CV12Hornet Cleans Out His Fanfiction Favorites List (Beware of Shit Taste)

Which list should I go through first?

  • Fanfiction.net

    Votes: 24 66.7%
  • FIMfiction.net

    Votes: 8 22.2%
  • Spacebattles

    Votes: 2 5.6%
  • Sufficient Velocity.

    Votes: 2 5.6%

  • Total voters
    36
  • Poll closed .
Ship Wars and Cancellations + r/onlyingotham + The Right Question

Ship Wars and Cancellations by ravenrinrose


MIRACULOUS TWITTER FIC because we need more Miraculous social media fics!!

Crack, but not really, idk. Basically, the Heroes all have twitter and Ladybug tries to be professional but Chat Noir provokes her every two seconds, the entire internet loses their shit when it turns out Ladybug is an Adrien stan, Chat Noir gets cancelled for saying he's hotter than Adrien, Luka is done with everyone including himself, Luka is also constantly flirting with Adrien and Marinette (which is why he's so done with himself), everyone ends up having a crush on Adrien and nothing makes sense.

Heres a little preview

Ladybug @OfficialLadybug
@RenaFurtive DID YOU WRITE FANFICTION OF MY *EX* BOYFRIEND AND ADRIEN AGRESTE

RF @RenaFurtive
Replying to @OfficialLadybug ITS A CUTE SHIP IM SORRY PLEASE DON'T KILL ME
This is some good shit. I was wheezing at more than one point, and I deeply empathize with poor Luka, the only person involved who knows everything and who is losing his damn mind at the love dodecahedron shenanigans. But the fic also knows when to stop and take things seriously, such as at the very end.

Also at the very end? The truth coming out, and it's everything I could have hoped for.

You're on the list.

r/onlyingotham by amurderofmagpies


The unofficial subreddit of Gotham City.
This is boring. It's the same stale tropes repackaged again.

You're not on the list.

The Right Question by Aviss


In which Ned asks the right questions at the right time, and Jaime keeps most of his vows. The important ones at least.
As AUs go, this has an interesting start and divergence. First, Jaime manages to save Elia Martell and her Targaryen children. Second, Eddard Stark thinks to ask Jaime why he broke his oaths and killed Aerys. The result is Jaime, Elia, and kids on Tarth waiting to make a move, upending all of the book canon in the process.

And while it's a good setup, it's let down on two levels. Plot-wise, it feels a bit of a waste to take this premise and then use it mostly as an excuse to ship Jaime and Brienne together - a ship that's inexplicably popular in the fandom given AFAIK the two never actually meet. More importantly, it's just plain not well written with too many errors to enjoy.

You're not on the list.
 
This is some good shit. I was wheezing at more than one point, and I deeply empathize with poor Luka, the only person involved who knows everything and who is losing his damn mind at the love dodecahedron shenanigans. But the fic also knows when to stop and take things seriously, such as at the very end.

Also at the very end? The truth coming out, and it's everything I could have hoped for.

You're on the list.


This is boring. It's the same stale tropes repackaged again.

You're not on the list.


As AUs go, this has an interesting start and divergence. First, Jaime manages to save Elia Martell and her Targaryen children. Second, Eddard Stark thinks to ask Jaime why he broke his oaths and killed Aerys. The result is Jaime, Elia, and kids on Tarth waiting to make a move, upending all of the book canon in the process.

And while it's a good setup, it's let down on two levels. Plot-wise, it feels a bit of a waste to take this premise and then use it mostly as an excuse to ship Jaime and Brienne together - a ship that's inexplicably popular in the fandom given AFAIK the two never actually meet. More importantly, it's just plain not well written with too many errors to enjoy.

You're not on the list.

What are you talking about? Brienne and Jaime got a book long journey together that helped start his redemption arc and meeting her made him want to try to live up to knighthood again and helped cause the events that made Jaime fall out of love with Cersei. As far as ships go it's very well supported by canon.
 
