My issue with HP fics in general, and crossovers in particular, is that very rarely are they Harry Potter.
They almost always just become Harry-in-name-only. They miss the point of Harry's character, to create a bog standard power fantasy. But use the HP name to get those sweet, sweet reviews.
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.
No Crosswinds of Fate by Wayfarer2000? Post-FSN crew get sent/stuck in HP land because Zelretch (nominally) wants them to learn about different magic systems. Everyone is an outside context problem to everyone else, even if it's not combative.
Also completely dodges the dimensional travel explanation Tango by just saying "Yeah this isn't our world, you'd figure it out eventually. Maybe we can exchange knowledge if you hire us to teach? Well, a couple of us would work better as security guards..."
On hiatus atm in the middle of Hogwarts staff realizing their relatively really nice new teaching staff might actually promote blood purity propaganda.
No it's even better. Rin is saying that a controlled eugenics program is a good idea but the Pure Bloods are doing it wrong by not introducing new blood to prevent stagnation. Which got Hermione on a Can we make Human/Magical Species Hybrids A Thing kick. I mean Half Veelas and Half Giants are already a thing, why not go ahead and make carefully gene spliced hybrids that have the best features of everything?
It's hilarious.
Well, I wasn't going to spoil it. Also, iirc the actual confrontation hasn't happened yet. The readers obviously know what HP people think and what the FSN people think, but HP doesn't know what FSN truly thinks yet.
No Crosswinds of Fate by Wayfarer2000? Post-FSN crew get sent/stuck in HP land because Zelretch (nominally) wants them to learn about different magic systems. Everyone is an outside context problem to everyone else, even if it's not combative.
Also completely dodges the dimensional travel explanation Tango by just saying "Yeah this isn't our world, you'd figure it out eventually. Maybe we can exchange knowledge if you hire us to teach? Well, a couple of us would work better as security guards..."
On hiatus atm in the middle of Hogwarts staff realizing their relatively really nice new teaching staff might actually promote blood purity propaganda.
Just went and took a look. The writing is a bit clunky/telly. More importantly, the author appears to be pointing out various "flaws" in the original HP and having canon go off the rails... before the crossover actually occurs. I don't think they quite understand how causality works.
EDIT: I also suspect they care more about the FATE characters than the HP ones - though the setting is HP, they haven't got any of those characters' voices right at all. The FATE characters seem better, but I'm less familiar with them myself, so they could be just as bad and I'm not noticing it.
Also, the tell-not-show is getting worse, to the point where they are describing things that were explicitly shown a line ago.
EDIT 2:
"I am not a pedo voyeur!" Alastor shouted. He then paused for a moment. "What's a pedo?"
"Pedophile," Saber supplied.
"I am not a pedo voyeur!"
Causality and magic have a complicated relationship. I've always been convinced that the point of divergence in Swords and Sorcery (another good HP/FSN crossover) is just Shirou ending up in the dimension, but the power of Eroge Protagonist EX is so great it reached back in time to cause everything else, changing the gender of the Potter child and making the counterparts of everyone he knows attend Hogwarts at the right time even though it makes no geographic or temporal sense.
It was more that the general level of dialogue there was showing itself to be at about that level throughout the fic. I was more irritated by the immediately preceding section where Saber has a long rambling phone call we only see one side of, with the other characters just standing there and looming alarmed by the implied threats she was tossing out. It was really badlt written, but was a bit big to quote, so I went for the much shorter and self contained 3 lines shortly after.
I actually read the rest of it because I'm a glutton for punishment. It's a bunch of cool ideas and well-thought out ones too, but the poor technical execution and jarringly incorrect voices are just too much. The voices are that common problem where everyone is suddenly a deadpan snarker, because it means easy jokes.
And the causality thing, which is more the author calling out what they see as problems with canon and having Harry point them out to Dumbledore so they can do something different etc.
No Crosswinds of Fate by Wayfarer2000? Post-FSN crew get sent/stuck in HP land because Zelretch (nominally) wants them to learn about different magic systems. Everyone is an outside context problem to everyone else, even if it's not combative.
