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

[Automatonation]

Just as a personal recommendation, Welcome to the club, by the same author as Food Scandal, is quite enjoyable as well. Very similar characterization of Vader, with the central idea being that Luke was captured after Yoda dies on Dagobah when he accidentally flies into the Executor.

 

[DrunkenGrognard]

So, I am an insecure, weak-willed fool who is also a whore for positive feedback. A buddy of mine ping'd me to say that someone had reviewed Grand Tour in a "let's look at all the fanfics I Favorited years ago" thread and it took me all of five seconds to break down and go look. I appreciate that you enjoyed 'em; and fully agree with you about the Dragonball chapter being far and away the worst thing in the entire damn series. It was a pure bash-chapter; because I didn't much like Dragonball Z and felt like throwing some shade. (the chapter started the trend of "Ranma punches way above his weight and pays for it in pain" well that I drew on many times after, so it wasn't a total waste but ye gods...) That chapter got me (quite deservedly) roasted time and time again - it was a bigger flamefest than the ship-torpedoing in Walkabout - and while at the time I reacted mostly by getting mad and thinking about ways to double down (insecure fool, and I was worse back then. I'd like to think I've gained some maturity since...) but after thinking about it I realized that I'd deserved every bit of it.

At some point between finishing Grand Tour and starting Journey, I came to a conclusion that if I was going to play with someone else's toys, I damn well better play nicely with them; and tried to be a bit more respectful with how I used elements from stories that felt like they'd fit, but that I didn't like quite so much. It also caused me to re-evaluate how I was using Akane, who I did not treat kindly in Grand Tour. Between that, some re-reading or watching of primary sources, and paying a bit more attention to my research, I think I managed to get everything working better going forward but... yeah. I ran out of steam after Walkabout.

The end of that was draining, and Real Life hit me with a couple suckerpunches, and once I recovered from those I was working 12 hour nightshifts for a couple years solid.. and now my muse and I are no longer on speaking terms, so I've just not gotten back to things. I have a couple ideas for little snippets, but nothing that feels like it could support a full story so... for all it's a shitty place to leave Ranma and company, (though most of the other character groups are in better situations, at least) I can't really drag them somewhere nicer.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Thank you for your kind words; and for this thread - it's pointed me at some interesting stories that slipped under my radar. I'll be following this, I think.

 

[Darth Thanatos]

I have a couple ideas for little snippets, but nothing that feels like it could support a full story so...

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...So you write and post those snippets where it is appropriate to post them. Do not try to restart your writing hobby with an epic multichapter story. That never ends well.

Start with baby steps and see if your muse decides to keep sulking in the corner, or join the fun. That way you will not start over-ambitious and then discover that writing feels like a chore and you no longer enjoy it, leaving your story in the "dead fics" category. Personally, I feel I have too many of those.

 

[CV12Hornet]

Do Unto Others

By: Halcyon5
AU. A small group of Jedi flees Coruscant after Sidious's purge, making contact with unexpected allies who may be able to help them regain what was lost.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Sci-Fi/Fantasy - Anakin Skywalker - Chapters: 22 - Words: 171,436 - Reviews: 737 - Favs: 954 - Follows: 976 - Updated: Apr 6, 2012 - Published: Apr 8, 2011 - id: 6889946

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Impressions before reading:
So, anyone remember Demon Dragon Rider? Well, the author, Leaf Ranger, mentioned a couple of Halo/Star Wars fics on his profile page, talking about how he thought they got the combat dynamic between the two right. Now, being still in high school at the time, this piqued my interest, and I dove into his favorites list, finding Sins of a Galactic Empire. Which I promptly devoured. And then I spent some time digging into first Halo/Star Wars crossovers, and then Halo crossovers in general.

This fic is the only result from that binge that has survived. Which, considering the kind of fics I found, is not exactly a high bar to clear.

