Dark Abstraction
Infrequent Participant
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Seconding that derec. The toxic fanon in that story makes it cringe-worthy to attempt to read.
The Best Damn Fics You've Ever Read.
- Thread starter Phearo
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Irrelevant. Story quality or lack of it is relevant, whether the author is a moron or your best friend ever isn't. But i expect this is one reason for the heavy bias against the fic.
Children are no less individuals than adults are. Some children are blatantly childish, some are not, some are both in various ways. Dismissing a story because you believe that people MUST behave in a specific manner based on age, it's silly and a bad idea because reality isn't that simplistic.
Wobulator
Within 1 AU of you!
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- Mars
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- She/Her
It kinda is. 11-year-olds are immature and incapable of responsibly making large-scale decisions.
When people write little adults instead of actual children, it's incredibly jarring.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
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The girl wants to be a supervillain, that's more normal childish behavior than Canon Harry.
RoboRenee
Trans of gender
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- FFXIV, probably
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- She/Her
It's not that they must behave one way or another, it's that there are things children just don't do in terms of word choice and behavior. Making a kid do them is one of the easiest laziest ways to convey that the child is creepy, which I suspect might have been the intent in that story if not for the fact that nobody reacts to it like that.
Beyond that, the major problem with the story would be the dumb and toxic fanon rather than the completely bonkers behavior and word choice (seriously, "Monsieur, might you point me to where I could find material on better learning the recent structure of this society?" is just bizarre coming out of an 11-year old British kid) of the story's main character.
Oh, I have no problem with that basic piece of the premise (it's the reason I initially called the story entertaining, in fact).
It absolutely is relevant to the experience of reading a story when the author is participating in the thread.
There is a relevant saying; "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt", and when an author directly interacts with their fans as part of the writing process it is very very easy to remove all doubt of them being complete idiots.
RoboRenee
Trans of gender
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- FFXIV, probably
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- She/Her
It's not that I dislike the story from what I read, just that it is not good enough for a 'best damn fics' list. Like I said, general rec thread.
Though I did skim ahead and it looks like she gets shipped with Diary Voldemort? If so I guess I do dislike the story, because eww.
- Location
- Austria
I don't know if it has already been mentioned, but I would like to recommend the Alexandra Quick series by Inverarity.
It's a Harry Potter fanfiction set in the US in the late 2000s. The cast is original and none of the canon characters make an appearance, although I think Voldemort was mentioned once. What makes it a Harry Potter fanfic is the world-building, the sense of wonder and magic that was captured in the original books.
Currently there are 4 finished books. A fifth one is being written but it has been delayed for years.
Book1:
Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle by Inverarity
The war against Voldemort never reached America, but all is not well there. When 11-year-old Alexandra Quick learns she is a witch, she is plunged into a world of prejudices, intrigue, and danger. Who wants Alexandra dead, and why?
Book2: Alexandra Quick and the Lands Below
Book3: Alexandra Quick and the Deathly Regiment
Book4: Alexandra Quick and the Stars Above
It's probably the best story I have read in my seven years of reading fanfiction.
It's a Harry Potter fanfiction set in the US in the late 2000s. The cast is original and none of the canon characters make an appearance, although I think Voldemort was mentioned once. What makes it a Harry Potter fanfic is the world-building, the sense of wonder and magic that was captured in the original books.
Currently there are 4 finished books. A fifth one is being written but it has been delayed for years.
Book1:
Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle by Inverarity
The war against Voldemort never reached America, but all is not well there. When 11-year-old Alexandra Quick learns she is a witch, she is plunged into a world of prejudices, intrigue, and danger. Who wants Alexandra dead, and why?
Book2: Alexandra Quick and the Lands Below
Book3: Alexandra Quick and the Deathly Regiment
Book4: Alexandra Quick and the Stars Above
It's probably the best story I have read in my seven years of reading fanfiction.
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- Location
- Hell
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've recced about 3 or four fics, but most of them aren't even on my top ten favorites list. This is because this lost isn't about subjective like so much as objective quality. The issue is that we, societally, put a negative connotation on liking bad things, and suggest that because we like bad things, we aren't smart enough to realize that they are bad, or don't know quality. This is obviously not the case, as subjectively enjoying something doesn't really say much about you, other than your subjective taste.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
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- Twin Realms Mandala
First book was good, but I did not enjoy the second and I quit reading the series after that.
RoboRenee
Trans of gender
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- FFXIV, probably
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- She/Her
This, yes.
I'm a big nerd for Power Rangers, among other things. I love these shows, and not in a rose-colored childhood sense - I'm rewatching a couple of them right now and loving the shit out of it. But nobody should ever really call Power Rangers the best damn TV show ever made - it's a big cheesy mess full of bad special effects and 30-year old teenagers and general goofiness and painfully simplistic morals (avvie's currently from Jungle Fury, which posits with a straight face that the path to EEVVIILL begins with cheating on a test at school and not trying to raise money to help out a neighbor). That doesn't mean that I don't love it, or that I'm wrong to love it, or that I should feel bad about about loving it. Just means that objectively this is not exactly Emmy material.
