This one is pretty fucking far from serious, but I giggled. Modern Westeros, and instead of the Greyjoy Rebellion, we have #pykexit.

 

That was hilarious.

 

The author of Gaemons Dragon Steel that was recently mentioned on here went and had a bit of a fit because of it. Apparently our scathing reviews of the self insert being a mary sue was too much, so he went and posted a bunch of spoilers.

 

The actual bit about this site reviewing:

Strangeorders -
"Naw, I found some real scathing reviews on a Harry Potter site of all things that seemed to want the story to end. I was baffled as to how my story even got on there in the first place to be honest. It was a good lesson in that I cannot please everyone though since you lot seem convinced that Gaemon rarely catches a break and they found him to be wankish.

Overall a good learning experience! "

That's the only mention of us. The spoilers were more in response to, from what I can tell, some jackasses who wouldn't let things alone. Not really anything to do with us. So lets not over-inflate our self-worth here.

 

Perhaps you're right, I tend to skip a bunch of posts in that thread since its so long. The timing is suspect though, and the only complaints I really saw were a reaffirmation that the protagonist was a mary sue.

 

For those who missed them and/or don't want to search the AH thread, the spoilers are here.

 

edit: nvm I'm a moron.

 

It would be strange if the complaints came for the reviews over here. Since they were unreasonably positive for what that fic is.

 

Wonder if anyone's read The Mountain's Range? www.fanfiction.net/s/12141101/1/The-Mountain-s-Range

It's... not really a good fic, but it's extremely readable. The author's clearly got a plan, and it's up to 51 chapters so far with the last update like a week ago. It's an SI, with the insert reincarnated as the Mountain, retaining knowledge of his old life. Including knowledge of ASoIaF/GoT.

Not gonna lie. The main character is pretty Sue-ish. His initial goal is to basically not be the canon Gregor, but he quickly becomes the most important person in Westeros by being nice and honorable and all the things that didn't work for Ned Stark. He convinced Robert to be a good ruler in a single conversation, single-handedly prevents a number of atrocities, subverts Varys, defies Tywin and gets away with it, gets his own custom position on the Small Council, creates his own private army, organizes assassinations, and becomes so respected that virtually every noble in the Seven Kingdoms is willing to take his word no matter what outlandishness he comes up with. There's a distinct lack of conflict in the story so far, and what conflict exists is not really proportional to the gains made by the SI.

But it's a good guilty pleasure read, and the story seems like it's quickly coming to the Long Night, which the entire story has been building up. So if you wanna read a SoIaF story where everything goes right for a change, you could do worse than this one. Just be aware of what it is when you go in.

 

Anyone have recommendations for decent to good Jon goes South stories? I've read the Squire on Dragonstone series and found it pretty good.

 

I would kill for a decent fic starring Ned. Head optional, but I just really like character explorations of him, both those that keep straight to the canon version and those that make him a bit more savvy or wary.

Give me your Ned fics.

 

I know it's next to useless to recommend a dead fic but a Ned-focused fic that I really liked was Pride by To Mockingbird. The premise is essentially that Ned is fostered at Casterly Rock and it was really shaping up to be interesting with Ned's general sense of honour clashing with Tywin's.... Tywin. Most other Ned-focused stuff I've read is the sort of 'nobody dies' fix-fic.

 

King of Ice, Queen of Fire is a new story that I've enjoyed so far. It's too short to be reviewed, but the premise is that Joanna doesn't have Tyrion and Cersei marries Rhaegar where she then dies in childbirth. It picks up at Harrenhal, where things fall apart in an entertaining fashion. There are parts I don't like, but it's still new enough that I think you can test it out yourselves.

 

If you haven't read it than: Lord's of Winter

It's a bit of a wish fullfilment, but that is the only thing you can really expect from a Jon goes south fic. It also sort of falls of the cliff in the last 10 chapters as the author abandoned the plot he was setting up from and started writing a completely new fic, than did it again a couple of chapters later. But the first 30 or so chapters are ok.

 

This one was a nice one-shot, though YMMV on Ned's character: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10390581/1/Ice-and-Honor

 

Fairly typical DisobedienceWriter fic.

 

Here is another promising fic: Summer Crowns

It's a crack at the old premise of Robert saying fuck it and running to the free cities. Only here he has a purpose. Rheagar is still alive and in Pentos. Brandon is alive as well so Ned is joining them. The Blackfish is going with, to escape marriage. And Jaime is going with as a "punishment" for killing Aerys. Stannis is king and Carsei the queen.

It's such a great concept for a ASOIAF fic that it would be grand if people could go and give the author some constructive criticism to prevent AH from ruining it with endless "discussion" on formations and what sort of a helmet their army should use.

Edit: Also any recomendations for quests that are worth reading? I have sort of avoided the whole quest "ganre", Only Reading Dragon of the North. But Ending of GoT got me in the spirit of reading more ASOIF and the pickings are sort of slim among the "proper" fanfics.

 

Not really my thing. Read it until finish but can't say I enjoyed myself at any point. It was rather boring, tbh. at the start of the story Ned basically gets handed a magical device that lets him know everything and then he can make decisions for the greater good and somehow it all works out perfectly.

Then there is the fact that's super obvious which characters the author has an ax to grind with, like Robb. Not even a huge Robb fan or anything but wow, even with a magical device that answers every question, with Ned having all the control in the world, Robb can't be saved because he is just that stupid? Really? That's a lot to swallow.

No tension in it either as Ned handwaves away every potential problem, is always in control and basically had won in the first few thousand words of the story and the rest was just us catching up on the particulars.

So yeah, writing was meh and the premise is just uninteresting. Just a weird sort of wish-fulfillment but if you wanna see Ned roflstomp the whole of Westeros and win everything with lots of people getting offscreen comeuppances then maybe there is something here.

 

The writing in Summer Crowns isn't the best, but I'm digging the concept so it's easy for me to ignore.

Ice and Honor is fairly eh. Other stories by Disobedience Writer are similar in quality--not bad but not great. I think the best of the bunch is Queen Cersei the Patient, which is just two chapters. It's about Cersei doing her best to play the game in a way to prevent Maggy the Frog's prophecy from happening.

 

True enough. Though with all the hell that Ned goes through in canon it was surprisingly refreshing to read through something where he beats them all. I agree that it would get boring in a longer story.

In general, there are few -- if any -- good Ned stories out there.