Also completely dodges the dimensional travel explanation Tango by just saying "Yeah this isn't our world, you'd figure it out eventually. Maybe we can exchange knowledge if you hire us to teach? Well, a couple of us would work better as security guards..."
On hiatus atm in the middle of Hogwarts staff realizing their relatively really nice new teaching staff might actually promote blood purity propaganda.
By: Larry Huss
"Zest to over-achieve" marks Team 7's entry into the Ninja world. Kakashi teaches lessons better than he imagines. *COMPLETE*
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Friendship - Naruto U. - Chapters: 19 - Words: 162,921 - Reviews: 1,302 - Favs: 3,696 - Follows: 2,534 - Updated: Jan 31, 2016 - Published: Apr 26, 2011 - Status: Complete - id: 6940744
Impressions before reading:
In which Team 7 accidentally kills Kakashi during the Bell Test and everything changes.
Review:
Guess what, everyone: it's time for another new reason I'm kicking off a fanfic. This time, it's stylistic differences. Well, mostly.
Let's be clear. A Teacher's Glory is reasonably well-written. It flows well, the grammar and spelling issues are minimal, and it paints a clear picture of what's going on. However, the fic relies heavily on a way of writing I can only describe as "summarizing". It does the job of moving things fast and summing up essential character development - but it does, in fact, just sum up character development. It's rather dry, is what I'm saying. Further, the entire fic is built around a "gritty and realistic" vision that I feel is a rather bad matchup to canon. This is a common problem with Naruto fanfiction, frankly, and it's especially annoying with this one because that "gritty and realistic" vision interacts with some of the lighter portions of canon. Overall, it feels like Huss lecturing the audience about how his "gritty and realistic" vision is superior and how things should be. It's subtle, and somewhat unintentional, I think, but it's there.
I just want to emphasize that these are, in general, perfectly legitimate ways to write the story. I'm mostly objecting on personal preference, rather than any sort of hard-and-fast badness. Well, mostly, again.
Y'see, this fic also regurgitates that stupid as fuck "Naruto overloads jutsu" fanon. It just never goes away, does it? But yeah, a back-breaking straw sort of moment, even if it leads to a legitimately cool moment.
Well, considering he dies due to underestimating Team 7 during the bell test when they take the whole "come at me with intent to kill" a lot more seriously, and then grow in leaps and bounds when they're actually trained? Kinda.
It's really pointed less at Kakashi specifically and more at Konoha's superiority complex and the whole "ninja is a fist wizard" thing, starring an Anko trained in effective ninjaing by Orochimaru, who is, as everyone knows, a sneaky bastard.
And I can see the points against this one, but I still deeply enjoy this story personally. Maybe it's cause I'm not as familiar with or fond of Canon.
Y'see, this fic also regurgitates that stupid as fuck "Naruto overloads jutsu" fanon. It just never goes away, does it? But yeah, a back-breaking straw sort of moment, even if it leads to a legitimately cool moment.
I am now going to make a controversial statement: I don't mind the "Naruto overloads jutsu" fanon. I does make sense. Having a lot of chakra makes it harder to control, pushing too much chakra into a jutsu will make it fail, and Naruto is the kind of guy who thinks 'more is better, right?'. It is one reason why Naruto would screw up the base clone, but not the shadow clone, despite way less training, and it presumably being way harder. There's a reason it's so common. It only becomes an issue when it's used to badly justify a power boost (typically with a side order of 'look how stupid canon is').
Hell, even the evil village council is ok, so long as it's politically powerful people doing nasty things because it's helps them (as politicians do), instead of a bunch of civilians (who wouldn't be all that important) doing it for the Evulz and plot progression.
Well, considering he dies due to underestimating Team 7 during the bell test when they take the whole "come at me with intent to kill" a lot more seriously, and then grow in leaps and bounds when they're actually trained? Kinda.
It's really pointed less at Kakashi specifically and more at Konoha's superiority complex and the whole "ninja is a fist wizard" thing, starring an Anko trained in effective ninjaing by Orochimaru, who is, as everyone knows, a sneaky bastard.
