kairuf
(Verified Kaiger) (Not the Siberian)
- Location
- The land of Potatoes
CV12Hornet Cleans Out His Fanfiction Favorites List (Beware of Shit Taste)
- Thread starter CV12Hornet
- Start date
- Location
- Caracas
@CV12Hornet One question, do you have any more alphadelta fics in your list? I want to drop a commentary about the author, specifically on his plot points, but I will be drawing from his other fics too (most of them) and well, I want to know if I'd be interfering with your thread.
- Location
- Caracas
Given the author gave me the OK.
Alphadelta has something I wish more authors would do: kick Canon up the curb and do it in an interesting way too.
Drifting has Naruto achieving the attention he wants from the animals, monkeys at first and latter the Swallow named Swift, this ends changing Naruto's character somewhat which leads him to have merry adventures.
Hell even the wave arc is in name only and that's great. Its Naruto allying with Zabuza and Haku vs Hidan and Kakuzu and the only reason why Naruto wins is because Haku made Hidan a living pin cushion, Zabuza hit Hidan hard enough to delay him so that Naruto uses his jet hand (his signature move for the fic) to send him flying over the mountains and then Zabuza pulls a suicide move that knocks him and Kakuzu off the bridges, Zabuza dies and Kakuzu loses a heart.
The next fic is Naruto learning martial arts from an OC heavily based off Yim Wing Chum, there are two nails here, both which I appreciate. Iruka instead of bashing his head against the brick wall that is Naruto's stubborness instead chooses to try and get through him another way, cue taking Naruto to where Shinobi train. His Gambit is successful in that Naruto trains harder than he had been doing before.
Yim enters the picture as your typical drifting martial artist who is in a journey of self discovery. Problem is that she has no cash and is starving, Naruto buys her lunch and eventually decides to help him with his training by passing martial arts knowledge to him.
More butterflies pop, like Mizuki cutting a deal with Kabuto to murder Naruto, and this leas to the Genin of the Hidden Sound Village to try and kill him, with only Kin Tsuchi surviving the encounter. Among other butterflies Naruto ends with Asuma as an instructor rather than Kakashi and with different team mates.
Why I like his work is that it has butterflies things don't stick to canon and he ends writing interesting scenarios that are also enjoyable, I loved the massive 5 way gambit that was the International Chunin Exams in drifters.
Think about it, Hidden Spring hosts the tournament, the 5 kages have to agree to participate in first place and it can be either a disaster or a massive success in terms of publicity. Because remember, the ninjas are mercenaries that need good PR to get jobs.
Alphadelta has something I wish more authors would do: kick Canon up the curb and do it in an interesting way too.
Drifting has Naruto achieving the attention he wants from the animals, monkeys at first and latter the Swallow named Swift, this ends changing Naruto's character somewhat which leads him to have merry adventures.
Hell even the wave arc is in name only and that's great. Its Naruto allying with Zabuza and Haku vs Hidan and Kakuzu and the only reason why Naruto wins is because Haku made Hidan a living pin cushion, Zabuza hit Hidan hard enough to delay him so that Naruto uses his jet hand (his signature move for the fic) to send him flying over the mountains and then Zabuza pulls a suicide move that knocks him and Kakuzu off the bridges, Zabuza dies and Kakuzu loses a heart.
The next fic is Naruto learning martial arts from an OC heavily based off Yim Wing Chum, there are two nails here, both which I appreciate. Iruka instead of bashing his head against the brick wall that is Naruto's stubborness instead chooses to try and get through him another way, cue taking Naruto to where Shinobi train. His Gambit is successful in that Naruto trains harder than he had been doing before.
Yim enters the picture as your typical drifting martial artist who is in a journey of self discovery. Problem is that she has no cash and is starving, Naruto buys her lunch and eventually decides to help him with his training by passing martial arts knowledge to him.
More butterflies pop, like Mizuki cutting a deal with Kabuto to murder Naruto, and this leas to the Genin of the Hidden Sound Village to try and kill him, with only Kin Tsuchi surviving the encounter. Among other butterflies Naruto ends with Asuma as an instructor rather than Kakashi and with different team mates.
Why I like his work is that it has butterflies things don't stick to canon and he ends writing interesting scenarios that are also enjoyable, I loved the massive 5 way gambit that was the International Chunin Exams in drifters.
Think about it, Hidden Spring hosts the tournament, the 5 kages have to agree to participate in first place and it can be either a disaster or a massive success in terms of publicity. Because remember, the ninjas are mercenaries that need good PR to get jobs.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
So it looks like it'll be 2 more years before we get to that fic. I can work with that.
