaster that much more extreme than the next.
Actually, few original source works have filler, in as much as they'll usually be trying to convey plot even during cooldown moments. They largely are added for animated versions as needed to fill space.
Fair enough. My apologies.
Nothing to apologize for? :)
just different viewpoints being discussed.
Fair enough. You know those people who take arguments way too seriously on the internet? I really try not to be one of those people, so when enough push back happens, I tend to fold, as I'd rather not cause more frustration than any conversation really warrants.
Um...
Rather relevant to my interests in fanfiction, but not particularly long are some of halfeatenmoon's single chapter stories covering mainly Yuki's reactions to different points in show/books. Just going to post the name and a description. Had I known these existed, I might not have even written my story, as they are far more succinct and capture more of the essence I wanted to distill.
Of note, these are range from pretty to very short in length. Don't know the policy on posting shorter stuff here, as most people post ongoing stories. So, um, sorry in advance.
After the Calm (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5271157/1/After-the-Calm)
Yuki facing the moments before she brings Kyon and Asahina out of stasis.
Before The Storm (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5571554/1/Before-the-Storm)
Kyon goes to check on Yuki the day after the Endless eight time loop ends.
Godot's Been And Gone (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5344779/1/Godot-s-Been-And-Gone)
Another take on the day after Endless Eight ends.
Mm, just because the theme has been examined doesn't mean there's no room to explore it again.
That last line in "Before the Storm" has definitely stayed with me, though. Ultimate expression of not knowing what else to do, right there.
Quote from: Ergoemos on May 16, 2014, 10:13:24 PM
Of note, these are range from pretty to very short in length. Don't know the policy on posting shorter stuff here, as most people post ongoing stories. So, um, sorry in advance.
The policy is a strict and fearsome one...
If you've read it, you can post it.
Or if you're going to read it tomorrow, I suppose you can also post it.
Anyhow, thread is for helping folks find new interesting things to read. Vignettes and short-fics are totally viable reads of a moment.
DK:A is back with a double update!
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/262819.html
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/262824.html
Quote from: Ergoemos on May 16, 2014, 10:13:24 PM
Fair enough. You know those people who take arguments way too seriously on the internet? I really try not to be one of those people, so when enough push back happens, I tend to fold, as I'd rather not cause more frustration than any conversation really warrants.
On about half the stories I've read, I think Drac and I disagree on which side of the good/bad fence they fall. And we may have strong opinions, but haven't come to blows yet.
Bearing in mind that I'm not a mod so my word has no weight: As long as you're not trying to be a jerk, whatever you post is probably going to be okay.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 18, 2014, 01:49:17 AM
DK:A is back with a double update!
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/262819.html
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/262824.html
Maybe it's the delay that's affecting my perception, but the Avatar showing up all of a sudden seems odd and out of place.
On the plus side, I'd forgotten about how this battle was Dwarf Fortress, so it was worth another laugh. :)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5849474/40/No-Tendo updated.
Scope creep ahoy (although I suppose that's been true for about half of the fic at this point).
Game of Champions updated:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7354757/11/The-Game-of-Champions
It was a Blue-centric chapter, though I guess considering what happened the previous chapter I can see why. It felt more like filler than anything, but I guess it's moved the plot along somehow. The world-building was again topnotch and it really just made everything more genuine in a sense. Not so sure how much longer the author will update this, it's not something he seems to be terribly invested in.
Forging the Sword updated (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3557725/14/Forging-the-Sword).
Nothing huge happens, though the triwizard preparations are amusing. With the tournament being held in Durmstrang we should avoid all the 'Harry cheated to enter' stuff since he was way over in Scotland the whole time. Be fun to see what happens when he gets there, even if it's probably a long wait till the next chapter.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/158392/1/Shampoo-12
One of the old classics I've never gotten far into. FFnet has clearly mauled formatting and setup badly, so I forgive that. I respect it for its length and ability to keep a canonish feel. It does suffer equally there though, as people seem to go through learning and regressing, insights that are lost next chapter, character defining decisions that are abandoned, challenges that are left absent?
Tarou was particularly seizing from Nabiki the role of Karma Houdini, even when threatening Nabiki directly. Only once so far did he have someone go "Oh, it's tarou, he's totally a backstabbing asshole so I'll backstab him in turn." (Mousse). It got annoying after a bit in a way beyond Nabiki's, since literally nobody seemed to bother to put two and two together and holding embarrassing secrets seems to fit the setting better than "I'm going to physically go attack several non-aggressive students and no one is going to do anything about it, even though they actually care?" It felt like a "You Get Yours" response to canon Nabiki rather than an interaction in story (Really, she tells nobody that Tarou is physically threatening her friends as blackmail at her? She hasn't done any on screen blackmail at all in the story.)
I ended about 30ish chapters in, when Super 'Better than everyone' reincarnation Kasumi showed up. Perhaps to help balance the crew of stronger than Saffron late story villains sitting around in the background for ages, but it just hit my limit on silliness. If a character has godlike super powers and is not a genie, then having them present all the time and not affecting things seems silly. Really, it was just this on top of the constant regressions Shampoo and Ranma had to keep going through in order to both have meaningful events and insights and not have any reflection on those.
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.
Quote from: Dracos on May 20, 2014, 10:03:27 PM
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)
Vacation Days (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/187570/1/Vacation-Days) is still my favorite thing he's written. And why are we linking to ff.net instead of Florestia (http://florestica.com/dbsommer/vacation-days/index.htm)?
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.
Quote from: thepanda on May 21, 2014, 02:04:09 AM
Vacation Days (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/187570/1/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. :)
Quote
And why are we linking to ff.net instead of Florestia (http://florestica.com/dbsommer/vacation-days/index.htm)?
Obviously, it's becauseWHAT THE HELL IS THAT?! Over there! Oh, guess you missed it, nevermind.
Anyway, we were discussing DB fics.
Yardwork (http://florestica.com/dbsommer/oneshot/yfhy/index.htm) was Sousuke before FMP was written.
Some of his other fics involved guns (http://florestica.com/dbsommer/oneshot/tttrghg/index.htm)
He also did a few multicrosses (http://florestica.com/dbsommer/oneshot/aiwfc/index.htm)
Non-fanfiction, but I've been reading Awake in the Night Lands (http://www.castaliahouse.com/awake-in-the-night-lands/) by John C. Wright. More interesting than it appeared at first glance.
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land) 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!
I always liked the map of the Night Lands.
(http://i.imgur.com/EUIVMP4.gif)
I figure the Thing That Nods is probably pretty chill.
http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightmap.html (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 (http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightart.html#content)
That is a really neat/oldschool map.
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".
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.
Quote from: Dracos on May 27, 2014, 04:53:45 PM
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, hey it's bean. Been a while since he's swung by.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4183715/26/Awaken-Sleeper
First dresden crossover I've read.
It's...pretty good. Enjoyable, even if Harry is more an OC than Harry Potter.
I recall not liking that fic. Mostly because of the OC Harry.
Harry is horribly OOC in it. Really badly so. He practically could go without being Harry, since he brings pretty much none of his universe' people with him.
But it's still an enjoyable yarn.
I've read and Kept up-to-date with Halkegenia Online. Also with Long Night of the Harvest, a Mass Effect/Evengelion Crossover a la Gregg Landsman, Creator of Nobody Dies
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
For example...
_________
So I have decided to dumpster dive, pick and anime that is not generally considered particularly good, and see if I can't find a good story amongst the clutter.
Having randomly chosen Yu-Gi-Oh, due to having watched much of the series idly in the back ground when I was younger, I have found the story with the most reviews on Fanfiction.net, which, while not guaranteeing quality, does imply a certain following.
The New Students (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1095253/1/The-New-Students) is a story of a modest 200,000 words, set in a Yu-Gi-Oh/Harry Potter crossover.
Set after the fourth novel of the HP book and after the Battle City arc in Yu-Gi-Oh, I eagerly anticipate very boring descriptions of wizards being impressed by card games that take quite a long period of time. Before I read the first chapter, I am already betting that Quidditch will be replaced as the school sport by the end (but then, I have very low expectations).
Thoughts on the first chapter: Its pretty well written, or well-edited, at least. The pacing is a little clippy, but it is obvious the author wants to get into the meat of the story, which isn't necessarily bad.
For the characters with alter-egos, there is no real marker for delineation of a mental conversation, which is harder to juggle as a reader.
Bonus points for the story actually tackling the language barrier between Japanese students who spend very little time in class to play card games and an English school of wizardry, and for Yugi having some doubts about the legitimacy of the offer to go to a "wizard school".
Anyway, I will read more and report back if it has a good hook or two.
I follow Halk Online too, so I'll toss a link out: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8903072/1/Halkegenia-Online
This is only book one. Later books can be found under the same author. To quote from the FFnet summary:
Quote
Kirigaya Kazuto, Kirito, Beater of SAO, and now a Spriggan in ALfheim online, is fighting to save the love of his life from a fate worse than death. Louise De La Valliere, third daughter of the Valliere family, and student of the Tristain Academy is fighting to prove herself. Two worlds collide as a summon goes wrong and Tristain finds itself with some very confused new residents.
In particular, when Kirito and company storm Yggdrasil to try and free Asuna, Louise manages to summon all of Alfheim into Tristain. The game world is now real and you have thousands and thousands of players that are now real life, magical fey. Worlds collide and shenanigans ensue. It has a lot of fascinating and reasonable world building. It also gets bonus points for something genuinely heartwarming.
[spoiler]Yui becomes a real, living girl as well, since she's affected by the summons as well.
Quote from: Ergoemos on June 03, 2014, 10:15:50 PM
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.
I admit, despite watching all of Yu-Gi-oh abridged and a bunch of random chapters that have shown up in Shonen Jump, I've never quite understood the draw and readability of the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise.
Maybe it's that I've never hooked into card games, but it just seems like a concept that requires the entire universe to be written around it.
Quote from: Dracos on June 04, 2014, 01:33:30 PM
Maybe it's that I've never hooked into card games, but it just seems like a concept that requires the entire universe to be written around it.
Clearly you have no faith in the heart of the cards!
Screw the rules, I have money.
How many here have read the early parts of Yu-Gi-Oh that wasn't so focused on the card game?
Well, I regret my decision to start this dig already.
The New Students isn't terrible, so much as it is not very good. The writing is pretty good, but almost every chapter like clockwork there is badly misspelled word, completely jarring. Not only that, but it definitely focuses on the YGO characters in a Harry Potter universe, without nearly any time spent on the protagonists of the actual plot they stumbled into (Harry, Ron, and Hermoine show up for less than two minutes, and I am about seven or so chapters in. To be fair, they were, at least, in character and well written).
The plot is centered around Voldemort, recently revived, trying to garner some ancient Egyptian artifacts he read about once, and as a result, Yugi, Bakura, and Malik all get invited to be students at a school for wizardry, heavily implied to be because Voldemort controls the Ministry of Magic already. Or something.
The writing is okay, but it really hinges on how much the audience really likes the Millennium Item wielders in the show. I don't much care for them myself.
I will try to find another one, but most of the other "most favorited" stories tend to include a lot of slashfiction, which I try to avoid.
Quote from: Dracos on June 04, 2014, 01:33:30 PM
I admit, despite watching all of Yu-Gi-oh abridged and a bunch of random chapters that have shown up in Shonen Jump, I've never quite understood the draw and readability of the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise.
Maybe it's that I've never hooked into card games, but it just seems like a concept that requires the entire universe to be written around it.
I watched the first couple of seasons, but I am definitely more familiar with the Abridged Series than I am the actual show, anymore. I won't deny that this came out right around the time my parents started giving me spending money, but I quickly gave up the game when I saw the other kids I had to play with.
Quote from: Bezzerker on June 04, 2014, 05:32:10 PM
How many here have read the early parts of Yu-Gi-Oh that wasn't so focused on the card game?
Yes. It actually got animated, but it was obviously not released in North America. Probably because of all the murder, which is far less marketable to little kids than a children's card game.
Quote from: Bezzerker on June 04, 2014, 05:32:10 PM
How many here have read the early parts of Yu-Gi-Oh that wasn't so focused on the card game?
Yo! That had to be the worst town in Japan to live in considering the parade of dicks Yugi kept bumping into.
Ana: Was book two as good as book one? I loved book one.
Pretty good. The focus shifted more to internal intrigue, but there's some good stuff in there. I like the author, but he does have a problem with trimming down PoVs. That said, it's still worth a go.
Quote from: Dracos on June 04, 2014, 01:33:30 PM
it just seems like a concept that requires the entire universe to be written around it.
To my knowledge, I've never read a panel or watched a frame of the series, so can't comment on it directly. But aren't most fantastic Shonen settings like this?
Yes, but in ordinary shonen settings ordinary life stands aside for the heroes to throw mountains at one another, or whatever.
Here the entire rest of ordinary life stands aside for what amounts to holographic Magic: The Gathering tournaments.
The abridged series skewers this most aptly:
"Shouldn't you be off somewhere running your massively successful multi-gajillion dollar corporation?"
"I have far more important things to do. Like beating my sworn rival Yugi in a children's card game."
Quote from: Bezzerker on June 04, 2014, 05:32:10 PM
How many here have read the early parts of Yu-Gi-Oh that wasn't so focused on the card game?
Never seen it :) Prolly we should move further Yu-Gi-Oh discussion to the manga/anime forum though, so we don't distract from fic discussion :)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6471922/1/Coming-Back-Late
Another referenced a few years ago. I'll agree with the moved on Jon that it did have a very interesting amount of world building, particularly toward the machinations of the ministry and the nature of the deathly hollows and even toward the natures of house elves. There's even many bits that are fairly believable toward racism or other problems.
But it just got to be too much at some point. While neither the good or the bad guys were infalliable and it even played well with reasonable deduction and clever criminal underworlds, it just seemed like they got away with too much, not in secrecy, but through minor oversights. And the campaign with elves frankly felt incoherent and forced after a bit. Nobody seems to be able to do anything right with them, according to the almost always on camera Hermonine. It got...tiresome really.
It has a big dramatic scene midway through involving bartering with death. It should've wrapped up after that. Instead, it has another 20ish chapters and they just feel lacking impact after that.
Decided to look for Yu-Gi-Oh fanfiction. Best I found thus far:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8383134/1/One-Last-Theft
Enh. Kind of entertainingly bad.
INFINITE encryption keys
Quote from: Dracos on June 05, 2014, 09:34:00 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6471922/1/Coming-Back-Late
Another referenced a few years ago. I'll agree with the moved on Jon that it did have a very interesting amount of world building, particularly toward the machinations of the ministry and the nature of the deathly hollows and even toward the natures of house elves. There's even many bits that are fairly believable toward racism or other problems.
But it just got to be too much at some point. While neither the good or the bad guys were infalliable and it even played well with reasonable deduction and clever criminal underworlds, it just seemed like they got away with too much, not in secrecy, but through minor oversights. And the campaign with elves frankly felt incoherent and forced after a bit. Nobody seems to be able to do anything right with them, according to the almost always on camera Hermonine. It got...tiresome really.
It has a big dramatic scene midway through involving bartering with death. It should've wrapped up after that. Instead, it has another 20ish chapters and they just feel lacking impact after that.
You mean the bit where he came back young? I think I managed a chapter or three after that. Gave up, though. Felt like an epilogue that was stretching too long.
Continued discussion:
Yeah. Not sure why that was even there, since it had very little meaningful effect for the next 10ish chapters. It's hard to call it an epilogue when literally that's like halfway through the fic. It certainly had to work on the tension. A set of several super mind mages, so skilled in the craft that they're literally treated as discoveries by the best in the field? Not just one, but several apparently of this level? Not gonna go further in rambling on its descent into just a morass of boring.
I'm looking for a Dresden Files/ Harry Potter crossover fic that not only good, but COMPLETE. I've been having no such luck finding one.
I don't know any myself. Complete non-one-shots are pretty rare in all fandoms, crossovers especially.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8642442/1/Variant-Strain
Variant Strain updated. I really like this fic.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4745329/19/On-the-Way-to-Greatness
Reread this, which I think had a new chapter or two since I last read it. It's got some good points, but it leaves a lot on the floor, not the least of which from its timeskips, and voldemort's group is super effective in it. It's an interesting take on Harry in Slytherin, but it's really more a take on exploring side effects of darkness, as just the community seems too indistinct otherwise.
For Want of a War (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/1/For-Want-of-a-War) updated. It's probably been linked here at some point, but I'm too lazy to dig through the whole thread and check. It's a Final Fantasy Tactics fic that averts Balbanes' assassination and subsequently the entire War of the Lions. So, without that aspect of things going on, Ramza gets involved in harem comedy with some rather unlikely women, so far. It's better than it sounds, really.
No need to dig. Updates are always welcome, and repeats really aren't a problem. Sharing what we're reading right now just sorta provides opportunity to yammer on it :)
I read through all that was there on that recently, so good to hear there's more.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7733374/20/Unforeseen-Consequences
Read this. Surprisingly...enjoyed it. I'm not really a Madoka fan for various reasons, even though I've watched it all. This does a surprisingly good job interweaving the Madoka infrastructure into the Zero's Familiar setting and building a fairly robust worldset with it.
Found a hilarious, dare I say satirical, bit of fun in
Perfect Memento in Strict Sense.
http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Yama (http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Yama)
Quote
The kishin chiefs will take charge as the souls fall down to Hell and will command the lesser oni in their torment of the deceased. A wide array of torture devices could be used, but current economic conditions mean that many of these contraptions are in serious need of maintenance and repair.
So, sinners arrive in Hell, but because Hell is just as incompetently run as the rest of reality, the tortures are not very effective. I'm not sure why I find this hilarious.
Quote from: Dracos on June 11, 2014, 09:21:50 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7733374/20/Unforeseen-Consequences
Read this. Surprisingly...enjoyed it. I'm not really a Madoka fan for various reasons, even though I've watched it all. This does a surprisingly good job interweaving the Madoka infrastructure into the Zero's Familiar setting and building a fairly robust worldset with it.
I am a Madoka fan, so read through ch 20, even though I still have not watched/read Zero
Nice fic, although some scenes are written in a fashion that suggests they are emphasizing the differences that occurred due to the change in familiar, and of course, I'm unable to appreciate their full impact.
Also, for a fic predicated on a change in familiar, Kyubei has surprisingly little screentime until the twist is revealed. Or perhaps unsurprisingly - purely logical characters are not easy to write.
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.
Just read this (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/197006/1/a-hell-of-a-time/if-we-were-queens-instead-of-princesses-this-wouldnt-have-happened) ponyfic.
Short, and it doesn't start out all that funny, but I was grinning by the end. I'd advise having this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVsrX3LiXNY) ready to play. You'll know when.
God Slaying Blade Works updated (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/25/God-Slaying-Blade-Works). 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 (http://www.fimfiction.net/index.php?view=category&user=4943).
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.
Quote from: Dracos on June 16, 2014, 02:21:46 PM
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.
Quote from: thepanda on June 17, 2014, 12:23:51 AMGod Slaying Blade Works updated (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/25/God-Slaying-Blade-Works). 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.
QuoteDid you know Admiral Tiger Claw of Sleeping With the Girls fame writes ponyfic? Because he totally does. The Arrow mission logs stuff is good (http://www.fimfiction.net/index.php?view=category&user=4943).
I'd wondered where he got off to. Too bad he's not writing more Sleeping with the Girls.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Rukatin on June 04, 2014, 09:34:42 AM
Quote from: Ergoemos on June 03, 2014, 10:15:50 PM
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.
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on June 18, 2014, 09:50:31 AM
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.
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.
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.
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/15/A-Dead-World
A Dead World updated EEEEEEEEEEE
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?
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*
Not a bad Indominitable chapter, but I'm definitely loking forward to it getting done with the whole Morya bit.
Quote from: Dracos on June 25, 2014, 04:04:33 PM
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.
Didn't know there was a group. Count me in. :)
Haven't read the Buffy/Ranma fic since I have no grounding in Buffy whatsoever. I know at least one of the writers, weebee, tended to write fics that are series of well written vignettes that mostly don't go anywhere (although I haven't read anything by weebee alone for awhile, so maybe something has changed), so I can see how that might have affected the joint work. Regarding the "collective phone tapping" bit, that does seem a rather odd choice. I can see not wanting to write individual tracking scenes for every character, but "everyone asks Cologne for magic plot advancement" seems more in keeping w/Ranma than phone tapping.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7607733/1/The-Telling-Tale
Ran into this today.
So far an interesting and meaty tale, following an elven warden post Dragon Age 1, and seemingly through dragon age 2? Told from a prison in post, interrogated by the generic super-seeker trying to find a way to save the chantry, dealing with a powerful mage who could very well not give that much of a shit.
The generic super-seeker is actually the interrogator from Dragon Age 2. I think anyway, been a while since I read that one, but it's definitely a solid read.
Yup, know it. I was just being mean in my desc of her. I finished it last night, way too late. Will definitely keep at it. The lead is a bit mary-sueish, even despite her getting tortured, and it feels like it there's more than a few things taking cues from Victory at Ostagar, but it's an enjoyable meaty read, and I can't say I saw the swap coming.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/1/A-Demon-Among-Devils
Had a nice time reading all of this. Manages to bridge the gap between the persona universe's gloom and DxD's silliness. Interesting how the personas sometimes being archdemons or archangels is addressed early. Their appearances certainly leave an impact and are some of the best parts of the fic. Updates regularly, and pretty good.
Hah, same same. was just about to link it. Guess same circlish. Got linked it yesterday and consumed it.
I'd love to read a crossover for DxD, but I have no context on the whole Persona series. Can someone give me the rundown?
God Slaying Blade Works updated. (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/26/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) Short interlude chapter.
Quote from: Rukatin on June 29, 2014, 08:45:37 PM
I'd love to read a crossover for DxD, but I have no context on the whole Persona series. Can someone give me the rundown?
Well, the author does give a decent go-by of it as Arisato is asked to explain it to the DxD crew, and he fleshes it out. It's generally a setting where angels and demons are pokemon, summoned by the mental powers of the protagonist after forming a contract with Igor (A spirit who generally enables such) to unlock his gifts. They're generally the shadows of the mind. Persona 3 basically was a story where the Desire for an End of mankind managed to move a powerful death god/demon thing into trying to destroy the world, and a group of teenagers (with attitude *plays rangers theme*) coordinated with a business that had been experimenting with persona development.
Arisato was the protagonist, both with a special relationship with Death/Thanatos (from having the spirit sealed into him when he was younger during an accident) and also the Wild Card, allowing him to summon different persona instead of just one. At the end of it, he seals away Nyx from the darkness of humanity, accepting it in turn. This story takes the angle that he was rescued from his fate, but ended up in a different world, so doesn't know what's going on but is just accepting day by day. So he's a tremendously strong post game rpg character with all of his summons, most of which were important figures in the past of DxD.
Quote from: thepanda on June 30, 2014, 07:37:59 AM
God Slaying Blade Works updated. (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/26/God-Slaying-Blade-Works) Short interlude chapter.
Relatively, but yes. It's starting to hit the fan now. [spoiler]Another grail war, one that has its limiters damaged and possibly with Campione elements leaking in? That's gonna be a thing.
Thing is
I can't recall a single fic off the top of my head that managed to complete another grail war. Wait, no, one. I recall one. And that wasn't a crossover.
I just don't have faith in people completing these things.
Good points. However, [spoiler]
Let's be honest. MGS has written 570k words or so as of this chapter. He writes like nothing else and keeps on going, going and going some more. I do think he has the sheer productivity and energy to get through it, at least in theory.
At the least, I hope it reaches the point that Shirou and Sakura reunite. After that many words, I really want to see that happen. Oh, and maybe Ilya managing to become a Campione as well, but I doubt that's in the cards with that particular author. I just think it would be funny.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/83/Bringer-of-Death
This updated last month and I forgot to post it. Anyway, [spoiler]The fight ended up a no-contest. It wasn't what I was hoping for, but I'm okay with it since it's a call back to earlier in the fic. Looks like this arc is finishing up. I wonder if Goku will stay dead in this timeline or if the butterflies have torched that idea? I would think so, except that this fic tends to stay on the rails despite it all and it feels like a natural reason for Goku to return for the Buu saga. You know, finally settle things with Vegeta, SS2 and whatever Vegeta unlocks in that versus SS3 Goku.
The way the fic tends to do powerups, I suspect canon's SS3 trasformation is something unique, as most saiyans aren't going to have unlimited energy from being dead. A living saiyan may well come up with a different new form or some way of boosting SS2 instead.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 30, 2014, 09:25:17 PM
Good points. However,
Let's be honest. MGS has written 570k words or so as of this chapter. He writes like nothing else and keeps on going, going and going some more. I do think he has the sheer productivity and energy to get through it, at least in theory.
At the least, I hope it reaches the point that Shirou and Sakura reunite. After that many words, I really want to see that happen. Oh, and maybe Ilya managing to become a Campione as well, but I doubt that's in the cards with that particular author. I just think it would be funny.
[/quote]
You would think that but [spoiler] 1.) he has another fic that he works on and 2.) he could have totally reached this point in half the words or less if he got his excessive writing style under control. He reminds me of Jordan, come to think of it.
Hm, I would have to say that [spoiler]1. He has two other fics he works on, apparently, not that it's slowed him down. 2. He could have. I mean, I understand where he's coming from. It's nice to go off on tangents sometimes and be verbose. But holy crap does he take it an extreme.
Finished up to current of:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8953270/33/Genin-to-Hokage
Prolly won't keep following but who knows. The fic starts very Skeletony and takes a while before it starts putting meat of things not just being bulletpoint tackles.
I do like that it largely delivers a more competent Konoha. Albeit, one that still isn't very plausible set up to win faced with simultaneous super-Orochimaru, an enormous set of smaller villages ready to betray, and an early acting Akatsuki (2 and half years early or so it seems). Danzo seems a reasonable black-ops lead...except in 33 chapters, his black ops team never succeeds even once. Root comes off as incompetent by virtue of really not stopping anyone on screen, while the bad guys get lots of on screen time having very successful horrific sabotage and assassination events in the middle of leaf.
I'm not sure who got promoted in its chuunin exams, except apparently the spy guy. This is weird since a lot of the Konoha crew came off as really competent in it, and he didn't have any screentime showing any competence in it.
Overall, it seems to grab cues from a lot of other fics (Team 8, Motivation, A few angry words), portray a lot of folks as reasonable, and builds a nice take on a much more believable Konoha the peaceful ninja village than I've seen in many places, but the writing takes a long time to pull out of skeleton-ville, and even then it seems to drift over the personal too much even late. There's also a lot of people going on, enough so that a large portion of the named cast is just developed enough to be convenient Dupes for Orochimaru (who never fails to dupe anyone in this fic, even if its just his spies saying Do X, It'll be awesome).
Been reading Guardian (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8684933/1/Guardian) which is a Dragonball Z AU where Goku's spacepod landed on Kami's lookout. Instead of bonking his head, Kami helps him work through his programming while training him to be the next guardian of earth, so he still goes by Kakarot and is somewhat smarter than Goku.
The big thing of it is, he stuck on Kami's lookout throughout near the entirety of Dragonball, aside from a brief excursion to fight King Piccolo, so that leads to lots of cool knock-on effects when Dragonball Z comes around - Chichi's still a fighter, Gohan never got born, Kami and King Piccolo fused early so the Piccolo we know isn't present at all, and the Red Ribbon Army is still around which has a huge impact on the Android Saga.
Give it a read, it's neat.
I read some of it. It looks like a case of good ideas without the writing chops to really pull them off. The author's just not that good a writer, unfortunately.
Does the author's writing improve in later chapters?
I dunno, I never really noticed anything wrong with it.
Quote from: Dracos on July 02, 2014, 10:42:44 PM
Finished up to current of:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8953270/33/Genin-to-Hokage
Prolly won't keep following but who knows. The fic starts very Skeletony and takes a while before it starts putting meat of things not just being bulletpoint tackles.
If that's the same fic I'm thinking about, I'd stopped reading it a month or two ago. I'd kept with it for a bit for the more serious atmosphere, but I came away thinking that it was
only atmosphere, and little of substantive change. Perhaps the fic just a very long buildup and I stopped reading too early before the big fork hit, but that's also indicative of a problem: IMO one shouldn't have to wait through multiple chapters of a fic for something major to diverge.
Hmm, if we're posting serious-flavored Naruto fics, a fic I'd started reading around the same time as that one is https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9948266/1/Team-7-s-Ascension. Not exactly a perfect fic either, and not super-realistic (training step 1: forest of death) but much of the standard goofiness is not present. Probably a bit too Nakama-oriented for my tastes; individual characterizations feel somewhat muted in favor of "we are all a team." Still, the fic gets the job done.
By contrast, the title of https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9971801/1/Drunken-Space-Time-Ninjutsu is self explanatory. Note: some foreign-writer grammar, but surprisingly well-written if one is aware of that (mainly incorrect tenses; phrasing is usually okay, although there are still a number of odd spots, but generally nothing that will make you "loose" your mind).
An idle thought: there are probably magnitudes more Naruto writers and there ever were Ranma 1/2 writers, but other than ShaperV's groundhogs day fic, I can't really name any that really interested me much as some of the best Ranma fics. I wonder if it's because I'm simply jaded, or if the writers really are that much less interesting.
More writers = more badfic to wade through to find the gems.
On top of that Naruto is way longer than Ranma, with a hefty amount of continuity that writers often at least attempt to pay lip service to. Meaning retreading the same plot points over and over in fic after fic just to get to the divergence the fic is built around. Remember the umpteenth time you had to read the 'Ranma meets the Tendos' scene? Its like that, only taken over a bunch of arcs.
And considering one of those arcs is wave, burnout is a real problem in the fandom. More so than it was in Ranma. I can think of only three (long form) multipart Naruto fics that actually finished of the top of my head; Time Braid and that one where team 7 gets a scroll that lets them go back in time. The running joke was that Sakura was the only one that didn't have a reason to go back and change things but went back anyway.
And that one where Naruto gets drafted into root and destroys it from the inside just by being his normal self. Sadly, lost the links to those in the great OS change over earlier this year.
Quote from: thepanda on July 06, 2014, 11:30:29 PM
I can think of only three (long form) multipart Naruto fics that actually finished of the top of my head; Time Braid and that one where team 7 gets a scroll that lets them go back in time. The running joke was that Sakura was the only one that didn't have a reason to go back and change things but went back anyway.
And that one where Naruto gets drafted into root and destroys it from the inside just by being his normal self. Sadly, lost the links to those in the great OS change over earlier this year.
Time Braid is the ShaperV fic of which I can never recall the title. I know there's a link in this thread somewhere, probably in one of Drac's earlier posts.
I posted the second somewhere on this thread. Not very helpful in tracking the link, but that's the best info I have.
I happened to remember the name of the third fic, and I also happened to have the URL in cache: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5288868/1/Uprooted
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 06, 2014, 09:21:09 PM
An idle thought: there are probably magnitudes more Naruto writers and there ever were Ranma 1/2 writers, but other than ShaperV's groundhogs day fic, I can't really name any that really interested me much as some of the best Ranma fics. I wonder if it's because I'm simply jaded, or if the writers really are that much less interesting.
Funny, I have never seen any Ranma fics that catch my eye more than a few chapters, simply because none of the characters seem all that likable. I am nominally more familiar with Ranma's actual canon, but I dropped it for a reason. I did get pretty far in the Familiar of Zero crossover, though I lost interest with time.
Now, if anyone can recommend a story that deals with actual gender identity issues, or some interesting diverging identity issues (as in, female Ranma has an individual personality with separate needs and wants as a human being), that could make for some really interesting text for me.
Quote from: thepanda on July 06, 2014, 11:30:29 PM
More writers = more badfic to wade through to find the gems.
On top of that Naruto is way longer than Ranma, with a hefty amount of continuity that writers often at least attempt to pay lip service to. Meaning retreading the same plot points over and over in fic after fic just to get to the divergence the fic is built around. Remember the umpteenth time you had to read the 'Ranma meets the Tendos' scene? Its like that, only taken over a bunch of arcs.
And considering one of those arcs is wave, burnout is a real problem in the fandom. More so than it was in Ranma. I can think of only three (long form) multipart Naruto fics that actually finished of the top of my head; Time Braid and that one where team 7 gets a scroll that lets them go back in time. The running joke was that Sakura was the only one that didn't have a reason to go back and change things but went back anyway.
And that one where Naruto gets drafted into root and destroys it from the inside just by being his normal self. Sadly, lost the links to those in the great OS change over earlier this year.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5288868/1/Uprooted
Good fics deserve relinking. The fic fails to be great, but does manage silly well.
Quote from: Ergoemos on July 07, 2014, 06:59:52 AM
Funny, I have never seen any Ranma fics that catch my eye more than a few chapters, simply because none of the characters seem all that likable.
Heh. It's a romantic-comedy at heart, with the "comedy" aspect oriented to slapstick. No one has a truly likeable personality, because that wasn't the point of the story in the first place (if you seek romantic comedy with likeable characters, Maison Ikkoku might be a better bet).
Quote
I am nominally more familiar with Ranma's actual canon, but I dropped it for a reason. I did get pretty far in the Familiar of Zero crossover, though I lost interest with time.
There was one that lasted more than a few chapters? Have a link?
Quote
Now, if anyone can recommend a story that deals with actual gender identity issues, or some interesting diverging identity issues (as in, female Ranma has an individual personality with separate needs and wants as a human being), that could make for some really interesting text for me.
There are quite a few of those. To be honest, back in my FFML days, I stopped reading the gender identity ones because there were so damn many of them, so only really looked at the ones where people were actually talking about them.
Kenko's writing, although sound, never really grabbed my interest, but evidently there were a number of women who were surprised to learn that Kenko was male because he wrote female mindset so well in Girl Days (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/345691/1/Girl-Days), so that might be a candidate for a light humor fic. Richard Lawson's The Bitter End is Ranma in college, stuck in female form, and told in the perspective of a guy who would really like to shag her (but romantically, so it's okay!). Might deal with the identity issues. Was considered one of the great fics of the day, but haven't read it in awhile, so not sure how it'd hold up. Angsty romance. Can't remember the title of the fic Scott Zoogz(sp?) wrote, but evidently it landed him notariety in TG circles, so might be worth tracking down.
There are a number of "split Ranma into male and female halves" fics ... these usually involved blunt plot devices to trigger the change, which was then largely ignored in favor of the drama that the writer actually wanted to introduce, so I didn't read many of them. I actually recall reading a few "new personality" fics I liked, but most of them were just an excuse to introduce an ANC, so are not so memorable (although I remember Anand Rao's Stained Glass Mind, that was about MPD rather than an OnnaRamna personality).
But yeah, if you're looking for deep exploration of personal or societal values, Ranma fics might not really be up your alley (although Naruto doesn't quite strike me as a viable alternative)). Not that people didn't try, but at the end of the day, martial arts slapstick fight is not the best literary vehicle for defining the meaning of self and such. OTOH, Eureka, Black Dragon's fics, and others which would rather skip all that in favor of awesome ways to escape trouble that Ranma's mouth got him into, or Action/adventure/romance tend to work with the strengths.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 07, 2014, 07:37:32 PMRichard Lawson's The Bitter End is Ranma in college, stuck in female form, and told in the perspective of a guy who would really like to shag her (but romantically, so it's okay!).
Pretty sure that's not the fic you're thinking of.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 07, 2014, 08:11:39 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 07, 2014, 07:37:32 PMRichard Lawson's The Bitter End is Ranma in college, stuck in female form, and told in the perspective of a guy who would really like to shag her (but romantically, so it's okay!).
Pretty sure that's not the fic you're thinking of.
Gah, you're right. Good catch. That was the classic fic about Ranma getting abused by psycho Akane, by Zen.
Lawson's were Thy Inward/Outward SomethingOrOther
Quote from: Ebiris on July 06, 2014, 12:26:00 PMQuote from: Anastasia on July 06, 2014, 11:59:11 AMI read some of it. It looks like a case of good ideas without the writing chops to really pull them off. The author's just not that good a writer, unfortunately.
Does the author's writing improve in later chapters?
I dunno, I never really noticed anything wrong with it.
Chapter 31:
(Kakarot)
"But...Master-"
"Buts are for pooping." Kami replied, cracking his neck.There are a few moments like that which just feel out of place... That said, outside of a few minor spelling and grammatical issues, the main problem is that the author doesn't spend as much on description as he could, so sometimes it feels a bit flat or like that old chestnut about telling vs showing. There's not as much buildup on some scenes that could use it and the pacing sometimes suffers because of how quick some things happen.
I still think it doesn't suffer that badly writing-wise, even if it could use definite improvement. And there's enough neat stuff that I think it's worth reading, like Eb suggested.
For Dune though, the writing doesn't really seem to have improved from the first couple of chapters, at least by chapter 31 and there's 68 of these, so I'm maybe halfway through? So if it was bugging you that badly from the get go, it won't get that much better probably.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 07, 2014, 07:37:32 PM
But yeah, if you're looking for deep exploration of personal or societal values, Ranma fics might not really be up your alley (although Naruto doesn't quite strike me as a viable alternative)). Not that people didn't try, but at the end of the day, martial arts slapstick fight is not the best literary vehicle for defining the meaning of self and such. OTOH, Eureka, Black Dragon's fics, and others which would rather skip all that in favor of awesome ways to escape trouble that Ranma's mouth got him into, or Action/adventure/romance tend to work with the strengths.
Well, like I said, I have seen about five episodes, if that, of Naruto, and my only real exposure to it otherwise is "Team 8" and "Dreaming of Sunshine." The first one is great, the second one is somewhere between good and okay.
I have seen at least twice as much Ranma, but cannot, for the life of me, enjoy nearly any of the fanfiction, probably because of exactly the reasons you mention.
I think I just tend to like fanfiction that takes an origin story that is interesting to me, but where canon takes a completely different direction than I am interested in. I will have to look up your suggestions, if only to glance through.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 07, 2014, 07:37:32 PM
Funny, I have never seen any Ranma fics that catch my eye more than a few chapters, simply because none of the characters seem all that likable.
Only Ranma fic I have come close to finishing (Might have, actually), is Zero Interface (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/7/Zero-Interface), which, aside from having a mostly-for-fun plot of Ranma taking on the form of the girls he is kissed by (harem in a fanfiction of anime, wha?) does seem to have a relatively reasonable, non-cartoony take on each of the characters. Don't think it is updating anymore though.
QuoteI think I just tend to like fanfiction that takes an origin story that is interesting to me, but where canon takes a completely different direction than I am interested in. I will have to look up your suggestions, if only to glance through.
We appear to have the same tendencies in fanfic writing, even if we may not share the same genre tastes. :)
Speaking of odd fics, I'd thought this had been linked here before, but couldn't find it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7668586/1/Exit-Pursued-By-a-Bear
QuoteOnly Ranma fic I have come close to finishing (Might have, actually), is Zero Interface (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6677172/7/Zero-Interface), which, aside from having a mostly-for-fun plot of Ranma taking on the form of the girls he is kissed by (harem in a fanfiction of anime, wha?) does seem to have a relatively reasonable, non-cartoony take on each of the characters. Don't think it is updating anymore though.
Which is a shame, since it's a fun fanfic.
Jason: It was linked, but I think it only had two chapters at the time.
From Fake Dreams (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/1/From-Fake-Dreams) updated on the sixth.
Dreaming of Sunshine (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/1/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) just before that.
Mass Effect: Human Revolution (//http://Mass%20Effect:%20Human%20Revolution) updated as well.
Devil You Know (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10080850/1/Devil-You-Know) also updated.
I don't think anyone else has mentioned this on here, but it did update recently at least. I don't take credit for finding it, I believe Alethiophile or Pax mentioned it in IRC.
Soldier of Zero (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9421918/1/Soldier-of-Zero) is a pretty good Familiar of Zero fanfiction. Instead of opting for a crossover to get a new summon for Louise, the author opted to basically "keep" the same person in Saito. Of course, this Saito comes from a completely unique AU, and is a child soldier/spy with heavy leanings towards Guile Hero. It is smart in the sense that even though Saito comes combat and intrigue trained, there is no "fix-fic" going on, just an alteration of where the trouble comes from.
Double credit because while Saito is virtually an OC, the author does an amazing job of laying out little tidbits from Saito's version of Earth. Its clear that he isn't some tabula rasa OC, tailor fit to match the FnZ world. He is an individual and his own history and mindset come from a world with its own consistent internal logic. I am always interested when we learn more about his own history because it does come from a well developed source.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 11, 2014, 11:11:01 PM
We appear to have the same tendencies in fanfic writing, even if we may not share the same genre tastes. :)
Speaking of odd fics, I'd thought this had been linked here before, but couldn't find it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7668586/1/Exit-Pursued-By-a-Bear
Ha, that's fun. They haven't outright said it, but did Genma fall into the OSHA Accountant spring? How oddly specific.
Quote from: thepanda
Jason: It was linked, but I think it only had two chapters at the time.
Okay, figures. Quick thread search didn't turn up with anything, but that's the sort of fic that I likely wouldn't have found on my own in the past.
Quote from: Ergoemos
Ha, that's fun. They haven't outright said it, but did Genma fall into the OSHA Accountant spring? How oddly specific.
Seems that way, although I believe the writer is English so it is probably the Spring-of-Drowned-UK-OSHA-Equivalent.
Incidentally, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3295767/1/Strained-Harmony is a RanmaxSM xover, and is probably about 95% Ranma with gender identity issues. I'm personally not a fan, but was this something along the lines of what you'd wanted?
Also, sad news for those of us who'd followed BlackDragon6:
Quote from: profile
I haven't updated anything in over a year, and most readers have probably figured that I've stopped writing and updating. This is true. As of now (or rather, June of last year), all my Ranma 1/2 stories are discontinued.
:(
Very sad.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 13, 2014, 09:23:43 AMIncidentally, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3295767/1/Strained-Harmony is a RanmaxSM xover, and is probably about 95% Ranma with gender identity issues. I'm personally not a fan, but was this something along the lines of what you'd wanted?
I gave that a read out of boredom. That's a fic that could use a few injections of zany martial arts to help spice things up. It turned into a terrible slog; some of the higher culture stuff reminded me of Togashi Gaijin's works.
Quotelso, sad news for those of us who'd followed BlackDragon6:
Quote from: profile
I haven't updated anything in over a year, and most readers have probably figured that I've stopped writing and updating. This is true. As of now (or rather, June of last year), all my Ranma 1/2 stories are discontinued.
Well bleeping bleep bleepity bleep. I'm not surprised, but it's a sad loss.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 14, 2014, 01:03:11 AM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 13, 2014, 09:23:43 AMIncidentally, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3295767/1/Strained-Harmony is a RanmaxSM xover, and is probably about 95% Ranma with gender identity issues. I'm personally not a fan, but was this something along the lines of what you'd wanted?
I gave that a read out of boredom. That's a fic that could use a few injections of zany martial arts to help spice things up. It turned into a terrible slog; some of the higher culture stuff reminded me of Togashi Gaijin's works.
Totally on board with you there. I haven't posted it before, because to me, the fic is about fine dining, shopping, hair, clothes, hair, shopping, fine dining, clothes, shopping...not really what I look for in Ranma fics (although to be honest, the food descriptions were rather nice, and I wonder if Sunshine Temple has ever considered writing a fanfic based on a cooking-manga).
As a fic with gender identity issues...well, I'm still not sure, since I usually don't read those sorts of fics, but it seemed to be a likely candidate. Since Sunshine Temple is/was well-connected with Fukufics (which IIRC was centered around putting Ranma into a Seifuku), if this fic is along the lines of what Erogemous sought, it's possible that fics with that group would tend towards Erogemous' interests.
Yeah. I guess it's the go-to fic if you want to read about rich women spending money and being pretty, along with a side order of gender issues.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 13, 2014, 09:23:43 AM
Incidentally, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3295767/1/Strained-Harmony is a RanmaxSM xover, and is probably about 95% Ranma with gender identity issues. I'm personally not a fan, but was this something along the lines of what you'd wanted?
Well, I have only read the first chapter, but I would say that this is not quite what I was expecting. The story itself wasn't bad, though I definitely am not sure I am going to like it if the final part of chapter one is a representation of the rest of the story. Something about the orgasmic chocolate was kind of silly and what seems to be a grown woman seducing a minor definitely is making me uncomfortable. They haven't explicitly said how old Ranma or Satsuna are, but it definitely seems off to me.
I am not a "gender issues" specialist by any means, but I am not sure Ranma had any sort of issue with her gender. Her main conflict was that she (and I am using the female pronouns because that's how the author did it) had to fight between keeping her new easygoing life versus her relatively crazy "male" oriented life. There really isn't much of a struggle over remaining a woman or not. She doesn't mind being female in this fiction, so much as she minds having to deal with the hassle of hiding it.
It was well written in structure and composition... but it kind of comes off as a fix-fic, or even a fanfic with little or no interest in either of the source materials. I am not even sure why the sailor moon elements are in here. It basically follows the first (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FirstLawOfGenderBending), second (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SecondLawOfGenderBending), and third (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThirdLawOfGenderBending) rules of genderbending with absolutely no hesitation, which is kind of boring, and something even the canon didn't bother with (I think).
This story, with a little more build up in the start, could have been a completely original story, if they work in a mechanic for easily swapping genders.
It might get better in further chapters, but I am tepid about trying them. I have a feeling the fiction I am looking for just doesn't exist, so I'd have to write it myself if I wanted, but I don't think I do. Thanks Mr. Miao. That was actually better than I expected.
Quote from: Ergoemos on July 15, 2014, 08:07:15 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 13, 2014, 09:23:43 AM
Incidentally, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3295767/1/Strained-Harmony is a RanmaxSM xover, and is probably about 95% Ranma with gender identity issues. I'm personally not a fan, but was this something along the lines of what you'd wanted?
I am not a "gender issues" specialist by any means, but I am not sure Ranma had any sort of issue with her gender. Her main conflict was that she (and I am using the female pronouns because that's how the author did it) had to fight between keeping her new easygoing life versus her relatively crazy "male" oriented life. There really isn't much of a struggle over remaining a woman or not. She doesn't mind being female in this fiction, so much as she minds having to deal with the hassle of hiding it.
Didn't know there were laws of genderbending, but then again, I don't read the tropes pages.
Quote
It might get better in further chapters, but I am tepid about trying them. I have a feeling the fiction I am looking for just doesn't exist, so I'd have to write it myself if I wanted, but I don't think I do. Thanks Mr. Miao. That was actually better than I expected.
np. It doesn't appreciably change in further chapters, so don't bother continuing. I'd mainly posted it to see if that was the sort of fic you're looking for; if so, it would have been easy to address since there were a number of "Ranma gains love of shoe shopping" fics written. Fukufics, by the nature of its mission, likely has quite a few of those sorts.
But it seems you're less interested in TG-fantasy, and more interested in the conflict of making the decision itself. If you're okay with a generally non-serious fic (not slapstick, but falls in line with Ah Megamisama levels of humor because it's an xover with that), Hell is a Martial Artist might be one to look into, but the pressures in HiMA also break down to new female life vs crazy "male" life. There are other fics that I'm sure I could track down if you're interested, but most of them tend to cast the decision along those lines as well.
For a truly serious exploration of societal roles, that's likely a harder topic to find, and I'm not sure that most anime/manga fanfic will fulfill such a requirement. I suspect that most fics will end up with some variant of "must...resist...painting...toenails!!!" scene because writing to niche fantasies is easier than serious works (See 95% of shojo/shonen manga). Also, because most writers who are worth a damn about that sort of topic do research, so most writers with actual skill who'd write this sort of work would likely be exploring Japanese societal roles, which may or may not be of particular interest to you.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 15, 2014, 10:04:12 PM
For a truly serious exploration of societal roles, that's likely a harder topic to find, and I'm not sure that most anime/manga fanfic will fulfill such a requirement. I suspect that most fics will end up with some variant of "must...resist...painting...toenails!!!" scene because writing to niche fantasies is easier than serious works (See 95% of shojo/shonen manga). Also, because most writers who are worth a damn about that sort of topic do research, so most writers with actual skill who'd write this sort of work would likely be exploring Japanese societal roles, which may or may not be of particular interest to you.
That is pretty much what I realized after reading some of Strained Harmony, in much less coherent and well put terms. I'd be better off looking for material in non-fanfiction material. I'd love to find stuff on Japanese societal roles, but I am not sure there will be many that are translated to English, given that an actual local's insight would mean that much more, and I wouldn't even know where to start (And I would rather it not happen between catty conversations of relatively flat characters). I like seeing how gender and class roles have changed or remained the same in first world countries in the past few decades or so.
If you didn't glance at the Three Laws of Genderbending, a quick summary as follows:
1. The universe conspires to keep a man transformed into a woman as long or permanently as possible.
2. The individual turned into a girl will grow to enjoy the role of a female.
3. The individual will naturally turn more girly as the story progresses.
Anyway, rambling over.
I'd suggest a fic, but I get all my good material from here.
Quote from: profile
I haven't updated anything in over a year, and most readers have probably figured that I've stopped writing and updating. This is true. As of now (or rather, June of last year), all my Ranma 1/2 stories are discontinued.
aw poopy
That's rather sad. Consider that to his admission he didn't even like Rosario Vampire he was doing a rather good job with the material and what it gave him to work with.
Oh well, I suppose that's how things go.
Za best job really.
Quote from: Dracos on July 18, 2014, 04:32:13 PM
Za best job really.
I remember the discussion that Big Human was a better canon for R+V than R+V since with the way the story was structured, Ranma gets to beat monsters up whereas Tsukune is free to develop his character as a squishy but diplomatically successful human, whereas R+V ended up contradicting its own original premise (squishy diplomatic human goes to monster school) by kind of forcing Tsukune into both roles via awkwardly motivated powerups?
Haven't read R+V itself, but that's how I remember the discussion going, at least.
That's definitely on target. It also had a more consistent tone and goal. R+V starts as a classic "Throw Yourself at him" Harem + Monster of the week fare, with the vampire very much taking the Magical Girl role in it. Eventually the cast grows to a large size and they start having trouble with that model, so they switch over to drama and having him get monster powers so he could go rescue characters instead being a genderswapped Damsel in Distress (Because really that's his role in the early part).
In Big Human, its more a comedy, but from beginning to end, Tsukune has his blind spots, but instead of just being a passive survivor amongst superpowered females that are jockeying for his attention and looking after him, he's got someone else to hang out with, talk about, be protected by and protect that's outside of the romance context. This gives his character room to grow as a character since not every event is wrapped around "Hook protagonist up with new fetish subject".
It could be reasonably said that in the original first season at least, his actions were primarily passive female lead transposed onto male lead. His rebukes were social, or by tossing himself in the way, rather than active 'Well, I'll solve this problem'.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10534035/1/Catch-me-if-you-can
An odd Ranma story. Starts with Ranma pulling a reverse Kiss of Death and Ranma continually pranking Shampoo as she tries to kill him. Veers off into strangeness past that. I am not yet sure if I like this one or not. I like the different take, but some of the events post-Shampoo seem arbitrary.
Mother of Learning ended the first arc today.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6318423/1/Hitchups
I found this a relatively adorable coming of age tale. It's very light, and definitely not written to be serious fantasy writing, but it's a pretty cute story. It follows Hiccup of Training a Dragon through a wandering adventure of northern Europe, having decided differently during that first argument on revealing Toothless the dragon to the vikings that they wouldn't be accepted, so to run away, getting declared an outlaw as he begins his hero's journey.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/11/A-Demon-Among-Devils This updated recently. Was still a fun read. Mayhaps my favorite new fic of the year.
Gabriel Blessing updated his Dresden Files x High School DxD fanfic, have yet to read the latest update but I enjoyed the first 2 chapters.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10202330/3/Beyond-the-Outer-Gate-Lies
Honestly, the standard of some DxD fanfics out there has surprised me. I dropped the anime halfway through the first episode when it quickly became apparent that it was almost entirely based around fanservice, but then you have stuff like Beyond the Outer Gates Lies, A Demon Among Devils, Devil You Know, and that SAO/DxD crossover oneshot that GB did. Here are some more:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10264827/1/Devil-Arts-Online
Basically someone decided they liked GB's oneshot. This is they're attempt at extending the idea of fusing the two series togethor. Honestly, I preferred GB's version because this one feels a little choppy and unpolished, but I though I'd chuck it here for those interested. NOTE: I'm not entirely sure, but I think the recent start to the GGO arc has been pretty much identical to the LNs which is kind of a turn off for me.
God-Harem King Quest [Highschool DxD/Exalted]
http://questionablequesting.com/index.php?topic=408.0 (First Thread)
http://questionablequesting.com/index.php?topic=563.0 (Second Thread: Current most complete Index HERE)
http://questionablequesting.com/index.php?topic=674.0 (Third Thread)
A crossover quest run by Alexander on QQ. It's in the SFW section with any explicit material being posted in a separate NSFW thread which you need membership to view. Basic premises is that Issei gets a Solar Exaltation at the beginning of the series and proceeds to pull off some Glorious Solar Bullshit and thoroughly derail canon. Involves a few crossovers and expys, History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi and RWBY being the primary ones so far. Alexander's English isn't perfect and there are a few occasional glaring errors, but I've found the quest to be a source of endless amusement at times. Helps that as an Communal Exalted quest, there are other writers willing to chip in by writing stunts.
Most complete index can be found in the second thread below the very long Exalted character sheet. Only lists the stuff found in the first and second thread though, Alex hasn't got around to indexing the posts in the third thread, but it's only 14 pages so far, so it isn't too hard to find the story posts. Index is separated into the MAIN and SIDE Continuity. Make sure to read each story segment in the correct order, otherwise you'll get confused when new characters seem to pop out of nowhere in the main continuity when there was an entire side continuity devoted to their introduction.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9978662/1/Transformers-Prime-Divide
An interesting Transformers fic that takes us back to the first movie and adds a liberal dash of spiritual elements to a thoroughly sci-fi setting. Sam gets to have a role other than an ordinary teenage kid in way over his head, basically he gets the title of ordinary removed from him. Not in the "I suddenly have super powers" or "I'm actually a transformer and I didn't even know it" way, but more in a "I'm a teenager and suddenly halfway to enlightenment" way. Canon hasn't quite been tipped on it's head yet, but the author's only up to the Mission City battle so far. Give it time.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/1/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species
Another attempt at making a 'realistic' pokemon world while following the story of Red, Blue, and Green. Of note is that this one ISN'T totally grimdark! Have to say this story is starting to shape up nicely, especially since Red is doing stuff like questioning how a move like Ember works by the second chapter and then proceeding to figure it out with a hastily thrown together experiment.
It's kind of interesting to hear that since I found that kind of choppy by GB standards, so it'd be surprising to hear that behind it.
I've been reading this for a while and should have mentioned it before, but Seventh Horcrux (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/seventh-horcrux-hp-au.298748/) is the funniest thing I've read in ages.
It's a 'Harry is actually Voldemort through Horcrux shenanigans' story where upon being given a new lease of life (as a new wizarding hero no less!) Harrymort decides he can finally act out his lifelong ambition of becoming the Defence Against Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.
Here's an exchange from the latest chapter that I think encapsulates the story best to see if it's for you:
Quote
"No, that likely has to do with the Bloody Baron's deathday. I was referring to whether you have experienced something strange lately. Odd visions, voices, urges. Anything of that sort," he prompted.
I considered his question. Every few nights, I dreamt that I was once again Lord Voldemort, ordering and crucioing my Death Eaters. Just this morning, I'd missed the entirety of Professor Flitwick's lecture because I was too caught up in daydreaming that I was a man-eating snake. And I'd nearly taken Ron's head off during a recent meeting of our new study group when I felt a sudden and inexplicable flash of rage.
For quite possibly the first time in my life, I answered Albus Dumbledore honestly. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
Give it a read, it's well worth it.
I blame you for many snickers, Ebiris. I blame you for this humor that you have delivered.
Some Ranma-Naruto xovers I ran across during my recent Ranma-fic hunt:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10492497/1/Fake-Uzu
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10179883/1/Who-s-a-Ninja
IMO not quite as striking as some of the other xovers posted (much) earlier in this thread. The former takes some liberties with the character, and the later uses 1st person perspective. Neither are over-the-top (although the later certainly tries)
Just got up to date on The Horcrux Within (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7505602/1/The-Horcrux-Within), a fic where Harry discovers he's a horcrux during the confrontation with Quirrel at the end of Philosopher's Stone and has to struggle with the knowledge that he's keeping Voldemort alive.
It reads a lot like Forging the Sword, so if you liked that you should like this.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 30, 2014, 10:15:27 PM
Some Ranma-Naruto xovers I ran across during my recent Ranma-fic hunt:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10492497/1/Fake-Uzu
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10179883/1/Who-s-a-Ninja
IMO not quite as striking as some of the other xovers posted (much) earlier in this thread. The former takes some liberties with the character, and the later uses 1st person perspective. Neither are over-the-top (although the later certainly tries)
Tried a little way into Lost uzu and just ran into a bit too much tossed together 'I like totally like aniiiime!'/'fanon!' vibe. References to other animes that weren't relevant to the story being told, dramatic important set-pieces that that are fully from fanon. I dunno, maybe I'll give it another look later but it missed getting its feet down before introducing strange things:
1)Ranma having a new cousin from another anime.
2)Ranma being in a new world/setting.
3)Ranma being de-aged.
4)Ranma being in his cursed state.
5)Herb having died during saffron arc, as a dramatic day saver to Ranma?
6)Ranma being precisely recognized as from a town/city that was destroyed a while ago based on hair/eye color.
This isn't halfway through chapter 1. Just a lot of noise making it hard to ground in the story being told.
Quote from: Ebiris on July 31, 2014, 02:43:33 PM
Just got up to date on The Horcrux Within (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7505602/1/The-Horcrux-Within), a fic where Harry discovers he's a horcrux during the confrontation with Quirrel at the end of Philosopher's Stone and has to struggle with the knowledge that he's keeping Voldemort alive.
