Amused Bystander
Herald of 'She who Umu's' Be Brave!
- Location
- Philippines
Because Westeros sucks and you can't have good things while living there and Littlefinger is a scummy,scummy bastard of a pimp.
CV12Hornet Cleans Out His Fanfiction Favorites List (Beware of Shit Taste)
- Thread starter CV12Hornet
- Start date
- Location
- Caracas
It's odd because the manga version of Mikoto we see in flashbacks was utterly serene? At her death. As if she understood that this is where the die fell.
She shouldn't be aware that the massacre was ordered by the higher ups, she would only suspect Danzo. Given her friendship with Kushina and perhaps Minato she would have known Hiruzen too to some degree.
Given your summary this feels like a fic that has as an objective "how much more shit we can pile in terms of Trauma to Sasuke Uchiha until he breaks, again."
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Probably for the same reason he has Aemma Arryn marry Viserys I at age 11 and had her give birth to Rhaenyra at age 15 after multiple miscarriages and one son that died soon after his birth.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Surely it would be the other way around. Danzo was the only one who got Itachi to do it, but his parents clearly knew he was there on orders, and it's fairly logical to assume it's a coordinated action by all the higher ups, rather than Danzo effectively going rogue.
- Location
- Caracas
Not really, Danzo is a disciple of Tobirama Senju, who aside one exception, had a marked dislike of the Uchiha. Hiruzen's tenure didn't involve any overt movements to fuck with them until the Kyuubi incident, also Danzo systematically was erasing all traces of any outstanding achievements of the Clan during the 3rd war.
Hiruzen seems to have been a fairly softhearted leader and it is possible the Uchiha knew this.
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deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Hiruzen was a student of Tobirama too.
And at best, they might have believed that Hiruzen was against it but gave in to pressure from others, but there's not much reason for them to assume Danzo ordered it alone. Especially given that Hiruzen opposing something and then giving in anyway is exactly what happened to get them pushed into one compound after the Kyuubi attack.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
No. Not in the sense Danzo was- Tobirama's genin team was Danzo, an uchiha, and an akamichi.
Hiruzen was under the First, alongside those two old fogeys from the chunin exams who talk to Jiraiya.
Different teams.
(in fact Danzo has this whole thing about how he's an heir to the second and not the first and the first's methods have proven bad case in point hiruzen etc)
MiskWisk
Hoot
- Location
- Somewhere devoid of wit
- Pronouns
- He
Incorrect. Hiruzen was in fact part of Tobirama's team. He received additional training from Hashirama after proving sufficiently talented. Koharu and Homura were also members of Tobirama's team.
In fact, we don't know who Danzo was taught by at all. All we know is his team had Kagami Uchiha and Torifu Akimichi on it, and they were teamed up with Team Tobirama on the mission that lead to the Second's death.
CrazedBureaucrat
Let's embrace Insanity, shall we?
- Location
- Rubicon 3, Rubicon System
Looking at your recent post, Hornet, I'm wondering if you've read any Kancolle SIs or not. Considering the fact that most of the popular KC stories are SIs, I'm curious how you haven't covered them yet.
all fictions
I hate you! (it's not against the rules!)
- Location
- Mons Regius
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes and no.
Jeyne's age, and by extension Sansa and the rest of the Stark children, is explainable for two reasons: GRRM's narrative needs and GRRM's historical knowledge. The first is fairly easy, we know that from the start GRRM wanted young protagonists so they could grow older as the series went along:
Original 1993 outline said:
Amazon said:
This is why, for example, a 5 year timeskip was planned for after the third book, to get some of that growing up in:
Locus said:
The second is what your comment alluded, that GRRM made them young because he thought that was historically accurate:
Entertainment said:
EW said:
GRRM said:
Of course, some of you reading these quotes probably raised an eyebrow as some of the claims GRRM make about the Middle Ages, especially concerning the age of marriage. Much ink has been spilled on how incorrect he is in his generalization, so I will simply direct people to this post if they wish to learn more and leave it at that. It wasn't unheard of, but it was much more rarer than GRRM makes it out to be.
Fire & Blood is also, in my opinion and those of many others, where his misconceptions shine even brighter and get even worse than in the main series, to the point of warping the setting. I will leave it to this post to explain why the child brides in F&B are so bad they contradict GRRM's own worldbuilding statements on the age of marriage in Westeros.