Review:
Somehow, I get the feeling Halcyon5 hasn't watched Revenge of the Sith in a while - or at all. There's just far too many details and important plot points he got totally wrong. At first I thought they might be deliberate, in service of the setup, but on further consideration that doesn't work at all. Take, for example, Obi-Wan and Yoda being on Coruscant when the whole thing with Palpatine goes down instead of on Utapau and Kashyyk, respectively. Their presence on Coruscant contributes basically nothing to the story, and being offworld when Order 66 hits wouldn't have killed them anyway. Why change that? About the only change I will agree serves the story Halcyon wants to tell is Ahsoka's rescue.

Also, he doesn't do emotional drama well at all. Thank God that's left behind early.

Because in chapter 6, contact is made with the UNSC, a few chapters later the fighting actually begins, and this is exactly what I came here for. There's the usual sins of this kind of story - loving descriptions of weapons and weapon effects, non-canon equipment for both the UNSC and Imperial forces, etc. But frankly, I don't give a fuck. It delivers on the sci-fi action and spaceship combat I've always loved, and neither side holds the Advantage Ball for very long; I appreciate that it's very back and forth. It also actually uses Anakin and Ahsoka in sensible ways, which is good, because their raid on the AT-AT park is the best part of the fic.

Verdict: I'm a sucker for this kind of shit. Keeping!

 

[Skywalker_T-65]

I remember that one

 

[CV12Hornet]

FateStay Night Prismatic Chaos

By: Alyeris
The second magic, the doorway to infinite possibilities. Exposed to it's effects from a young age, the Emiya Shirou that should have been is no more. In his stead is... Emiya Kirika? Why are there two Sabers? What's going on with this grail war!
Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 6 - Words: 140,730 - Reviews: 160 - Favs: 774 - Follows: 690 - Updated: May 22, 2012 - Published: Apr 11, 2011 - id: 6895017

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Impressions before reading:
In which Shirou and a Kaleidostick fuse, and shenanigans ensue. Also, immensely confused Archer.

Review:
Okay. These are entirely the wrong kind of shenanigans.

Basically, author Alyeris is playing up outright female-on-female sexual molestation for humor, with poor Emiya Kirika being alarmingly passive during the whole thing. It's like they tried to replicate some of the similar shenanigans from canon, but a. overshot the mark and b. didn't consider the implications of what they were writing. Just... way too many scenes in this fic are intensely uncomfortable, like I should be looking over my shoulder to make sure nobody's reading over my shoulder. That none of it is actually funny makes things even worse.

Also, there are a couple of other problems that make this decision even easier. For one, the dialogue often comes across as stilted and overly formal thanks to the usual issue with lack of contractions. Also, we're a chapter and a half into a story with 20,000+ word chapters, and there's been almost no action. Blargh.

Of course, there are a couple of hooks. This is pretty competently written, overall, and Archer's Butt Monkey status and seeing how Emiya being a girl changes both her life and how people interact with her is a treat. Were I less sensitive to the stuff in the second paragraph, as I was when I last read this, I can easily see why I'd favorite it in the first place.

Verdict:

 

[CV12Hornet]

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

By: pupeez4eva
Hinamori has some embarrassing videos of Hitsugaya that she is planning to show at a Woman's Association meeting. Hitsugaya will do anything to get them back: "Hand it over or the underwear gets it!"
Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor - T. Hitsugaya, M. Hinamori - Chapters: 4 - Words: 3,736 - Reviews: 32 - Favs: 54 - Follows: 16 - Updated: Apr 15, 2011 - Published: Apr 11, 2011 - Status: Complete - id: 6895414

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Impressions before reading:
This had better be funny!

Review:
I think everyone can relate to what Hitsugaya goes through here: your parents with the embarrassing baby/childhood pictures/video, and the lengths you'll go to stop them from showing it to anyone outside your family. And, often, from showing people part of the family.