It reads a lot like Forging the Sword, so if you liked that you should like this.
Got a bit in. The writing wasn't quite as strong, and the early focus on abuse grinded a bit. Just too much time in the first few chapters spent working through the social issues of extracting Harry from the dursleys.
Drac,
I pretty much included both of them in the thread because I read them, and not for much more than that.
Quote from: Dracos on July 31, 2014, 07:21:59 PM
Tried a little way into Lost uzu and just ran into a bit too much tossed together 'I like totally like aniiiime!'/'fanon!' vibe. References to other animes that weren't relevant to the story being told, dramatic important set-pieces that that are fully from fanon.
It's probably because I haven't seen any new anime in years, except for Madoka, but I didn't catch any of the references except the gratuitous Inuyasha one in the first chapter. I believe there's a Fushigi Yuugi(sp?) bit somewhat later.
Info dump rate doesn't actually get better; the writer mentions at some point a few chapters in information is being presented to the reader as the protagonist learns it. Which is all well and good (mysteries follow this convention), but pacing is important for that, and this fic doesn't strike that balance. I usually admire the effort to work on new writing styles, even if a particular fic doesn't work out quite well, and that's the case here.
Although I try to keep comments on the links I post minimal until someone else read them, just to save you some future grief, I'll mention that the other fic
starts in Wave. So, fair warning. :)
Yeah, totally fair. I just discuss anything I bother to look at :)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/84/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death updated. Now featuring everyone that isn't in the afterlife.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/13/A-Demon-Among-Devils
So, THAT updated. Good lord I hate to gush, but this one's making me swear every 3 paragraphs. Things just keep escalating and escalating that I'm scared the author won't be able to top the last one. He does though, and it's really making me look forward to every update. It's gotten to the point where I'm not just passively following it anymore.
Rah, Rah, Rah.
:D
Go Fic.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10166402/5/Nanoha-Takamachi-and-the-Wizarding-World
This wasn't...that bad? It's a reasonable okay, in being fairly respectful to both properties instead of terrible like most Nanoha fics are to my eyes. It also though really hasn't gone anywhere despite covering the first and start of the second book.
Quote from: Dracos on August 08, 2014, 05:43:53 PM
This wasn't...that bad? It's a reasonable okay, in being fairly respectful to both properties instead of terrible like most Nanoha fics are to my eyes.
I liked a Nanoha/Ranma crossover somewhere. Mostly for the rare sympathetic Genma portrayal. Can't find it on ff.net -- maybe it was taken down?
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6864150/1/Professor-Takamachi (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6864150/1/Professor-Takamachi) -- not well written, but fun. (I think it was this one I read?) Nanoha tries to figure out Harry Potter universe while putting Hogwarts students through some Training From Hell.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on August 08, 2014, 06:53:51 PM
I liked a Nanoha/Ranma crossover somewhere. Mostly for the rare sympathetic Genma portrayal. Can't find it on ff.net -- maybe it was taken down?
Did you mean https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5245635/1/Magical-Girl-Nanoha-12
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 08, 2014, 07:34:44 PM
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on August 08, 2014, 06:53:51 PM
I liked a Nanoha/Ranma crossover somewhere. Mostly for the rare sympathetic Genma portrayal. Can't find it on ff.net -- maybe it was taken down?
Did you mean https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5245635/1/Magical-Girl-Nanoha-12
Yep, that's the one.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7754742/1/Political-Realities
A short, amusing little fic on what happens when someone finally does something about the Joker.
Short, lacking punch...
But still amusing. Seriously, Batman's universe exists in an environment that it becomes really ridiculous when they try and apply fatalities, since the way his villains work, they'd get murdered in their cells.
Quote from: Dracos on August 19, 2014, 12:58:15 AM
But still amusing. Seriously, Batman's universe exists in an environment that it becomes really ridiculous when they try and apply fatalities, since the way his villains work, they'd get murdered in their cells.
The fic reviews make some amusing quips for once:
Quote"You could kill the Joker with a .50BMG sniper rifle at a range in excess of a thousand yards and I'd still rule it self defense"
Quote from: Anastasia on August 18, 2014, 01:12:13 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7754742/1/Political-Realities
A short, amusing little fic on what happens when someone finally does something about the Joker.
Somewhat amusing and an interesting concept, but the real political realities would be much less clearcut or simple.
Well, it's just the start of pulling reality into Batman.
I mean, their 'high security' setup is an often broken out of Insane Asylum with glass walls that they have folks who have gone on major property damaging and violent crime sprees within. For the most part, the police themselves don't shoot at these obviously dangerous criminals with any effectiveness. It's not that kinda setting.
If you got into the real, you'd have a judicial system there that really would find a way to lock them away forever or have them executed in short order. An average joker heist commits lots of property damage, theft, and using designer drugs on people that are very likely to have permanent or fatal effects, when it isn't outright killing people. It wouldn't take an imprisoned vigilante to kick off a 'how do we deal with it'. Tugging that in does work for an amusing scene, but it basically keeps the rest of the environment static for mockery, even though that environment is needed for repeat conflicts.
*yammer yammer*
Anyhow, good to see ya, Edward.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7903626/1/Terrorism-Anarchy
Found it...not too bad. I do like the whole go back and make things better angle. Not too good either, but gameworlds are difficult for that when mechanics are kept in.
Quote from: Dracos on August 30, 2014, 04:47:26 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7903626/1/Terrorism-Anarchy
Found it...not too bad. I do like the whole go back and make things better angle. Not too good either, but gameworlds are difficult for that when mechanics are kept in.
It's like the Fifth Act, only weaker in every way. Not that I blame them since the Fifth Act destroyed the concept of an FF7 timetravel fic. It's an impossible act to follow, y'know?
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/21/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame updated. Lots of Ukyo and Rei interactions here, so the current Ranma and Minako plot takes a back seat. I'm less than thrilled since this update took forever, but another one should be coming down the pipe any day.
Well, relink fifth act. :)
Quote from: Dracos on September 01, 2014, 01:09:17 AM
Well, relink fifth act. :)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5951824/1/The-Fifth-Act
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/14/A-Demon-Among-Devils
It's baaaaaaack. Or was it already, I can't remember.
This one has some one-liners that actually got me chuckling. Nice nice nice! Humor's really getting up there.
Za, it just went up this morning.
It's always nice when you find a good fanfic with a good archive that's still ongoing and updating regularly that you can binge read in a single day :D
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-three.310286/
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9740933/50/Fate-Revelation-Online updated.
Read over https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5000042/1/Halcyon-Days
Kinda neat setup, Naruto traveling between modern and ninja world. But has lots of weird parts too.
Quote from: Dracos on September 14, 2014, 02:02:36 PM
Read over https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5000042/1/Halcyon-Days
Kinda neat setup, Naruto traveling between modern and ninja world. But has lots of weird parts too.
I remember that one. Also remember it hasn't updated in two years.
Quote from: Dracos on September 14, 2014, 02:02:36 PM
Read over https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5000042/1/Halcyon-Days
Kinda neat setup, Naruto traveling between modern and ninja world. But has lots of weird parts too.
What does the phrase 'Halcyon Days' mean anyway? I've heard it multiple times before.
Quote from: Rukatin on September 15, 2014, 08:09:04 AM
Quote from: Dracos on September 14, 2014, 02:02:36 PM
Read over https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5000042/1/Halcyon-Days
Kinda neat setup, Naruto traveling between modern and ninja world. But has lots of weird parts too.
What does the phrase 'Halcyon Days' mean anyway? I've heard it multiple times before.
Ideal peaceful days. Based off the Greek myth of Halcyone, who was turned into a sea-faring bird to reunite with her husband. Per the myth, one of the gods stops the winds on the Med for a few days, so that the bird can (lay eggs? hatch them? It's been awhile since I've read any Greek myths, so I don't quite recall)
I also looking it up. One translation I got that also makes sense is 'when days were better'
I've just started reading To the Stars (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7406866/1/To-the-Stars) and it's hooked me right in.
"Kyubey promised that humanity will reach the stars one day. The Incubator tactfully refrained from saying too much about what they would find there."
The setting's really evocative of a crumbling post-scarcity society, and the primary viewpoint character is as relatable as an ennui-stricken teenager in such a world can be. It's a whopper at 400k+ words, but the first few chapters have done a great job of grabbing my interest; dribbling out mysteries just waiting to be pieced together.
Quote from: Ebiris on September 15, 2014, 01:37:42 PM
I've just started reading To the Stars (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7406866/1/To-the-Stars) and it's hooked me right in.
"Kyubey promised that humanity will reach the stars one day. The Incubator tactfully refrained from saying too much about what they would find there."
The setting's really evocative of a crumbling post-scarcity society, and the primary viewpoint character is as relatable as an ennui-stricken teenager in such a world can be. It's a whopper at 400k+ words, but the first few chapters have done a great job of grabbing my interest; dribbling out mysteries just waiting to be pieced together.
I tried that one and ran into the opposite problem. The premise looked interesting, but it just didn't hook me at all. It is well written, though.
Quote from: Rukatin on September 15, 2014, 09:58:15 AM
I also looking it up. One translation I got that also makes sense is 'when days were better'
It's generally used in way with a sense of wistful nostalgia. If you watch a movie and a character thinks back to her days of her innocent childhood ("O[sic] for those lost days of sweet youth"), then she is thinking of Halcyone days.
For a parody of this (which may put the general use of the word in context), see http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-down-to-final-week-of-heyday,2680/
Quote from: Anastasia on September 15, 2014, 01:53:12 PM
Quote from: Ebiris on September 15, 2014, 01:37:42 PM
I've just started reading To the Stars (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7406866/1/To-the-Stars) and it's hooked me right in.
"Kyubey promised that humanity will reach the stars one day. The Incubator tactfully refrained from saying too much about what they would find there."
The setting's really evocative of a crumbling post-scarcity society, and the primary viewpoint character is as relatable as an ennui-stricken teenager in such a world can be. It's a whopper at 400k+ words, but the first few chapters have done a great job of grabbing my interest; dribbling out mysteries just waiting to be pieced together.
I tried that one and ran into the opposite problem. The premise looked interesting, but it just didn't hook me at all. It is well written, though.
Obviously, since I posted about it twice earlier, I'm one of the ones who are hooked. But it's certainly one of those stories where you have to like reading about settings as much as action. Because the fic has quite a lot of it, even if it is in the context of character interactions.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/15/A-Demon-Among-Devils
Surprisingly, the Hero Faction doesn't play much of a part this chapter. Also, *shudder* politics. But, well, Arisato has an answer to that!
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10272247/1/Your-Fault
Worth a few chuckles. Danzo, Madara, Obito, and Tobirama discuss who was most to blame for all the crap that happens in Naruto.
This was a thing. Not sure what kind of thing it was.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6557148/1/Friendship-is-Magic-Damnation-is-Alchemy (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6557148/1/Friendship-is-Magic-Damnation-is-Alchemy)
State Alchemist Douglas Sinclair inadvertently swaps bodies with Fluttershy's abusive Royal Guard coltfriend, Wind Racer. Wind Racer cheats, lies, and backstabs his way to controlling the FMA world as der Fuehrer. Eventually the Mane Six rushes in to clean up the mess while making a bunch of bigoted assumptions about humans. Far more FMA than MLP.
This setup plays out a lot less crazily than it sounds, somehow.
It's fun to read screenplays to see just how much the story gets reworked until it hits the screen. Here's the LEGO movie one:
http://www.screenplaydb.com/film/scripts/lego.pdf (http://www.screenplaydb.com/film/scripts/lego.pdf)
Updated when no one was looking:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7668586/5/Exit-Pursued-By-a-Bear
http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/262829.html
A good crossover between Rwby and The Gamer, (A web-manga where a guy's life is turned into a rpg game. I only briefly looked at it, but it looks cool) called The Games We Play. http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-four.311394/
It starts before Rwby canon, before Blake has
and Jaune hasn't become desperate enough to
forge transcripts to get into Beacon
.
Jaune's semblance turns out to be The Gamer, and he proceeds to become a hero (more or less).
I've been reading that. It's pretty fun, though the threads for it are getting crazy.
I'm more amazed Ryuugi has stuck with it this long.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 25, 2014, 01:41:28 PM
I've been reading that. It's pretty fun, though the threads for it are getting crazy.
I'm more amazed Ryuugi has stuck with it this long.
Omakes. Omakes everywhere! And some of them are pretty good too! The fandoms for Fanfics get that way when they grow larger.
I liked that Percy Jackson/Dresden Files one he had. Shame he didn't continue that one.
Quote from: Rukatin on September 25, 2014, 10:03:58 AM
A good crossover between Rwby and The Gamer, (A web-manga where a guy's life is turned into a rpg game. I only briefly looked at it, but it looks cool) called The Games We Play. http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-four.311394/
Read the fic when you'd posted the link for disk 3. Well written, but was thinking that it felt like DBZ: "He's powering up! And then, he'll power up! And then, casually curbstomp something horrific, which will let him power up in another way!" Then I read The Gamer, and realized that is the heart of the crossover.
I have the feeling that the writer is implicitly aluding to certain features of RWBY canon, which I'm not getting because I haven't watched RWBY. I'll probably get around to watching it (once I stop obsessing over AI war), and then give the fic another shot.
So, The Games We Play is the best thing I've read in quite a while. I read it on ff.net first, and when I found out that only about half of it was posted there it made my day. Also, new updates coming out very frequently. I just hope they keep coming.
Quote from: Empyrean on October 01, 2014, 06:40:43 AM
So, The Games We Play is the best thing I've read in quite a while. I read it on ff.net first, and when I found out that only about half of it was posted there it made my day. Also, new updates coming out very frequently. I just hope they keep coming.
He updates every day around 11 PM-Midnight EST. So yep. I don't think he's missed an update yet.
So, still reading TGWP. It's still great.
I wrote an omake for it: http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-four.311394/page-254#post-15341027
Didn't realize Drukards Walk updated back in February.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/16/A-Demon-Among-Devils
Updated.
Inhaled.
Enjoyed.
Well, the cliffhanger isn't as bad as the other ones, so the wait's more bearable this time.
DK:A updated (http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/263401.html)
I should toss up some of what I've been reading lately. I've been lazy there.
Most recently looked at: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10673186/2/Harry-Potter-and-the-Endless-Night
Which is Sage of Toad's latest...something. I dunno, I'm done. It feels like a cross between Harry Potter and Hellsing Abridged. No one feels the least bit serious in the first 1.5 chapters, so I'm done.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4052439/17/The-Truth-Decays also read this recently. It portrays an impressively shitty Konoha. I probably won't continue because really it's hard to read about a ninja village that has so little worth saving. "Hey Full Metal Ed, you've got strange powers. To figure this out, here's your trip to guatanamo bay~." Like an enormous amount of screentime is devoted to the ninja village (the nice one), being insufferable shits. We want to know something? Hardcore interrogation and torture. We get ordered to stop it? We stick death seals on him. Yadda yadda. Reminds me a bit of Altered History, where folks would try and get their own teammates killed.
Quote from: lolipettanko on October 12, 2014, 10:59:23 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/16/A-Demon-Among-Devils
Updated.
Inhaled.
Enjoyed.
Well, the cliffhanger isn't as bad as the other ones, so the wait's more bearable this time.
Mmm, read. Kind of hardcore villain squad there, which is fine, but they really have an enormous personnel it seems.
I'm not really familiar with DxD past the Akeno-arc, so I really couldn't say if it was accurate or not. Chances are it isn't given the overall tone of the series.
Only thing I'm worried about is the escalation game the author's playing. Things just keep getting bigger and bigger, and I'm not sure if he'll be able to maintain that gimmick for long.
Quote from: Dracos on October 13, 2014, 02:37:19 AM
I should toss up some of what I've been reading lately. I've been lazy there.
Most recently looked at: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10673186/2/Harry-Potter-and-the-Endless-Night
Which is Sage of Toad's latest...something. I dunno, I'm done. It feels like a cross between Harry Potter and Hellsing Abridged. No one feels the least bit serious in the first 1.5 chapters, so I'm done.
That's because it
is a crossover between Harry Potter and Hellsing Ultimite Abridged. You're not supposed to take it seriously.
Quote from: Korsar13 on October 12, 2014, 11:32:00 AM
DK:A updated (http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/263401.html)
Oh wow, finally.
The dwarves have trains. Well everyone's good and properly screwed now!
Quote from: Rukatin on October 13, 2014, 09:31:34 AM
Quote from: Dracos on October 13, 2014, 02:37:19 AM
I should toss up some of what I've been reading lately. I've been lazy there.
Most recently looked at: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10673186/2/Harry-Potter-and-the-Endless-Night
Which is Sage of Toad's latest...something. I dunno, I'm done. It feels like a cross between Harry Potter and Hellsing Abridged. No one feels the least bit serious in the first 1.5 chapters, so I'm done.
That's because it is a crossover between Harry Potter and Hellsing Ultimite Abridged. You're not supposed to take it seriously.
You're right and... I still don't care. I dunno, Sage of Toad's comedy style has rarely done a thing for me, so a fic intended to do it the whole time is just not something I'm going to follow. I did miss that, since I was linked to it as a Hellsing cross, but doesn't really change it as a piece. His stuff is far more interesting when it's 'Setting Gone Big' then when folks break out the swearing and the dick punching.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9287872/1/The-Champion-s-Tale - So read this recently. It's a pretty decent long yarn, following Ms Hawke as she tries to protect her family. A vastly better tale than usual as how a mage character is keeping free within the city of "Imprison and kill all mages" chains.
It's unfinished and tries to stick a lot to the actual plot. My main 'something is missing here' is that the family has Future Viewing as an ability. Uncontrolled and whatnot, but they're told in no uncertain terms that's what they're seeing.
And they don't as of yet do anything about it. None of the visions are reacted to with action, even with proof of coming true. It seems like such a waste as a plot point (and a large and reiterated one) since it hasn't been paired with action by an intelligent and over-protective big sis style lead character.
Finished its prequel:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7383205/51/The-Wardens-Tale The tale of two Mary Sues, and their journey to conquer the blight. Excessive all around, and yet I bothered to finish it. Both characters are basically superhumans from beginning to end, which works less well than: Wardens get superpowers that many take.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9834391/1/Legacy-Undone
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10730002/1/Lost-Days
Ranma SAO xover. Feels choppy. No ending, even though it is marked as complete. Despite that, I still think it is interesting enough to post.
Been on a Five Nights at Freddy's kick recently.
I'm not sure what is so relaxing about watching Youtube letsplayers getting adorable demonic muppets screaming in their faces, but it is relaxing after long and frustrating days. (Why is it that Freddy is supposed to be the worst and most scary of them, but his "I'm going to be a'killing you" animation with the empty black eyes is the most adorable to me? I mean, look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5H7HqayshM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5H7HqayshM) (Warning: this is a compilation of heartattack-inducing jump scares, happening in a row. The fact that the freakiness of it strikes me as cute is obviously a subjective thing.)
The only one that I find disturbing is Golden Freddy, mostly because of a strong suggestion that the rotting corpse of the previous security guard has been stuffed in there. That's just an... unsanitary thing to have randomly teleporting into someone's office.
And apparently there is fanfiction of it involving the inane creepypasta backstory.
Lo and behold, what do I find. In the vein of the Internet maxim, or it should be an Internet maxim:
if it's on the Internet, there are ponies of it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10656238/1/Rainbow-Dash-s-Five-Nights-at-Freddy-s (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10656238/1/Rainbow-Dash-s-Five-Nights-at-Freddy-s)
Note, this is not actually good, or in the least good. It is just... a thing. Rather nearer the bottom of the barrel than the top. But I somehow gained inordinate amusement from how much of the nonsensical original backstory they managed to make some sense out of, while simultaneously causing a dozen other things to
stop making sense entirely, because of being forcefully rammed into the sugar bowl pony universe.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 21, 2014, 11:55:27 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9834391/1/Legacy-Undone
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10730002/1/Lost-Days
Ranma SAO xover. Feels choppy. No ending, even though it is marked as complete. Despite that, I still think it is interesting enough to post.
Read a bit of Legacy Undone. Kind of just generally had a problem with:
1)It's extremely AU. Which sort of invalidates a time travel setup a bit.
2)Naruto doesn't trust anyone, even when there's good reason to and they have good reason to ask. It gets handwaved particularly easily that he apparently has tons of inappropriate memories that don't match, with lots of trackers, but not lots of effective answer getting. Having a year pass while this is going on as always feels weird, especially with a missing mystical superweapon.
3)No one sits down and asks questions. Or even reviews the memories that are wacky and weird. It's like tremendous resources are thrown at the problem of being ineffective at even putting together details, much less an answer.
Lost Days:
Kind of skippy Ranma/Nabiki story. The whole Pirating thing seemed to be a dropped plot point. I'm not It never had any impact other than people calling names and wasn't part of the original anime I don't think. Akane basically showed up to be bashed. While it cut off, the conclusion is fairly clear cut. From the flow of the story, it's easy to see what happened.
Dreaming of Sunshine (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/81/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) has updated a lot recently.
God Slaying Blade Works (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8560965/27/God-Slaying-Blade-Works)sort of updates. Looks like it might get a rewrite soonish, maybe. Yet another wheels spinning chapter, anyway.
I think people were reading Miracle of Zero (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9342459/11/Miracle-of-Zero-Kingdom-of-the-Forsaken). That updated.
Been reading a bunch of Mizuki_Stone's SI stuff on spacebattles. A bit like butter cookies; tasty, but lacking substance.
Oh, and I just saw that a chapter of Drunkard's Walk was released back in February. Kind of wish his front page showed that update.
Been reading on my phone a lot lately. I'm sure I've forgotten of few updates.
Quote from: Dracos on October 22, 2014, 10:42:42 PM
Read a bit of Legacy Undone. Kind of just generally had a problem with:
3)No one sits down and asks questions. Or even reviews the memories that are wacky and weird. It's like tremendous resources are thrown at the problem of being ineffective at even putting together details, much less an answer.
Heh. I have that impression about most shonen action series (except for mystery-based series), so I suppose I didn't notice it as particularly standing out.
Quote
Lost Days:
Kind of skippy Ranma/Nabiki story. The whole Pirating thing seemed to be a dropped plot point.
Probably. There's a bunch of little points like that ("Oni-hime?"). I don't know the actual circumstances, but I have the impression that this was an outline of important scenes for a fic someone wrote up, rather than a fic itself.
Mmm. Some shonen series have that problem, and definitely young characters don't ask, and that's okay...
But here we have the entire top tier of government for the town worried that the super monster has been stolen, but not asking questions. It's actually generally a problem with naruto time travel and adult characters. "Okay, you've been a soldier for half your life. You went back in time to stop a disaster. You did not tell your commander? Really?"
Quote from: Dracos on October 25, 2014, 06:57:49 PM
Mmm. Some shonen series have that problem, and definitely young characters don't ask, and that's okay...
But here we have the entire top tier of government for the town worried that the super monster has been stolen, but not asking questions. It's actually generally a problem with naruto time travel and adult characters. "Okay, you've been a soldier for half your life. You went back in time to stop a disaster. You did not tell your commander? Really?"
In terms of realism, I'm with you. It sure doesn't make much sense. Plenty of cliches don't. I mean, why the hell would someone build a fortress that is so brittle that it falls apart when he dies? I'd wonder what the end-game wizard-boss-villian thinks will happen if he has a heart attack. Rather than try to heal him, his minions will just try to escape the castle. Why don't they just execute the Joker rather than locking him up in the jail he keeps escaping? Does Gotham not have the death penalty? They need it more than Chicago does. Why do grand martial arts masters bother to meditate to refine their power for 50 years, since they just end up passing it onto the young hero anyway? But these are just common features of as swords and sorcery, superhero, and wuxia.
Plots involving time travel usually involve not telling anyone else about it for a large chunk of the story. I don't expect fanfic writers to fix where a genre-at-large (let alone series) stretches credibility. Don't get me wrong here: breaking cliche can make for great stories. I'd love to read a fic where the time traveler immediately sets out to establish his credibility, does so, and to work the system to produce a beneficial outcome, rather than lone-wolf it (provided that the writer sets up additional conflict as a result). And sometimes, someone will write a fic that does that. Still, that's not the standard for time-travel.
That said, I think your first point about being an AU is where this fic is weak. I feel that the writer is relying on well-trod time travel cliches when he's already genre-shifted away from that at the end of chapter 2. The main character is treating this like just another time travel plan gone wrong, and ignoring the possibility that the original plan objective may not longer even be relevant. I think the world the writer is building is interesting, but the way the main character is acting within the world seems not quite right.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8753582/39/Overlady
Read this recently, a story crossing Overlord with Zero no Tsukaima or whatever. It was...rather cute. It kept a lighthearted tone throughout, being somewhat respectful to the source material of both, feeling like a rather clever blending of the settings. Louise rather than having the power of the void has the power of Evil. Much like much of her ancestry, excepting her black sheep Hero parents.
Overlady is good stuff. Shame no updates recently
Yeah, Worm sunk its hooks into Earthscorpion but good.
Imago of Rust and Crimson was great, then that sorta stopped too.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4573620/13/A-Drop-of-Poison
Naruto prank fic updated
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2935739/1/Spirit-Walk
Ranma fic, anime continuity. Older fic.
Since I was at home with the flu, I went looking for Ranma fics.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2713831/1/Wish-you-never-left
I was amused by this one.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10231701/1/No-Happy-Endings
Had potential, if the writer ever felt like continuing it. OOC Ranma, but I have the feeling that was the point.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9916589/1/Desperately-Seeking-Ranma
*Very* long bouts of exposition. I think the first set lasts about ten chapters, and that's not the last of it.
I read all 75 chapters, but I enjoy worldbuilding setups. That and the flu (which meant I wasn't going anywhere) let me power through the fic. I suspect without one or the other, I wouldn't have made it.
There are some interesting concepts in this fic, if you're willing to last multiple chapters to reach them, but I can't recommend it unless the writer gets an editor to rip through it.
UPDATE for A Demon Among Devils!!
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/17/A-Demon-Among-Devils
Enjoyable, though the Nidhogg sections definitely overshadowed the battle against the corrupted Heroes.
Gabe also took a similar angle with them in his DxD crossover, and I think it does work pretty having defenders of humanity crossover characters be very at odds with the "yeah, sure, let's wipe out the peace conference and ally with the warmonger devils" heroes. Also https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10202330/1/Beyond-the-Outer-Gate-Lies gabe fic I was talking of. Did finally end up reading it recently.
Every so often, I reread the first and last arcs of the Shadow Chronicles, at http://www.shadowchronicles.net/. The last few days were one such instance.
More of a completely opposite type of story: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6434872/23/Switching-Places-Evangelion
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10788024/3/M%C3%B6bius-strip
See. I couldn't Shadow Chronicles. But I loved On a Clear Day.
Quote from: Empyrean on October 01, 2014, 06:40:43 AM
So, The Games We Play is the best thing I've read in quite a while. I read it on ff.net first, and when I found out that only about half of it was posted there it made my day. Also, new updates coming out very frequently. I just hope they keep coming.
Just quoting this since I'm still following that story. It's a lot of fun, though the thread around it is a mess.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 01, 2014, 02:04:13 AM
Quote from: Empyrean on October 01, 2014, 06:40:43 AM
So, The Games We Play is the best thing I've read in quite a while. I read it on ff.net first, and when I found out that only about half of it was posted there it made my day. Also, new updates coming out very frequently. I just hope they keep coming.
Just quoting this since I'm still following that story. It's a lot of fun, though the thread around it is a mess.
Omakes. Omakes everywhere.
So there exists Advice and Trust (http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/advice-and-trust-nge.8768/). It's mostly an adorable ShinjixAsuka NGE fluff fic, but it's now showing hints of plot. Updating fairly quickly.
There's also Amelia (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/amelia-worm-au.314390/), which is a Wormfic. Composed of equal parts badass, hilarious and adorable. Updating multiple times per day, and has been for over a month; now hanging over 200kword. The author is nuts.
Quote from: alethiophile on December 03, 2014, 02:19:37 AM
So there exists Advice and Trust (http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/advice-and-trust-nge.8768/). It's mostly an adorable ShinjixAsuka NGE fluff fic, but it's now showing hints of plot. Updating fairly quickly.
There's also Amelia (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/amelia-worm-au.314390/), which is a Wormfic. Composed of equal parts badass, hilarious and adorable. Updating multiple times per day, and has been for over a month; now hanging over 200kword. The author is nuts.
I've been trying to read Amelia, but it just doesn't do it for me. The work feels sparse.
Found a web novel called The Zombie Knight. http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_19.html Updates regularly in small snippets of 400~ words or so. Very enjoyable so far.
Quote from: Rukatin on December 04, 2014, 10:26:50 PM
Found a web novel called The Zombie Knight. http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_19.html Updates regularly in small snippets of 400~ words or so. Very enjoyable so far.
What's it about?
Quote from: Anastasia on December 04, 2014, 11:42:42 PM
Quote from: Rukatin on December 04, 2014, 10:26:50 PM
Found a web novel called The Zombie Knight. http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_19.html Updates regularly in small snippets of 400~ words or so. Very enjoyable so far.
What's it about?
A young man dies and is offered to be revived by a grim reaper in exchange for servitude. Responsibilities typically include the fight against abominable horrors, human or otherwise. However, this young man already has a few problems of his own... such as crippling shyness.
That's the official tagline anyway.
Took me a week, but I am now current with it.
I really enjoy The Zombie knight because of the powers everyone has.
Some are different variations of element bending, and no. Not classical Water, Earth, Fire, Air and AEther elements, but actual elemenst. The main character has the ability to materialize Iron into any shape. And a guy who does have 'water bending' actually has the ability to summon both Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Quote from: Rukatin on December 12, 2014, 09:39:58 AM
Some are different variations of element bending, and no. Not classical Water, Earth, Fire, Air and AEther elements, but actual elemenst.
Reminds me of an worldbuilding idea I'd had, but never had enough knowledge to implement: Elemental magery. As magic is common, certain sciences and fields (chemistry and materials) would be advanced, but others (physics, non-molecular biology) might not be. Was always sure that CHON would play some role in society, but not sure if they're just serfs, or oligarchists who rule the world.
Unfortunately, to really make this sort of setting work, one needs a grounding in material science, which I don't have.
Anyway, your description of the powers sounds close enough that I want to see where the writer is taking it.
Well I like what he's done with it. Another materialization wielder could summon a radioactive metal. What it didn't make up for in strength, he up for in radioactivity.
Quote from: Rukatin on December 12, 2014, 09:39:58 AM
Took me a week, but I am now current with it.
I really enjoy The Zombie knight because of the powers everyone has.
Some are different variations of element bending, and no. Not classical Water, Earth, Fire, Air and AEther elements, but actual elemenst. The main character has the ability to materialize Iron into any shape. And a guy who does have 'water bending' actually has the ability to summon both Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Wasn't there some anime series a while ago that used this idea? The male lead controlled Iron as well. Don't remember much else about it other than the weird breast focus the show had going on. Some Christian elements as well...so nun's, schoolgirls and yeah I dropped it due to the entire thing looking like fetish fuel.
Pokemon: The Origin of the Species (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/1/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species), is a relatively new Pokemon fic that's caught my attention. Mostly because it has bearable writing and the main character is actually focused more on becoming a Pokemon
Professor more than a Pokemon Champion/Master. Makes for some interesting reading, especially when the main character tries to do stuff like figure out how a Charmander can project balls of fire which seem to not require any fuel.
With This Ring (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/with-this-ring-young-justice-si-story-only.272850/) is a Young Justice SI fic on Spacebattles. It's a huge, took me a few days to get through all the backlog, and updates just about daily. Premises is that the SI suddenly finds himself in the Young Justice timeline of the DCverse with an Orange Power Ring. He also retains all his memories of DCverse material,
with the exception of the show Young Justice. If you've seen the show, you can probably guess what happens from there. Author seems determined to get through the entire show and is only just approaching the end of the first season...which leaves him just short of the halfway mark.
And A Demon Amongst Devils (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/18/A-Demon-Among-Devils) has once again updated!
Also for those of you who seem to be getting into the whole DxD thing: A Demon Lord's Hero (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10710606/1/A-Demon-Lord-s-Hero)
Basically remove Dresden/Minato, and insert Shirou Emiya instead. I particularly like Kokabiel's portrayal in this one. Though, it does remove a lot of the fluffiness the original series has. Devils in this fic are actually kind of devilish.
Read through it. Starts off rocky, and has the occasional odd scene transition issues, but I expected those sorts of characteristics from a serial.
Yay A Demon Amongst Devils.
Read through A Demon Lord's Hero, and it's kinda of a neat tale. It's definitely an interesting take on the fallen in general. That said, I don't recognize a lot of the characters as themselves, and there's a lot of leaping to understandings mixed with 'Oh, of course that wasn't chance'. Pretty much Asia's presence at all is a stack of those.
Shirou comes across as a dude with Shirou's abilities but hard to associate with any take I've seen of him. Grizzled devil lord mentor shirou who lacks the weaknesses of a devil just seems more of an OC.
I seem to be seeing lots of DxD fics floating around (I'd read Hero awhile ago, but hadn't commented on it). Is there something that has prompted recent interest in the series, or (more likely) I'm just the last to hear about it?
Also I noticed by happenstance that https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/28/Path-of-the-King seems to have updated recently.
Mostly Demon Among Devils being awesome.
Speaking of DxD, I read Through the World Door (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10305032/1/Through-the-World-Door) a few days ago. It's that rare breed of ZnT crossover that focuses on Saito instead of Louise.
In short he takes the Pope's offer of going through the world door (and gets shot) but is saved on the Earth side and gets mixed up in the various stuff that happens with devils and fallen angels.
Saito's fairly OOC. In part to keep him from becoming Issei mk2, but you have to accept his affection for Louise is diminished for him to even go through the portal in the first place. Still, has some great fight scenes of the Gandalf and Derf kicking ass, and the comparison between being in Rias' peerage and being a familiar provides plenty of grist.
In lighter reading there's Dangerous and Deadly Lord Voldemort (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10129276/1/Dangerous-and-Deadly-Lord-Voldemort) in which a wizard child with a love for muggle magic tricks decides to adopt an extravagant stage name and hijinks ensue.
Had a DxD day.
Read through https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10305032/1/Through-the-World-Door. It was neat. Definitely an original take on Saito, but also on the world setting. It portrays a far more vicious set of Halkegians then canon as well, but nothing particularly out of the framework as given. Putting a tramutized Saito among the peerage system makes for an interesting bit. I'm not quite sure where they're hoping to go with Raynare in it, but it's also a different non-redeemy take on actually having a character that has like 10 minutes of screentime be an actual major plot force.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10080850/1/Devil-You-Know An interesting cross with Dresden, set at the beginning unlike Gabe's fic.
Journey (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/710368/1/Journey) updated. I guess miracles really do happen!
Dreaming of Sunshine (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/83/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated.
Been reading A Cloudy Path (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/) on spacebattles. Alt!power wormfic. Taylor as a tinker. I've found myself enjoying it quite a bit.
Read some COPACETIC and A Tale of Transmigration, also on spacebattles. Not linked because both stories are in a bit of a rough spot.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6546469/1/Another-Player-In-The-Game
A strangely contradictory Naruto fic. On one hand, you can tell that the writer researched some details of geisha and ninja. On the other, it not only runs into Japanese anime fanfic landmines, it stomps on them. e.g, whole sentences in Japanese, and having characters say "Sayonara" to people they expect to meet tomorrow. I'm still not sure if the writer was aiming for authenticity and had the occasional hilarious failure, or was just going for verisimilitude.
Anyway, posting the link here for the novelty.
Also, Ramza 1/2 updated: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/22/For-Want-of-a-War
I think we've named every decent DxD fic. *routed through their high word count fics and it looks like the rest are pretty terrible* An enormous number of Demon Amongst Devil knockoffs. Sadly none really work.
Oh hey, Ramza. *goes to read*
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/94905/druth Journey updated o_O
For those unaware, this is like a 15 year old fic at this point. It's Ranma/GURPs, and pretty much old-style Ranma, where even though it's crazy, the Ranma cast will come along, and meddle despite gods and demons and alien intelligences being around.
*Points four posts back* >_>
Harry Potter and the Ultimate Force (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7846068/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Ultimate-Force) updated. Thought this one was dead.
Hah, missed it among your other updates.
So I think I'll be dropping Deus Ex Human Revolution. I just cannot with this fic anymore,
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3337074/1/I-m-Here-to-Help
I recall prereading quite a bit of this, back in the day. It is possibly the first, not just one of the first, dystopic SM-fics on the FFML.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on December 29, 2014, 10:34:57 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3337074/1/I-m-Here-to-Help
I recall prereading quite a bit of this, back in the day. It is possibly the first, not just one of the first, dystopic SM-fics on the FFML.
I remember that one. Good fic, even with a few quibbles I had with it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10336591/1/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden
Only 5 chapters of this so far, this is a Sailor Moon + Dresden Files crossover where Makoto Kino was in the plane with her parents when it went down (apparently due to goblin sabotage) and then gets saved/adopted by Harry Dresden.
It's a surprisingly interesting premise where Harry tries to do the reasonable adult thing and keep 14 year old girls from waging a war against an ancient evil. This seems particularly reasonable given that he brought his daughter back to Japan to keep her AWAY from the supernatural war brewing back home in the US.
I like the little tidbits that serve as integration between the two universes, things like why the people from the Dresden universe aren't being more involved with the senshi, why they are leaving the US and going to Japan, Rei's animosity towards father figures and her reaction to getting sidelined by Makoto's father figure, why the plane that killed Makoto's birth parents went down, Harry's mastery of the Japanese language, Harry having to deal with xenophobic/racist behavior due to the combination of his nationality and his appearance, etc.
Also, just the interactions between Harry and the senshi, or heck, Makoto and the other senshi, is nice, as the presence of Harry adds a new dynamic and Makoto just doesn't mesh seamlessly into the group like she did originally.
In spite of that, Makoto still feels like Makoto at her core.
Quote from: Merc on January 03, 2015, 04:13:27 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10336591/1/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden
I glanced at that one earlier. The thought in the back of my mind was wondering why the senshi hadn't been executed.
I enjoyed that one with zero Dresden knowledge. The writing's great.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 03, 2015, 12:38:16 PM
I enjoyed that one with zero Dresden knowledge. The writing's great.
Zero Dresden Knowledge?! This has to be rectified immediately!
Quote from: Rukatin on January 03, 2015, 10:38:52 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on January 03, 2015, 12:38:16 PM
I enjoyed that one with zero Dresden knowledge. The writing's great.
Zero Dresden Knowledge?! This has to be rectified immediately!
I actually have the books handy, just never cared to read them. I dunno. Sort of like Harry Potter. I could read it if I wanted to, but it's never caught my fancy.
Not too bad.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8204172/1/Strawhat-Theater-2-Our-Mrs-Monkey a random one from that person's favorites that I recall. A cute slice of life 'what-if' bit.
Devil you Know updated!
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?p=785381#post785381
Quote from: Rukatin on January 04, 2015, 12:30:48 AM
Devil you Know updated!
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?p=785381#post785381
Requires a login, just FYI.
Quotehttps://www.fanfiction.net/s/10336591/1/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden
Man, but this reads like a 90's era Ranma/SM crossover.
Hah. You know you're right.
*Registers to look* That's more a scene teaser than a chapter update. But good to see the author is doing well.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10070079/51/The-Arithmancer
Was recommended in Kitago. Kinda neat. Takes Hermione and dials up her intelligence and plays with it.
Quote from: thepanda on January 04, 2015, 02:43:37 AM
Man, but this reads like a 90's era Ranma/SM crossover.
The Silver Age of Silver Millennium fanfics :)
Oh, and since it hasn't been posted here, I should note that there's a prequel side story: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9125896/1/The-Senshi-File-Red-Eye
A new Mass Effect/Fallout crossover caught my attention. Shepard isn't a spectre, rather she's a Courier. Humorous at times though I I had to pick a flaw i'd say a few too many lampshades were hanged.
http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/one-future-lightly-used-mass-effect-fallout.13123/
Anybody know the author Tim O'Brian? Just started two books by him for a class. In The Lake Of The Woods, and The Things They Carried.
Quote from: Rukatin on January 07, 2015, 10:47:52 AM
Anybody know the author Tim O'Brian? Just started two books by him for a class. In The Lake Of The Woods, and The Things They Carried.
I seem to vaguely recall reading a short story by the later name in high school. But I don't recall anything of it, other than it involves the Vietnam War and that someone died.
Admiral Tigerclaw is working on Sleeping with the Girls again.
Quote from: thepanda on January 07, 2015, 09:51:47 PM
Admiral Tigerclaw is working on Sleeping with the Girls again.
I know! Isn't it awesome?
Quote from: Rukatin on January 08, 2015, 01:12:19 AM
Quote from: thepanda on January 07, 2015, 09:51:47 PM
Admiral Tigerclaw is working on Sleeping with the Girls again.
I know! Isn't it awesome?
Yes, maybe? I'll have to reread the whole thing since it has been a while. Here's hoping it stands up to my memories. (Would prefer more Arrow 18, honestly.)
Recently found a Warhammer 40K crossover fic. It was good, and now I want to read some 40K stuff so I can better understand the world. And Reqs or places I should start?
And yet one does not link?
Doth Thou Even Readeth? :P
Don't know the 40k world much aside from DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA myself.
My apologies good sir.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-world-of-bloody-evolution-rwby-warhammer40k.323170/
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8674600/1/Warrior-Class Here's another one. Ozz hasn't been writing much lately though.
Quote from: Rukatin on January 09, 2015, 11:38:01 AM
Recently found a Warhammer 40K crossover fic. It was good, and now I want to read some 40K stuff so I can better understand the world. And Reqs or places I should start?
Start with the Ciaphas Cain: hero of the imperium collections. Three novels and two or three short stories per collected book for a reasonable price. Its basically WH40K does Blackadder, so you get a decent intro to the setting minus the dark, grim, grim-darkness that the more serious novels play up.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/23/For-Want-of-a-War updated unexpectedly fast.
Also, since we're posting W40K related fics, https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2688729/Lovehammer_Inc was less funny than I thought it would be, given the two sources.
I remember not being able to get into the Lovehammer stuff. I's say they were senshi in name only but the name changes were a big part of why I couldn't get into to it in the first place. >_>
Child of the Emperor (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8666609/1/Child-of-the-Emperor) is a pretty cool story I read a while back about a chaos space marine finding redemption.
So Amelia continues. Now hosted elsewhere (http://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/amelia-worm-au.916/), because of a moderation snafu on Spacebattles.
In other news, Mushoku Tensei (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Mushoku_Tensei). A light novel/web novel about a guy from modern Japan reincarnated into Fantasyverse. Pretty fun, and very long.
Amelia?
A Worm fic. I'm not terribly familiar with it, but what little I've seen doesn't do much for me. Apparently it went over the acceptable content line for Spacebattles.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8993792/12/One-World
Read a chunk of this. Giving up here. It spends a lot of time willy-nilly tearing up the magical world, and then tearing things up some more before the last bit has even settled, and not an awful lot going anywhere with it. There's a lot of vignettes involving other hogwart's students who the protagonists haven't ever met yet, but we're supposed to care about in context. Basically, looked ahead and saw that around 23 chapters in, the cast actually gets to hogwarts for year 1. This is pretty baffling given that they've already had several on screen magic training sessions.
Just too much establishment I suppose for the plot. It makes it hard for any of it to hook in.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/19/A-Demon-Among-Devils
Updated.
Although I do understand the need for brief breaks from tone from time to time, I didn't really enjoy this chapter as much as the last 18. The "comedy" was spread too thick and Minato's character was more or less butchered for its sake. I enjoy this fic, I really do, but that last chapter just did not sit well with me. :/ I certainly did...kind of enjoy the talking segments in the chapter because those parts are what made this thing good to me in the first place. A bit bummed considering I was expecting a bit more.
I think this stems from the author's setting up of a forum for the fic. He's become way too indulgent in taking reader requests, because I'm certain I saw some of those jokes there. Kinda disappointed, will keep reading.
Make sure to pass your thoughts back if so. Looks like it's the second popular fic he's had, and the longest by far.
Glancing at it again, I'm curious where you think his character was slaughtered, aside from the ending chaos (which I'd agree with).
Most of the humor in the chapter is pulling more out of the DxD book I think.
Except for the last part, which really rubbed me the wrong way, maybe "butchered" was too strong a word. I think I was mostly bothered by the sheer volume of events that we had to hear Minato's reactions to, I guess? A short witty quip in narration here and there is all good oncd in a while, but when they start popping up more frequently to the point where it gets worn and a bit uncomfortable.... There's only so much "this could not be happening" moments in his head I can stomach before it starts bothering me. Ehh, maybe I'm being too picky.
Although the comedy's taken a hit, I don't think it's DxD terrible yet. That's pretty much yapping about tits and misunderstandings, Kiba's masculinity etc. Issei's POV too...yeah. :^)
In other news, consumed all of what's available of this yesterday:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8550403/1/The-Howling-Wind
I think it's really good. Premise is Naruto has a chakra defect that prevents him from channeling regular chakra, only wind elemental chakra. That means no Kage Bunshin, etc. Flowing first person narration, almost completely different setting... Yeah I'm pretty interested in it. Sakura being intriguing's also playing a big factor in my enjoyment of it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9340220/6/Crosswinds-of-Fate
There was a new chapter, and so Kitago was discussing it.
This is kind of a fun story. A post Fate crew (including the magic wand ruby) get ordered to investigate the Harry Potter dimension. While overused, there's a fun rhythm the author likes cutting between scenes as different groups are discussing things, sometimes on the same wave-length, other times on opposite ones (Only an idiot would...).
Overall, it's been enjoyable, as much as it isn't very good at being serious.
Read through The Howling Wind.
It is pretty neat as far as AU goes. The lack of actual 'hey we know' between him and Lee was a bit odd and what happened with Tenten. There's a lot of subtext going on and generally the ninja feel like serious people. Leaf comes across a little surprisingly weak, despite how the characters never do (Everyone seems willing to stomp on leaf).
Quote from: Dracos on January 22, 2015, 07:06:24 PM
Read through The Howling Wind.
I have as well.
I didn't get the impression of "weak" as much as "unstable king of the hill." As in, the strongest, but not so much stronger as to be able to push others around.
It is a pretty good time to attack them. Think about it. After the third war Leaf had been attacked by the nine-tailed beast, lost its super powerful leader, had its super team (the sages) fall apart, and lost an entire founding clan (and all the op bull the sharingan brought to the table) and they were still considered king of the hill.
This is true.
What I meant by that is it is not even subtle with the killing all leaf genin that go to the chuunin exams, sending way more genin and sending them with general orders to murder the shit out of a specific group, and the leaf response being 'we can't afford to send genin', not 'we send genin with instructions that they will be tackled by groups of enemy nin and need to try to do team stay/together stuff to counter it'.
This AU doesn't have the Uchiha massacre (which is a good thing). It does have a cute reference that rookie thirteen chuunin exam happened at some point, with a different cast, though it is hard to explain why Iwa seems in such ascendence after some of the events mentioned (Them being losing before the third war, losing the third war itself, etc etc).
Basically, everything talks as if there's an enormous population advantage by both Iwa and Kumo, even though the Uchiha are still there.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/87/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death updated. Okay chapter.
[spoiler]A little annoyed at Goku getting stuck in the afterlife, but at least he isn't there intentionally this time. It puts a different spin on things, especially if he's stuck there.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/1/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
Haven't read, but did update a couple of days ago.
I laughed at the gate scene. That's one way to nope an arc.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4573620/19/A-Drop-of-Poison has been updating, and per endnotes, has finished arc 1.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/29/Path-of-the-King appears to bring in a slight Akamatsu xover.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10808097/1/Crosswinds-of-Fate-Side-Stories
Sidestory on Crosswinds is pretty cute too.
Quote from: alethiophile on January 11, 2015, 02:22:18 PM
In other news, Mushoku Tensei (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Mushoku_Tensei). A light novel/web novel about a guy from modern Japan reincarnated into Fantasyverse. Pretty fun, and very long.
Read through part 175.
Comments:
(1) There are not many countries where one can start with the last line of the first paragraph and still find success.
(2) Next time I read a Naruto fanfic which describes someone going into Sage mode, I'm going to crack up.
(3) The early volumes have the approach of a SI fanfic. As a fanfic SI, the early story would be pretty drab, but the approach works well enough since the reader is exploring the world contemporaneously with the baby/toddler protagonist.
Came across Records of Change (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/records-of-change-znt.327360/) this morning. It's a diary style story following Louise's life after she fails to summon a familiar and leaves the academy. It's a really neat new spin on the story, since the threat of Louise having to leave the academy often gets treated as the end of the story. This shows there's life still to be lived after that. A life of horrible setbacks, yes, but also hard-earned triumphs.
Mmm, kind of neat as a different thing. It is very narrow at points, but it is an interesting story of Louise surviving on with her life, additionally with interesting flavor on the noble society. Louise is rather isolated, in a sense.
Thanks for sharing.
*takes a look at an unnamed naruto cross from that guy's favorites*
Naruto is 3.
Running from evil villagers with stabby things.
And done.
It's such a shame when fics do that.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3933832/21/Harry-Potter-and-the-Invincible-TechnoMage
Read through this recently. It's cute and light-hearted. It's fight with the wizard world tropes are unfortunate lowpoints, but it is a cute mishmash of marvel comics with the harry potter world.
Quote from: Ebiris on February 09, 2015, 01:47:00 PM
Came across Records of Change (http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/records-of-change-znt.327360/) this morning. It's a diary style story following Louise's life after she fails to summon a familiar and leaves the academy. It's a really neat new spin on the story, since the threat of Louise having to leave the academy often gets treated as the end of the story. This shows there's life still to be lived after that. A life of horrible setbacks, yes, but also hard-earned triumphs.
Not really a fan of hardcore TSUN(dere), so the premise is interesting. I'm not a great fan of "dear diary" fics as a writing style, since they're just large sets of vignettes. I'm sure everyone knows my opinion on "my outline
is my story" stories, so won't belabor the point.
I'd like to see this turned into a proper fic.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10490270/1/A-Political-Perspective
Nakama Naruto fic found via randomly clicking. I'm not a fan of the title, since it gives one the impression that this is going to be a fic of wheeling and dealing, triple crosses, and the like. There really isn't much of that at all though; it's about learning teamwork with political pressure as a vague reason to move the plot.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8925184/1/Mass-Effect-Reloaded
Finished this, to where it is currently.
It's okay. A lot written, but it never really steps out of that to my mind. It's a time travel story going from Shepard at the discussion point at the end of ME3, suddenly being flung back to the beginning of the series, right after being made a spectre. Having knowledge on where to be able to show proof, or how to hit critical things early, Shepard throws stuff off the rails quickly, but at the same time, the story is keeping that the reapers are still a massive presence, Saren is still around acting as their operative, and the whole mass effect problem (Using eezo is destroying the universe) is still there. Also, the races still don't like each other and playing high cards early means that Harbringer gets more aggressive sooner.
Perhaps the most well delivered plot bit in it is the indoctrination being both a real thing, used to explain a lot of the poor decision making that got the universe into a bad state, and attacked directly as something that can be blocked or fixed. It also takes some interesting angles on cloning.
But overall it doesn't shine. Certain events are very cluttered with what's going on in them. It doesn't keep a team together much, so there's a bit of a revolving door of cast.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8446936/1/A-Day-in-the-Life-of-a-Big-Goddamn-Hero-The-Collection
Out of character, but kind of a cute tv series take on Zaeed, the merc with a heart.
Yeah, out of character :P
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7057744/1/Cast-in-Gold updated.
Haven't read it yet.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8945101/5/Evangelion-Age-of-Marvels
Kinda neatish. Takes a lot of time to scene set, and takes an easy angle of giving most of the cast known powersets, precisely following certain heroes. That said, it in a sense is a more plausible build up to large world-spanning secret organization then Eva's 'there just is one', which is neat.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8123345/64/Stars-Fade
Kinda crazy. Shepard gets warped over to DA2 world. It's kinda wish-fiction really, and while long fails to have a significant impact on the storyline so far. It does have an interesting take on Thedas being an experimental world, for the salarians and the protheans before them, but Shepard feels really wacky in it.
Merc posted about Tate No Yuusha No Nariagari in the manga thread. I've been reading the web novel translations (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Tate_no_Yuusha_no_Nariagari).
Also stumbled upon a Ranma xover with it, but it's nothing to post about, so I won't.
Dreaming of Sunshine updated.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on February 13, 2015, 08:52:43 PM
Merc posted about Tate No Yuusha No Nariagari in the manga thread. I've been reading the web novel translations (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Tate_no_Yuusha_no_Nariagari).
On a similar vein, I've been reading web novel translations too, though for a different series: Moonlight Sculptor (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Moonlight_Sculptor)
Fair warning in advance before anyone clicks on it: A fair chunk of it was machine translated or had VERY minimal quality checking done. Names sometimes change slightly due to different translation groups too (as an example, a character called Pale through most chapters suddenly became Fail in a later chapter).
Cringes aside from the above issues, I'm still enjoying this series. Story is about a gamer who at the start of the story had just achieved the goal of having the most powerful character in an older MMO. He then sold the character for a surprising $3 billion...only to lose almost all of it due to lingering debts from his dead parents and an absurd interest rate.
So he decides to start over in the latest and greatest MMO...except instead of gaining a powerful combat class like he intended, he somehow ends up a sculptor.
In spite of that, with a class that everyone sneers at, he's slowly making his way up the ranks for that game and becoming pretty famous as well (some of it due to his fame from the previous MMO too).
Overall, I like it because the author spends a fair amount of time trying to develop side characters, as well as their relationship with Weed (the main character). The main character is also the sort of guy one -should- hate, but he has just enough redeeming qualities that its hard to hate him. And the author really likes to foreshadow and spend a lot of time with the world building too. A lot of it doesn't seem relevant at first, but 3-5 chapters after mentioning something, it will often end up having an impact on the current events. The building story line is pretty neat.
My biggest complaint is really not against the author, but the translation. I just really, really, really, REALLY wish there was a more solid/uniform quality check of the translation.
...and I hit volume 18, and I can't stand the translation quality anymore.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10710606/15/A-Demon-Lord-s-Hero updated.
Looked through that but it felt...eh. "Here's a new character who's a twin stalker of the shirou. We don't know really why. She says like 2 words total in the entire chapter. Her dragon gets more screentime than she does. But every cast member is already terrified of her."
The ilya scenes were cute.
Quote from: Dracos on February 24, 2015, 02:48:38 PM
Looked through that but it felt...eh. "Here's a new character who's a twin stalker of the shirou. We don't know really why. She says like 2 words total in the entire chapter.
So that's not a canon DxD character? The writer has mentioned the name "Karasuba" in the last chapter without explanation, so I'd just assumed that it was a canon character that didn't need explanation.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6319617/1/MITHRIL-Report-Female-Ops-Booklet
Ranma x FMP, with aquatranssexual Sosuke. Ran across it recently, and haven't gone through enough of it to determine whether it's worth reading or not (I tend to be pretty bored of school settings, and FMP fics tend to be very focused in that setting, so I'm also probably not the best judge).
No. I know of a Sekeirei character, but pretty sure that Issei doesn't have a twin in cannon.
I...
mmm.
I think that's supposed to be Karasuba from Seikerei. Of course, there's not enough physical desc to really go on, not even as a 'twin' since her hair an eye color got changed too and she really has no active motion.
It is definitely the Sekirei character. Issei doesn't have any family besides his mom and dad in canon.
I wish an OC (or some other DxD character) was used rather Karasuba. The backstory given to her in this is incredibly weak, and seems to be that the only goal of the chapter is all about just selling 'Clearly she is a badass because everyone instinctively fears her.' And it tries to do so through what are clearly meant to be humorous scenes...but really, they just aren't.
Issei having the personality he does with a sister like her also just makes very little sense. Those sisters are the kind that make their little brothers into women-haters! Not women lovers!
I bought the character reinterpretation of Kokabiel. That he sold well.
I don't buy the presentation of Issei's long lost sister at all though. It feels more like author fanwank than anything.
That it's done as a followup to a well done character reinterpretation makes its weak handling that much more apparent.
Kokabiel is probably the shining part of the fic. It's an interesting layer of added depth to a usually 'for the evilz' character.
But really the rest of the fic has pretty bad problems.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5403007/1/Worst-Day-Ever
Haruhi and Dr. Who. Spoiler: Involves Dairy Queen and a Times Lord.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/30/Path-of-the-King updated.
I'm not looking for FSN fanfics, but seem to run across updates for FSN fics anyway.
http://untuned-strings.blogspot.com/p/allison.html
Evidently, this was made into anime; I have not seen it, so can't provide any meaningful comparison. Adventure story that doesn't contain absurd powerlevels or anything like that.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4939873/1/Rise-of-Namikaze-Naruto
Got a couple chapters in on this. While the notion is a bit interesting (Naruto being given better early direction), it goes a bit too far, has too much author judgement coming through, and when Gai was saying his student of a couple of weeks would surpass Lee at Taijutsu, I dropped it. Basically handwaving Gai's main student indicates they're not really building the setting up.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8082923/30/Give-It-Your-Best-Shot
Kinda neat. Harry from AU Potter World in other AU potter world. Interesting Family dynamics with the potters. Interesting build up of the ancient society tropes.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/live-die-repeat-the-afterlife.322200/
A multi-crossover fic based off The Edge of tomorrow. Guy dies, gets sent to new universe.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/20/A-Demon-Among-Devils
Demon Among Devils updated.
Meh chapter. Same complaints. Apart from the few conversations that were only marginally as thought-provoking compared to previous ones, the "humor" struck again. I get that he's going for the Slice of Life vibe, but he has to understand that humor doesn't neccesarrily have to dominate that aspect of a story. The humor comes across as forced and just falls flat on its face for me. It doesn't help that one of the jokes from the last chapter's carried over to this one. It pretty much had no purpose except to serve as a punchline for some gags made throughout the chapter.
