Isn't that true to the Anime as well as games though?

 

I was talking about fics, not the canon source. But yes, it does hold true for canon, except for one reason:

Target audience.

Fanfiction is not normally written to be marketed at kids. Yes, a lot of adults and teenagers play pokemon, but the main market is younger children, especially the show. So giving a protagonist that the audience identify with more strongly is therefore a good idea (think about how many kids' shows have children in the major roles, where possible). Just like how we don't mind other wacky stuff in a show for kids, I don't mind the main character being a child, especially when they're animated and therefore not actually a real child (also, how often do they go into the character's ages during the show?).

It isn't a dealbreaker for me. And I have seen worse - we don't get constantly reminded of Ash's age in this, so it isn't massively relevant. It's just something I dislike in pokemon fanfiction in general.

Similarly, I dislike having an eleven year old Harry Potter being Lord Potter, and outmanoeuvring the wizengamot, and arranging betrothals, and not arguing over whatever the wizard version of Robot Wars is.

 

I would put this up for review, but I'm not sure if it's DLP's usual cup of tea. So I'd like a second opinion on this fic.

Making Arrangements - Author: CrownsofLaurels (FF.net) (AO3)
It takes a Village to make a relationship-Or, at least, a bunch of over-reaching grumpy old farts, a military leader with a bit too much to drink, a nosy but well meaning kunoichi, eight ninken, and the power of youth. And a really cranky chakra monster with nine tails and a penchant for swearing. Kakashi/femNaru
Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Humor - Naruto U., Kakashi H., Naruko U. - Chapters: 23 - Words: 202,710 - Reviews: 1,834 - Favs: 3,553 - Follows: 3,137 - Updated: Mar 5 - Published: Sep 27, 2013 - Status: Complete - id: 9720350​

Short description, because the story summary doesn't tell you that much about the actual plot. The story is set in post-canon, except Naruto is and has always been a girl. When Naruto gets assigned a mission to seduce her former sensei, shenanigans ensue.

Most gender bender fanfics are awfully bad, but I found this one to actually be really well written. I'm not sure if it's just because I have a soft spot for these types of stories, but this is probably one of the more enjoyable Naruto fics I've read in a long time. It starts off kind of slow (honestly if you skipped the entire prologue you probably wouldn't be missing much), but quickly becomes great, in my opinion. It's kind of hard as a writer to pull off a romantic comedy well, but I think the story definitely succeeds at doing that.

 

To Rebuild A Life is a pretty solid X-Men story set in an amalgam of the MCU and the X-Men movieverse. If it were completed or a bit longer I'd put it up for review, but the story thus far is worth reading.

Summary: Alex Summers didn't have the best relationship with his family. That was only to be expected, considering his parents couldn't stand mutants, and Alex is about as mutant as they come. The only bright spot had been his brother, Scott, but he had been dead for years. Or so Alex had thought, until the CIA called the X-Men for help with an illegal mutant experimentation lab run by Trask Industries.

A lab that just so happened to be holding an apparently-not-dead Scott Summers.

And now, Alex doesn't care if he has to burn all of Trask Industries to the ground. He's getting his brother back.​

 

Title: Parting the Clouds
Author: Derin
Rating: T, although one unrated (probably accidentally), and some G
Genre: Action
Status: WiP (18 stories completed, none still in WiP)
Library Category: Alternatives/Other Fandoms
Fandom: Animorphs
Pairings: None so far (book 9 of 18), although it looks like it'll be canon pairings.
Summary: From book one:

Link: Ao3 series page here, first chapter of book one here.


This is the second rationalist Animorph series I've found. The first was R:Animorphs, which I really enjoyed for a while, until the author decided that the rules for morphing made no sense, and changed them to fit logic, rather than trying to make arguments supporting canon. There was a bunch of other stuff with it too, but I haven't read it in a while, so I don't remember it all. Also, it's been much longer (at least a decade, probably) since I read canon.

First issue with this series is the viewpoint - it's all from Cassie. This isn't a massive negative, but it does limit the view quite a bit. It might've been nice to see other people looking in on a 'rational' Cassie.

Second issue is the rationalism. Cassie complains about "how are humans worth saving and termites/rabbits/horses/trees not? What is sentience/sapience?" and so on. I know canonically she did this, but backed up by rationalism, this exacerbates things. Also, she's thirteen. Teenagers aren't the most rational, or reasonable, so having a super rational character seems really weird, especially when compared to Jake and Marco arguing about Superman.

On top of that (this is written after the rest of the review, I just jumped back) is how nobody listens to Cassie. The rest of the animorphs just sometimes shrug off what she says -

actually must mean that Cassie is mental and can't morph insects. Despite her morphing fly with no problems, and being the best at morphing by a long shot.

actually means "bitch and moan about how you're not as good at morphing as me, and don't listen to my advice!"


That said, I am enjoying the stories so far. Unlike my previous Animorph rec, this one retreads canon, rather than skipping things other, so you don't have to have a clear memory of the main story to understand what's going on.