There are a lot of time where the young age of characters involved work for what the story is and its themes. Having children thrust in position of leadership as happens with Joffrey, Robb, Dany, Tommen, Jon, etc. shows how bad an idea it can be, and showing how war can severely traumatize a kid into being desensitized to violence as happens with Arya also works. But whenever it comes to sexuality, it tends to lose the plot (even if the story of Jeyne and how it ties into Theon is fairly strong otherwise).
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
This is your biannual reminder that, ironically for a guy who's helped write one of the most popular SIs in existence and is currently helping write another, I don't actually like SIs, as a general rule.
CrazedBureaucrat
Let's embrace Insanity, shall we?
- Location
- Rubicon 3, Rubicon System
Understandable.
I admit to reading and enjoying a few KC self inserts (and not to mention writing one right now) but I mostly wish there were more stories focusing on the actual characters and world than inserts.
NepNep
One Doomed Space Marine
- Location
- E3M6
To be fair, that runs into the problem of Kancolle having basically no lore, so you either have to crib from other authors or make up everything yourself (which is a massive undertaking). Not surprising there aren't as many fics focusing on the world when there isn't really an actual world established.
Six Years Too Long + run, godspeed + Tales of My Lantern Academia: Emerald Dawn
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
It's not often that a fic reaches up and slaps me across the face with a sentence so jarring that it knocks me right out of the narrative. Specifically, this line:
The guy. The guy. Minato Namikaze should not be referred to as "the guy" in any sort of serious narrative prose, and before anyone says anything, yes, the fic is using serious narrative prose up to this point and not some sort of Lemoney or Pratchettian silliness. Like, bad as that sentence is in a vacuum, it's infinitely worse in context by breaking from the tone and style established in earlier paragraphs.
Nope. You're not on the list.
So this is basically one of those many Naruto fics of the "characters get injured and have to limp their way back home" variety, just Game of Thrones. Sansa, when left in the woods by Joffrey, just runs. She gets away, joins the Lannister army as a boy to try and make her way home, braves injury and deprivation and hard physical training to eventually get home to her family. It's a familiar formula.
It's one that works for the first third of this fic. Sure, Sansa is stressed out and slowly breaking down the whole time, but she does get stronger. She does get home, and prove herself useful as a scout, and have long stretches of time where things are, if not good, then at least comfortable. She makes connections, accomplishes cool things. And every time the story cuts to another POV it's downright fascinating to see what people think of the disguised Sansa.
I will freely admit that I cackled when Tywin directed Sansa to deliver a message to Roose Bolton with instructions on what to do at the Red Wedding.
Unfortunately, after the Red Wedding is where the fic starts to lose me, because these sorts of fics live and die on their ability to assure us that the character going through all this abuse is going to get home, and recover, and get a good ending. That is not what happens to Sansa in this fic. Everything after the Red Wedding has been a steady downward spiral, heaping more responsibility and pain and guilt on her with every scene. The whole white war concept is central to my disdain - it's essentially the Starks taking off all the gloves with the blessing of their gods, and such a war ends only one of two ways: one of the Starks murders the Stark that called for white war, or the Others come in and freeze everyone.
And it just feels like such cheap drama and means of making things worse, because of course they have to get worse. This is something the author, AFAIK, makes up for the fic, which makes for very clear fingers on the scale. It's an interesting concept with real-world precedents, but here it is just not welcome at all.
You're not on the list.
Well, that was disappointing.
The first problem with this fic is that it's a pretty standard Izuku alt-power. He gets superpower. He goes through all the stations of early canon except easier because superpower. I'll give M313 some credit for trying to go off the rails with the plot - between Black Hand killing Stain and Re-Destro and Overhaul getting captured early it's clear he's aiming for a major shakeup either during or after Kamino. But come on, we're 185,000 words and would probably be over 250,000 by the time the story got to that point, that's too long. More importantly the DC side of things barely factors in besides Izuku's Green Lantern ring.
The second problem, and we're going in ascending order of importance here, is that M313 characterizes several people as their worst selves. Bakugo I get, even if his noxious thought process makes me want to punch the author every time it shows up. Todoroki, that flows from the divergences even if I much prefer him to be knocked out of his early-canon mindset ASAP. And then there's Aizawa. The arrogance the man displays has been cranked up a few notches and it's especially infuriating since it's one of the only sources of meaningful conflict in this damn fic!
And then there's the third problem, which is that as written I am not feeling any chemistry between Izuku and Momo whatsoever. Just none. Zero. No rizz showing up here. This is a problem when the romantic relationship is clearly intended to be a pillar of the story.