I think the only reason I'm bothered is it's all been condensed in these two recent chapters. I'm fine with the gags in between serious dialogue, but this is just....underwhelming. There's a correct way to do SoL, and this really is not it.
Mmm. Yeah.
The serious scenes are done well. The comedy sometimes, but having it go from emotive to 'We're just going to trick all our friends into a love motel' is kind of mood shock.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10843543/3/Harry-the-Hufflepuff-3-Harry-s-Year-off
The third one of the series. It's got a slightly amusing setup of Harry as an aggressively lazy fellow. The kind of person who puts a lot of work into getting an extra hour of sleep. The author clearly never intended it to go this far, so it goes more and more into stumbly land the more it goes, but some of the ideas are cute.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9704180/11/I-m-Still-Here
Feels kind of wish-ficcy, but sorta fun in some senses. A lot of bludgeony about decisions being made.
A post 'Voldemort almost wins, but not quite' Harry follows Voldemort into an AU. Teams up with the Flamels to try and wage a second war against voldemort, starting in the 4th year. Ends up sorted into Slytherin and teamed up with "Dear god, don't stick me on team voldemort again. That was horrible" Draco Malfoy. As of the last chapter, it has shattered its rails, so it'll be curious where it goes from here.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9740933/11/Fate-Revelation-Online Kinda neat. Will continue reading it. Plays along with SAO being a giant magic experiment by the main programmer.
Quote from: Dracos on March 12, 2015, 06:52:42 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9740933/11/Fate-Revelation-Online Kinda neat. Will continue reading it. Plays along with SAO being a giant magic experiment by the main programmer.
I've posted about that over a year ago. It's the only SAO fic I actively look for these days. Updates tends to be months apart, though.
Also, spent the last two or three days reading this: http://www.wuxiaworld.com/cdindex-html/book-1-chapter-1/
A fantasy wuxia translation.
What batcrazy insane thing will I find today?
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/6619298/1/Naruto-In-Hell
Oh. Naruto crossed over with Dante's Inferno. It's not... great? It uses words like "paper-cles" and "Hell Beast". It appears to be about 150,000 words of this:
QuoteTaking out the Holy Relic, Naruto aimed it at the nearest baby. The light shined on it, and the others stopped and looked on curiously. Suddenly the poor child screamed as the light from the medallion blinded it, but at the same time, the purification cleansed it, and sent it onward in a flash of light. The other babies stared at the spot where their fellow baby had been moments ago, before continuing their charge like nothing had happened.
Suddenly the babies were surrounded by smoke, and the children stumbled into each other blindly. When the smoke cleared there stood eight Narutos completely surrounding the babies. Each pointed their medallion at the babies, and all at once the room was filled with the Holy light of eight Uzumaki swirls.
-Naruto In Hell-
When all the children had been moved on, the door had opened on its own. As he walked out, Naruto was deep in thought 'What are babies doing in hell? There's no way a baby warrants eternal damnation!' He came out of his thoughts to see a Kyubi looking at him sternly "The unblessed infants. Baptism they did not have, the one gate to the true faith was never shown to these newborn souls. Limbo shows no mercy for these babes."
Agh, that was painful. It needed extra spoiler.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/1/Dreaming-of-Sunshine Updates. Haven't read it yet :)
Been a slow month huh.
Been reading some of Sarah1281's stuff.
Also reread, I'm here to help, which Jason linked a while ago (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3337074/4/I-m-Here-to-Help)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9199669/1/The-Witch-House not poorly written for the few chapters I read, but in a weird timeline place for a starter. Basically sends Alucard, Pip, and Seras chasing down vampires in france.
It's like my whole alert list's gone dormant for more than a couple of months.
Quote from: lolipettanko on March 30, 2015, 01:14:37 PM
It's like my whole alert list's gone dormant for more than a couple of months.
Yeah. Except for Worm stuff, nothing I like has been updating.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/24/For-Want-of-a-War
New stuff! Now read...more of a scene than a chapter. Kinda just a bite setting up the tournament.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10968973/3/Radiant-Nights
Radiant Nights updated. The whole premise is interesting, and I'm really looking forward to further development. Heck, I have no clue how he'll pull all the summary's promised off. The chapters now are setting the stage for something grand. The Uchiha Massacre and the Hyuuga Kidnapping incident have been settled really interestingly due to the Yondaime's presence.
This is the same guy who wrote Howling Wind, and his other fic's hooked me just as well. I'm gonna keep tabs on this guy. The material he writes is fresh and I really look forward to his updates. He's been one of the only people consistently updating on my end, so there's that too. :^)
Lockhart self-insert. The
good one, that
isn't written by Skysaber:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8324961/1/Magical-Me (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8324961/1/Magical-Me)
The Skysaber one, on the other hand, turned out to be pretty much 'and then I went to the Dursley house and killed all the Dursleys, because I am good and they are the evil'
If you're looking for quickly updating fanfics...well, I don't have any.
But in terms of translations, I've been following Coiling Dragon (which I've posted about before, and which updates about 3 times a day. I feel there's some Japanese influence in the worldbuilding) and http://gravitytranslations.com/zhan-long/english/ which updates about 2 chapters a day.
The later takes place in a VRMMO. This isn't SAO redux; the main character dies quite a bit.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6635363/1/When-In-Doubt-Obliviate I feel obligated to relink.
You spoilered, but that is every skysaber fic. I am good, they are evil, and I shall rape and kill.
I found a new Eva SI that's pretty good so far.
http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-curious-case-of-rei-ikari.16451/
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8550403/32/The-Howling-Wind
JMenace delivers again. I love this guy.
Pretty interesting chapter. There's some legitimate anxiety on Naruto's end about possibly being the bijuu. Killer B's role was a nice touch, enjoyed his insinuations regarding Naruto's and Samui's bond with each other. The way the author paces this makes it so that a match doesn't go on for more than 2 chapters. I like that. Pumped for the next battle.
Quote from: lolipettanko on April 06, 2015, 09:47:12 AM
JMenace delivers again. I love this guy.
I like how the writer has provided characterization in both fics.
mmm, I've looked at his moon one a couple of times and had trouble getting through the sudden moon obsession right at the beginning. The howling one has been fun though.
http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php/37826-A-Martial-Odyssey
http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php/38337-A-Martial-Odyssey-2
http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php/38847-A-Martial-Odyssey-3
A Chinese web novel, translated by the author!
Of course, since the author's native language is Chinese, there's the occasional linguistic oddity but it's quite readable. Two volumes are complete, and the third is up to chapter 10.
Overall, I'd describe it as a blend of "spaghetti" wuxia ("You cannot defeat my Awesome Force" "Hah, your meager martial skill is nothing against my Golden Divine technique " "Wow, an unexpected breakthrough by combining the Awesome Force with the Saucesome Force means I can now defeat you") and harem anime in fantasy wuxia setting. It is not precisely high literary-value writing, but i found it to be a fun read.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10822184/7/Written-in-Reverse
JMencace updated this. Yay.
The recent revelations are making me wonder if there's any sort of conflict that can possibly stop either of the protagonists at this point. Still, waiting warmly for more updates from this guy.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6693171/22/The-Mouse-of-Konoha
Didn't think this would ever get updated again.
Making Magick (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7667766/5/Making-Magickl) updated!
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11044041/1/Even-Hikigaya-Hachiman-can-write-a-Love-Letter
Imagine my surprise when I found a really good fic in a fandom with less than 100 of them. I really enjoy Oregairu and I think this was able to emulate the style and progression of the source material. Although, I don't agree with where the author's taken it in the latest chapter considering the character development Hachiman's gone through in the current light novel by the time the fic starts. Still, I'm enjoying this far and I think he was able to nail Haruno pretty well. Love her.
Quote from: thepanda on April 26, 2015, 12:47:50 AM
Making Magick (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7667766/5/Making-Magickl) updated!
Hope it's the start of a trend. I think it's unquestionable that at this point in time, this is the #1 0/Magicka xover on ff.net.
Evidently, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10336591/6/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden updated earlier this month.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 28, 2015, 08:32:15 PM
Evidently, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10336591/6/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden updated earlier this month.
Huh, that's an interesting little fic. I don't follow Dresden at all, but it's interesting.
http://japtem.com/projects/ark-toc/
http://arkmachinetranslations.com/
Yet another MMO setting. This one is about a Korean anti-heroic male cheerleader (no, that's not what the translation actually says his class is, but...).
That said, I like this story quite a bit more than most of the other translations I'm currently following. To the point where, if I could direct the internet to quickly finish a quality translation of any non-English work, this would be #2.
The machine translations (which pick up where the project went abandoned at chapter 4.4) seem pretty readable. There's the occasional rough spot, but it's not to the point where anyone who reads fics on ff.net should feel that it's excessive.
Fate/Stay/Hina (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7798790/17/Promises-of-a-Wandering-Hero) updated yesterday with an interlude.
Quote from: Anastasia on April 28, 2015, 10:28:30 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 28, 2015, 08:32:15 PM
Evidently, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10336591/6/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden updated earlier this month.
Huh, that's an interesting little fic. I don't follow Dresden at all, but it's interesting.
I am looking forward to updates. It has the feel of old SM fics so far, and Dresden is the sort of character that is made for heroic action stories.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/24/Team-8
Kinda behind on my reading for once, but team 8 actually updated twice this year. Kinda neat.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/31/Forcibly-United appears to have updated. A lot. Link goes to what I think is the earliest update since last post, but I haven't checked.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11231219/1/No-Genin-Left-Behind New fic by JMenace. Not far enough along for me to hold an opinion on it.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 13, 2015, 08:52:43 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/31/Forcibly-United appears to have updated. A lot. Link goes to what I think is the earliest update since last post, but I haven't checked.
Oooh, been long enough that I have to reread it.
Belated, but the cliffhanger seems fairly obvious.
[spoiler]The author's stated before that he feels Ranma could easily tank being shot. I strongly suspect that's the outcome of it - he shrugs it off and proceeds to take care of business.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 21, 2015, 02:00:34 PM
Belated, but the cliffhanger seems fairly obvious.
The author's stated before that he feels Ranma could easily tank being shot. I strongly suspect that's the outcome of it - he shrugs it off and proceeds to take care of business.
[/quote]
[spoiler]
I kind of wonder how he's going to play off the statement "what Ranma could no longer do."
"Augh, dis bulleb is stub up my nobe! Ged it oube!"
[spoiler]
Hah. I figure it's just Ryouga being overdramatic.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10239811/1/Pencils-down-Death-rays-up linked in kitago. WoD/Mass Effect...basically just a crack fic having the reapers chopped up by the various forces of the WoD universe, casually handwaving them really to a significantly lesser type of threat to make it work (No reapers just aren't in the category of things where an army of folks with rifles even matters and 100k landing on earth is pretty much 'we've replaced earth with a shell of dead reapers from volume). Worth a slight smile, but no more really.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/mass-effect-exalted-glorious-shotgun-princess-revised.339878/ got linked and glanced through. Seems to be putting more work in setting and into preparation/foreshadowing... but really, still not working for me. The extra work on the opening meeting with Thane actually makes it a lot less ...viable? It's strongly demonstrating an effective existing established team, which makes the 'why are we bothering with the assassin' a seriously good point. Shepard is already waving around a dramatically larger operation staff than the entire cast of ME2 at end was. The event is also not a very significant one in ME2 timeline, so having it go to 11 is pushing it even further into overkill. The Reaper base would make sense for this kind of flow, not crime-lord sitting at top of building. The original felt like it actually had a more appropriate level of establishing shot overkill (Here is superwomen against crimeboss versus here's the entire justice league against same crimeboss). Anyhow, I've been unkind to that fic for a while so quietish :P
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8034380/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Garden-of-Intrigue Another kitago link. Not started yet, but probably going to look at next.
A FSN/Sekirei fic that isn't In Flight but has a similar intro as In Flight (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11272829/1/On-Wings-of-Steel)
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 28, 2015, 08:32:15 PM
Evidently, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10336591/6/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden updated earlier this month.
This updated again.
I kind of liked the background story, kind of surprised he didn't make...
...Mama Mars one of the 'seven great youma' that was sealed inside the crystal pieces in the anime, since it clearly takes its sailor moon base from that. Could have easily stated that the other adult senshi had been transformed into those youma at that.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 03, 2015, 09:08:26 PM
A FSN/Sekirei fic that isn't In Flight but has a similar intro as In Flight (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11272829/1/On-Wings-of-Steel)
When I saw it was one chapter only and started with the same 'malfunctioning scanner in the airport' cliche, I lost absolutely all interest.
Quote from: Merc on June 03, 2015, 11:31:48 PM
I kind of liked the background story, kind of surprised he didn't make...
...Mama Mars one of the 'seven great youma' that was sealed inside the crystal pieces in the anime, since it clearly takes its sailor moon base from that. Could have easily stated that the other adult senshi had been transformed into those youma at that.
Maybe that is what happened. Lasciel didn't go into much detail as to how Mars died, after all...
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 03, 2015, 09:08:26 PM
A FSN/Sekirei fic that isn't In Flight but has a similar intro as In Flight (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11272829/1/On-Wings-of-Steel)
It's okay. Too early to tell much except that Shirou's been through hell. That alone should have some interesting knock-on effects.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/91/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death updated. In which there is rage and new transformations. In other words, business as usual for DBZ.
Poor Trunks. I wonder if this will be permanent or if they'll find a way to reverse it. It may not be wish-able away, either.
Also, to be totally callous a moment, it's not like Vegeta can't have another kid, if he really wants to continue his legacy.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 04, 2015, 01:11:39 AM
Quote from: Merc on June 03, 2015, 11:31:48 PM
I kind of liked the background story, kind of surprised he didn't make...
...Mama Mars one of the 'seven great youma' that was sealed inside the crystal pieces in the anime, since it clearly takes its sailor moon base from that. Could have easily stated that the other adult senshi had been transformed into those youma at that.
Maybe that is what happened. Lasciel didn't go into much detail as to how Mars died, after all...
I had the impression from reading it that...
... Sailor Saturn was the one who dealt with Mama Mars' super youma, based on the whole 'saturn used to have many more moons and much fewer rings' line.
Silver Warden:
Yeah felt that was implied too. Neat background bit.
FSN fic:
I'm actually with Merc. The immediate and obvious (and also completely unfollowed up on and irrelevant) opener had me totally disinterested right off the bat. I actually tabbed down (realized it was super short) and looked to see if there was any redeeming bit...but it seems to be basically going:
"We'll start inflightish, only there is no relation to the in flight series, and all of Shirou's related characters have been killed, so he's in a superdepressive fugue...and still alive for some retarded reason". It's an amazingly 'meh' opener for anything and it does make it obvious what angle it'll be going with. "Hey look we've torn shirou down, now the girls put him back together, believe this will be neat, even though I can't even write my own story intro."
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8034380/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Garden-of-Intrigue - I've read a bit of this now and well...mmm. I'm not super feeling it. I'm just about after the sorting and this is one of the most hufflepuffish harry's I've seen (aside from the parody harry the hufflepuff). He's extremely friendly/eccentric, and reaches out immediately...yet somehow doesn't click at all with hermione. But whatever, the way he's portrayed makes going with the default choice pretty strange. He reaches out to Haggrid. He tends to pets and cares about bringing them along and seeing them in good homes. He has long friendly discussions with Draco and his possy. He spends an enormous amount of screen time befriending and talking about being friends and then... "Boom, you are gryffindor". Really? Okay default choice. I'll probably read further but seeing an author who doesn't flow from his changes bothers me. This harry is into gardening, name making, friend making, animals, and of course bonkers about magic. It feels a very different stripe from the git-go and handwaving it toward the starting point felt weird.
FSN fic:
I'm between you and Ko. On one hand, NeoAlpha's other FSN xovers have interesting parts. On the other hand, those fics didn't take an intro from another fic and remove all the parts where anything of plot significance or character presentation actually happened.
Speaking of xover fics, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9740933/60/Fate-Revelation-Online updated.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6362397/17/Beautiful-Destroyer-Sailor-Moon
hey, another one is out. I shall see.
Felt more like a tribute to the Avenger's movie then anything else there really.
For a niche fandom, Oregairu has some pretty intriguing content written for it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11129546/1/Whatever-Happened-to-the-Monster-of-Logic
I just finished catching up to this one. The timeskip is jarring at first, but the flashback arc eases you into things. Haruno's (who's my favorite character by far) been done exceptionally well. Her destructive curiosity's always fun to see fold out. It isn't yet at the meat of things, but it's going to be soon judging from the build-up.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11044041/1/Even-Hikigaya-Hachiman-can-write-a-Love-Letter
This one's also good. Haruno's great here too. The narrative style's also in line with the source material which is a plus, well, in most cases.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8034380/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Garden-of-Intrigue Got further in this one and then stopped at the delivery of the first big delivered change. Okay, Harry has a book on flower names. So puzzles out the symbolic meaning for Snape's questions. Then Ron of all people gets super sympathetic to snape as they discuss it. Yeah, this just isn't quite selling me. It feels like cliffnotes were handed out all of a sudden, rather than anything personal.
I keep forgetting about this forum...
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11231872/1/Thrower-of-the-Dart
Another story by Vathara, all 10 chapters of which appeared over the course of a single day. It's a crossover involving Artemis Fowl and Avengers of all things. I have to say that I enjoyed it, even though much of that probably comes from finally finding a some decent Artemis Fowl fanfiction. I think the settings go fairly well together and Vathara always has been pretty good at worldbuilding.
From Fake Dreams updated.
I forgot what was going on so tried to start over from the beginning. Couldn't keep my interest. This is one of those that I remember being a lot better than it is, sadly.
I had about the same thing happen with the last chapter. It's a bit too busy, really.
Likewise. I lost complete track of it and just go 'uuuuhhhhhh' now.
A lot of that type start with an interesting premise "So and so does so and so"...and then really spiral hard into 'okay, we can't even see the original universe from here'.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9044833/25/My-Love-s-Flame
My Love's Flame has updated. Brace yourself, it's expo bomb time.
Disk Operat^W^WDreaming of Sunshine (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/90/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) has updated
You messed up your BBcode.
Huh. I messed up both the joke and the BBcode. Not my finest post.
Don't worry, everyone rolls a natural 1 sometimes.
Naruto randomly loves the moon (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10968973/4/Radiant-Nights) fic updated sometime last week...now with beginnings of plot.
Does that fic go anywhere worth following? The randomness of the start drove me immediately off.
Pretty much the only fic he has that doesn't feel weirdly prescribed is the Wind themed Kurama one.
Too early to say. "Chapter 4" is essentially chapter 1; the first three chapters are really character introductions.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/1/A-Demon-Among-Devils - updated. The Demon ball commenced.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10254848/38/Meh-I-can-take-them-all - updated a while ago. Kind of an okayish One Punch / Worm crossover. The only okayish One Punch fic I think exists at the moment. It has a real problem with tackling almost everything in first person, and since it is primarily told by a person who pays little attention to the details and doesn't really follow who people are, its combat scenes are on terribly confusing. Having reread it yesterday I would not be able to tell you who was involved in either of the two big mix-em-ups that was covered entirely.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/1/Dreaming-of-Sunshine updates, but I haven't read it yet.
And yeah, I finally got around to reading this https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Which was pretty awesome. Lots of Overpowered Main but whatever, the story is really about that anyway. Think it updates what...every week? Every 2 days? Not sure. Pretty fast.
The RWBY/Gamer fic updates every day with half of a chapter. So you could say it updates every two days for a chapter, but there is still something every day.
I'd originally only been following it on ff.net, so finding out that it was much further ahead on spacebattles, updating regularly and had an index was neat.
Some thoughts, after catching up...
I'm not that much of a fan of Autumn bits, it weirds me out how much time is spent on the MC and others making kissy faces at a plant that can't hear or see. Maybe that will change now since it seems Autumn may be turning into an actual character.
I was also a bit disappointed that Jaunne never actually worked a sword+board fight style into his main ID. One of the things suggested early on was that would be the plan, but he never did anything with those techniques and pretty much abandoned it and just stuck to doing whatever he'd never shown off as his faunus ID. It's a well written fic still, but I kinda feel like it starts suffering from the 'Lets make the MC be OP by making him nothing like the MC' bit.
Jaunne's become a lot more pragmatic/cold here, and while he's still recognizable and the author did spend the time developing him to get to his current mentality, its still a bit weird to not keep something like that.
Mind you, thats only an issue if you've not followed the base series (which I almost didn't since the art style does nothing for me), and even there not that much -has- happened, so there's a lot open to interpretation, so it might just be my gut reaction to seeing the OP MC behaving differently after too many Ranma or Naruto fics doing that.
Ryuugi did spend time on character development, but I really do have trouble seeing the main character as Jaunne.
Edit: To make a parallel, since the characters actually do compare fairly well, normal Jaunne is Shirou from FS/N, while Ryuugi-Jaunne is Archer.
There's some things that make the characters be the same, because Archer used to be Shirou and Ryuugi-Jaunne used to be normal Jaunne, but they're still so different that nobody really considers them the same either. Those fundamental differences in their motivations and how they view the world changes things dramatically. Even having read through the character development, it's a bit jarring to see 'Jaunne' in chapters instead of his alter ego Jian Bing, because it doesn't feel like Jaunne, it feels like this Jian OC. You typically don't see an Archer-centric fic and have everyone call him Shirou. So it's weird.
[spoiler]
I think that's the entire point of the story. It isn't really about how powerful Jaune is, who he's facing or any of that. It's about the games he plays, just like the title. Be it playing as Jaune the healer, Jian Bing the legendary martial artist, Jaune the father to Autumn, Jaune the good friend of Adam, he's constantly playing games and wearing different masks.
Canon Jaune's still in there, just changed and hidden beneath all the roles he plays. After all, his life is a game.
huh, I thought Jaunne was just an OC. See I don't know RWBY pretty much at all, and he felt like one. Looking at it, he's waaaay far from the base character just at start. Basically, aside from the seven sisters thing, almost every part of his initial setup is from whole cloth. His dad, mom, grandma all seem to be OCs. His seven sisters are as well, but are at least referenced. The story starts with him never getting there, so he never even begins the original tale and he starts off with the massively character warping Gamer power.
While some were visible takes on rbwy, I've just taken that both Gamer and RBWY are more flavor and setting takes then actual hard introductions. I honestly think the story reads better seeing Jaunne as a total OC then it does relating him to his apparently inferiority complex original source material. Reading the wiki article on him I hardly see any relation to Jaunne in the fic, who was a video game addict who leapt onto driving terrorists around as a failed signal grad.
The sword and board and Blake were both pretty long dropped plotlines which the fic would be better for doing something with. Amber really was a thing of irrelevance for a very long time and still could basically be removed entirely with almost no notice. Gou has been sidelined since he showed up, but at least had a bit of weirding out other characters.
Power scale is clearly an issue as really, the way its introduced, both of his parents should be fairly top tier, but they have some students being competitive with them in power level. That's a mistake really and in part left a lack of room for the author to play around with as there's just enormous power gaps between high level hunters and... high level hunters. This sort of weakens the 'oh god ???' since there's so little sitting in plausible proximity to it. It's not like level 100 is the start for really strong hunters or something, because you've got 'we haven't graduated school yet' 45-70s. It's basically being handwaved that casual simple hunter students are 'Win Every Time' level versus international terrorist lieutenants (as they appeared at the start of the fic).
The power level scale is another thing that does bother me, yes. The sisters all being more powerful than the mom and dad slightly bugs me, but I could live with it since they did note that they were trying to show up their mother. Still odd that -all- of them are more powerful, but whatever. The senior students though? Even some of the juniors? You had professional hunters that were lower level. Hell, Adam at level 38 was a credible threat amongst the White Fang and to other professional hunters that weren't supposed to be top tier. That's a pretty big disconnect when characters at level 60+ are all students, as you also noted. And while some of that is supposedly addressed by the disconnect between skills and power level, it still feels odd.
Back to Jaunne, him jumping into situations way out of his control or ability to handle is fairly normal for the character, so the terrorist parts or his motivation to help with that first big mission, I still felt like it was all based on the original character. I think the turning point for me was when the Mistral arc got introduced. It's the first time that we really see Jaunne acting arrogant about his gamer abilities, showing off and such. Then afterwards, we have his dad die with everyone hammering in that things are not a game...yet it seems like he's treating it like even more of a game. Some of it -is- for show, as Dune's said it's a mask or role he's playing, particularly in Haven, but...I dunno. It doesn't all feel like a mask when he's wearing it all the time?
In theory, they'll all end up back in Vale within the next 10 chapters due to the competition between nations, and I'm kind of hoping interactions with Blake kinda show Jaunne how much he's changed, not necessarily for the better. Unfortunately, none of the other Vale characters could really drive that thought home for him. If not...well, I guess I can just keep reading it as if he was an OC. It's entertaining enough even then.
Jaunne and Cinder Fall are kind of an odd interaction, probably made worse by I think trying to ride on an unfinished plot arc with a villain that's sorta mainly placed for convenience to the RBWY plot focus, so most of his arrogance alongside that is sort of just playing off a very weird 'why are we even caring in this kids game focus'?
It's not bad, but I think its poorly founded there.
I'm not actually reading this, but Dune mentioned this was happening and I just saw the fic's ff.net description/title and just went "..."
QuoteStepping On Worm » by Perfect Lionheart Worm is a grimdark superhero universe where anything that can go wrong, will. It's nasty, and would require whole books to adequately describe how screwed up it is. But even appearing there with no powers, it is still possible to fix that mess. So, appear penniless and powerless in that environment.
Not gonna even provide a link.
After years of silence Ozzallos has posted something in Crapspace: Where Fiction Goes to Die! https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6439399/36/Crapspace-Where-Fiction-Goes-to-Die
Also, this little light of hope from the Author Notes:
QuoteSo if your eyeballs haven't bled out by the time you read this, yes, i'm working on stuff. Not just stuff, relevant stuff you may or may not enjoy. Stuff with the words 'hild' 'kunai' 'crystalfuckingtokyo' in it. other stuff with the words 'kodachi' 'konatsu' and 'garlicbuttersauce' are also fairly prominent, but between my job life and a three year old, it's been slow going. But, yeah. I live.
Again.
...and of course some idiot in the comments is screaming about why he isn't updating one of his more popular stories...*facepalm*
Ozz had a kid? That explains absolutely everything.
It's the internet. Some child is always screaming about why they didn't get the toy they wanted.
Always.
Good to hear he's still around.
Yeah, glad to know he's still in there. Life's tough sometimes.
From https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11016559/10/One-Eye-Full-of-Wisdom
Quote
He took a deep breath, and let it out. "That said, you are also not completely to blame. You have been training with the Inuzaka, who are famously viscous fighters who also famously tend to be lose, if effective, cannons, and who use their emotions as a source of strength, letting their inner animal out to fight."
Fic itself is one of those "What if X did things right?" stories.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8872034/26/Fate-Reach-Out
Fate/Reach Out updated. The premise is that Shirou Emiya takes the place of the hero from Persona 4. Shenanigans ensue as shadows happen and worlds collide.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/37/Forcibly-United
Spoiler: Despite my guess, the bullet was not lodged in Ranma's nose.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 21, 2015, 02:00:34 PM
Belated, but the cliffhanger seems fairly obvious.
[spoiler]The author's stated before that he feels Ranma could easily tank being shot. I strongly suspect that's the outcome of it - he shrugs it off and proceeds to take care of business.
Called it.
Quote from: Ebiris on January 10, 2015, 06:15:39 AM
Child of the Emperor (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8666609/1/Child-of-the-Emperor) is a pretty cool story I read a while back about a chaos space marine finding redemption.
I read this, and plugged it a couple times in #kitago, but nobody really showed any interest. Too bad, really.
I like it quite a lot. I'm okayish at 40k lore, having read most of the Ciaphas Cain novels and played the Dawn of War games, but it's clear that the author
really knows his stuff without getting wanky on unnecessary details. By the time I was done I realized that I could name every one of the Traitor Legions, when none of them had enough distinct characterization in the games to matter much (they were all screaming lunatics).
A repentant Chaos Marine makes for a pretty compelling character, and the various hangers-on he picks up along the way give his group a feel like the retinue of an Inquisitor or a Rogue Trader. They're freelance vigilantes in the service of the Emperor, more or less, and they're pretty big on the quasi-heretical distinction between the Emperor and the Imperium. If you have even a basic understanding of 40k, or don't mind keeping the Lexicanum (40k wiki) open, definitely give this one a read.
Two (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/93/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated w/next chapter.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11196150/1/A-Horse-With-No-Name
Remember how Ranma-turns-into-a-magical-girl fics were so common? Jonabee has written one. Assuming you don't dislike either of the base series, I think this might be interesting.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on July 23, 2015, 10:16:09 PM
Two (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/93/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated w/next chapter.
I'm liking this exam. I'm hoping the last exam keeps with the theme rather than straight up fighting.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/38/Forcibly-United
Huh. Yet another chapter...I was half thinking that the last chapter was the ending of the most recent arc, since it ended on a fairly stereotypical Ranma 1/2 note: fiancee tries to kill Ranma, and leaves the scene as still his fiancee (technically).
Yeah. To be honest, I thought it was a pretty boring chapter and purely setup. From the AN, the odds of DRAMA next chapter are extremely high.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/93/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death updated (a month ago, whoops). In which Trunks does things and sets up a new arc.
DRAMA (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/39/Forcibly-United)
Dun dun duuuun!
Honestly, that's about my only take to the chapter. Ranma/Akane drama is way less interesting than adventures.
Dreaming of Sunshine has updated.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9340220/7/Crosswinds-of-Fate# Crosswinds of Fate has updated.
Did a re-read of http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/ to get to current on how much it's updated.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11434313/1/A-child-genius Simple ranma/negi crossover. Basic, Ranma hangs out around there after a mushroom incident. Lots of little bits done well, but its a really simple/short tale that brushes over things more often then not.
Quote from: thepanda on August 07, 2015, 01:14:22 PM
Dreaming of Sunshine has updated.
I like how the 3rd phase exam fights are handled. Quick overview, detail following the main char, and it doesn't bog down the entire story by devoting a chapter for each fight.
It would be nice if more anime/manga that involved tournaments would do the same (or perhaps they do these days; haven't seen anything new since Madoka).
Quote from: Dracos on August 09, 2015, 05:07:32 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11434313/1/A-child-genius Simple ranma/negi crossover. Basic, Ranma hangs out around there after a mushroom incident. Lots of little bits done well, but its a really simple/short tale that brushes over things more often then not.
That was good. Like, I really, really needed that right now. Been a while since I've read anything Ranma related.
Glad you enjoyed :)
Just finished https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6362397/18/Beautiful-Destroyer-Sailor-Moon
Mmm. Sage continues to take it in interesting ways. A hangout with Usagi and Beryl is just something few people do.
That's still going? I remember dropping it ages ago, since it kept trying to one-up itself.
Yeah. He did a rewrite a while ago.
I'd posted the link to the machine translation to Ark (http://arkmachinetranslations.com/) earlier. The last part was translated a few days ago, and the translator is now working on the sequel.
A Dead World (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/18/A-Dead-World) updated. After so LONG.
https://twigserial.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/taking-root-1-1/
Engineered children.
By Wildbow
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 15, 2015, 12:06:01 PM
https://twigserial.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/taking-root-1-1/
Engineered children.
By Wildbow
Is it any good?
Well, good is a subjective label.
Let me put it in a way that'll let you form your own conclusion without having to read it first: Its very much by Wildbow.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 15, 2015, 02:06:19 PM
Well, good is a subjective label.
Let me put it in a way that'll let you form your own conclusion without having to read it first: Its very much by Wildbow.
Well, mild rephrase: Do you think it's good and why or why not?
Though your statement does tell me a whole lot of what I need to know.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 15, 2015, 02:06:19 PM
Well, good is a subjective label.
Let me put it in a way that'll let you form your own conclusion without having to read it first: Its very much by Wildbow.
With Wildbow's own unique psychoses?
Quote from: Yuthirin on August 15, 2015, 07:50:56 PM
With Wildbow's own unique psychoses?
Yes.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 15, 2015, 02:18:15 PM
Well, mild rephrase: Do you think it's good and why or why not?
Though your statement does tell me a whole lot of what I need to know.
The stories of Worm and Pact could be described as generally good persons forced by circumstance to do horrible things. This story is probably closer to pre-teen infiltration/black ops team whose members don't stand out as being particularly good or bad, controlled by a dystopian government. For the first two stories, the story is a fight against a bitter status quo, whereas this story (as far as I've read) seems to be a fight to preserve it.
But those are just differences, not reasons. I'm okay with reading dystopian literature. I'm okay with reading about anti-heros. Despite that, the story still doesn't quite grab me, and I'm not really sure how to articulate why it doesn't. I've rewritten my explanation a few times, but they were just lists of features and not really a reason why I didn't find it to be great. I'll have to get back to you on this one.
QuoteThe stories of Worm and Pact could be described as generally good persons forced by circumstance to do horrible things.
I'd argue about Taylor being counted as a generally good person, but anything involving Worm and morality is akin to a car running into a fuel tanker at 100 miles per hour. While on fire.
QuoteThis story is probably closer to pre-teen infiltration/black ops team whose members don't stand out as being particularly good or bad, controlled by a dystopian government. For the first two stories, the story is a fight against a bitter status quo, whereas this story (as far as I've read) seems to be a fight to preserve it.
I wouldn't take anything about the status quo away from Worm. Interesting observation there. I've always felt Worm's story was more about change and collapse, which are in opposition to the status quo. Though I suppose one could see that as merely a matter of perspective - change is still change away from that bitter status quo.
QuoteBut those are just differences, not reasons. I'm okay with reading dystopian literature. I'm okay with reading about anti-heros. Despite that, the story still doesn't quite grab me, and I'm not really sure how to articulate why it doesn't. I've rewritten my explanation a few times, but they were just lists of features and not really a reason why I didn't find it to be great. I'll have to get back to you on this one.
Yeah, that can happen. I was like that about Worm at first, actually. From reading more and spending some time thinking about it, I came to realize it was because I have some fairly deep philosophical differences with various assertions and patterns Wildbow presents in his work. It's nothing really against the story but fundamental incompatibility instead.
Anyway, the point of what I'm saying is this: Sometimes it's not something directly in the story that bothers you, but something deeper. Something grabs you on some level and makes you disagreeable to the entire thing. Sort of in the same way some people just don't get along with each other.
Spent the last month reading the Muv Luv Trilogy. I have to say, it's one of the greatest stories I've ever experienced. The whole story's founded on the gamble that you're patient enough to make it through Extra, which I admit was a bit of a challenge. Unlimited and Alternative though were phenomenal, with Alternative in particular leaving the deepest mark on me.
It's thought-provoking, heart breaking, and well worth the time you need to invest in reading it. I recc it to anyone who has the time. If you do plan to read it, just don't do any preliminary research on it apart from route order, some of the biggest twists in the later games just wouldn't be the same with prior knowledge.
It's the type of thing that leaves this gaping hole in your chest upon completion.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/96/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
Spoiler: "Lightning Style," I shouted, because volume meant something. "Super Beam Cannon!"
After sleeping on it, I think I better understand my discontent with Twig.
As far as I can think of it, what drives interest individual interest a story is largely a function of plot, characterization, and setting.
There's no sense of underlying plot to tie the chapters together. There is an underlying plot. There is an enemy. It's just not clear what the enemy is driving towards. Without that, the story feels like a enemy-of-the-week story, with no clear reasons for sending the enemy. By comparison, as ridiculous as the goal in Sailor Moon is(We're going to revive an evil goddess by individually stealing energy from humans), it's still a purpose. I don't see that goal here.
The characters are well defined and different. I don't think Wildbow has ever had a problem with that. Wildbow explicitly sets forth that they're a team, and they're actually a team. By the same token, there isn't much meaningful inter-group deep conflict. And what conflict there is, is explicitly narrated by the main character ("We're pre-teens. I'm worried about group unity when we become teenagers.") So, basically, not much tension here.
Setting, as I've mentioned earlier, is a dystopia of genetic engineering. Mainly for weapons, so I'm not even sure that dystopia is the right word, since there isn't even a pretense that it's for the betterment of society. This isn't a setting of high-tech in general. The characters take trains, not jet-packs or rocketships. Fights are performed with fists, monsters, or cunning, not firearms (although they exist).
So when putting it all together, Wildbow appears to have created a dystopian-government-backed low-powered sentai story. And as of yet, I can't say there's anything more to it than that.
Read it. Lots of indistinguishable characters.
First of all, thanks for the new reading material. I've been having trouble finding some recently. The last four pages worth of recommendations should tide me over for a while.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11187030/1/Kantai-Collection-The-Greatest-Generation
A Kantai Collection fic by sasahara17, in my opinion, one of the best writers on the net. Never was into Kancolle or naval history when I started reading this. Still not really into Kancolle or naval history, but damn is this is a GREAT story. It helps to keep the Kancolle wiki open so you can look up character images, but other than that, background knowledge isn't really needed as the intro provides a solid summary of the setting.
sasahara was also working on an SAO/X-COM crossover in the form of little snippets which was eventually abandoned for The Greatest Generation. What does exist is golden, but only exists on the forums: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/sao-xcom-xcom-online.3396/
There's talk of making it a public project since it proved to be so popular.
EDIT: Also, sasahara's update rate has it's ups and downs, especially since he requests that the mod's temporarily ban his forum accounts for months at a time when he has other commitments to take care of.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4034451/37/The-Best-Laid-Plans updated!
It ends up being a Wall-o-Political-Philosophy after the 1/3 mark, and more of what I'd expect if Starship Troopers fused with Li Ching answering the Emperor, but that's not important, right? The fic updated!
Quote from: Pensive Rumination on August 17, 2015, 11:33:46 AM
sasahara was also working on an SAO/X-COM crossover in the form of little snippets which was eventually abandoned for The Greatest Generation. What does exist is golden, but only exists on the forums: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/sao-xcom-xcom-online.3396/
There's talk of making it a public project since it proved to be so popular.
That is a horrible game idea (as if that FPS reboot wasn't a poor enough idea), but sounds like a brilliant xover fic.
And, of course, if there's an SAO/xcom over, the natural next question is if one could put together a Jagged Alliance xover. (Ranma as a merc in Jagged Alliance? JA mercs in Black Lagoon? JA/Gundam? Hmm...)
Most JA mercs would fit into Black Lagoon without causing so much as a ripple.
I just caught up to current on Dreaming of Sunshine. The fic starts out on the bright side of average and gets better. I like it a lot.
Unfortunately, now I need something else to read. I've started reading Child of the Emperor (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8666609/1/Child-of-the-Emperor) again. Really good story; adds some more depth to the 40k setting than you usually see, and a repentant Chaos marine vigilante is a fantastic character to throw into the bureaucratic shitfest that is the Imperium of Man.
Which is probably why the xover should never be written. What's the point if no conflict arises?
Weren't you the one who'd posted about that reborn-as-a-slime manga? If you haven't been following it already, you may be interestsed in http://circustranslations.com/chapter-list/ which translates the web novel.
It looks like Ozzallos updated https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8426142/4/The-Bad-Cut. Since I was not a fan of where this was going when Ozzallos posted drafts, I haven't bothered to read the latest chapter, but others who weren't as discouraged may want to take a look.
Also, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10336591/8/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden updated two months ago.
So merc said he might link some of what he was reading.
*starts clicking over what he missed* :)
Righto, so as discussed in the Gathering, I have been reading Worm (https://parahumans.wordpress.com/) fanfics recently.
Anything from Ack (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5180580/ack1308) is entertaining, though generally not super fleshed out, and a lot of them have low chapter counts. He's basically an idea machine more than a fanfic writer. Still found his works generally entertaining though.
Amelia (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3998737/chapters/8979811) is a massive 429 chapters fanfic where Amy Dallon has a breakdown during Slaughterhouse 9 arc leading to a third trigger. Her powers have a lot of synergy with Taylor's, and together they form a group called Pantheon and try to save the world. Things go well sometimes. Things go batshit horribly sometimes.
Meh! I can take them all! (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10254848/1/Meh-I-can-take-them-all) is a One Punch Man crossover. Said crossover character doesn't realize he's a parahuman.
Atonement (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10771504/1/Atonement) has Madison triggering from guilt after Taylor dies in the locker.
Heels Over Head (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11101192/1/Heels-Over-Head) has Taylor gaining a trump instead of master power. She can copy people's powers, however it's not an -exact- copy.
Manager (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1536152/chapters/3251618) has another Trump Taylor. This time she steals powers rather than copies them. As above though, they're typically not exact copies.
Cenotaph (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1152749/chapters/2337442) has a Taylor that joined the Wards after triggering. This has the unfortunate result of Bakuda discovering her identity and murdering her father. Has a sequel.
THE TECHNO QUEEN (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-techno-queen-iii.311201/) has a tinker Taylor that goes for the ham and cheese villain route. She's purposely very ineffective, helps improve Brockton Bay's situation, and generally gives everyone a headache. Except Clockblocker. He's in love.
A Cloudy Path (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/) also has a tinker Taylor in technically a crossover. Doesn't seem like you need to know anything about Supreme Commander though, and the fanfic has a Brockton Bay that was hit really hard by Leviathan and isn't even close to recovering, with refugee camps and gang groups all around.
Working As Intended (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/working-as-intended-worm.320007/) is a unique story written almost entirely as a series of forum posts (in the in-verse PHO), with Taylor having the power to take/add/modify other capes' powers. As with Techno Queen, not remotely serious.
Finding the Path (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/finding-the-path-worm-au.321619/) has Taylor with the Path to Victory shard/power. Of course it starts off by telling her the path to victory, to stop all the bullying...is to jump off a building's ledge. Oh well.
Faraday (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/faraday-worm-au.341826/) has Taylor with a power to invade others' dreams. She uses this to try and figure out just why Emma had turned against her and maybe, just maybe, figure out how to get her friend back. She does so, admittedly by traumatizing Emma. But hey, she got her friend back, right? So what if Emma's still unbalanced, just more focused on Taylor instead of Sophia now?
No Evil Shall Escape My Sight (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/no-evil-shall-escape-my-sight-worm-dc.18757/) is a Green Lantern x-over where after the Black Lanterns show up in the DC universe, the Guardians did not go insane, and instead they are exiled to the wormverse, along with the Lantern Corps. Of course, now they have to figure out if its a smart idea to restart the corps in this new universe, and the lucky test case turns out to be Taylor.
Troubles With Me (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/troubles-with-me-worm-au.14826/) has a powerless Taylor encounter a girl getting jumped and she has to do something. Turns out the girl was Aisha (Grue's sister) and they become friends. And then vigilantes. Things will probably start going wrong for Taylor soon (they haven't yet at the point where this fic is at) given she hasn't triggered yet and might never in this story.
Quote from: Merc on August 21, 2015, 01:56:11 PM
Righto, so as discussed in the Gathering, I have been reading Worm (https://parahumans.wordpress.com/) fanfics recently.
Anything from Ack (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5180580/ack1308) is entertaining, though generally not super fleshed out, and a lot of them have low chapter counts. He's basically an idea machine more than a fanfic writer. Still found his works generally entertaining though.
Ack's hit and miss. His good stuff is really good, though. I personally like Security!, as long as you accept it's an SI. His main problem is that he drifts towards fix fics and the same tendencies over and over.
QuoteAmelia (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3998737/chapters/8979811) is a massive 429 chapters fanfic where Amy Dallon has a breakdown during Slaughterhouse 9 arc leading to a third trigger. Her powers have a lot of synergy with Taylor's, and together they form a group called Pantheon and try to save the world. Things go well sometimes. Things go batshit horribly sometimes.
I personally don't care for this one. The author's writing doesn't do it for me. <nitpick> I forget if Amy actually has a third trigger, but I know that canon is that second triggers are as far as they go, and they're extremely rare.</nitpick>
QuoteAtonement (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10771504/1/Atonement) has Madison triggering from guilt after Taylor dies in the locker.
This one's good and improves rapidly once it finds its stride. It's more comic book flavored than Worm and has a lot of fun with the characters. There's a few arcs that aren't so good, but overall it's worth reading.
QuoteManager (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1536152/chapters/3251618) has another Trump Taylor. This time she steals powers rather than copies them. As above though, they're typically not exact copies.
This one's neat and tries to do something good with a really overpowered Taylor. It's a lot of fun to read and see her juggle multiple identities and plans, no to mention who she rips off for a cape identity.
QuoteCenotaph (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1152749/chapters/2337442) has a Taylor that joined the Wards after triggering. This has the unfortunate result of Bakuda discovering her identity and murdering her father. Has a sequel.
Excellent writing and storytelling, though it hews quite closely to Worm's original flavor. I like it but don't read t much since I got enough of the Worm feel from Worm. It's up to a second sequel as well, though I haven't followed that one.
QuoteTHE TECHNO QUEEN (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-techno-queen-iii.311201/) has a tinker Taylor that goes for the ham and cheese villain route. She's purposely very ineffective, helps improve Brockton Bay's situation, and generally gives everyone a headache. Except Clockblocker. He's in love.
This is one of those fics that has a few good ideas, but the basic premise is a complete turn off for me. I'm not a fan of camp nor of her approach here. Some people gobble it up, but I find it insufferable and tiresome.
QuoteA Cloudy Path (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/) also has a tinker Taylor in technically a crossover. Doesn't seem like you need to know anything about Supreme Commander though, and the fanfic has a Brockton Bay that was hit really hard by Leviathan and isn't even close to recovering, with refugee camps and gang groups all around.
Awesome story, 10/10, read away and read read read it. It's very much its own style of fic with a certain level of introspection and the character work is good.
QuoteNo Evil Shall Escape My Sight (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/no-evil-shall-escape-my-sight-worm-dc.18757/) is a Green Lantern x-over where after the Black Lanterns show up in the DC universe, the Guardians did not go insane, and instead they are exiled to the wormverse, along with the Lantern Corps. Of course, now they have to figure out if its a smart idea to restart the corps in this new universe, and the lucky test case turns out to be Taylor.
Well written and interesting, though I wasn't a fan of some of the GL worldbuilding so far or the way it got started
by dragging her off after Leviathan.
Amelia does actually have third triggers, which as you said, aren't a canon thing.
First and second triggers work as normal. Third triggers let you ignore the taboo effect they have in that fanfic, where finding information about how powers work, synergies, and scion in general can cause short term memory loss. Again, not a canon thing.
I haven't finished it (I tend to read it in doses), but as far as I know, the only two characters to have a third trigger are Amelia and Lisa.
I've read Meh I can Take them all before. It's got the trait of being presently the only decent One Punch fanfic out there at the moment to my awareness.
Grind (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/grind-worm-au-lots-of-crosses.7283/) is another Trump Taylor (worm) fanfic. In this one, when she reads/watches a fictional work she gets sucked inside, lives through a character's life in that book/game/show, and gains a related power. It's got 33 chapters though its mostly set-up/character development.
Decided to re-read Project Sunflower (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/5170/project-sunflower) on a whim. That was where Earth is being slowly eaten by Gray Nanotech Goo from Space, so in desperation the humans start ripping over portals to random other dimensions in search of a place to evacuate six billion people to. Eventually, the research team stumble over Equestria, and
use reverse-engineered alien nanotech to turn an expendable intern into a pony, to infiltrate Equestrian society and observe how it works. Luckily said intern manages to befriend the Elements of Harmony before the charade is exposed
. Implausible amounts of d'aww ensue amid the interdimensional chaos and panicked diplomacy.
Was in for a pleasant surprise:
Project Sunflower: the sequel (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/177431/project-sunflower-harmony). With some weird stuff involving changelings and yet a third dimension of aliens, that is too early to summarize!
These are also an outstandingly
good example of how you deploy filler to make a story
more interesting to read. (Exactly the opposite of The Worst-Paced Fanfiction in the History of History (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/24125/the-powers-of-harmony) that I ranted about previously.)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3557725/13/Forging-the-Sword noticed this updated last month. *puts it on next to read*
Quote from: Dracos on September 08, 2015, 02:28:47 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3557725/13/Forging-the-Sword noticed this updated last month. *puts it on next to read*
2014
But! Dreaming of Sunshine (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/99/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) has updated1
Bah, me and paying attention. Baaah. :P
THat's better news though.
Mmm, a good chapter. Good reading :)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/31/Path-of-the-King updated
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9834391/1/Legacy-Undone
Binged all of this in a day.
A pretty engaging read and interesting take on the timetravel premise that's popular in Naruto works. Basically, Naruto ends up jumping to an alternate version of his world while jumping back in time, leaving him lost in an unfamiliar Konoha.
Consequently, things are massively different. I enjoyed the binge. Apart from the odd bumps in syntax here and there, I think it's one of the better things I've read in a while.
As a side note, I've been fairly successful searching for decent reads so far when I filter for fics with upwards of 40k words. Not to say that length's a surefire indicator of quality, but it does weed out most of the half-baked ones.
I do the same thing, only usually with 100k.
It does week out a few short story winners, but in general it also weeds out fics the author hasn't spent a considerable amount of time working on. It's a good strategy for bigger fandoms.
Quote from: lolipettanko on September 14, 2015, 02:02:02 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9834391/1/Legacy-Undone
Binged all of this in a day.
I like that one as well. I vaguely remembering discussing it in this thread at some point, but can't remember the post.
Also, DOS (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/100/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) 100 (or really 99, because the first entry is the prologue) now exists.
"We are surprised the kage fighting ninja is a specila jonin. Really."
DoS has updated.
+1 of Linkage: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/101/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
:D
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2636963/42/Harry-Potter-and-the-Nightmares-of-Futures-Past
It...is.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9042769/5/On-the-Boundary-Between-Light-and-Shadow
That one good Touhou/Naruto fic updated after quite some time.
That is a nice story.
^It's one of those things that you just forget about since updates are few and far in between. Truthfully I think the last time it updated before today was a few months before I put it in my alerts, which was a few years ago. Still, updates to anything dormant are always nice.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8465841/1/
Found another interesting Naruto fic. I've been partial towards AU's lately, so this was a pleasantly interesting read. The author's choice of narration is engaging and really pulls you into the thick of the emotions in each part. I like it.
There's not much to say about the plot at the moment since it's fairly short right now, but it's worth a look and a follow in my opinion.
Quote from: Dracos on September 21, 2015, 02:32:52 AM
+1 of Linkage: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/101/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
:D
After waiting with anticipation, 102 (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/102/Dreaming-of-Sunshine)
(And for anyone who got it, I agree with your likely opinion that it is a terrible pun)
DK:A (http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/frecent.php?tag=Dungeon+Keeper+Ami) updated:
263814: Dungeon Keeper Ami: Dwarven Infrastructure by Pusakuronu (on Fri, 14 Aug 2015).
266120: Dungeon Keeper Ami: Hidden Mechanisms by Pusakuronu (on Fri, 28 Aug 2015).
263816: Dungeon Keeper Ami: Urgent Decisions by Pusakuronu (on Sat, 26 Sep 2015).
Oh awesome! Thanks for letting me know.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4183715/27/Awaken-Sleeper
Updated. Kind of a shallow chapter though. A lot of "You're Alive? Snark Snark" with almost all of the forward motion summed in <2 paragraphs.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5002293/1/A-Protector-s-Pride
A well written Bleach AU fic. Finished recently, go on an give it a read.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/103/Dreaming-of-Sunshine This link should work.
Updated just a bit ago.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/104/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
There are spiders.
Spider spider
Finally reading that Dreaming of Sunshine fic you guys always keep posting. Didn't realize it was so popular. Gotta brush up on my Naruto.
Welcome to following somebody's SI.
Admittingly it also gets posted about because it updates frequently. Alas so many do not.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/40/Forcibly-United
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/105/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 14, 2015, 04:22:48 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368283/40/Forcibly-United
Poor Ryouga.
I can't really say much else to it. I do think that he wouldn't fit in there (edit: Akari's farm) after this fic's events, though. He's changed a lot.
Quote from: thepanda on October 15, 2015, 12:05:46 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/105/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
Pretty much ordinary ninja seem to have the same reaction to people writing seals as I've observed computer-illiterate people have towards computer programmers writing programs.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/106/Dreaming-of-Sunshine More DoS :)
Quote from: Dracos on October 20, 2015, 03:31:22 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/106/Dreaming-of-Sunshine More DoS :)
Oh hey, the notes mention TSP. And given the context of the fic, I'm also guessing that she's making some assumptions that don't really hold, but it's interesting to see TSP being noted by non-computer science folks.
She isn't really trying to discuss TSP, but people asked about it thinking so.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10792418/8/Discontinued-Ranma-Stories
This is a fun little story fragment. It's not serious at all, but I got a kick out of reading it for what it was.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11187030/16/The-Greatest-Generation
This updated.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/107/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
Another Japanese webnovel being translated: http://moonbunnycafe.com/kumo-desu-ga-nani-ka/
A classroom of people have reincarnated into another world, which follows MMORPG-like rules. Most of them have reincarnated into humans or humanoids. By contrast, the main character is reborn as a spider.
Can't say much more without spoilers, but I'll also mention that the main character is also a bit of an airhead, and the reader is usually following her thoughts. I'm a fan, but others may not be.
I can link stuff mores.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/ been joining most the kitago crew in reading this lately. THink I linked it before. It updates daily.
Reread Beyond the Outer Gate https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10202330/3/Beyond-the-Outer-Gate-Lies which still hasn't updated.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/mana-based-system-foz-gamer.22317/page-90#post-4652973 - and Mana Based System - Louise trying to convince herself she's not crazy.
Quote from: Dracos on October 30, 2015, 02:17:53 AM
I can link stuff mores.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/ been joining most the kitago crew in reading this lately. THink I linked it before. It updates daily.
Reread Beyond the Outer Gate https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10202330/3/Beyond-the-Outer-Gate-Lies which still hasn't updated.
TGWP is pretty neat, you did link it before. I read it every night before bed, Jaune's adventures are a great way to cap the evening. He's getting closer to the end game now and things are getting real.
hah I'm slow. I added another cuz I was annoyed I hadn't linked anything new.
I thought I linked TGWP before.
It's been linked a few times, yeah. I recall that you did and probably Drac and a few others. I might've at some point too.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/digging-deeper-znt-dwarf-fortress.277922/
Found this off a link in that ZnT thread Dracos posted.
Recoil updated
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/recoil.299321/page-67#post-19576498
I am reading all the Worm fics. ALL.
I may have a problem.
Quote from: Rukatin on November 06, 2015, 11:30:44 PM
I am reading all the Worm fics. ALL.
I may have a problem.
Even the ones on Questionable Questing and AO3? Not that there aren't some decent ones there, but if you're reading ALL of them? Weeeeelll, you definitely have a problem, yes.
Worm has a nice chunk of stories, not even counting the questionable ones. I'm not familiar with them, but based on the fandom size I'd suspect there's a decent showing there.
Quote from: Merc on November 07, 2015, 12:02:19 AM
Even the ones on Questionable Questing and AO3?
Reeeeehh I'd stay away from a lot of those.
Quote from: Yuthirin on November 07, 2015, 05:12:01 PM
Quote from: Merc on November 07, 2015, 12:02:19 AM
Even the ones on Questionable Questing and AO3?
Reeeeehh I'd stay away from a lot of those.
I would too! But Rukatin said he's reading ALL of them! So I was curious if ALL really meant ALL! =D
He probably wasn't until you guys pointed it out to him!
I hadn't heard of the Questionable Questing forums before. Now I am surfing through them. Stop helping my problem.
There's more on Sufficient Velocity. In case you didn't know.
I'll assume you know of Spacebattles.
Are you reading through all of the worm ideas threads in Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity? There's a lot of oneshots in those!
And don't forget the Quest forums! Those are a thing (A pick your own adventure type thing) too!
*Administrator* [HALPING!]
Quote from: Merc on November 07, 2015, 10:59:58 PM
I'll assume you know of Spacebattles.
Are you reading through all of the worm ideas threads in Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity? There's a lot of oneshots in those!
And don't forget the Quest forums! Those are a thing (A pick your own adventure type thing) too!
*Administrator* [HALPING!]
Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity are my go-to for fanfiction.
Quote from: thepanda on November 06, 2015, 10:32:08 AM
Recoil updated
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/recoil.299321/page-67#post-19576498
Interesting reading without any real context on canon, the story playing on a a pretty considerable long game fixup of the world.
DOS, at the usual link.
But also via randomly clicking things, http://the-toast.net/2013/08/22/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-troubled-male-antihero/
DK:A http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/263813.html
Nice. About time this got moving again, I still want to see it end. At the least, I wanna see it get past that dang dwarf arc that's dragged.
Likewise. Two and a half years of dwarf arc is quite enough for me.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/wyvern-worm-au-fanfic.21076 Amusing dragon worm.
Wandering backwards through sufficient velocity and space battles based on post count per thread. I think trump and With Friends Like These Who Needs Enemies? pushed me over on Worm enjoyment, but most I've passed have been kinda mediocre. Skipping the SIs. Read another that was so-so and ended suddenly in the middle. Still wandering.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/goblin-queen-vii-worm-exalted.307078/ Read through this. It is sort of a mix of neat and incoherent, generally following a story of Taylor a reality warping raksha? I dunno, not sure. At it's best, it has Taylor meddling with the strings of reality while doing word-fu to people and trying to find a grounding for herself.
At it's worst it'll got like 6 chapters without any clear view of why any of this relates or will ever relate to any of the core cast.
Quote from: Dracos on November 21, 2015, 07:07:41 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/goblin-queen-vii-worm-exalted.307078/ Read through this. It is sort of a mix of neat and incoherent, generally following a story of Taylor a reality warping raksha? I dunno, not sure. At it's best, it has Taylor meddling with the strings of reality while doing word-fu to people and trying to find a grounding for herself.