- Location
- Somewhere in the Ashes
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Fate and Nanoha are both Hufflepuffs, with Nanoha possibly being a hat stall with the possibility of Gryffindor. Hayate is a Slytherin/Hufflepuff hat stall.
Fate's single defining character trait is loyalty. It's both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness. The Sorting Hat would send her off to Hufflepuff with nary a moment's thought. .
Nanoha is the world's biggest workaholic. She lives and breathes hard work. Her only "ambition" is self-improvement, which is as much a Hufflepuff trait as it is a Slytherin one. She's also really big on loyalty and self-sacrifice, which are Hufflepuff/Gryffindor traits.
Hayate could also be a Hufflepuff (she was the mother figure to four magical alien computer programs despite being in a wheel chair, 'nuff said) but she does fit best in Slytherin.
Of course, considering all of these characters are capable of doing poly-dimensional fractal calculus in their heads (It's canon that Nanoha basically snoozes through her Earth classes and still aces them), they could all end up in Ravenclaw.
Yuuno fits in Ravenclaw. Chrono would make one hell of a Slytherin. Vita's Gryffindor to the bone. For second gen, Subaru fits in Gryffindor, Teana in Slytherin, Caro in Hufflepuff, and Caro's accessory *Erio, cough* follows her into Hufflepuff.
Last edited:
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
People throw "hatstall" around a lot, but, like, Harry wasn't a hatstall. Hatstalling takes a long time.
Assembler
Rocking the life
Yeah. Of all the people in Harry's year, Hermione and Neville were the closest to Hatstalls. Harry took about a minute, while those two came close to the five necessary to be hatstalls.
Just An Unorthodox Thief
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
Impressions before reading:
Ah, The Infamous Man's next Fate/Zero project, now with much better technical skills but a problem with the main plot going nowhere fast. Seriously, I distinctly remember this having a lot of fat that could've been trimmed.
Review:
Oh, that's some good shit. I'm so glad I finished this sucker.
To start, I guess I should say why I've never finished this before now despite a couple rereads. For starters, while this is much better constructed on the technical side of things than TIM's previous works, it still has many of the same things. It's a very telly story, riddled with small typos, awkward phrasing, missing contractions, and inconsistent tenses. I nearly gave up in disgust twice. The other was simply a few subplots I wasn't fond of. Oh well.
The big strength of this fic is the three main characters: Lupin, Saber, and Kirei. Lupin is the most static character, being largely unchanged from his canon self. But the nature of the Lupin III franchise, split between multiple anime series, a manga, and several movies, means that the composite Lupin TIM uses is actually has serious depth to him. He's the lovable rogue and sex maniac of the anime series; the heroic thief of Castle of Cagliostro and certain other incarnations, and the darker, frankly villainous version of the manga, all at once. It's a perfect personality for someone who acts as the driving force of the entire story.
And boy oh boy is Lupin in rare form here. He plays the many sides of the Holy Grail War against each other, and about the only thing that throws him off his game is Saber having a change of heart late and coming damn close to beating him to death. It's the one time where he gets bailed out by something he didn't set up, and it works because him getting away was due to a boneheaded and very in-character move by Kiritsugu. And despite this, only a handful of characters come across as incompetent. More on that later.
Saber, meanwhile, is Lupin's final and most consistent antagonist besides Zenigata, and her excellent role is only enhanced by a strong character arc. As in Fate/Zero canon, Saber is shackled by self-imposed chivalric ideals and guilt over how her reign in Britain went. Here, though, Lupin deconstructs all that even harder than Iskander did, which results in her first dropping the chivalry business. As the story reminds us, before she was a knight, Saber was a soldier, using every trick in the book to win battles, and she unleashes that against Lupin. The later is torn apart first by Lupin and two separate acid trips, revealed not only as guilt but a desire for a normal life and resentment at the role she was shoved into in life. And then... in the heart of the Grail, facing Angra Mainyu's great temptation... she chooses to become a hero again.
Kirei's character arc, meanwhile, focuses on the expected: the fact that he's a psychopath who derives joy from the suffering of others. And Lupin proceeds to slowly prod Kirei onto a new path, one that let's him reconcile his morals with his desires: become a thief like Lupin, and steal from either those who deserve or who can at least eat the loss. Granted, this arc isn't as compelling as Saber's, but it's still a good one. Oh, and he completely murderizes Zouken Matou, so that's cool.
