Likewise, it would have to be the Stranger trilogy for me.

I don't understand this sudden turn against JBern's work. His original fiction isn't to my taste, but it's hard to argue he doesn't write exciting fanfiction.

 

Yeah, I had those moments myself. But I enjoyed the story enough to overlook them. I stumbled across Stranger at the height of Indy!Harry fiction and it seemed like a jewel compared to everything else. It's still better than most of the Harry Potter fics out there which are only rehashing the same old tired story-lines over and over again.

I think Stranger's gotten exactly the rating it deserves.

 

The only reason I could justify the Stranger series being overrated is the fact that it was never finished and likely never will be. Otherwise, the writing is extremely well executed and the content quite interesting and original, especially for when it was written, and I would say it is up there among the best works in the fanon.

 

Don't worry about the Shoebox thing. It's a pretty obscure story that no one knows about, that got itself a following on tvtropes. Supposedly every single character in it, to the last, was gay, and even if slash fans can't write they can swell hype to disproportionate levels.

Master Eldryn staging a comeback... wow. Don't even know what to think of that. I read two of the stories that were preserved, but I don't think they were his good ones. The plots of the others like the Highway of Hell as summarized by nonjon seemed very inventive. I'd read his stuff if they ever surfaced.

Elemental Prophecies was a very bland story. Read up until the part with something about power levels, then stopped.

 

It's not exactly a sudden turn. There's been a lot of rage against JBern's stories by some people around here. There's some thread (or threads) filled with pages of arguing somewhere.

Didn't one argument end up with The Lie I've Lived being written? Can't remember, but the thought won't leave me.

Edit: And oh man, Master Eldryan. So overrated, but I'm still a fanboy of his work. His stuff was some of the first I ever read.

 

Just wanted to emphasize Methods of Rationality mainly because...it got fucking posted to /r/scifi at REDDIT?! It did relatively well, too...doesn't deserve a single upvote, imo.

As far as underrated fics go...maybe Anarkia by Naia? I haven't seen anyone really talk about it much, but maybe that's just because it hasn't been updated in years. Regardless, it's one of my all-time favorites. Too bad it barely got started.

 

Speaking of Naia, I'm currently rereading the Dragonmasters and Oh My God. It's overrated. Immensely.

Overall, the world she created is very interesting. To a degree, it was nice to see a story in which Elves aren't perfect, flawless, moral, better-than-humans-in-every-way Sex Gods. In addition, given how older her story is, she probably invented most of the now-cliches herself. Add in swords, magic, demons, zombies, and giant fire-breath lizards, and you have a nice 'Oh Shiny' story.

Having said that. Like a second chance at life, it's draging on and on. I'm currently on chapter 21, and I haven't even gotten to the bad guys yet. So far, Harry sat around for a bit, was emo for a bit, and then started pwning people who were more experiance then him a few hundred years ago efoortlessly while being an asshole.

And he is, indeed, an asshole. For someone who's so upset about elves hating humans for no reason, he hates all elves, magus, and elementals for no reason. Also, he's treating a number of people like shit for 'wronging' him, when, really, most just ignored him. But despite being treated like crap, their the ones in the wrong, for some reason. Also, he's upset that people treated him like he was incompetent in class, despite making a point to act incompetent (for no explained reason). Naturally, when the teachers treat him the way he acts, they are punished for it - by being stripped of all their powers, and being tossed into a lethal war zone for a year. It seems some how unequal. Maybe if he'd grown some balls and acted like he wasn't an idiot, they wouldn't treat him like an idiot.

As for the emo part, in the beginning of the story, the people picking on him were, frankly, dicks, but not much more then normal school kids. Some insults here about how he sucked in class, which he did in the beginning (and acted like he did later on). Some 'Yo' Mama' jokes, too. He reacts by killing himself.

Then the stuff that gave it the 'Oh Shiny' fades off.

The swords; they quickly became stupid. You don't bring knives to gun fights; you don't bring swords to magic fights. Nonetheless, he did, and for some reason isn't killed. Also, he becomes a master sword fighter in record time, effortlessly beating a guy who spent hundreds of years using a sword.

Magic; a lot of new types, but I've yet to see anything you couldn't do with normal magic.

The Zombies; haven't even shown up.

The Demons; cool, but confusing. Why are necromancer's summoning demons?

The Dragons; have yet to do anything but act self-righteous, and make me wonder why the elves, that out-number the., don't just kill them. Why is everyone taking their shit?

I'm not going to go into the shit about multiple, magical animagus forms.

Probably more to come; I'm not done with the story.

Andromalius: I think you're talking about Elemental Genesis, which, granted, started slow. And the power-level thing was weird, cause no one ever talked about it again, but yeah. It got a lot better after that (in my opinion).

 

I know Dagger and Rose has already been mentioned but I just wanted to quick share my thoughts as I would rather wear a dress to class than let anyone I know in real life that I read Harry Potter fanfiction.

The first time I read it, I thought it was really good. The characters were well done, the plot was intriguing, the writing style and technical ability were both good (except present tense, but I think that has been brought up more than enough as well). I even thought that while the rape scene seemed a bit over the top, overall it fit with the tone and flow of the story. My impression upon finishing it was that it was one of the better stories that has debuted recently; it was also one of the stories that got me interested into the dynamics of a Harry/Fleur pairing.