And then, inevitably, that simply makes things worse for you. Oh, Hitsugaya is never going to live this down.

I'll even forgive the rampant spelling errors!

Verdict: Keeping!

Puppets of Zero

By: sagitarius
Trapped in a place where there is no time, four beings hear the desperate cry of a girl down onto her last hope. Wanting to escape the eternal void that only their late masters had had the power to save them from, they reach out for this new exit.
Rated: Fiction M - English - Fantasy/Adventure - Louise - Chapters: 5 - Words: 21,778 - Reviews: 101 - Favs: 314 - Follows: 323 - Updated: Nov 12, 2011 - Published: Apr 13, 2011 - id: 6901607

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Impressions before reading:
It's another Familiar of Zero summoning crossover. This time with Negima, which is why I favorited it, I'm pretty sure.

Review:
Just plain poorly written. I don't care enough to elaborate why, though blatant overuse of semicolons springs to mind anyway. Besides which, it does nothing to stand out from the pack.

Verdict:

 

[CV12Hornet]

Fate Ingens Cor

By: Ten-Faced Paladin
Magic the likes the Ministry of Magic has never seen before has been invoked. Seven Masters are chosen, fighting for either the Dark or the Light. Their struggles will lead to more than just the Heaven's Feel, but the fate of Wizarding Society as a whole.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Fantasy - Harry P., Saber - Chapters: 11 - Words: 137,593 - Reviews: 348 - Favs: 711 - Follows: 663 - Updated: Nov 10, 2012 - Published: Apr 15, 2011 - id: 6907242

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Impressions before reading:
For once, this is a crossover by way of masters rather than servants, which already makes it stick out from the crowd. Now, if only I could remember who the Servants were...

Review:
Welp. I sure didn't last long.

Problem #1: the narration sucks. It's telly, rambling, and full of redundancies. This is the biggest problem, because it makes it decidedly painful to read.

Problem #2: exposition is a problem. The second section is almost all exposition about Harry's life and current situation that is entirely pointless if you know Harry Potter at all. Which, considering this is a clearly marked Harry Potter crossover, you should.

Problem #3: the author attempts to add the Clock Tower - i.e. jam Nasuverse politics and magical mechanics into Harry Potter - to the story to explain how there's a Holy Grail War going on in Wizarding Britain. While I understand the desire to do so, this runs headlong into the Voodoo Shark trope: namely, it creates more questions than it solves. A Holy Grail War in Wizarding Britain can be handwaved; the fucking Clock Tower, with its completely incompatible metaphysics and likely mutually exclusive history, really can't. In fairness, this is the least of the problems and might be explained later, but with the other problems it stands out.

Problem #4, and where I bailed: And then Harry summons his own Servant - via the author mindlessly aping how Shirou did it in F/SN canon.

Somehow, I get the feeling the author is more of a F/SN fan than a Harry Potter fan. Just a hunch.

Verdict:

 

[Artemis1992]

Problem #2: exposition is a problem. The second section is almost all exposition about Harry's life and current situation that is entirely pointless if you know Harry Potter at all. Which, considering this is a clearly marked Harry Potter crossover, you should.

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That doesn't seem like a problem in itself.

I actually like it if a crossover allows a reader that is unfamiliar with one of the sources to find his way in.
There are actually a few stories/fandoms (Warhammer, Worm, RWBY) where I only got started on the actual canon material after reading about it in some crossovers and wanting to know more.

Exposition a fan would know can get tedious, but if it's otherwise good I'm perfectly willing to skim through it for the sake of readers unfamiliar with it.

 

[Terrabrand]

That doesn't seem like a problem in itself.

I actually like it if a crossover allows a reader that is unfamiliar with one of the sources to find his way in.
There are actually a few stories/fandoms (Warhammer, Worm, RWBY) where I only got started on the actual canon material after reading about it in some crossovers and wanting to know more.