But back to the competency thing. Very few characters are shown as incompetent. Zenigata gets a chance to demonstrate he really is a good detective, it's just that Lupin is that good. Kayneth blunders badly but gets a badass fight against the Owls to make up for it. Risei has actual character to him and handles the clusterfuck that this HGW is about as well as can be expected. Honestly, only two characters I can say get the short end of the stick, and both are in-character. Kiritsugu's treatment of Saber truly blows up in his face here, with her blatantly disregarding him by the end of the story. And Lupin's arrival completely throws him off his game. His need to be over prepared really doesn't mesh well with Lupin's chaotic nature. And Tokiomi... entirely his own arrogance biting him on the ass. Still, you have to feel for the guy: his Servant dead, his assets taken by Lupin, his involvement in Sakura's adoption getting him arrested and crucified in court of public opinion.
Really, my only character complaint is that Iskander and Waver spend half the fic sitting on their asses doing nothing. And this when they could've been an excellent spanner in the works for Lupin. At least Waver does something cool during the finale.
And what a finale it is, damn. It's not Chaos Theory's full-scale F/GO breakout, but that's probably for the best.
Verdict: Really, there's so much more I haven't covered and I wholeheartedly recommend it if you can get past the technical problems.
Draton
Probably Alpharius
Huh, I remember getting into Unorthodox Thief years ago, but it went on a long break i think? Anyways something happened and I stopped paying attention to if it updated. Did not realize it had finished. There goes my night re-reading this thing.
....
Right after I re-read the last 2 chapters of Chaos Theory, god but Gil gives me chills at the end every time.
....
Right after I re-read the last 2 chapters of Chaos Theory, god but Gil gives me chills at the end every time.
- Location
- Caracas
A couple corrections, Saber doesn't so much "drops" the chilvary business as more... Lupin realy really really managed to piss her off on top of the bad drug trip she went full Tyrant.
Remember Saber did order the pillaging of her own nation several times, so she tends to hold her more darker aspects back.
I'm also not a fan JAUT the way TiM treats saber is borderline bashing as well some very questionable plot points (Lupin killing Gilgamesh with bullets made out of the spears of Diarmund which raises A TON of questions) and in general having brushed TiM's "ideas" on how to improve canon... (might Affairs of other boards, but he did wrote a super OOC one shot of Naruto cross with Miracleman, the reception was poor on my end to say the least)
Remember Saber did order the pillaging of her own nation several times, so she tends to hold her more darker aspects back.
I'm also not a fan JAUT the way TiM treats saber is borderline bashing as well some very questionable plot points (Lupin killing Gilgamesh with bullets made out of the spears of Diarmund which raises A TON of questions) and in general having brushed TiM's "ideas" on how to improve canon... (might Affairs of other boards, but he did wrote a super OOC one shot of Naruto cross with Miracleman, the reception was poor on my end to say the least)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Honestly? Like, I wasn't a huge fan of how Saber was portrayed either. I liked it more than Fate/Zero's, but I found Urobuchi's take there absolutely abysmal so you know... low bar. In general the fic really skewed toward Lupin III in so many ways that I ended up just not feeling inspired to finish it, to be honest. The ending to Saber's arc sounds cool, but it didn't just earn my trust to get me there.
Just minor note- AAOB isn't really a thing on SV. Don't do things like lead raids, obviously, but as long as it's on topic and isn't disruptive in some sense, typically it's fair game.
Just minor note- AAOB isn't really a thing on SV. Don't do things like lead raids, obviously, but as long as it's on topic and isn't disruptive in some sense, typically it's fair game.
- Location
- Caracas
Its also part of the reason, the fic was taken down by TiM himself and this isn't the place to discuss more of him. But thanks for clarifying that.
January 3 - February 13, 2013
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
Impressions before reading:
The crossover I didn't know I wanted, and something I wish had more to it.
Review:
This Lyrical Nanoha crossover is at least marked, thank God. Sadly, there's simply not much here besides initial contact and setup, though I do like the moment between Jack and Nanoha where the former's distinct dislike of child soldiers runs headlong into Nanoha's experience with child mages.
Verdict: I think that moment is enough to let it stay.
Impressions before reading:
Speaking of things I wish had more to them...
Review:
Gaaaaaaaahhhhh...
There's just nothing here. Nada. Zilch. Well, okay, there's a trio of mysterious antagonists who are absolutely positively 100% not Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, but that's about it. And even my delusions of an update can only go so far.