You're not on the list.
- Location
- Soviet Canuckistan
Been a while since you had a full rejection post. Hope you find some stuff more to your liking next.
Ultra Sonic 007
Trying to keep things simple~
- Location
- Colorado
All Wo-rk and No Play: An Abyssal’s Trials in the Job Market
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
This fic takes a bit to really git gud, but man, when it gets good, it takes off like a damn rocket ship.
All Wo-rk is the story of Trinitite, a Wo-class aircraft carrier Abyssal attached to the Jellyfish Princess' fleet stationed at Bikini Atoll. Jellyfish Princess, for those of you not familiar with Kancolle characters, is the corrupted Abyssal form of USS Saratoga. This is important, because Trinitite sees the moment when Saratoga is purified from being an Abyssal, and after torching the remaining supplies, sets about on a plan: infiltrate the human territories, find her Princess, and reunite with her.
You may notice that Trinitite has no plan for what to do after she finds her Princess. That'll be a running theme in the fic.
Astonishingly, the actual infiltration part goes well for her. Hijacking a fishing boat gets her close to the coast. Swimming does the rest. She shakes her pursuers in the rugged terrain of the Olympic Peninsula, snags critical supplies and intelligence1 from a Fred Meyers she raids, and then goes to ground in the greater Seattle region. From there, the title comes in: she experiences the job market, and human life in general.
This is the meat of the plot: Trinitite interacting with human society, slowly learning it, bonding with people, and gaining what she believes is useful intelligence on how to get her mother back. It's mostly fluffy, mostly character interaction. Plot development is slow. We really get to know Trinitite here, and PyrrhicSteel knocks it out of the park in showing just how inhuman her thoughts are. One of her later companions, Alex, comments on her trust issues, but they're much deeper than just trust issues. Trinitite thinks in very starkly tactical and transactional terms. Altruism confuses her. And yet, despite all that, we find an actual good person underneath all that. That transactional thinking compels her to treat fairly with people. Kindness and care done to avoid detection becomes progressively more sincere. And we also see that a lot of this is stuff she already had, since the Bikini fleet wasn't one of the fleets bombing cities.
To put another way, she's an actual character, and it makes this slow-burn how-to-human plot work. Also? This is just some prime "humans through alien eyes" shit. Trinitite knows jack about human society and her fumbling attempts to find out are endearing and funny in equal measures. She's very fortunate the refugee crisis the Abyssal war has created offers such a convenient and all-encompassing excuse.
Unfortunately, I also have to say that this is the reason for the fic's soft middle. Long stretches of the story pass in a holding pattern of "Trin does stuff". It's worse while she's working construction, due to the limited opportunities for her to interact with people. It improves once she gets to Chehalis and works at a customer-facing job and bonds with Alex, and it really gets better once she moves in with Alex's family.
This is a decent point to segue into the rest of the cast. The fic features two major sideplots. One follows ONI spook Brad Murray and cruiser shipgirl Nashville as they lead the hunt to try and find Trinitite. This side plot is quite necessary, and never bad, but it's telling that it's at its most compelling when it features the closest thing this fic has to a proper antagonist, the malignant narcissist PI Katie Harmon, who is Murray's ex-girlfriend and easily the most reviled character in the fic for being both a giant asshole and a goddamn egotistical idiot who sticks her head into a bear trap by tailing Trinitite for days without telling anyone. Again, it's not bad, and Murray and Nashville have distinct character of their own2, but it's not the most compelling.
The second is Saratoga, who has been sensibly shipped off to Japan to both deny Trinitite her target, but also because the Japanese desperately need someone to train up their less experienced carriers. Sara's segments provide valuable insight into how the rest of the world is reacting to all this and Sara's own thoughts on the situation, which naturally circles back to her re-entering the plot to find Trinitite herself. Speaking of, the fragmented memories former Princesses have of their time as Abyssals is a good plot point I may have to steal some day.
Lastly, we have the people Trinitite meets. Most of them are throwaways, brief OCs made mostly for plot purposes. Alton and the construction crew get some more prominence - as people who's lives have been touched, universally negatively, by the Abyss, they kickstart the development of Trinitite's empathy. And then there's the constellation around Alex: his family, his gaming store buddies. PyrrhicSteel manages to sell Alex's brief dating experience with Trinitite, which is an accomplishment.
