I'd be interested in seeing this 'praise' that you're talking about. A shitload of people on SB just have him on ignore.

 

Probably gonna get raped for this but I'm gonna have to say Shezza's Denarian series.

Don't get me wrong they're good fics, excellent even, but how much people like it seems out of proportion to how good it is. It's pretty much one of the first fics people go to when reccing something around here.

 

This, sad to say. Excellent, but personally I prefer Resistance of Azkaban.

I'd also say the R-Series. I know they're not as famous as some of the other suggestions in this thread, or even that popular on this site, judging by the thread for it, but I hated that series by the end. So much.

 

Extremely sadly, this. Follow it with my biggest problem with Shezza's work, and that is the lack of character development we see in Harry. Admittedly, he is pretty awesome, but there's no depth there, and that really disappoints me. Furthermore, I tend to find the flow and tone in his fics schizophrenic, unable to maintain a proper balance between chapters. Now admittedly, I'm incredibly guilty of this as well, but it's something that puts me off the Denarian series.

And I'm never going to forgive him for

Spoiler

killing off Nicodemus in Denarian Renegade. It was way too early and undervalued that character's power and intelligence immensively. But that's more of a pet peeve than anything.

He writes for his audience, that's all I'm saying on that. Although I'm a little surprised you tend to find him overrated - he's not that incredibly hyped, compared to some authors.

See my tl, dr review on that story here.

 

@Silens: yeah, that review pretty much sums up my problems with the R-Series. For reference, I found your Harry to be a dick, particularly at the start of Renegade Cause. He's not a monster though (yet).

 

...why are y'all apologizing for saying a fic series is overrated ? Overrated =/= bad. No one's gonna rape you for having an opinion lol.

That being said, I don't think ASCaL is overrated, as it seems like there's, at best, a perfect divide between people who like Flairgold's fucked 'verse and people who don't. Though at this point, it seems as if more people dislike it. Same goes for JBern's fics.

Almost everything by Ruskbyte is overrated, for sure. Same for Nonjon - the only fic of his that had me actually laughing out loud at any point was his Smallville fic, but he's not the end all/be all of comedy.

(And I'm rating these based only only DLP's response to fics - because frankly, all moderately planned out fanfiction will seem "overrated," if one were to go by the hundreds of ZOMGWRITEMOAR!!! I LURVE THIS FIC LIEK SOO MUCH!" reviews that exponentially outnumber the less favorable ones.)

 

Wastelands of Time. I read only 9 chapters, couldn't really get into it.

 

I had this same problem, then I was bored and forced myself to get past the first chapter and I'm ashamed for ever thinking that it sucked, give it some time, go back take a second read and trust me you will come around, you won't have any choice.

As for Shezzas work, I think it was a matter of a lack of competition and the static standards of DF (and HP/DF crossovers) fanfiction.

 

Yeah, I made that mistake as well. Then I went back to it like Scribblerus did, and I realized how awesome the fic truly was. Seriously, those first few chapters of Wastelands do not do the rest of the story justice in the slightest.

Aaaand since we are talking about Joe. The Hero Trilogy. It started off awesome, and it was still great by normal fanfiction standards at the end, but towards the end of the series things got a little...bad. It's the best I can come up with. Well, not really, but I don't think you want this to turn into a giant rant about the Hero Trilogy.

 

Anything by rorschachsblot. He's got probably the largest following (his yahoo group) and his writing is progressively getting worse.

His Luna would have ruined the character for Fanfic if he was still as followed now as he was at his peak.

He's not funny anymore and his over-the-top clueless superpowered Harry, while original when he started them, has now been done better by a dozen different authors, including the Terminal Justice spin off of his own Mr. Black series

 

Darth Marrs is also ducking overhyped, he is on so many star wars and HP recommendation threads, he even got himself on TV Tropes and he evens touts his stories as winning this award and that on his own FFNET profile. But when it comes down to it, his writing is getting steadily worse, if I wasn't on my itouch I would provide a link to his travesty of a HP/SW fic.

Now don't get me wrong, technically his work is perfect -writing wise you can have no complaints, but he can't seem to help giving in to his inner fanboy and wank characters all over the place his Superman/Star Wars fic I can sympathize with, but turning those pre adolescent teens from Roswell into bad-ass Jedi? Turning Luna Lovegood, into a bad-ass Falanaasi who can pull starships out of space through the fucking planet wide equivalent of a Fidelius Charm, fuck no , also his romance is just painful to read.

