The Best Damn Fics You've Ever Read.

Tabula Rosa is probably my favorite Ranma fic. It makes the idea of a permenantly mode locked Ranma work while not making him OOC.
 
Fargo
By: Bavitz
[Post-Rebellion] In the frostbitten American Midwest, ragged Magical Girls vie for territory to survive the unforgiving landscape. One such girl is Sloan Redfearn, who wastes away in Fargo, North Dakota, nursing a grudge and watching her hopes slowly die. But when Kyubey approaches with a unique opportunity, she becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens to topple gods.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure - Homura A., Mami T., Kyoko S. - Chapters: 43 - Words: 336,493 - Reviews: 324 - Favs: 215 - Follows: 163 - Updated: Apr 17, 2016 - Published: May 4, 2015 - Status: Complete - id: 11228999

Fargo, of course. The tightest fanfic I have ever read. An incredibly compelling story centred around powerful OCs, an interesting story, and an absurd quantity of explosions per chapter.

Good fanfics can often be recognized using some objective metrics, chiefly their Average Explosions Per Chapter (AEPC for short). Fargo clocks at a respectable 30-35 AEPC, which is compounded further by a pretty decent Average Character Fuck Ups (ACFU) of 18 and an ASK (Average Simultaneous Keikaku) of 5.5.

It's a jest, but Fargo is really that great. It reads like a Coen brothers film in a fanfic format. Which was obviously the author's intention given the name and al. The fun doesn't stop, the characters never stop making mistakes and butting against each others in stupid ways, it's an action flick that is both intelligent and emotional at time, it's just plain great all around.
 
It's been awhile, but pretty sure LOuise did...
Not really. She gets the entirety of the Tarbes arc where she kills the final boss plus a good chunk of volume 2 to herself. Also she was the one responsible for the whole fae coming over in the first place which comes up quite brutally in volume 2 near the end when she is told the truth of what she did and her subsequent actions in trying to fix things have caused quite the situation in story especially considering who became her familiar. I wouldn't say she was left out entirely.
 
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Drunkard's Walk II: Robot's rule of order
Bubblegum Crisis / GURPS International Super Teams / maybe si

Access Denied! Drunkard's Walk II

This metaseries is about the adventures of Douglas "Looney Toons" Sangnoir, a metahuman operative from an Earth very similar to the IST World. Thrown out of his universe and into a succession of others, Doug is trying to get home to his duty and to the woman he loves.
 
Drunkard's Walk II: Robot's rule of order
Bubblegum Crisis / GURPS International Super Teams / maybe si

Access Denied! Drunkard's Walk II

This metaseries is about the adventures of Douglas "Looney Toons" Sangnoir, a metahuman operative from an Earth very similar to the IST World. Thrown out of his universe and into a succession of others, Doug is trying to get home to his duty and to the woman he loves.
Thanks for bringing it up; I had no idea that it updated in the last month, with the first chapter of the Sailor S saga!
 
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I would add my rec to it.
Thirding Halkegenia Online

Also Vixen Tail has almost finished her new Naruto related fanfic which is a marvel.

Its more gritty and sad but oh so well written.

Unfortunately its still 2 epilogues away from being complete and may be stalled for now....

108 Earthly Temptations by Vixen Tail
A character study into why the older generations of shinobi are harsher and less inclined to compromise. SI/OC Pre-Konoha, Warring States Period. Post-Founding. Part One, the beginnings of Sekanji Terazawa. Poison Mistress, occasional kunoichi Lady, and the aunt of Orochimaru. Part Two, the establishment of Konoha and the character of the village Founders. Part Three, the end.
Naruto - Rated: M - English - Drama - Chapters: 42 - Words: 163,745 - Reviews: 211 - Favs: 439 - Follows: 359 - Updated: Aug 1 - Published: Jul 14
 
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The Dollmaker's Daughter, wherein one of Alice's dolls makes its way towards sapience. Fluffily sweet throughout while never falling into saccharine, and leading with its best in its first chapter where said doll gropes with the very concept of self-awareness and discovery of the world around it.
I'm still working my way through this thread, but I'll second this in a heartbeat. Nice and sweet, and the self discovery in the first chapter is wonderfully done. It's nicely framed through the dolls thoughts as it starts having them, and the story never loses track of what it's about. It's a bit short, and I'd like to see more, but there is an ongoing if slowly updating set of after stories which are fun. Plus the Dolls name, when she picks one out, made me think of a song I love without intending to that just fits so perfect in the end.