At it's worst it'll got like 6 chapters without any clear view of why any of this relates or will ever relate to any of the core cast.
It really is. It's a strange mix of interesting, odd and just plain weird. Very much hit and miss.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/heels-over-head-worm-altpower-taylor.5178/
This was sort of neat. Similar to Trump Card though with a different spin. Taylor gets the "I counter any power close to me" power (revealed in chapter 1). Strangely glosses over the bullying and has one of the very few Taylor/Sophia being friends takes that I've seen.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/a-tale-of-transmigration-worm-au.3397/
Sort of a cross between a time loop and an AU. A few characters with knowledge of all of their lifetime in Worm, Skitter being one of them and the protagonist, trying another go at being a hero in a world where capes came earlier, end bringers showed up more often, and just generally things seem to go better.
Quote from: Anastasia on November 21, 2015, 10:32:19 PM
Quote from: Dracos on November 21, 2015, 07:07:41 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/goblin-queen-vii-worm-exalted.307078/ Read through this. It is sort of a mix of neat and incoherent, generally following a story of Taylor a reality warping raksha? I dunno, not sure. At it's best, it has Taylor meddling with the strings of reality while doing word-fu to people and trying to find a grounding for herself.
At it's worst it'll got like 6 chapters without any clear view of why any of this relates or will ever relate to any of the core cast.
It really is. It's a strange mix of interesting, odd and just plain weird. Very much hit and miss.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/divine-administration-of-gods-and-bureaucracy-worm-exalted.13442/
A better take on a similar concept. Less 'everything gets changed over' which makes it more of a pertinent drop a stone in a lake effect than the other fic. More generally meant to communicate what's going on as well, according to the Divine Administrator of Mandate.
Webnovel Translation sites I've been frequenting, roughly in order of comprehensiveness:
http://www.wuxiaworld.com/
http://gravitytales.com/
http://moonbunnycafe.com/novels/
http://shiroyukitranslations.com/
http://arkmachinetranslations.com/
https://scryatranslations.wordpress.com/
https://bluesilvertranslations.wordpress.com/
http://totobro.com/
Like some fanfics, a number of the translated Xianxia stories are about pointlessly powering up for no good reason, or starts out with "Protagonist is a super-talent. Let's demonstrate this over and over." And in a bizzare social twist, it seems that in a few stories, CEOs are the new fantasy royalty ("Hi, I'm your new rival in this MMO, and I'm the CEO of the Asian division of MegaCorp!" "Instead of spending 12 hours a day playing a online computer game, shouldn't you go run your company?") So, there's that.
On the other hand, if there's a story that works for you, it'll last 1000+ chapters. Of the ones still in translation, I'm quite the fan of I Shall Seal the Heavens (found on the first site) which goes strange at chapter 6, took a turn upwards at chapter 11, and is now translated to chapter 301.
For Merc: The guy who is translating Ark is now also translating Moonlight Sculptor. Per his Ark translations, he edits the machine translations, and since I know you quit reading those over the horrible editing, I thought you might be interested. However, he also starts on Vol 28 and since you stopped reading at Vol 18, I'm not sure if you want to slog through badly edited translations to get to these.
Oh, and DOS updated again. I'd summarize, but it's classified.
I continue my trawl of those two fora.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/reconciliation-worm-au.12462/
Lung adopts Taylor on a trip ...to kyushu. Returns years later to face the leviathan...and what's left of her family. Lung is cool. Taylor is superoverpowered.
Also read one called intreprid that had an interesting Taylor power (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/intrepid-worm-au.17470/) where she goes catatonic...except in combat where she becomes the unstoppable. Sadly it focuses on Taylor once out of every five chapters, with the others dedicated to taylors 3 bullies (who all get superpowers) alongside everyone else in the city it seems... and also, taylor basically moves to vegas. What? Anyhow, it's decent it's just I didn't really care to read of Emma taking Taylor's spot while taylor goes off to Merc heaven.
The thing about intrepid is that it feels like the author's other work, only Talor is alive this time!
... Waaay over there, not contributing to the other three storylines at all.
I've been reading PsiEffect (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/psi-effect-me-xcom-thread-2-rise-of-the-party-boat.307972/)(xcom/mass effect crossfusion), Realignment (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/realignment-hp.351838/)(harry potter time fic), Everyday life of a supporting (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/everyday-life-as-a-supporting-character-monmusu-si.358222/) character (monmusu fic that is more entertaining than the source material), and A new jedi in an old republic (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-new-jedi-in-an-old-republic-star-wars.315437/); all of which can be found on spacebattles.
Also, The steep path ahead (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-steep-path-ahead-familiar-of-zero-au.22767/) (FoZ fic same saito/au Louise) and Mana based system (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/mana-based-system-foz-gamer.22317/) (FoZ Louise summons the gamer power set instead of a familiar but has never played a modern rpg so...) over at sufficient velocity. Primal (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/primal-sc-si.330879/)is interesting but not spectacular. The Fine Art of Diplomacing and the Hard Art of Keeping Korra Out of Trouble (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-fine-art-of-diplomancing-and-the-hard-art-of-keeping-korra-out-of-trouble-lok-si.9774/) is a fave I don't think anyone has posted about yet. Term Time (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/term-time-terminator-into-worm-crossover.20116/) (worm/terminator) is interesting but hasn't gone very far yet.
Dreaming of Sunshine (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/111/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) has also updated. As it do.
Quote from: thepanda on December 01, 2015, 10:31:12 PM
The thing about intrepid is that it feels like the author's other work, only Taylor is alive this time!
Yeah. I like Atonement, but I don't really see needing another fic like that.
A few recommendations and things I'm reading/have read recently.
A Harsher Truth (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-harsher-truth-worm-divergences.353851/). Things go worse on Taylor's first night out. Taylor ends up saving Armsmaster's life against Lung before being greviously injured. This results in a grateful Armsmaster recruiting her into the Wards. Turns out the two get along and have a lot of synergy. A fun fic for how its shaping up and that it portrays everyone as human beings, rather than fanon cutouts.
Salve (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/salve-worm-hp.353642/). A Harry Potter/Worm crossover. Bonesaw ends up tossed into the HP world during Golden Morning, just before Harry's first year. Shenanigans ensue.
Golden Evening (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/golden-evening-worm.327364/). Not long before canon starts, Scion loses his memory and has to begin anew. An interesting fic for what it is and fairly unique. Has some issues but it's worth reading.
Xander Quest (Story Only Thread) (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/xander-quest-story-only-thread.322999/) A quest thread that's actually worked out. Gasp. Features Ganondorf reincarnated as Xander from Buffy the vampire Slayer. Shenanigans ensue as it turns out the world is bigger than just the Buffyverse. Thrives with daily (and sometimes twice daily) updates. Canon Buffy is derailed for all sorts of reasons already and Xander's only 8. (By the way, read the omake thread linked in the first post if you get into this. A bunch are canon and from the quest master.)
I actually mostly read intrepid just reading the taylor parts. After a bit, it became even weird to look at the others. "Like, why is this even relevant? They're alll the way over there?" Still, it ends up being really short that way, following Taylor and her merc crew through somehow simultaneously ineffective and happy perfect victory (Taylor ends up vastly overshadowing the rest of the crew, but more because the encounter scenes rarely end up having the others experience be effective).
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/what-rains-you-bring-worm-diebuster.904/ -with some exceptions, I quite like this fic. Taylor gets 'saved' from queen administrator. By Nono. Who promptly starts upgrading her into Seventh Generation Cruising Decisive Weapon - Buster Machine 7. She steadily gains power throughout the fic, going from thug, to surprise Lung, to solo lung, to 'Fight all 3 endbringers at once'. It has some pretty good scenes with Taylor and Amy and with her trying to adapt to just really being Scion level strong. Some suggestion that the powers are interdimensional parasites (Including them going out and battling one that way). It is a bit white-washy, but up through arc 5 is a nice read.
Arc 5 suddenly like skips a chapter or more, so she goes from talking to Dragon for the second time ever to suddenly taking down the slaughterhouse nine in a wholly unforeshadowed fashion with no impact and a bunch of other skippy stuff. It does starts introducing Nono-tier dangers showing up, but overall it just felt sudden and awkward.
Read Mana Based System a while ago. It was kind of fun. One of the few working Gamer crosses, with Louise literally ignoring ridiculous wounds because well, she's The Gamer. And her friends being somewhat horrified at her drive for respect.
Continuing to basically sort both Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity by post count and click through.
Quote
A Harsher Truth. Things go worse on Taylor's first night out. Taylor ends up saving Armsmaster's life against Lung before being greviously injured. This results in a grateful Armsmaster recruiting her into the Wards. Turns out the two get along and have a lot of synergy. A fun fic for how its shaping up and that it portrays everyone as human beings, rather than fanon cutouts.
This is a really friendly early era armsmaster. Kind of weird and different. In general, it actually seems to be a sort of more accepting/inviting world. Spider silk underwear as a proposed thing from someone else? ...Really? Still, in general, people are more people in it. Hasn't gotten really far though. Just really past the first two criminal events, with Taylor getting set up on the sideline, and a handful of new OC characters crawling out of the woodwork.
Bank job is a lot more plausible though 5 on 6-7 then 3 on such though.
Quote from: Dracos on December 02, 2015, 12:38:53 PMThis is a really friendly early era armsmaster. Kind of weird and different. In general, it actually seems to be a sort of more accepting/inviting world. Spider silk underwear as a proposed thing from someone else? ...Really? Still, in general, people are more people in it. Hasn't gotten really far though. Just really past the first two criminal events, with Taylor getting set up on the sideline, and a handful of new OC characters crawling out of the woodwork.
Bank job is a lot more plausible though 5 on 6-7 then 3 on such though.
Armsmaster is different because the entire situation is different. The doom spiral that started with the Lung fiasco didn't happen and he has reason to view Taylor favorably. Early Worm shows his worst side, this shows him in a situation that's less messy.
I'd say it's more inviting because it's actually going into depth about things. It's not perfect, but it's doing some fine character work along those lines.
It was an interesting enough read to comment on :) Even though it hasn't really gone anywhere yet.
Did the youth guard ever show up in worm? *only read the latter half, from Alexandria's death onwards so his impressions of Armsmaster are really from his defiant era...where even when friendly, he's super standoffish.*
Quote from: Dracos on December 03, 2015, 12:17:46 AM
It was an interesting enough read to comment on :) Even though it hasn't really gone anywhere yet.
Did the youth guard ever show up in worm? *only read the latter half, from Alexandria's death onwards so his impressions of Armsmaster are really from his defiant era...where even when friendly, he's super standoffish.*
I think they're briefly mentioned or alluded to at most. Wildbow went into them a little more in author comments outside of the story.
Hell is a Martial Artist (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3505392/15/Hell-is-a-Martial-Artist) updated. I gave up on this one back before it stopped updating but I recall it being somewhat popular here so...
Quote from: thepanda on December 03, 2015, 09:10:50 AM
Hell is a Martial Artist (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3505392/15/Hell-is-a-Martial-Artist) updated. I gave up on this one back before it stopped updating but I recall it being somewhat popular here so...
Awesome, thanks. Now let's see how it is.
Neat. Read already, and a lot of it was things I'd seen long ago, but good to see it still going.
Only two weird bits:
Th interplay with happosai on the whole sensei thing.
Cologne not even having a brief heart to heart "Don't force me...this is a matter of life and death to the tribe" with her own granddaughter before casting her out.
Quote from: Dracos on December 04, 2015, 01:16:32 AM
Neat. Read already, and a lot of it was things I'd seen long ago, but good to see it still going.
Only two weird bits:
Th interplay with happosai on the whole sensei thing.
Cologne not even having a brief heart to heart "Don't force me...this is a matter of life and death to the tribe" with her own granddaughter before casting her out.
Pretty much. Firs tone I can live with, second one struck me as odd. You'd think there's be a few steps between that and disowning her.
Read Salve, kind of amusing...hasn't really gotten anywhere yet. Bonesaw/Riley is there, and has escaped her first conundrum...and bled a lot. Some good psychological scenes, nice staredowns, but it is weird no one suggests she's some kind of magical half-human thing (like Hagrid) based on her very unnatural abilities. We've successfully gotten Riley...to hogwarts though, right at the start of year 1.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11442113/1/Dreaming-of-Sunshine-Switch - Read this stuff this morning while biking. It...simply wasn't very good. It's thematic is the usual 'Throw the AU characters into original universe', but really doesn't go anywhere with it. They just really don't quite get anywhere over many chapters with any of them. A good scene here and there, but more just covering a few obvious encounters. Anyhow fanwork of fanwork of fanwork amuses in a way.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/liaison-worm.3419/
Taylor gets social networking + power transmission. Scares Coil since she can identify him and/or cancel his timelines, even though she doesn't know it. Seems abandoned though, pretty much right after set up, precisely as the pedal is hitting the metal on changes cascading.
I enjoyed Salve, and Liaison was decent, but I couldn't get far into A Harsher Truth. Its interesting to see the different interpretations of Armsmaster.
Honestly, I really would love more stories like Salve, ones that start waaay after Arc 1. I get tired of seeing the same bank heist from different perspectives, and so many of the more interesting characters show up a little later. If I were to write something, though I probably wouldn't, I'd do something like Parian with variant powers, or maybe a Bakuda that decides to become an independent/smaller agent after Lung's capture instead of the bombing spree.
Anyway: The Metropolitan Man (http://"https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10360716/1/The-Metropolitan-Man") follows Lex Luthor, Lois Lane and Superman in a 1930's setting, where the main conceit is Lex is really the protagonist, trying to find a way to stop the unknown, insanely powerful Superman. It does a good job of making every individual very well fleshed out and reasonable in their decisions. Extremely smart (and well grounded in history), complete, and not too terribly long.
Quote from: Dracos on November 21, 2015, 07:07:41 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/goblin-queen-vii-worm-exalted.307078/ Read through this. It is sort of a mix of neat and incoherent, generally following a story of Taylor a reality warping raksha? I dunno, not sure. At it's best, it has Taylor meddling with the strings of reality while doing word-fu to people and trying to find a grounding for herself.
At it's worst it'll got like 6 chapters without any clear view of why any of this relates or will ever relate to any of the core cast.
I made it through like 90 chapters of this. I consider that to be an amazing feat of human accomplishment,. I have read 90 chapters and have no idea what is going on, except that Taylor is some sort of Exalted and doesn't really do a great job at being one. Incoherent.
I think I stopped around the same point as you, given a quick peek at it on FF.net.
I quit around the time that Shadow Stalker started going to other dimensions and getting invited to banquets. Felt like Senaril all over again!
But yeah, Drac's initial assesment is the same as mine. I kept seeing hints of neat stuff and thinking it'd all make sense if I just kept reading... It kept getting more nonsensical instead!
I'd probably have quit it a looooooooot sooner if it was a new fic, but since there was already so much of it out and the chapters were relatively short, I kinda just tried plowing through it. It was deceptive that way.
Goblin Queen is like popcorn. Each bite is light enough that you can keep going and going. Except that the popcorn is sometimes completely insane and changes in ways you wouldn't expect.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 12, 2015, 01:43:06 PM
Goblin Queen is like popcorn. Each bite is light enough that you can keep going and going. Except that the popcorn is sometimes completely insane and changes in ways you wouldn't expect.
It's like that multicolored popcorn from when we were kids, only the popcorn flavor is different every bite and it occasionally mutates into a small animal or house.
Didn't the author say something like most of the story is fun/wouldn't it be cool filler between the tiny amount of plot he's thought up? Then again, if you have to read a discussion thread to understand what's going on. . .
/me still finds the story amusing, but I don't have expectations for it beyond the above.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/manager-worm-story-thread-iv.301602/ read all of this last night.
Taylor gets the ability to steal/merge/give shards. Becomes 'slenderman' boogieman slowly wiping out the villains of brockton bay. Also Apparition with her first power, as a member of the Undertakers. And the rogue, Arsenal who is on good terms with the PRT.
Basically, learns right away that she got an ace power that people would murder the crap out of her for having, befriends tattletale, and works to try and fake that no she is not this power stealing boogieman.
It's actually pretty darn good. A compelling story of Taylor using her powers to save the city... and in large parts managing it, even with general competence by most other groups. It even has a pretty interesting take on what happens to Shadowstalker.
It's also one of two that I've read that give Danny a power and has Taylor outed to him relatively early in a positive and supportive setup.
Manager's really good, yeah. It's a fun fic overall and one I enjoy immensely.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10093207/1/No-Need-for-Halkeginian-Logic
A slapstick FoZ/Skyrim crossover. Louise summons a generic Skyrim player, who applies Skyrim logic to the new world. By the same writer who started that FoZ/Madoka crossover posted awhile ago.
Think I failed to mention this one.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/subduction-worm.6053/
Abandoned fic. Was following an interesting slow dig into the conspiracy of Cauldron, following Taylor joining up with Mercs to try and support her injured dad.
It seems definitely that a lot of the more fun Worm fics are Taylor the Trump.
I think the worst part of Goblin Queen was Emma (the bully) becoming a Dragon Exalted via purchased Cauldron power, and then in short order handing Taylor her ass in a fight. A fight where at least Emma was using fatally dangerous attacks. Frankly, saw no reason for that whole thing to be there.
Still, it was rather incoherent in the current parts.
I thought it was clear Taylor lost that fight deliberately? She used her narrative-reality-warp power to give Emma the victory she needed to stop obsessing over Taylor.
edit: And currently reading Catalyst.exe (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/catalyst-exe-me-si.260924/). An SI wakes up as an AI in the Mass Effect universe and decides to help. Unbeknownst to her, this universe isn't strictly cannon. Much, much better than it sounds.
Quote from: Dracos on December 14, 2015, 02:49:04 AM
Think I failed to mention this one.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/subduction-worm.6053/
Abandoned fic. Was following an interesting slow dig into the conspiracy of Cauldron, following Taylor joining up with Mercs to try and support her injured dad.
It seems definitely that a lot of the more fun Worm fics are Taylor the Trump.
That one always bothered me. Why not try to get Panacea or join the Wards for money and medical care? I remember thinking it felt contrived.
I wasn't clear on that. In general, that's an unfortunate issue through latter Goblin Queen: It becomes more and more difficult to tell the intentional reality warping from just the story. Early on, it is more precise and visible with it.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/breaking-point-worm-au.6922/
Almost done with sufficient velocity. This was a somewhat neat starter, Taylor gets some dangersense plus super-speed power after almost committing suicide. Some nice scenes with dean and victoria. But it really hasn't gotten going so it's hard to say anything more on it.
What will you do once you're done? Go to AO3? :p
Quote from: Dracos on December 16, 2015, 01:11:25 PM
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/breaking-point-worm-au.6922/
Almost done with sufficient velocity. This was a somewhat neat starter, Taylor gets some dangersense plus super-speed power after almost committing suicide. Some nice scenes with dean and victoria. But it really hasn't gotten going so it's hard to say anything more on it.
Nice idea for a fic but it really died out too early. So it goes with fanfiction.
Probably to space battles and then back to ff.net. Then the void.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/memoirs-of-a-human-flashlight-thread-2-now-with-more-arguments-exalted-worm.286959/
An amusing, but altogether not very far along exalted/worm fic, played straight so far, which is nice next to goblin queen or others that totally overfill the universe with it.
Interesting idea but man, the author needs to post more. His update rate's really slow.
Almost Team-8ish? :P
DK:A updated : 266508: Dungeon Keeper Ami: The Flopping Dead
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/perpetuance-worm-au.14358/
Before the locker, Taylor's dad gets into a car accident with her and dies. She triggers and gains super-unbreakable type nuclear powers, alongside a seriously suicidal outlook. Only a few chapters so far, but basically a different twist on the opening scenes. Taylor tries a few attempts at suicide before going for Suicide Via Lung. Lung almost gets killed, and Tattletale tries to keep the crazy suicidal girl tossing anti-matter around from blowing up the city.
Coil naturally pokes at this. It's pretty dark, but at the same time, somewhat curious what will happen. We've got a lot of potential explosion points sitting there for a main character that could level the city. Instead of a 'scary' cape, we've got a 'fuck, you do not poke that' taylor.
Hum. Read the Memorial series as someone offhand mentioned it was a fandom best.
3rd story in it, updated friday:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/legacy-worm.345448/
Anyhow, it goes with butterfly flap effect. Taylor waits a bit to make her decision at the very beginning. Does a trial day with the wards. Comes back and has her house blown up by Bakuda. Barely survives while her dad is killed outright. Huh, two of those in a row kinda :P Anyhow, she goes on a crusade to clean up the city and get vengeance as well... while pretending to be a relatively low key rogue. Some great character bits, 'specially with Quinn who has more screentime on this fic than any other fic I've seen. A lot of 'well you kill that guy and...oops, looks like there's bad side effects'. The New Age group comes across more 'real' then I think I've seen them, both as people and as a significant notable force molding the city.
Notes is hit and miss for me. I liked Cenotaph, lost interest in Wake early on and couldn't get into Legacy at all. Likewise, his one shot stories are all over the place. I wouldn't call them fandom best, though I do know the stories are popular.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10085885/18/Harbinger read harbringer. I do like time travel fics, but this didn't work for me really. Recoil is better, but more just original content. This has hanging over it that it has taylor do some excessively dumb stuff involving accord at the beginning...that then sits as another shoe to drop for dozens of chapters after it. Things just are weird from a lot of the not-fallouts from that and despite a long run, it really hasn't actually butterflied much.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11510394/1/Paragon-Interupt - filtered crossovers by length. This...gets a little better as it goes, but is basically a crummy ME(Almost SI) cross with Worm. Some fun ideas and you can see the author growing over time, but it's very weak as a story.
Continuing reading barrage.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10473120/1/Acceleration read through this, a finished crossover of Worm/Railgun with Taylor getting Accelerator's powers and basically having them taken to the extreme. Kind of a weak final conflict (The entirety of the Slaughterhouse nine basically get mauled in moments as their plan to wreck Taylor's day goes very wrong) but basically has a Taylor that has trouble relating to folks more and more through the story.
It's not great, but is complete, which is kinda rare. Armsmaster is very much the hero of note of the story, doing what others seem to ignore: Trying not to drive the unstoppable parahuman crazy and instead give some positive social connections (in his awkward way).
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/divine-administration-of-gods-and-bureaucracy-worm-exalted.13442/
Updated. Taylor is back. Coping with having been murdered via anti-material rifle.
As I start to run low on Worm fics having started the same journey Drac's on a few months earlier, I go back to that nice old standby of Familiar of Zero.
Zero Summing (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/zero-summing-foz-skyrim.19118/) is a neat little fic about Louise reverse summoning herself into Skyrim, though after eight chapters she manages to return to Tristain with all the lessons learned of being an Elder Scrolls protagonist. There is a timeskip but the first few chapters give enough for you to see how she could end up on the road to badassery, and the culture shock of her returning home and finding it's not as idealised as her memories is fun.
Read a bunch today. Didn't link (bad). Some amusing (To Know All) or so-so (Firebird what the fuck is going on?).
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/nursing-a-grudge-worm-au.5092/page-37#post-4870165
Nursing a Grudge updated this month though, which was neat.
What's that one about?
Also, Dreaming of Sunshine updated.
Nursing a Grudge derails from canon just past Leviathan, iirc.
Taylor ends up coming across Madison about to drown, trapped and alone. Saves her and gets her back to health, with Madison clinging onto Taylor. In the process, Taylor helps out at hospitals and becomes a rogue, selling bug extermination services to hospitals.
Interesting story, though glacial updates. Most of the chapters were written around June-July 2014, with three chapters since then in 2015 all months apart. It feels like the author had most of his focus handling Taylor/Madison interaction, but once Taylor started trying to be a rogue and having to handle fight scenes in the last few chapters, he lost steam/direction. Or might have just gotten RL'ed, dunno really.
Outside of what I said above for summary, the only major thing to happen was a fight with the Merchants and PRT debating whether to keep Skitter as a villain or reclassify her as a rogue.
Pretty much.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10286919/1/Recoil Recoil apparently has a new chapter. Haven't read it yet.
*should go see if dreaming of sunshine topped the Performance standoff*
Terrorism & Anarchy (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7903626/22/Terrorism-Anarchy) has updated.
And I will now have to read through this again for the third time because I really don't recall what's going on.
Edit: Link fixed.
Your link is completely messed up, Panda.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/
The Games We Play finished. There's a sequel in the works.
[spoiler]Glad it's over. The last bit dragged - too many interludes and a general slowdown (apparently due to some RL issues with the author's job) - but all in all it's a great story and one I enjoyed a lot.
I think I liked the bad guy more before the last interlude. There was something marvelous about his style, a situation where going into his motives hurt him.
Things I'm reading right now:
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/exploding-canon-worm-si.24125/ - Worm fic. An SI wakes up in Bakuda just after Lung's captured. Derails naturally happen - tinkering derails, that is. The fic's a lot of fun and avoids some of the normal SI pitfalls due to her power and need to tinker being strong.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/split-worm-fic.24539/ - Another Worm fic. Taylor can permanently gain a parahuman's powers with a touch. Oh, and she gets a perfect copy of the parahuman's memory and personality melded with her own. Obvious mental problems and struggling with it ensue. I actually don't follow this fic anymore, but it's well worth checking out.
Quote from: Anastasia on January 01, 2016, 02:40:31 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/
The Games We Play finished. There's a sequel in the works.
[spoiler]Glad it's over. The last bit dragged - too many interludes and a general slowdown (apparently due to some RL issues with the author's job) - but all in all it's a great story and one I enjoyed a lot.
I think I liked the bad guy more before the last interlude. There was something marvelous about his style, a situation where going into his motives hurt him.
I stopped reading this around the time the plant came to sentience and was being called a daughter. Might give it a look again now that its complete, if I can find a good starting spot not too far back from that so I can recall all the OC names.
It's worth a shot. I think it's a great read until Jericho Falls drags on too far.
Aberration (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/aberration-worm-d-d.369992/) is a neat little Worm story about a d&d binder OC who winds up on Earth Bet and joins up with the Merchants. It kinda reminds me of Harry Potter and the Natural 20 a bit in how the OC parses the world through the lens of D&D rules and tropes, and it's actually pretty neat to see the Merchants do well for once. They're generally relegated to punching bags in fanfic for people to practice on before tackling the 'serious' gangs, but in canon they outlasted the ABB and the Empire.
Anyway there's not terribly much to it yet, but what there is is fun.
Dracos of Soulriders (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/114/Dreaming-of-Sunshine)* updated.
Also, since everyone is posting Worm, here's a spamfic, Cape for Hire (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11682462/1/Cape-For-Hire)
*Disclaimer: Does not contain any actual Dracos.
You can't be sure of that. :P
Among other things been reading https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/ which has some really nice Uber/Taylor bits, as well as Taylor and her family.
Read all of Amelia (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3998737/chapters/8979811) which is a finished and rather long work...and I don't know if I can say it's really all that good so much as long and finished. A lot of character perspectives throughout telling the story. Has Amelia/Taylor hookup that screws with precog and goes from Slaughterhouse nine until after scion focusing on 'what if parahumans genuinely worked together to power each other up'. It's got a serious 'okay, 1+1=52' thing going on throughout for power levels of that, but at the same time powers up the endbringers as well and scion is as much of an unstoppable monster as he always is. I really dislike the handling of lisa throughout (Basically everyone refers to her as a bitch. EVERYONE), and it soured me a bit on the fic and seriously, everyone gets a second chance, but not Marquis. Guy is in jail the entire time being proud of his daughter, the world conquering empiress, but when they actually get face to face talk, there's not the least reconcilation. No second chances for guy who spent pretty much her whole life in jail. Lots of other bad guys get second chances (or some brainwashing and then second chances), including bonesaw, coil, and that warlord that controls shadows and murders cities. Dragon gets some truly bum rap in the late story and basically ends up fully irrelevant against Scion which seemed pretty lame.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/ read through all of this up to 18.1
Reference to some game series I've never played but Taylor basically gets tinker nano-generation, combat thinker abilities, and some mental protection. Becomes a hero (Aeon). Not enough lisa either (No one likes tattletale :P) despite her being an early friend type. Coil, in rareness, being the top tier villain shown so far. I wonder if it'll end with taking on/out coil or keep going past that. With the sole exception of treating Aeon as someone who needs to get killed, Coil has run basically a top notch show. He has multiple thinkers captured without anyone being the wiser, two loyal teams and a few disloyal teams, full control of the PRT, and has abandoned part of the city to have one part be 'nice'. Empire(almost) and ABB and Merchants are gone, so basically he has gotten to complete control of all major forces in the city that aren't New Wave or Aeon's group. Lots of good Uber scenes in the aftermath of Leets death to Bakuda early on.
Forgot I already linked it. Oh well :3 Now with deeper summary.
Supreme Commander = lots of AI tanks very fast (she could fill Brockton with enough artillery to make the CCCP envious in a day.) plus psychopathic intergalactic terrorism.
She avoids building giant tanks, so as not to be labeled as a super-villain off the bat. Does succeed at that at least.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/wormverse-ideas-recs-and-fic-discussion-thread-14.279585/page-7#post-12647868
This is a good show. Worm/Comedy Taylor gets the power of Random.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/journey-of-the-dragonfly-worm-time-travel-divergence.316221/
Kind of a neat setup...long but doesn't really accomplish anything. It's a Lung/Weaver matchup with time travel sending them, scion, and several of the capes with her back in time, to 1991. A lot of beowulf references, fighting slaughterhouse 9 over brockton bay, but at the end of it... it seems like they were a really irrelevant story, even as the one being told.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/falling-iron-im-mcu-worm.2433/
Kinda cute, kinda silly Iron-man post avengers lands in very early Worm. Gets saved by Taylor and recruits her as an assistant. Saves Dragon shortly afterwards via Jeeves.
Also read https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/queen-of-the-swarm-worm.323254/ which has a cute concept (Taylor as a Zerg Queen), but really just feels mary-sue'ish. Everyone is defined by their relation to taylor, taylor's opinions etc. It's got neat stuff but its a paper mache world.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10624273/1/The-Monsters-in-Her-Mind a good cthulian tale, set in worm of course.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/memories-of-iron-worm-iron-man-cross.301279/
Finished this. Not a bad cross, but definitely goes with Ironman > everything in worm ever.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8400080/8/Break-Through-the-Limit
Read a bit (up to 8) of this. It's a dragon ball fic where Picollo takes a different training approach that lets him overpower Raditz at their first meeting. Raditz is saved by Goku after killing Tien and verbally told he's going to die by Vegita, so decides to switch sides (Piccolo style really). Piccolo for some reason turns good, despite not having any time with Gohan and Tien takes Goku's place with king kai training...
And in general it feels very paper-ish over the situation. Sort of cut character A out here, put them over there. It makes a better alignment in a way, but it lacks depth and generally goes about in a simplistic direction.
Yeah, for big DBZ fics, I prefer Bringer of Death. Break Through the Limit always felt off to me somehow, sort of like you said.
Quote from: Ebiris on December 25, 2015, 06:40:05 PM
As I start to run low on Worm fics having started the same journey Drac's on a few months earlier, I go back to that nice old standby of Familiar of Zero.
Zero Summing (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/zero-summing-foz-skyrim.19118/) is a neat little fic about Louise reverse summoning herself into Skyrim, though after eight chapters she manages to return to Tristain with all the lessons learned of being an Elder Scrolls protagonist. There is a timeskip but the first few chapters give enough for you to see how she could end up on the road to badassery, and the culture shock of her returning home and finding it's not as idealised as her memories is fun.
Consumed.
The culture clash really is the star of it. It's got a lot of nice scenework leading up to the first Fu, then sort of skips over a lot to get her back into Tristan, but all around, she's barely roared at all :P DIsappointing! Anyhow, more precisely, it dodged the station of canon and had her wander off, being quite bethesda heroish, but it seems to have not gotten anywhere yet. Definitely looking forward to more of it.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/legacy-worm.345448/
Updated this week. A chitchat with Hookwolf takes center stage. Hmm.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-friend-in-need-mlp-worm.278550/
This also updated, for tremendous silly.
Your pony knowledge is expaaaaaanding with the magical power of friendship!
It is. I couldn't help but wonder "what does cute pony do in terror world?"
Apparently change the rotation of the earth.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6693171/24/The-Mouse-of-Konoha updated recently.
Gaming Ikari does 1Punch
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11718714/1/Serious-Saitama
Just noticed it. Haven't read it, since I'm busy with other things at the moment.
Quote from: Dracos on January 10, 2016, 03:03:37 PM
It is. I couldn't help but wonder "what does cute pony do in terror world?"
Apparently change the rotation of the earth.
And the moral is: do not be lulled into a false sense of security by their marketable exterior.
On the Wings of an Eagle (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/on-the-wings-of-an-eagle-assassins-creed-familiar-of-zero-crossover-re-write.25597/) is getting a rewrite.
Hmm, kind of neat and at the same time...wannnted more. ;_;
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20 Consumed all of this, which I believe Ebiris recommended some time ago. Sadly been on hiatus for a while.
Also read some fic called Legion (worm) that just wasn't really all that good (so not going to go grab a link). Very sob-world focused.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dread-rising-of-pathfinder.21733/ This is an excellent tale of a Lich long past his time, cursed to hear puns, songs, and be a harem protagonist.
It is the best anime I have read in quite some time.
Quote from: thepanda on January 24, 2016, 03:19:47 PM
On the Wings of an Eagle (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/on-the-wings-of-an-eagle-assassins-creed-familiar-of-zero-crossover-re-write.25597/) is getting a rewrite.
Well crud. I was hoping for a continuance.
Same Same, Yuth.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10080850/18/Devil-You-Know This got an update in december. Setting up Harry's training with McCoy.
Been reading the web novel I'm a Spider, So What? (http://www.novelupdates.com/series/kumo-desu-ga-nani-ka/)
Pretty similar concept to other stories like Re:Monster or I Reincarnated as a Slime. It's incredibly lengthy, with 200+ chapters.
Synopsis: A classroom of high schoolers are accidentally killed in the fight between the hero and demon king of another world due to their use of dimensional magic, and the deities/administrators of that world resurrect the souls of the students and teacher as members of that world, all with their past memories.
Pretty much all of them resurrect as humans or elves. The one exception so far was the main character, Kumoko, who resurrected as a small monster spider in a high level dungeon. The story mostly follows her, with occassional side chapters involving some of the other students resurrected and how they all adjust to the new world, which has levels, skills, and evolutions.
I found it amusing for the most part because it's one of those OP resurrection fantasy stories which are occassionally fun to read, and it thankfully lacks that annoying harem aspect (although the side story's main character might be developing into one) most of those have.
Oh, someone continued the translation? Nai wa.
I'd posted a link to it when it was being translated on Moon Bunny Cafe, but once they caught up to the writer, they stopped translating. I'll have to go catch up on the rest.
Also, Drawing of Sailormoon (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/116/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated with chapter 115.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10225608/22/A-Demon-Among-Devils - Updated and was really really kinda predictable.
A Song of Ice and Fires That Weren't All My fault - Read all of this through. Harry is stranded in the early story of Song of Ice and Everybody Dies, with his daughter Maggie. Proceeds to do Connecticut Yankee making himself enormously wealthy and also destabilizing the world further. I...have little context for some of it really, having no familiarity with the source material of the main setting...but with a character who also doesn't have any context beyond what he mostly learns on screen, it sort of works. Also kraken fighting.
edit: link+
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-song-of-ice-and-fires-that-werent-all-my-fault-asoiaf-dresden-files.336499/
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/alchemical-solutions-worm-exalted-story-only-thread.283060/
Read this which was an interesting exalted quest against the backdrop of worm... but at the same time there were points, particularly in the later parts, where it was just excessively showing that it was a quest, dozens of options showing up, often with little rationale for coherency (I get that the other exalted are a big deal vote wise, but still it became incoherent seeing the options trotted out narratively).
Mrgle.
I read some of that. My opinion is that the QM is a good author and only so-so at being a quest-runner.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/danmachi-percy-jackson-prytaneum.352191/ Percy Jackson in the dungeon after some bad end? I never actually read that series, but I am familiar with Damichi... the weird harem in a dungeon setup. A ryuugi fic that really hasn't gotten anywhere yet (Percy has met and joined Hestia. Zeus' kid hasn't shown up, probably replaced, taking an angle of demigod power versus Harem Protagonist power which is a more interesting take on the dungeon to begin with).
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/queen-of-blood-worm-castlevania.363842/ read the few new chapters of this. Which is really still sort of a love letter to the newer castlevanias, not written very well. Conflict is being framed as against scion and eden, who devoured and imprisoned the gods of the castlevania world.
Until now, I hadn't noticed that DK:A (http://addventure.bast-enterprises.de/259778.html) updated.
Poetry: http://compendium.vuduc.org/poem117.html
Quote from: Jason_Miao on February 11, 2016, 09:57:03 AM
Poetry: http://compendium.vuduc.org/poem117.html
Not sure what I just read. I suspect some sort of English Lit. pun or joke.
Quote from: Merc on February 11, 2016, 10:27:53 AM
Not sure what I just read. I suspect some sort of English Lit. pun or joke.
It's a joke, but less about English Lit, and more English grammar. It's about stacking prepositions in ways that make sense, but sound like gibberish.
So basically the english version of that chinese poem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vExjnn_3ep4).
Quote from: Merc on February 11, 2016, 09:43:59 PM
So basically the english version of that chinese poem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vExjnn_3ep4).
That one is a famous tongue twister. I don't know of any Chinese poem that abuses grammar per se (probably because I don't know of many Chinese poems, rather than their lack of existence). Maybe the reversible poems qualify?
Quote from: Dracos on February 07, 2016, 12:39:37 AMhttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/queen-of-blood-worm-castlevania.363842/ read the few new chapters of this. Which is really still sort of a love letter to the newer castlevanias, not written very well. Conflict is being framed as against scion and eden, who devoured and imprisoned the gods of the castlevania world.
Yeah. I read this last night and I have a lot of problems with it. It manages to be somewhat entertaining in spite of it. Sure, it has yet another unneeded Panacea romance, an overpowered Taylor and randomly empowering a bit character. Those are all signs of a typical Worm fanfic these days. It does manage something out of that at least, so I'll give it credit for that.
Something like 5/10 right now?
Yeah, right on really.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/danmachi-percy-jackson-prytaneum.352191/ Mentioned this a page ago. It has gotten like 6 updates since then? Ryuugi is doing his usual almost every 24 hours bit here, and it looks like this will be the next tale after his Gamer one.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9340220/8/Crosswinds-of-Fate
<Drac-gaming> That was a good chapter of Crosswinds of Fate.
* Drac-gaming smashes it on the ground. Another!
Merlin put on a robe and hat.
Hadn't realized that https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7406866/45/To-the-Stars updated.
I liked the last scene, although it's hard to put my finger on why.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/applied-demonology-znt-smt.342635/ not a great story but Fairy steals the show
Eureka (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7267243/1/Eureka) updated. Don't know how that slipped under the radar.
Caught up on Re: Monster. Its gotten steadily worse from the point the elf rape was introduced. Consider yourselves warned.
I'm a spider, so what? is so much better.
That one also gets worse, though it was very good throughout the dungeon arc. It started to lose steam once she got out of there and there was more focus on the overworld setting.
It's got some good moments now still, and it's not a bad story up there, but it's got it's own weak moments.
I'm actually enjoying the post-dungeon arc a lot. We've been in her head for so long that seeing her from outside her pov is hilarious.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/118/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
Spoiler: After losing it, Shikamaru loses it after Shikako talks about losing it so Shikamaru can get it.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on March 15, 2016, 08:54:47 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/118/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
Spoiler: After losing it, Shikamaru loses it after Shikako talks about losing it so Shikamaru can get it.
You lost me.
Quote from: Merc on March 15, 2016, 09:08:24 PM
Quote from: Jason_Miao on March 15, 2016, 08:54:47 PM
Spoiler: After losing it, Shikamaru loses it after Shikako talks about losing it so Shikamaru can get it.
You lost me.
So you're saying you didn't get it?
Yup. To be fair, I stopped reading DoS quite a while back, so any references you made to it would go over my head. That was still a particularly odd sentence structure though!
Quote from: Merc on March 16, 2016, 01:01:16 AM
Yup. To be fair, I stopped reading DoS quite a while back, so any references you made to it would go over my head. That was still a particularly odd sentence structure though!
Ah. Well, as usual, my spoilers are not designed to really spoil anything since they only make sense if you've read the chapter. Here's a real one for the last set of chapters:
A long-running theme has been how the twins hate to see each other in danger.
In recent previous chapters, on a mission with the main, Shikamaru lost his arm. In this chapter, when the family is talking about medical options, he mentions that transplants are not an option because he would find it chilling to have a stranger's arm. Main asks if it's the "stranger" part that's the problem, and offers one of her arms so he can have two. Shikamaru is horrified at this, and lashes out.
So, after losing his arm, Shikamaru loses his temper because Shikako talks about losing her arm so Shikamaru can get the arm.
Well, it's kind of crummy as even a suggestion. I gotta admit, won't mind them getting out of this 'them flailing at each other' stage. Because they've been doing it for what feels like dozens of chapters.
Shikako and Shikamaru's squabbles are without doubt my least favorite part of the fic. They just don't add much of anything, and they're never fun to read.
Quote from: Dracos on March 19, 2016, 01:50:30 PM
Well, it's kind of crummy as even a suggestion. I gotta admit, won't mind them getting out of this 'them flailing at each other' stage. Because they've been doing it for what feels like dozens of chapters.
If it is a stage, and not a character feature. It's an SI and if the writer is trying to write true-to-life, then...hope not though.
Also, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11830798/1/Team-7-s-Ascension-Lines-in-the-Sand, the first chapter in a sequel to https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9948266/1/Team-7-s-Ascension-Blood-Wings, was posted. I thought the earlier one was a decent fic, so I'll see if this one is better or at least the same.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/zero-summing-foz-skyrim.19118/page-18#post-5693858
Zero Summoning has a beefy update.
Yay Zero Summoning.
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/119/
Dreaming of Sunshine updates
Yeah, really can't way to get out of the crack of them two snapping at each other every other scene.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5872642/1/Working-Around-the-Crazy
Burn Notice/Supernatural crossover. It's much better than it sounds and a fun character piece.
Yes, still reading too much worm.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/ - Taylor gets to be wordsmith of shards...and tries to save the world. One of the better Cauldron fics I've looked at where they are genuinely willing to accept help to save the world.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/crouching-tiger-worm-au-alt-power.382703/ - this is a pretty funny OC in Taylor's Skin type story. She has dragon power and a lot of other BS. Lots of little AU bits. It kind of struggles with some of its foundation (How is lung both a teenager and a known legend is kind of 'huh').
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/danmachi-percy-jackson-prytaneum.352191/ - Daily Prytaneum or watching Percy get beat up.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/crime-and-commitment-worm.364903/ this has basically descended into "Watch all canon characters get curbstomped, believe that there will be meaningful story afterwards"...which I don't so I've stopped reading.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/h-mayhem-worm.380864/ The story of a sucidal OC who is cast as the brother of Bonesaw. Is not very good at being a good guy.
Really, how many people in that universe are honestly good at being good guys?
Quote from: Merc on April 18, 2016, 10:51:09 PM
Really, how many people in that universe are honestly good at being good guys?
Dragon comes to mind. Miss Milita comes off well too. Armsmaster would normally, though Worm's early arcs are essentially his professional life going to hell thanks to bad luck and Taylor, until he does something desperate in the Leviathan battle. Legend's another one. Arguably Eidolon, depending on how you parse things and a bunch of spoilers.
Between the rigged game the Entities set up and the tone of the work, the answer is depressingly few people. Even those who are good at what they do faceplant against the next higher tier of threat.
Notably the protagonist isn't on that list. She tends to be effective at her goals (good or bad) but is completely nuts. Girl has issues, yo. Even when she's aimed at the bad guys as a full good guy, she's a thing.
Quote from: Dracos on April 18, 2016, 10:30:33 PM
Yes, still reading too much worm.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/ - Taylor gets to be wordsmith of shards...and tries to save the world. One of the better Cauldron fics I've looked at where they are genuinely willing to accept help to save the world.
That one's pretty good. It has a few problems, but the author's good at working things out and presenting characters are more than cutouts. 9/10, do want to read more.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/land-of-the-dead-highschool-of-the-dead-si.342652/ This has been updating a lot recently. It's about an SI who prepares for the upcoming Zompocalypse, and somehow turns geeks and delinquents into pseudo-vikings.
Mmm, no less ridiculous then Highschool of the dead by default then :)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-girl-of-tomorrow-rewrite-of-the-last-daughter.381794/
The Last Daughter's getting a rewrite. Looks better so far, time will tell if it fixes the issues the previous incarnation had.
Quote from: Dracos on April 21, 2016, 12:18:20 AM
Mmm, no less ridiculous then Highschool of the dead by default then :)
There's less boobs, more action
Quote from: Anastasia on April 19, 2016, 11:54:36 AM
That one's pretty good. It has a few problems, but the author's good at working things out and presenting characters are more than cutouts. 9/10, do want to read more.
Read it, and wondered "Taylor takes out Coil offscreen. So, what happened to Noelle?"
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 23, 2016, 07:09:40 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on April 19, 2016, 11:54:36 AM
That one's pretty good. It has a few problems, but the author's good at working things out and presenting characters are more than cutouts. 9/10, do want to read more.
Read it, and wondered "Taylor takes out Coil offscreen. So, what happened to Noelle?"
[spoiler]Good point, that didn't even cross my mind. Noelle is either not there yet or PtV. Take your pick. I'd guess the latter since Contessa's that broken.
I've been reading that, and while I like parts of it (and don't recall the first writing):
1) Taylor is silly obsessed with not only krypton stuff, but sharing krypton stuff. It's taking from the movie-verse there I guess, but it just over the fic so far feels like "Let me wave a flag that I am super-woman".
2) It seems odd that Dragon can go to aliens as a possible source, but Cauldron (which knows rather then guesses that alien influence is around) doesn't.
When was coil mentioned? *started drifting back through but isn't finding his name* I didn't think she even knew he existed yet. She did random mooks, a couple E88 capes, the ABB, a few more E88 capes.
It generally feels a bit mary-sueish. In part because we're almost always seeing taylor's perspective or people 'wowing' about it, but mostly because the PRT has been very passive, almost non-entityish about almost the entire city's supervillain/criminal empire set being upended. Cauldron has too, since in part I understand they rely on villains being out to fight endbringers. Actually glancing back, it was pretty weird that basically most of Piggot's appearence so far has been yelling at Weld about potentially walking into gunfire. ...What's gunfire going to do to the guy that absorbs metal on contact?
Basically, for all that an obviously enormously powerful cape shows up and is upending things, there seems to be weeks of not 'hey we need to connect'. Beyond power, she's basically a vigilante who (in typical superman fashion, but not typical worm fashion) has no obstacle past beating bad guys up.
It is Mary Sue bait. Okay, now granted a higher end interpretation Superman or Superwoman is going to wreck most anything. I'll concede that point right there and come back to it later.
1. It's very much a story about Superwoman first and foremost, with the rest of the world only service to revolve around her. Taylor's the star of the show and it shows, there's not a lot of depth to anything except for how it matters to her.
2. Cauldron had issues in the last version of this story and I felt it was one of the weakest parts of the story. In my opinion, Cauldron's role in the previous story could be distilled down to the following: Hard men making hard choices, until an outside context problem comes along and mocks them for making those choices before she solves everything. It's the worst sort of Superman story, using his power without the appropriate gravitas and writing to make the moral contrast work. So I'm not expecting much out of Cauldron here. Also bear in mind point 1, so Cauldron only matters in regards to Taylor.
3. When you take all of that in context, it comes down to this: All of Worm's problems and issues are just a platform for Superwoman to do things. It's really not a Worm story in the most basic sense, but a Superwoman story that's using Worm as a punching bag. I don't feel there's any real dramatic tension nor will there be. All the key parts of Worm are suborned to Superwoman rather than it being a true crossover.
So yeah, a higher end Superman is going to beat down most anything due to his power level. That's one thing. The problem is that the author isn't using it as much except as a way to show how strong Taylor is. It's simply a well dressed up fix fic and wish fulfillment, the previous version of that story fell apart because of that.
Maybe I'm wrong and this version will overcome all of that. It's still early and its possible. If I'm completely honest with myself, I doubt it will. I think the author's shown his biases and mindset well enough that he won't. To be even more honest, there's nothing wrong with that. Writing a good Superman story when he stomps over everything is extremely difficult. The problem is that if you don't, you end up with a mediocre story at best. In this case, the Worm side really suffers for it, since it's ill-suited to support it.
Drac: Admin, not Supergirl.
Ko: I don't know what PtV is, but whatever it is, I'm guessing it must be that. IIRC, Trickster et al. were around before Taylor came onto the superhero scene.
If anyone but me is still following it, Mother of Learning just posted what either looks to be the end of the second arc, or close to it: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/52/Mother-of-Learning.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 24, 2016, 10:27:02 PM
Drac: Admin, not Supergirl.
Ko: I don't know what PtV is, but whatever it is, I'm guessing it must be that. IIRC, Trickster et al. were around before Taylor came onto the superhero scene.
If anyone but me is still following it, Mother of Learning just posted what either looks to be the end of the second arc, or close to it: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/52/Mother-of-Learning.
Contessa's power.
I'm a little hazy on the timeline, they may not have been with Coil and in his bunker at that time is all. They were active before that.
Even without contessa's power, with Admin for targeting and Doormaker, she could just dump everyone with powers in coil's base into an alternate dimension in a few moments, Noelle included.
I don't think noelle was there yet, but I also don't think it is that relevant. With the power cauldron has at its finger tips, simply erasing coils organization is no big deal, outside of the missing person report for Thomas Calvert (and probably his men?). They literally have multiple I-Win tier powers at their fingertips compared to normal organizations.
Even beyond that, Calvert I think owed Cauldron in canon? So he could just be forced elsewhere.
Quote from: Rukatin on April 20, 2016, 04:34:06 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/land-of-the-dead-highschool-of-the-dead-si.342652/ This has been updating a lot recently. It's about an SI who prepares for the upcoming Zompocalypse, and somehow turns geeks and delinquents into pseudo-vikings.
I read the whole thing at work last night. First couple of chapters aren't very promising since the grammar kinda sucks, but he gets a couple of betas before too long and it's a lot better on that front.
Also, there are ~20 chapters before Z-day hits. Not a spoiler; the guy knows it's coming and when. Just be ready for a year worth of preparation (gotta get that Viking warband somehow).
Xylix, the same writer of Seven Village Stomp (which started strong then was discontinued) and Haigeki (which started strong then turned into torture-porn) is now writing a FSN/Worm xover, currently two chapters long: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/1/Thaumaturgic-Awakening
Haven't read it yet. If I do, I'll leave a review.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 27, 2016, 02:37:59 AM
Xylix, the same writer of Seven Village Stomp (which started strong then was discontinued) and Haigeki (which started strong then turned into torture-porn) is now writing a FSN/Worm xover, currently two chapters long: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/1/Thaumaturgic-Awakening
Haven't read it yet. If I do, I'll leave a review.
I have. I'll spoiler it since you haven't.
[spoiler]It's starting strong enough. Not great - I don't quite like how FSN is crossing over with Worm, and justifying how something like Zion would work in Fate terms gives me a headache. I mean, I can see how. Blah blah blah TYPE whatever, blah blah blah reality marbles blah blah blah Entities trying to reach the Root, you know? Throw enough Nasu-ese at anything and you can justify it. Anyway, fundamentally Fate is one of those things I don't like crossed over much, since I always get a headache about integrating Fate's magical and cosmological setup with anything different.
That all being said, it's okay enough so far. Fun and well written, though I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm incredibly wary after Haigeki, since he went in one direction then swerved things hardcore. I don't feel like I can trust the author not to take a sharp left into a totally different zone. We'll see how it goes.
Drac: Hmm...I'd have sworn that timeline-wise, Trickster & co. were a thing before Skitter existed. But I also haven't read Worm since it was finished, and both you and Ko both actively read Worm fics. So I'll just assume that you're right.
Ko: Read it, and I agree with your second paragraph (regarding the first, I don't read enough Fate to have much of an opinion). Esp. the part about being leery after Hageki went terribly wrong.
But it's not as if I haven't written stories that turned went into WTF directions that seemed like a good idea at the time (to me, at least, if no one else). Perhaps Haigeki was one of those flukes.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 27, 2016, 09:23:09 PM
Drac: Hmm...I'd have sworn that timeline-wise, Trickster & co. were a thing before Skitter existed. But I also haven't read Worm since it was finished, and both you and Ko both actively read Worm fics. So I'll just assume that you're right.
Ko: Read it, and I agree with your second paragraph (regarding the first, I don't read enough Fate to have much of an opinion). Esp. the part about being leery after Hageki went terribly wrong.
But it's not as if I haven't written stories that turned went into WTF directions that seemed like a good idea at the time (to me, at least, if no one else). Perhaps Haigeki was one of those flukes.
That is true. Sometimes a story gets away from you, maybe that's what happened with Haigeki. Sometimes you get so into something that you make bad choices.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 27, 2016, 09:23:09 PM
Drac: Hmm...I'd have sworn that timeline-wise, Trickster & co. were a thing before Skitter existed. But I also haven't read Worm since it was finished, and both you and Ko both actively read Worm fics. So I'll just assume that you're right.
Trickster and the Travelers were definitely a thing before Skitter existed. They got their powers about 2 years before Taylor did.
However, they didn't show up in Brockton Bay until after the original story started (sorta).
They were in Boston at some point after Taylor triggered, but not sure if they were already in Brockton Bay by the time she went to the streets and fought Lung. They showed up at some point between Taylor's trigger and Leviathan.
Yeah, that was where it's reasonable to have an early trigger Taylor take out coil and he not 'yet' have the travellers in town as a consideration.
Without him there, they might never arrive in town.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10377231/49/Security
Security updated.
[spoiler]I wasn't a fan of this chapter. The cliffhanger's nice, but the problem is that we're all primed up for the final battle now. After 4 months of wait we essentially get a social tie up and filler chapter, which is rather vexing. I think a lot of the stuff here could have been done better earlier or in the epilogue, y'know? Get on with it already.
Ack does neat stuff, but really does juggle too many stories.
Quote from: Dracos on April 30, 2016, 01:23:51 AM
Ack does neat stuff, but really does juggle too many stories.
Yeah. I wish he'd just sit down and finish Security, since otherwise I don't think it'll be done before 2017. Maddening. Moreso since he updates by vote now, and the structure ensures that it's going to be slow, round robin updates instead of any focus.
Quote from: Anastasia on April 21, 2016, 07:48:31 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-girl-of-tomorrow-rewrite-of-the-last-daughter.381794/
The Last Daughter's getting a rewrite. Looks better so far, time will tell if it fixes the issues the previous incarnation had.
The last few chapters lost me.
[spoiler]
Leviathan strikes and Taylor destroys it - despite being impaled with a Sting-enhanced arbalest shot from Flechette - while getting told by Martian Manhunter that she has no limits. Just not buying it on a basic level, as I find the execution to be terribly uninteresting. An Endbringer should be a terrifying opponent, the sort of thing that takes an act of God to destroy. It wrecks havoc like nothing else and deserves the proper in setting respect. So Taylor essentially snapping and beating Leviathan like a drum is an incredibly unrewarding way to go about it.
Now some people in the story's thread are saying that a good Superman story isn't about the fights. Granted, this is often true. The problem is that combat and conflict are so integral to Worm that this doesn't fly there.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 05, 2016, 12:41:51 AM
[spoiler]Leviathan strikes and Taylor destroys it - despite being impaled with a Sting-enhanced arbalest shot from Flechette - while getting told by Martian Manhunter that she has no limits. Just not buying it on a basic level, as I find the execution to be terribly uninteresting. An Endbringer should be a terrifying opponent, the sort of thing that takes an act of God to destroy. It wrecks havoc like nothing else and deserves the proper in setting respect. So Taylor essentially snapping and beating Leviathan like a drum is an incredibly unrewarding way to go about it.
Now some people in the story's thread are saying that a good Superman story isn't about the fights. Granted, this is often true. The problem is that combat and conflict are so integral to Worm that this doesn't fly there.
Yeh. Not impressed.
Yeah. Someone in thread called Taylor a Mary Sue and I think I agree. Just the way the narrative and everything curves to her, you know? It really makes the story unrewarding. I think the author's trying to have Taylor become a beacon of hope, but it reads more like a stomp to me.
She's also amazingly self-centered in her perspective as the author writes her all over the place, very common for mary-sue type stories. Character's largely exist as set dressing for her. Events are things she 'wants', rather than actually pertinent parts of her life.
I've also lost track of H+ (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/h-mayhem-worm.380864/). It felt like it just shed plot threads en-masse post the Grey getting put together. Coil basically just self-implodes, which has to be the least satisfying take I've seen so far with him. Practically just a vengeance setup.
Continuing to read Ryuugi's danmachi. Read his older https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-the-dresden-files-deep-as-the-sea-part-2.211072/ but that sort of just cuts out and also shows how far he's come as a writer.
Drastically Overpowered Shikaku (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/120/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated.
(No actual overpowered fighting in this chapter: I'm just running out of acronym expansions)
She wipes 3 anbu~ :P
Quote from: Dracos on May 07, 2016, 02:09:02 AMShe's also amazingly self-centered in her perspective as the author writes her all over the place, very common for mary-sue type stories. Character's largely exist as set dressing for her. Events are things she 'wants', rather than actually pertinent parts of her life.
Yeah. These are all problems that more experience will fix. The author's not bad, just urgh. There's parts of the story that I like in spite of the issues I have with it.
QuoteI've also lost track of H+ (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/h-mayhem-worm.380864/). It felt like it just shed plot threads en-masse post the Grey getting put together. Coil basically just self-implodes, which has to be the least satisfying take I've seen so far with him. Practically just a vengeance setup.
