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The Best Damn Fics You've Ever Read.

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clockworkchaos said:
Please point me to any evidence that Rowling based Luna's creatures on real world mythology.
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Appears to be a Qirin, however it is what the Magical Menagerie at the Wizardling World of Harry Potter envisions a Crumple Horned Snarlak to look.

And on the field research note, lack of evidence for something existing does not mean you have to abandon your deeply held beliefs. Rare animal species are known to be hard to find, even sometimes taking several generations of researchers before they are discovered.

Fanged deer, for an example, were thought to be a myth. Hell Hippos and Platypi were widely thought to be hoaxes in preceding centuries.

Now Luna can be incorrect in her beleif that a certain species exists, but she is not wrong to continue to hold her opinion when the people dismissing her as crazy have never spent any time in the woods before forming their opinion of her.

For a real world example, I do not beleive intelligent alien life has ever visited the earth. I know people who have been abducted and I trust their word and beleive their accounts of a traumatic experience.

I also know skeptics who just flat out dismiss these people as attention seekers who made up their testimony.

There is nothing in the personality, or history of these persons that provides any evidence that they have or would make something like that up. It just conflicts with the popular opinion that the skeptics just accepted.

My own personal disbeleif in aliens visiting earth was not from me just accepting popular opinion. I searched for evidence of extraterrestials on earth and found none. But I did find people who beleived otherwise, and while they didn't convince me of their beleifs I do not think them crazy or even wrong to hold them. Same evidence, different experiences, different conclusions, still waiting for additional data.
 
Jaertin said:
Absolutely recced. I don't normally care about MLP, but this fic was incredible.
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The show is really not anything special from what I've seen with my niece, but people can write some really entertaining fanfics based on it. Here's a few more MLP fanfics for this thread.

Magic, and Mayhem, and... Murder? Oh my...
Shawn Spencer, psychic detective, is a thick-tufted boy genius who ice skates through life on polished blades of snarky eloquence. He has tested himself against some of the greatest criminal minds of his time and emerged victorious... though often through unbelievable luck and not a small amount of bumbling.
Now, he faces a challenge unlike any before. One that will test his mind, his sanity, and his adaptability as he is thrust into the midst of an unfamiliar world and the ponies who populate it.
The Mane 6 face their own challenge, as an old enemy, tempered in the crimes of a much harsher world than theirs, returns to Equestria. It is a challenge they are ill-prepared for and one that only their strange, new, alien friend can help them overcome.
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And a shorter one for a quick read.
Mortem: The Last Necromancer
Almost a year after what seemed to be the concluding battle in Celestia's great crusade against necromancers, something Mortem believes to be borderline discrimination, he discovers one of Celestia's armies setting up camp just outside his stronghold.
Not wanting to jump to any conclusions or risk angering the very powerful Princess, he concludes a diplomatic solution would be the best way forward. And so, he writes a letter.
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Wickian said:
Alex Mack... Isn't that an old Nickelodeon show about the girl who is basically a Terminator with telekinesis? I might check out a fusion crossover just out of curiosity.
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As i found out after having read the fic, yes. The series is above average, and a bit of a novelty, but nothing special, but the fanfic takes it and makes an amazing mix of it and dozens of other sources, and just the fact that the author manages to use old crappy, as in absurdly bad epic fail movies crappy, to make a good story, that alone is an accomplishment worth noting.

And like i said, it's got to the point where there's now dozens of fanfics based on this fanfic. The fanfic is part of a series, but you don't have to read the other fics in it, although some of those are pretty good as well.
 
Tallamee said:
Derec. Completely and soundly.

Salem:
"Year 1450: Sociologically, this set of humanity is the most peaceful one yet. Not 'peaceful' in an objective sense, but better than before. I've noticed that the harder the Creatures of Grimm (as they are now commonly called) gnaw on the various settlements, the less prone humans are to warring on each other. The most violent and angry people always get targeted first, generation after generation. I seem to have stumbled into a very effective eugenics cycle."
'Hazredous' Interruptions (Nanoha / RWBY) | Page 416
Salem who is supposed to be understandable as a villain in their motivations (in the style of Nanoha villains, in the words of the Author) just leaves me wondering how many people would be okay with the Defense Program of the Book of Darkness getting a pass to keep on soul sucking and planet killing at the end of the Book of Darkness arc for Nanoha.

The only satisfying option by the end of that chapter, for me, would have been to completely evacuate the planet and follow it up with saturation bombardment from high orbit with the heaviest munitions available to the TSAB.
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Meanwhile, i'm just astounded at the sheer hatred towards Hazredous...

"only satisfying option"? :rolleyes:

You seem to have missed about a third of the story. No, i'm still completely unable to figure out all those derecs, because they just don't make sense.
 
DW75 said:
Meanwhile, i'm just astounded at the sheer hatred towards Hazredous...