If there's any other stories like this, I'd love to hear about them.
 
That is a cheap bit that's trying to make us feel sympathy for the character that we know nothing about simply because he was sick, and then got killed by the bad guys. Except the bad guys have a habit of killing their own, and this author already tarred the entire Slytherin house with the Racist Paintbrush Of Evvuuuuulz.

I disagree. I'm not going to rec or derec it, On second thought, let me rec it.

Anyway, the fic was solid and the introduction was excellent and damn does it open itself up to analysis if you poke at it. It doesn't have the same punch as it might have because it came out before last HP book, but that's not its fault. I admit that knowing what happens in the last book makes reading it too much of a 'wait, what' to let it become properly immersive, but I can definitely see why it was rec'd.

Basically: The Racist Paintbrush of Evulz is on purpose and a necessary part of the scene and I challenge you to find a better description of Slytherin anywhere.

Lemme quote your quote:

The rug is an enormous green and silver masterpiece, one of many that cover the cold stone floor and make the room look inviting. However, this one is believed to have been commissioned by Salazar himself. Two life-size snakes have been painstakingly embroidered in the shape of the initials SS in one corner. And it is said to eat Muggleborns.

This current generation of students have never seen the rug in action, but then having a mudblood inside their common room would be unthinkable, even if it was to test out the rumours. Still, a Mudblood Eating Rug is something to be proud of.

Look at what has been done in a mere two paragraphs. Here is an item said to be from the time of Salazar Slytherin himself, and if not made by him, then at least graced by his exquisite sense of taste, and the part of it that's focused on is the bit that sounds like something you'd say to scare the ickle firsties. There's so much to read a lot in those few lines: A House that squanders its legacy by defining itself by hate. An allegory of Salazar Slytherin's role in the Harry Potter books proper. A childish yearning to be 'special'. You can kind of tell when someone makes a listfic where only one or two of the items on the list were actually plot bunnied into the existence and the rest were there to pad things out, but here it's the opposite: the 'three secrets' all contribute thematically to the fic and make it all the more solid.

Look at the second 'secret' - the footstool. It's just a homework project made in order not to be shown up by muggleborn Ravenclaws whose creator idly muses might make for a prankworthy Christmas gift. To be more specific: it's tartan and meows when kicked - Snape (its creator) considers giving a double it to Minerva who both a) turns into a cat b) and likes tartan patterns. I hope I don't need to draw a picture here.

In a world of Harry Potter where secrets are like The Room of Requirement, a slumbering basilisk, and the fact that at one point there was a legit philosopher's stone in residence, these 'secrets' are so petty and so childish. In a world of magic and wonder, this petty hate is all Slytherin has left. Whether it's something passed down from Salazar Slytherin, or something passed down from Snape, it's apparently all they have.

That and The List.

The List is the part that either breaks or makes the fic for you and I don't blame you for going 'well, I just don't care about these Slytherins'. But an interesting decision was made here: throwaway characters you've never heard of are given a paragraph, but the ones that you actually care about - the kids in Harry Potter's year, they get a quick line. The effect is interesting because it seems like there's less and less substance.

The point of the fic is that as children, the Slytherins don't actually have power. The List is every bit as petty and worthwhile as the Rug or the Footstool. They take pride in it because it's all they have. They have nothing else and no one else. The 'fourth secret' says as much: they don't want to leave the Common Room. They don't want to go home. They don't want to go into the real world. They don't want to go around the rest of the school.