 

New there was a reason I liked you, Angel of Dreams. >_>

But yeah. I started off reading Bernie's Darkness. Its most certainly entertaining for a while, but its not the end all be all everyone makes it out to be. Bungle is just absolute garbage.

Inb4faggotry; Originality does not equate quality. I don't care how many people don't use cursebreakers or talking trolls. Remember Shezza's original Future Remapped? The shitbunnies? That is the first time you ever saw those. It was fucking retarded then, and it still is.

And the Harry is James one... I won't even bother reading that. I don't read any "Harry gets Dumbledore/Voldemort/Grindlewald/Merlin/God's memories" stories, so why am I going to make an exception for a very minor alteration in the theme.

Beyond that, whats his name... Blot. I liked his Hellraisers crossover and that utterly retarded drugged up Harry fic, Flying Without A Broom. That was stupid but fun. But I don't get the appeal in anything else he's written...

 

I think you mean Ruskbyte. This is Rorschach's Blot.

 

I'm going to assume this is not limited to the HP fanverse? If not, I'm going to have to go with Evangelion/Cthulu crossover Children of an Elder God.

It has incredible ideas and characterizations, but the writing is sub par by most standards. It takes him chapters to learn how to use a comma. He rapes one of the characters from canon, Asuka, by making her nice. A lot of the battles are epic ideas, a giant wendigo that tosses nukes, but their execution at times leaves much to be desired. He also uses humor too much and at the detriment to the characters.

The dreamscapes were a waste of time.

There were some really great moments, Rei raping Asuka(don't let that put you off. In context of the fic is was handled amazingly well.)

The changes the Children were going through were great as well. Shinji: "I cried spiders." Sums it up nicely.

So, with the rough spots weighing in as much as the good parts, I think it's a good read, but gets way too much hype. People seem to speak of it with nothing but reverence.

 

Draco664's Potter series (Apprentice, Journeyman, Master). I'd only use the term "moderately overrated" instead of extremely so - I enjoyed parts of those fics, and don't regret reading them. But I read them for the first time in 2009, and I have to say that they haven't aged well overall.

Apprentice in particular is a great example of the problem with some post-OotP, pre-HBP fanfiction: Harry's anger-management issues. People assumed that since Harry was already angsty and whiny in OotP, he'd only become worse after the death of his godfather. The problem with that is that it makes for agonizing reading. Apprentice Harry's temper tantrums were not unlike what you'd expect from a overgrown three-year-old. And his rants - oh God, the rants....

 

Edit: Whoops! I got my Joes mixed up. Sorry about that.

/hurr

 

Sadly, I agree.

The first chapters were awesome. I'm not sure where, but there was a sudden drop from 'badass' to 'dog shit' somewhere along the way.

 

I'd have to agree with pretty much everything said here, except for Jbern. The Lie I've Lived was one of the first outstanding HP fics I followed that actually went to completion, and it was a fun ride all along the way.

Gotta say, the one thing that seems to ruin potentially good fics is that, while they may have awesome parts, they get lost in the whole. Shezza's works are pretty much the quintessential 'too many ideas' stories. The fights, some of the dialogues and some interactions were good, but got jumbled up in the whole story.

For my $0.02: most things by LD 1449 and also most things by NeonZangetsu. Naruto of the Shikon was great but then fell apart at the end, trying to resurrect details from earlier in the story, then there's Lost Soul which apparently will never end. I got halfway through what's out right now and felt my brain overheating. Neon's stuff...he appears on a lot of people's lists, sure, but that's only because with how much he's written, there something for everyone. The problem then is that nothing is complete and the writing becomes inconsistent/schizophrenic. If Neon could just write one story incorporating his better ideas, then actually focus on it, it could be pretty awesome.

EDIT: Holy Hell, thank you Tehlaziboi. I nearly forgot about Lord. Overrated to the extreme!

 

There's "lord of the land of fire" and his numerous shit fiction which gets a lot of hype. Personally, I never see any of his stories as anything being exceptional when trying to flesh out the characters and the cliches that he writes up at times are done in a very dry manner that leaves much to be desired.

Truthfully, the only reason he even has that large of a following is because he wrote one fanfiction that many readers wanted, and it had decent grammar. Since then, any idea he craps out is heaped with praises, leading more people to be interested.

 

I dunno...to me, Brown Eyes Green Coat wasn't a fantastic read. I liked it, but I didn't see any of the amazing things that I've heard about it. Prince of a Dark Kingdom also seems to get rave reviews, but I thought the character interaction was sub-par.