Kazuma's Finest Cunning + Legacy of the Stars + Pure Hearts

Kazuma's Finest Cunning

By: Obloquy

Kazuma Satou is an Otaku NEET who with a sharp tongue, but a decently sharp mind to match it. He's got this useless 'goddess' Aqua as his cheat item? Well, he's a smart guy and she's pretty gullible, so it can't be too hard to finesse her into getting stuff done. As long as it's easier than swinging around a magic sword with his own arms and getting violently bloodied, Kazuma is coming out on top in the end!

(In which Kazuma Satou goes all silver-tongued Guile Hero to get Aqua et al functioning as a shockingly solid team, because he can figure out which buttons to press and he'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar, even if the crazy girls rasp on his last nerve.)
The parenthetical part sums up the core premise: Kazuma has just a sliver more social awareness and so learns how to play the girls on his party like dollar-story kazoos. The trick, of course, is that this doesn't end Kazuma's problems, particularly not the fact that the universe seems to have it out for him. It's a rare fic that ups the competence of the protagonist while still keeping with the original's tone and this manages.

You're on the list! Can't wait to see more!

Legacy of the Stars [My Hero Academia/Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]

By: Boristus

Midoriya Izuku wants nothing more than to be a hero, but his time to prove himself is running out. He has twelve months until Japan's Hero Schools hold their entrance exams, but his prospects seem dim. Without any physical training or a Quirk to help him stand out, the chances of him passing are slim-to-none.

But a chance encounter toward the end of his second year of Junior High School suddenly turns his life on its head. As he begins a new journey, helping an injured girl to collect a series of magical artifacts, perhaps he has more options than he thought he did…
Lyrical Nanoha crossovers have a bad habit of clumsily reusing the Jewel Seed plot over and over again. This one kinda does that - the core plot is clearly a legally distinct version of the original Jewel Seed plot. But the devil's in the details and the details are quite different. For one, instead of everyone's favorite ferret boy Yuuno, we have Gienia Takamachi, who is very obviously a descendant on some level from Nanoha and Fate. She's also sidelined due to injury, which neatly necessitates Izuku pick things up. Inko is in on things, this time.

But the big difference is that Izuku is not Nanoha. Smart as he is he's not a Nanoha-tier magical prodigy. I'm looking forward to his learning curve.

You're on the list!

Pure Hearts by DragonSorceress22


It really was only a matter of time before the Legendary Silver Crystal made it onto the Kaitou KID's radar.
Something about this crossover just doesn't work, the pieces not fitting well together. I think it's a tonal mismatch, but can't be sure.

Regardless, you're not on the list.
 
Also once it clears its buffer updates are explicitly going to be inconsistent, it's a side-project to the author's Xenoblade fic due to burnout.
 
But the big difference is that Izuku is not Nanoha. Smart as he is he's not a Nanoha-tier magical prodigy. I'm looking forward to his learning curve.
Eh.

As I've said before, Izuku is remarkably good at getting the hang of things once proper instruction is provided and he starts snowballing in canon very quickly, going from breaking fingers, to barely eeking a "win" against Stain to outright matching Muscular to slowly climb the insanity ladder until he's moving at Subsonic speeds with Gearshift and ending on Mount Fuji in an instant.

Izuku is, as I've said before and I will never get tired of it, one of those characters that people need to get a good look at it because how he is in canon. All Might, despite all his virtues was a shit teacher, had Torino been involved since day 1 things would have taken a very different and sharp turn.
 
Eh.

As I've said before, Izuku is remarkably good at getting the hang of things once proper instruction is provided and he starts snowballing in canon very quickly, going from breaking fingers, to barely eeking a "win" against Stain to outright matching Muscular to slowly climb the insanity ladder until he's moving at Subsonic speeds with Gearshift and ending on Mount Fuji in an instant.

Izuku is, as I've said before and I will never get tired of it, one of those characters that people need to get a good look at it because how he is in canon. All Might, despite all his virtues was a shit teacher, had Torino been involved since day 1 things would have taken a very different and sharp turn.

Yes, Izuku is a pretty standard shonen protag with an absurd growth rate, mostly driven by having one of the best quirks in the setting.