And the thing is, each secret is a legacy. The fourth 'secret' would then be their gift to the next generation. Much like Salazar Slytherin's gift to the next generation was the rug, like Snape's gift was the footstool, like Marcus Flint's year was the List, their gift would literally be themselves.

The end result is a melancholy piece where the subjects quietly contemplate their own deaths without the narration ever once saying it out loud. It recognizes the hollowness of what Slytherin has become and goes: here is how it dies, through the death of its children.

tl;dr: I clearly read too much into Harry Potter one-shots.
 
I'm gonna derec Victory at Ostagar. It just... isn't a compelling story. The Eamon bashing, however prevalent in the fandom, is annoying as ever, as is the Chantry bashing. Plus, Bronwyn is just... a very flat character. If you asked me to list her character traits, I'd struggle, and she's the main character.
 
The Dollmaker's Daughter, wherein one of Alice's dolls makes its way towards sapience. Fluffily sweet throughout while never falling into saccharine, and leading with its best in its first chapter where said doll gropes with the very concept of self-awareness and discovery of the world around it.
I'm still working my way through this thread, but I'll second this in a heartbeat. Nice and sweet, and the self discovery in the first chapter is wonderfully done. It's nicely framed through the dolls thoughts as it starts having them, and the story never loses track of what it's about. It's a bit short, and I'd like to see more, but there is an ongoing if slowly updating set of after stories which are fun. Plus the Dolls name, when she picks one out, made me think of a song I love without intending to that just fits so perfect in the end.

If there's any other stories like this, I'd love to hear about them.

Ah, yes. The Dollmaker daughter.

Look at that author's other fanfics. That particular writer has mastered something incredibly rare: the sweet and bittersweet novels where there's literally nothing to remove. The Little Prince effect.

The Little Prince effect is incredibly difficult to write for. Indeed, UnmovingGreatLibrary is the only author I know that consistently gets it. Even his action oriented fanfics, like Sealing Club Special Case File 1: Eyes in the Dark, still shows incredible case of Little Prince effect plastered everywhere.

UnmovingGreatLibrary is one of the very unusual authors I genuinely respect whatever he does. Not because he writes better, or because his fanfics are full of sound and fury, but because he has an enormous amount of restrain and candour that is just that rare. Read his fanfics, if you have the time.
 
108 Earthly Temptations by Vixen Tail
A character study into why the older generations of shinobi are harsher and less inclined to compromise. SI/OC Pre-Konoha, Warring States Period. Post-Founding. Part One, the beginnings of Sekanji Terazawa. Poison Mistress, occasional kunoichi Lady, and the aunt of Orochimaru. Part Two, the establishment of Konoha and the character of the village Founders. Part Three, the end.
Naruto - Rated: M - English - Drama - Chapters: 42 - Words: 163,745 - Reviews: 211 - Favs: 439 - Follows: 359 - Updated: Aug 1 - Published: Jul 14

Not a strong de-rec, but it's nowhere near good enough for a best ever list.
 
Fargo
By: Bavitz
[Post-Rebellion] In the frostbitten American Midwest, ragged Magical Girls vie for territory to survive the unforgiving landscape. One such girl is Sloan Redfearn, who wastes away in Fargo, North Dakota, nursing a grudge and watching her hopes slowly die. But when Kyubey approaches with a unique opportunity, she becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens to topple gods.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure - Homura A., Mami T., Kyoko S. - Chapters: 43 - Words: 336,493 - Reviews: 324 - Favs: 215 - Follows: 163 - Updated: Apr 17, 2016 - Published: May 4, 2015 - Status: Complete - id: 11228999

Along with To The Stars it's pretty much the premier Madoka fanfic. I'd argue it's the best due to how tightly written it is - To The Stars has been meandering too much since Part 2 ended - but that's debatable. The best execution of a nearly all-OC cast I've ever seen, great action, and a fascinating plot make this one a must-read.