And while all this is going on, you're wondering when it's all going to come crashing down. One of the themes of the story is that man plans and God laughs. The investigation fails over and over because everyone's trying too damn hard to control information rather than actually catch Trinitite. And the more they try to control, the more information slips through their fingers. A prime example is Trinitite learning Saratoga is in Japan due to a couple of shipgirl-worshipping salarymen in Japan snapping a pic of the mysterious foreign shipgirl. Trin does better by contrast because she has no idea what she's doing and so can't really control the situation.
But, of course, it does blow up. Trin is found out, and in such a public fashion that it gets all the gears moving. We know from earlier posts that she's dying slowly, her fire-damaged hull slowly giving out. Sara is in the States.
I'm still catching up, but dammit, my body is ready and I needed to get my words on the page.3
You're on the damn list.
- Food, human clothing, makeup, and a crash course in "how to look human".
- Nashville's characterization is starting to spread in the SB Kancolle scene, because every setting like this needs a good girlfailure.
- I'd be remiss if I didn't point out two more issues I didn't have space to fit into the main review. First, typoes. They're there. They're frequent. Second, geography. Folks, Google maps is your friend. It would tell you things like how much suburban development there is between Olympia and downtown Seattle, or that Chehalis is almost 100 miles from Everett as the crow flies.
- Location
- Massachusetts
Spoilers.
Unfortunately, this fic suffers from refusing to resolve its primary plot point and instead revisiting the same story over and over again. The first time her life blew up and she restarted, fine; she had learned from her first identity, and meanwhile the manhunt for her was progressing behind the scenes. But the second time she gets found out and then reinvents herself with a new job--which I'm guessing you haven't gotten to yet--it seriously dampened my interest in reading further.
The Squire of Dragonstone
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
The Squire of Dragonstone is very much a character study, borne out of the author noticing the similarities in personality between Jon Snow and Stannis Baratheon in the ASOIAF books. The plot is mostly just fix-ficcy stuff, and honestly is kind of irrelevant next to the character study going on. The plot is mostly just an excuse to put the two in situations that they can learn about each other.
One of the interesting things about this fic is how much Ned Stark looms over it while barely appearing until the third entry. Jon, of course, has his bastard-related hangups, but however much Stannis dodges the idea it's clear he's intensely jealous of Ned Stark. The man has the effortless of love of both Robert and Jon, the latter of whom quickly joins the ranks of people Stannis actually cares for the regard of. And this really underpins so much of Stannis' dour mood. He feels slighted, constantly. In particular with his brothers, who jape with him and don't take him or their duties seriously.
This is called out in the story as Stannis' greatest flaw. It leads him to alienate people who could be his allies, and to hide secrets in contravention of his usual regard for the truth, no matter how harsh. Jon's presence, another person who actually respects him and treat him as Stannis wants to be treated, are what actually get him to get up off his rear in Dragonstone, go to the capital, and win. And as we go, we see the ripple effects of Jon's presence make Stannis happier. His daughter becomes livelier. Renly's untimely death nets him Storm's End, the castle he wants to rule. Having someone else to talk to, someone else on Stannis' level, softens his rough edges and sharpens his political acumen. Again, for all that he denies it, Stannis is Jon's father in all but name during this fic, and it's sweeter than you'd think.
Jon, meanwhile, gains not only a father figure, but a man who doesn't care about his ancestry, doesn't care about something that's caused him so much grief in his young life. Stannis has regard only for Jon's competency and honesty, and the story makes the case that the two are very similar, just that Jon isn't so ground down by life. And so Jon quickly rises in Stannis' service, becoming a knight and his de facto second in command when Davos isn't around. Their conversations on life, philosophy, and all sorts of other things are one of the highlights of the fic.
And while I think the plot's pretty stock, it does have its moments. The Lannisters ambushing the Reach forces and besieging King's Landing and in turn getting routed by a surprise sortie from Robert? Unique. Littlefinger escaping thanks to a well-executed plot during Robert and Margaery's wedding? Also unique.
This is some good shit. You're on the list.
- Location
- Caracas
Finally, some good fucking food.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Thanks for this recommendation. Its really a good little trilogy. My main criticism would probably be that there's at least one or two stories worth of plot, that has been left unresolved. Almost everything that's there is good to great, but also basically none of the main plot points are fully concluded.
I was about to complain about Tywin being just sent home after the open rebellion and killing the king's brother. But I guess he couldn't have been brought in to sit in judgement against Cersei and Jaime, and then arrested again (and executed) for treason. And the solution does pretty much mirror the end of the Greyjoy rebellion.
