The Best Damn Fics You've Ever Read.

[hyrushoten]

Well for some reason this thread is now sending me email updates after not getting any for over 8 months. So in celebration I have a recommendation:
Inheritance (Metroid)
This easily the best Metroid story I've ever read (including the games), but more than that it is an excellently paced sci-fi adventure. It is full of compelling characters including Samus herself and each of the factions has its own nuances and standout characters. The very basic premise is that once again the Space Pirates are attacking a colony planet with Chozo ruins on it and Samus has to stop them. While the basic structure of the story is similar to the games the actual story and execution is exceptional and uses that structure both to build a compelling backstory and world as well as provide a plethora of amazing fight scenes.
The only major thing that might turn people off is that there are a number of flashbacks to Samus' time being raised by the Chozo, but those flashbacks are both vital to the overall story and also tie in well to the specific moments they are interrupting. So they are well done flashbacks that I feel enhance the story, but I know that flashbacks can be a major trigger for some people.
I can't recommend this story enough though. It really has it all: compelling characters, interesting world building, engaging story, exhilarating fights, and a satisfying ending.

 

[Madou Sutegobana]

What the heck?!

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I don't have the source threads for it, and I believe some of the debates were on fanfiction.net and various webcomics that also have comments.

However I recall the sentiment ranged from stating that "we aready know what the characters look like, it's fanfiction!" to "a proper description is thus ,'He stood in the rain, leaning against the doorpost as his cigarette burned to embers in his fingers and spoke, 「Back to the pits of hell with you!」'" (or a rather middle of the road statement, setting a specific template for a description to be acceptable.) for the description example...

...And from "Anyone who doesn't already know those things needs to read the story!" to "Don't derail the storyline with internal monologue, the protagonist needs to be a blank slate for the reader to project themselves upon!" for explanatory narrative.

Edit:Needed to split that monster of a sentence up.

 

[TheUnicorn]

I don't have the source threads for it, and I believe some of the debates were on fanfiction.net and various webcomics that also have comments.

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In case I needed any further proof of how toxic the comments on fanfiction.net can be...

 

[Phearo]

Hey guys, quick post to let you know I'm currently scouring through the entire thread again to update the master list. (Switched PCs, lost the file I was using before, which is just fun really)

Update should be up in 5-6 days!

Sidenote: As a preemptive tentative measure though, He Who Fights Monsters has been taken down the list, alongside the R+V slide. Though this decision might change in the future. See ya guys in a week!

 

[Mopman43]

Hey guys, quick post to let you know I'm currently scouring through the entire thread again to update the master list.

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I don't envy you the backlog, though I'm grateful that the thread is going to be used for it's purpose again.

 

[Pinklestia]

Nice to see this cleaned up, I have a few fics to recommend but only like two of them are complete. Heck I dread the day fanfiction.net is just gone since that site blocks archive.org and it does have a few good stories.

 

[Redshirt Army]

Hey guys, quick post to let you know I'm currently scouring through the entire thread again to update the master list. (Switched PCs, lost the file I was using before, which is just fun really)

Update should be up in 5-6 days!

Sidenote: As a preemptive tentative measure though, He Who Fights Monsters has been taken down the list, alongside the R+V slide. Though this decision might change in the future. See ya guys in a week!

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Oh geeze, that's gonna be a huge challenge. Best of luck!

 

[Nottheunmaker]

OP is not dead?

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Unfortunately some critics have actually flagged such things as giving a character a proper description upon their introduction and explaining details of the setting that characters would know in the form of internal dialogues, instead of a forced artificial scene to be elements of bad fanfiction!

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Depends on the execution, good god, does it.

There is a difference between character A telling to character B randomly info dumping them and telling them things they should already know, as a tool to inform the viewer/reader of the setting and someone discovering news details, or reading a book on it and the writer giving the reader a glimpse of the world and how it differs.

I would like to add a seventh

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And here I had managed to forget all about both fics.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

The only major thing that might turn people off is that there are a number of flashbacks to Samus' time being raised by the Chozo

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De rec.

The liberties the author takes with Samus's chozo parents are... fucking god awful and if I had any say so, I would scrap that shit out the fic so fast people would get backlash from it.

Grey Voice and Old Bird are two of the most caring parents ever written in fiction, to the point when the chips were down, Grey fought against the psychic conditioning that all Chozo have, the conditioning that downright has them "do not kill, do not be violent" and dies from both his wounds and fighting it (look up the OG metroid manga, I can't find 3rd party sources for that and linking to the website where they are hosted could end with me getting an infraction).

However, the wiki has some images, which I can link to.

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In the fanfic these two torture samus (literally) they also engage onto meaningless philosophical babble and forget to feed Samus, expecting she becomes an instant expert at feeding herself after seeing them work on the kitchen once or twice.

See the image I am linking above and please, think, from the sound of these two, would they expect someone to be an instant expert after their child had seen them cook, a grand total of twice!?.