MGLN magic is literally driven by math, however, and in that field Nanoha is absolutely absurd in a way that Izuku really can't compare to. His learning curve shouldn't even approach what she did.
 
Yeah, from what I've gathered Nanoha keeps up with the Mad Science Experiment and the person who had a superweapon welded onto her in her friend group via sheer talent and overwork.
 
Yeah, from what I've gathered Nanoha keeps up with the Mad Science Experiment and the person who had a superweapon welded onto her in her friend group via sheer talent and overwork.

And a job that provides rather more exercise of her magical abilities than the other two. Drill Instructor versus Staff Officer and Investigatory Magistrate/Starship Officer.
 
Wearing Robert's Crown

Wearing Robert's Crown (ASOIAF SI)

By: drakensis

Now, this is some originality. Unique for an SI, Wearing Robert's Crown never, and I mean never, shows anything from the SI's perspective, gives nothing of his internal monologue. Everything we can glean of his thought process is filtered first through him and then the people interacting with him. Sometimes you wonder whether this is an SI at all.

And then he turns Babylon 5 into tales for children and you remember, oh yeah, this is a sci-fi nerd in Robert Baratheon's body.

Unfortunately, I can't help but compare it to Chasing Dragons and find it wanting. The biggest issue is that the short chapters are constantly jumping about in space and time. There are unmarked timeskips that make you pause and go, "Wait, what?" It's jarring, and sometimes knocks you out of the narrative entirely. The many important people who unceremoniously die offscreen - Jon Arryn, Tywin Lannister, and Doran Martell, among others - is a good example of this problem hampering the fic.

Of course, it's also just that the fic can't match Chasing Dragons' very high holy shit quotient. That's a high bar to clear. Don't get me wrong, some cool stuff happens, but this is an intensely personal kind of narrative that lives as much in the heads of the characters as it can and still be third-person. Cool stuff happens! But it's all pretty low-key.

Which brings originality back to the forefront because this fic does all sorts of fascinating character things. How many fics bring in Olenna Tyrell as Robert's new Master of Whispers? Stick Cersei in the North and change up Robert's wife and children? Do interesting with Viserys Targaryen? Hell, Varys himself sticks around in the narrative doing basically nothing he does in canon and is still compelling.

And the worldbuilding behind drakensis' version of the Long Night-

*chef's kiss*

They're so threatening and yet still so clearly limited, I love it. That said, the war against the Others does tend to drag, especially since Westeros is Westeros and continues to intrigue behind it. Also, it dies as it builds to a climax. Argh!

That was a good read, you're on the list.
 
Heh. I love this fic.

I had known absolutely nothing about game of thrones besides what one could pick up through cultural osmosis.

But I was on a fix fic hunt at the time, saw this on a list, and got hooked.

This was my introduction to game of thrones. I didn't know anything about any of the locations, the characters, the history, absolutely nothing.

But it was so interesting. Seeing what little modern innovations get slipped in. The obvious political maneuvers I didn't quite understand. The interesting and varied characters and their reactions.

Loved it and was very sad it died. And now I've read a bunch of other thrones fics.

...

I should really reread this one now that I have more context on everything. That could be fun.
 
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Into the Pokemedia + Take Me Home + Garbage

Into the Pokemedia by Whymustwedolife


Just a glimpse at how the world handles the shenanigans of Champion Ash through the eyes of pokeverse social media

Who's that Pokemon?! Its Zeraora! by Whymustwedolife


When the possibility of Champion Ketchum finally catching an electric type is presented to the world, people go crazy. Friendships are broken, enemies are made, families distressed. Ash? Well he's just chilling.
Oh, this is some good shit. This is exactly what I've been looking for in terms of "people react to the absolute madness that is Ash Ketchum's life". The giant wall of text from Sunburnttoast going into excessive amounts of detail on how Ash became Grand Champion with a long tangent about the Kanto Civil War. The science nerds trying to get a lock of his hair for good luck. May dropping the bombshell that Ash mentored her back in the day. Ash's continued love of crossdressing.