"only satisfying option"? :rolleyes:

You seem to have missed about a third of the story. No, i'm still completely unable to figure out all those derecs, because they just don't make sense.
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Salem spends 90% of the story being presented to the audience as the villain. This is emphasized by the fact that the present-day minions of Salem spend their time grinding their boots in the face of the protagonists when they're not trying to set hordes of Grimm loose on the innocent population of the city of Vale. Salem's own records of her past, meanwhile, reveal that she has deliberately and repeatedly chosen to obliterate large swathes of the human population after first segregating out some small percentage of them that seem to suit the social goals she is trying to promulgate.

In the finale, this person is determined to be good and right and the people trying to stop her are evil monsters.

How is this being objectionable to some people hard to understand?
 
DezoPenguin said:
Salem spends 90% of the story being presented to the audience as the villain. This is emphasized by the fact that the present-day minions of Salem spend their time grinding their boots in the face of the protagonists when they're not trying to set hordes of Grimm loose on the innocent population of the city of Vale. Salem's own records of her past, meanwhile, reveal that she has deliberately and repeatedly chosen to obliterate large swathes of the human population after first segregating out some small percentage of them that seem to suit the social goals she is trying to promulgate.

In the finale, this person is determined to be good and right and the people trying to stop her are evil monsters.

How is this being objectionable to some people hard to understand?
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Uh, no?

I think you just proved my point that people are hating it for something that is only in their minds, because that's not how the story ends, or to some extent how it goes either.
That completely missed that just about noone is blameles in the story(which is definitely blatantly shown) and the complexity of the situation, including Salem's backstory at the very least. Considering her origins, cultural and otherwise, it's more amazing that she tries to bother with the "plebes" at all.

The link between the RWBY canon and the story backdrop isn't 100% perfect no, but i can't bother to care all that much when the rest is as good as it is.
 
DW75 said:
Uh, no?

I think you just proved my point that people are hating it for something that is only in their minds, because that's not how the story ends, or to some extent how it goes either.
That completely missed that just about noone is blameles in the story(which is definitely blatantly shown) and the complexity of the situation, including Salem's backstory at the very least. Considering her origins, cultural and otherwise, it's more amazing that she tries to bother with the "plebes" at all.

The link between the RWBY canon and the story backdrop isn't 100% perfect no, but i can't bother to care all that much when the rest is as good as it is.
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In any case, there is obvious, virulent dissent, which disqualifies it from this list.

If we want to argue about Hazardous Interruptions there's always the Nanoha thread: Nanoha Ideas, discussion and recs thread?
 
GuesssWho said:
Fulgent Engineering, a very long crossover between two rare fandoms--MacGyver and the Fallen London setting--in which MacGyver goes zailing.
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Well, finished the story.

Going to say I second the recommendation for this. The story catches the tone of the Fallen London setting quite well. The characters are well written and I got quite attached to them. Basically it is a really solidly written fic.

I did spend the fic wondering if someone with no knowledge of the Fallen London setting would enjoy it or if the fic would be impenetrable to them but I think someone who goes into this with no information will still find this an enjoyable read.
 
MiskWisk said:
I did spend the fic wondering if someone with no knowledge of the Fallen London setting would enjoy it or if the fic would be impenetrable to them but I think someone who goes into this with no information will still find this an enjoyable read.
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Uh, I disagree. No idea what 'Fallen London' was but I wanted MacGyver fanfic and in that respect it really failed. This is basically a Fallen London fic with a character really vaguely MacGyver-inspired for the most part, and since I didn't know Fallen London it did not grab me. Plus descriptions are really sparse so it was a pain to figure out what everything looked like.

Derec on Fulgent Engineering, unfortunately. Might be good Fallen London fanfic but it is not good MacGyver fanfic and it hates explaining or describing things.
 
Lunatic350 said:
Uh, I disagree. No idea what 'Fallen London' was but I wanted MacGyver fanfic and in that respect it really failed. This is basically a Fallen London fic with a character really vaguely MacGyver-inspired for the most part, and since I didn't know Fallen London it did not grab me. Plus descriptions are really sparse so it was a pain to figure out what everything looked like.

Derec on Fulgent Engineering, unfortunately. Might be good Fallen London fanfic but it is not good MacGyver fanfic and it hates explaining or describing things.
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The style of fallen london is not really conducive to explainations.

That said, you can write FL fic to be much more comprehensible, yeah.

If i have some spare time i will look back at the fallen london/white collar fic section, I remember good things there.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
The style of fallen london is not really conducive to explainations.
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This, so much this.

I'm that one person who came from the Fallen London side with no clue about MacGyver, for what it's worth--and there are maybe 2 FL fanfics that long on the whole internet. So if I can have feels about Mr. Eaten and the Dawn Machine and Searing Enigmas and the Neathbow it's a good fic.

Also it has a video game as one of the chapters, which deserves a rec just for effort.
 
GuesssWho said:
This, so much this.

I'm that one person who came from the Fallen London side with no clue about MacGyver, for what it's worth--and there are maybe 2 FL fanfics that long on the whole internet. So if I can have feels about Mr. Eaten and the Dawn Machine and Searing Enigmas and the Neathbow it's a good fic.

Also it has a video game as one of the chapters, which deserves a rec just for effort.
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What do the people look like in this fanfic? Are they tall? Short? Old? Young? What do the places look like? What does the boat look like?