Exposition a fan would know can get tedious, but if it's otherwise good I'm perfectly willing to skim through it for the sake of readers unfamiliar with it.

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I'm actually of the opinion that the more things you crossover, the more there's a general obligation to actually spell out at least the basics and not assume every reader has the exact same list of franchises that you do in terms of familiarity.

I see this with megacrossovers especially, but it's also pretty bad in even just a+b crossovers, doubly so because the lazy shorthands I tend to see don't explain even if you know the series. I once read a Kingdom Hearts Naruto fanfic that literally described the new duds they handed Naruto at one point as being 'it's Sora's outfit, except instead of blue and white it's orange and black.'

Protip: Sora's outfit isn't just two colors. That also doesn't make clear which color got replaced by which. It's also just painful to me on a meta level, but the point is it is inadequate even for people who know both.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Isn't this the one where Harry summons Lancelot?

 

[Starfield]

By my count, we're at 149 kept stories, versus 100 deleted. So 60%-40%.

 

[Grue]

Wait a second, that author looks familiar.
*checks*
Ah, I know him from the Kamen Rider fandom, where he's one half of the Original Sin fics that result in the high concentration of self-insert isekai where toy belts become real.
I'd say he's not quite as bad as the other half of that, but I haven't actually read anything of his in a while, and this thread shows that I've probably missed something wat on accounts of the shit taste of Past Grue.

 

[The Zog]

Wait a second, that author looks familiar.
*checks*
Ah, I know him from the Kamen Rider fandom, where he's one half of the Original Sin fics that result in the high concentration of self-insert isekai where toy belts become real.
I'd say he's not quite as bad as the other half of that, but I haven't actually read anything of his in a while, and this thread shows that I've probably missed something wat on accounts of the shit taste of Past Grue.

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I can vouch that everything Hornet has criticized here has gotten worse. Ten Faced Paladin is the odd case of a fanfic writer getting noticeably worse the more he writes. His most recent fics have completely devolved into slimy power fantasies.

 

[ReadsByLamplight]

Harry potter fics are just so... meh? I guess would be the right word. Like I get that lot's of people like it but it gets crossed with literally fucking everything and it's almost always terrible. I'm at the point where I just tune it out entirely. If I see something crossed with Harry potter then I'll just avoid it. Same goes for naruto. The two great scourges of fanfic.net really.

 

[Arawn_Emrys]

Harry potter fics are just so... meh? I guess would be the right word. Like I get that lot's of people like it but it gets crossed with literally fucking everything and it's almost always terrible. I'm at the point where I just tune it out entirely. If I see something crossed with Harry potter then I'll just avoid it. Same goes for naruto. The two great scourges of fanfic.net really.

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Eh, the Harry Potter/Kantai Collection fic on this site is popular and seems good to me.

 

[ReadsByLamplight]

Eh, the Harry Potter/Kantai Collection fic on this site is popular and seems good to me.

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What is Kantai exactly?

 

[Grue]

What is Kantai exactly?

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Evil ship-person-monsters attack, Japan(and other places) summon forth ships-as-humans to fight them, basically.

 

[ReadsByLamplight]

Evil ship-person-monsters attack, Japan(and other places) summon forth ships-as-humans to fight them, basically.

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wait... is this that fucking weird anime where it looks like half naked women cosplaying as battleships are like water skiing or something? Is that what Kantai is?

 

[Arawn_Emrys]

What is Kantai exactly?

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Kantai Collection is essentially a setting where the spirits of past warships take human form to defend humanity from demons that have taken over the oceans and laid siege to all the island nations. (It's japanese so most of the early ships were too, but the game now includes russian, british, french, italian, and US ships). The story in question has Vernon's company be contracted to supply the royal navy, so he has two of the "shipgirls" and an admiral over for dinner to suck up to them. They notice Harry in his cupboard and that the Dursleys have been giving some of Harry's food to Dudley (UK is under rationing due to the war) and Vernon and Petunia are arrested for ration fraud, Dudley goes to live with his aunt, and Harry is adopted and grows up as a military brat surrounded by humanoid ships

 

[CrescentSickle]

wait... is this that fucking weird anime where it looks like half naked women cosplaying as battleships are like water skiing or something? Is that what Kantai is?