I read it again a few months later and I was...underwhelmed. It was still a good read but I wasn't as interested in it as I was before. Regardless, my major bone to pick with Dagger and Rose is the ending, which in my opinion goes to hell, especially Dumbledore. He goes from being a manipulative, yes, but a well intentioned manipulator, into attempting to manipulate Harry for his own ends, going as far as to relish the opportunity that Sirius' death provides. That just struck me as out of the blue. Perhaps I missed something, which is entirely possible, but I just didn't see anything prior to that last chapter or so that would lead me to believe Dumbledore turning into this malevolent puppet master in Harry's life.

All that aside, as I mostly just wanted to get my feelings about the ending out somewhere, it was still a good story and I'm excited to see what you have planned for the sequel.

I agree with another user that said that Wastelands of Time was overrated on this site but underrated elsewhere. I'm personally a huge fan of the story and it seems like, as the same user said, the review count on FFN is much too low for how great the story is.

 

Completely off topic, but goddamn I hate your username, Glycol. Fucking Ethylene Glycol and protecting groups. Scourge of my Organic Chem classes.

 

Ha, yeah, I know exactly what you mean; I thought that it sounded cool as a username though and I've stuck with it ever since.

 

I do not complety disagree with you, but you are exagerating you criticism.

It's true that Dragonmaster has not the same quality that Anarkia and many this do not make sense and is the source of many cliché. However, while you may not agree with some point, it doesn't mean that they are bad.

For emo Harry, it is true that the taunting is quite minor, but they have a cumulative effect wich make them worse. And while most people have a "safe haven" where they can rest and recuperate, Harry does not have that, he is alone and it's hard mind equilibrium.

While he is an asshole, some of your comment aren't true. It is explained during the story, that he hides his ability so the Master will not know his level of skill and try more agressive method to fail him. Make sure they underestimate him so when he will show they he will have a greater impact.

For the punishment, the rider are supposed to be open to all, acceptting to all, understanding to all (sorry if it's not grammaticaly correct - i had some difficulty to express mu thoughts here) - like the "Federation in Star Trek", and they failed to up hold their reputation. They were prejudiced and endangered his psychological well being, isolated him from the others, to stop that from happening again, they had to be punished.

When someone isn't as good as the others, you don't laugh, taunt or insult him, you try to help him so he will improve. They never tried, they dismissed him before hand.

For his skill, it is cleary stated somewhere that he cheated and had a "short court" to learn them, he say that when the war is over, he will take the time to learn them the normal way.

About how the dragon act, I may agree, but they act in a way like the Compagnon in Valdemar (Mercedes LAckey), as the keeper of an ideal that the Dragonmaster represent.

As to why the elf dont wipe them out... You don't attack a Power. All their might may be enough to wipe the elf/elemental/magi. And theirs knowledge is greater than the elf's. I mean, Harry's Sawaroc was able to dispell one of the greatest illusion of the elve relatively easily using Harry's powers. It would not be hard for him to do so alone.

Finally, their power is over magic, element and nature. The dragon are the master of magic, element and probably nature, when your own weapon can be turned against you by someone, you better try to be friendly with him.

Necromancy, demonology same difference... not. You are right here. If you ask me, Harry's not angry enough against the Elf.

Anyway, it was among her first story, she still gave a good contribution to the Fan community with her story and got better as the time passed. However, I admit that she's one of my favorite authors, so I may be biased.

 

Fuck you. They're three of my favorite fics.

...

Fuck. You. That is my absolute favorite fic.

 

Fuck you, Stranger series is Boring with a capital BULLSHIT. And its never going to be finished..

 

I might have missed it, but S'tarkan's fic. Nothing it could do could warrant the amount of reviews it has.


Edit: 9528 reviews

 

^ What this guy said as well.

That fic was good, when I first got into fanfiction. I think I started hating it before I even made it to DLP.

 

What always amazed me was the number of filler chapters he could churn out that got insanely high reviews. For the last eight chapters, the story hasn't gone anywhere. :/

 

You've actually bothered to read them?

S'Tarkan grew old a long time ago. Tbh, I never thought they were that good to begin with.

 

I think S'tarkan's story - Nightmares of Futures Past - is brilliant. Maybe the last few chapters haven't had the >KAPOW< *ZAP* >POWEE< fights that some here might like (in every second paragraph), but they've still continued in building up his world and extrapolating beautifully from the original premise of Harry having his knowledge of the future and training his inner circle (and then the DA).

The H/G is starting to be a little whiffy ... now that Ginny's in the know suddenly Harry seems to need the redhead more and more just to keep going ... but it hasn't broached manly testosterone levels yet.

It's a real shame that it seems that the novel will never get finished; it's one of those quality works that demands it, really. Too big a waste otherwise.

 

which wasn't that good to begin with. Overrated.

 

Boredom is a great motivator when you're laid up from surgery and medication makes the fanfiction experience even more fun.

It was much more entertaining than counting ceiling tiles.

Going through the whole fic at once let me see the steady decline in the story's plot and momentum. I still enjoy his Team 8 fic, but I'm not interested in NoFP anymore. Reading it became tedious towards the end.