I read this one yesterday. Ended up skimming as I found the OC fairly uninteresting. Everything else in the story was great, especially the interludes. But the OC didn't do it for me. I really dug his Piggot and Armsmaster confrontation and he wrote the only Mouse Protector I didn't find tiresomely insufferable. Strange, I normally don't like interludes that much and find it a disagreeable trend in Worm fanfiction.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/crouching-tiger-worm-au-alt-power.382703/
I'm continuing to enjoy Crouching Tiger, the story of dragon Taylor who is stronger than lung and more paranoid then canon. Also crazy. Updating like 3 times a week.
Translations of the Chinese webnovel, Terror Infinity (http://www.wuxiaworld.com/ti-index/).
Think of a action-fusion between Gantz, The Gamer, and lots of (mostly American) Horror Movies, and you'll get to something like Terror Infinity. The novel itself is complete (either at 20 or 25 volumes), but the translation is still ongoing. I've finished 13 volumes, and have not read the 14th (Starship Troopers) volume since I am waiting for the translation to finish.
Since I don't watch horror movies, I am sure that I'm missing a good deal of context. Still, I feel like the story is enjoyable, and I'm mentioning it here since it avoids some common pitfalls of most Xianxia stories I've been reading: completely flat main character, double-standard morality (e.g, from some other story "I went back in time to save my girl from a forced marriage. Should I rape this person to increase my power so that I can do that? Well...okay!"), and unrestricted power creep. Although to the last, it's not so much that the characters avoid power creep - rather, extreme power alone doesn't matter in the context of several types of horror movies.
My only real irritation is probably with a tendency of the translator rather than the author. Several terms are translated from the original Chinese into Japanese - why would someone from China shout "baka" or call someone "niisan"?! I think there's some discussion of Gundams and such in a few chapters, so I suppose it's possible that this is from the author and the translator is just being faithful to the text, but I suspect it's just the translator gone weeaboo. It likely won't bother most people who read this thread since it's common in fanfic.
The next chapter of the Fate/Worm fic by "I-hope-this-doesn't-turn-into-torture" Xylix, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/4/Thaumaturgic-Awakening
Looks okay so far, just wondering if it's gonna veer off into I don't even know what territory.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/32/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. Shinji approves.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 13, 2016, 11:04:32 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/32/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. Shinji approves.
I'd almost posted the link, but instead fell asleep after taking five.
Oh, and it seems that arc 2/3 of this (https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/54/Mother-of-Learning) formally ended last week.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/this-bites-one-piece-si.356819/
This Bites! came back from their three week hiatus and posted three chapters totaling in over 80k words in quick succession.
What is This Bites about? *likes One piece but is so used to bad there*
Quote from: Dracos on June 14, 2016, 05:51:18 PM
What is This Bites about? *likes One piece but is so used to bad there*
It's an SI fic about where the Author Avatar (There's three authors) is sent to the One Piece universe and marooned on a island where he quickly forms a partnership with a baby snail that ate the Noise-Noise fruit and names him Soundbite. They are quickly picked up by The Strawhats pre-Chopper and things go on from there. How this fic stands out is that the SI doesn't try to meddle with the story, he actively participates and considers himself part of the crew. As for challenges he must face, He doesn't start Made of Iron like the rest of the crew and actually has to work to get stronger. And even then, It's shown early on that he'll never be on par with Luffy or Zoro. He uses his wits to fight his battles or just plain runs from them.
The Fic itself is has a massive word count, there's never been an update since the first several chapters under 8k words.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/5/Thaumaturgic-Awakening
"No bld" <--?
A fight occurs. I'd forgotten that Xylix was good at writing those.
Currently reading I Have Materia, Your Argument Is Invalid (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/i-have-materia-your-argument-is-invalid-si-ff7.28625/), a lengthy FFVII SI fic hosted at the Sufficient Velocity board. It came recommended, but I find it a bit lacking.
Quote from: Estrecca on June 20, 2016, 05:55:12 PM
Currently reading I Have Materia, Your Argument Is Invalid (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/i-have-materia-your-argument-is-invalid-si-ff7.28625/), a lengthy FFVII SI fic hosted at the Sufficient Velocity board. It came recommended, but I find it a bit lacking.
I'm actually enjoying it.
Quote from: Estrecca on June 20, 2016, 05:55:12 PM
Currently reading I Have Materia, Your Argument Is Invalid (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/i-have-materia-your-argument-is-invalid-si-ff7.28625/), a lengthy FFVII SI fic hosted at the Sufficient Velocity board. It came recommended, but I find it a bit lacking.
Yeah, that's pretty decent. You have to be able to roll with the SI and it starts slow, but I've enjoyed it for awhile. I can easily see it being a fic that someone dislikes, even if I personally like it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/33/Path-of-the-King updated once more.
Okay so I lost my password for a while there...
Just finished yet another Percy Jackson fanfiction. And I still haven't read a lick of the canon material!
Broken Bow: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/5673899/1/
Main character is an OC of unusual circumstance which I found rather well done. Author also has 4 sequels and 2 side stories. Perhaps most impressively there's actually overarching plots spanning between multiples of all 5 'book' even the one that involves a blatant crossover. Marvelously well done, best read I've had in a while.
Blindness: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10937871/1/
Harry Potter 'what if story'. Harry is blinded by Voldemort, gets 'mage sight' and pretty much becomes an OC. That's not what I find most interesting about this fic. It's how Voldemort effectively becomes a footnote in the face of magical research and wizarding politics involving stuff like House Elf rights. This fic definitly goes in some interesting and largely unexplored directions. Also the descriptions of how Harry see's the world are quite artistic.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9250029/1/Shinobi-Team-7
I'm not sure if this was posted before, but I highly recommend it.
A sprawling Naruto AU fic with some massive changes in play, including Hashirama deciding to marry politicaly rather than out of love. The timeline is considerably lengthened with Konoha having 8 Hokages already near the beginning of the fic. Most of the changes though are based on the clans of Konoha, the politics of the shinobi world, its history, and the consequent deviations from canon it causes in the people who live in it. It's very fascinating and I was thouroughly engrossed in it for the better part of the day. The Sakura in this fic is especially interesting.
I enjoy how the history of the shinobi world is let out in small bits and pieces, which makes any tidbit you get that much more fascinating. It's also interesting to note that the lore of the world's been built from the ground up in some pretty creative ways. While maintaining the basic power structure of Konoha, the academy system's been tweaked to be a bit more realistic along with some other nice subtle changes.
I've rambled long enough, saying more would be telling. Tl;dr I really liked it.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on June 21, 2016, 02:47:46 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/33/Path-of-the-King updated once more.
[spoiler]Can't say I blame Rin there. If you don't know Satsuki and her backstory, it's insane to let an instantly risen Dead Apostle hang around.
Determining Orochimaru's Soul-forumla (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/121/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) has a new chapter
Quote from: Anastasia on June 21, 2016, 10:23:35 PM
[spoiler]Can't say I blame Rin there. If you don't know Satsuki and her backstory, it's insane to let an instantly risen Dead Apostle hang around.
That much was covered in the Tsukihime anime.
I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction. I could easily see a lesser writer taking it in a different direction.
Pretty much. Props to the writer for having Rin stick to her guns.
Pensive: Can always get in contact with me on #SR to get reset if you need it :)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/120/Dreaming-of-Sunshine has had some updates I haven't read yet.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/crouching-tiger-worm-au-alt-power.382703/ - continues to be good. The Tiger is always a show.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/danmachi-percy-jackson-prytaneum.352191/ - daily fun, currently moving into both Evilnus and a faceoff with apollo
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/that-gnawing-worm-cancer-worm-au.391395/ - Taylor is pretty messed up and has a manton-unlimited 10 lbs of any distance telekinesis. AU, teaming up with Tattletale to be sort of street level 'heroes'.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-reaping-worm-au.361821/ - Reaping has had some updates. Taylor is wandering around now teamed up with cauldron as a heroic cape stealer. Prepping to encounter the wards, who think she's worse murderer in town.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/h-mayhem-worm.380864/ - a lot of folks follow this but I'm not really all that engaged. There's neat stuff with the OC main and his Mayhem setup, but it gets often chaotic to follow toward the end.
Read a bloodborne cross that had that problem further in spades.
Separately been continuing a reread of https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7607733/1/The-Telling-Tale as a casual reread, which I wish would update and still tells the tale of the crazy mage that shakes the world in her path. Came off it after https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8501689/1/The-Havoc-side-of-the-Force which had some updates a bit ago.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/page-48#post-22730638
El Ahrairah updated.
Quote from: Dracos on June 23, 2016, 01:06:46 PMhttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/that-gnawing-worm-cancer-worm-au.391395/ - Taylor is pretty messed up and has a manton-unlimited 10 lbs of any distance telekinesis. AU, teaming up with Tattletale to be sort of street level 'heroes'.
This one's great. The dialogue is amazing and the world's interesting.
I like to imagine Cauldron won via figuring out a way to take out Scion via biological warfare. It's a neat way to imagine it shaking out and now we get to see the aftermath.
Quotehttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-reaping-worm-au.361821/ - Reaping has had some updates. Taylor is wandering around now teamed up with cauldron as a heroic cape stealer. Prepping to encounter the wards, who think she's worse murderer in town.
That one's okay, somewhere around 6/10? It doesn't excel to me, but it's competent and has a plot going. It lacks that certain je nais se quoi to put it above average. All the pieces are there but it doesn't quite live up to the sum of its parts, let alone exceed it. No idea why.
Quotehttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/h-mayhem-worm.380864/ - a lot of folks follow this but I'm not really all that engaged. There's neat stuff with the OC main and his Mayhem setup, but it gets often chaotic to follow toward the end.
I like to read the Interludes of that fic and skim the actual chapters. Everyone's more interesting than the OC to me. It has the only Mouse Protector I've ever liked plus everyone else is good. That's a weird one, no doubt about it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1343016/1/I_Hear_the_Rotors_Still
Random, weird one shot that amused me. Mash/X-MEN crossover.
Crouching had a briefly amusing Mouse Protector. Partially by virtue of having like 5 lines.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/this-bites-one-piece-si.356819/page-77#post-22758089
This Bites had a Glorious 38 K update.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/page-50#post-22775300
El Ahrairah updated, this time with Simurgh mindgames.
Not really impressed with the later chapters. It
turned into an anti-authority bash fic. The Piggot/Alexandria hate hard-on this author has is really unsettling.
Yeah, pretty much the same here. That kinda soured it. I expected more.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10485934/1/ cute parody fic on harry potter.
I've been reading more translated novels of late.
I'm Really a Superstar (http://gravitytales.com/im-really-a-superstar/) is a Chinese Light Novel featuring a young man in the modern era who is sent to another world, and who has an RPG-like trade-XP-for-bonuses system. Our hero lusts for glory, and this is a story of how he tries to get it.
But this story doesn't involve gaining levels, killing monsters, or anything of that sort. One increases XP by increasing one's reputation and entertainment contribution. The battle is not across a blood-soaked field for treasure, but across the airwaves and internet for hearts and minds and personal fandom. Naturally, the hero, like any upstanding Chinese citizen, finds his way to success through his unceasing hard workrampant IP piracy.
I find it hilarious, and while it relies a little too much on plot-driven coincidence to move the story along, it's one of the few translations I look forward to reading.
Now, that said, I know that "tales of celebrity entertainment" may not seem like a sure winner to the SR crowd. So here's a Korean-novel that might be a little more in line with everyone's interests: Game Market 1983 (http://www.pathoftranslation.com/projects/game-market-1983/) about a frustrated game dev who goes back in time and drives "M"intendo's to success. Not too far along with the translation yet, and I like the former a bit better, but it seems like it could be fun.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/page-59#post-22860461
El Ahrairah updated. Shit gets realer and hits the fan several times.
[spoiler]
Shard attunement makes sense to me based where the fic is. I always thought Contessa was more her shard with a few fragments of Fortuna left, so I can buy all this. The confrontation with Eidolon was incredibly ugly. I agree with a lot of what was said (on both sides), but wow.
Not really sure what to think of the chapter overall. Needs time to digest.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/
DK:A found a new home over on Sufficient Velocity.
Holy shit Cloudy Path updated.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/page-488#post-22870759 (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/page-488#post-22870759)
Yeah was just coming here to say that. What the heck! :)
How's the chapter? I'd have to reread a ton of it to get back into it, and I don't have the time or inclination right now.
Caught up on El Ahrairah and...
Frankly having trouble keeping interest.
Basically he's gone chapter after chapter of Taylor either being the explicit center of importance or thrashing in vicious social combat with her supposed allies. Everyone in the story was just painted with an enormously manipulative brush, which really begs how serious they are about the real problem, being willing to repeatedly play these sort of petty social power games (Taylor included). It feels like a wave of them, and win or lose, going chapter by chapter in repeated little power games (sometimes two in one as this had) is just draining and disorienting from the theoretical goal.
For all Taylor deduced there needed be several options, we're really not having any put together. Her hero optimization has completely stopped. Her non-combative relationships are gone. Nobody is successfully snarky or jokey or cheerful or even supportive. They're either It is all on you or WE BRING OUT THE KNIVES!
Tails in Copeatic makes for an intriguing sentient shard character. Unnamed Voice in Taylor's Head... just doesn't right now and it is kind of a weak time to enter in the middle of all of these things. It feels like the author is very much (through Contessa) trying to set Taylor in the right mindset... but the whole world seems to be out of the picture. Irrelevant/ I dunno. It's actually really comparable with Copeatic there where there is a lot of other characters who aren't circling taylor like some god figure (and plenty that are). Here, even petty opposition to taylor gets handwaved away in favor of just more social duels.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 04, 2016, 07:11:51 PM
How's the chapter? I'd have to reread a ton of it to get back into it, and I don't have the time or inclination right now.
Decent, I'd wait a bit. There still in the thick of the Noelle situation and that probably would be better as a single story.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/this-bites-one-piece-si.356819/page-83#post-22864400 This Bites! has a good update that ends on a cliffhanger.
Cloudy Path got another update.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/agents-and-shield-worm-mcu.397642/
Armsmaster gets sucked into the MCU before Worm canon starts, gets up to shenanigans with Iron Man. Only one chapter's up but it's promising.
Cloudy Path keeps updating and today's was great. https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/
Still on Noel, Drac?
Wrapping it up.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/agents-and-shield-worm-mcu.397642/page-10#post-22960236
Agents and Shield updated.
Random things I'm reading:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/e-l-f-extraterrestrial-lifeform-worm-warhammer-40k.402088 Taylor triggers as an Eldar from WH40k. Looks okay so far, too early to tell. Not a fan of the thread besides the story posts.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/wearing-roberts-crown-asoiaf-si.382035/ - ASOIAF SI fic. Normally a bunch of turnoffs, this one's well executed by using rotating PoVs and never showing the SI's point of view. The SI takes Robert's place during Robert's Rebellion and things begin when he captures the Iron Throne. Moves at a reasonable clip and does a great job of storytelling with the various PoVs.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11904112/1/Never - Sequel to the author's previous story, Always. It's okay for what it is. Basic idea is that on the Halloween Voldemort kills the Potters, Snape manages to guess what's going on and who the traitor is out of sheer desperation. He manages to intervene and saves Lily's life, wounding Voldemort and holding him off long enough for Dumbledore to arrive. Events diverge from there. It's okay for what it is, so long as you accept the first few chapters as acceptable to set up the premise. Has its flaws but I like it. The sequel's several months later as Wizarding Britain deals with a Death Eater breakout and everyone trying to reassemble their shattered lives.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12027235/1/Conflict - An Ack story, in case that's not your thing. A few minor changes mean Contessa kills Eden without her restricting PtV. A Doctor Mother PoV of following Contessa, who decides to give her a corrected version of Eidolon's powers right away. It's okay right now, but Chantelle really doesn't feel right to me. It could be interesting and seeing how PtV would handle defeating Scion's a decent hook.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/mettle-worm-au.401710/ guy did like a bunch of chapters this week. From start. AU, AU. Taylor gets chevellier's power. Also nearly gets murdered by shadow stalker.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/crouching-tiger-worm-au-alt-power.382703/page-115#post-23349034 - Crouching tiger had a colin interlude.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/how-i-learned-to-stop-hating-and-love-the-bomb-that-is-nero-worm-au-historical-insert.342737/ - Has the best S9 arc in the history of S9 arcs
Quote from: Anastasia on July 09, 2016, 10:39:25 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/agents-and-shield-worm-mcu.397642/page-10#post-22960236
Agents and Shield updated.
Still kinda casual. *nods, reading along
Quote from: Dracos on July 23, 2016, 03:19:17 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/mettle-worm-au.401710/ guy did like a bunch of chapters this week. From start. AU, AU. Taylor gets chevellier's power. Also nearly gets murdered by shadow stalker.
It's firmly okay and not much more in either direction. It's fine for what the author said it is - an exercise in getting a chapter out each day. I respect that and what he's doing. This doesn't make the best literature ever and that's fine, it's just writing discipline practice. Getting a story out of it's purely a fun bonus.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/page-65#post-23564041
El Ahrairah updated. Contains an awesome chapter involving, Uber, Leet, Administrator and video game references. Far, far, far better than this sounds.
[spoiler]I love how this fic portrays PtV and how powerful it is. Contessa just casually sets things into motion, with wheels in wheels in wheels that keep showing up.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/agents-and-shield-worm-mcu.397642/page-18#post-23572315
Agents and Shield updated.
Sleeping with the Girls updated after a really huge interval: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/6052381/28/ (https://m.fanfiction.net/s/6052381/28/)
For a slightly cynical part of my mind, the headcanon had been that the updates had permanently stopped at 27 because
that's when the SI had gone unhinged from the stress and perished by unleashing a magical blast that also leveled half of Nerima
. He had been showing some danger signs.
Quote from: Arakawa on July 27, 2016, 12:38:34 AM
Sleeping with the Girls updated after a really huge interval: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/6052381/28/ (https://m.fanfiction.net/s/6052381/28/)
For a slightly cynical part of my mind, the headcanon had been that the updates had permanently stopped at 27 because that's when the SI had gone unhinged from the stress and perished by unleashing a magical blast that also leveled half of Nerima
I know! Isn't it wonderful! (the update I mean)
I could believe that, Arakawa. Still, I'll take an update when can get one.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 23, 2016, 10:57:55 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/page-65#post-23564041
El Ahrairah updated. Contains an awesome chapter involving, Uber, Leet, Administrator and video game references. Far, far, far better than this sounds.
[spoiler]I love how this fic portrays PtV and how powerful it is. Contessa just casually sets things into motion, with wheels in wheels in wheels that keep showing up.
That was a fun chapter, and a great separation from the 'let me go tête-à-tête with my allies and try ...something'. Chrono trigger references are always great.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286/ has started the simurgh arc. The johnson initiative is...not having a good day. Updating pretty frequently right now.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/warrior-of-dusk-taylors-quest-to-dance-firaga-suplex-all-the-things-worm-finalfantasy-storyonly.30554/ - This is crack, but amusing crack. Suplex. City Chocobo.
Reading https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/therapy-a-wormfic.29673/page-45#post-6343615 at the moment which is kinda wish-fiction at the moment rather than anything good. Read Wolf Time, which just was kinda mediocre all around (too lazy to go link it).
Well, that's what I'm reading today.
Quotehttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/e-l-f-extraterrestrial-lifeform-worm-warhammer-40k.402088/page-47#post-23763877
E.L.F. updated. Seems okay.
[spoiler]There isn't anything directly wrong with the fic so far. Sure, being able to thinker the Endbringers and Scion is potentially broken, but I can live with it. If she's an OCP, it makes sense, since Worm precog only fails on them due to restrictions set in place by the Entities. They have no innate resistance to those sort of powers, so fine, whatever. However, something about the fic plus some author comments have me starting to feel this is going down the path of unneededly overpowered Taylor-ness. It's setting off my alarms with each chapter.
Quote from: Dracos on July 28, 2016, 01:30:56 AMhttps://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/warrior-of-dusk-taylors-quest-to-dance-firaga-suplex-all-the-things-worm-finalfantasy-storyonly.30554/ - This is crack, but amusing crack. Suplex. City Chocobo.
Great fun, 100% because the author is writing out of her mind. Wonderful dialogue and feel, 10/10.
QuoteReading https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/therapy-a-wormfic.29673/page-45#post-6343615 at the moment which is kinda wish-fiction at the moment rather than anything good. Read Wolf Time, which just was kinda mediocre all around (too lazy to go link it).
Agreed. I read a bit and thought it was flat and not good at all.
Yeah, I got a decent way into therepy but it just got worse with each chapter. The tentacles were a definite 'you can't tell the difference between crack and coherent can you?' moment.
Quote from: Dracos on July 30, 2016, 12:32:33 PM
Yeah, I got a decent way into therepy but it just got worse with each chapter. The tentacles were a definite 'you can't tell the difference between crack and coherent can you?' moment.
Tenta...what?
Quote from: Anastasia on July 30, 2016, 01:41:20 PM
Tenta...what?
I haven't read the fic at issue, but this sound like one of those questions that you may not really want answered.
Yeaaaaaah. How does a therapy power turn into tentacles? I almost want to know just out of sheer WTF.
The author (who briefly pitched the fic as rationalist, then as humanist) had Taylor (on effectively first meeting) befriend/help Pancaea. Then ask for a tuneup/brute powers. Then they started discussing options. Then taylor demanded tentacles to be able to striker power people at range.
It was a very stupid scene, and like many stupid scenes had spider silk references in a story without insect powers being involved.
Quote from: Dracos on August 02, 2016, 12:49:35 AM
The author (who briefly pitched the fic as rationalist, then as humanist)
I'm out, thanks. Shit man, you didn't need to say anything else.
Yeah seriously, Rationalist is a great codeword for filtering out awful shit at the summary level.
Yeah, it really is. The author only mentioned it in a post-word about 20 chapters in. Either way, wasn't worth noticing.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/that-gnawing-worm-cancer-worm-au.391395/page-60#post-23890460
That Gnawing Worm updated. I liked the update, but I heartily recommend only reading that and not any of the comments. That's good advice for many Spacebattles fics, but this one in particular went downhill fast.
Quote from: Anastasia on July 29, 2016, 03:07:39 PM
E.L.F. updated. Seems okay.
It's Shujin, I can't stand her stuff.
Quote from: Yuthirin on August 02, 2016, 06:03:23 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on July 29, 2016, 03:07:39 PM
E.L.F. updated. Seems okay.
It's Shujin, I can't stand her stuff.
Fair enough. I'm not the biggest fan of her other stories, so we'll see if this one bucks the trend.
I think Witch is alright. It feels a lot less cluttered than some of her other fare.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/e-l-f-extraterrestrial-lifeform-worm-warhammer-40k.402088/page-66#post-23955460
E.L.F updated. No strong opinion on this one.
Been reeading Twinning(s) (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/twinning-s-worm-altpower.408788/) in which Taylor has Coil's power and despite not being a criminal mastermind still manages to pick up many of the same habits Coil has.
It's fun.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/this-bites-one-piece-si.356819/page-123#post-23972609
This Bites! Updated.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-am-skitter-worm.410333/
This is..uh...this is a thing, I guess. A thing that happened that I'm enjoying more than I should.
Quote from: Ebiris on August 03, 2016, 02:43:23 PM
Been reeading Twinning(s) (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/twinning-s-worm-altpower.408788/) in which Taylor has Coil's power and despite not being a criminal mastermind still manages to pick up many of the same habits Coil has.
It's fun.
It's fun as long as you can keep your brain firmly turned off. Great fun for what it is, but I feel like it's a house of cards. Poke at it at a ll, take it seriously or out of context and it collapses.
I'm still reading it, so it's doing things right in spite of that.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 03, 2016, 11:52:05 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-am-skitter-worm.410333/
This is..uh...this is a thing, I guess. A thing that happened that I'm enjoying more than I should.
Had a read, it's good stuff.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 03, 2016, 11:52:05 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-am-skitter-worm.410333/
This is..uh...this is a thing, I guess. A thing that happened that I'm enjoying more than I should.
Beacon Hill. Jeez. I dunno, man. His Worm/Lovecraft fic actually turned my stomach, and I'm a fiend for Lovecraft stuff.
Ryuugi got another update on https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/danmachi-percy-jackson-prytaneum.352191/.
Mettle keeps going but last few chapters have been weak.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sheltering-wings-worm-slight-au.386495/ - read this...it was not going anywhere really. Starts with a weird rant on slavery, and has the oddest handling of the locker I've yet seen... followed by weird lung fight. Basically Taylor gets some stranger powers (too).
I skitter and Twinning both are a house of cards...
but basically enjoyable psychopath behavior.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/e-l-f-extraterrestrial-lifeform-worm-warhammer-40k.402088/page-76#post-24040448
The last line of the chapter's great.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12070227/1/Don-t-Blink
Naruto/Dune xover, 7 chapters so far.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/agents-and-shield-worm-mcu.397642/page-23#post-24201319
Agents and Shield updated. Mainly notable for blowing off SHIELD and being a wind down segment after last chapter.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nightingale-worm-dnd-bard-taylor.381918/ - updated, one of a couple D&D powers in wormverse fics.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/that-gnawing-worm-cancer-worm-au.391395 - nugar's current work. A significantly AU worm with Taylor having no shits to give, due to having super-cancer. Also no-manton-limit telekinesis. It stays street level, with Taylor and Lisa teaming up...to fight off union breaking.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-change-of-pace-worm-dishonored.346694/ a fic...which has had friendship actually mean something. Yes, I'm gonna go there, despite it being the story of dishonored involving bone harvesting cultists.
Also cloudy path is updating again https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286/. For those who haven't read it instantly. o_o
Quote from: Dracos on August 09, 2016, 12:25:17 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nightingale-worm-dnd-bard-taylor.381918/ - updated, one of a couple D&D powers in wormverse fics.
This one's really fun for what it is. I'm enjoying it more as the story goes and the recent update was pure fun. Taylor's friendship with Glory Girl is amazing and I could even live with it turning romantic. As someone who finds most Worm hookups like that tiresome at best (hello all the Taylor/Amy fics), that's high praise.
Quotehttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/that-gnawing-worm-cancer-worm-au.391395 - nugar's current work. A significantly AU worm with Taylor having no shits to give, due to having super-cancer. Also no-manton-limit telekinesis. It stays street level, with Taylor and Lisa teaming up...to fight off union breaking.
Fun but only read the updates. The thread's messy.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sailor-moon-si-im-a-what-now-my-surprising-new-job.411047/
This is an example of a fic that uses an odd idea to immediately capture your curiosity. The SI's cat advisor is a total asshole so far, which is doing a great job at provoking questions and keeping me reading. It's not a great story otherwise (so far), but that one hook's executed well.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 05, 2016, 10:44:55 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/e-l-f-extraterrestrial-lifeform-worm-warhammer-40k.402088/page-76#post-24040448
The last line of the chapter's great.
That was neat to read :) *started/caught up today*
Quote from: Anastasia on August 09, 2016, 01:21:02 PM
Fun but only read the updates. The forum's messy.
FTFY.
Heh, I almost never read the posts. It's just a rare thing to participate over there.
Thirded. I don't really much like Spacebattles and its culture, but it's where the fics are right now.
Quote from: Dracos on August 10, 2016, 11:49:17 PM
Heh, I almost never read the posts. It's just a rare thing to participate over there.
I participate. Not really full discussions, but I frequently post a comment or two on stories I like.
From the author of both Atonement and Intrepid fame, comes Cerulean's original story Heretical Edge.
https://ceruleanscrawling.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/orientation-1-01/
It's about an academy of Monster hunters that our main character Felicity Chambers finds herself dragged into. though right off the bat as we learn there's more to the world, we learn that Felicity's past is not what she thought...
1-2:
Student: But how you are going to explain this to my dad?
Teacher: We're going to mind-fuck him so he thinks you're going to a boarding school. We cool?
Student: Hmm...okay!
1-3:
"That is one of the greatest strengths of these invaders, to remove all true memory of their existence from the minds of their victims."
I intend to keep reading. That jumped out enough for me to want to make an early comment.
Oh it gets better down the line once things get more...grey.
Just finished 12-6, the latest posted part.
That early comment is interesting in light of how the rest of the story has gone.
Also, I want to use Shiori's "satisfactory" line in a real conversation. Even though I'll probably get beaten for it. :)
I'm glad you liked it!
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaami.
...
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaami.
This is the most light hearted worm romp I have read yet. It has been sunshine on a cloudy day every day for a bit. Taylor gets lost at art camp at a younger age, and is adopted by Ammy, who then follows her home. Mom still dies. Dad is...slightly better off, but still neglectful. Emma's still a bitch.
She's gained magical paint powers, but hasn't really noticed it.
Oh, the ABB has decided she's a shrine maiden and are starting protection rackets around her at school.
Ammy trolls a lot.
Oni pets a dog.
Armsmaster also pets a dog.
Wait you're still reading this and not the fic? Go read the fic. The chapters are super tiny, but cute anyway.
Quote from: Dracos on August 18, 2016, 11:14:00 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaami.
...
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaami.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/speaking-of-divine-intervention-pmmm-okami.350948/
Have even MOAR Okami! This time in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Watch as the grim world gets turn upside down by the Derpwolf Goddess of the Sun.
Watch as shit gets real weird without magical girls or witches even being involved.
Watch as Ammy reacts to various legends such as her stint of as a cavewolf and how for some reason people believed she was related to Susanoo.
Watch as Homura is REALLY confused as to what the hell is going on.
Watch as Ammy does what she does best and just make everything better, in the derpiest way possible most of the time.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/helios-worm-okami.5028/
An unfortunately dead fix where Taylor gets Ammy Powers. The SUN has risen upon Brockton Bay, grimdark can go die in a hole.
Also Lung is more than just a DragonyRageMonster. And apparently can recognise a Sun Goddess when he see's one despite her being a foreign devil.
Quote from: Dracos on August 18, 2016, 11:14:00 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaami.
It's okay. Grabs me the least of any of the author's works, but there's nothing wrong with it. It's just different.
Sure seems to have caught lightning in a bottle with the board reaction, though.
The last chapter didn't work for me (too heavy handed in a few ways), but I generally enjoy seeing Ammy antics.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/6/Thaumaturgic-Awakening updated early this month.
That was kind of neat, even if everyone felt more kind of strange.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10286919/1/Recoil updated recently. Moving things along from the near death experience.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 19, 2016, 03:16:40 AM
Quote from: Dracos on August 18, 2016, 11:14:00 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaami.
It's okay. Grabs me the least of any of the author's works, but there's nothing wrong with it. It's just different.
Sure seems to have caught lightning in a bottle with the board reaction, though.
Both last chapters have been sadly weak. Whether from an absurdist Emma setup or from both Lung and Taylor acting like hand-puppets.
Needs more Derply Ammy.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/speaking-of-divine-intervention-pmmm-okami.350948/
Read some of this, but it doesn't quite get Ammy as a character in the early parts at least. She's more just a background constant effect of being fawned over. It felt really weird.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/page-67#post-24917606
El Ahrairah updated.
It is getting a lot better since Lucca got on camera.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/hammer-time-worm-alt-power.417469/ - Taylor has the power of Oops, I smooshed That. Some people don't believe her.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/firebird-a-worm-au-xover.328260/ - firebird updated after a year.
Recoil has also updated twice...Character backstory and stuff.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/but-mom-i-dont-wanna-be-a-pirate-rewrite-one-piece-si.355474/page-162#post-24929486
My now second favorite One Piece SI fic has updated after half a year.
Quote from: Dracos on August 27, 2016, 08:29:27 PMhttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/hammer-time-worm-alt-power.417469/ - Taylor has the power of Oops, I smooshed That. Some people don't believe her.
First chapter or two was okay, went downhill once Sophia showed up. The author feels like a beginner all around. That's fine and all, but there's parts of it that are painful to read on account of it.
Quotehttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/firebird-a-worm-au-xover.328260/ - firebird updated after a year.
Can't make myself much care. That fic was a few good spots amid a lot of stuff that didn't work for me, plus I got really tired of Taylor in that fic.
---
Sorta sad I don't know One Piece since that one SI keeps updating and it's apparently good, but so it goes.
I typically don't let no prior knowledge of a fandom prevent me from reading good fanfiction. Sure it helps, but it can also serve as and introduction to the series.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/cutting-ties-worm-altpower.420239/
this has gotten pretty decent. Taylor's a run-away...with Jack's power. She can't handle talking with her own old man, but is going around befriending and living as a vigilante. Took out Oni Lee... and Took Out Rune... Well, rune was to lunch. Oni lee is hungry business.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/cutting-ties-worm-altpower.420239 updated again... and again since I last posted.
That said it kinda has me raising my eyebrow a lot. Tattletale outright plays around with the impression of family kidnapping...which I can't see Grue in any way wanting to be near, whether it did really happen or not. The magical deus-ex-video (which the actual detailed scene doesn't really provide options for being filmed and is involving events in a 30ish minute ago time frame) is bad enough, but basically escalating with family kidnapping for a job offer from the undersiders is basically asking for them to get their faces punched in.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/page-181#post-25124974
Constellations updated.
[spoiler]
I'm not going to lie, I don't really care for the fic. It's not bad, but it feels like a largely generic fix fic. It gilds the lily differently than most with some interesting bits, but the structure feels the same. It's just...shallow, in a way that feels it's more like a vehicle for fluff than a serious Worm fic. Which is a shame, since there's some good ideas in there.
This probably comes down to the fic not being a good match for me rather than any flaw.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper.31639/
DK:A updated in its new home.
Quote from: Rukatin on August 28, 2016, 07:46:27 PM
I typically don't let no prior knowledge of a fandom prevent me from reading good fanfiction. Sure it helps, but it can also serve as and introduction to the series.
This is actually how I got into anime & fanfiction as a whole.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/absolution-worm-au.375877/
Absolution had an update recently. Amelia kinda is a judgmental mega-hypocrit in it. With a ruined arm and a concussion. So fair excuse...
but yeah, basically the undersiders are picking the pieces of their team off the pavement in it.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-am-skitter-worm.410333/page-24#post-25253218
I am Skitter updated.
[spoiler]This is almost like a teen movie that has the outcast get revenge, only with Worm's style and a whole lot of horrifying violence.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/this-bites-one-piece-si.356819/page-161#post-25225240
This Bites! updated. And I missed it by minutes last night waiting for before going to bed.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 05, 2016, 12:47:44 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-am-skitter-worm.410333/page-24#post-25253218
I am Skitter updated.
[spoiler]This is almost like a teen movie that has the outcast get revenge, only with Worm's style and a whole lot of horrifying violence.
Almost? :)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/page-195#post-25312087
Constellations updated. The best chapter in awhile, mostly because of the PoV change. Reminds me a lot of Firebird, insofar that I liked everything there but the Taylor PoVs.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7057744/1/Cast-in-Gold
Updated, though I admit I've kinda stopped reading it.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/messages-from-an-angel-worm.31268/page-6#post-6723322 - seems sorta wish-ficy. Simurgh and taylor, best of friends.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/thoughts-as-light-as-a-feather-worm-au-altpower.425272/ - Simurgh-Taylor is the scariest rogue TK precog in Brockton. Now taking notes on her whiteboard. Done by Crouching Tiger author, another 'So you've got the awesome power, kick in the junk, isn't it?' style fic.
Quote from: Anastasia on September 06, 2016, 04:30:53 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/page-195#post-25312087
Constellations updated. The best chapter in awhile, mostly because of the PoV change. Reminds me a lot of Firebird, insofar that I liked everything there but the Taylor PoVs.
Oni lee is petting Good Dog. (E.g. more updates, often with two POVs)
Another Chinese LN being translated, 836 chapters in total, only 60 of which have been translated so far: http://gravitytales.com/the-experimental-log-of-the-crazy-lich/
Summary in that link:
Quote
The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich
This is a story of a crazy Lich who possesses an internal gaming system, bringing catastrophe to the entire world
"Looking at the daily quests... It is the damned choose one-of-two option again. Destroy a town with a population of 30,000 people of above, reward: 10,000 evil points. Steal lollipop from 3 children, reward: 1 evil point. If neither of the quests are completed, 2 points are deducted."
"Tsk! You think that I would be so foolish? If I really destroyed a town, a crusade of epic class Holy Knights would definitely come hunting me down. Then, even if I did earn my points, there wouldn't be any life left in me to spend them. I guess I better obediently stick to being my lollipop thief."
I am long sick of being a notorious lich. Who says that a lich cannot be a good person? I will definitely find a way to triumph over this damned system and be an upright and dignified good man.
The part that may appeal is that this is definitely D&D based (probably Forgotten Realms, but I'm not well enough versed to really say for sure).
Not much I can say without spoilers that wasn't already mentioned in the summary. My impression of the author is that he is probably the type of person to come up with the Head of Vecna.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/taylor-varga-worm-luna-varga.398991/ - read some of this...but gave up before it got Taylor out of 'trying out powers, interacting primarily with Danny Hebert, Debator On High, Known and Feared By All, Union Boss to End Union Bosses'.
Yeah, that fic felt like it wasn't going anywhere.
I gave up when Emily started yammering on how they needed the director of the PRT to have a conversation with Danny, because he is too damn smart.
What.
As I said, the whole thing starts early with a premise of danny is just a really functional/well-connected union boss and goes up from there. Sure his daughter has the powers, but it hasn't mattered in any scene so far. He's recognized on sight by simply villains, a known figure of importance by Piggot, etc, etc.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286/ has been having good updates lately. Taylor is starting to break out of the game.
She's really starting to stop being so mopey and get stuff done. I'm looking forward to when she finally breaks down and builds an army of tanks. We haven't seen the 9 yet, who knows what will happen.
Discovered Monster (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/monster.29235/) yesterday, in which Taylor triggers with Night's power and uses her invincible alt-form to go around assassinating horrible people like Nilbog and Heartbreaker.
Features the best Taylor/Cherish teamup you never knew you wanted.
It appears that Becuzitswrong (https://www.reddit.com/r/WormFanfic/comments/53ddhz/author_becuzitswrong_passed/), the author of some worm fanfics (Memories of Iron, Railgun & Propensity for Wrath (https://forums.spacebattles.com/search/43886081/)), passed away from a heart attack earlier today.
Didn't really know him, though I followed those three fanfics.
That's a shame, I read Propensity for Wrath.
Quote from: Ebiris on September 18, 2016, 07:47:26 AM
Discovered Monster (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/monster.29235/) yesterday, in which Taylor triggers with Night's power and uses her invincible alt-form to go around assassinating horrible people like Nilbog and Heartbreaker.
Features the best Taylor/Cherish teamup you never knew you wanted.
Yeah, I was surprised when she showed up, but their relationship is hilarious.
The Journey (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-journey-ranma-1-2-crossover.433469/) continues.
Quote from: thepanda on September 24, 2016, 12:05:23 AM
The Journey (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-journey-ranma-1-2-crossover.433469/) continues.
Holy moley.
Quote from: Merc on September 19, 2016, 02:08:41 AM
It appears that Becuzitswrong (https://www.reddit.com/r/WormFanfic/comments/53ddhz/author_becuzitswrong_passed/), the author of some worm fanfics (Memories of Iron, Railgun & Propensity for Wrath (https://forums.spacebattles.com/search/43886081/)), passed away from a heart attack earlier today.
Didn't really know him, though I followed those three fanfics.
Ah, just made a thread on that. Should've clicked here too. But yeah, same. Shame.
Quote from: Ebiris on September 18, 2016, 07:47:26 AM
Discovered Monster (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/monster.29235/) yesterday, in which Taylor triggers with Night's power and uses her invincible alt-form to go around assassinating horrible people like Nilbog and Heartbreaker.
Features the best Taylor/Cherish teamup you never knew you wanted.
Monster is pretty awesome :)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/page-442#post-26447431
TGWP's has a sequel teaser up.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 03, 2016, 05:29:23 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/page-442#post-26447431
TGWP's has a sequel teaser up.
*high pitched squee followed by glass breaking*
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/8/Thaumaturgic-Awakening
Chapter-long fight scene, with ending twist that doesn't seem out of place in a worm-based setting.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/thoughts-as-light-as-a-feather-worm-au-altpower.425272/ trolling as the simurgh. The fourth wall is a suggestion.
You too now have bugs in your cereal.
Been reading a lot of random stuff. Glassmaker https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glassmaker-worm.433391/ is kinda pointless with Taylor the hippie glass maker of aura of 'Hey dude, Chill Out?'
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/how-i-learned-to-stop-hating-and-love-the-bomb-that-is-nero-worm-au-historical-insert.342737/ nero updated and Taylor is back but other than that wasn't a ...
PANCAEA, WHY HAVE YOU NOT DECLARED YOURSELF GOD EMPRESS?
Impressive chapter really.
Reread https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/danmachi-percy-jackson-prytaneum.352191/ but it stays stalled ;_;
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/one-future-lightly-used-mass-effect-fallout.322704/page-18#post-18927424 - fallout ascended type universe in mass effect. Kinda excessive on the rules cracking. Shepard is basically a human Minmax game-played puppet. Not really recommended so much as just encountered and gave it a try.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 06, 2016, 08:17:15 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/8/Thaumaturgic-Awakening
Chapter-long fight scene, with ending twist that doesn't seem out of place in a worm-based setting.
The next is also on spacebattles I think? Anyhow he does two chapters in a row that both end with "and rin was dead". Kinda wouldn't mind him moving on.
Quote from: Dracos on October 09, 2016, 12:43:23 AMBeen reading a lot of random stuff. Glassmaker https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glassmaker-worm.433391/ is kinda pointless with Taylor the hippie glass maker of aura of 'Hey dude, Chill Out?'
I sort of like that fic, but only reading it like a half remembered dream. It has a distinctly dream-like quality to it, something that appeals when you just accept it for what it is and consume it like cotton candy.
Dreaming of Sunshine updated.
Quote from: Dracos on October 09, 2016, 12:46:31 AM
The next is also on spacebattles I think? Anyhow he does two chapters in a row that both end with "and rin was dead". Kinda wouldn't mind him moving on.
I should probably actively crawl spacebattles instead of waiting for people to post interesting links.
On the flip side, waiting for you all to post fics means I don't have to suffer through dross, so maybe I should just keep doing what I'm already doing.
Quote from: thepanda on October 09, 2016, 06:51:05 PM
Dreaming of Sunshine updated.
Destruction Of evil Seal updated, but just seems filler. Maybe it's a lead in to a new arc, or something. It's not bad, but I kind of expected more after a few summer months.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 09, 2016, 11:47:59 PMOn the flip side, waiting for you all to post fics means I don't have to suffer through dross, so maybe I should just keep doing what I'm already doing.
Not a bad call. Spacebattles has a horrible signal to noise ratio.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 09, 2016, 11:47:59 PM
I should probably actively crawl spacebattles instead of waiting for people to post interesting links.
It's not exactly pleasant, though the threadmarks and watched threads options allow you to ignore most of the posts.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286 there has been more.
It is not lisa's fault.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/skein-worm-altpower-au.437953/ may at some point be interesting. Playing with odd dictionary based master power.
Skein is interesting for the buildup, we will see if the payoff's worth it.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/
Constellations has updated a few times recently. I'm still not digging this fic and wish the author would work on anything else. I know inspiration is what it is, but it feels like the author's weakest story by a mile. Based on all the hype around it, I'm probably alone on that one.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/centipede-worm-tokyo-ghoul.431353/ Slacker recommended this to earlier today. It's...a surprisingly interesting take not knowing the other side of the crossover. Taylor has cannibal trigger and it doesn't go well for her. She tries to make her way anyway, after getting named by a surprisingly thoughtful take on Kenta/Lung. It just reached the leviathan, with Taylor having put together the most powerful gang in the city... despite Lung and his ABB still being at full strength.
It focuses a lot on 'okay, so there's parahumans, but a gang is not 3 people. Territory is not 3 people. Folks get involved with this for reasons.'
Basically trying to make a plausible ecosystem around the gang culture of brockton. Recommend.
JMenace decided to rewrite The Howling Wind.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12189664/1/The-Howling-Wind
Older version has been renamed.
Quote from: Dracos on October 16, 2016, 07:52:18 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/centipede-worm-tokyo-ghoul.431353/ Slacker recommended this to earlier today. It's...a surprisingly interesting take not knowing the other side of the crossover. Taylor has cannibal trigger and it doesn't go well for her. She tries to make her way anyway, after getting named by a surprisingly thoughtful take on Kenta/Lung. It just reached the leviathan, with Taylor having put together the most powerful gang in the city... despite Lung and his ABB still being at full strength.
It focuses a lot on 'okay, so there's parahumans, but a gang is not 3 people. Territory is not 3 people. Folks get involved with this for reasons.'
Basically trying to make a plausible ecosystem around the gang culture of brockton. Recommend.
I saw this on the forum but always skipped by 'cause I don't know the crossover. Working through it now and yeah, it's good and prior knowledge isn't required. Stuff focused on the gangland/warlord part of Worm is my jam, so thanks for the recommendation Drac/Slacker.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glassmaker-worm.433391/page-16#post-27076181
Glassmaker updated. Still like a waking dream.
Quote from: Ebiris on October 18, 2016, 01:44:22 PM
I saw this on the forum but always skipped by 'cause I don't know the crossover. Working through it now and yeah, it's good and prior knowledge isn't required. Stuff focused on the gangland/warlord part of Worm is my jam, so thanks for the recommendation Drac/Slacker.
Glad you enjoyed Eb. It's got some really neat stuff. I liked nobody explaining unwritten rules to her for a while, with her not getting it in light of 'hey the guys in my gang without a mask on are still people. My people.'
I've seen a small bit of tokyo ghoul and it basically seemed super-power dystopia, only half those with superpowers are canabalism fueled and/or insane. Seemed uninteresting, while having a single person dealing with it can be compelling.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 19, 2016, 07:02:25 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glassmaker-worm.433391/page-16#post-27076181
Glassmaker updated. Still like a waking dream.
Was gonna be a supervillian, but then I got high
Was gonna go lootin' and killin', but then I got high
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/memoria-nge.32958/
New fic, first chapter has tons of potential. Depends where it ends up going, but it's interesting.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/centipede-worm-tokyo-ghoul.431353/ - some excellent post leviathan scenes. A very adaptive cauldron.
Quote from: Dracos on October 25, 2016, 10:13:05 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/centipede-worm-tokyo-ghoul.431353/ - some excellent post leviathan scenes. A very adaptive cauldron.
Eidolon was written really well, I felt.
The bit with the Eligor & Valefor was nice. Someone finally has a sensible reaction to the Fallen. Amazing.
Quote from: Yuthirin on October 26, 2016, 05:09:40 PM
The bit with the Eligor & Valefor was nice. Someone finally has a sensible reaction to the Fallen. Amazing.
"Cannibalism: The sensible choice."
Another wendnesday, another https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286/
Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 26, 2016, 05:49:15 PM
Quote from: Yuthirin on October 26, 2016, 05:09:40 PM
The bit with the Eligor & Valefor was nice. Someone finally has a sensible reaction to the Fallen. Amazing.
"Cannibalism: The sensible choice."
It's Worm; the sensible choice is rarely palatable. Immediately ambushing the Fallen as they entered the city and removing Valefor's eyes was what I was referring to, really. >_>
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glassmaker-worm.433391/page-20#post-27535110
Glassmaker finished.
It's okay for what it is. I won't pretend this is some great story, but it's an interesting piece with its own odd tone. It works if you accept it for what it is. If you can't or won't, it's probably a waste of time for you.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 31, 2016, 02:30:47 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glassmaker-worm.433391/page-20#post-27535110
Glassmaker finished.
It's okay for what it is. I won't pretend this is some great story, but it's an interesting piece with its own odd tone. It works if you accept it for what it is. If you can't or won't, it's probably a waste of time for you.
I liked it. Weird. but not offensively so.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/daybreak-worm-oc-si.450048/
There. Done and went started my own fanfiction.
Go you, Rukatin :)
Cool. I'll take a look and offer some critique at some point soon. I have it open in a tab but I have some things to do first.
Quote from: Anastasia on October 31, 2016, 02:30:47 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glassmaker-worm.433391/page-20#post-27535110
Glassmaker finished.
It's okay for what it is. I won't pretend this is some great story, but it's an interesting piece with its own odd tone. It works if you accept it for what it is. If you can't or won't, it's probably a waste of time for you.
It was enjoyable to read, but yeah, requires starting very AU. Whatever subtle 'go be combaty/experimenty' drive seems to be missing. There's basically a non-presences of any of the gang capes at any time in the story. Taylor is super hippie (with basically mega-brute levels too) who is never pushed on it at all. I think she may be supposed to have second-triggered early, to explain the super-hippie angle, but basically it's suggested that there are two powerful capes which, outside of the PRT offering a job to Taylor, don't even get bothered or have to interact with the troublesome parts of the very broken city. The primary 'conflict' is Emma, but even that is very one-sided.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/copacetic-worm.283578/page-559#post-27682872
Copacetic updated. Don't read the spoiler until you've read the chapter, it's a big one.
[spoiler]
I'll be honest, the last few chapters haven't done much for me. Things finally get moving again this chapter, big time. Lisa showing up, the Simurgh getting involved and Tales cutting off Taylor's power at the end and possibly making her go Khepri? Wow.
Re: Copaetic
Yeah, the last chapter particularly was...felt like kinda crap. Foreshadowed Lisa, working with Simurgh? What? How? That's not coherent to me all that much. Undersiders weren't together anyway at the end of that to be ruling some pocket earth. Over half the chapter was focused on an emotional challenge that basically was rendered irrelevant before the end of the chapter. Lisa just 'appears', despite Taylor supposedly being basically omniscent in a sense (and having a reason to keep an eye out).
Tales particularly spends the whole chapter communicating like a crippled parrot. Perhaps to phone in that she's been the 'friendly' part of queen administrator the whole time? I don't know, but it all felt weird, and frankly, the 'oh they're like starfish and grow out of shards seems pretty 'you always lose, even if you win' in theme.
I think it has felt weird since just after the opener of the teaching chapter.
So what do you guys think of my Fanfic? I know it's just getting started, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions.
Quote from: Rukatin on November 05, 2016, 01:07:34 AM
So what do you guys think of my Fanfic? I know it's just getting started, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions.
It's first fic-y. Storytelling issues but you're clearly putting an effort in, so keep writing. Best way to improve.
Quote from: Rukatin on November 05, 2016, 01:07:34 AM
So what do you guys think of my Fanfic? I know it's just getting started, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions.
Are you looking for public feedback or private? In-depth or just an overview?
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/centipede-worm-tokyo-ghoul.431353/
3ish new good chapters to read.
Some more good centipede, life in the super illuminati.
Read through Burn Up (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/burn-up-worm-complete.395526/) by the same author as Glass Maker. An earlier work, I think?
I still like the quirky narrative style, but over all I didn't enjoy this one as much. I'd have to see another of the author's works to confirm but I'm starting to get uncomfortable with the whole 'powers gut Taylor's personality' thing.
Yeah it was. I never finished it actually, because it felt rail-roady with Armsmaster on top of basically being weird from the get-go with Taylor's personality. Many have said it turns around and ends awesomely, enough for me to think about another go.
re: Burn Up
Looks like the author seriously rewrote the middle of it pretty heavily. The original had her killing folks during Armsmaster's attempt to take her in, and then basically throwing that at her from the PRT side.
The rewritten version is 'better' but has the same issue glassmaker does:
The world doesn't really react like worm. Coil just up and vanishes? what? In both, she's basically physically unstoppable by absolutely everyone. But more than that, almost nobody tries? And pushing her against real threats doesn't really come up? They're neat, enjoyable, but also kind of feel like they aren't quite trying to exist in the setting.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/jailbreak-worm-fanfic.450063/
In the middle of the Warlord Taylor arc, a new inmate to the Birdcage has precisely the right skill to pull of a mass breakout. Shenanigans ensue as all the Birdcage comes out to play. Fun story so far but it's still early.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nightingale-worm-dnd-bard-taylor.381918/page-118#post-28059310
I've been following Nightingale recently. It's a fun fic that has Taylor finally live up to her character class (bard) this chapter.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/page-70#post-28063321
El-Ahrairah updated. Still the best Worm fic for my money and each update's a joy to read. The author really gets things and writes well.
Drac asked for a link to a web/light novel I was reading that I mentioned earlier today, providing link as requested!
I Shall Seal The Heavens (http://www.wuxiaworld.com/issth-index/) is a wuxia/xianxia story about a mortal scholar, Meng Hao, who got dragged into the world of immortals/cultivators, and as he finds himself getting more powerful, finding out that his background was actually more complex than he imagined (his parents vanished when he was very young... I'm sure you can easily imagine things about them. The story's not subtle nor does it try to do anything special/new there).
One of the reasons it came up in discussion earlier was that I was mentioning that the translation quality was fairly solid when compared to other web/light novels, and that the main character wasn't one of the traditional harem heroes and in fact ends up with just one girl and being faithful to her.
That said, the hero does suffer from the hypocrite/dick factor that other wuxia heroes seem to suffer from, and it gets worse as he gets stronger. He's generally most likeable when he's the underdog or showing his more scholarly traits as opposed to when he's trying to con someone for money. His obsession with money is pretty much his fatal flaw, and the worst aspects about the character arise when something involving money/treasures is occuring. Unfortunately, as the story progresses, those aspects and obsession become more and more prominent.
Another flaw is that a lot of the stories' antagonists are caricatures in that it's very clear that Meng Hao is in the right to kill them. There's very few antagonists where they could have been the heroes of a separate story and just happened to cross paths against Meng Hao and lose out. There's only two exceptions that I can recall, and both characters were pretty prideful assholes as well, but it wasn't outright clear that Meng Hao was in the right to destroy them, and in at least one of those cases, the main character notes that his opponent is actually a better person than himself, they just happen to be on opposite sides. I do wish there were more antagonists that felt like real characters rather than props for the main character to defeat and grow more powerful after beating them.
I think at least the first three books are worth reading (300 or so chapters). After that, it's kind of a toss-up. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the later books, it's just that there's also a lot of NOT interesting stuff too. Books 4-5 were so-so/alright (through chapter 800), and I just haven't been very into the last two books, so my reading pace has slowed significantly on the series (I'm at around chapter 1000). Part of the problem with later chapters is that Meng Hao's motivations change during books 4-5 as he finds stuff about his parents and reaches certain plateaus in power levels. By book 6+, a lot of the story is about establishing that Meng Hao is the star of his generation and easily able to brutally destroy cultivators of much higher ranks than him, so it's hard to see challenges being meaningful too.
It does update frequently with translated chapters (Generally 1-2 chapters a day, on some ocassions can even see 4-5 chapters in a day), so it has that going for it. Out of 1600+ chapters (completed series), it's currently sitting at 1111 translated chapters.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12252300/1/The-Senshi-Files-Silver-Warden
The Senshi Files: Silver Warden was revised and reposted. There's no new material yet, but everything so far got a nice polish. Note that old links go to the old version rather than the new one, so update bookmarks accordingly.
Also the copy over on Spacebattles was locked and won't be further updated due to drama. So switch to following this one on Fanfiction.net if you like it.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 06, 2016, 10:28:36 AMAlso the copy over on Spacebattles was locked and won't be further updated due to drama. So switch to following this one on Fanfiction.net if you like it.
I'd ask what happened, but it's Spacebattles.
Quote from: Yuthirin on December 06, 2016, 03:47:09 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on December 06, 2016, 10:28:36 AMAlso the copy over on Spacebattles was locked and won't be further updated due to drama. So switch to following this one on Fanfiction.net if you like it.
I'd ask what happened, but it's Spacebattles.
True. Though while I do consider myself a Spacebattler, I've never partaken in the... heated discussions they sometimes get into.
It was a thing, yeah.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/thoughts-as-light-as-a-feather-worm-au-altpower.425272/ the trolling continues.
Haven't caught up on the rewrite of senshi files.
Quote from: Merc on November 26, 2016, 11:43:25 PM
Drac asked for a link to a web/light novel I was reading that I mentioned earlier today, providing link as requested!
I Shall Seal The Heavens (http://www.wuxiaworld.com/issth-index/) is a wuxia/xianxia story about a mortal scholar, Meng Hao, who got dragged into the world of immortals/cultivators, and as he finds himself getting more powerful, finding out that his background was actually more complex than he imagined (his parents vanished when he was very young... I'm sure you can easily imagine things about them. The story's not subtle nor does it try to do anything special/new there).
Haven't checked back in here recently, since I've been binging on Elona+ ... you've been following I Shall Seal the Heavens too? I hadn't thought anyone here was interested.
I personally thought that the "con artist" bits to be generally interesting since they can get creative, although I think the most recent incarnation ("I owe money?!") is disappointing in that regard. In terms of the "Hero is a dick" I've found that there tends to be a pretty high prevalence of that in translated xianxia for whatever reason, and even if the main character starts off as a normally adjusted person, that tends to get thrown out by some railroaded justification around chapter 3.
The writer's newer work is being translated here (http://www.xianxiaworld.net/A-Thought-Through-Eternity/) if you haven't been following it already.
I'm on break on it right now, but yeah, I follow ISStH. Going to let it pile up and binge on hopefully more interesting stuff than the recent arcs. The 'villain from beyond' and the sea monsters were a pretty big let down, so I paused before the arc in that new dimension gets started and letting it pile up some chapters.
And yes, 'Hero is a dick' is very popular in xianxia (and really, anything from Asia really). I assume it has to do with some cultural thing that leads to characters like Sasuke from Naruto and other assholes being popular. Or just the wish fullfilment part of some authors on their MC being on a power trip ala Perfect Lionheart/Skysaber.
I've been following ATTE as well. Bai Xiaochun is a lovable scamp... that you want to punch in the face if you actually live with him. There's a lot of similarities between him and Meng Hao, though I think Bai is slightly better fleshed out (which makes sense if ATTE is a newer work). Not sure if that will last, as I think the whole 'stronger than he looks/acts' schtick is starting to get old there. Hopefully more development and/or supporting cast shows up.