And I can see the points against this one, but I still deeply enjoy this story personally. Maybe it's cause I'm not as familiar with or fond of Canon.
Well, considering he dies due to underestimating Team 7 during the bell test when they take the whole "come at me with intent to kill" a lot more seriously, and then grow in leaps and bounds when they're actually trained? Kinda.
It's really pointed less at Kakashi specifically and more at Konoha's superiority complex and the whole "ninja is a fist wizard" thing, starring an Anko trained in effective ninjaing by Orochimaru, who is, as everyone knows, a sneaky bastard.
And I can see the points against this one, but I still deeply enjoy this story personally. Maybe it's cause I'm not as familiar with or fond of Canon.
It's not so much that Kakashi does die, as the, from what I recall, over the top 'Kakashi being all disdainful about stupid weak brats' while they kill him, in dialogue that is completely outside his character. It reeks of the author not having an interesting idea that requires Kakashi's death, but rather having a hate-on for him and trying to excuse killing him in a frankly mocking manner.
Well, considering he dies due to underestimating Team 7 during the bell test when they take the whole "come at me with intent to kill" a lot more seriously, and then grow in leaps and bounds when they're actually trained? Kinda.
It's really pointed less at Kakashi specifically and more at Konoha's superiority complex and the whole "ninja is a fist wizard" thing, starring an Anko trained in effective ninjaing by Orochimaru, who is, as everyone knows, a sneaky bastard.
And I can see the points against this one, but I still deeply enjoy this story personally. Maybe it's cause I'm not as familiar with or fond of Canon.
Hate that cliché with making being a ninja being all about stealth spying and assassination, sure that's what a real life ninja is, but in Naruto that's an old dead concept, the first ninja and to a degree the clans were like that, but as they learned to use Chakra they became less about stealth, and then they became even less about stealth when the villages were founded, because that was when they went from mercenary companies answering to no one, to mercenary companies with a contract with the country to be their main military force.
That's also why I hate when people try to make the Naruto world more gritty, by having it so the villages accept assassination missions from anyone who can pay, they are state sanctioned mercenaries, even with how much leverage they have due to their strength, such a state sanction involves restrictions on what jobs they take, the village system wouldn't work as it's shown, if the villages flouted the law, to the point that they would take contracts to kill innocent people, for anyone ready to pay for a B-rank mission.
They probably do take assassination missions occasionally, but either those missions are targeted at outlaw, or they are at minimum A-ranks, because the village expect a very hefty bonus for flouting the law, so even if this mission is only low B-rank in difficulty, the price will be at least A-rank, because the village want a lot of money to even consider it, and they have to send someone they can trust to stay silent, Konoha care more about it's reputation than most, so they probably charge S-rank pay for assassination, because doing such things is hell on their reputation as the nice village if it gets out.
I'm not saying the villages are saints or anything, what I'm saying is that they are legal organisations not shadowy criminal empires, and being a legal organisation, mean that they must at least be pretending to keep to the laws, meaning that if they indeed take missions to kill relative innocents, then that's certainly not something a genin will know, heck it's not something a chunin will know, it will be a secret source of income, that only the most trusted Jounin, Anbu, and their Kage know about.
By: XSilverLiningsX
Hit by a wayward spell, Aran is sent to the Bleach universe after defeating the Black Mage; he really should've seen this coming. Set during the Rescue Orihime arc. AU & CRACK
Rated: Fiction K+ - English - Aran - Words: 4,444 - Reviews: 8 - Favs: 21 - Follows: 1 - Published: Apr 28, 2011 - Status: Complete - id: 6948185
Impressions before reading:
Holy shit it's an honest to God Maplestory fic.
So, for those of you who didn't follow Korean MMORPGs during the 2000s, Maplestory was one of the more popular entries to hit American shores, likely aided by a cutesy chibi-anime artstyle and a pretty decent system. It also, being a Korean MMO, had a punishingly steep level curve, though later updates eased that considerably.