I'm not sure whether I can fully recommend it or not, so I'll see how I feel when I finish. If I finish.


EDIT

I think what annoys me more than anything else in this series, and most stuff about Cassie, is how they depict her "how do we not become the bad guys?" attitude.

I understand not wanting to kill everything on the planet for the lulz, that's fair enough. As is wanting to mitigate collateral damage. Caring about collateral damage is good... But caring about winning is, to me, just maybe that bit more important.

If there was some alien species dedicated to enslaving humanity, and scouring the face of the planet, I think that there's not much you can baulk at. If the Yeerks are going to kill all reptiles, and your plan to stopping them involves 'merely' killing all snakes... I understand Cassie holds her morals close to herself, and truly believes all life worth saving, but she knows that the Yeerks will destroy the majority of life on Earth, but still doesn't like to have to take sacrifices with definite and near-immediate gain.

Honestly, sacrifices for a nebulous "in the future it might come in handy, or save me thirty seconds" are something I could see being a hard decision to make. But when the 'sacrifice' is going to be near essential or life saving in the near or now, that should be a much easier decision.

Also, when these issues keep getting raised (Is it moral to morph human?), then the smart character should try and find a time that this can be discussed and decided upon, but not under fire. Maybe by consulting someone who has prior experience, such as the alien from the species that invented morphing tech.

 

Kaze No Uta https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10027415/1/Kaze-no-Uta
An avatar the last Airbender fanfic about a realistic SI ending up at the southern air temple where the repercussions of isolation occur.
Gotten back into it because the author is picking up where they left off for nanowrimo this year. It's almost recommendable because of not having a lot to review so far but when it finishes hopefully it'll continue being great an worthy of the library.

 

I thought it was pretty funny but seeing as I've so far had a zero success rate for recc'ing comedies I think I'll see if anyone else is interested.

 

I have trouble imagining what Itachi could find interesting about Sakura with pre-Shippuden characterization but I suppose I'll give it a shot.

Edit: Just opened up the story, might have spoke too soon about the characterization. Looks to be further in the future than I expected so maybe she'll be more mature.

Edit2: Eh, I didn't make it very far.

 

Considering how old this fic is, I'm surprised that it hasn't been brought up sooner.

Anyways, I happen to have read that story pretty recently, so I'll talk a little bit about it.

The story is okay for a romance. It's technically sound and the characters are reasonable, so it seems like it has a lot going for it, but I found the content of the story to actually be somewhat mediocre. The romance doesn't develop completely naturally, but rather it seems like it's done for the sake of there being a romance. Itachi is actually pretty creepy and goes full obsessive stalker in a lot of parts, Sakura is super stubborn and doesn't seem to develop beyond "I hate you but secretly find you kind of exciting" until she suddenly decides that they belong together after all, and it seems like the story just decides "hey if he's around for long enough and makes enough unwanted physical content eventually she'll eventually change her mind and fall in love with him" is a good avenue for a romance to develop.

This may seem like I'm making out the story to be awful, but it's not. I read the entire thing, which is not something I would have done had it been 150k words of garbage. The story is definitely not bad, but it's just not great either. I'd probably rate it somewhere in the 3-3.5/5 range. If you like romance or you like stalker Itachi as a character, by all means it's probably worth reading.

 

Despite this being 300k words long, at the end of it I felt like nothing had really happened. It was okay enough that I got through those 300k words, but in all honesty the only thing which stood out to me was the little etymological notations for the chapter titles. Those were kinda neat, mind you.

 

Title: Honor Among Thieves
Author: BracketyJack
Rating: T
Genre: Drama/Sci-fi
Status: Complete]
Fandom: Honor Harrington
Pairings: N/A
Summary: An Honorverse AU. I know the story-arc of the Honorverse is one of its great glories, but haven't you ever, reading the latest best-selling doorstop, wanted radically to short-circuit the whole thing, and see those morally defective, small-souled Manticoran aristocrats taken down hard? And all Detweilers whatever fed to a passel of treecats, with BBQ sauce? I know I have ...
Link: ff.net


I have no idea how I found this originally - I did a clear out of my bookmarks recently, and re-discovered it there.

Now, I'm only semi-familiar with the HHverse. I think I was introduced to it through SB (it's their cup of tea), and I've read the first three books or so, as well as wikiwalked around on it. Whilst not my favourite series (I dropped canon, but I'll get onto that in a minute), it's decent enough if you like your sci-fi to be more military-fiction than techno-wizardry.

This fic shares a lot of problems that canon does. The first is that utter banality of names - the main cast all have relatively normal names, except for the heroine herself. Melanie, Elizabeth, Mike, Roger, William, and so on - the kids I went to school with had these names. None of them stick with you, making the characters quite unmemorable. Whilst it's been a while since I read canon, this fic doesn't go in for much description of characters, making everyone faceless, nameless, and completely forgettable.

Most other "countries" have the same problem - Grayson and Haven are both big players, and you can't tell where someone's supposed to be from just by their name. Aldermani and San Martinos much less common names, but don't tend to be very major in the plot.


