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Fanfiction.net: the good bits

Posted: 2006-04-04 05:37am
by Prozac the Robert
An idea, if you will. Simply post the addresses and a small summary of good bits of fanfiction that you find on other sites.

If, like me, you have a lot of them in your favourites, just post a couple of good ones from time to time. No one can be bothered with a massive unsorted list of fanfiction (which is almost what fanfiction.net is), but if a few get posted every so often then I at least might check them out.

So to begin with, two stories that I think others might like:

Promises Unbroken
“Then you should have died!” roared Black. “Died rather than betray your friends, as we would have done for you!”
Sirius Black remained the Secret Keeper and everything he feared came to pass. Ten years later, James and Lily live, Harry attends Hogwarts, and Voldemort remains…yet the world is different and nothing is as it seems. AU, updated for HBP.

A rather good alternative universe of the Harry Potter books. This is the first part of three. The second part is also complete, and the third is a good way through. It's darker that the books, and the majority of the action deals with adults rather than Harry and co.

Identity
A new high school, a new life, a new identity; nothing could go wrong, right? Well, he'd always said dogs were people too… crossover with the Chronicles of Narnia.

This one is a bit more of a random selection. Jack O'Neill's clone (the one made by Loki) ends up in Narnia. It's not yet completed. The author also has a SG1-SW crossover called Force, that I seem to remember someone linking to from here a long time ago.

Posted: 2006-04-04 06:58am
by Murazor
I fully support this endeavour and one of the classics shall be my first contribution.

A Dark, Distorted Mirror
.... And history changed. Destiny faded. All that was, and is, and yet may be was altered; irrevocably, eternally, forever.
And twelve years ago, as history changed, the two Vorlons in Dukhat's secret chamber, who once had been called the future, realised in that one, fateful moment, that the future they knew now belonged elsewhere, and a new future was theirs.
And the seeds of a bargain were struck.


This is perhaps one of the largest fanfics ever written. The largest I've ever read, at the very least. A massive AU where the Minbari didn't surrender in the Battle of the Line, a universe with mankind at the verge of extinction and little hope of survival. From what I've heard, this story shits all over the B5 EU, but it is in my opinion a must read up there with Stravo's best works.

Posted: 2006-04-04 07:39am
by Prozac the Robert
Murazor wrote:I fully support this endeavour and one of the classics shall be my first contribution.

A Dark, Distorted Mirror
Good choice, sir. I remember reading that, and it was very good. And thanks for the support also.

Posted: 2006-04-04 11:19am
by phongn
The Lost Library of Florestica has a number of decent anime fanfics.

John Biles has a collection of anime fanfic, again pretty good.

edit_1:

A pretty good archive of Sailor Moon fanfic

Levar Bouyer has a collection of Sailor Moon fanfic ... including what is possibly the darkest SM fanfic on record.

Ranma Goes To War and Chasing the Wind are two Ranma fics that are rather well-done (sometimes considered the "technothrillers" of Ranma-dom); unfortunately the authors' webpage have disappeared, so google for those two.

Posted: 2006-04-04 01:24pm
by Murazor
phongn wrote:The Lost Library of Florestica has a number of decent anime fanfics.
My own recommendation in there would be Jeffrey Vasquez's "Realms". I found it in FF.net looking for Forgotten Realms crossovers and decided to give it a try, despite its anime content. I do not regret it in the slightest.

And for another good sci-fi fic, I offer to those interested Shadows and Dust in the Pattern by RenS (Rastamon). One of the best (if not the best) ST/B5 crossovers out there, with a most unusual Wheel of Time flavour.

Posted: 2006-04-04 01:56pm
by phongn
Murazor wrote:My own recommendation in there would be Jeffrey Vasquez's "Realms". I found it in FF.net looking for Forgotten Realms crossovers and decided to give it a try, despite its anime content. I do not regret it in the slightest.
Toril never knew what hit them :lol:

Posted: 2006-04-04 03:32pm
by consequences
phongn wrote:The Lost Library of Florestica has a number of decent anime fanfics.

John Biles has a collection of anime fanfic, again pretty good.
The only bitch I have about Florestica is that so many of my favorite authors don't update. Of course, I have that bitch about fanfic in general.

Personal recommendations from there, with a blatant Ranma-phile bias, would be Josh Temple's The Return, and Brian Randall's Process of Elimination. And Nuke Them Till They Glow, the Private Bets, Why Does this Always Happen to Me, and many others

Posted: 2006-04-04 03:43pm
by phongn
consequences wrote:The only bitch I have about Florestica is that so many of my favorite authors don't update. Of course, I have that bitch about fanfic in general.
Yeah, I'm currently waiting for Sailor Moon Z to get updated ... it hasn't since mid-2004 (and it's only a few chapters from completion!) :(
Personal recommendations from there, with a blatant Ranma-phile bias, would be Josh Temple's The Return, and Brian Randall's Process of Elimination. And Nuke Them Till They Glow, the Private Bets, Why Does this Always Happen to Me, and many others
The Return is becoming a bit too Ranma-centric as of late, IMHO - some more non-Ranma-centered WIC activity and more details on what the Senshi are up to would be nice.

NETTG is ... fucked up :P

Posted: 2006-04-04 05:56pm
by Robo Jesus
The End of a War

Quite possibly the best Halo fanfiction ever written.


Heart of Darkness

A "Vader finds one of his children" fic that doesn't suck like a cheap Vietnamese whore.


Scenario no Yui

An Evangelion fanfiction where Gendo enters Unit1 instead of Yui. Only problem with this story, it's incomplete.


The Souls of Demons

A "Luke turns to the Darkside" fic. Very well written. It's incomplete, but it's well worth reading.

Posted: 2006-04-04 06:49pm
by Singular Quartet
Transformers: The Movie - A rewrite of the highest (and therefore fairly good) order. Incomplete.

Elsewhere, and Elsewhen - 40k meets Star Trek via time travel. Incomplete.

Posted: 2006-04-04 08:50pm
by A-Wing_Slash
Singular Quartet wrote:Elsewhere, and Elsewhen - 40k meets Star Trek via time travel. Incomplete.
I'll second that. That is one kickass story.

Posted: 2006-04-05 02:04am
by dragon
edit removed cause I screwed up.

Posted: 2006-04-05 02:59am
by Xon
Jedi Harris(complete) & it sequal The Terran Jedi(WIP). BtVS & Starwars crossover. Xander picks a Jedi costume and the knowladge of the force sticks around after.

The Force is depicted as existing in BtVS-verse, but there isnt much following due to the ease of other magical paths. So the knowladge of how to access the force. Heck, it is even BtVS canon that knowledge of the possessor lingers on in the possessed.

Given that, the proto-Sith and evil lawyers really isnt a suprise :P

There are a few other Starwars/BtVS crossover with Jedi's force powers sticking of differing quality there.

I saw a varient where Xander picked a Vader costume which wasnt too bad. Cant dig up a link however

Posted: 2006-04-05 07:16am
by Murazor
Xon: I see your Jedi Harris and raise Bridges by Tassos. Although we have the almost inevitable plot device, it is a very solid story in the overdone BTVS-SG1 fandom. His newer story, For a Pocketful (Farscape-SGA), is also well worth a read. BTW, have you considered that this story with Darth Xander might be Jedi Harris' own AU (the one created when Anyanka grants a wish).

And if we are going to talk about BTVS crossovers, we ought to mention Twisting the Hellmouth, the archive site for all things crossover with the Buffyverse.

Posted: 2006-04-05 08:19am
by Prozac the Robert
Hah, For a Pocketful was going to be one of my recomendations.

For a Pocketful
SGA Farscape: When D'argo Sun Crichton is kidnapped down a wormhole, he ends up in the wrong time, the wrong galaxay, and definitely the wrong reality where the humans of Atlantis must cope with his mistrust, his kidnappers, and...his parents.

And continuuing with my possibly unhealthy obsession with harry potter fanfiction (why that of all things?) I present S'TarKan's Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past.
The war is over. Too bad no one is left to celebrate. Harry makes a desperate plan to go back in time, even though it means returning Voldemort to life. Now an 11 year old Harry with 30 year old memories is starting Hogwarts. Can he get it right?

It's regularly updated, already pretty long (covered all of the first year and part way through the second) and rather good. I recomend it highly. (I'd also recomend his Blackwand Chronicals, except that its permenantly on hold at the moment.)

Robo Jesus, I've started reading Heart of Darkness and it's pretty good. Thanks for recomending it.

Posted: 2006-04-05 08:36am
by Murazor
Prozac: [Nelson]HA HA![/Nelson]

Just because you mentioned Harry Potter, I shall bring to bear The Muggle Way, the fanfic that tells you what happens when the Muggles aren't hopelessly clueless and wand wielding terrorists meet the business end of machine guns. The BTVS component is a bit excessive, but all in all this is quite the good story and has a concept that many here will enjoy.

And now, for a non crossover, I present you The Gargoyles Saga. One of the largest collaborative fanfic projects I've found in the net with several virtual seasons of the Gargoyles cartoon. Some of the material has lots of room for improvement, but again it is well worth a read. It will be funny to see how much they got right, now that Greg Weisman is publishing a comic...

Posted: 2006-04-05 08:49am
by Xon
Murazor wrote:Xon: I see your Jedi Harris and raise Bridges by Tassos. Although we have the almost inevitable plot device, it is a very solid story in the overdone BTVS-SG1 fandom.
That one is quite good. However, I truely hate most BTVS-SG1 crossovers. It is rediciously rare for BTVS writes to be able to write good military.
His newer story, For a Pocketful (Farscape-SGA), is also well worth a read.
I betaed a few chapters of that one before RL time-commitments made me stop.
BTW, have you considered that this story with Darth Xander might be Jedi Harris' own AU (the one created when Anyanka grants a wish).
Nope, different story. Re-read a chuck of it after finding it and it is actually isnt that good :(
And if we are going to talk about BTVS crossovers, we ought to mention Twisting the Hellmouth, the archive site for all things crossover with the Buffyverse.
There is a fuckload of really bad fanfiction on there, very few gems. They also have a "no criticism" policy too.

Tabula Avatar(WIP) isnt too bad, the writing needs some tighting up and there is a bit too much literial imposing of the AD&D ruleset onto the Scoobies. This make senses considering the story, but the writer really isnt good enough to pull it cleanly off.
Prozac the Robert wrote: And continuuing with my possibly unhealthy obsession with harry potter fanfiction (why that of all things?)
Then you'll like this Harry Potter/SG-1 crossover Crumpets Aren't My Style + sequal Scones Anyone?.

Neither verse overly dominates, and they stay true to even the recent canon from both verses!

Posted: 2006-04-05 09:17am
by Jawawithagun
Xon wrote:
And if we are going to talk about BTVS crossovers, we ought to mention Twisting the Hellmouth, the archive site for all things crossover with the Buffyverse.
There is a fuckload of really bad fanfiction on there, very few gems. They also have a "no criticism" policy too.
I agree about the bad stuff, though FF.net still takes the top spot there and TTH has got a fair share of gems on its pages. About the "no criticism" thing. I don't know where you got that from. I always found them gracious and responsive to any valid criticism. Bitching about changes in site policies though they are a bit less open about. Yet those changes are announced and open for discussion on their boards for quite a while before implementation.

you can do much worse than checking out Marcus Rowland's Bring Me The Head of Harry Potter. His other stories certainly are worth a look too

Posted: 2006-04-05 09:25am
by Murazor
Xon wrote:That one is quite good. However, I truely hate most BTVS-SG1 crossovers. It is rediciously rare for BTVS writes to be able to write good military.
This doesn't bother me so much, unless it is painfully stupid (really bad fics are quite easy to spot). The fics that really bother me are those where the Scoobies (one of the most inept groups ever) are the consummate professionals that take over the SGC with Hammond and SG1 joining the "We love the Scoobies" fanclub. Or the more extreme cases of Willow-Sue and Xander-Stu. Like The Journeyverse. A lot of work has been put in these stories and they are fairly good, but at this point I fucking hate fearless knight Alexander Harris. Hopefully Tenhawk will eventually kill him.

Posted: 2006-04-05 12:25pm
by Singular Quartet
Xon wrote:There is a fuckload of really bad fanfiction on there, very few gems. They also have a "no criticism" policy too.
Hasn't stopped me from killing a couple stories. And when I mean, "kill" I mean "unleash comments, watch as the person never updates again."

It's kind of sad and funny, all at the same time.

Posted: 2006-04-05 12:36pm
by Xon
Singular Quartet wrote:Hasn't stopped me from killing a couple stories. And when I mean, "kill" I mean "unleash comments, watch as the person never updates again."
I was mainly refering to the forums which are moderated by the site owners. The comments only get moderated if someone complains about them, and people have a wierd obsession about not complaining to someone who can actually do anything.
It's kind of sad and funny, all at the same time.
That a few simple comments emotionally upset them enough to stops them from updating thier stores? Sad.

Posted: 2006-04-05 02:44pm
by Argosh
Two HP fics:
A serious one ...
Mastermind Hunting - Dumbledore should have checked on Harry during his childhood. Now, he seems to have disappeared with the Dursleys. What about his education? Will he accept his legacy? Does he even know about it? What are those muggles doing in the picture?

And something hilarious ...
Make A Wish - Harry has learned the prophesy and he does not believe that a schoolboy can defeat Voldemort, so he decides that if he is going to die then he is first going to live.

Posted: 2006-04-05 07:50pm
by Agent Fisher
I've read that second one. Great story.

Posted: 2006-04-05 08:41pm
by phongn
Ugh, I remember reading a rather good HP fanfic (Ginny/Harry-centric but with a fairly involved plot) but can't find it :/

Posted: 2006-04-05 11:55pm
by Singular Quartet
Xon wrote:
Singular Quartet wrote:Hasn't stopped me from killing a couple stories. And when I mean, "kill" I mean "unleash comments, watch as the person never updates again."
I was mainly refering to the forums which are moderated by the site owners. The comments only get moderated if someone complains about them, and people have a wierd obsession about not complaining to someone who can actually do anything.
It's kind of sad and funny, all at the same time.
That a few simple comments emotionally upset them enough to stops them from updating thier stores? Sad.
Well... the last time I did it, it was closer to a page, and was a mixture of helpful and hateful. Helpful, in the sense that I was giving them useful information on what to do, hateful in the butchery of the english language.