In particular, I hope for more than the 'wacky eccentric magical kung fu animal mascot' thing the writer likes to add. Didn't much care for the antics of Lord Third/Fifth in ISStH, don't much care for panty-stealing wolf thing or the mouthy bunny from ATTE.
Dreaming of Sunshine (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/124/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) has updated!
Quote from: Merc on December 09, 2016, 09:43:44 PM
And yes, 'Hero is a dick' is very popular in xianxia (and really, anything from Asia really). I assume it has to do with some cultural thing that leads to characters like Sasuke from Naruto and other assholes being popular. Or just the wish fullfilment part of some authors on their MC being on a power trip ala Perfect Lionheart/Skysaber.
I kind of suspect it's the later. Not sure why, though. Or maybe Asia is going though an antihero phrase.
Quote
I've been following ATTE as well. Bai Xiaochun is a lovable scamp... that you want to punch in the face if you actually live with him. There's a lot of similarities between him and Meng Hao, though I think Bai is slightly better fleshed out (which makes sense if ATTE is a newer work). Not sure if that will last, as I think the whole 'stronger than he looks/acts' schtick is starting to get old there. Hopefully more development and/or supporting cast shows up.
Looks like wuxiaworld acquired the English translation license. And it's being translated from scratch.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/thoughts-as-light-as-a-feather-worm-au-altpower.425272/ the trolling continues. Yes. Still.
Some good new chapters.
That chapter was fairly brutal.
Surprising how many people thought that, but didn't really get bothered by Bakuda getting lead piped into the ground and brutalized until she begged for being a hero and clung bloodily to milita's feet.
Eh, what's a good piping between friends?
~Lewd~
I am reading the story of a young girl and three very special friends.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/with-friends-like-these-altpower-taylor-worm.312205/
Quote from: Dracos on December 27, 2016, 09:41:41 PM
I am reading the story of a young girl and three very special friends.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/with-friends-like-these-altpower-taylor-worm.312205/
Heh, I remember that.
There was also a story with a very similar premise called ...Who Needs Enemies? (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/who-needs-enemies-altpower-taylor-worm.22004/)
It's the story of the same young girl and the same very special friends... With just a
pinch less tiny and adorable.
That one is still being sporadically updated, Merc.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12293902/1/Saotome-Art-Online
Ozzallos lives.
[spoiler]
Premise isn't bad, though something about it puts me off. I'm not really sure what it is. The first chapter left me ice cold in spite of everything else.
...Because of course Ranma chose to play the VR game as a girl.
I will give it kudos for the fact that it's apparently keeping the SAO main character as the hero apparently instead of Ranma magically taking his place due to his martial arts knowledge, at least.
It does feel very off in general for a variety of reasons.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12295996/1/Puella-Magi-Saotome-Magica
Ozzallos is just slinging them up this week.
First chapter would make a great one shot, but I get the impression it's anything but. Alas.
Quote from: Merc on December 27, 2016, 09:54:00 PM
Quote from: Dracos on December 27, 2016, 09:41:41 PM
I am reading the story of a young girl and three very special friends.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/with-friends-like-these-altpower-taylor-worm.312205/
Heh, I remember that.
There was also a story with a very similar premise called ...Who Needs Enemies? (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/who-needs-enemies-altpower-taylor-worm.22004/)
It's the story of the same young girl and the same very special friends... With just a pinch less tiny and adorable.
Yeah, I read them both, but I really feel that who needs enemies lost its way something hard pretty early in it. The endbringers got rather reworked in odd fashions too.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 28, 2016, 11:37:36 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12293902/1/Saotome-Art-Online
Ozzallos lives.
[spoiler]
Premise isn't bad, though something about it puts me off. I'm not really sure what it is. The first chapter left me ice cold in spite of everything else.
Kinda weird seeing it finally posted. He had that on some forum...like 2-3 years ago. Guess he's finally clearing out the old stuff?
Quote from: Dracos on December 30, 2016, 02:22:04 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on December 28, 2016, 11:37:36 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12293902/1/Saotome-Art-Online
Ozzallos lives.
[spoiler]
Premise isn't bad, though something about it puts me off. I'm not really sure what it is. The first chapter left me ice cold in spite of everything else.
Kinda weird seeing it finally posted. He had that on some forum...like 2-3 years ago. Guess he's finally clearing out the old stuff?
Probably. I just wish he'd update Hell is a Martial Artist.
Hell or A time apart.
I mean seriously, his drafts for the latter's number 4 are 5 years old.
Meeeh.
No helping it, but blah. The joys of inspiration.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 28, 2016, 11:37:36 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12293902/1/Saotome-Art-Online
Ozzallos lives.
[spoiler]
Premise isn't bad, though something about it puts me off. I'm not really sure what it is. The first chapter left me ice cold in spite of everything else.
Thanks for the heads up about Ozzallos! Would've taken me a few months to notice if it wasn't for your post.
I have to say I've rather enjoyed the Ranma/SAO cross. Choosing to constantly switch between the events of the game and post awakening is definitly something unusual for an SAO fanfic, and the Ranma half I felt is handled well, but this is Ozzallos afterall.
Might as well post a rec while I'm here:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/my-trans-dimensional-overpowered-protagonist-harem-comedy-is-wrong-as-expected-oregairu-danmachi.367903/
A cross between Oregairu and Danmachi. Not something I expected to enjoy seeing as I had very little experience with Oregairu, but a story I found very enjoyable despite my lack of knowledge of the main character's background.
Premise is that Hikagaya Hachiman, the protagonist of Oregairu is thrown into the world of Danmachi with a few advantages and the knowledge that to get home requires he delve into the Dungeon. The story begins a few years after his arrival, just as the canon events of Danmachi kick off.
If any of you have knowledge of Oregairu, you'll know that Hachiman is in many ways the opposite of a team player and pretty much the antithesis to a 'happy go lucky' protagonist. His cynical and snarky inner commentary on the world he finds himself in is hilarious, especially considering how it contrasts with the tone of the original Danmachi.
Best of all, rhe author Sage of Eyes has announced that he's continuing the story after seemingly putting it to rest.
Yes it is on Spacebattles, but all the relevant story posts are threadmarked so you can easily skip the discussion and stuff.
Space battles (and other similar fora) tend to seem to have a discouraging trait toward people having their own hosted site or using an archive, since it gives many of the same benefits once threadmarks are in.
Really only downside is it is annoying to wander threadmarks on phone (FF.net or similar storage is just way less phone bothersome).
Today I learned you can say fora instead of forums. :)
Point of View (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/point-of-view-worm.480130/) is a new Worm Alt-Power/AU fic where Taylor triggers with a combat thinker/minor brute power in a world where Krieg was running a Gesselshaft style operation for kidnapping, triggering and brainwashing people and just so happened to pick up Taylor as his latest project.
Starts at roughly same point in time as canon at which point Taylor stages a jail break, which leads to things getting complicated due to Bakuda and Krieg.
Seems interesting so far, probably leading to a Ward Taylor story.
Did a reread of https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11373478/1/Alea-Iacta-Est which is still sort of cute. Ack does good stuff, for all he sorta gets lost hopping fic to fic.
Also an update of https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10954841/1/I-Panacea.
I tried a Harry Potter/Disgaea crossover slacker recommended (something wicked this way comes) but it didn't work for me.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/aqir-warcraft-worm.443962/ which is by the excellent Pangolin looks to be interesting and had some update this week.
Hmm also of note:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nightingale-worm-dnd-bard-taylor.381918/ updated this week. It's got one of the few Taylor/Victoria match ups, while also winding up Amy to go quite nuts (A lot of things in common with her and Taylor, making it all the more 'if only...')
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/for-those-we-cherish-40k-rwby.408155/ was something done late last year by the guy who did a Demon among devils. Kinda wish he went back to that, but does have some good space marine scenes.
Quote from: Merc on January 09, 2017, 10:02:58 PM
Point of View (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/point-of-view-worm.480130/) is a new Worm Alt-Power/AU fic where Taylor triggers with a combat thinker/minor brute power in a world where Krieg was running a Gesselshaft style operation for kidnapping, triggering and brainwashing people and just so happened to pick up Taylor as his latest project.
Starts at roughly same point in time as canon at which point Taylor stages a jail break, which leads to things getting complicated due to Bakuda and Krieg.
Seems interesting so far, probably leading to a Ward Taylor story.
Updated with an interlude this week. It's good stuff.
Quote from: Dracos on January 22, 2017, 12:27:54 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/aqir-warcraft-worm.443962/ which is by the excellent Pangolin looks to be interesting and had some update this week.
Aqir is pretty great.
There used to be many who pondered the shadows of the sun, dreaming of ninja.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/1/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
New chapters. Spoiler: Kakashi diiiies.
Considering it's Dreaming of Sunshine, I'm sure someone will write a fanfic of that where Kakashi doesn't die then.
That fanfic has way too many fanfics of itself. =p
Quote from: Merc on January 28, 2017, 08:59:02 PM
Considering it's Dreaming of Sunshine, I'm sure someone will write a fanfic of that where Kakashi doesn't die then.
That fanfic has way too many fanfics of itself. =p
In my experience, recursive fanfiction is either hilarious or cringe-worthy.
Usually cringe worthy. I mean just textual poaching for creative ideas? Just look at all this worm fics. Garbage~ :D
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/dire-worm-worm-au-oc.300816/
Finally sat down and read the old Dire Worm series...cuz it was having posts in it, for all that it hasn't seen an update in 12 months. It is campy. Cheesy. It has a villain that never loses. It doesn't run on Worm rules, because frankly despite all that Dire couldn't exist in worm rules. I don't mean that from a power standpoint. I mean, it's one of those stories where the Slaughterhouse nine go through town and only bad guys die. Not even civilians. It's got an okayish Pancea handling, but really is best read for the cheese. Dire is a Villain to the Status Quo, seeking to make the world a Better Place...spooky.
And of course, she has a set of convenient friendbots, that everyone is okay and magically bonds well with one of every named character out there. Even passive non-judgemental psychologist bot, beta!
I think she's supposed to actually be from her own series that Lost Demurige works on. Or has a card game? I'm not really clear on that point.
It may continue someday, but it's reasonably entertaining to read as it does actually kind of currently end on an arc finish, just after the slaughterhouse nine. It definitely is running by wish-fiction rules, Dire pretty much never suffers meaningful setbacks and concerns others raise about things are always just irrelevant, as the world continues to reward that response. It's a bit like Memories of Iron that way, but a bit further.
I think the oddest thing about it really is: She's obviously a capable interdimensional traveler who's voiced intent to kill the endbringers and had discussions with Alexandria and yet Scion isn't brought up.
She rescues Dinah and is suggested as a world ender... but also, scene never happens, discussion and interaction with scenario never occurs.
Basically, The Real Big Bad is just not present in the story. I think he had a brief scene near leviathan right after a particulary Mary Sue moment, but is just not there.
I am disappoint. No one has called me on Kakashi's death :P
Quote from: Dracos on January 31, 2017, 01:55:06 PM
I am disappoint. No one has called me on Kakashi's death :P
You killed Kakashi?
I HAVE MURDERED KAKASHI.
Disrupting Orochimaru's Slavery (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/129/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) chapter 2^7 updated
https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/198838/159802665/1/Fic-s-dead
For anyone following The Senshi Files: Silver Warden, that fic's apparently dead. While not explicitly said, I get the impression the huge dramafest on Spacebattles killed the author's interest in writing.
Oh, that sucks. I was hoping for more.
What ended up happening? I wasn't really paying attention :(
Quote from: Dracos on February 13, 2017, 07:43:09 PM
What ended up happening? I wasn't really paying attention :(
Briefly and probably mangling some details:
- New chapters posted.
- Growing argument by a few people that the Sailor Moon side of the crossover is being disrespected.
- Argument keeps going and going in Spacebattles fashion.
- A low level mod tries to stop it, but if I recall right, doesn't really work out.
- After awhile and some arguing the author washes his hands of Spacebattles and stops posting it there, moves solely to FF.net.
- No activity for 2-3 months.
- Fic's announced as dead.
Man, and I was just looking at another fic that was barely two chapters (with almost nothing going on) and not even out of the first page it had people going on about being disrespectful to the sailor moon canon.
And this was a Ryuugi fic. Guess spacebattles just has a toxic sailor moon community around :(
Thanks for the briefing. Mmm, a lot of good fics updated lately.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/page-485#post-31480952 is on chapter 37. Youkai are beginning their invasion of brockton. Assault and Brushstroke have a pleasant conversation where she asks if anything strange is going on.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286/ is beginning the war against the Fallen. If you've wandered off, the post 'Scion' bit is a great opportunity to jump back in, getting to actually having Taylor and a Team (Lisa and Theo) around, versus the constant mindgames that was being on the other side of Coil during the post leviathan bit.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/crouching-tiger-goes-to-prison-worm-au-of-an-au.480139/ there's some fun character writing here, for all I miss the real crouching tiger, hidden dragon.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/skein-worm-altpower-au.437953/ - this is a cool power...and a crummy interaction with Taylor and Lisa occupies almost all that was written so far.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/an-enigmatic-source-of-knowledge-worm.479656/ - this guy has tried twice now to do a Touhou/Worm cross. Both times overwriting a fair bit of Taylor with the source touhou character. I...mmm, I always do enjoy some of the vibe, but it feels like he just doesn't have a fantastic grasp of the setting he's going with to make it work. Latest chapter ends with an absurd Alexandria scene that just feels like trying to go for a comedy bit (Oh look, ignorant butler sends off famous character at door) at the expense of buying into the scenario (Okay, worm character with epic magic system).
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-taylor-of-mighty-magic-worm-dnd-wizard-taylor.493388/ - this ...just doesn't go anywhere. There's a few DND taylor fics. This is probably the lamest of them so far, since it feels like it glances off the setting.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/transposition-or-ship-happens-worm-aoki-hagane-no-arpeggio-arpeggio-of-blue-steel.32456 - ship happens. Early, so far overpowered Taylor. But I don't mind. Basically, Taylor as a super-ship, slowly figuring things out. Lung encounter has happened for station of canon.
Reread https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/warrior-of-dusk-taylors-quest-to-dance-firaga-suplex-all-the-things-worm-finalfantasy-gamer.356997 and https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/danmachi-percy-jackson-prytaneum.352191/ both which sadly probably will never be continued.
Did Ryuugi just up and vanish?
Quote from: Yuthirin on February 17, 2017, 04:59:01 PM
Did Ryuugi just up and vanish?
I've seen him around. As a matter of fact, he was part of that big argument in the Senshi Files back around the start of December.
Quote from: Dracos on February 15, 2017, 05:49:21 PM
Man, and I was just looking at another fic that was barely two chapters (with almost nothing going on) and not even out of the first page it had people going on about being disrespectful to the sailor moon canon.
I'm curious...how exactly does one "disrespect" SM canon? Even on the FFML, I remember people complaining that fics weren't canon-compliant, but can't remember anyone complaining about "disrespect" per se.
Also,
which SM canon? Because it might be possible to write a fic that follows manga continuity (and I think I have the Hitoshi Doi translations lying around somewhere), get the haters to hate on it, then start a religious schism by pointing out that the manga continuity "is the real authentic continuity" or something along those lines.
I wouldn't do it myself since I don't post to spacebattles (or even read it unless someone here posts a link). But it seems like something I'd want to do if I ever wrote a SM fic and got dogpiled by SM-zealots.
I remember back in the day there were tons of Ranma crossovers that depicted the senshi as helpless bimbos incapable of doing anything without their magic to be held up as punching bags for Ranma. That was pretty disrespectful!
I thought the depiction of the senshi in the fic was entirely reasonable when applying real-world ideas. They're children, and they act like such.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/37677?
Work emails.
The best work emails.
Drac, you read Gatecrash, right? Do I need to read Exiled first or can I just jump right into it?
Eh. I suspect reading Exiled would go better. Otherwise you start with Dinah and Taylor and others on an interdimensional space ship and it might be tough to recognize?
I mean you could treat them all as just OCs and then it isn't too bad, but there's certain a lot of referenced history over it.
Yes, please read Exiled or Gatecrash will not make much sense.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/132/Dreaming-of-Sunshine - There's been 3 recent chapters this week. story is moving quickly through the Cultists.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/with-friends-like-these-altpower-taylor-worm.312205/page-134#post-32524957 - new with friends like these.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/crouching-tiger-goes-to-prison-worm-au-of-an-au.480139/ - kinda shoddy new chapter.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286/ - a cloudy path
Ryuugi has announced that TGWP2 is not coming soon. Much sadness.
Quote from: Yuthirin on March 14, 2017, 02:54:59 PM
Ryuugi has announced that TGWP2 is not coming soon. Much sadness.
I suspect it's going to be vaporware, just a hunch. I hope I'm wrong.
Got a link to where he said that?
Click me for RELEVANT INFORMATION! (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/page-466#post-32659198)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286/ Precog says she loses here.
http://hikkinomori.mistbinder.org/falling-in-love-with-the-villainess/
A Dead World (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/24/A-Dead-World) updated. Nice juicy 30k word chapter.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/24/A-Dead-World updated again. Or at least on forum, prolly there too.
Read it start to finish from Yuth's rec. 24 is a great in the moment chapter.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/of-blackguards-and-mercenaries-worm-alt-power-overwatch-crossover.506906/#post-32914784
Yuth linked me to this. I give it a 3/10 and spoiler box for why.
[spoiler]
So this story runs with the premise that Taylor has a bunch of Overwatch heroes in her head to summon. Naturally shenanigans ensue. The story starts strong as she explores her powers and experiments with what she has. She starts to build herself up to resist the Trio, it's solidly written stuff that doesn't rush anything. Highly enjoyable, and until a certain scene, I was enjoying it a great deal.
The catch is that one scene signals the entire fic going downhill fast.
So the bathroom stall incident happens as canon and Taylor's had enough. She kicks open the door and catches Madison by surprise, then beats up Emma. I'm okay with that and this was telegraphed and build up to. She'd spend a week-ish training and had surprise, so I can see her pulling that off. I think she came off as too together for the amount of training she had, but whatever, no big deal.
Then Sophia comes and they fight. Without getting too spoilery, she holds her own against Sophia before spoilers happen and she runs. That strains my SoD a fair bit, since Sophia's a trained fighter who's seen a good deal of action, plus she's in better shape than Taylor. It's not absolutely impossible, but an out of shape girl beating three opponents (one trained) after a week's training strains my SoD.
Okay fine, whatever. Bludgeon-y but maybe the author couldn't think of a better way to get there. A bit later Taylor's ran away from home (long story) and is patrolling. The Undersiders/Lung thing happens and she goes to help. Cue fanon Armsmaster hard - tries to arrest her after helping (and killing Lung in self defense), tries to confiscate one of the heroes gear after she uses it to restore Lung to life and is altogether a massive tool that's the punchline of a joke for another hero to paralyze him and make sure a video of that goes all over PHO.
It's like it went form a decent fic to fanon bashing in the blink of an eye. I'm not sure what happened. There was also some stuff about a hero clowning Dragon and Saint in hacking and solving that mess on PHO, but I only skimmed since I'd lost interest in the fic.
Odd, since I felt the start until then was strong stuff. It felt like it got a sudden case of wanting to push Overwatch stuff as so cool at the expense of Worm. Go figure.
Quote from: Dracos on March 30, 2017, 03:19:36 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/24/A-Dead-World updated again. Or at least on forum, prolly there too.
Read it start to finish from Yuth's rec. 24 is a great in the moment chapter.
I really love the girl who writes this fic. She's got a talent for it.
Delicious prose.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 31, 2017, 02:13:39 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/of-blackguards-and-mercenaries-worm-alt-power-overwatch-crossover.506906/#post-32914784
Yuth linked me to this. I give it a 3/10 and spoiler box for why.
So this story runs with the premise that Taylor has a bunch of Overwatch heroes in her head to summon. Naturally shenanigans ensue. The story starts strong as she explores her powers and experiments with what she has. She starts to build herself up to resist the Trio, it's solidly written stuff that doesn't rush anything. Highly enjoyable, and until a certain scene, I was enjoying it a great deal.
The catch is that one scene signals the entire fic going downhill fast.
So the bathroom stall incident happens as canon and Taylor's had enough. She kicks open the door and catches Madison by surprise, then beats up Emma. I'm okay with that and this was telegraphed and build up to. She'd spend a week-ish training and had surprise, so I can see her pulling that off. I think she came off as too together for the amount of training she had, but whatever, no big deal.
Then Sophia comes and they fight. Without getting too spoilery, she holds her own against Sophia before spoilers happen and she runs. That strains my SoD a fair bit, since Sophia's a trained fighter who's seen a good deal of action, plus she's in better shape than Taylor. It's not absolutely impossible, but an out of shape girl beating three opponents (one trained) after a week's training strains my SoD.
Okay fine, whatever. Bludgeon-y but maybe the author couldn't think of a better way to get there. A bit later Taylor's ran away from home (long story) and is patrolling. The Undersiders/Lung thing happens and she goes to help. Cue fanon Armsmaster hard - tries to arrest her after helping (and killing Lung in self defense), tries to confiscate one of the heroes gear after she uses it to restore Lung to life and is altogether a massive tool that's the punchline of a joke for another hero to paralyze him and make sure a video of that goes all over PHO.
It's like it went form a decent fic to fanon bashing in the blink of an eye. I'm not sure what happened. There was also some stuff about a hero clowning Dragon and Saint in hacking and solving that mess on PHO, but I only skimmed since I'd lost interest in the fic.
Odd, since I felt the start until then was strong stuff. It felt like it got a sudden case of wanting to push Overwatch stuff as so cool at the expense of Worm. Go figure.
[/quote]
I was really disappointed, since the first few chapters really didn't suck. [spoiler]Then it turned into a bash fic as written by an anti-authority high-schooler. Very sad and confusing.
A Dead World (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/26/A-Dead-World) updated
again, this time dealing with
Pacer's treachery in the Kings, the lurking deathclaw problem in Quarry Junction, and the growing foothold that the NCR is establishing.
Cain seems to be pretty gung-ho on achieving the independent ending. She's a charisma-based character, so she might be able to pull it off. Maybe.
Monster (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/monster.29235/page-101#post-8217986) updated.
The Nine are having a very bad day, and Our Anti-Heroes have no idea they killed the Siberian by sort of accident. They keep waiting for her to show up, it's so great.
Sweet Monster update :)
And Dead World got a third update out last week? Yuth, you are bringing delights :)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ziz-worm-altpower-simurgh-taylor.512524/ another attempt. I dunno, tastes a lot like trying a less-flippant Thoughts light as a feather.
Quote from: Dracos on April 09, 2017, 08:31:08 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ziz-worm-altpower-simurgh-taylor.512524/ another attempt. I dunno, tastes a lot like trying a less-flippant Thoughts light as a feather.
It does and it's pretty solid so far. I enjoyed it quite a bit, more's coming this week from what I see.
Quote from: Anastasia on April 09, 2017, 11:59:40 PM
Quote from: Dracos on April 09, 2017, 08:31:08 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ziz-worm-altpower-simurgh-taylor.512524/ another attempt. I dunno, tastes a lot like trying a less-flippant Thoughts light as a feather.
It does and it's pretty solid so far. I enjoyed it quite a bit, more's coming this week from what I see.
We'll see. Feels like the author's going in a different direction.
Quote from: Dracos on April 09, 2017, 08:30:43 PM
And Dead World got a third update out last week? Yuth, you are bringing delights :)
Every time Laluzi updates, it makes my day. The next chapter should be awesome.
Discussing Obligatory Swordcanes (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/134/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-more-than-meets-the-eye-worm-transformers.317017/page-698#post-33929713
More than Meets the Eye updated.
[spoiler]Meh chapter overall. The slower update rate has really killed this story's momentum, plus the entire bit with Rune felt forced. Terrifically and terribly so, with that new cape feeling off in a way I can't adequately describe.
I kinda lost my way with More than Meets the Eye at some point. It felt like they were working hard to get villainous robots in at some point and it just felt weird trying to drive toward it.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander.301286/ updated. A slow move toward the war against the fallen.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on April 12, 2017, 09:14:17 AM
Discussing Obligatory Swordcanes (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/134/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated
Sword canes are very natural additions to world killers.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/with-friends-like-these-altpower-taylor-worm.312205/ Everyone, there is more friendbringers!
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/26/For-Want-of-a-War hey for want of a war updated *goes reading*
Quote from: Dracos on April 26, 2017, 02:11:01 AM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/26/For-Want-of-a-War hey for want of a war updated *goes reading*
Oh yeah, I'd forgot to mention how he'd updated with chapter 25 a short while ago...wait, that's chapter 26. *reads*
Earthscorpion's Overlady (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8753582/60/Overlady) has reached 60 chapters.
Recoil (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/recoil.299321/page-125#post-34634980) has updated.
Oh hey, I forgot to mention that I'm updating my own Worm fanfic Daybreak again. Here's the link since I don't know how to do the highlighted text link things you guys do.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/daybreak-worm-oc-si.450048/#post-27500826
Tell me what you think!
Quote from: Rukatin on May 07, 2017, 04:20:07 AM
Here's the link since I don't know how to do the highlighted text link things you guys do.
Use the bracketed command shown below:
[url=link]link description[/url]So Daybreak (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/daybreak-worm-oc-si.450048/#post-27500826) would be:
[url=https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/daybreak-worm-oc-si.450048/#post-27500826]Daybreak[/url]
Quote from: Merc on May 07, 2017, 11:17:11 AM
Quote from: Rukatin on May 07, 2017, 04:20:07 AM
Here's the link since I don't know how to do the highlighted text link things you guys do.
Use the bracketed command shown below:
[url=link]link description[/url]
So Daybreak (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/daybreak-worm-oc-si.450048/#post-27500826) would be:
[url=https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/daybreak-worm-oc-si.450048/#post-27500826]Daybreak[/url]
Thanks!
Quote from: Rukatin on May 07, 2017, 04:20:07 AM
Tell me what you think!
Briefly,
Good:
Your main character isn't perfect. Which is excellent, because perfect characters tend to be boring, so coming up with a main character who misses seemingly obvious cues is nice. Also, most of your characters are personalized and have distinct voices, which is one of those things that people who write self-described SIs tend to mess-up.
Other:
Your main character tends towards overly-exacting English phrasing at times. Not always, but still threw me out of a few scenes. I didn't notice it at all in the latest posted section (2.1).
I'll probably check back on this from time to time, as long as you're continuing to write.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on May 22, 2017, 02:09:04 AM
Quote from: Rukatin on May 07, 2017, 04:20:07 AM
Tell me what you think!
Briefly,
Good:
Your main character isn't perfect. Which is excellent, because perfect characters tend to be boring, so coming up with a main character who misses seemingly obvious cues is nice. Also, most of your characters are personalized and have distinct voices, which is one of those things that people who write self-described SIs tend to mess-up.
Other:
Your main character tends towards overly-exacting English phrasing at times. Not always, but still threw me out of a few scenes. I didn't notice it at all in the latest posted section (2.1).
I'll probably check back on this from time to time, as long as you're continuing to write.
Thank you! That's one thing me and my co-author work on, as we both agree that perfect SI's make a bad fic.
And for the other thing? Could you quote the exact places you had problems with? I want to improve my writing after all.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327719/1/What-Do-You-Want
Ranma and Nabiki centric. Post wedding, Akane decides to break up with Ranma and it deals with the fallout from it. Much better than it sounds and well written.
That was a simple but pleasant tale. *follows it*
Quote from: Dracos on June 09, 2017, 01:44:06 PM
That was a simple but pleasant tale. *follows it*
Yeah, I have a soft spot for a story that shows an actual crush in Ranma 1/2, not just the normal comedic wackiness. Pleasant is a great word for that story.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 09, 2017, 03:26:44 PM
Quote from: Dracos on June 09, 2017, 01:44:06 PM
That was a simple but pleasant tale. *follows it*
Yeah, I have a soft spot for a story that shows an actual crush in Ranma 1/2, not just the normal comedic wackiness. Pleasant is a great word for that story.
Same :)
I keep forgetting that most of you are all die-hard Ranma 1/2 fans
Gaming and Ranma fanfics are what this forum was started on!
Technically it was just on gaming.
Ranma fanfics was what the forum we sprung out of was started on.
=p
Also, don't quite know about the "die-hard" fan part. I haven't read a Ranma fanfic in almost 8 years before that one above, if I think about that.
Decapitated Off-screen (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/136/Dreaming-of-Sunshine) updated.
I suppose it's accurate to say that we have our roots in Ranma fanfic?
It's probably more accurate to say we got started on late 90s-early 2000s anime fanfics. Ranma just happened to be the king of that.
I still have strong, irrational preferences in Ranma fics purely because of the fiancee wars.
Jesus Christ the fiancée wars.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 13, 2017, 10:29:26 PM
It's probably more accurate to say we got started on late 90s-early 2000s anime fanfics. Ranma just happened to be the king of that.
I still have strong, irrational preferences in Ranma fics purely because of the fiancee wars.
Quote from: Yuthirin on June 14, 2017, 12:41:12 AM
Jesus Christ the fiancée wars.
*pulls up chair* You guys sound like old war veterans... Tell me more.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6789454/27/For-Want-of-a-War updated
Quote from: Rukatin on June 14, 2017, 03:47:12 AM
*pulls up chair* You guys sound like old war veterans... Tell me more.
Basically, Ranma was in the process of being translated to english, and in the mean time, lots of fanfic writers took sides as to which fiancee ought to win. Some took it a little more seriously than others...if you're familiar with any Japanophiles in real life, you can probably guess what happens when you mix a bunch of people with that personality type but opposing opinions, first exposure to the internet, and an online area for writing fanfics.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 13, 2017, 10:29:26 PM
I still have strong, irrational preferences in Ranma fics purely because of the fiancee wars.
I still think about trying to come up with a plot that uses those characters no one ever used. Like the boy who didn't want to eat a pill, or the panties ghost.
Quote from: Rukatin on June 14, 2017, 03:47:12 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on June 13, 2017, 10:29:26 PM
It's probably more accurate to say we got started on late 90s-early 2000s anime fanfics. Ranma just happened to be the king of that.
I still have strong, irrational preferences in Ranma fics purely because of the fiancee wars.
Quote from: Yuthirin on June 14, 2017, 12:41:12 AM
Jesus Christ the fiancée wars.
*pulls up chair* You guys sound like old war veterans... Tell me more.
It was unbelievable. You had Zen on one side, and everybody loved Zen. Zen was part of the anti-Akane faction. A lot of us were. Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead, Fox, Thermopyle, etc.
Now, there were subsets. The Knights of the True Fiancee were Akane worshipers. Some of us favored Ukyo coughcoughDUNEFARcoughcough, some favored Shampoo. Some wanted OCs or crossovers. All of us agreed that Akane was the devil.
Fox was in a subset of his own. The less said, the better.
For most people, it was light-hearted banter. We had a good time, forum and chatroom RP was had, and we were all friends. Probably.
Some of us, like Skysaber, went
completely bonkers.It was the heyday of our time. A lot of great memories. Slacker still posted fics. Sound Hearts actually updated. John Walter Biles could still write. Jim Bader was still alive. So was Brian.
It was a hell of a time.
Quote from: Yuthirin on June 14, 2017, 12:18:04 PM
It was the heyday of our time. A lot of great memories. Slacker still posted fics. Sound Hearts actually updated. John Walter Biles could still write. Jim Bader was still alive. So was Brian.
It was a hell of a time.
Aw man, now I'm sad. I came here around the time Brian died following Kyon Big Damn Hero. I wish I could have met him.
Quote from: Rukatin on June 14, 2017, 02:51:52 PM
Quote from: Yuthirin on June 14, 2017, 12:18:04 PM
It was the heyday of our time. A lot of great memories. Slacker still posted fics. Sound Hearts actually updated. John Walter Biles could still write. Jim Bader was still alive. So was Brian.
It was a hell of a time.
Aw man, now I'm sad. I came here around the time Brian died following Kyon Big Damn Hero. I wish I could have met him.
Yeah. Just a damn shame all around there.
It was a kinder time.
And brian be missed.
Quote from: Rukatin on June 14, 2017, 02:51:52 PMAw man, now I'm sad. I came here around the time Brian died following Kyon Big Damn Hero. I wish I could have met him.
He was my good friend for eight years. Wish I'd spent more time with him.
When I was around on this forum, everyone was writing Haruhi fanfiction and Brian was in top form.
I miss Brian a lot.
I also miss having a fanfiction scene where everyone is familiar with the same anime and can quickly run ideas past other people due to shared familiarity.
DK:A is still happening. I did a double-take when I saw that there are now 195 threadmarks.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-8#post-8635933 (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-8#post-8635933)
It sure took a
lot of chapters this time for Ami to power through all those dwarves
just to end up locked in a box with Mr. Exposition.
Quote from: Arakawa on June 21, 2017, 09:01:29 PM
DK:A is still happening. I did a double-take when I saw that there are now 195 threadmarks.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-8#post-8635933 (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-8#post-8635933)
It sure took a lot of chapters this time for Ami to power through all those dwarves just to end up locked in a box with Mr. Exposition.
To be honest, I think the fic went off the rails when Amy lost the Avatar Islands. Everything since then hasn't felt quite right.
Oddly I think I remember defending that choice at the time, so hindsight is a hell of a thing.
Quote from: Anastasia on June 22, 2017, 02:39:57 PM
To be honest, I think the fic went off the rails when Amy lost the Avatar Islands. Everything since then hasn't felt quite right.
Oddly I think I remember defending that choice at the time, so hindsight is a hell of a thing.
After thinking about it, I think it's not so much losing the Islands, but that there had been a nice progression going on towards Ami becoming a player on the world stage who has the grudging respect of Good powers, and makes more large scale plans to accomplish things through cooperation (like the strike against Crowned Death's temple) rather than going out and personally punching things. This is rather derailed by e.g. an arc in which Ami has to spend seven consecutive chapters punching things.
The 10,000x variations on "Ami punched the dwarf who was doing his utmost to kill her into a wall and then winced internally over how she'd been forced to hurt yet another innocent being" during the Epic Dwarf Stomp chapters also got a bit old.
Could it have something to do with the fic switching to Sufficient Velocity? It seems to me like the way in which authors receive feedback (& get time pressured, or not) on these Spacebattles-style forums is pretty different. That may affect the resulting feel of the writing.
Possibly, but I don't get the impression the author's that engaged with SV. I could be wrong there, but my take has been he's using as a place to post the fic, nothing more.
Honestly, the entire dwarf arc's been tiresome. What I want to see is things kicking into higher gear on all fronts, there's so many interesting things going on to pursue. Amy's homefront on Earth is great, the ongoing tension with the Dark Gods is great, the constant worldbuilding and plotting's fun. The dwarves feel like a derail from it all.
This blog may be apropos: https://bondwine.com/2017/05/03/narrative-fatigue/
For a competent fanfic writer, the most likely danger with a super long series is Type II narrative fatigue 'I care what happens to these people, but I've lost all faith that I will ever find out.'
It truly is often a thing.
Fanfic writers, in general, are not concise with their word usage. Many stories get to 100k or more words, just to introduce the opening cast, or about a 400 page novel. I re-read https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6942921/1/He-Who-Fights-Monsters this sunday. 93k words, start to finish. Character introductions, several scenes, many violent murders, family scenes, and a conclusive ending setting the serial killer up as the only role he could fit: one who teaches monsters.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4339125/3/A_Time_Apart - another fic I enjoy, but basically in the same length barely even started, and effectively would need several books to ever have a chance at telling a complete story, since it really has basically just gotten the initial trio together in britain, with a promise to have to deal with a large extended set of comic cast members hanging around while trying to actually have relevant impact on Setsuna's big problem... Plausibility to get finished? Kinda zero.
Is time apart bad? I wouldn't say so, but it isn't going anywhere since at its current style it would take massive amounts of effort for the author to get anywhere and by the time it does, it will be so long that it's hard for most folks.
I've certainly enjoyed million word works, but most 200k line ones can be sure they're never ending up anywhere.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/dresden-files-sg-1-gods-eye.232344/ was linked to this last night and ...consumed it.
It's Dresden Files / Stargate, with Dresden getting tossed deep into Goulak(sp?) territory during one of his big boss fights after getting lash. How does he survive? How does he get home? It's Bob, Harry, and Lash and quite a distance to get home.
Also in the past 4 years. So hey, breaking some magic laws and gotta worry about paradox with getting home too.
There's also a companion piece to that story thats ongoing:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sg-1-dresden-files-shattering-occams-razor-companion-piece-to-gods-eye.330889/
It starts off near the end of God's Eye, after Thor pops into the story.
Yeah, saw that today. Consumed. Ran out. It's ...less easy to follow than God's Eye. God's eye was more consistent with one char versus it sometimes going 3 chapters to continue the same scene.
Things I've been reading:
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/an-essence-of-silver-and-steel-worm-fate-stay-night.39043/ - A Fate/Worm crossover. Short version is that Taylor can summon and gain the abilities of Heroic Spirits. All of them, apparently. At full power. Yeah. It's not terrible off the bat, but it has all the hallmarks of an overpowered Taylor. Personally, I find that the least interesting type of Worm fanfic and it's a turn off for me.
The author has a note in the beginning that he won't reply to comments about power levels, so I don't feel critiquing the story is worthwhile. It's probably gonna be some flavor of stomp and I'm just not that interested, but other people might like it.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ring-maker-worm-lord-of-the-rings-alt-power.517894/ - A Lord of the Rings/Worm crossover. So it turns out Taylor's the reincarnation (or heir somehow or whatever, it's not clear) of Sauron. Shenanigans ensue as she forges armor and rings of power for herself. Decently written by an up and coming new author, so it's certainly worth a look.
I admit I'm not that much into the fic anymore. It's not bad in any sense, but fundamentally, it wants you to buy into Taylor as this great, epic figure and I just can't. This is my own bias regarding Taylor more than anything else, I think. A lot of the stuff in this fic is decent, but I simply haven't been able to make that one key concession. If you don't think you can do that sort of thing, you probably won't be that fond of this fic, either.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/ - Arc 6 was posted a little while ago.
The weakest arc by a country mile, most of it was a slog that simply didn't interest me. I see this complaint echoed in the thread, so I don't think this is just me. The last chapter of it and the interlude's really good, which has stopped me from dropping it, but man. Vegas simply was so far from interesting that I have no words for it. I don't even know why, either. It just didn't work for me in totality. [
It's still one of the better fics in the fandom, but it took a huge tumble in my eyes after that arc. Hopefully arc 7 fixes it.
I long lost interest in El Ahrairah.
It really was a great fic at the start, but it started dragging its feet a while back and Jack Slash in particular has been so boring I stopped following. I think it was chapter 6.2 or 6.3 where I finally just gave up on it.
If it does pick up, well, at least I know there's still one person following it to share such findings. =)
Yeah El Ahrairah just turned into what felt like an authority figure bash fic. It made me feel like I was 13 again, and hating on Dumbledor for no reason.
El Ahrairah's prison scene is its best moment. I kind of scuttled into not being able to care during Jack's antics.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-dc-comics-fear.537310/ - Ryuugi is doing broken Taylor/QA as yellow lantern in DC earth during two major catastrophes.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stacked-deck-or-colin-wallis-vs-single-parenting-worm-persona.459689/ The tarot, telling Glory Girl all the truth she never wants to hear.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/playing-hooky-worm-au-alt-power.546865/ Somewhat disinterested got distracted again and played power shuffle a bit.
Quote from: Dracos on July 18, 2017, 12:20:10 PMhttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-dc-comics-fear.537310/ - Ryuugi is doing broken Taylor/QA as yellow lantern in DC earth during two major catastrophes.
Ryuugi not writing The Lies We Tell makes me a sad fishman.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stacked-deck-or-colin-wallis-vs-single-parenting-worm-persona.459689/
Stacked Deck's been updating lately. It's solid enough, though I think the coming arc is going to settle if I get into it or not.
[spoiler]The crux of a crossover like this is trying to reconcile the deeply incompatible settings in a way that doesn't shaft either of them. I'm not convinced it can be done, but we'll see if the author can make a Persona/Worm cross make sense. It looks like we'll get an idea of that soon.
I've been largely enjoying it. Cactus is troublesome.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12513071/1/Try-Try-Again
Interesting little story, notable for being written sparsely and in a far different way than most fanfics. To be entirely honest I don't care for it, though it does some interesting things with the 13k words it uses.
[spoiler]The sense of futility about it, oppressive powers stacked against the protagonist and general difficulty fit the feel of Worm quite well, as does the epilogue with Contessa and Eidolon. I wonder if all of this is a statement about alternate power Taylors and no matter how they change things, Worm is a harsh setting without easy wins. Likewise, the protagonist has a considerably potent ability, yet it doesn't really solve his problems at all and instead draws him into more conflict.
The more I think about it and more I chew it over, I wonder if this was someone's throwaway account engaging in some deconstructionism or general commentary on Worm and Worm fanfics.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/100/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death finally returns to life with a new chapter and a promise of a faster update schedule.
It's a nice touch that Vegeta being a (sorta) good parent leads to what looks like the current arc's problems, though.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12286799/1/Lucky-Child
A decently written YYH crossover. It kept my interest for a time, though ultimately something about the character wore away my interest in the story. Call it philosophical differences, but there's a solid story there if you don't run into that.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/1/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King has updated steadily the past few months. It's winding closer and closer to the Grail War, though hasn't quite hit it yet. It's buildup but it's enjoyable buildup, since the various relationships between the characters are entertaining.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/taylor-costa-brown-worm.560476/
Yet another Worm fic, I know, I know. This one takes the decidedly meh premise of Alexandria being Taylor's mother and runs with it, it's not what you'd expect and more interesting because of it. Worth a peek, it's promising so far if a bit of a curve ball. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much going in, but I've been pleasantly surprised.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stacked-deck-or-colin-wallis-vs-single-parenting-worm-persona.459689/
Stacked Deck had another update, this one of the interlude variety. It's not quite a true interlude but close enough for our purposes.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/xander-quest-story-only-thread.322999/
I haven't recommended Xander Quest lately, have I? Go read it, it's fun and about the best quest I've ever seen by a large margin. The premise is that Ganondorf is reincarnated in the Hellmouth (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Xander Harris. Hey, get back here, it's not another crappy Xander fic! Really, it isn't? Alex starts off different from the beginning, quickly becoming Xander in name only, but that's okay, since it's from birth and it begins to change the world in response. It's really worth reading, especially as more and more is revealed about why things are as they are, and why Alex and other crossover characters are in the BtVS world.
Shao Kahn is being a jerk, basically. It's lead to over a dozen franchises being jammed into one Earth as he tries to take over all of them in one fell swoop, with one final, looming Mortal Kombat. Not that it's stopping Dracula from manifesting Castlevania, the Mayor from trying to ascend, a Holy Grail war from revving up and more.
10/10, would recommend, updates daily and with a story only thread if you don't want to deal with quest thread stuff. Also has a separate thread for omakes, bonus interlude sand the like, some of which are important to the plot: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/xander-quest-omakes-and-specials-story-only-thread.340908/ (Only the ones written by Judge Mental are official, generally.)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12644402/1/Ain-t-No-Rest-For-The-Wicked-Draft-2
Ranma/Naruto xover. Draft 1 was posted around 5-6 years ago. This is a bit further in.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/price-of-blood-worm-fanfic.464632/ updated. Carol carries problem-maker ball.
Quote from: Dracos on September 10, 2017, 07:07:28 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/price-of-blood-worm-fanfic.464632/ updated. Carol carries problem-maker ball.
This is (I think) the only Ackfic I'm still following. It has Ackfic problems and boy was the Taylor gets the bad news scene tiresomely done, but it's tense and readable enough.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stacked-deck-or-colin-wallis-vs-single-parenting-worm-persona.459689/page-128#post-39186751 - Stacked Deck updated. I'm losing interest in this more every chapter. Long story short is that I could throw up a bunch of words, but the basic problem is that I just don't buy the crossover.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/powers-that-shouldnt-be-worm.567184/ - A small collection of well written snippets that have interesting ideas. While there's a horrid pony fic mixed in, the rest of them look promising.
Seems not a lot has clicked with you lately. Anything you've found fun on new stuff? or just more kinda felt barren?
About the Reckless Girl who kept challenging a Reborn Man like me (https://yoraikun.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/about-the-reckless-girl-who-kept-challenging-a-reborn-man-like-me/)
A oneshot story I enjoyed about a reincarnated person.
https://kobatochan.com/korean-novels/everyone-else-is-a-returnee/
Translation of this Korean story was finished a few days ago. The premise is that Earth is about to undergo a cataclysm, and the heavens freeze time on Earth while sending everyone else to different worlds to learn how to survive. But, they miss one person...mm
The setting is fundamentally an RPG-like universe with emphasis on crafting and an overpowered main character.
Some stuff from everywhere.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/two-steps-forward-one-step-back-worm-au.568306/
A new Worm AU. Taylor has the same powers but things go worse for her mentally in a different first time out heroing, along with some background AU elements. It isn't bad. Not great, but it's a different thing than most Worm fics. It's more focused on Taylor's psychological issues than fighting or worldbuilding by a good mile, as well as her relationship with those close to her as well as those around her.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8162862/101/Bringer-of-Death
Bringer of Death updated. It's setting up for the tournament, nothing too huge here. It's mainly notable for the fact that BoD may be sticking to it's promised new schedule. Yay.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/an-essence-of-silver-and-steel-worm-fate-stay-night-alt-power.39043/
In other news, this fic continues to update weekly and I've dropped it. It's too much of an overpowered Taylor for my tastes, as well as being rather boring and without much tension. I can't buy into Taylor ever being in serious danger. Good if you want to see Taylor stomp things, I guess? More than that, things too often feel like a foregone conclusion in that plot black hole sort of way that Nasu crossovers tend to be in regards to what they're crossing over with.
Lung vs Siegfried-Taylor? Zero tension because she dominates and more importantly, you know she isn't going to lose right away. The author doesn't do anything to project any tension. Sophia sneaks into Taylor's house? Bet she'll die to Caster Taylor's traps. ...yep, she does. Doesn't even make it inside.
I liked what I was seeing in Two steps forward, One Step Back, even if the start is really handwavy on the suicide angle.
I've quit Ring-Maker. It's just not engaging.
Quote from: Yuthirin on October 02, 2017, 01:51:51 PM
I've quit Ring-Maker. It's just not engaging.
Seconded. I've unwatched it. I just struggle to buy into the premise of Taylor and her apparently massive charisma. It doesn't translate at all, at least to me.
She's very not charismatic in it, she's increasingly an out of context situation to it. I haven't been reading it for a while, though I forget why entirely.
Quote from: Dracos on October 02, 2017, 02:15:59 PM
She's very not charismatic in it, she's increasingly an out of context situation to it. I haven't been reading it for a while, though I forget why entirely.
Yes. She has become a Taylor-Shaped Entity.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stacked-deck-or-colin-wallis-vs-single-parenting-worm-persona.459689/page-143#post-39866621
Stacked Deck updated.
[spoiler]
The chapter reveal leans me even more towards dropping it. Just don't buy it being that dramatic and I'm not a fan of that sort of thing being used as a plot device anyway. It reeks of 'Okay, this can be treated on both sides of the cross but we're gonna set it up so it can't be in this, okay? Great.' This annoys me.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327719/5/What-Do-You-Want
This has continued. Was catching up and realized it updated again today.
Caught up... New 'villain' does seem to be down nabiki's angle but really it seems to be pulling in a real-worldism to support the situation that feels really out of place.
It also basically eliminates whatever theoretical situation the author was leading toward (outside of setting up blackmail on himself) with the spend a day as a girl.
Mainly, the villain seems really smug with an exceedingly hollow stack of cards to stand on.
Agreed, but as it's Ranma, I figure that's intentionally going to get knocked over.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/starry-eyes-thread-2-a-loss-of-face-worm-lovecraft.295873/ updated. Eldritch horror gooooo.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/ Other eldr...naw, sunny gonna sunny.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/myrmidon-naruto-hxh.554373/ - kind of interesting. Boruto era team 8 doing some dimension hopping into Ants era.
DK:A happened at some point (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-8#post-9202573). Ami did a cool thing.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/aqir-warcraft-worm.443962/ updated. Pangolin is writing again, yaaay.
Taylor and scorpion friend meet boar friends. All hands are shaken.
Quote from: Dracos on October 20, 2017, 01:53:07 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/aqir-warcraft-worm.443962/ updated. Pangolin is writing again, yaaay.
Taylor and scorpion friend meet boar friends. All hands are shaken.
It's nice to see a non-shitty World of Warcraft fic.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/tangled-fate-ranma-1-2-exalted.39183/page-42#post-9503482
Tangled Fate updated. Pretty sure this speaks of a fic that won't go anywhere, even if it was quite the meaty update. We've got locked Ranma-shaped exalted being made in charge of a city about to be attacked from within and without, with ryoga and kodachi as backup.
Meh.
I dunno, I'm enjoying it in spite of some flaws.
I am too.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sg-1-dresden-files-shattering-occams-razor-companion-piece-to-gods-eye.330889
Caught back up on this. prolly will relink the others soon. It's over-riding theme seems to be:
"People are telling us the truth about the terrible cosmic horrors. Why didn't we believe them?"
"You may have my gigantic warship. But dragons will come to kill you. It is trapped like such, you see."
https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/glow-worm-p-9/
Worm 2's warm up is complete and Worm 2 will launch (I believe) Saturday. The chapter linked to is the last one and really the best pay off for any of it.
Running into Madison's regrets and how Worm changed her was nice. I didn't get as much out of it as others - I fundamentally didn't like Taylor as the story went on and never identified with her much - but it was a nice way to put an extra little cap on Taylor's story before a new one starts. I really hope she isn't a big deal in Worm 2.
On a personal level, that chapter was extremely Worm and reminded me that I don't really agree with Wildbow on a lot of fundamental points about life. At least he has good taste in video games.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/38/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated last month. It continues to march to the HGW and it's heating up. I also liked the opening bit for what it was.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327719/7/What-Do-You-Want
This also updated. I enjoy it but don't have a strong opinion about it. It's a nice Ranma fic, nice Ranma fics are good.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ring-maker-worm-lord-of-the-rings-alt-power.517894/page-613#post-40901701
I've given up on Ring Maker as a story, though I still keep tabs on it since the author's young and promising. Sometimes he comes through on that and I feel that chapter did nicely. It was a grounded, reasonable rumination on grief and loss. No magical fix it button, only dealing with the grief and learning how to go on.
It's one way to solve the Panacea and Glory Girl mess. It sucks Glory Girl died, but at least this might free Amy. As a general rule, I find Amy badly misused in most fanfics and I can count the number of Amy scenes I like in fanfics on one hand. This is one of them.
On a side note, I feel bad for Miss Militia in this fanfic. It feels like she's the only one who has it together about Annatar and what she's doing, and gets an antagonistic role for it. Points for using MM in a role beyond supporter slash Wards denmother, though.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/babel-worm.581734/
Somewhat interesting Worm fanfic. Taylor gains the ability to talk to shards and it's better than it sounds, come back. Yeah, it sounds like crack and it almost starts that way, but it finds its footing quickly and elaborates from there. It helps if you bear in mind that users imprint on their shards as much as shards imprint on their users. If nothing else, I found it much more palatable than Mauling Snarks, which is apparently the same concept but I bailed on that one early.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8163784/1/The-Well-Groomed-Mind
This has updated all of a sudden. It's the fic where Harry is adopted by you-know-who
aka the Earl of Wychwood, a fairly reasonable and sane individual who happens to have some extreme political hobbies
. I find it actually really hard to tell if this portrayal of Voldemort is biased or plausible. It really relies on the worldbuilding of Britain being the magical world's equivalent of a 3rd world war zone where literally every side is guilty of war crimes and systematic deception.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/how-to-drill-your-way-through-your-problems-worm-ttgl-si.503134
I've been enjoying this. It had a good taylor part recently, but it's largely fanboy ttgl.
Quote from: Arakawa on November 09, 2017, 02:34:52 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8163784/1/The-Well-Groomed-Mind
This has updated all of a sudden. It's the fic where Harry is adopted by you-know-who aka the Earl of Wychwood, a fairly reasonable and sane individual who happens to have some extreme political hobbies
holy shit it's been a while.
Some good weekend updates:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/babel-worm.581734/ - Saving Private Leets.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stacked-deck-or-colin-wallis-vs-single-parenting-worm-persona.459689/ - Hanging up on Akane
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-dovahkiin-without-dragon-souls-to-spend-worm-skyrim-gamer.513694/ continuing to kinda wander.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7679074/1/The-Dragon-King-s-Temple - This is sort of a fun story in the StarGate universe, crossing over (due to some confusion) Avatar the Last Airbender. It's got some strange 'hey Avatar world isn't really all smiles' bits, but largely is a character piece focusing on Toph and Zuko in a strange world dealing with spirits and soldiers.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rolling-out-worm-crossover-slight-au.464956/ Optimus lands on worm-verse. Saves taylor from station of canon.
Quote from: Dracos on November 24, 2017, 04:35:54 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rolling-out-worm-crossover-slight-au.464956/ Optimus lands on worm-verse. Saves taylor from station of canon.
This author's other fics have me leery, but so far it doesn't suck.
Yeah, know what ya mean.
Any good ones from your view, Yuth?
Since you asked!
Stone Spiders (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stone-spiders-worm-x-slender-man.576752/) Worm/Slender Man fic. Taylor gains the power to summon Slender Man. In spite of the author's crippling self-loathing issues and author notes filled with self-doubt, the fic's not bad. It's pretty intense, yeah, but not bad. Slender Man isn't the kind of thing that lends to a happy little world. Warnings for torture and self-harm.
Queen of Blood (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/queen-of-blood-worm-castlevania.363842/) Worm/Castlevania. Taylor dies in the locker and gets Dracula's power. All of it. It's a real wild ride. The author's wrapping up the fic. It's now into the third slice of the epilogue. It didn't suck.
Containment Report (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/containment-report-worm-scp-foundation.587479/)Worm/SCP Foundation. Taylor gains the ability to create copies of numerous subjects of the SCP-verse. Oh boy did this not go at all like I'd expected it to. It spirals out of control very, very fast and is a real hoot. If you need context, the SCP-verse in its entirety is found here (http://www.scp-wiki.net/).
Ethnic Difficulties (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ethnic-difficulties-warcraft-si.589983/) World of Warcraft SI. Not usually my cup of tea because Warcraft fics tend to be just AWFUL. Love the game, hate the fandom. This one is from a new perspective. SI is thrust into a child's body and has approximately 0 power. I haven't thrown my hands up in disgust yet, so whatever.
Fur and Fire (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/fur-and-fire-rwby-warcraft.568042/) Warcraft/RWBY. Team RWBY are tossed into the Warcraft universe right as the Second War of the Shifting Sands kicks off. I fully expected this to blow. It does not. The author is well-versed in Warcraft knowledge as well as RWBY knowledge and it shows. The writing itself is good, moderately compelling.
Dead Tired (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/dead-tired-dc-sioc.391468/)DC OC is a non-evil necromancer. Amusing.
Playing Hooky (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/playing-hooky-worm-au-alt-power.546865/) Worm AU, where Taylor gets Hookwolf's powers and a huge amount of emotional baggage! Good stuff.
Y'all Are Stupid (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/yall-are-stupid-worm-pokemon.588705/) Worm/Pokemon. Taylor starts Team Skull in Brockton and there's also a break-dancing crew she starts with Aisha. Also teenage taunting. It's...Stupid. Really, really stupid. I couldn't slog through more than the first two chapters.
VAINGLORIOUS (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/vainglorious-worm-thor.589593/) Worm/Thor. Taylor gets-you know what? No. I didn't make it past the first line of this fic. I have this thing where I think that fiction should be written from the character's point of view. A character in America, raised in America, with American parents should not have an English accent. Taylor calling her mother "Mum" right in the first line completely shatters any desire I have to read the story. Same for anything set in the UK and characters calling their mother, "Mom." It just doesn't jive for me. So yeah, I have no idea how it is because I get so irritated that I can't read it. Good luck.
One Hell of an Afternoon (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/one-hell-of-an-afternoon-worm-young-justice.377758/) Worm/Young Justice. Post-Golden Morning Taylor gets dropped into the YJ-DCverse and promptly goes on a rampage through Gotham. Fun stuff. It's a little choppy, but I like the story.
When in Doubt, Blame the Eldar (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/when-in-doubt-blame-the-eldar-pa-si-multicross.380256/) Planetary Annihilation/Warhammer 40k SI. Hooooooooboy. This has been linked a couple times, I think. SI is thrust into a commander unit from Planetary Annihilation (which is a lot of fun btw) and dropped from orbit into Dawn of War. Everyone not SI proceeds to have a bad time while the SI is also having a bad time. Things progressively get worse for SI. Fun.
A World of Bloody Evolution (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-world-of-bloody-evolution-rwby-warhammer40k.323170/) RWBY/Warhammer40k. Post-series team gets dumped into the Warhammer 40k universe because reasons. It's better than it sounds.
Glorious Shotgun Princess (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8107629/1/Mass-Effect-Glorious-Shotgun-Princess) Mass Effect/Exalted. Starts at the end of ME1, Shepard exalting as she falls from the sky. Ends better than the games, so that's a plus. 5/7.
Browncoat, Geen Eyes (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2857962/1/Browncoat-Green-Eyes) Harry Potter/Firefly. Picks up after Serenity ended. Harry is recruited as the Serenity's new pilot after River proves unreliable.
Did the Serenity crew ever amount to anything other than cheerleaders in that fic? I remember having it recced to me and stopping when it seemed the Serenity characters were almost superfluous.