Literally everything in this series is great. You're on the list!

Akira's r/SavedByGutFeelings by Razorkinder


Posted by u/Rowletster
People of Reddit, what was a time when a gut feeling saved you or someone you know's life?
… ⌧ ↰Reply ⇑ 107.1k ⇓



u/jokerusu69 - 136 Awards
Oh fuck do I have a story for you
I'm getting about as sick of trauma stories in Persona 5 as I am in My Hero Academia. You're not on the list.

Villain Analysis for the Present by cassiethecat


All Midoriya wanted was a nice easy villain backstory to dissect. Give him some tragedy, a lot of pain and suffering, a dash of homicidal rage. That was what he wanted. Was that what he got? No.

Though people like to forget it, Midoriya is very good at his hero analyses. He decides to turn his gaze onto the League of Villains, and is surprised with what he finds. At least he finds some company in his situation.
Unfortunately, this doesn't hold up. For one, it's the usual problem of making Izuku too smart. A master hacker at 11 are you fucking kidding me? Then there are the typos, and the tense swaps, and just the fact that this is half-baked and could've really stood to be spread over multiple days to maximize Izuku's panic rather than just do it all in one all-nighter, and him discovering so many secrets makes everyone else look incompetent and that's no bueno-

Yeah, you're not on the list.

Suspicions in the Chat Group by GaleDragon


Mylène created a chat group with most of her classmates just to discuss something weird Lila told her and Ivan.

But who knew it would snowball into a full-blown investigation!
On the plus side, this fic have the Miracuclass figure things out by themselves and doesn't take them to task narratively for it. Unfortunately, the handling of Adrien is not nearly so smooth. There's socially inexperienced and then there's how he's depicted here. Add on the narrative shitting itself whenever it strays off the chatroom format, and this is an easy decision.

You're not on the list.

Kakashi's Cute Little Genin are Terrifying by NovelKitten


Hatake Kakashi has been pulled off of ANBU duty to become a jonin teacher. In effort to keep himself at least somewhat entertained as well as to prevent from having to put too much effort into training his genin, he informs them that a jutsu he made up on the spot is too difficult for them to preform and has them practice until he deems them ready. Meanwhile, Team 7 begins taking after Kakashi, and that includes being interested in this jutsu of his as well.

AKA: Kakashi ends up training his team by trying to not train them, the Leaf Village is convinced Kakashi's making mini-Kakashis out of his students, and enemy nin become scarred for life.
I recognize that this is a crack fic, but it fails both at basic characterization and in Japanese cultural knowledge. To the first, fanon is clearly informing the characterization of everyone involved, and I hate it. I hate it with a passion. To the second, the entire premise of the fic is that Team 7 mistake a kancho prank for an actual combat technique, which... just no. Not in such a Japanese-coded setting.

Wouldn't be the first time Naruto authors failed to grasp Naruto lore due to lack of cultural knowledge...

You're not on the list.

take me home by Madelinedear


A glint of navy and a familiar outline parked next to the crew chief stand has his head spinning, and he unconsciously rises out of his chair to get a closer look. Feeling slightly dazed, he begins.

"Hey, did that look like-"

Before he can finish his sentence, the image cuts to an overview of McQueen's pit crew, finally landing on a close up of his new crew chief. Gray haired and stern faced, barking instructions into the head piece. The announcer cuts him off.

"Darrell, it appears McQueen has got himself a pit crew, and look who he has for a crew chief."

It can't be, Smokey thinks, eyes glued to the scream. Louise has his arm in a vice grip. He can feel the crescents of her nails digging into his skin.

"Wow, this is history in the making! Nobody has seen the racing legend in over fifty years!"

For a moment the entire bar goes dead quiet, and Smokey's mind goes blank.

or; The first letter arrives on a Tuesday
I've said before that I like fanfic that slithers into the gaps in canon and makes something out of them. This fic asks the question, "Who did Doc leave behind when he quit racing?" Because he did. Racing isn't a one-man operation. He had a pit crew, people backing him, and by all accounts he threw it all away and fled.