Verdict:
Impressions before reading:
Hmm. What bit of Touhou/mythological headcanon is Iced Fairy developing here? Because I know their tendencies; they'll have something of that nature underpinning this story.
Review:
This is honestly the most confused I've been reading Iced Fairy's works. Not the alternate universe shenanigans; there's clearly history they're we're not getting in this story, but enough is explained to not leave the reader lost. Marisa's sentient nuclear ICBM, on the other hand1...
On the plus side, it's a really interesting and funny conversation that results. I mean... sentient missile. The thing's whole purpose is to die asploding something, despite how attached Marisa is to the thing. It raises interesting ethical questions and Marisa doting on it is amusing.
Anyway, to answer the question asked in the impressions section, half multiversal shenanigans, half the "what it means to be a Magician" theme that runs through a lot of Iced Fairy's works. Regardless, this is a fun romp, though I'm honestly unsure why it's not marked incomplete.
Oh, yeah, it's also an unmarked Lyrical Nanoha crossover, which just makes me sad there aren't more of those.
Verdict: Keeping!
Impressions before reading:
You want Shinji suffering while also doing something more productive than he usually does in F/SN? I think this delivers...
Review:
Credit to this fic, I really like what they did with Shinji. He's still something of an arrogant ass, but at least he's tolerably so, and can actually back up some of what he boasts. And arrogant ass or not, he's a far better person here than before. The changes to Shinji also lead to some interesting changes in Shirou flowing from a sensible point of divergence, leading to Shirou being somewhat more prepared than in canon.
The problem is that Zouken is still a walking raisin shit and the story spends a lot of runtime rubbing in the readers' faces that he's completely in control of the situation. After a while, I just gave up on any sort of resolution that would actually stick it to the rat bastard. That, combined with annoying amounts of passive voice, lead to one conclusion.
Verdict:
- A quick TvTropes dive indicates that this is more PC-98 stuff; specifically, Yumemi, Chiyuri, and the missile are all from the third PC-98 game, where the latter two were the primary antagonists and the missile a reward.
I first read that as "half of what used to be Michigan" and thought something really nasty had happened with that ICBM.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Honestly I find that Shinji F/SN fics tend to run in two camps
1. Stories that don't adequately make Shinji a better person
2. Stories that DO adequately improve him, but can't deal with the fact that even worse people are directly connected to him and the people/things he's interested in, and will have far more narrative sway until the author does something about them.
And I have never run into this type of fic that doesn't have one of those problems, and so have only finished a couple, and none satisfied. Sorry to hear that this one is in Category 2.
1. Stories that don't adequately make Shinji a better person
2. Stories that DO adequately improve him, but can't deal with the fact that even worse people are directly connected to him and the people/things he's interested in, and will have far more narrative sway until the author does something about them.
And I have never run into this type of fic that doesn't have one of those problems, and so have only finished a couple, and none satisfied. Sorry to hear that this one is in Category 2.
- Location
- Caracas
Welcome to the nightmare of every good Fate/ author, if its the Stay/Night timeline killing Zouken is a migraine.
In fact, in a discord server not too long ago I had a debate where an author kept trying to find ways to remove the penis worms (yes, I am using the term with reasons, those unaware of Heaven's Feel route please go ahead and google what Zouken did to Sakura) that are inside her body, the one over her heart to be precise.
Its stupidly hard to do and the only way I figured to do it was if Arturia gave her consent to let Sakura use Avalon and then Cu Culainn uses the Gae Bolg to blow her heart and the worm.
Also Zouken is a fucking hard to kill asshole considering he is a 200 year old mage who used to run around with iirc Parcelesus or Babbage.
Also your description runs somewhat along what happened in HF, for a decent chunk of the route it was Zouken pulling the strings... until circumstances happened and Dark Sakura popped.
- Location
- Somewhere
Couldn't Cu just choose to target the worms to begin with? The man can hit things with a sling from miles away in his legend. His accuracy is absurd. Yes, she'd be bleeding but he should be able to avoid anything vital.
Grue
滅亡迅雷
- Location
- -
I believe I mentioned it before, but he managed to just about survive Kirei's super-effective Baptism Rite and Dark Sakura crushing the heartworm. There's a reason I've got narked with bad fanfics killing him off too easily; the guy is ridiculous.
The issue is that the relevant happiness worms are embedded in stuff vital to living, like the heart, hence why Kirei was unable to surgery them out. Dark Sakura basically had to regenerate the damage from tearing them out herself.