Been trying some stories on webnovel dot com (quidian International?). Release That Witch is easily the best of what I've tried to read. Engineer Guy dies and is reincarnated into the body of a recently deceased prince. A pretty entertaining yarn ensues.
On the other hand I tried Swallowed Star. I tried to like it. I wanted to like it. I kept at it for nearly 300 chapters before I had enough. Its like a parody of all the crap people make fun of xianxia for.
"And even the small sea monsters were as big as houses! And the river was filled with millions of them!" But the worst is how the main character seems to get power ups handed to him like water in the ocean. Its all bad. Would not recommend. 0/10
Quote from: thepanda on December 04, 2017, 01:40:49 AM
Been trying some stories on webnovel dot com (quidian International?). Release That Witch is easily the best of what I've tried to read. Engineer Guy dies and is reincarnated into the body of a recently deceased prince. A pretty entertaining yarn ensues.
I won't go to the QI site, so haven't read that one in awhile. But I remember reading Release that Witch when it was being translated on Volare's site, and I liked it quite a bit. Sort of like a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but replace Arthurian England with a human-centric high-magic fantasy setting and more focus on chemical engineering rather than mechanical.
Volare's site's was constantly loading and reloading when I tried to read it there on mobile. To the point where it ate my battery and caused my phone plan to go over enough that I had to shell out $75 in overage fees.
christ
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-subtle-knife-worm-yj-si.342043 - I enjoyed this SI. Guy gets Jack Slash powers and thrown into marvel-verse without any records. It's been going on a few years, telling his tale of trying not to end up a villain, joining the sidekick team.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/vainglorious-worm-thor.589593/ - this is kinda cracky.
And awesome.
But really, it's some weird fusion of Worm/MCU(thor) mythology. Taylor, the ever-bullied, is the last dark elf(half). Her mom (last dark elf) vanishes along usual timeline... and instead this time Taylor gets into her mom's space ship and tries her heroic suicide run against The Smurgh instead of Lung(Not Appearing in This Fic).
Then Jotuns take over australia.
Yeah, I wasn't sure what it was but it was too out there for me.
Tried Vainglorious but had the same problem Yuth did, seeing Taylor call Anette 'Mum' took me right out of it from the start.
Heh. It doesn't do a great job of making sense in the early parts either. It's really mostly for it's later post-world-going-to-shit set pieces.
That said I wouldn't have called line one as the 'flip table' point :)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-dovahkiin-without-dragon-souls-to-spend-worm-skyrim-gamer-completed.513694/
Dragonborn taylor story finishes with a whimper and a pretty crummy finishing arc. It was never a good story, largely following a taylor-shaped ditz but it's over now.
Quote from: Dracos on December 20, 2017, 11:20:17 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-dovahkiin-without-dragon-souls-to-spend-worm-skyrim-gamer-completed.513694/
Dragonborn taylor story finishes with a whimper and a pretty crummy finishing arc. It was never a good story, largely following a taylor-shaped ditz but it's over now.
Oh thank God. It was really really not good.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/40/Path-of-the-King
Every couple of years, I go looking for this old FFML fic.
https://sanjiyan.co.uk/showthread.php?t=44353
Hello Kitty, with a minor BGC cameo towards the end.
Some Avatar fanfics I enjoyed:
- https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6904038/1/Bringing-Out-the-Blue -- Zuko does the Blue Spirit thing a bit more, leading to Diplomacy. Sadly unfinished, definitely had a sense of going somewhere interesting.
- http://archiveofourown.org/works/280947/chapters/446620 -- post-war mostly people trying to assassinate . Very strong worldbuilding involved. The one-shots referenced in the front are also interesting. And it's well written. And yet... why am I vaguely reminded of Skysaber?
- https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6361073/1/Life-Bound -- short and to the point and has a happy ending. But very heavy subject matter. In the end, I'm glad I read through it regardless.
This comes out of working about 1/4 of the way through a huge list of recommendations on SB https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/murazors-big-list-of-recommended-fanfics.141978/page-9#post-11975719 but a lot of the recommended fics really didn't click with me. That's just how fanfic is, I guess.
What I've been reading lately.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12738075/1/Why-Time-Travel-Should-Be-Illegal-and-Other-Morals
Eh. Muggle school teacher from our world ends up in Harry Potter's world just in time to teach his kindergarten class. It's vaguely okay, I'm mostly reading it for the Christian perspective (which I find refreshing in fanfiction).
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327719/1/What-Do-You-Want
This updated last week. It continues to be soundly average and passable, an enjoyable Ranma fic from days long past. I'm not the biggest fan of everything it hits, but I have no qualms about reading it.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12369512/1/The-Peace-Not-Promised
After death, Snape is sent back in time to his Hogwarts days...hey wait, come back! Okay, I admit it's a guilty pleasure, but I enjoy the fic isn't a lionization of Snape and/or a take down of James Potter, but instead shows both people as varying degree of asses (and Snape more than James). It avoids immediate power plays and focuses on social dynamics in year 6 of Snape and company's schooling rather than directly fighting Voldemort.
Snape is a bitter, wounded and regretful man stumbling through a second chance. The narrative makes no bones about this nor tries to sweep aside his character flaws. I give it points for that, y'know? A lot of Snape focus fics really try to paint away his flaws (and you can just hear the squeeing of fangirls), make him someone he isn't. This fic feels like it's avoiding it, as well as having him act in a fairly believable way. Of course he does much better in Syltherin politics - as he notes himself, he has a lifetime of experience on them as well as a great deal more magical learning - but this isn't done in a totally Mary Sue way.
I could write more, but the jist is this: It's a guilty pleasure fic that takes on a fangirlish concept and writes it honestly to the characters. I can respect that.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/greg-veder-vs-the-world-worm-the-gamer.601118/
Yeah, I know. That title. That title, man. I'm not defending it, but it's enjoyable enough so far. The gamer elements are less wanky than usual so far, which I'm grateful for.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/northern-star-znt-si-multi-cross.604066/
Ranger of the North is getting a rewrite and remix. Looks decent so far, even if it's purely in the establishment phase of things before any real plot happens.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/weaponry-dominion-worm-x-familiar-of-zero-znt.601361/
Taylor gets summoned in the locker and shit goes from there. Too early to say a lot, but there's some really interesting potential in the first chapter.
Hum, chapter 3 of weaponry dominion has posted.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/how-to-drill-your-way-through-your-problems-worm-ttgl-si.503134 - This feels remarkably on note as a gurren lagann wish-fic in Brockton Bay.
Silencio (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/silencio-thread-7-seven-shady-superheroes-support-shipyard-salvage-shenanigans.310566/) updated. It's been four years, and the story holds up. The update was a fun but fluffy thing, all characterization and interaction with no conflict. Odd for a Worm fic, but the author makes it work fairly well.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ring-maker-worm-lord-of-the-rings-alt-power.517894/
Ring Maker continues on. I continue to have deep problems with it, but I skim it for the good parts. I just can't buy into Sauron Taylor that much, but there's still some good bits here and there.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/special-edition-worm-xover.597691/
This takes a typical OP Taylor premise, married to the generally poor idea of PHO interludes and comes out with a surprisingly good fic. The premise is that Taylor can see tomorrow's events 24 hours early and uses this to influence events worldwide. Her exact precog powers are vague but top tier. Rather than focusing on Taylor's PoV, it cuts that out and focuses on other people and what we really want to see from this sort of fic: The reactions and worldbuilding. Well worth a read.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/who-made-this-game-worm-action-mystery.606637/
The Wards find a Worm video game right after Lung is first captured at the beginning of Worm. Shenanigans ensue. It's okay, some parts are decent and some are bad. Worth reading two chapters (the first is slow) and seeing if it tickles your fancy.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/weaponry-dominion-worm-x-familiar-of-zero-znt.601361/
Weaponry Dominion continues. Very slow paced right now but showing signs of hopefully picking up. Chapter 1 had a lot going on, now it's all set up. Hopefully it uses the potential established soon.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/41/Path-of-the-King
Path of the King updated. Mostly an in between chapter that sets up the next one with a strong cliffhanger.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7657235/41/Path-of-the-King
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/letting-go-worm-exalted.431251/page-54#post-43675753 One of Silencio's other fics continued too, Taylor continuing to creep people out.
Any neat reads lately?
I've been rereading https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/silencio-thread-7-seven-shady-superheroes-support-shipyard-salvage-shenanigans.310566/ which started updating again this year.
Also read some of Ack's stuff, but most updates lately just look like "Hey look, overly comedic curbstomp of brockton bay villain faces"
http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php/38694-%E5%A4%A7%E5%94%90%E5%8F%8C%E9%BE%99%E4%BC%A0-Da-Tang-Shuang-Long-Zhuan-by-Huang-Yi
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ruks-unimaginatively-titled-worm-snippet-collection-now-with-extra-luthor-taylor.491638/#post-31348180
Chivalry and Cheaters updated to chapter 3, that's a link to chapter 1. It's a fun Worm story posted about Tattletale and Gallant having to work together before the start of canon. It's a fun story, especially how they bounce off of each other.
Nekomimineko (https://sekaigamethetranslation.wordpress.com/volume-1/omake/)
I'm reading "Tales of Demons and Gods" which is a light novel by the way. ;)
Quote from: Benedicto on March 05, 2018, 01:16:53 AM
I'm reading "Tales of Demons and Gods" which is a light novel by the way. ;)
Haven't checked on that one in awhile. Is it still being translated?
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327719/15/What-Do-You-Want
What Do You Want continues to update at a good clip. I'm mostly skimming the fiancee interaction bits, they just aren't doing it for me. The other current plot's a little more interesting.
[spoiler]The ideas of Ranma's mind and the curse aren't really new, but it's not indefensible. Akane's bit about Ranma's girl form being a picky flirt does make sense and made me nod along like yeah, okay, I can see where you're coming from. Rationalize it and P-Chan like that and there you go.
Pretty sure Ranma's girl side has something for Ryouga at this point, so maybe this ends up a Ranma and Ryouga fic? I dunno. It's kind of pinwheeling and doing its own thing at this point.
Looked at that today.
Yeah, it kind of feels like almost everyone in that fic became super okay with any relationship, any relationship at all. Kinda preferred the more simple Nabiki/Ranma connection the story started with.
It's created a situation where the OC villainess is almost the entirety of the intentional antagonist behavior, which leaves things a bit lopsided. But then I am just flitting through it and haven't been reading straight since the 'we are basically trapping Ranma as a girl on threat of legal blackmail'
Yeah.
[spoiler]
It really does feel like someone exploring a Ranma fanfic for the first time, going about on whatever catches their eye.
A shame, as it had a strong start, and even individual scenes remain well written.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/shadow-of-the-bay-worm-naruto.615497/ this is a pretty good crossover. Tenten is warped into Worm early in series. Doesn't speak the language, or understand the culture. Interrupts Coil's capture of Lisa who learns her language via worm BS and teaches her some English slowly, including misunderstandings like the PRT as a shinobi organization.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-woke-up-as-a-dungeon-now-what-dungeon-worm.620521 I am enjoying this as well, which is more an original setting, post ending where Taylor ends up as a sentient dungeon, which is silly but played straight. The world setting itself has a fair bit of lore the people in it know about dungeons but Taylor certainly doesn't. Dungeons in the setting tend to be able to generate loot and land prosperity (Healthier land around them) so a group of starving migrants decide to make contact rather than try and kill her off early while she's weak.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327719/16/What-Do-You-Want
What Do You Want updated.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/wyrm-worm-altpower-breath-of-fire.629935/
New Worm/BoF crossover posted yesterday. It's okay so far, it should hopefully improve as it goes on. Has a bit of fanon issues that should hopefully be cleared up.
https://royalroadl.com/fiction/15935/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns/
I am reading this. I handwaved it at first, because frankly the start is uninteresting, but it gets good. It is the story of Delta. Who was a person, maybe, and is now a dungeon. And the town around her. And how she breaks things, because she wants to not kill things and thinks pottery making mycenoids teaming up with pyromancer goblins in a room of mud are neat. A lot of it reflects on a somewhat silly worldsetting around it and consistent puns.
Also mushrooms. The bane of delta.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 31, 2018, 08:39:28 AMhttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/wyrm-worm-altpower-breath-of-fire.629935/
New Worm/BoF crossover posted yesterday. It's okay so far, it should hopefully improve as it goes on. Has a bit of fanon issues that should hopefully be cleared up.
Man, it lost me right away. No lead up, straight into badass. Couldn't swallow it. Didn't even finish the first chapter.
Quote from: Yuthirin on April 06, 2018, 01:09:41 AM
Quote from: Anastasia on March 31, 2018, 08:39:28 AMhttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/wyrm-worm-altpower-breath-of-fire.629935/
New Worm/BoF crossover posted yesterday. It's okay so far, it should hopefully improve as it goes on. Has a bit of fanon issues that should hopefully be cleared up.
Man, it lost me right away. No lead up, straight into badass. Couldn't swallow it. Didn't even finish the first chapter.
Fair enough. I'm lukewarm on it personally. It's not bad, but it hasn't grabbed me deeply, either.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/electric-worm-au-alt-power.627664/
Taylor triggers when she first meets Sophia with an Alexandria package as well as lightning blasts. It's okayish so far, nothing great but passable popcorn reading.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/asoiaf-si-no-promises.610762/
Yet another ASOIAF crossover, but this one with a good writer. It's amusing for what it is, especially in the past few chapters as things pick up.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/re-hero-re-zero-worm-crossover.630877/
Eidolon survives his battle with Scion after the four words are spoken by his power throwing him through the dimensions, past the Entity's dimensional lock and into the world of Re:Zero. Shenanigans ensue. Note that the chapter at the beginning is retconned for a different approach, use the the threadmarks to get to the real chapter one. This gets points for being original and different, we'll see how it looks in a few chapters. Seeing Eidolon simply stop caring and his mindset after's a breath of fresh air from yet another Taylor fanfic.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/white-mage-worm-final-fantasy.629425/
Taylor has the powers of a White Mage from Final Fantasy. It's okay, see how it develops sort of fic.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/1/A-Dead-World has updated. Cain and Alex continue to try and survive the sierra madre.
Quote from: Dracos on April 13, 2018, 12:52:48 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/1/A-Dead-World has updated. Cain and Alex continue to try and survive the sierra madre.
I'm absolutely in love with this author's prose. She's got a way with words that can really put you in a character's shoes. The last few chapters have been real gems.
Quote from: Arakawa on October 19, 2017, 10:11:09 PM
DK:A happened at some point (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-8#post-9202573). Ami did a cool thing.
DK:A continued to happen. The rather plodding pace of Dwarf Stomp was redeemed when Ami
accidentally took over the dwarf fortress
, totally without meaning to. The political implications of this should be interesting.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-8#post-10261927
Unfortunately I suspect that, given the plodding pace of updates, the story has long ago become top heavy in the mind of its author. Which is a perennial philosophical problem with fanfiction. When the very genre is motivated by the idea that good stories should be continued and expanded indefinitely with new ideas, it's unsurprising that many stories keep being written until they stop being good or become impossible to write.
I think DK:A was one of those stories that worked when the author could update more often than he does now. I feel like it's slowly drowning these days.
Quote from: Yuthirin on April 17, 2018, 11:42:15 AM
Quote from: Dracos on April 13, 2018, 12:52:48 PM
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/1/A-Dead-World has updated. Cain and Alex continue to try and survive the sierra madre.
I'm absolutely in love with this author's prose. She's got a way with words that can really put you in a character's shoes. The last few chapters have been real gems.
Aye that. The writing is really great.
Caught up on: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8501689/1/The-Havoc-side-of-the-Force but more relevantly on https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8594589/1/The-Unsuspecting-side-of-the-Force
The first is Harry Potter, International Bounty Hunter thrown into Star Wars land. It's amusing in a sort of chaotic super-spy fashion.
The other side though is the reactions of folks. People trying to put pieces together. "Why is he doing this?" It also sometimes covers things that happen, good or bad, that he doesn't have perspective on. Like "Why is the target already knocked out here?"
Quote from: Dracos on May 06, 2018, 03:28:24 PM
The first is Harry Potter, International Bounty Hunter thrown into Star Wars land. It's amusing in a sort of chaotic super-spy fashion.
Reminds me of Stainless Steel Rat:
- Go to planet.
- Big heist with huge collateral damage.
- Bureaucrats heads asplode.
- Repeat until no more planets to heist.
Also, HK-47 is basically like the Horned Reaper in DK:A, only with more intelligence and wit. Must give him stuff to kill or he goes stir crazy.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ring-maker-worm-lord-of-the-rings-alt-power.517894/
Ring Maker continues on. I find it narratively unsatisfying at this point, for all I still think it does some neat things.
[spoiler]The Amy vs the Resistance battle really felt unsatisfying with the established characters there. It was like one of those can't win boss battles in an RPG, one of the ones that doesn't feel right and isn't properly executed or supported by the plot.
I do like that it's willing to take some of the characters seen the most favorably in the fandom (Dragon, Amy, the Brockton Bay Wards) and cast them in a slowly more negative and corrupted light. It's just that the overall frame and set up of the story leaves me
Death Mage who doesn't want to die a 4th time. https://lightnovelbastion.com/project.php?p=248
Japanese LN which adheres to the protagonist being an antihero a little more faithfully than most Japanese LNs do. Has RPG-like mechanics, and some light nation-building
Of note: has undead/monster harem theme to it - it's not the defining trait of the series (such as, for example, Shield-Hero's furry harem), but ever present.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-woke-up-as-a-dungeon-now-what-dungeon-worm.620521/
https://royalroadl.com/fiction/15935/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns
There have been updates of both.
and I think of other things.
http://fubarfics.fubarinc.com/cc/index.html
Reread this. It's an decent Sailor Moon/Ranma crossover.
[spoiler]If you're going to pull the Ranma cast can keep up with the SM cast gambit, one way to sell it is by having them be a generation older than the senshi. That part holds up pretty well, along with the general wackiness of things at times. The story still has some flaws - the final attack on the Dark Kingdom really comes to mind here - but it's an enjoyable romp.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 21, 2018, 12:29:13 PM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ring-maker-worm-lord-of-the-rings-alt-power.517894/
Ring Maker continues on. I find it narratively unsatisfying at this point, for all I still think it does some neat things.
The Amy vs the Resistance battle really felt unsatisfying with the established characters there. It was like one of those can't win boss battles in an RPG, one of the ones that doesn't feel right and isn't properly executed or supported by the plot.
I do like that it's willing to take some of the characters seen the most favorably in the fandom (Dragon, Amy, the Brockton Bay Wards) and cast them in a slowly more negative and corrupted light. It's just that the overall frame and set up of the story leaves me
[/quote][spoiler]I really couldn't get around how the author felt the need to change the Wards with the rings. It made the story MORE wooden, if anything. I just can't stomach it. Great premise, horrible execution.
[spoiler]
I think Ring-Maker is a case of good concepts, interesting ideas and lacking execution. On paper I like a lot of what he's done, but it isn't really working out well. On the subject of the Wards - on the rare occasional a power up fic actually gives out power boosts to anyone but Taylor/the SI/OC, you'd expect those changes to be a big deal. For all the rings are narratively important, it doesn't feel like it's quite fulfilled that for them. Sure, it's shown them with improved abilities and Amy with spider, but yet...
I dunno. It's not satisfying that itch for power ups that the premise would suggest.
Really, it comes down to Taylor becoming less and less interesting as the story goes on. She just doesn't have the charisma the story tells us she's supposed to have.
Likewise, a Taylor joins the Wards fic can be interesting to subvert the normal structure of Worm. Yet this one feels increasingly hollow and uninteresting, more just...not there.
I dunno, the more I pick at Ring Maker the more issues I think it has. The Taylor in the Wards thing makes me wish A Harsher Truth wasn't dead.
I Was a Sword When I Reincarnated: The adventures of a guy who is a living sword, and his badass taciturn-catgirl wielder.
This LN is precisely as deep and complex as that description makes it out to be.
https://ensigblog.wordpress.com/current-works-main/i-was-a-sword-when-i-reincarnated-main/
That link includes an index to some of the starting chapters. Too many translators for this, and I don't think any one of them as a complete index.
Also read some of Nidome no Yuusha, but...no.
That one reminds me of some "Usagi is betrayed by everyone" fics from way back when.
Ryuugi (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sailor-moon-overlord-the-queen-of-the-moon.577922/) is at it again. Sailor Moon meets Overlord meets Xianxia. The informational posts might be more enjoyable than the actual story so far.
Man off the moon (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/man-off-the-moon-fate-extra-x-mass-effect.641011/) has been fun. I hadn't read any Fatefics using the Nameless version of EMIYA before. Updates fairly regularly.
Common Sense of a Duke's Daughter (https://www.novelupdates.com/series/common-sense-of-a-dukes-daughter/). I think this is one of the more enjoyable 'reincarnated as the villain/rival in an otome game' genre. The twist being that instead of incarnating years before the plot and trying to avoid death flags(like (https://www.novelupdates.com/series/i-reincarnated-into-an-otome-game-as-a-villainess-with-only-destruction-flags/comment-page-3/) one does (https://www.novelupdates.com/series/kenkyo-kenjitsu-o-motto-ni-ikite-orimasu//)) the main character instead incarnates at the end of the game right at the point where the rival character is falling from grace and continues from there.
I read some of the beginning chapters of his Sailor Moon fic... and then read a random one.
I...didn't really feel like I understood anything the chapter was saying. I mean, I understood the words. But not the sentences? I couldn't understand how it had gone from an Overlord cross to whatever that was. Honestly, pretty turned off by his Xianxia crosses since it just feels like a lot of characters with different names and power references.
SM x xianxia seems like an odd mix. Esp. since most xianxia can be described as "chaotic neutral."
Read through Duke's Daughter. It feels like it skips over most of the development aspects, but given my reading for the past year or two, that's probably me more than any flaw with the story itself.
The Tutorial is Too Hard (https://lightnovelbastion.com/project.php?p=285)
Korean novel about people who get RPG-like powers, are suddenly prompted to pick the difficulty level, etc. Too bad the main character was drunk when he was summoned, and picked Hell Mode.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/miracles-of-ancient-wonder-rwby-exalted.389319/ thought I linked this here. It's an interesting blend of Exalted and RWBY where hunters are basically in the role of the dragons, trying to both face off against the grim, and stop the horrible exalted from showing up.
Ring Maker updated with what was the mid-story climax. The story finally lost me for good, I don't even want to skim it anymore to see what good ideas he uses.
[spoiler]
It was essentially a Taylor and Sophia confrontation and pivoted 100% on it. As this is by far the weakest part of the story, I felt it dragged down what was a possibly rewarding scene. Moreover, it felt like everyone but Sophia on the anti Annatar group was window dressing for Sophia and Taylor interaction after that chapter. That made the entire build up there feel far less rewarding than it was before. It feels like the story is now nothing but a vessel for Taylor and Sophia's interactions at the core of it, so I'm out.
Taylor choosing to turn aside and cast aside Sauron's blindness should have been powerful stuff. It really should have, but the great problem this fic has and still has is Sophia in general. I just can't accept it as a freebie or as a handwave, nor was the setup for it believable. It's been a giant fault line in the story since that story arc began way back in arc 2.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/stone-worm-puella-magi-madoka-magica.635890 - This is kind of a neat Worm/Puella fic. It's relatively snappy with its flow, and I suspect will be finishing in a few chapters.
Taylor is granted a wish in the locker, by Kyuuby. It is set in a post-madoka world, so they don't know of witches, but instead wraiths and the Law of Cycles is the explanation for why magical girls vanish at some point (by the girls themselves). Magical girls are known as Cape 32s, which even as far as some of cauldron do not believe exist. Taylor's helped out by Amanda, who is basically a super stranger magical girl.
The story completely skips street level and even endbringer level. Kyuubey flat out acknowledges Scion as the source of most powers on the world. So far he's been the visible end story, with personal failings being the general obstacles of note.
Taylor's power is to run away. Teleportation from pretty much anything, including
https://koreanovels.com/2017/09/01/level-1-skeleton/
(almost forgot the description
Pretty much as expected - guy reincarnates into a low level creature in an RPG world, and has some power that lets him become powerful.
One aspect that I found different than expected was that most Korean novels tend to focus on tedious grind, and the main character tends to complain about the tedium like a badge of honor. This story doesn't fall into that pattern nearly as much.
The Bathroom Goddess (https://oniichanyamete.moe/index/the-bathroom-goddess/)
I liked it. A woman finds that the window in her bathroom opens up to another world. At twenty chapters the story is short and tight. The lead isn't annoying. The ending is set up pretty well, too. I recommend it zero reservations.
Was on that site after having worked through available Reika, and saw your post. Good stuff.
Also, https://psychobarcodetranslations.wordpress.com/flamering/
Lack of Talent (https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/8uprsf/seven_deadly_sins_lack_of_talent/)
The story is simple and well told. Ignore where it is posted from. >_>
https://negaraizu.wordpress.com/glutton-berserker/
One of those "gets the skills of the defeated enemy" stories. Doesn't fall fall into the trap of thinking that numbers will carry a story (although there is still plenty of "appraisal" going on.)
But everyone loves Appraisal-san. It's a character that clearly is in dozens of series.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/snuggles-the-symbiote-worm-marvel-rewrite.618970/ this is kind of cute. Lots of marvel clones dumped into Worm world. But following Snuggles the Symbiote having helped out Skitter.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/all-things-devoured-worm-deadspace.489340/ - update, but kinda just Taylor joshing.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/transposition-or-ship-happens-worm-aoki-hagane-no-arpeggio-arpeggio-of-blue-steel.32456/ - Lisa undergoes seriously invasive surgery.
Sevens (https://yoraikun.wordpress.com/7s-chapters/)
Fantasy. As in, actually fantasy, and not another rehashed wish-fulfilled RPG otaku transported spending multiple chapters looking for authentic Japanese rice and screaming how he's an antihero while not killing anyone while carrying around a sword.
Also, harem.
http://skythewood.blogspot.com/p/altina-sword-princess.html
LN type characters. I would probably enjoy this more had I not started reading it right after Sevens. Still decent.
I wish there were less harem novels and more general adventure or slice of life fantasy novels. The few I find that aren't harems almost always seem to have unlikeable main characters for some reason. Oh well.
https://inconnuesite.wordpress.com/table-of-content-for-shoujo-grand-summoning/
Multi-cross SI with RPG powers, where the main character's power is to summon girls from different anime.
Quote from: Merc on July 12, 2018, 02:59:13 AM
I wish there were less harem novels and more general adventure or slice of life fantasy novels. The few I find that aren't harems almost always seem to have unlikeable main characters for some reason. Oh well.
I've been reading http://skythewood.blogspot.com/p/altina-sword-princess.html which isn't harem, but the characters are pretty generic archtypes.
https://creativenovels.com/a-monster-who-levels-up/
Korean LN w/RPG-reality.
Two notable points:
Kinda-sorta harem, but the protagonist picks a girl midway through and sticks with her.
Doesn't fall into the trap of being a grindfest+failure to have a climactic ending like most Korean LNs.
Author's first work, and translator's first translation, so the downside is incessant translator comments and the author changing people's names part-way through.
https://inconnuesite.wordpress.com/table-of-content-for-shoujo-grand-summoning/
Guy has power to summon anime girls.
Long setup, and it's like a multicross SI fanfic that was originally written in Chinese.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/dont-do-brains-worm-panacea-a-u.661542/
Amy breaks her no brains rule mid canon. Things rapidly go horribly, horribly wrong.
A good read if you go with it and don't nitpick, but it has a few weak points you can jab at if you want.
I'm sort of following that one, it's an interesting examination of the potential train wreck that can result, and just how badly Amy can slide there while still -trying- to be a good person or present herself as one/remorseful for what she did, rather than going full down to the dark side.
I've been reading a few My Hero Academia fics recently:
Juxtapose (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12442128/chapters/28315251) is a story where Midoriya does have a quirk, though he's always been told it's a useless one (it isn't), and All Might is a bit healthier than he was at the start of canon. Their first meeting pans out slightly different as a result, and eventually diverges with All Might still taking Midoriya under his wing...but he's in the General Education department, not Heroics. Some interesting things with the story is that it follows somewhat along with canon, but doesn't just repeat the stations of canon trap that a lot of divergence fics fall prey to. Instead, it shows aspects of the story that we don't see in canon and the repercussions of changing those aspects. It's really pretty neat.
Hero Class Civil Warfare (https://archiveofourown.org/works/14446512/chapters/33370263) reminds me of a RWBY fanfic (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12638092/1/The-Beacon-Civil-War) with a similar concept, but it's a bit less cracky and more heist film style focused. In it, the Heroics department gets split into two sides, with two captains: Bakugou is the captain of the heroes, Midoriya the captain of the villains. All other students can join either side and the two captains can try to do whatever they want to recruit them. In all the years the school has done this, the villains side has always been woefully outmatched, with pretty much everyone usually going to the hero side (it's a school for heroes, what do you expect?). The villains have only ever won once, and it was the most basic/smallest form of victory. Midoriya has decided if he's going to be a villain? He's going to win with style and full points. And so far? His side is wrecking through the heroes.
Erased Potential (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12522681/1/Erased-Potential) takes the same canon formula...except Midoriya did some research on Eraserhead early on, and decided that for a quirkless kid to get into UA? That's definitely the guy to teach him the ropes. So this is Midoriya on a full on Batman mode. No powers, just his wits, his human body, and whatever trinkets he can get approved and made by interested parties that find him interesting.
We don't live in Fairytales (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12710919/1/We-Don-t-Live-In-Fairytales) is an SI story. Except the main character is NOT the self insert. It's her sister. And she has to watch her sister befriend this weird but nice quirkless kid, and try to keep them out of trouble.
Lamarkian (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/lamarckian-my-hero-academia-si.599801/) is an SI story. The main character is the daughter of a very minor hero (Native) and ends up with a variation of his power which is animal shapeshifting. It's quite a while before they even meet up with the original series' main cast, and mostly focuses on more minor characters with the exception of Bakugou who somehow ends up in a relationship with the SI. And they bicker pretty much like Ranma/Akane and other 80's-90's tsundere couples used to. Kinda nostalgic.
On light/web novels side of things, I've been binging a bit on: Overgeared (https://www.wuxiaworld.com/novel/overgeared), a korean VRMMO story. As with a lot of the stories of that genre involving adventure/growth and an AI that controls the narrative of the world, players have access to basic classes and can also find hidden classes that have different ranks. The main character is a total loser who has nothing but the game and stumbles onto the very first Legendary class of the game, and starts to grow not just in power, but developing as a human being. At the start of the story, he's actually not a very likeable character, and the nice things he does do, often he does by accident or just because something happened to snag on one of his weakpoints as a former loser. He does sympathize a lot with people, particularly NPCs, and that's kind of where he starts finding his niche in the game and the world at large. Some of it is guilty pleasure, some of it is the world building, some of it has just been watching this guy grow as a human being and not just as a player, but I do find myself liking this story. It does suffer from a LOT of the weak points of other stories in the genre though in that a lot of the villains don't really have much motivation beyond "FOR THE EVULZ!!!" and lucky shit always seems to happen for the MC so even shitty things turn good. It doesn't overdo it quite like the reincarnation VRMMO stories tend to do at least, so there's that. I tend to like Legendary Moonlight Sculptor more for the genre, but that story tends to have disgustingly bad translation quality. This one's a rather decent translation (or at least has decent grammar. I can't actually speak for translation accuracy).
I've been reading https://wanderinginn.com
I am almost up to present...which is some 5000+ pages.
It is an isekai, with many folks drawn in, by different causes (most not knowing the cause at all). It does have leveling systems and rules and such, but it definitely is delivered that it isn't necessarily a good thing (Perhaps one should question why such a system of gaining Skills and power exists), both from the explained 'perhaps there is a puppetmaster' and the subtle 'world is boring, entertainment is rare'.
It primarily follows Erin Solstice, a girl who got pulled in, burned, chased by goblins, and then hid in an inn, slowly making her way there. She is an [innkeeper]. Also good at killing and making cake.
It also primarily follows Ryoka Griffin. Who has way too good a memory. And refuses to level. Also has serious rage problems and is an Mixed-martial arts type. She runs a lot. She is not a good killer. Likes listening to her iphone.
https://myoniyonitranslations.com/
Several Korean LNs of varying quality.
QuoteOn light/web novels side of things, I've been binging a bit on: Overgeared, a korean VRMMO story.
I tried reading that when RainbowTurtle started translating it, but the main character couldn't retain my interest so I dropped it early on. If you've been finding it interesting enough to read through, maybe I'll give it another shot.
When it started, I mostly read it to pass the time because it was fairly reliable with updates and I liked the world building. But the MC really was terrible early on.
He doesn't start being remotely likeable until he starts interacting with NPCs and forms a friendship with a blacksmith who lost his son, and I think that's 40-60 chapters or so before that first arc resolves?
It's actually from that friendship that he starts developing as a human being, but even it takes another 200 or so chapters before he stabilizes as a character and stops really changing too much. I think around the time that they start raiding vampires and he realizes he's cherishing the bonds he's made with his guild, the NPCs of his lands, etc, he stabilizes as a person and starts focusing more on growing in power and maintaining his bonds. It's a gradual growth up to that, so he -should- get more tolerable and halfway likeable as you read through, but if he really doesn't and you make it to vampire raids and still find him a douche, well, he's not gonna get much better after that.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/thaumaturgic-awakening-worm-fsn.378247/ - More action, Bullet keeps flying.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/tangled-fate-ranma-1-2-exalted.39183/ - Kind of a weak 'oh yes, we are running the city now...' chapter.
Some harmless lulz:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10578266/1/Silly-but-Killy
There be Warhammer 40k Orks. Apparently Warboss Hakkit taught Orks to coexist in close proximity with other races, thereby unleashing a new age of previously unimagined torments upon the galaxy. There is Kommando Sheppurt. 'E be green and dead killy. He stomps his way through the plot of Mass Effect.
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/1177354054886532612
Lv 99999 Villager
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-woke-up-as-a-dungeon-now-what-dungeon-worm.620521/
In a dungeon, Atlas beats up everybody. Kids are bullied, children cry, bows are broken.
Taylor goes easy on 'em.
Quote from: Dracos on August 17, 2018, 12:48:48 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-woke-up-as-a-dungeon-now-what-dungeon-worm.620521/
In a dungeon, Atlas beats up everybody. Kids are bullied, children cry, bows are broken.
Taylor goes easy on 'em.
The story itself seems like a fantasy LN starred by a Taylor Shaped Entity. I don't get why the writer thought the TSE was necessary; the writer could have taken out the three or four Worm references in the text and replaced "Taylor" with a Afghani entomologist; the story would work just as well.
But the story is just the first few chapters, so maybe I'm jumping the gun.
Quote from: Merc on July 25, 2018, 11:02:29 PM
Juxtapose (https://archiveofourown.org/works/12442128/chapters/28315251) is a story where Midoriya does have a quirk, though he's always been told it's a useless one (it isn't), and All Might is a bit healthier than he was at the start of canon. Their first meeting pans out slightly different as a result, and eventually diverges with All Might still taking Midoriya under his wing...but he's in the General Education department, not Heroics. Some interesting things with the story is that it follows somewhat along with canon, but doesn't just repeat the stations of canon trap that a lot of divergence fics fall prey to. Instead, it shows aspects of the story that we don't see in canon and the repercussions of changing those aspects. It's really pretty neat.
Reading right now... some interesting logic is implied as to why the Hero Class entrance exam is so focused on blowing up robots. Effectively, it seems like Nedzu made up an exam that's extremely hard to pass without a violent Quirk because he considers the supporting roles to be more important in the grand scheme of things and he's pushing any unconventionally talented students away from the Hero route and in the support direction.
https://wanderinginn.com/ continues to update a few times a week. Just finished off a challenge of words and posturing with the summer fae and the emperor of the unseen. Next chapter (up from patreon) returns to Erin post the liscor war. Place be wrecked, but people be alive. Life moves on.
Well, to anyone that read any sort of novel in webnovel.com, they finally seem to have gone to a fully paywall mode on chapters, no longer releasing chapters for free after a time. You can have a subscription and "earn spirit stones" to unlock chapters free, but on average you can unlock about .9 chapters per day. So if you really want to keep up, let alone read multiple novels, you gotta fork over money.
So I think I can safely say I am done with any novels on that site.
Regretably, people SAID as much this would happen when it first came online. They started off taking back ownership of scanlations from groups or absorbing them (as site is owned by the same chinese media group where they are inutially released to my understanding), and webnovel said they wouldn't do the whole blocked off paywall thing and they'd unlock chapters after a time. Think its been about two weeks now since I've seen a free chapter release so shows how much the naysayers from early on knew as chapters still get translated but nothing is coming off the paywall anymore. Alas.
Apparently this started a while back but they didn't say anything and I only realized because something I read got that and I was checking out the forums. No announcement or anything has been made and despite all forum outcry, no response is given there either.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/dcau-a-little-less-conversation-a-little-more-action-please-dcau-plus.672631/
A JLU/DCAU story set around Batman. I'll be honest, I don't think it's quite right. It feels more like bad stereotype comic book Batman than the DCAU version. It doesn't nail the mood of it to me at all and the voices are usually off. Too bad.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11978790/1/Rabbit-of-the-Moon
I'll say this much: For all I dislike this story and disagree with most of it, it's not badly written. I merely find it completely against my own tastes and interests. Short version: SI is thrown into Usagi's body and basically wants no part of any of Usagi's life. Shenanigans ensue. It's fairly dark as well, don't go in expecting a comedy around it.
> Regretably, people SAID as much this would happen when it first came online.
Well, yeah. The Wuxiaworld thing kind of made it clear that they were going to promise anything, and keep those promises until they'd gotten what they wanted.
https://volarenovels.com/divine-throne-primordial-blood/
Starts off like a generic wuxia novel, and somehow goes off the rails into The Adventures of a Mad Scientist.
https://shalvationtranslations.wordpress.com/dungeon-defense-toc/
A Korean man takes on the life of the weakest of 72 demon lords. Setting is a video game world but does not throw stats or appraisal screens at the reader. Political and psychological. If you liked Taylor's character in Worm, you'll probably like this. If you hated Taylor's character, I recommend skipping this one.
Also, it's 5 volumes in, and there is no dungeon.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-just-love-killin-worm-rick-and-morty-crossover.446513 - enjoyed this. Basically just joyful super-assassin backseat coaching Taylor.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/denial-worm-alt-power-comedy.679429/ - The Plot Armor is IMMENSE... but in a way that's the joke.
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2716089/Shareon
Been a while.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-woke-up-as-a-dungeon-now-what-dungeon-worm.620521/ - updated. Some reflection.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/it-gets-worse-worm-au-fanfic-complete.366768/ - kind of think this is the best that ack can do these days on a fic.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/monster.29235 - has been updating again.
https://wanderinginn.com/table-of-contents/ - I pretty much am not enjoying the goblin vs empire war here. The current Heroes vs the Dungeon bit is much better though.
Quote from: Dracos on October 22, 2018, 01:37:57 AM
Been a while.
One issue that keeps me from posting what I'm reading is that some LNs are translated across multiple different translators on different sites. It's rare that a translator picks up a story and sticks with it through the whole story. That means varying levels of translation quality and inconsistency in style, which is pretty jarring if one isn't prepared for it. So I don't post links to translate LNs here, because I don't hate anyone here.
If I were to post anything, it'd probably be links from Wuxiaworld, but I think Merc has those covered.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/through-victory-my-chains-are-broken-a-rwby-star-wars-crossover.604576
Ruby is thrust forward into star wars at the moment where all her friends are dying...and then back again hundreds of years later, to a point before that happened. Story covers simultaneously both angles going on, swapping between them. Mainly reading it for the author (andre), but it is kinda neat.
I decided to start re-reading MLP Loops (part of a complete breakfast):
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/98568/mlp-time-loops
but they are a million bazillion pages long now. (Latest is "Chapter 201": 15,319 words. I am on Chapter 87 and the sense of living through so many time loops you lose count has been adequately conveyed.)
Time Braid it is not.
Right Moments it is definitely not. (Right Moments (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/764256/1/Right_Moments) was great.)
What it is, is it's a pile of references to other people's fanfic plot bunnies with some pretty interesting mini-fics thrown in. Perfect for piecemeal reading in a boring subway commute. But the structure is wacky in that several unrelated time loops are being told in interleaved fashion as the authors update them, making the reading experience like channel surfing between 20 different Sufficient Velocity threads. Sometimes the author of a particular loop goes on hiatus for 4 chapters and reappears later... and I am like "hey, I totally forgot that loop was still in progress".
It would be helpful to have a 'sorted' version where the excerpts are grouped into full fics.
What blew my mind is, the way the universe works means that they have now permanently diverged from canon. See, MLP canon now incorporates some fairly odd decisions by baseline characters, e.g. opening the friendship school. In order for that to work its way into the loops would require the highly improbable sequence of:
Quote
(a) Need to have a loop with Twilight un-Awake, which only happens in that multiverse
(b) when a Loop Anchor from some other universe has looped in
(c) but that Anchor would have to cooperate with maintaining the baseline plot,
(d) so the other ponies can observe what baseline!Twilight would do in the baseline plot,
(e) and then they'd have to decide to do the exact same thing for some reason in future loops for it to become a regular plot fixture.
This is basically like a Drake equation applied to the time loop thing. As amount of canon decision grows, probability of seeing them in Time Loops exponentially approaches zero. They
barely creaked through the Tirek thing in order to be able to use post-Tirek stuff as a fixture in subsequent minifics. Season 6 onwards appears completely absent (I grepped ahead for some stuff that seems like it would be there if they got to it).
It is worthy of analysis into how many writers have apparently got addicted to writing in this format that it's apparently a self-sustaining reaction now.
Quote from: Arakawa on November 02, 2018, 11:18:52 PM
This is basically like a Drake equation applied to the time loop thing. As amount of canon decision grows, probability of seeing them in Time Loops exponentially approaches zero. They barely creaked through the Tirek thing in order to be able to use post-Tirek stuff as a fixture in subsequent minifics. Season 6 onwards appears completely absent (I grepped ahead for some stuff that seems like it would be there if they got to it).
I remember reading the loops fics by Innortal, although hadn't read any of the MLP ones since I'd lack most of the context (the last time I'd ever seen any cartoon titled MLP back in the 80s, which I understand is a completely different series than what people talk about now). That said, I think there's an easy way to generalize what you're describing.
For any fanfic being written as the canon series progresses in general, trying to recon new plot twists or character developments becomes increasingly harder, and the writer has to choose at some point to either fork the continuity or abandon the story as unworkable. The structure of how the Loops universe is being written is such that only a few writers need to decide to keep writing for it to continue, which means it's unlikely for it to be abandoned. So if the writers are using a series that is still being written, forking the continuity is the only real option.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/if-the-ring-fits-young-justice-hellblazer-si.377687/ - finished this. Kinda feel it misses Breathing, but was a fun ride. It does finish the first conflict put before the character, but everything after that gets entangled as a 80% done->Start next conflict, up until the present point of the fic.
I thought the loops had hard start/stop points built in, though? Character A's loops are for a year, character b's loops last until they die, ect. Wouldn't they have to expand the loop period to even have to worry about new canon?
Quote from: thepanda on November 07, 2018, 09:15:04 PM
I thought the loops had hard start/stop points built in, though? Character A's loops are for a year, character b's loops last until they die, ect. Wouldn't they have to expand the loop period to even have to worry about new canon?
Yes, they actually explicitly do that. The reset point occasionally moves forward and this is even referred to as an "expansion". In-universe it's justified as "the admins managed to repair more of your universe so your loop is longer now".
I see. Must have been introduced after I stopped reading them. After a while there was like one or two authors who had story threads that I liked. Wish they were archived by contributor somewhere; I'm curious if they're still writing loops.
http://infinitenoveltranslations.net/hachinan-tte-sore-wa-nai-deshou/
Japanese man dies, reincarnates into another world where he becomes a young overpowered magician.
Long winded. Has a "life and times of X" approach. I've read other stories that fit that description, and I still found interesting but this one doesn't pique my interest.
https://cgtranslations.me/konosuba/
Once you get past the intro chapters, this is pretty good.
http://zenithnovels.com/impossible-evil-overlord-cute/
Generally anime-themed, but written by a Chinese author, so has a different flavor than normal webnovels.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12531089/1/Tangled-Fate
and
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12650807/1/Endless-Pantheon-God-s-Blood
Dresdan's godly buddies have learned that he was mortal. Also something about ending up lord of the dead.
http://www.wolfiehonyaku.com/the-amber-sword/
Gamer sucked into MMO, with game system. Also uses Magic: the Gathering system. I don't know about about MtG to know if it's an original world, or if it is MtG fanfic.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on January 22, 2019, 11:33:59 PM
Gamer sucked into MMO, with game system. Also uses Magic: the Gathering system. I don't know about about MtG to know if it's an original world, or if it is MtG fanfic.
Wonder how the chore of trawling through dozens of booster packs to build your deck is represented in-universe :)
My favourite system is Yu-Gi-Oh. Some aspects of it are so stupid it wraps around into beautiful (not to play, just to admire). I don't think there was any attempt by the designers to balance the cards. You read the card list and shake your hand that some cards are just stronger than others so you'd almost never want the weaker cards if you could get the stronger ones*. But then you realize that, storyworld-wise, this stupid game design makes perfect thematic sense. Ancient Egyptian battle between ancient Egyptian magician aristocrats. If you're higher on the aristocratic totem pole, your cards / magic / ancient Egyptian laser beams are just better. There's sometimes a small amount of room for an underdog to turn the tables with skill and cunning (if the aristocrat you're playing against gets complacent -- so hubris is a bad thing for aristocrats to have and that's a Morality Tale for the Yu-Gi-Oh world) or stupid dumb luck (Yu-Gi-Oh aristocrats worship the Random Number God and fear his wrath), but it doesn't change the fact that the Pharaoh's deck is packed with stupid powerful god monster cards and yours isn't :P
* It's like the Mox era of MtG. All praise the Mox!
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-reploids-journey-there-and-back-again-megaman-x-zero-the-hobbit.672661/
Megaman X Zero and the Hobbit crossover.
It somehow sort of works. Emphasis on sort of, but I enjoyed reading it.
https://kobatochan.com/korean-novels/fff-class-trashero/
The story is a hybrid Isekai/Groundhogs Day. A very goal-oriented person has been summoned to another land to battle the demon king. However, while his might is potent, his personality is horrible, so he is sent to relive his adventure until he reforms.
This is translated up to chapter 30 so far.
https://isekailunatic.wordpress.com/tsuki-ga-michibiku-isekai-douchuu/
A some variation on the formula, but still the same formula.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/ - this has updated after a year. Gleee.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/so-im-a-spider-flat-what-worm-kumo-desu-ga-nani-ka.732418/ - this is adorable crack. Tiny Spider Taylor needing to get her pho fix is glorious.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-wand-for-skitter.730018/ - Taylor is in more violent Harry Potter-verse. Trying to rise to the violent occassion.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns-dungeon.590739/ - "The dungeon is out adventuring. Please come back later."
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13233466/1/The-Other-Way
A Worm fic where Taylor doesn't join the Undersiders and events spiral from that. Could've done without the last chapter's smug fox interrupt, but seems okay so far.
Quote from: Dracos on April 11, 2019, 02:16:26 AM.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-wand-for-skitter.730018/ - Taylor is in more violent Harry Potter-verse. Trying to rise to the violent occasion.
This fic has a lot of problems, but manages to squeak by through some of the strong points. I mostly read it for the Snape scenes, as it's taking the worst parts of canon and fanon Taylor, mashing them together and turning it into a traditional HP 'oh hey wizards are dumb, let's have Harry/the SI/the crossover character' say that a lot and succeed.
Quote from: Dracos on April 11, 2019, 02:16:26 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns-dungeon.590739/ - "The dungeon is out adventuring. Please come back later."
Read up to page 76.
English mechanics are fine, world-building is decent, characterization is good. Also, unlike most I'm-a-dungeon stories, it doesn't fall into some excessive min/max discussion or spamming some stat sheet intended to boost word count, or incessantly whine about the lack of rice and the superiority of Japanese street-food cuisine. All good stuff.
But the story hasn't really gone anywhere. The writer has had characters mention a few things that could mature into some conflict if they're ever followed up. Perhaps the writer will do so in the future, but hasn't as of page 76. There's no tension in the meantime -- not even with the MCs pacifist philosophy, which could be a
great source of tension.
So I think I have to bow out of this one. Nai wa/Worm also looks potentially interesting, and I'll look it over in the future.
Just started reading East of Eden (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/east-of-eden-a-new-twist-on-an-old-cycle-worm-au.711736/) and it's a hilarious black comedy where while being knifed by Fortuna, Eden tries to project her consciousness into the Administration shard, usurping 3 year old Taylor Hebert in the process. It reminds me a lot of Seventh Horcrux (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/seventh-horcrux-hp-au.298748/) if you liked that, same sort of entertaining sociopathy from the protagonist.
Quote from: Ebiris on April 15, 2019, 01:36:25 PM
Just started reading East of Eden (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/east-of-eden-a-new-twist-on-an-old-cycle-worm-au.711736/) and it's a hilarious black comedy where while being knifed by Fortuna, Eden tries to project her consciousness into the Administration shard, usurping 3 year old Taylor Hebert in the process. It reminds me a lot of Seventh Horcrux (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/seventh-horcrux-hp-au.298748/) if you liked that, same sort of entertaining sociopathy from the protagonist.
I tried reading some of that, but 1. I don't think the author's anywhere as good as Seventh Horcrux's author and 2. I think Worm is much less suited for this manner of story.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/tangled-fate-ranma-1-2-exalted.39183/ Been continuing to follow this. Which updated a week ago or whatever. It has a lot of characters at this point. Sorta too many. It's starting to set up opposition to team Ranma Exalted. We've got the enemy circle and now a demon wandering about. Still not gotten very far timewise for the story.
Quote from: Dracos on April 16, 2019, 12:05:00 PM
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/tangled-fate-ranma-1-2-exalted.39183/ Been continuing to follow this. Which updated a week ago or whatever. It has a lot of characters at this point. Sorta too many. It's starting to set up opposition to team Ranma Exalted. We've got the enemy circle and now a demon wandering about. Still not gotten very far timewise for the story.
The dialogue verged on being too dramatic at certain points, but I still enjoyed reading it. Maybe it's from Ranma x-over nostalgia.
Speaking of which, Ranma/Conan: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12836068/1/When-a-Curse-is-Not-a-Curse
Never followed Conan, so not familiar with it other than the titular character and a basic synopsis, but it's not necessary to understand the story. Ranma knowledge is necessary to understand the subtext of what's going on in the chapters.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/shinka-worm.743327/
Worm fic, showing some of Lung's early life right after Kyushu.
[spoiler]
The great tragedy of the story is that it's canon compliant, when you realize what Lung ultimately becomes.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/that-time-i-got-reincarnated-as-tien-dbz-si.700924/
Random person gets put in as Tien right when Goku and Raditz die. It's surprisingly fun and had a neat twist in the middle of the Saiyan battle.
It was a neat twist. I've read it. Unsure really my thoughts on it as a story though outside of appreciation for chosing the only character technically more maligned than Yamcha (who at least is an multi-millionare international sports racketeer)
It's a good popcorn fic, I think. Fun to kick back and read without thinking about it too hard. Though I do hope the author keeps mixing it up like he's done so far.
I enjoyed https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12836068/1/When-a-Curse-is-Not-a-Curse so thanks for linking Miao. Found it a neat duo of character pieces done through an investigation.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/1/A-Dead-World updated recently. Seems about ready to wrap up the arc. Curious where it will go next.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-crown-of-neverwinter-ranma-1-2-x-dnd-forgotten-realms.746239/
Story's okayish so far, it's what you'd expect once you see words like 'lockfic' and 'D&D crossover'. It's worth a read to see if it's to your taste. That's not what I'm really here for, though. Read the comments instead. There's some discussion about clarifying comments Takahashi made in various 90s interviews about Ranma, from cut plot points to small details. I haven't seen these before (like that Ranma's favorite mangas are shoujo, for example) and a bunch of cut content. Anyone know if this stuff is on the level or not? There's a story involved that's tripping my bullshit sensors pretty heavily, but I suppose it's not impossible it's true.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 01, 2019, 01:36:07 PM
Anyone know if this stuff is on the level or not? There's a story involved that's tripping my bullshit sensors pretty heavily, but I suppose it's not impossible it's true.
Haven't read any of it so far (haven't even read the fic itself, although that will likely since you've posted the link.)
I'm guessing you're asking about the posts that say:
Quote
Yeah... Ranma was meant to explore them a lot more than it ever really did according to the pages and pages and pages of angry ranting Rumiko did. If she'd had her way we've found signs of at least twelve volumes of scrubbed content, including an entire flashback arc to Ranma and Ryouga at school.
[Do I have sources to back my assertion that Takahashi had some whole TG-exploration angle?]
Unfortunately no, all digital copies that were known have long been lost to time and the collapse of 90s era websites. *annoyed kitsune* I only know of this through a friend who owns hard copies because she and others at the time went through the effort of translating them... Into German mainly since they are German and lived there at the time. (not that that stopped a few enterprising bastards from translating a few pages here and there into ancient Egyptian or Russian for a laugh, bastards. At least I can read the ones in old English.) Translations are a bit rough since Japanese and German have about as much in common as an elephant and a mouse. That is to say, they are both technically human languages, and that is about it. Some lines did not translate well and we've sorta had to take best guess to what they actually meant.
I remember nothing of this.
Translations are as much of an art as a science, and time erodes memory, so who knows how much of this is genuine and how much of it is the poster's ideas. So decades later, with only a forum poster to mention it, who knows?
You might ask that poster if he or she recalls any of the defunt URLs to those sites. Archive.org started in the mid 90s, and you could see if it captured any of these "angry rants."
I ended up staying out of it as the entire thing...well, just read. It's a thing.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 03, 2019, 11:18:20 PM
I ended up staying out of it as the entire thing...well, just read. It's a thing.
*reads
Quote
Unfortunately no, all digital copies that were known have long been lost to time and the collapse of 90s era websites. *annoyed kitsune* I only know of this through a friend who owns hard copies because she and others at the time went through the effort of translating them... Into German mainly since they are German and lived there at the time. (not that that stopped a few enterprising bastards from translating a few pages here and there into ancient Egyptian or Russian for a laugh, bastards. At least I can read the ones in old English.) Translations are a bit rough since Japanese and German have about as much in common as an elephant and a mouse. That is to say, they are both technically human languages, and that is about it. Some lines did not translate well and we've sorta had to take best guess to what they actually meant.
I wish I could offer more. A lot of what I'm saying sounds unbelievable, but I can't. The hard copies are not mine, nor mine to share and my friend is rather reclusive. They like their privacy. All I can say is due to how weird some of what we've found out is I'm using only what actually shows in the manga as official source material. I do use some things pulled from the PR Papers, but only in places where it makes sense and I'm not against it myself... which doesn't help since you can't see them. *sighs* I'll make it clear when I use things pulled from them.
Smells like someone trying to drum up a conspiracy theory. "Yeah, I totally have access to all this proof about 9/11 being a government plot to resurrect Aeris by crashing a plane into Shen Long to defeat him. I just can't show any of it to you because of brief implausible reasons. But if it were true, it explains
so much! so I'm gonna focus on that instead of the brief implausible reasons."
Maybe unintentional. People remember fanfic as cannon (e.g Spring of Drowned Twins splitting the curse started as a chapter-1 gimmick of a Ranma-chan plot, which later spawned several other Ranma-chan stories with the same gimmick, and even later some FFMLers swore Takahashi said it was cannon as part of some past interview). Why not Godly Ranma (http://web.archive.org/web/20060115212110/www.geocities.com/targhan_aga/fics/challenge.html) is a Egyptian-themed (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/710368/1/Journey) Nekoken God (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,1876.0.html)?
Anyway...
The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary: https://unluckyslime.wordpress.com/2018/04/10/chapter-1-stuck-after-running-away/
Japanese fantasy (not isekai, not game, not 1st person with mid-chapter switching of perspectives) webnovel of a mercenary who is forced to become an adventurer to make ends meet.
Caught up on Dreaming of Sunshine. Enjoyable to fall far behind on fics like these and have a lot of reading to do. But I totally lost track of Shikako's power level by now. Here is overanalysis.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7347955/150/Dreaming-of-Sunshine
Shikako: Mini-Jiraiya Seal Master with Low Self-Esteem would be very goofy by now, but I think the author's idea is that in this world,
no matter how many utterly broken insta-kill type abilities Shikako develops, jutsu tricks don't matter against serious opponents who are just better/faster/stronger at every single ninja essential. Probably a good worldbuilding point to emphasize and counter Naruto world's innate tendency to turn into Ax Cop with Broken Special Move #2 existing mostly to counter Broken Special Move #1 and keep the plot from grinding to a halt.
Still, a different genre of fic would easily spin this character's arsenal as "unstoppable unkillable S-Rank assassin" in its own right. Just work out the kinks in her shadow clone backlash, have the shadow clone turn into formless shadow blob, sneak into place, touch any hapless non-S-rank ninja, ninja not able to move have nasty seal on skin, game over.
Caught up on DK:A. Yeah, it's getting repetitive with Mukrezar posturing like he's going to Do Something Big (but continues to stay in the shadows and avoid making himself Ami's Problem #1). That proves he is Smartest Villain but means he does not contribute story wise at all.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-9#post-12096923
And then I went for a stroll in the ff.net "most reviews" section for Naruto. This was short and completed, hence read it. But it is an "enh. recommend??" fic:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6040262/1/Teach-Your-Children-Well
It's really (maybe unintentionally) bashy of both Sasuke and Kakashi and ends in midair. But I found Medic Sasuke and Punching Specialist Sakura to be an interesting alternate destiny.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12086721/1/Transposition-or-Ship-Happens updated. Robo lisa is joining on team win.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns-dungeon.590739/ The gargoyles left disney.