So there's something earnestly real to Smokey's emotions when he sees Doc on TV after fifty years of radio silence. There's anger, of course. But also a lot of confusion. He thought he wanted to know where Doc was, but all this negativity in him makes him reconsider that. In the end, though, it's off to Radiator Springs, and while they don't fully reconcile in the fic's runtime they're clearly on the path.

Heartfelt one-shot. You're on the list.
 
Oh, this is some good shit. This is exactly what I've been looking for in terms of "people react to the absolute madness that is Ash Ketchum's life". The giant wall of text from Sunburnttoast going into excessive amounts of detail on how Ash became Grand Champion with a long tangent about the Kanto Civil War. The science nerds trying to get a lock of his hair for good luck. May dropping the bombshell that Ash mentored her back in the day. Ash's continued love of crossdressing.

Literally everything in this series is great. You're on the list!
... so is this an AU or a future fic or something? Because I tried to start the first here and had no idea whatsoever what was happening at the start, and it then proceeded to be a wall of social media that did not answer that question in time for me to want to see how this ends up without some more context.
 
... so is this an AU or a future fic or something? Because I tried to start the first here and had no idea whatsoever what was happening at the start, and it then proceeded to be a wall of social media that did not answer that question in time for me to want to see how this ends up without some more context.
From starting to read it, my own knowledge of the anime and a bit of checking dates, futurefic with some headworldbuilding that's throwing me? It was posted about the time Journey's big final tournament was going on, and so decides to follow up on Ash being offered a Frontier Brain position, while canon's Ash eventually ended up continuing his wandering hero thing.

Edit: the aforementioned wall-of-text clears things up a chunk, but could've really been put earlier.
 
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Light of the Mists Trilogy

Light of the Mists


An AU where a young Obi-Wan never reaches Bandomeer and survives alone on a forgotten world, until he is ready to rejoin the wider Galaxy. The Sith are out there, and Obi-Wan is one step ahead, but will it be enough?

Spans multiple years and events including the start of the Clone Wars.
I'll say this for the Light of the Mists/Kyber trilogy, it's different. Even while it hits many of AO3's favorite Prequel Trilogy tropes (more on that later) the core premise and sequence of events are utterly unique. The basic story is that the planet Obi-Wan lands on has a temple left over from a Dark Side sect - and not Sith, that's important. There he learns how to be a Jedi in an old-school manner, and also learns about the Dark Side to a deeper level than any modern Jedi.

It's been a point raised in the Prequel Trilogy discourse that one of the Jedi's problems in dealing with the Dark Side is that their kneejerk avoidance reaction out of fear is counterproductive and leads them to ignorance of what the Dark Side is capable of. That's the angle the fic takes - with Obi-Wan as a vehicle for knowledge of the Dark Side, the order actually is able to make plans against the Sith even though it takes them years to grasp the full totality of it. And with Obi-Wan gone for a decade already derailing the Prequel Trilogy plot, things go delightfully off the rails.

Now, for the part where it's the same. Besides being part of AO3's obsession with Obi-Wan, it hits two other points I see a lot. The first is the prominent place of the Mandalorians and Mandalorian culture in the fic1​, the second is the usual package of "save the clones" tropes2​. Most of the second story is, in fact, dedicated to getting the clones off Kamino, and it's bonding with them that prompts Quinlan Vos to Fall.

Which is a good segue to talking about how the fic treats the Dark Side of the Force. It starts out a little shaky, with Obi-Wan on occasion using the Dark Side himself, but the depiction solidifies itself once Quinlan Falls. It's a really good depiction, as it shows that once Quinlan gives in and grasps the Dark Side willingly it's really, really hard for him to not keep reaching for it. He takes years to get a handle on it, and he remains Dark with all the consequences therein. He's not a Jedi after that point, and he has to be immensely careful when he uses the Dark Side. Going back to the usual drug metaphor, Obi-Wan is an example of someone using morphine as necessary and as prescribed by a doctor. Quinlan is an example of someone mainlining heroin. Big difference.