Its a big point, because two of the people Samus loves the most in the universe are those two, and they were absolutely great parents to her.

The fanfic chooses to ignore this in favor of "muh aliens not getting humans", except, these two are old, and by OId I mean, dirt on earth is younger than these two. They are all old, ex warriors that have renounced that and have in a way become sorta Space Tolkien Elves, minus the embalming aspect and they have seen, interacted with and helped countless races. So the notion of them being too alien to understand Samus or human needs, falls flat.

Its why I de rec it, it fails at understanding Old Voice, Grey Bird and by extension, fails at understanding who and what Samus Aran is.

 

[TheUnicorn]

Depends on the execution

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That's true of pretty much everything in fiction.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

The best way I can close my critique of Inheritance is by simply posting a snapshot of S&J, the official fanfic of Metroid:

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Samus has nuance, she's saying that to her, the universe is her child (strongly shown in the next page of the manga by having a naked Samus holding a sprial galaxy between her arms as she floats on a featurless void and said galaxy being centered on her stomach. The entire image also has Samus almost, but not quite embracing said Galaxy and she's shown softly smiling). Given SV's rules on SFW content, I am not screen capping that one). She says her fights have let new life grow and be nurtured and, I feel its a strong piece on Samus's character.

S&J shows her as badass, as distressed, as responsible, as a mentor and even shows her sense of humor (she loves puns).

Inheritance has a running theme of Samus being a child of two worlds and often being divided between mankind and Chozo (a phase she likely overcame after the mess of the prequel manga).

In short, the author of inheritance feels like he had a feel cool ideas, but opted to discard a lot of the worldbuilding in favor of his cooler world.

If it was possible, I'd nominate Samus & Joey as the best damn Metroid fic I've ever read. Because while it was published, its not canon.

 

[Jemnite]

Forged destiny is a weird mix between RWBY and an OG TTRPG or similar setting.

What we have is an awkward mess that doesn't really belongs in the messy hotpot that's RWBY.

As far as I can recall, Forged is about Jaune who is an "NPC" class, he will not ever be able to use a sword, or a weapon, all he can do is one job and that's it, until he finds a magical amulet that lets him "switch" classes or something like that.

It reads like someone wanted to try and write a good RWBY x The Gamer fic only they ended writing something entirely different. Its off putting to say the least.

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I think this is the case where we should question "if you have fanwork and it's well written as a stand alone piece but takes large, goalie gigantic lives with the source material, do we just it on its merits as written fiction or as fanwork fiction." Forged, though I am loathe to admit that I have read a Jaunefic is well written. It contains dynamic characters, it had strong prevalent themes which resonate throughout the story about destiny, birth, and overcoming preconceptions, and manages to handle its pacing and tension quite well. But just as people have said fanfiction is fanfiction, it exists by definition trapped in the gravitational orbit of it's dude material and judging it stripped of context doesn't quite work. While Forged is written well, it also takes such large liberties that you could essentially call it an inspired original work and that would be believable.

Does the thread judge fanfic as an extension of the source work or on its literary merits alone. That's a pretty essential question to disassemble for reviewing and recommending fanfics.

 

[Tiroth]

As has been mentioned numerous times before, there are only two rules for recs - the fic must be awesome, and it must be complete. There are no other guiding principles for the thread. If you think butchering the source material is grounds for a de-rec, then do it. If you think it's awesome anyway, then don't.

 

[Wobulator]

I'd rec Forged Destiny.
We've put original works up, we've put fanfiction up, so I'm not seeing a big problem with fanfiction that's almost an original work.

It's also a great work with strong characters, themes, and plot on top of interesting and unique worldbuilding that I really enjoyed, but that's been stated above.

 

[Madou Sutegobana]

If it was possible, I'd nominate Samus & Joey as the best damn Metroid fic I've ever read. Because while it was published, its not canon

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You can nominate it; why do you think it isn't possible?

 

[Mopman43]

You can nominate it; why do you think it isn't possible?

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It's a manga.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

You can nominate it; why do you think it isn't possible?

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It's a manga.

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Less the fact its a manga and more the fact that's an officially published product that has nintendo's seal of approval (otherwise, they would have stopped the publication of the manga), so it puts it onto an odd place, its technically a fanfiction, but its also an official product. So I don't think it would fly if I said I'd rec it.

 

[Epsilon Rose]

I've complained before that this thread is biased against short fiction, and the idea that "well you need to explain the setting for people who don't know it" is part of that.

A short story or it's fanfic equivalent doesn't have the time to do so. Like actual published fiction and poetry, it will make reference to things that the reader may not necessarily be familiar with as shorthand and that's okay. If the reader wants the full implications and impact they can do a little research.

like, the "literary classics" that English teachers assign in high school are piled full of references to mythology and culture that 99% of the students who have to read them don't know. does that make them bad literature?

I think that position is absurd.