The other big problem is all the military jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms which is why I dropped canon - I don't have any clue about the relative displacements, speeds, sizes, or total biggaton output of freighters, carriers, battlecruisers (light, heavy, or fast), cruisers, sloops, and so on. The distinction between these different classes of ships is something every character seems to be aware of, so is never explained. So when someone says "our BCs can beat your SDs five to one", the only way I know how impressive (or not) that really is, is by the reaction of everyone else.

The acronyms are common, because militaries are fond of TLAs. But ONI and GONI are completely different, GNS are part of the GSN, but the INS has nothing to do with any of the above... It all gets muddy, and I just started pretending I had any idea what was going on. I certainly could have looked up each one, but that gets tedious really quickly.

As an aside, how would you write someone speaking an acronym? The Royal Navy has a ship - The HMS Queen Elizabeth. Now, writing how I would say it (the Haych Em Ess Queen Elizabeth) looks really stupid, but some you say like you write. Not massively relevant, although seeing things written in speech that you can't say because they're text-based simplifications(mr. instead of mister, 5 instead of five, brackets in speech in general) winds me up.


But going back to the story itself...

It's actually not bad. It isn't as action heavy as I remember the canon stories being, but the author does state that they wanted to write more about the political opponents than fighting ones, so fair enough there.

What I REALLY liked (and think will go over well here, too) is that most of the political opponents aren't caught because of obscure rules, but because Honor managed to outmanoeuvre them. Most of this comes from them underestimating her, due to non-noble roots, but also because she holds multiple titles that are, effectively, different persons. So whilst the information available to Captain Harrington is limited, the security clearance allowed to Steadholder Harrington as a Head of State means that it technically isn't.


Chapters are huge, and each scene goes on for quite a while. Everything seems to drag on, and on, and I kept getting distracted from reading this. I did read the whole thing, but it felt labourious, and I don't know why I stayed with it.

3/5. It wasn't something good, but it was interesting enough.

 

Title: Red Rabbit
Author: Anubis Dread
Rating: M
Genre: Action/adventure
Status: WiP
Fandom: Danmachi/Warhammer
Pairings: N/A
Summary: Some new gods enter Orario and start a friendly competition! It goes horribly for everyone involved.
Link: Spacebattles here.

Useful Danmachi primer here. You can pick the rest up with a quick wiki or two.

Story is pretty interesting - the four Chaos Gods manage to sneak an application through Anubis and end up on Orario. They've got a month to find a champion, and then they and their familia will compete over the course of a few years, to determine which of the Four can stay, and which have to leave the city.

Khorne, obviously a woman because anime, grants the Falna to a ten year old bunny girl, because said bunny girl (Fuzzy Flops) got into an alleyway brawl with a local thug. This was pleasing to Khorne.

Ten chapters over the past three weeks makes this look promising, and it doesn't (so far) really interact with many canon characters. This is good, because avoiding the stations of canon... But at the same time, I don't know whether this is going to fizzle or not. The author's started four stories since January, so it could go either way. I also have no idea if there's a long term plot or not.

Writing seems decent enough, although I wasn't really focusing on picking up errors. It's a bit cracky, but pretty amusing. I'd probably give it a 3.5 currently, with potential to go higher if the author has plans for the future, and not just a few ideas they want to touch on.

EDIT
Because previous bit was lacking

The main amusement in this is mostly the incongruity of a young bunny girl being the champion of Khorne, coated in blood and screaming about skulls. The reactions of the rest of the gods to one of the Four is nice, and it does seem like the author has more of a handle on Warhammer than you often see in crossovers.

Also, unlike a lot of stories that focus on younger characters, the author doesn't tend to forget the main character is tiny. It's normally played for laughs, but most characters the protagonist interacts with make mention of how she's a little short for an adventurer. It's nicely refreshing.

 

Second the rabbit. It's fun and cheeky and not too serious.

 

Title: Triumvirate
Author: Ranaerys
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Status: I think it is complete, and the first of a series
Fandom: Pokemon
Pairings: Unsure so far
Summary: It is a manga/anime rehash of Ash and Gary's trip around the Gyms and their battle with Team Rocket.

So far I am only 4 chapters in, but it is better written than most of the fandom. It's interesting and fast paced. The characters are also very well fleshed out (I'm on a chapter about Ivy's (Green's) entire backstory right now). I'll update this post when I get further along.

4/5 so far.

 

Oath of Flowers by solopy567
Oh My Goddess! & Fate/stay night Xover
Rated: M, English,
Drama & Tragedy,
Words: 87k+,
Published: Mar 23
Updated: Apr 28
Pairings: Keiichi/Belldandy

Authors description: Because there are times when just one thing, can outweigh everything else.


I was looking for a FSN crossover fanfic and found this. l am enjoying this so far. I am a fan of both OMG aka AMG and FSN. It's set post AMG manga end. From FSN it has counter guardian Emiya.

4/5 so far.

 

It's been deleted for 'Inappropriate Content'.

 

At least one of which was the Rabbit girl teaching Aiz, or possibly the reverse, how to Twerk lap dance.