And at the end of the day this is a Prequel Trilogy fixfic. The Jedi disarm Sidious' traps, bait him into an ambush, and take him down without engulfing the galaxy in two decades of constant war. At the same time, it's not easy, or fast, and Palpatine is shown clearly as a formidable antagonist even when he's not even aware of the plotting going against him. His position is just that painstakingly inassailable.

You're on the list!

  1. I have never understood AO3's obsession with the Mandalorians.
  2. This I understand, even if I think it's overplayed sometimes.
 
I have never understood AO3's obsession with the Mandalorians.
Really? I feel like it's pretty simple. They're just a cool badass warrior culture. Tends to get a lot of "better than you" snarking, where Mandalorian culture is implicitly (or explicitly) said to be better than Jedi culture and/or the Republic.

It's also sort of recursive, where like a lot of tropes you get one or two fics that do something interesting with it, then everybody copies that exact version instead of doing something different.
 
Obviously, it's because the Mandalorians steal Coolness Factor off the Clones. :D
The Clones get tons of Coolness (their armor, being badass, that game where you get to control a squad of badass elite clones and take on big scary robots that the Jedi worry about with a blaster and a knife-gauntlet, that time they countered Grevious' bullshit with large guns and a Gunship Interrupt, etc).
'Man, if just some mass manufactured clones are this badass, the original stock musta been cool too!'
(Joking aside, I didn't really care that much about the Mandalorians that much personally until the Clones rolled out in the prequels, y'see, and I went 'man, who cares about space wizards, TELL ME MORE ABOUT THESE SHINY LADS IN AWESOME ARMOR'.)

So once you step away to the original Mandalorians, they've got Cool Armor and they've got Cool Gadgets. They're the guys who look at the Precog Magic Space Wizard Monks with Laser Swords Who Can Block Blaster Bolts With Said Swords, look down at their blaster pistol and a jetpack, and go 'Yeah, I can take 'em' and then proceed to do so in a Cool fashion (or at least their failure to do so results in a cool and memorable fight scene or something). And it helps that by the time the Prequels have rolled around, you've got all sorts of flavors of Mandalorian (Peaceful, Murderous Jackass, Trying To Aim For Something Between Those Two Extremes But Star Wars Only Allows Two Options, etc) while the original 'murderous horde who base delta zero'd planets' are long gone and the only remnant of that is Cool Space Armor and a variably assholish (IE, a range of 'pacifist' New Mandalorians to 'xenophobic warmonger' Deathwatch with plenty of variation between (IE, the crazy survivalists of The Way)) culture.

(It's the armor. I'm pretty sure nine tenths of the 'why writers like Mandalorians' is the armor.)

Then you get things like some of the snark you get off Canderous Ordo in KOTOR, you get The Mandalorian as a series, etc. and there's just enough general 'the Mandalorians have these neat things and are interesting and we have information on their homeworld to write about' as opposed to, for example, no one really bringing up their old rival warrior race of the Echani whose thing is 'we are all very good unarmed marital artists who value not showing emotions and most of us have white hair' despite the fact the Mandalorians stole the cool space kilts for their armor from their elite troops in the old EU lore, for example.

Edit: ...I will admit I can see the point of view of 'why was everyone so impressed by Boba Fett in the original trilogy, not the original EU lore' because his screen time pretty much consists of being told 'I want people -alive-, not -disintegrated-' by Vader and getting Sarlacc'd in his admittedly nifty looking armor and otherwise just looming menacingly from time to time.
 
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I have never understood AO3's obsession with the Mandalorians.
Honestly I find myself getting increasingly sick of the support the Mandalorian culture keeps getting in the star wars fandom in general.

The nicest analogy I've got is they're the Star Wars equivalent of Spartans. Both the pop culture version of cool, badass warriors, and the real life, "oh, you guys are awful on so many levels." In my grumpier moods I am significantly less forgiving of the habit the fandom has of whitewashing the upjumped genocidal pirates with delusions of grandeur.
 
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