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I think it very much depends on the work and what it's setting out to do. A long story that's set in the Naruto Universe and relies on it's nuanced mechanics (or modifying those mechanics), better be able to explain itself, so you don't need to constantly reference the show. A short story is, generally, going to be more focused and, while it might need to explain part of its subject, not fully detailing the world is very much a party of the genre. It's a single snapshot, not a tour.

The best way I can close my critique of Inheritance is by simply posting a snapshot of S&J, the official fanfic of Metroid:

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There's an official metroid fanfic?! That sounds interesting.

But just as people have said fanfiction is fanfiction, it exists by definition trapped in the gravitational orbit of it's dude material and judging it stripped of context doesn't quite work. While Forged is written well, it also takes such large liberties that you could essentially call it an inspired original work and that would be believable.

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Personally, a large part of that comes down to intentionality. For example, if you want to write a story where Naruto is more resentful of the way the village treats him, so you purposely change his character into one that is less kind or carefree and play with how that changes his character arc and the story as a whole, then I think you could write a very good piece. However, if you set out to write a story about team 7's adventures and you make Naruto more resentful and less kind because you don't understand him or you like that aesthetic better, then it's going to be a serious problem that holds your story back.

It's a bit like the rules of grammar. It's important to follow them so you can produce intelligible and well formed sentences, but if you understand them you can intentionally break them to produce better or more interesting sentences.

Does that makes sense?

 

[Arawn_Emrys]

Less the fact its a manga and more the fact that's an officially published product that has nintendo's seal of approval (otherwise, they would have stopped the publication of the manga), so it puts it onto an odd place, its technically a fanfiction, but its also an official product. So I don't think it would fly if I said I'd rec it.

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So, sort of like all the Doujinshi that Masaki Kajishima does for Tenchi Muyou. It's not officially published, but he's basically bullied the executives to accept them as canon.

 

[TheUnicorn]

Less the fact its a manga and more the fact that's an officially published product that has nintendo's seal of approval (otherwise, they would have stopped the publication of the manga), so it puts it onto an odd place, its technically a fanfiction, but its also an official product. So I don't think it would fly if I said I'd rec it.

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I don't think that matters,we agreed to exclude stories that were proffesionally published because they would have the benefit of proffesional editing, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're describing here so I don't see why that would exclude it.
However being a Manga would exclude it IMO.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

I don't think that matters,we agreed to exclude stories that were proffesionally published because they would have the benefit of proffesional editing, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're describing here so I don't see why that would exclude it.

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It was published in Comic BonBon and the thing was sold, so...

There's an official metroid fanfic?! That sounds interesting.

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It stars Samus and the OC Joey.

Joey is a surprisingly decent character with believable goals, aims and motives. His dad is dead, he passed away some time ago and his mom, well, she's pursuing her career, I don't recall if she's part of Doctor's Without Borders.

Joey at first wants to find his mom, but later on, he's there to help Samus as he feels partially responsible for her depower. He got taken hostage and the fight ends with Samus losing her super metroid upgrades.

By the end of the work, Joey is a member of the Federation's Police forces and doing his best impression of Columbo.

The manga goes a bit wild with it, and shows some uh, concerning possibilities if Samus's kit were to be miss used.

On the flipside, Samus is treated like a patient person who has a small circle of friends, but she's also this Cool Big Sis of Joey type of character, giving him a 2nd parent figure. Her characterization is top notch and it perhaps, gives us, the best image ever of Samus Aran:

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That is, Samus Aran in a poncho, did I mention this planet is specifically a Wild West planet?

 

[Lolasauras-Rex]

I'd also like to give Forged Destiny a rec, I really enjoyed the story the whole way through.

 

[strauss]

Derec Forged Destiny from what little recall of it the story wants to have game mechanics when convenient, but wants to avoid dealing with what they mean and at some point that got too much for me to keep going.

 

[SecondRedux]

My favorite fanfiction is Hunt Down the Freeman...

All jokes aside, my guilty pleasure from all the way back in the distant past of 2018 was The Dissonance Trilogy (it's also on FF.net but I didn't like that one).

Yes, it's a Rwby fic. It has angst; it has fluff; it has every ship in the damn fandom, I honestly don't care. It also got pretty clunky a few times, not going to lie, but it's pretty good. The beginning is solid, nothing special, the middle is where it picks up speed and starts getting you invested... although the author unfortunately piled on all the ideas during that part; they tried to juggle too much at once, and while it mainly worked, it felt hammy. The finale however is where it picked up steam hard, threaded all the plot points, ironed out all the issues, and is damn near perfect in my honest opinion. Amazing climax with a satisfying final confrontation. All the characters had their moments and nobody felt left out except for third removed side characters. The plot was original, and the revelation of the true antagonist was also surprising somehow.

Solid 8/10 if I'm rating it honestly, maybe even a 7/10. However, if I were to rate it emotionally, it was basically my introduction to fanfiction and I can only truly give it a 10/10 with my golden stamp of approval.

EDIT: Okay, I might be confusing the timeline just a tad, it's not actually that bad during the middle, I just can't explain it very well.