Same goes for these fanfics. A derec just means it ain't brilliant, that it's not 'the best damn'. Not that it isn't good or that you shouldn't like it.
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Madou Sutegobana
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- Twin Realms Mandala
Are you really basing 'The Best' on a comparison with awards ceremonies that usually lauds films that few people even bother to watch?
RoboRenee
Trans of gender
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- FFXIV, probably
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- She/Her
Are you really taking issue with the rhetorical use of a famous award ceremony to convey the idea of high quality?
No, I am not literally basing my judgement of the written word in any way on the Emmys. But did you get what I meant? I strongly suspect you did. So what's the problem?
Yeah, I'd second that. Definitely one of the most interesting and original Harry Potter fanfics, and it really manages to stand on its own well. Alexandra isn't necessarily the most likable main character, but her character issues and development was done well and causes her many issues in perfectly logical ways - and the same is true for many of the other characters.
Virian
Sage of Reason and incomplete information
- Location
- Where logic has never been before
- Pronouns
- he/him
In honor of it just being finished I'd like to present Coeur al Aran's latest masterpiece
The Beacon Civil War.
By: Coeur Al'Aran
Jaune had no interest in Ozpin's latest training initiative, especially when it pit boys against girls across Beacon. Cowardice or not, he intended to hide and wait the whole thing out. Leading the male alliance wasn't part of the plan, nor was becoming mankind's final hope. He was a coward, an idiot and a weakling. It was just a shame no one would believe him when he said so!
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Humor - Jaune A., L. Ren - Chapters: 13 - Words: 89,448 - Reviews: 1,653 - Favs: 2,332 - Follows: 2,516 - Updated: 3h ago - Published: Sep 2, 2017 - Status: Complete - id: 12638092
An amusing fic by the (relatively) well known fanfic author we all love. It gives Jaune's experience(with some excerpts from others) from the civil war which spanned for a whole week in which in normal Coeur Al Aran M.O Jaune is perceived as the badass he rightfully doesn't deserve to be but we still hope he'll become. What I love about this story(and most of his works I bothered to read) is the disparity between how Jaune perceives himself and how others perceive him. The best part of it is that while the author tries to make Jaune think things are serious anyone could see the truth from the first chapter.
Long live Jaunehalla
Praise be Zwei the most holy.
The Beacon Civil War.
By: Coeur Al'Aran
Jaune had no interest in Ozpin's latest training initiative, especially when it pit boys against girls across Beacon. Cowardice or not, he intended to hide and wait the whole thing out. Leading the male alliance wasn't part of the plan, nor was becoming mankind's final hope. He was a coward, an idiot and a weakling. It was just a shame no one would believe him when he said so!
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Humor - Jaune A., L. Ren - Chapters: 13 - Words: 89,448 - Reviews: 1,653 - Favs: 2,332 - Follows: 2,516 - Updated: 3h ago - Published: Sep 2, 2017 - Status: Complete - id: 12638092
An amusing fic by the (relatively) well known fanfic author we all love. It gives Jaune's experience(with some excerpts from others) from the civil war which spanned for a whole week in which in normal Coeur Al Aran M.O Jaune is perceived as the badass he rightfully doesn't deserve to be but we still hope he'll become. What I love about this story(and most of his works I bothered to read) is the disparity between how Jaune perceives himself and how others perceive him. The best part of it is that while the author tries to make Jaune think things are serious anyone could see the truth from the first chapter.
Long live Jaunehalla
Praise be Zwei the most holy.
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Derec. Bad author, writes bad fic.
Virian
Sage of Reason and incomplete information
- Location
- Where logic has never been before
- Pronouns
- he/him
Have you read it? or at least tried it?
- Location
- Somewhere
I know I've already said this at least two or three times in the past: Coeur's Jaunefics are mediocre guilty pleasure fics. Nothing wrong with liking that particular sort of popcorn story, but they're not good enough for this thread. Derec.
+1 for the first one. I haven't read the second or third yet and can't fairly comment. Easily the only worthwhile HP fic that divorces itself entirely from canon, and better than most that don't. Very much caught the feeling of Harry Potter without going too far either towards "canon, but X" or the cognitive dissonance that arose from canon HP trying to transition away from being a children's story while still using things peculiar to them (over-the-top abuse shrugged off, politics and economics that require immense logical contortions to make sense if you examine them, &c.).
e: I do think Alexandra is frustrating at times as a character, but not really any more so than quite a few canon HP characters.
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Renewal
Boring Person #5883781345
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- He/Him
I have, and I'd similarly derec it. While I wouldn't agree with veteranMortal's description, I'd rate most of Coeur's works as guilty pleasure, popcorn fics. He has a good grasp of storytelling and can write enjoyable plots, and it's really nice he updates like clockwork, but definitely not "Best Damn Ever" in terms of quality. The only one of his works that might rate this list is Forged Destiny, since it's the only where he genuinely flexes his creative muscles instead of just writing typical Jaune-wank, but even then it's Jaune-centric and incomplete.