Descriptions are really sparse on the ground. And in terms of explanation? I get the whole shit is weird, ride the ride thing but there's very little that is clear at all. Distance, factions, purpose, and so on are not explained. There's some mention of the seas shifting and shit so distance I did at least get some sense of but there's also routes from wherever to wherever and it's like, okay are they close or far or what even is going on there? They run into some people sometimes that are part of a different nation or city or something but there's no real explanation of that either. It just happens and there's no sense of stakes a lot of the time because who the fuck even are these people. They're going around looking for stuff for the Student but there's really no explanation of what that is or how they're doing it, just names. And the boat is a boat and also a submarine sometimes but, like, all I really know is it has an engine. Maybe all this gets explained later or something but I'm only willing to spend so many chapters with no sense of what the fuck anything is and by the time MacGyver's forgotten his own name and I have no real sense of what is going on or what the stakes are still I've kind of run out of patience for some sort of freaking explanation.
 
GuesssWho said:
. . . do you really want me to explain Fallen London? It starts when Queen Victoria trades London to literal alien space bats for the survival of Prince Albert and things just get weirder from there.
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No, I don't want you to sit down and explain Fallen London. I'm pointing out what the fic doesn't do. Which is explain anything at all. I guess it's funny to you that the crossover fic fails to engage anyone not intimately familiar with one half of it, but that doesn't make it not true. Like I said, this might very well be good Fallen London fanfic. But it shouldn't be on a 'best damn fics ever' list because it fails miserably as MacGyver fanfic and is freaking impenetrable. I'm only willing to spend so many chapters with no sense of what the fuck anything is and by the time MacGyver's forgotten his own name and I still have no real sense of what is going on or what the stakes are I've kind of run out of patience for some sort of explanation.
 
So what do we do when it's amazing for one fandom and the other is just confused?

I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of fics here that would be awful to non-fans. How does that work with crossovers?
 
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GuesssWho said:
So what do we do when it's amazing for one fandom and the other is just confused?

I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of fics here that would be awful to non-fans. How does that work with crossovers?
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The simplest method is not allowing a crossover to be in the list in the first place but that's saying we should remove all cars to decrease traffic incidents.

Like there's a lot of cool franchises that would great standalone but crossover with franchises I don't recognise like Harry Potter or Worm or whatever.
 
GuesssWho said:
So what do we do when it's amazing for one fandom and the other is just confused?

I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of fics here that would be awful to non-fans. How does that work with crossovers?
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That's kind of the point of this being a list of the best. A better fic works for fans from both angles.

It's entirely possible to write a story that does describe things and tells a story that's comprehensible to people who aren't familiar with a fandom.

If the author didn't clear that bar, then they don't belong on a list of the best.
 
Hykal94 said:
The simplest method is not allowing a crossover to be in the list in the first place but that's saying we should remove all cars to decrease traffic incidents.

Like there's a lot of cool franchises that would great standalone but crossover with franchises I don't recognise like Harry Potter or Worm or whatever.
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Crossovers can be good. If it either one was finished I'd be recommending Harry and the Shipgirls (HP/Kantai Collection) and Constellations (Worm/Okami)
 
armorfiend said:
That's kind of the point of this being a list of the best. A better fic works for fans from both angles.

It's entirely possible to write a story that does describe things and tells a story that's comprehensible to people who aren't familiar with a fandom.

If the author didn't clear that bar, then they don't belong on a list of the best.
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It's just that trying to hand-hold people through Fallen London is going to double your pagecount and make the average person even more confused. Admittedly I sometimes read fanfic in fandoms I've never heard of at all.
 
GuesssWho said:
It's just that trying to hand-hold people through Fallen London is going to double your pagecount and make the average person even more confused. Admittedly I sometimes read fanfic in fandoms I've never heard of at all.
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Plus, being vague and not introducing things properly and referring to people mainly by titles is how Fallen London works. So complaining that a crossover featuring it does the same is like complaining that the ninjas in a Naruto crossover aren't stealthy assassins. Sure it's true, but it's not the fic's fault you dislike the canon it's based on.
 
Dark Lord Bob said:
Plus, being vague and not introducing things properly and referring to people mainly by titles is how Fallen London works. So complaining that a crossover featuring it does the same is like complaining that the ninjas in a Naruto crossover aren't stealthy assassins. Sure it's true, but it's not the fic's fault you dislike the canon it's based on.
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I think you're conflating the content with the writing style, but regardless, if the original is written poorly and the fic is a faithful imitation of poor writing, then the fic is still written poorly and doesn't belong on a list like this.
 
armorfiend said:
I think you're conflating the content with the writing style, but regardless, if the original is written poorly and the fic is a faithful imitation of poor writing, then the fic is still written poorly and doesn't belong on a list like this.
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Fallen London is amazingly well written. It's also designed to be a Searing Enigma and possibly an invitation to the Royal Bethlehem Hospital Hotel.

So no, it's not about the writing style. It's about the setting being meant to give you that effect because the world is a weird and confusing place. Queen Victoria traded London to bats; that's all you start with in canon and it's all you should start with in a fic.
 
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