And then it started to develop a story.
Granted, there'd always been interesting lore if you knew where to look and liked doing quests1, but the game eventually began to develop an overarching plot. I haven't checked in in years, mind, and a lot of the best stuff was locked behind different classes and high-level areas, but while the bad guys and basic conflict was standard, the number of factions and their different relations to said bad guy were very interesting. Especially the Hero classes, who had already directly fought the BBEG in the past.
Also, I mained one of said heroes for a while. Take a wild guess which one.
Review:
*sighs dejectedly*
Flat, rambling sentences chock-full of redundancies? Yeah, no, even as an indulgence to nostalgia I can't justify keeping this. It's just too painful to read.
By: Mereo Flere
The Holy Grail War is not a Pokemon Battle. That doesn't stop Shirou from pretending that it is, however.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor - Shirō E., Rin T. - Words: 1,104 - Reviews: 70 - Favs: 570 - Follows: 161 - Published: Apr 29, 2011 - Status: Complete - id: 6949371
Impressions before reading:
An incredibly silly comedy. If it's funny, I won't mind. It better be funny.
Review:
I was right. It's incredibly silly. It's also actually funny, not least because it has Ilya and Saber going along with the whole thing. Poor Rin...
By: Guardian Box
Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière overdoes the summoning ritual. Instead of casting her intent across the void, she throws the entirety of her mind. Through the turbulent seas of emotions she drifts, until she's brought before a God.
Rated: Fiction M - English - Adventure - Louise - Words: 2,675 - Reviews: 73 - Favs: 198 - Follows: 240 - Published: Apr 30, 2011 - id: 6954224
Impressions before reading:
In which Louise casts her mind into 40K and I'm salty about it dying.
Review:
Correction: Louise casts her mind into the Warp, and is incredibly lucky the Emperor found her before it got totally shredded. Or worse.
And then he gives her some of his essence, she takes an alt-Saito from a planet being overrun by Tyranids, matures quite a bit, and vows to return to the 40K verse to help out. It's a pretty solid setup for a Familiar of Zero fic that might actually be somewhat original.
By: CharNobyl
Shanxi becomes the first human world since Earth to be invaded by hostile aliens. Outnumbered and reeling, the GDI troops dig in for war, hoping their trenches will not become their graves. The First Contact War, with GDI replacing the Systems Alliance.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Sci-Fi - Chapters: 9 - Words: 75,362 - Reviews: 185 - Favs: 616 - Follows: 366 - Updated: Feb 18, 2012 - Published: May 4, 2011 - Status: Complete - id: 6965762
Impressions before reading:
I've mentioned Peptuck before. While he's famous now, at first he was just another fanfic author.
And then he wrote Renegade, a Mass Effect/Command and Conquer crossover that is stupidly popular on both fanfiction.net and Spacebattles. I haven't read it, personally. But lots of people swear by it.
The point of this is, Eagle's Fall is essentially a prequel fanfic of Renegade, as explained in the opening author's note. It also, unfortunately, falls into that tired genre of "Alternate Mass Effect First Contact Wars" that are extremely common in Mass Effect fanfiction. This might not hold up in light of the fact that I've read a lot of those since I first found this.
Review:
Reading Renegade is not necessary for this fic, thank God, though there are some things in the endgame that don't get a whole lot of explanation in this fic. Otherwise, this is a fun, well-written scifi ground warfare romp - and unsurprisingly, it has some of the hallmarks of being an SB fic. Luckily, things don't get too out of hand in that department, the Advantage Ball is passed around a fair bit...
It's no masterpiece of literature, but it is a decent enough read.
Verdict: Keeping. And I should probably actually read Renegade at some point...
Most didn't, as grinding tended to be more efficient and something you could do with friends.
Review:
I was right. It's incredibly silly. It's also actually funny, not least because it has Ilya and Saber going along with the whole thing. Poor Rin...
Since apparently I can't properly quote with my current internet issues, regarding the problems of crosswind, you have to thank Third Fang for that, he beta reads the fic.