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
As I noted in my review, this is not a plot-focused fic. The plot exists to facilitate the comparative character study of Jon and Stannis, and anything else is secondary.
I tend to agree with this, but I also can't fault a fic for being focused on what it wants to do.
Familiar Evil
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
On one level, Familiar Evil is a classic ZnT Reverse Summon. Whereas most ZnT fics, especially Spacebattles-adjacent ones, summon some other poor schmuck in place of Saito Hiraga, a Reverse Summon pulls Louise out of Halkeginia and in somewhere else. Beyond the advantages of just doing something different in the first place, Reverse Summons benefit also from Louise not being in a position of power, something that enabled a lot of her canon abuses. It's a golden opportunity to change up a tired formula and put Louise in new and interesting situations, a key part of good character writing.
And on that front the fic really executes the idea well. The first six chapters are half dedicated to Louise's arrival in Raccoon City and her time spent living with the Hiraga family. And man, I just love this. You know me, normally I'm yelling at fics to get to the point, but TRESTWHO just does such a good job developing Louise's relationship with Saito, having her experiment with magic, and just in general adjust to and react to modern life, circa the late 90s. Louise definitely feels a sense of awe toward modern technology, but she's also not some wide-eyed yokel blinded by it, either. She does a creditable job studying up on the science before everything goes to hell.
However, on another level, Familiar Evil is also an evolution of the Reverse Summon formula, and also a welcome twist on the classic Isekai-style crossover1: Halkeginia actually matters, and in more direct ways than the somewhat-common "character returns from crossover-land" style. Not only does the Halkeginian side make a concerted effort to find and reach Louise, they succeed. And it's also made clear that Halkeginian politics are in play: Pope Vittorio2 is using the reverse summon as a way to scout out our world for eventual conquest in a bid to flee the Windstone Crisis.
This adds a welcome additional conflict to the story, especially since it ties back to something else few ZnT authors do: worldbuild. Familiar Evil establishes that Brimir was originally from Earth - and so too were one of his enemies, the Varyag, who were sent packing back to Earth. And in a fit of dramatic irony, Vittorio is so bent on the conquest plan because he has no idea the Varyag have faded entirely out of history and mythology on Earth. If he'd asked, the US would've fallen over itself to bring in the Halkeginians. Of course, the very fact that a zombie apocalypse is happening in Raccoon City complicates his plans, not least because he's supposed to reopen the portal at a specific point in time to bring back the rescue team and Louise.
And yes, a rescue team heads to Earth to retrieve Louise, something else that almost never happens. More on that in a bit, because it's time to get to the zombies.
The first six chapters are extremely well-paced, just enough story to establish both Louise and Saito's relationship and also all the moving parts on the Halkeginian side. Unfortunately, once the zombies hit I do think the pacing suffers. This is always a risk when a fanfic ties itself to the original story - now the story has to happen more at the source material's pace and that pace can often be ill-suited to prose3. What I'm saying is that the zombie action can sometimes drag. That it's a trying, traumatizing time for our two heroes both physically and mentally does not help, though thankfully Resident Evil lore means that they're not also accumulating injuries along the way.
It's a pity, because there's nothing wrong with the actual events and setpieces. The zoo sequence in particular stands out for the very interesting ideas for unique animal zombies TRESTWHO throws at our heroes. There's a complicating factor of a goon squad being after Louise and Saito due to Umbrella shenanigans. Louise's magic isn't an I-win button due to how loud it is, attracting the zombies. And then there's the rescue team, who are dropping into this apocalypse not only unprepared, but completely out of their depth, because they have no idea what a zombie is. The rescue team is repeatedly caught off-guard by what to Louise and Saito, the product of 30 years of zombie fiction, is basic zombie stuff. It's great. So is Kirche realizing how completely out of her depth she is.
And while I'll rightfully ding the pacing and constant tension, TRESTWHO does add cooldown action in between perilous action sequences.
As of right now, the two groups are holed up in separate Resident Evil puzzle mansions. I look forward to when the two finally link up.
You're on the damn list!
- Broadly speaking, crossovers can be put into four buckets: Isekai, Fusion, ISOT, and First Contact.
- The eponymous Pope Dongcopter from that MLP crossover.
- And yes, I think this is an often-underrated source of fanfic's tendency toward excessive length.
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington