I'm a huge re-reader. If a book is good enough, I'll read it many, many times. I've read Lamb like 10 times, Hitchhiker's Guide at least a dozen, The Brothers K a good five or six, Let the Right One In at least 3, and Bridge of Birds more times than I can count.

When I started reading fanfiction, this carried over. The ones I really like, I'll re-read, sometimes a few times. I've read A Black Comedy three times, and I only discovered fanfiction a year and a half ago.

Still. Sometimes, cream doesn't rise to the top. Sometimes, for whatever reason, a story gets under your guard and lodges in your teeth like a popcorn kernel.

Everyone's read bad fanfiction. But what's the worst one you can think of that you've actually read more than once?

For me, it's Hope. It's the ultimate guilty pleasure / wish fulfillment fic, and if you're ever stuck on an airplane for six hours with a headache, it's literally a perfect distraction.

Judgement-free zone, people! Share your embarrassing secrets.

(Although if you admit to reading Harry Crow multiple times, you're on your own.)

 

Probably The Grass is Always Greener. By all rights, it's a pretty terrible fic, but it's one of the one's that stuck in the back of my mind, and it's what got me into HP/DG pairing. Somehow, people still manage to routinely write fics that are worse than this one, and I would maybe rate it a 2.5/5

 

Harry Potter and the Elemental Changes.
I know its bad, that it has a frankly ridiculous amount of Mary sues, that its not well written and that every character is totally unrealistic but... I've read it three times.

 

Tender Hands and Unwavering Spirit. It's a Naruto fanfic in which he becomes a samurai instead of a shinobi, but stays in Konoha. I don't know why I keep rereading it, but it has something awesome I can't shake off. Otherwise, it's a 2.5/5 from me.

 

It's embarrassing, but I've read Harry Potter and the Dance of the Warrior at least a half dozen times over the years (the story was written in 2004), despite the cringe-worthy Harry/Ginny interactions and cruddy writing (the writer has this fetish for putting the interlocuter's name in nearly every bit of dialogue).

Edit: WTF is up with the English language that there's no good word for "person someone is talking to" and I'm stuck using 'interlocutor.'

 

The Sacrifices Arc, for sure. It's actually very well written from a technical standpoint but contains so much stuff that would ordinarily make me click X faster than you can say "shitfic". Stuff like extreme amounts of angst, HP/DM slash, guardian!Snape, huge amounts of Malfoy/Snape screentime, even more angst, a Harry than is essentially a slave for the first three books, and so on.

I re-read it at least once every couple of years. The action scenes, magic usage and worldbuilding are just that awesome.

 

I don't re-read fics that I thought not good.

 

Could do you a few magnitudes worse than Harry Crow...

I got into fanfiction before I can remember, but started reading HP fanfiction at around twelve... I think. About a year ago, I tried tracking down the first one I'd ever read, to no avail (forgot the name, but it was H/Hr and Dumbledore stole a can of Coke from Harry's cooler in the Common Room), but I did find the first author I actively followed.

Why am I even admitting this...

Love before Death marked the beginning of a strange year-and-a-half of late night reading in that small, red box room. I knew the fics were shockingly bad, but I just couldn't stop, re-reading them over and over even back then.

The author's Magnum Opus was a series that began with Harry Potter and the Four Heirs. Favourite quote from said fic is thus:

Oh! Can't forget Harry's first car in the sequel:

It wasn't even a boring year or two. There was no excuse.

 

I read Hope and the first thing came to my mind is: 'this is something that Jeconias would have written' then I looked up the author. The best thing I can say about it is that: it is a time waster.

To the original question: I sometimes reread Time to LIve/Learn by loralee1 - don't judge - and sometimes I reread Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards.

 

Summer of Independence / Year of Changes by redfrog
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3661577/1/Summer-of-Independence
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3781358/1/Year-of-Changes

The story is full of cliches like phoenix bond, Hermione being a heiress of pureblood family and Dumbledore/Molly/Ron/Ginny bashing. Still I found it enjoyable enough to re-read.

 

The Dark Witch and the Necromancer ENGLISH by Heiko2003

This gem features some potent mix of cliches:
- friendly and helpful goblins
- Harry being called 'Pup'
- bashing Dumbledore/others. It gets cut down later in the story
- Gryffindor Manor
- cringe-worthy speeches
- black, black magic
- magical coming of age / magical maturity
- founder heir
- demons and fairies
- Harry being a necromancer
- Bellatrix/Harry pairing
- The Order of the Phoenix being called the Order of Fried Chicken

In the course of the story Harry racks a body count, a company of Space Marines would find impressive for a teenager. Lots of bad jokes. Harry has a staff of doom with a big ruby at the top and can cast some uber spells.

Yeah, it's pretty bad... and I re-read it three times at least. *sigh*

 

Strangely, I don't have a problem with this.

 

Once or twice, I can take it, it's teenage rebellion. All the time? It's stupid.

 

That one "story" by the author-who-googles-himself-a-lot

 

Aspirations by Megamatt09.

Basically a Dark/Indie!Harry with Ginny, set post Triwizard. Ginny drives Harry to be a better man, and then they cut a bloody swathe through the wizarding world and end up ruling it. Also Harry's mum is resurrected as a 16 year old for no discernible reason. Judging by some of his newer works, I imagine he ended to make Harry fuck her but never got around to it.

Used to be one of my favoured fics a few years ago, but looking back it's all a bit silly. Still, miles better than the rubbish he puts out now, which is funny considering he's "not a huge fan of this story" any more.

 

I don't get it.

 

Possibly Methods of Rationality?

 

There's a reason he didn't mention it.

 

I've read Brave New World (the one where Harry goes to the US, makes new friends and is an asshole) three times at least but probably more.

 

Miranda Flairgold's trilogy. 6-7 times, at least.

Oh, and Volron666's story. The scorpion something or other.