- Location
- Caracas
Gae Bolg targets the heart as far as I know, its its function and concept as it was on myth. Once Cu activates it the heart is already pierced and the spear is moved. There is no "targeting" when he activates the spear, which is exactly the goal in my idea. He blows the heart and Heart Penis Worm and Avalon regenerates it.
Narked?
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
Other then for whatever reason of Sakura both having Avalon implanted in her and Saber being her servant would that work?
- Location
- Caracas
Or Saber just being near her for avalon to kick in or being her servant, either works.
February 13 - 17, 2013
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
Sorry for the delay, everyone. New Year's was a lot more packed with stuff than Christmas; landing in the ER one night certainly didn't help. I'm fine, by the way, short bout of food poisoning. Anyway, on with the show!
It does, indeed, get a lot more complicated. And perhaps kinda meandering. Is this the one where Kakashi mostly enjoys being a cryptic bastard about his future knowledge? And I seem to remember something about Danzo, too.
Review:
Welp, I was thinking of Branches. Though Danzo is part of this.
A very big, deeply steaming unpleasant part of this. Danzo is in fine form in this fic as a villain, as despicable and short-sighted as ever. At the very least, it gives the story short-term direction not often found in Peggy Sue fics.
Overall, this is a fun fic, and I especially like that the time travel is accomplished by thirty-year-old Kakashi popping up in front of twenty-year-old Kakashi - and the latter committing suicide to give his older self his body and a chance to fix everything. It's a very novel setup. And then it loses some points for Council bullshit, but hey, what can ya do.
Verdict: Good enough to keep.
I know all my prior readings of this have left me thoroughly confused as to what the hell was going on. Something about Inner Sakura? Meh, we'll see if any clarity unlocks itself here.
Review:
Okay, maybe it wasn't that prior readthroughs left me confused. Maybe it's more that I didn't want to accept the absurd bullshit it was shoving in front of me.
Look. This story does some good stuff. I like that Naruto is actually friends with Kiba and Ino, it's good for him. And a lot of this flows from the simple divergence of Ino meeting Sakura not by rescuing her at the academy, but by her father bringing Sakura to one of her birthday parties. It also uses Inner Sakura as something more than just a gag.
But far too many Worm crossover alt-power fics have burned me out on that genre, and this is basically the Naruto equivalent. Honestly, I'd have preferred if it remained a mystery, that at least would be interesting. Compounding the matter is persistent tense trouble and a chapter devoted entirely to exposition on the crossover bit. Pro tip of the day: with this sort of story, it's often a better idea to leave the source unmentioned, lest you... well, spend an entire chapter on a history lesson.
Verdict:
Impressions before reading:
It does, indeed, get a lot more complicated. And perhaps kinda meandering. Is this the one where Kakashi mostly enjoys being a cryptic bastard about his future knowledge? And I seem to remember something about Danzo, too.
Review:
Welp, I was thinking of Branches. Though Danzo is part of this.
A very big, deeply steaming unpleasant part of this. Danzo is in fine form in this fic as a villain, as despicable and short-sighted as ever. At the very least, it gives the story short-term direction not often found in Peggy Sue fics.
Overall, this is a fun fic, and I especially like that the time travel is accomplished by thirty-year-old Kakashi popping up in front of twenty-year-old Kakashi - and the latter committing suicide to give his older self his body and a chance to fix everything. It's a very novel setup. And then it loses some points for Council bullshit, but hey, what can ya do.
Verdict: Good enough to keep.
Impressions before reading:
I know all my prior readings of this have left me thoroughly confused as to what the hell was going on. Something about Inner Sakura? Meh, we'll see if any clarity unlocks itself here.
Review:
Okay, maybe it wasn't that prior readthroughs left me confused. Maybe it's more that I didn't want to accept the absurd bullshit it was shoving in front of me.
Look. This story does some good stuff. I like that Naruto is actually friends with Kiba and Ino, it's good for him. And a lot of this flows from the simple divergence of Ino meeting Sakura not by rescuing her at the academy, but by her father bringing Sakura to one of her birthday parties. It also uses Inner Sakura as something more than just a gag.
But far too many Worm crossover alt-power fics have burned me out on that genre, and this is basically the Naruto equivalent. Honestly, I'd have preferred if it remained a mystery, that at least would be interesting. Compounding the matter is persistent tense trouble and a chapter devoted entirely to exposition on the crossover bit. Pro tip of the day: with this sort of story, it's often a better idea to leave the source unmentioned, lest you... well, spend an entire chapter on a history lesson.
Verdict:
- Location
- Caracas
ooooooooh boy, I dread to ask, but which setting?