Quote from: Arakawa on May 07, 2019, 05:07:31 PMCaught up on DK:A. Yeah, it's getting repetitive with Mukrezar posturing like he's going to Do Something Big (but continues to stay in the shadows and avoid making himself Ami's Problem #1). That proves he is Smartest Villain but means he does not contribute story wise at all.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dungeon-keeper-ami-sailor-moon-dungeon-keeper-story-only-thread.30066/page-9#post-12096923
DK:A desperately needs to get its stuff together and get to the point. I really enjoy that fic, but it's stalled out and meandering so hard that it's unreal.
Quote from: Anastasia on May 14, 2019, 11:36:51 AM
DK:A desperately needs to get its stuff together and get to the point. I really enjoy that fic, but it's stalled out and meandering so hard that it's unreal.
Could be worse. As I found, there is always the Teach Your Children Well route to 'completing' a fic: "and then Kakashi overused Kamui and accidentally woke up in the future but all the character development still happened offscreen".
*author runs off into the sunset cackling maniacally*
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/cosplayer-worm-ocsi.749458/
Yes yes, it's an OC/SI affair. Yes, he has a broken power. It's still doing a pretty good take on it and isn't power wanky at all. I'd suggest reading the first two chapters to see if it's to your taste. It's more about the SI's identity issues than anything else.
Ghibli stuff is not a fertile ground for fan fiction but I remember enjoying this one:
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/6197726/1/
Idea is simple: Haku must find a new job.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/bleach-worm-arana.305947/ this has been an interesting enough Bleach crossover. It's basically taking Taylor waking up as a hollow, so using Bleach metaphysics post gold-morning. And taking them fairly literally. In bleach, throughout the series, Soul Society is the peak of a 'good ending' past death...and it really quite sucks for the majority and sort of requires a lot of intervention to get there. Well with quite so many dead there's not a lot of that going around right now and it tries to explore that.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-high-priest-worm-dresden-files.752524/
Eidolon gets tossed into the Dresden Files moments after Scion utters the four words. It's early on but looks to have promise.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13210769/1/A-Gift-by-Starlight
Sailor Moon/Buffy crossover. Weird things happen and somehow Naru manages to save Nephrite by becoming a slayer. Much better than it sounds, though the prologue is a little rough.
So much Worm... I really need to get off my behind and actually understand what it is.
(Currently rectifying my spotty knowledge of One Punch Man. What I glimpsed the guy watching in Japan was an anime Season 2 that just came out.)
Besides that I just have guilty pleasures.
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8569846/1/Sakura
(after finishing, discovered the author is halfway through rewriting the fic as https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12461348/1/How-to-Obtain-a-Reverse-Harem-in-Naruto)
Trashy self indulgent SI, but sometimes I just need an SI whose priorities besides "manipulate the plot" include "get hugs" and "decide which villains to take out based on (lack of) fan appeal".
I liked that the fic kept Kakashi participating in the Tora mission. Actually had to go back and check the manga for that. Somehow the way he gets written with emphasis on being an indifferent sensei in so many fanfics, I always picture his role in the D Ranks as "eh. There's a cat. Catch it. *goes to read book*"
Quote from: Arakawa on May 20, 2019, 04:34:16 PM
Trashy self indulgent SI, but sometimes I just need an SI whose priorities besides "manipulate the plot" include "get hugs" and "decide which villains to take out based on (lack of) fan appeal".
Sakura fic actually gets much better as it goes along; I'm about halfway through. Crossing out 'guilty' from 'guilty pleasure' and 'trashy' from 'trashy self indulgent SI'. Just had to make it through the lazily written initial part. But again, there's something about the author's attitude I liked that made me decide to keep reading it.
Quote from: Arakawa on May 27, 2019, 11:49:55 AM
Quote from: Arakawa on May 20, 2019, 04:34:16 PM
Trashy self indulgent SI, but sometimes I just need an SI whose priorities besides "manipulate the plot" include "get hugs" and "decide which villains to take out based on (lack of) fan appeal".
Sakura fic actually gets much better as it goes along; I'm about halfway through. Crossing out 'guilty' from 'guilty pleasure' and 'trashy' from 'trashy self indulgent SI'. Just had to make it through the lazily written initial part. But again, there's something about the author's attitude I liked that made me decide to keep reading it.
Yeah, I feel that. I have a fair few guilty pleasure fics I stuck with purely because I liked the author's attitude and style.
Hmn, and I finish that story and discover that the author is actually partway through rewriting the story with less 'grammar hell hole' and I could have been reading that.
Oh well. (Link added in my post above.)
Good to see iteration on a thing that has potential.
https://dreamsofjianghu.ca/%E4%BF%AE%E7%9C%9F%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-world-of-cultivation/table-of-contents/
Wuxia setting, but about a guy who aspires to make money through farming. I was a pretty big fan for almost all of it -- the final arc felt rushed.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-just-love-killin-worm-rick-and-morty-crossover.446513 Taylor as mentored by K is just sorta charming. I could read her murderin' folks all day.
http://tapread.com/book/detail?bookId=145
Some scenes in this reminded me of this part of an old fic:
Quote
A vein popped up on the zombie dragon's head. "Knives aren't an element, idiot!"
"Technically, neither is fire!" Yukari called out suddenly. "Fire is the resulting energy loss of a chemical reaction, not an element in and of itself!"
"You keep out of this, you little-" the undead dragon glanced over at Yukari, and it started in surprise as it saw Tsukune and Moka creeping closer to the witch to try and free her. "HEY! Stop them!"
"I can't! My knives will only heal him!" the lantern lamented, staring down at his dagger and switchblade with regret.
ah https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5382984/1/Big-Human-on-Campus was awesome.
I remember reading a chunk of it and liking it. Good times, shame BD moved on.
His contempt was a fantastic driver of that fic.
So anyone been reading anything good lately? I've been in a bit of a rut.
Same. There are like two fics that update regularly enough to keep up with. One was recced earlier in the thread and the other isn't an easy recommend. Haven't picked up a novel lately, either.
Most of my reading lately is comics.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-wand-for-skitter-worm-hp-thread-2.763766/ Taylor in HP-verse
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/wind-alt-power-taylor-au.760294/ alt!Power, dead Scion
Read a Wand for Skitter. Didn't care for how the fic developed, but it had some high points before I pulled the plug.
The Other Way updated. It's okay - I wasn't a big fan of a few choices a few chapters ago, but it still a solid read.
Took an admittingly distant glance at the other way... Some of the mixture of realism (gun holes dealing with hookwolf as a problem) just really doesn't do it for me with that setting.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-woke-up-as-a-dungeon-now-what-dungeon-worm.620521/ I continue to enjoy this. Lot of background characters (too many) but there's the interesting mix of the rebellious society whose trapped between two nations very much on the brink, the Obvious Villain wandering almost entirely off-camera other than occassional evidence that he is there and very dangerous, and the weakened state of Central built on a lie that they haven't puzzled out.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/bleach-worm-arana.305947/page-419#post-60127231 - Arana has also been nice/powertrippy but in kind of a good way.
It has Taylor, dead, post-GM, in early bleach-verse in a sense. She's a hollow, surviving. And it takes every chunk of story in bleachverse literally... which has the entire life and death cycle as a truly terrible state of affairs. Taylor first tries to survive, then protect still living friends, then become strong enough to get a fiefdom...and then realize that No, There Is No Heaven In This Setting...Everyone Gets The Suck and try and do something about it. The big bleach players are definitely still out there and dangerous, but not yet really on screen outside of one very dangerous unmasked hollow.
Drac had a few posts in the past about The Wandering Inn, so once I was looking for something to read, I went and read that. Caught up to the newest chapters late last week.
Enjoyed it? It's got a lot of good parts.
Quote from: Dracos on September 09, 2019, 11:35:37 AM
Enjoyed it? It's got a lot of good parts.
Yes.
Not without its flaws of course, the worst of which is that there's a shade of US ethnocentrism. But...it's an isekai video-game system webnovel, and
that's the worst thing I can pick out? That's pretty good.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/daystar-worm-exalted-crossover-au.773104/
A Worm/Exalted crossover. It's okay, it gets better as it goes. It requires some SoD stretching for how Taylor is, but she firms up at the story goes.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on September 13, 2019, 07:31:33 PM
Quote from: Dracos on September 09, 2019, 11:35:37 AM
Enjoyed it? It's got a lot of good parts.
Yes.
Not without its flaws of course, the worst of which is that there's a shade of US ethnocentrism. But...it's an isekai video-game system webnovel, and that's the worst thing I can pick out? That's pretty good.
Honestly the goblins place in the world bugs me after a while. They're just entirely in too many categories. Pests that can breed world shaking terrors do not get ignored.
Author is also a bit unsure on Tech. Is more modern human tech game changing or not? It gets handwaved in some places as no real threat, and in others 'oh no, trebuchants of doom'.
But it's got a lot of goodness. Haven't started on book six yet.
Quote from: Dracos on September 20, 2019, 12:29:04 PM
Honestly the goblins place in the world bugs me after a while. They're just entirely in too many categories. Pests that can breed world shaking terrors do not get ignored.
I've been wondering if the writer deliberately planned the goblin thing out, or whether it just developed into that while backfilling the history of the world.
Quote
Author is also a bit unsure on Tech. Is more modern human tech game changing or not? It gets handwaved in some places as no real threat, and in others 'oh no, trebuchants of doom'.
A couple of thoughts on that:
(1) Every time there's a discussion of tech v magic, the magic side always has some pat answer why they'd win. But the conversations always involve someone who doesn't actually understand technology. There's only one character in this story who actually knows how to make things, and she's both a loner and willing to die to block tech transfer. The writer might be setting up a grand fake-out where some modern army invades, and the magic counters don't quite work the way they are supposed to. Or maybe the author just doesn't know enough about science or engineering to write a character who understands any of that, so is just avoiding the topic. I suspect the latter, because...
(2) If magic works the way that humans describe it, the world ought to have been conquered by mages centuries ago, RPG-skills notwithstanding.
(a) One of the conversations about firearms vs a fantasy army went along the lines of: "Well, your guns work by using fire, right? I'll just get a mage to stop fire from working over a large area. Sure, it's expensive, but I can get it done."
Wait, so mages can stop energetic reactions over a wide-scale area? Because nerves work off of minute electrical impulses. So do brains. If magic makes long-distance wide-scale energy cessation possible, standing armies would have become obsolete because a single mage would just mass kill them - just turn off energy for a five minutes and it's done. Maybe it takes a nation-state's budget, but so does maintaining standing armies. I'll bet the annual budget for feeding a few mages is a bit more tolerable than feeding 10,000 soldiers.
(b) Ceria casually commits violations of entropy. And during part of the story she's relatively poor for an adventurer, so evidently cryomancy isn't nearly as difficult as the stop-energy spell. So, Ceria + chemist, material scientist, or atomic physicist, and you've just unleashed godlike powers.
Based on that, I think that "tech" is the culture, not the actual technology. Which is fine; the author doesn't really try to set up elaborate systems of mechanics for either video game-world or explain the physics of real-world so it's all good.
Quote
But it's got a lot of goodness. Haven't started on book six yet.
Yes. Read lots of the back chapters off my phone.
Book 6 is just about done. Since you haven't read it yet, I'll avoid any specific comments, and just say that I liked how the 2nd to last plot twist was executed a bit more than the last plot twist in this volume, but that's a matter of taste.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/veni-vidi-vici-worm-fi-ft-gabriel.786361/
A Worm story with a quasi SI who isn't familiar with the setting. Has some rough spots and takes too long to get going, but it's gotten good the last few chapters.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-other-way-worm-hero-taylor.764905/page-13#post-61512151
The Other Way updated. It's okay, it's the sorta thing some people like but I'm eh on it at best.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/still-defiant-worm-defiant-peggy-sue.789799/
Defiant is sent back to a bit pre canon during the final battle of Worm. Shenanigans ensue. It gets points for a good style that uses a certain sparsity well and feels different from other fics.
There's moments where the characters of the Wandering Inn are like 'mass produced guns would end this world because of the bugs' and others where 'hey a trebuchaunt changes the nature of battle for this city that has literally been a war center for decades' and yeah, others where they handwave off the notion of flying bombers. Miss Eidetic isn't the only one who gets it, but yeah it really could be unreliable narrator. Problem is the other characters who do get it don't, even in their own internal dialogue, go 'they really don't get it' either. Again, ugly spot in a good series.
The Sierra Madre is over:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8601250/42/A-Dead-World
Alexandra takes the stage:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/bleach-worm-arana.305947/
Endbringer endbrings:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/so-im-a-spider-flat-what-worm-kumo-desu-ga-nani-ka.732418/
Adorable kid party vs pun dungeon, for plays:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns-dungeon.590739/
I read that chapter of Arana.
[spoiler]
A few notes. I haven't read anything else of note in story, just a snippet or two. I'm not familiar with Bleach. That being said, it feels like it falls into the same thing most Ryuugi fics fall into with Taylor: Basically Taylor running everything, being right and altogether the worst parts of personality. I was bored about halfway in, despite the concept of the interlude being interesting. I've gotten to the point where I don't read anything Worm that Ryuugi writes, since it feels like it's the exact same take on Taylor each time.
To be fair, Taylor having issues, making bad choices and being controlling is part of why I have a low opinion of her in canon. It's also why I consider her a villain protagonist by about the bank robbery.
Arana:
Eh, that is fair...but that interlude is set against the backdrop of bleach taken literally. Bleach as an afterlife has like a dozen terrible ends and some modestly okay ones and nothing good. Taylor is coming from a place there of having looked basically everywhere to see "There's no heaven, nobody gets what they deserve, virtually everyone ends up miserable" and is trying to put together a group to change things.
Alexandra in that hasn't really had a chance to see that at all and Hero has been set with keeping a primitive village on the brink of survival for a decade (Based in the outlands which Bleach basically goes: Aside from this tiny area, it becomes increasingly uncivilized as it goes out, and godly government doesn't care).
It does definitely feel like a similar note to his Exalted Worm fic, though both give Taylor some supernatural reason to be right (Clariyovent support or Solar support). Bleach taken literally though really is a shithole universe with literally dozens of 'villain' characters in series whose premise is 'this is a shithole, I can do better, now using evil methods for that because by the way, I live in the land of unending torment'.
Bleach sort of plays both cards with folks directly going on as they were as spirits (virtually all on camera usage) or being born/reincarnated as spirits (Rukia's entire backstory + anyone of any importance in afterlife setting) but most of what taylor rails against in this seems reasonably substantiated: People don't get decent afterlives with their loved ones, most people just descend into cannibalism (Hollows) until they are killed brutally.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/classical-hero-worm-pjo.396446/
This is pretty basic. It's missing really seeming to hint at:
1) why is percy there
2) Why is he missing his stuff but not all his stuff
I mean it talks about it...but it doesn't give it any grounding other than 'it happened and nobody knows'.
There's this enormous dark horse group as well introduced and as of yet given no real grounding (outside of they can't practically exist in worm).
Aside from that it's sort of a rogue hero story. Putting together a hero team of misfits and generally making a mess a bit from not Getting the setting.
Arana reply:
[spoiler]
I'll pass on the Bleach comments since yeah, not familiar with it. This may make sense in the context of the story, my real thoughts are about Ryuugi's style of writing Taylor.
To be entirely honest, I don't like most of what Ryuugi writes besides the Games We Play (and that's unabashedly different enough from default RWBY that it's almost an original work). The way he writes his protagonists rubs me the wrong way. Like I've seen him write some Sailor Moon and I don't like his Usagi at all. It's very much a Messiah Usagi and it doesn't do much for me.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/inspired-voyage-st-voyager-si.791005/
This is okay, a guilty pleasure sort of fic for me. It's one part fix fic, one part SI and one part Worm CYOA set on Voyager. It might turn out interesting, it might now, but right now it's kept me reading.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/usagi-serenity-and-i-sailor-moon.56323/
A neat Sailor Moon fic. The idea of the reincarnations impacting the Sailors is one with a lot of interesting territory to explore.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21265136/chapters/50630936
Luna has a really bad day and the wrong Tsukino ends up as Sailor Moon. Only one chapter so far but it made me laugh out loud.
Y'know, your description had me thinking it was going to be Shingo who ended up as Sailor Moon. Probably should have realized it'd be Ikuko.
Quote from: Merc on November 05, 2019, 06:17:14 PM
Y'know, your description had me thinking it was going to be Shingo who ended up as Sailor Moon. Probably should have realized it'd be Ikuko.
Yep. I still got a kick out of it. It could be really good if it plays up the humor inherent to the idea.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-jedi-lord-of-serenno-star-wars-au.797306/
Star Wars AU, pretty good so far. Count Dooku gets a vision and ends up teaching Anakin instead of his canon path. I'm not up on Star Wars all that much so this may be trampling parts of canon, but I do like it.
Enjoyed the last arc of that Voyager SI, but damn, avoid the comment section. Yikes.
Absolutely. I saw that myself, you are soooo right. It's the worst of SB there without any restraints.
Yeah, as a rule I don't read comments on SB threads but I couldn't help myself after that last chapter. Folks there get downright psychotic whenever anyone goes against the protagonist, especially if it's an SI.
Quote from: Ebiris on November 09, 2019, 12:26:32 PM
Yeah, as a rule I don't read comments on SB threads but I couldn't help myself after that last chapter. Folks there get downright psychotic whenever anyone goes against the protagonist, especially if it's an SI.
It's the worst parts of SB made manifest. SIs in particular bring it out, since I think other posters project their Spacebattles Competence onto them.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/constellations-worm-okami.414320/page-669#post-62332694
This has updated, but missing its heyday.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-just-love-killin-worm-rick-and-morty-crossover.446513/ is trying some smaller chapters.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-didnt-make-it-opm-worm.782704/ tries an...okayish take on Saitama getting lost in worm-world.
Quote from: Dracos on November 12, 2019, 03:13:08 AM
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-didnt-make-it-opm-worm.782704/ tries an...okayish take on Saitama getting lost in worm-world.
You'd think after killing Simurgh (whatever that is) on his way down things would be more fast paced afterwards.
I liked this take on Saitama in worm-world a lot better, thus far:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10254848/1/Meh-I-can-take-them-all (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10254848/1/Meh-I-can-take-them-all)
It's Saitama around the end of his training. After he breaks his limiter but before he got bored.
Might have been linked before. I'm linking now because I only watched through One Punch Man properly a few months ago, and only really started to get what this Worm thing is about in the past couple of days. (Previously this recs thread was all Worm Worm Worm and I was all, enh.) So I don't remember what all the prior Worm recommendations on this thread have been.
Since I still know little about Worm, I get the following perturbations in my head:
- I have no idea what a Piggott is, so I imagined a female version of Pig God running the PRT.
- Coil can construct two timelines and pick one, right? I was amused that he appears to pick the one where Saitama deals the most collateral damage.
Oh, and DK:A still plodding along with dwarven politics and medicine. The cliffhanger is that Ami has to marry a dwarf because diplomacy... or does she really?? Find out next time on DK:A.
Quote
I look at the girl. She is looking towards me with a frightened look.
I have a complaint!
It's only permitted to lick a little girl in the 2-D world!
Because there are people like you, Japanese manga is regulated.
"What the fuck am I reading?"
https://rumanshi.com/jp-web-novels/other-worlds-monster-breeder/pokegod-chapter-19/
Arakawa: I remember that one and finding it's take on the bank scene (before I knew what was going on) excessively confusing. Capturing perhaps the feel that was supposed to go on but just losing me. They really didn't get anywhere with it, even though it did have some good Saitama moments.
Quote from: Arakawa on November 27, 2019, 11:45:24 PMOh, and DK:A still plodding along with dwarven politics and medicine. The cliffhanger is that Ami has to marry a dwarf because diplomacy... or does she really?? Find out next time on DK:A.
Dun dun duuuuuun.
Honestly, whenever I glance at DK:A these days, I really hope it's an Earthside update. That's usually more interesting than the dwarf subplot.
https://veratales.com/novel/the-silly-alchemist
Heavy handed on the narration (especially in the early chapters).
Decent.
https://syzctranslations.github.io/translations/vwpwe/index
VRMMO LN. Very random; I think mostly in a good way (turns a number of cliches on their heads).
-edit-
Having read further in: excessively random.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9772409/1/Cosmonaut
Eva fic. I strongly dislike it - it's not to my tastes - but I'll freely admit that I think it's well written. Worth a check to see if it's your cup of tea.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13156407/1/Heated-Storm-Yields-a-Wild-Horse-s-Heart
A Ranma 1/2 fic, with Nabiki getting the engagement at series start. It's not perfect but it's fun for what it is.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/vault-hunter-worm-borderlands.802456/
Taylor, stranded in pandora for a while, coming back with digistruct tinkering. Played straight, but also for the laughs. She's entirely non-functional as a human being from effectively years of living in pandora culture where everyone shoots everyone. Daniel is the anti-hero of the story. He knows his little girl is definitely not going to be a good guy. He knows she is likely to murder a lot of people from the moment she walks into his home covered in blood and waving a gun about.
But it's his little girl. He gotta do something.
Maybe try some house rules. And if the Protectorate isn't an option (seriously, how long until they'd throw her in jail?) well, maybe..somewhat...there has to be some gang she can join that isn't horrible?
It's got a pretty good comedic style to it and doesn't really veer into crack from my view. It sets its baseline of psycho taylor and runs with it, without descending into much violence at all, just an almost complete inability to readapt to normal society. Unsure where it will go aside from maybe 20-30 chapters of amusing antics before petering out, but it's a good ride so far.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns-dungeon.590739 also the puns continue.
Gamma has arrived. Team kid adventure is on floor two. Jack versus the Demon Blacksmith offsets.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12713828/1/Victoria-Potter
A female Harry Potter retelling of the boo-oh hold on, hold up. I know, I know. Bear with me. It's fun and has that knack of being well written, even if it indulges in such things as Harry (Victoria as the case may be) going to Syltherin, making friends with all the Sytherin charac-Okay, look. I know. It sounds like a hundred other fics, it's merely well written and the author has a knack at writing in a way that keeps you reading.
I'd suggest reading it for a few chapters, see if it's to your tastes.
Eh nothin' wrong with that.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/its-not-wrong-to-make-friends-in-the-dungeon-danmachi-sanctioned-worm.59498/ this is crack, but I enjoyed. Magical Girl Queen Administrator making Friends in Danmachi. Where friends are giant leopards. Very mary-sue but it's amusing watching the author basically pilot around this crazy mental cripple about a society where basically everyone picks up quickly that this is: Not someone sane.
It also has:
Kitty petting.
"How to convince Hestia and Loki to get along"
Using curses to fight sexual harassment.
Been reading But Doctor, I Am Pagliacci (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/but-doctor-i-am-pagliacci-dc-joker-au.59162/) which has been pretty fun so far. Starts off with Jack Napier in Arkham, responding very well to therapy and regretting all his misdeeds as the Joker. Which would be great except for the fact that none of the doctors or other inmates have ever heard of Bruce Wayne or Batman.
It is very much not an introspective psychological story where you're meant to wonder if Batman was all in his head or he was Batman himself. I say that because it's what the synopsis might lead you to expect but the story doesn't go there at all. To say more would be spoilers, but it's an exciting action story at its core.
I glanced at the story. I thought for sure it would be psychologically focused, but it's action instead. I may give it a look after all.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13156407/9/Heated-Storm-Yields-a-Wild-Horse-s-Heart
This updated with a fun take on the Ice Skating challenge. A nice, long chapter to tear into rather than a short snippet.
[spoiler]
I'm not the biggest fan of Nabiki being gifted with talent in martial arts, but at least it's addressed with reasonable reactions in chapter. At least Nabiki's not interested in continuing further, but I suspect circumstances won't let her get away.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/its-not-wrong-to-make-friends-in-the-dungeon-danmachi-sanctioned-worm.59498/ - very crack. Forget if I've linked here.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/with-friends-like-these-altpower-taylor-worm.312205/ - small chapter but friendbringers continues
@Ebiris - https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/but-doctor-i-am-pagliacci-dc-joker-au.808805/ this was really quite neat. Way, way too many links and a few misdirects, but pretty neat once it hits its stride.
I think the links are pretty helpful when it ends up pulling on obscure DC characters so you can very quickly get yourself up to speed on what their deal is. It's one of those things where it takes advantage of the medium that I appreciate.
edit: Oh I'll toss in a rec. We Appreciate Power. (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/we-appreciate-power-worm-peggy-sue.790504/) Emma gets Peggy Sued from the start of Golden Morning to the day Taylor triggers and takes it on herself to prevent Skitter from ever becoming a thing while also becoming a universally beloved heroine who'll save the world from Scion. It's fun because she's still an awful bitch even when everything is from her perspective, and her constant fuckups engender a nice feeling of schadenfreude.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/bless-this-world-with-explosions-konosuba-foz.824763
I'm not familiar with KonoSuba but this looks promising nonetheless.
Quote from: Ebiris on February 13, 2020, 01:18:02 PMedit: Oh I'll toss in a rec. We Appreciate Power. (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/we-appreciate-power-worm-peggy-sue.790504/) Emma gets Peggy Sued from the start of Golden Morning to the day Taylor triggers and takes it on herself to prevent Skitter from ever becoming a thing while also becoming a universally beloved heroine who'll save the world from Scion. It's fun because she's still an awful bitch even when everything is from her perspective, and her constant fuckups engender a nice feeling of schadenfreude.
I'll give that a weak rec. It's not bad - past the intial appeal of the premise it doesn't quite do it for me, but it's enjoyable enough. I read it every batch of chapters or so. Worth a try to see if you like it, certainly.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13233466/10/The-Other-Way
The Other Way updated. It was about 95% character work and team building, but it was fun.
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/1/Mother-of-Learning
Finished.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12520349/5/Like-a-Senshi-Scorned
Oh look, A Senshi Scorned revived. I'd have to reread the entire thing to get back on base, but boy it reads as fanony these days.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13156407/10/Heated-Storm-Yields-a-Wild-Horse-s-Heart
This also updated. Wasn't the biggest fan of the angle ultimately used by Shampoo, but after last chapter's emotional peak, there was going to be a valley regardless.
Just found out yesterday that there's a sequel to Worm.
Also:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12520349/5/Like-a-Senshi-Scorned
Oh look, A Senshi Scorned revived. I'd have to reread the entire thing to get back on base, but boy it reads as fanony these days.
Which side? The Ranma parts? The Senshi parts? Or fanon all around?
Just asking out of idle curiosity; I'll probably read it whichever way you answer.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on March 02, 2020, 09:02:50 PM
Just found out yesterday that there's a sequel to Worm.
Also:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12520349/5/Like-a-Senshi-Scorned
Oh look, A Senshi Scorned revived. I'd have to reread the entire thing to get back on base, but boy it reads as fanony these days.
Which side? The Ranma parts? The Senshi parts? Or fanon all around?
Just asking out of idle curiosity; I'll probably read it whichever way you answer.
All around. I only read some of it since I'd need to go back and reread it, and the fic it continues off of first.
It has that good, old fashioned 90s crossover feel.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 02, 2020, 09:13:01 PMIt has that good, old fashioned 90s crossover feel.
So does that mean you feel like going and giving Just Won't Die series a re-read? Can't beat that for 90s crossover fanon! :D
Re-read The Games We Play (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12119784/1/The-Games-We-Play-By-Ryuugi) by Ryuugi recently. This is a re-host off of SB.
It's a good tale. I have trouble connecting with Ryuugi's works these days. They've gotten too eclectic (even compared to that).
Just realized that I'd never posted a link to this one: http://liberspark.com/novel/black-irons-glory
https://wanderinginn.com/2020/03/24/ caught up on this from mid volume six. Lots of good scenes. Erin's feeling sorta distorted in certain ones to accent an inability to deal with things that felt a bit weird given story so far. Author's at his best writing chaotic intertwined events and quietly epic parties.
At his worst writing anything about sex. The last chapter was that and it was ridiculously completely and utterly bad. Hopefully very skippable as I couldn't bother to read that many consecutive scenes all about characters sex lives. So far it also really hasn't been relevant. It's not porn with plot or decent porn since it's trying to be adult/anti-prude in a sense there rather than telling a sexy tale or a sex scene. Even excluding that scene, just other parts are really heavy handed and poor. The goblin shaman always talking about it is rarely shown to be exercising power from persuasive having sex as opposed to just being able to physically and magically beat the crap out of the vast majority around her.
He's utterly lost track of any real sense of levels as a part of his narrative system at some point. It's basically 'at any point someone could magically I win power, this won't generally affect day to day though that much, just big dramatic scenes'. 40 went from outlandishly high in the early volumes to 60-70 being so. But even so the main characters are rubbing shoulders at least with what the world considers to be movers and shakers at the national levels at this point.
Klb goes through three or four personality replacements over the series. Luckly his partner Relc is largely a stable and understandable character.
Anyhow enjoyed Sallis of the Lights.
Quote from: Dracos on March 30, 2020, 12:34:17 AM
https://wanderinginn.com/2020/03/24/ caught up on this from mid volume six. Lots of good scenes. Erin's feeling sorta distorted in certain ones to accent an inability to deal with things that felt a bit weird given story so far. Author's at his best writing chaotic intertwined events and quietly epic parties.
I managed to work through maybe a third of the sex-related shorts, and just skimmed through the rest.
With respect to various scenes in general, normal action scenes are done pretty well, and slice of life/amazing party chapters are great.
The flip side is whenever the writer think some chapter would work better with a majestic tone and tries to adopt it, it just comes off as borderline (or not so borderline) purple prose. And with how long each chapter is, it's pretty tedious to slog through. I have the impression that the experience has somewhat improved as the story goes on, although I'm unsure whether that's because the writing itself has become better or whether it's because I've gained resistance to the K-chapter writing style.
I did appreciate, and at the same time eyebrow raise, at the Goblin Slayer expectation inversion. It's really something that almost entirely doesn't work without awareness of the sudden popularity of Goblin Slayer.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/inspired-voyage-st-voyager-si.791005/
So this story continues on and got a big update today. I like the strong points of the story a lot, but the weak points?
Janeway was a giant plot tumor. If a Janeway fan read it and balked at the story I would not blame them in the least. I fall on the lower end of Janeway opinions and that fic was still brutal to her in my opinion. I'm glad it's finally excised so the story can get back to doing what it does best. With a three ship fleet now, the story's really getting better and interesting.
For my money though, the best tack would've been having Janeway and the SI manage to sort it out before it all went to crap.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743297
Sailor Moon fanfic. It's something. It's unique but I feel the non linear presentation does more harm than good. The writing's also a bit weak in places, or perhaps weakened by the non linear style.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/kill-them-all-worm-gamer.830187/
A Worm/Gamer cross. I'm not going to lie, this fic bothers me.
Okay, this is the same author as a Wand for Skitter, so that should inform you to begin with. More than that, the Taylor in this story is a stone cold psychopath. Now granted one could see this as a deconstruction of Gamer's Mind that so often permeates Gamer fanfics, but let's be honest Taylor doesn't need a huge push to go down the road o' violence. It's just that she rapidly graduates from murder to mass murder to killing two hundred people in five minutes simply because they're ABB.
Like seriously, the heroes rightfully freak out at this, but it's very much a story in the vein of the Taylor is Right narrative and the writing tends to reinforce this. I feel like I'm watching someone's murder simulator at this point, only that we're supposed to pull for the murderer. The entire vibe of the fic really puts me off. Like Taylor's legitimately monstrous now and I don't fault the PRT too much for the recent attempt to kill her. Considering the dirty pool the PRT did with the attempt that says a lot.
I read the start of that and immediately dropped it. It is a terrible fic. Terrible use of both source material and immediately bypasses any sense of flow into the scenario. Probably done with looking at that author.
better fics:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/greg-veder-vs-the-world-worm-the-gamer.601118/ - pretty sure this is the right one. Has a flowers for algernon type bit with the power forcing terrible self awareness on, gradually as it goes.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/co-op-mode-worm-the-gamer-si.354578/ - wish this ever continued. It went weird at the tale end, but honestly felt like a cute team-work/friendship type story, and I like that kind of stuff in general. Like https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10894754/1/Trump-Card managed in its better bits.
Same here, the author's not doing it for me at all.
Greg Veder vs the World is solid for what it is. It also feels semi dead, but we'll see if the author's life gets together enough for it to continue.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/when-life-gives-you-lemons-worm-portal.780946/
This is a mess and a delight. Taylor is dimensional tinker and teleport/escapes into old Aperture. There's a lot of valid criticisms, including Major Antagonists going out like a wet noodle, but it's also got a lot of delightful Glados and company.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9637720/1/Fractured
Imagine the beginning of Sailor Moon as something...different. Spoilers.
Imagine Sailor Moon as the start of a Tsukihime styled breakdown into unreality and mental instability. Add in a good deal of horror to taste as well. It takes a few chapters to start this, but once the incident at the jewel shop happens, things rapidly spiral downwards.
I'm not sure if I like it, but the story made one heck of an impression on me.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/warrior-of-dusk-taylors-attempt-to-dance-firaga-suplex-all-the-things-redux-worm-final-fantasy.66052/
I'd...really like Unwelcome Storm to add to her stories at this point, but I am still glad to see this one getting refreshed and dragged out of the garbage bin. It was a joyful ride of suplexing and references and doomtrain carrying a cargo of souls. A cracky story that didn't go with 'and every body was acting different' or 'we're gonna spend weeks power tripping about taylor' She even loses her encounter with lung in this one on account of raw damage spells aren't deadly toxic poisons and don't match up as well. It's still, like most crack, all about taylor, but also about Coco the chocobo running around town *nods*
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26534 yeah so this was that book
It is an Isekai with joined worlds and playing out malicious effects of world travelers. No the titular protagonist is not an Isekai.
But the poorly considered adventurer that tries to steal from his hoard is.
It is a silly tale, but well conceived
I am really enjoying the tale of this red dragon. This stupid arrogant gold obsessed red dragon. Calamity of the Age. Slayer of Knights. Adventurer. Noble. Emperor.
With his chief of staff and sentai squad, he will be Best Dragon Vainquerer.
But no taxes. Taxes are evil things.
Quote from: Dracos on May 11, 2020, 12:22:57 PM
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/warrior-of-dusk-taylors-attempt-to-dance-firaga-suplex-all-the-things-redux-worm-final-fantasy.66052/
I'd...really like Unwelcome Storm to add to her stories at this point, but I am still glad to see this one getting refreshed and dragged out of the garbage bin. It was a joyful ride of suplexing and references and doomtrain carrying a cargo of souls. A cracky story that didn't go with 'and every body was acting different' or 'we're gonna spend weeks power tripping about taylor' She even loses her encounter with lung in this one on account of raw damage spells aren't deadly toxic poisons and don't match up as well. It's still, like most crack, all about taylor, but also about Coco the chocobo running around town *nods*
It's okay for what it is. Feels better than some of her other stories at least - I'm not a fan of the one Okami crossover that has a name that escapes me at the moment.
Held off on posting this because of spoilers but if you've seen ep 10 of My Life as a Villainess you're fine. Through the Looking Glass (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23609749/chapters/56657476) is a fun story of Keith and Gerald from the show getting swapped with Keith and Gerald from the game. There's a bit of weirdness with Gerald/Geordo being used to differentiate the two versions of the prince (Keith gets no such convenience), but there's lots of fun stuff with game-Gerald fucking things up for show-Gerald and Gerald and Keith from the show thinking the game world is some kind of nightmare world, and shit just completely pops off in the most recent chapter with some very good payoffs. Would recommend!
Quote from: Dracos
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26534 yeah so this was that book
It is an Isekai with joined worlds and playing out malicious effects of world travelers. No the titular protagonist is not an Isekai.
Just read through this (up to what's been released, at ch113.) It is surprisingly good.
There isn't any particular outstandingly dramatic chapter, but that's probably for the best - the dragons lines are enough in-story over-the-top dramatization as it is, and there really isn't a need for more.
https://nyx-translation.com/garbage-brave-isekai-ni-shoukan-sare-suterareta-ln/
"Perhaps this particular isekai novel won't be about a weak-willed rice-seeking whiner who hates slavery yet ends up with a furry slave harem."
*reads
"Dammit."
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24875653
My Life As a Villainess as a creepy story. I'm not sure I like it but I respect the effort.
edit: That's a fun story, really nails the tone of a creepypasta.
Indeed.
I'm still ambivalent on the story itself, but A+ for effort and tone.
Starting to catch back up on https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26534 Vainquerer, and well Grandrake who is 'cursed not to hear poor people' is a fantastic old dragon concept.
https://silenttranslations.com/one-shots/the-story-of-two-brothers-a-hero-and-a-carpenter/
Found from randomly clicking on links.
https://planttranslation.com/heavenly-farmer/
Chinese story of a farmer who suddenly gets a game-like system, and uses his farming skills to succeed both on Earth and the heavens.
https://tomotranslations.com/2019/01/03/it-is-a-different-world-and-yet-i-am-cultivating-monsters-volume-1-chapter-1/
Japanese story where a character tries to farm in another world where everyone eats meat, because vegetables are monsters.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/fours-a-party-worm-mage-demon-queen.864841 the snark is kinda of delightful.
There is a lot of isekai/magical farmers lately.
Quote from: Dracos on July 30, 2020, 12:30:17 PM
There is a lot of isekai/magical farmers lately.
Isekai...I occasionally find one that's amazing, but you have to wade through lots of generic nonsense to find it (although I find that what is "generic" kind of depends on which country it's written in. I've lately wondered if it really a product of social norms, or whether there's a bias based on the particular interests of the translators.
)
Magical Farmers...Sometime a year or two ago, I'd posted a link to World of Cultivation. Which was amazingly good until the last 50ish chapters, where I get the feeling that the author was getting bored/impatient and wanted to wrap things up. I've been keeping my eye out to see if I can find something else that matches the experience.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-friend-in-need-mlp-worm.278550/ not updated, just being a bit nostalgic.
https://www.shinsori.com/me-a-hero-not-possible/
Amusing short story.
Been reading Lost in an Isekai (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/lost-in-an-isekai.866362/) over on spacebattles. Guy gets lost in truck and ends up in another world. Then he has to become an adventurer to survive. This isn't a power fantasy story. Its not dark, either. And, thankfully, the people around the main character aren't that special brand of stupid that isekai stories often use to make an average person seem like a genius. Also, no slaves.
Quote from: thepanda on September 07, 2020, 11:25:20 PM
Been reading Lost in an Isekai (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/lost-in-an-isekai.866362/) over on spacebattles. Guy gets lost in truck and ends up in another world. Then he has to become an adventurer to survive. This isn't a power fantasy story. Its not dark, either. And, thankfully, the people around the main character aren't that special brand of stupid that isekai stories often use to make an average person seem like a genius. Also, no slaves.
In the middle of reading this.
My two thoughts:
(1) Truck as the benefit. That's actually ridiculously practical, although I don't remember how the writer says it stays fueled.
(2) I was wondering if the repeating crossbow as actually a real thing. It turns out that it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JToxcNxED5I So I learned something from this story.
Been reading various things lately.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13566104/1/I-Was-a-Teenage-Reincarnated-Moon-Princess-REWRITE
Gave this a whirl. It's an SI so brace for the obvious. That being said, the guy isn't a great writer but there's an effort here. Nonetheless it has a lot of hallmarks of an amateur writer feeling things out, but has a few enjoyable notes.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394867/chapters/38376437
A Sailor Moon rewrite. It's solid enough for what it is and some blend of the manga/anime for pacing and plot. It's like in 7.5/10 territory for me, I like it but it doesn't quite get over the hump. Still, it's competently enough written.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/hive-keeper-worm-dungeonkeeper-wfto-alt-power.54214/ enjoyed this a little. It could be fun but it won't go anywhere. It oddly treats the PRT as having retroactively held the idiot ball, and now wondering why they were dumb.
https://woopread.com/series/leveling-up-through-eating/
https://adarterra.wordpress.com/ending-maker/
RomCom/RPG-insert. I was going to say MMO-insert, but later chapters make that assumption unlikely.
Not numbers/stat sheet heavy, and while I wouldn't say this is the most amazing story I've ever read, it did keep me reading for awhile even though I wasn't really looking to read a romantic comedy at the time.
https://isekailunatic.com/2020/02/12/wm-prologue-1-a-class-stranded/
I haven't read this one yet, so I can't give any feedback on it.
But it has the best opening blurb from an Isekai translator that I've seen yet.
===
Story itself is fairly generic. Harem, useless "gift" that drives main character to be OP. No whining about rice, though, so there's that.
Whining about rice? I don't follow.
Superior Japanese cuisine is a big trope in low-rent isekai crap.
With Koreans whining about beans ...also rice or tofu.
Or chocolate.
Someone convinced that it was an endearing quality to be whining about a favorite food, usually using it as a plot guider at some point.
I want see some writer turn it around, and have the initially-elitist protagonist end up becoming an otherworld equivalent of Bourdain. Maybe throw it in as part of a more general buildungsroman.
Maybe I'll try writing it myself. I can't think of any interesting way to develop my "ungamer" plot outside of the basic idea.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-little-foreigner-worm-x-fate-grand-order.887590
Little Abgail is an out of context problem. Sort of cute/cthulian, but didn't go much with it yet, seems a decent bit of setup.
http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/dws.shtml
A long running SI/Sailor Moon cross. I'm of highly split opinion on it overall, it has a lot of the normal SI issues but there's some interesting worldbuilding in it. It's also a little rough on Luna at first, but at least tries to justify it and pulls up later in a reasonable fashion.
Luna's legitimately in a terrible situation with how this story works, so it's understandable she's going through all sorts of shock and has made a few bad choices.
Also, one of the upsides is that I found Luna romancing Motoki to be a hilarious idea. Moreso because she notes Usagi's crush on him. Meow, Luna. Meow.
It's worth a glance to see if it's your cup of tea. I'm not sure it's mine.
...wow, Drunkard's Walk. That's something I haven't heard of in like 15-20 years. Kinda amazing they're dedicated enough that it's still going on.
Yeah, it's one of those late 90s/early 00s megacrossover SIs. You can tell from the selection of materials alone it's old school.
I remember really not liking the Sailor Moon part of the crossover, but enjoying other bits.
Beware of Chicken (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/beware-of-chicken-xianxia.910799/)
"In which a transmigrator decides the only winning move is to get the hell out of dodge." Says it all.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sovereignty-of-evangelium-arrival-evangelion-au.907145/
Eva AU. It's a rougher world but in an interesting way. There's a lot of good show but don't tell hints going on with the backstory since 2nd Impact and it lends a unique feel to the story. Very interested in seeing more.
ThePanda, that was a surprising joy, I did not expect.
The Strongest Wizard Becomes a Countryside Guardsman After Taking an Arrow to the Knee (https://lightnovelstranslations.com/the-strongest-wizard/chapter-1/)
I haven't read a word of this yet; just posting this because I was somewhat amused by the title. I'll probably get around to it in the next few days.
Re: Chicken
Random, unimportant thoughts I had while reading this
First chapter is a bit potty mouthed (or the character likes talking about dicks, for whatever reason).
Quote
"'Meimei! Meimei! Help us Big sister Meimei!' he pleaded."
Mei mei is how one says "little sister." Probably should have gone with A'Mei, or something of the sort. Doesn't detract from the story, but some of the dialogue using that name sometimes warrants a double take.
Quote
Rice. The staple of the world. White rice is delicious. But like all grains, it is a supreme amount of effort. After you husk it, then you have to pound it even more to get the bran and germ off.
Which is why people mostly ate brown rice until they invented machines to process rice.
One standard trashy xianxia opening setting is that the protagonist is loser in a clan that was started by a sect dropout. The dropout relocates the clan to the most spiritually deprived part of the world, the reason for which is rarely explained. This reads like the prelude to that setting that no one ever bothers to write. :)
I like what's been written so far.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/28685370/chapters/70324875
A Ranma/OMG crossover. When Ranma turns 18, turns out he has a contract to be Urd's hero (in the Greek sense of the word) in the world. Shenanigans ensue. Lots of fun and amusingly written.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/tattered-capes-under-a-shattered-moon-post-gm-worm-rwby.913401/
End of Worm canon Dragon and Defiant are dropped into Remnant. It's interesting with lots of possibilities to how it'll expand.
[spoiler]The two worrying over Aura being a sign of another Entity is reasonable from their point of view and adds a lot of tension. Be interesting to see if it's true or not at all, but the most recent chapter adds more fuel to the fire.
Read a bit but didn't get too far. Urd was a little too far broken to be a joy to read.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/beware-of-chicken-xianxia.910799/
Updating regularly.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/hogwarts-an-escalation-worm-harry-potter.908288/
Bakuda accidentally strands Taylor in potter-verse. She ends up as a bodyguard. Almost more interesting is the take it does on the Greengrasses, coming across as basically moderates stuck with the pureblood factions terrified at the rise of the dark lord and wanting no part in it. Daphne as a character aims to try and balance paying attention to obvious signs of danger while not stepping too far away from the Slytherin party line. Short so far but might get interesting as it goes.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/25886044/chapters/62902783
An interesting and different premise for Sailor Moon. It's no great spoiler, it begins to discuss it from Ami's view almost immediately, so I won't bother with a spoiler tag. Sailor Moon and the people of the Moon aren't normal. Think Lovecraft, but in a mildly interesting way. Worth a few chapters to see if the premise grabs you. It doesn't seem to be a deconstruction for whatever that's worth.
https://activetranslations.xyz/never-die-extra/
Korean. Protagonist is inserted into an RPG as a character fated to die.
Author does not excessively spam stat sheets in a transparent attempt to fill word count.
Ended up getting pretty bored of the earlier story, since its ostensibly a dungeon crawling story but they hardly do any of that.
https://activetranslations.xyz/ has several other ongoing translations. This is my brief reviews of them:
Regressor Instruction Manual
Protagonist is summoned to a game-like world, and is weak so has to rely on his wits and personality politics to survive. He also encounters a regressor, even though he himself is not one, and sets himself up as the right hand man.
I kind of lost interest in the protagonist, so stopped reading it.
I Came Back And Conquered It All
Reincarnation from the future, with overpowered talent. Dungeon crawling.
I Became the First Prince
Sentient sword swaps consciousness with a scummy crown prince, finds that the kingdom he helped build with the prince's ancestors has degraded, and tries to save it. Has some superfluous game elements early on, but writer seems to drop them later (and frankly, I don't think they were necessary at all). I'm still interested in this one.
Survival Story of a Sword King in a Fantasy World
Premise is amusing. Transmigrator is summoned to a tutorial world, along with a bunch of other people. Everyone gets an RPG-like interface...but his is bugged. Everyone is supposed to graduate at level 5, but his is bugged, so every time he hits level 5, his level is reset to 1. His stats are not.
Setup aside, the bulk of the story is still the adventures of an overpowered protagonist that stomps over everything in his path.
Carnivorous Hunter
Post-apocalyptic world of Superpowers/mutants. Protagonist eats powers. Not far enough along for me to have a concrete opinion.
I Login Alone
Strictly speaking, the title is misleading because the world has lots of people who only dungeon crawl in a castle in the sky, whereas the overpowered protagonist can only access caves in the ground. It's light hearted, which can be shown in this absolute gem of dialogue:
"There are only two goods that can be obtained from a monster. The first is money, and the second is a crystal with a special mana structure that the monster has known as a monster bead."
"What's the currency? It probably won't be Korean won."
"Yes, unfortunately, it's not Korean won. It's US dollars."
After Returning, My Abilities are Infinite
Super analyst with low combat talent goes back in time after being killed and decides to fight instead.
2000 Years of Magic History in My Head
Protagonist in a martial world has little talent for it, but the talent for being a great wizard. Another person in a magic world has little talent for it, but the talent for being a great warrior. Magic world guy gets the protagonist to take over his body from time to time, and they swap knowledge, so that they can help their respective worlds fight off monsters.
The Editor Is the Novel's Extra
Haven't looked at this one yet.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/19312162/chapters/45935500
Harry Potter fanfic, comedy. The horcrux in Harry Potter's head awakens after an accident and comedy ensues. Pretty amusing for what it is, but maybe that's because I read it late at night.
Just finished "Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer". Its Litrpg and the beginning is a little rough, but I did enjoy it.
Guy is killed due to a botched resurrection spell and now has to live in a world with game-like mechanics. Unfortunately for him, he's stuck as a farmer until he reaches a high enough level to dual class. Even more unfortunate, the system is set up to keep farmers farmers.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/silver-rimmed-with-crimson-ranma-x-sailor-moon.948976/#post-77113150
A good, old fashioned fukufic. Ranma/Sailor Moon. Only one chapter but that chapter's not bad.
I'm surprise that I hadn't posted this one before. I thought I had...
https://kobatochan.com/korean-novels/fff-class-trashero/
https://a-t.nu/novel/fff-class-trashero/
Shameless and unreliable narrator meets Isekai-RPG. Korean novel. Absurdist. Groundhogs Day.
I'm a fan of this one.
Quote from: Jason_Miao on August 05, 2021, 04:40:37 PM
FFF-Class Trash Hero. Shameless and unreliable narrator meets Isekai-RPG. Korean novel. Absurdist. Groundhogs Day. I'm a fan of this one.
I've read the manga version of this. The MC is a scumbag and very deserving of his FFF-class moniker, and you really want to hate him. At the same time, you can't help but sorta relate with his feelings of why the situation he found himself in was bullshit as you learn of it, and enjoy his extremely petty workarounds for doing what needs to be done without actually doing it the way he's intended to do it.
And of course he then gets punished for it, and he doubles down on being petty and still succeeding because he's learned how to cheat the system. Start is a bit dull because it focuses more on his scumbag tendencies, but gets better as one sees his creative pettiness. Still a scumbag though.
On a separate note, I've been working my way through Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (https://boxnovel.com/novel/omniscient-readers-viewpoint-boxnovel/), a completed 551 chapter novel about a guy who spent much of his life reading a very long webnovel called "Three Ways to Survive in A Ruined World", and being the sole reader to read it in its entirety. As the novel ends, he finds the complete story downloaded into his phone...just as the events of the novel begin to occur in his reality. Knowing what he knows, he seeks for a fourth way to survive using his knowledge to craft a scenario beyond what he knows of the novel's scope. I'm about 60% of the way through the novel right now, on chapter 348, it's fun with all the references of mythological beings and historical figures, and all the multiple plotting by different characters who have different goals plus all the silly time travel shenanigans. It's kind of a self-insert/time travel/peggy sue/reincarnator thing, without specifically being any of those and simultaneously being all of the above, and it's neat that way.
Been a while since I've read anything Familiar of Zero related but I've been on a Resident Evil kick so this caught my eye.
Familiar Evil (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/familiar-evil-znt-resident-evil.896808/)
Louise reverse summons herself to Raccoon City a few weeks before the events of Resident Evil 2/3. Saito's there and the two of them have some really nice chemistry as she adapts to the modern world before everything goes to hell and the two of them have to survive, while those on the Halkegenia side try to figure out where she went and how to retrieve her. Really captures the horror and feel of the earlier Resident Evil games, give it a look if that kind of thing interests you.
I hadn't realized that Journey (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/94905/druth) had updated last year.
Yeah it was nice to see. Nostalgic indeed.
I've gotten lost in light wuxia.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/virtuous-sons-greco-roman-xianxia.925544/ - greek themed.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ave-xia-rem-y-a-very-cliche-xianxia-story.589587/ - cliche themed
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/forge-of-destiny - quest themed
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/beware-of-chicken-xianxia.910799/ with chicken.
With chicken is the best of them, to my tastes, but I somehow be reading them all.
Briefly tried reading a Japanese translated webnovel, The Middle-aged Man who just Returned from Another World Melts his Fathercon Daughters with his Paternal Skill (https://kurokurori.wordpress.com/2019/04/21/the-middle-aged-man-who-just-returned-from-another-world-melts-his-fathercon-daughters-with-his-paternal-skill-a-k-a-angelica/)
Quote from: chapter 1
"My background was rather slightly unique. Because at the age of fifteen, I was summoned to an another world. It was the so-called medieval European fantasy-esque, the world of sword and magic. In addition, it was a strange sadiste-time with a game-like system.
I spent the past 7 years on that land. Teens to twenties, I dedicated myself for adventuring, and before I noticed it, I was already 32 years old."
Welp. So much for that.
Huh. Bad translation or weird plot?
Looks like a typo. The page you linked says 17 years.
Tried to get into
Mauling Snarks but the whole 'S9 is
a therapy group for capes with particularly anti-social powers
' requires a mental adjustment period.
So I've put it off to read after https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/how-hookwolf-and-vista-saved-christmas.52052/ (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/how-hookwolf-and-vista-saved-christmas.52052/) because unlike
Snarks this setup seems totally sane and normal.
Damn this thread has not seen use in a long time.
The world won't wait till you're older (https://archiveofourown.org/works/36791203/chapters/91784104) is a fun look into Captain Marvel (or Shazam rather) joining the Justice League and them later discovering that he's actually 14.
I got out of the habit of posting in it.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/serenity-malfoy-and-the-hogwarts-education-harry-potter-sailor-moon.1012830/
Sailor Moon girls grow up in the Harry Potter world and go to Hogwarts. It's decent enough. A little hit and miss but it's had more hits than misses for me. The idea of Usagi being born a Malfoy amuses me to no end and it's definitely been a thing.
Climbing to the Top (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/climbing-to-the-top-overlord-reincarnated-oc-canon-divergence.980823/)
Came across this today, it's a really good Overlord SI focusing on new world characters. SI is Climb who teams up with Renner, and it has some good stuff with his layman's 21st century scientific knowledge being extrapolated on by her RPG bullshit 'golden mind'. Hasn't quite gotten to Nazarick's arrival but it looks like that'll happen next chapter.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-magician-in-gotham-dc-self-insert.982177/
Yeah yeah, I know, SI. The premise is decent enough that it's worth a read. It's a Batman crossover. Thing is, the SI wakes up with the powers of a mage and a name: Randall Flagg. He's not the only thing that's crossed over from Steven King's works, either.
Happens early in Batman's career before most of his villains are established, so lots of chances for continuities to change.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/even-in-brockton-bay-my-instant-death-ability-is-overpowered-worm-sokushi-cheat-ga-saikyou-sugite.1016457/
This leans surprisingly into instant death's style and it really worked for me. Told primarily through tattletale's perspective whose ability very much doesn't want to be anywhere near these dimensional travelers and yet Tattletale doesn't want half the city to end up dead by the end of next week either. It doesn't lean into good guy tattletale really either, but more one seeing the train wreck and unable to look away.
https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/
After a spate of translated "evil" webnovels which were either edgelord or where all "good" side are jerks and the "evil" are decent folk, I wasn't expecting much out of this, but decided to give it a try anyway. I'm glad I did. It's pretty enjoyable.
If I had to pick a criticism, it's that the overarching mechanic of the world is following and exploiting story archetypes, but the story only uses three of them. But that's a pretty minor blemish.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/continue-on-struggler-berserk-mushoku-tensei.1052701/
Guts gets reborn in the world of Mushoku Tensei. It's something but maybe not in the ways you'd expect.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-xianxia-sect.989803/ I have been continuing to enjoy Sect. Taylor's recent tribulation where she didn't get that she was choosing what parts of herself were important was a nice character evolution building off her history of throwing away everything.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-darker-path-worm-fanfic.1037109/ Sort of a meaner take on Taylor has OP Power and takes down Brockton Bay (Like the luck fic). Enjoyable, but recognizably a snuff fic at the same time. (which is a sentence I didn't think I'd write)
Been consuming a lot of wuxia this year.
And the best remains BWOCK https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/beware-of-chicken
https://archiveofourown.org/works/39797838/chapters/99639954
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War fanfic. Two little stories about how each of them could've lost much earlier than they did. A pleasant diversion after watching 3 seasons of the anime with them fumbling around.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/once-more-dear-friends-a-worm-litrpg-au.1080927/
Interesting take on a LitRPG Worm fic - as in the LitRPG elements have existed since the beginning and the Parahuman side of it is a new bit of interference. Interesting premise to see in execution, will want to see where this one goes.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-woke-up-as-a-dungeon-now-what-dungeon-worm.620521/ has entered the 'oh shit, War...and then War...and then Eldritch horrors' section. Old king did his best.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nemesis-worm-au.747148/ had an update recently, but I think it's just a tease and the cheery beegirl is gone for good.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/tinker-taylor-builder-nexus-worm-eclipse-phase-altpower-taylor.1000965/ - mecha Taylor is fun.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/anomalous-materials-worm-scp.1051603/ - this has been a surprisingly interesting crossover of SCP into the worm universe. Not a fusion or a blend, but feels a respectful crossover. Mostly on the SCP side of the house following an Amnesic Robert and the 'this world should really be sealed off' bet.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/taylor-and-the-manic-pixie-bomb-girl.1064348/ - gyaru Bakuda decides to go a different way after lung loses. Recruits Taylor. Hires video crew.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-xianxia-sect.989803/ - My grandmaster is the cooking King and he's given me a blessing. That's okay right?
Quote from: Anastasia on March 22, 2023, 10:59:39 PMhttps://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/once-more-dear-friends-a-worm-litrpg-au.1080927/
Interesting take on a LitRPG Worm fic - as in the LitRPG elements have existed since the beginning and the Parahuman side of it is a new bit of interference. Interesting premise to see in execution, will want to see where this one goes.
Is interesting. But yeah, falls into that 'Will they go somewhere with it?'
Or will it run long enough to, at least?
Hard to tell from here, give it a few more chapters.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-xianxia-sect.989803/ Censor is 120% done with this shit.
And Taylor has a plan for things being even worse than the mega-murders they were thinking of. She's even ready for layered betrayals at every turn.
She's experienced at it.
more of the above, now with shopping :)
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3368346/1/Zenith-of-Sorcery
Nobody103, the same writer as Mother of Learning.
Interesting