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It's "Kantai Collection" in full, "KanColle" in short. But yeah, that's probably what you're referring to, though there are a number of other series that do something similar given the popularity of KanColle.

KanColle is a Japanese Web browser game where players are admirals charged with obtaining, maintaining, and commanding resurrected WW2 ship spirits against what are basically resurrected ship spirits that are pissed at humans. The ship spirits are some kind of amalgamation of human and ship at the same time. Its popularity (and Japan's somewhat recent increase in its obsession with anthropomorphizing literally everything, my God Japan, what have you done) has prompted an anime adaptation and likely other adaptations as well.

If the concept is taken an additional step from the somewhat shallow execution we see in the game and in the anime, it can actually be an extremely compelling world.

Humans have historically anthropomorphized boats, usually giving them female names, referring to them as "her", etc. We do this with a lot of other vehicles, too. So the precedent for ponderimg "what if the vehicle was actually a person" is already there IRL.

Couple that with the oftentimes tragic and nightmarish ends and colossal losses of life that ships suffered in WW2, the way society has changed for many countries since WW2, etc., and you start to see relics of a bygone era, with all the memories of having failed their crew and watching them die as they break apart and sink to crash into the empty abyss below the waves, returning to fight for their country once more to protect its citizens from similar relics that hate humanity for what they did.

Imagine if ship spirits are real, and then consider just how many ships were scrapped after WW2 ended, an ignoble end for war veterans who gave their all and are discarded for no longer being useful.


This is explored in a fantastic quest called Kan-to-Celle that has archives of it posted on SB and here on SV, but beware that the quest was run on 4chan. There's also the fic Belated Battleships which takes a different approach that is hosted on SB and SV as well. There are some others, but I think those are the two biggest ones. Also Sea Queens, which is actually original content that was spawned over on SB that predates Kantai Collection if I understand correctly.

 

[Darth Thanatos]

Also Sea Queens, which is actually original content that was spawned over on SB that predates Kantai Collection if I understand correctly.

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Not exactly.

KanColle -> Girls are ships. They can walk on land, glide on water, and summon and dismiss their weapons.
Sea Queens -> Girls appear in ships, but the ships still need a crew to man them.
Arpeggio of the Blue Steel -> Girls control ships. No crew needed, unless the girl allows it.

Have a look at some KanColle shipgirls:

Spoiler: Spoilered not to annoy the whole thread

 

[cB557]

Kantai Collection is about anime titties.

 

[MaHaL]

Kantai Collection is about anime titties.

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Pan paka pan.*

Takao is best heavy cruiser.

If you know what I mean.

*Yes this is Atago's thing but she's Takao's sister ship so I figured I'd use it.

 

[TheInsanity556]

Only Harry Potter/Fate series that I read that was decent was Harry Potter and the Not-Fatal-At-All Cultural Exchange Program by Pale Wolf, where in the Grail gets brought over and attempts to do that thing it does so well. It did a few things that I liked, one of which was that it was a partial fusion between the two settings. It also gave the competency ball to multiple people in this fight both hero and villain. The fights were pretty cool. It was also the Harry Potter world's first Holy Grail War. It also did something new in that it used an almost fully unique cast of Servants instead of using Fate/Stay or Fate/Zero's cast, it even had Heroic Spirit Salazar Slytherin, the only Servant that was used before was Karna who was instead shuffled into the Caster class rather then his Lancer in Apocrypha. Generally well written with some amusing anecdotes to help break up the seriousness of the fights/drama that ensues so I would reccomend it with the only cavat that the story is pretty much dead for about 4 years.