- Location
- Hell
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I see Coeur as an author who is striving to improve what he does. Although his fics are all Jaune centric, and his earlier stuff is powerwanky garbage, he's really improved. I've tried to read most of his stuff, and Forged destiny is the only one I've stuck with because it really is quite good. He seems to try different genres each time he writes, so there's quite a few mistakes he makes for that in most of his fics. I'd like to derecc all of his fics that are completed as of today, but say that once Forged destiny is complete I'm reccing it.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Well since no one else posted this story just yet. I'm going to rec Cycle, a fire emblem fic that took me by complete surprise.
What first look like another dumb SI fic very quickly builds up into something wonderful. (Personally I don't think its a SI fic, yea the character has knowledge of the games but it just dosen't fell like a SI at all) The author is able to bring to life every single character from Fire Emblem Awakening. I have never seen someone so perfectly capture the canon character traits and personality so well. And then she builds upon it and give each and every character a time to shine. Though this isn't a rehash of canon, it quickly takes some surprising turns.
Though I have to admit, there is two characters that are very different from the games itself. But the author manages to justify it in interesting ways. Spoilers below for its big differences.
Sorry I'm not the best at giving good list of what I really liked about this story. At the start the writing seems a bit shakey but you can absolutely see the author improve over the years. Also the fic is near 850,000 words at the moment. But strangely enough it doesn't feel super bloated.
Edit: Oh gosh I missed that second rule my bad. Not sure if I should delete or not.
What first look like another dumb SI fic very quickly builds up into something wonderful. (Personally I don't think its a SI fic, yea the character has knowledge of the games but it just dosen't fell like a SI at all) The author is able to bring to life every single character from Fire Emblem Awakening. I have never seen someone so perfectly capture the canon character traits and personality so well. And then she builds upon it and give each and every character a time to shine. Though this isn't a rehash of canon, it quickly takes some surprising turns.
Though I have to admit, there is two characters that are very different from the games itself. But the author manages to justify it in interesting ways. Spoilers below for its big differences.
There was not one repeat of time like from the first game. But when the new Robin shows up this is in fact the eleventh time Luciana had to revert back to the start. This hasn't played all that well in her confidence and she is rather depressed. She tries to cover up that fact with a stoic front.
Morgan is... well the twin Morgans are a bit bonkers but it makes sense in context.
Morgan is... well the twin Morgans are a bit bonkers but it makes sense in context.
Sorry I'm not the best at giving good list of what I really liked about this story. At the start the writing seems a bit shakey but you can absolutely see the author improve over the years. Also the fic is near 850,000 words at the moment. But strangely enough it doesn't feel super bloated.
Edit: Oh gosh I missed that second rule my bad. Not sure if I should delete or not.
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Dark Abstraction
Infrequent Participant
- Location
- United States
Nah, you're fine. This thread is full of links to submissions that are invalid or didn't get accepted. All the accepted submissions are archived separately, so there's no harm in your post.
The problem is, kids like that EXISTS IN THE REAL WORLD. I know that very well as in regards to wording, i was like that myself, thanks to being both a very quick learner, linguistically gifted and had a family that was mostly good with language as well. I did well above average on a language test meant to test for university entrance, when i was 12 or 13 for my own language, and for English when i was 16.
And in the story, it's not just that she's "creepy", it's that she's ACTING. She's trying to mimic specific "idols"(or what she believes they should sound like) she has picked up. Lots of kids do that as well in real life, even if it's with words or manners they have no clue to what they're really saying or doing. But heck, plenty enough of adults do THAT as well!
Fake it till you make it is a thing.
And again, you are supposed to rate the STORY, not who made it, not the "dumb and toxic fanon" surrounding it or whatever.
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Nope, that still has absolutely nothing to do with the quality(or lack of it) of the STORY. It doesn't matter if the writer is a hideous arse or a wonderfully nice genius, the quality of the story remains the same. Judging the writer instead of the story and then claim that the judgment is still valid for the story is just really bad style and really not good mental training for yourself as you condition yourself to be subjective rather than objective.
*sigh*
You haven't got all that much experience with children do you?
Some children are immature. Some are not. Some flip-flops between the two and anywhere in between all the time. You can find kids of every possible variation.
Children generally lack experience, which means even mature children may not appear mature all the time because they have insufficient facts to make decisions from, this has been professionally tested any number of times, give adults and children the same level of information and then ask them to make a specific decision, and the "maturity" and "quality" of the decision is highly individual rather than based on age.
When a teacher takes on a new class of 6 or 7 year olds, it usually takes them less than a week to figure out what kids they can give responsibility and which ones they can give leadership roles. Because in every new class, there's usually at least a few of either or both.
Yes there's plenty of children "incapable of responsibly making large-scale decisions", but you know what? There's LOTS of ADULTS like that as well.
While there's plenty of kids perfectly capable of doing it. The only difference is that SOME of the incapable kids grow up to become capable.
Age does not have direct correlation to maturity. It just increases the probability. End of story.
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