Fargo, of course. The tightest fanfic I have ever read. An incredibly compelling story centred around powerful OCs, an interesting story, and an absurd quantity of explosions per chapter.

Good fanfics can often be recognized using some objective metrics, chiefly their Average Explosions Per Chapter (AEPC for short). Fargo clocks at a respectable 30-35 AEPC, which is compounded further by a pretty decent Average Character Fuck Ups (ACFU) of 18 and an ASK (Average Simultaneous Keikaku) of 5.5.

It's a jest, but Fargo is really that great. It reads like a Coen brothers film in a fanfic format. Which was obviously the author's intention given the name and al. The fun doesn't stop, the characters never stop making mistakes and butting against each others in stupid ways, it's an action flick that is both intelligent and emotional at time, it's just plain great all around.
De-rec. Fargo is just a boring paint-by-numbers work. It is 336,493 word of the characters making the same mistakes over and over again without any actual changes or revealing of character traits without any capacity of self-awareness.

If a character is always making mistakes to allow the author to make them fail at something, it is just as a bad a sign if the character never makes mistakes. If an author can't realize is is perfectly possible to fail without making mistakes, they are a fairly shitty author.

The emotion is forced, and it comes off as a shallow kiddy pool "intellectual" playing up it has much substance to it. And the plot is just eyerolling stupid.

I guess it is mechanically well written, but frankly that is a low bar for "the best damn fics" list.
 
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"The best damn fic you've ever read." It can't just be good--it has to be exceptional. It has to be something you can objectively compare to the other fics on the list and say "This can stand up there with the best of those."

And on a sidenote, are you trying to use rhetorical questioning to lead to an argument about quality being subjective, or have you just not read any of the thread at all?



Also, Killing Eyes and Faerie Hounds has achieved three recommendations but it isn't on the list. Has the bar been raised, or did we just lose track of it? And if we've lost track of it, we might want to start using a [X] vote system so that we can easily check tallies without having to read through the entire thread again. (Though maybe that's been brought up before...?)

Either way, if you object to Killing Eyes and Faerie Hounds being on this list, you should probably de-rec it now.

(On a side note, the index included in the Killing Eyes and Faerie Hounds OP is missing a snippet. I've since corrected my index, but Ryuugi hasn't updated his copy as of this post.)

However, that does remind me of Killing Eyes and Faerie Hounds, another Ryuugi fanfic. It's a Tsukihime/Dresden Files fusion that is an absolute joy to read (for me at least). It's short and concise, delivering both interesting character interaction and a wonderful fight scene in a small package.

Second for Killing Eyes and Faerie Hounds. It's easily the best thing Ryuugi's ever written, and escapes many of the flaws usually present in his work, for a rather clean, self-contained story.

After my third re read, I'm reccing Killing Eyes and Faerie Hounds

It really is the best of the author's output. I'm not sure if I even want more because I'm not sure if more would ruin it or not. One short novella is perhaps just the right amount.
 
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Also, Killing Eyes and Faerie Hounds has achieved three recommendations but it isn't on the list. Has the bar been raised, or did we just lose track of it? And if we've lost track of it, we might want to start using a [X] vote system so that we can easily check tallies without having to read through the entire thread again. (Though maybe that's been brought up before...?)
I'm making a spreadsheet that keeps track of every fic recced in this thread and all the responses to them. I'm only up to page 17, however, and it's very slow going. Once I get it up to date, it should serve well to keep track of when a fic has reached the necessary recs.

(Incidentally, does anyone know if it's possible to, in Google Sheets, have the visible text of a link be a date instead of a string? If so, please PM me instructions. I want the dates of each comment to be sortable by date.)

Is the list even being updated at all?
Last word on the matter was about a month ago:
And in regards to the fics not yet featured in the list, I'll be making another sweep through the thread and will be updating the main post in a couple days time! ..Probably.
I think he just hasn't gotten around to it.
 
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