Fanfiction trends that are fun.

[Traab]

Something I just came up with and wanted to see how others thought, am I the only one who finds fanfiction written before a series ends way more interesting than fanfiction written post finale? Take naruto for example, when the series was still ongoing we had all sorts of theories as to how things would play out. Everything from guessing about his family (the 4th hokage was named Arashi in fanfiction for a surprisingly long time) to trying to figure out the twists before they could happen, and of course relationships, as pairing is the lifeblood of the fanfic community, I swear. When so much of the story is still a mystery, so much world building still remains to be revealed, it gives writers much more leeway to work with to come up with something interesting rather than just doing a crossover mashup. What the bijuu actually ARE being unknown gave rise to all sorts of interesting theories from actual demons from hell, to malignant chakra poisoned by the hatred of man and achieving sentience, to immortal beings sent by kami with strange abilities whose mission was messed up by people sucking. Lets also not forget the shapeshifting. I cant count how many times naruto bumps into kyubbis cage only to find a human, male or female form to talk to.

Because so little was established, writers could come up with anything and inspire all sorts of consideration on the potential for it to be the right guess. Turns out we were all wrong, and they are sentient energy from a giant dandelion that got angry one day. I think we can be forgiven for not guessing that. /cough The true purpose of akatsuki, even its membership was up in the air for awhile with tons of stories. Plenty guessed the itachi is a spy angle but then just as many played it straight. We had everything from an immortal and vengeful sage of six paths trying to reclaim it all, to demon sorcerers wanting to rule the underworld with the power of the bijuu added to their own, to human pawns OF demons who were using them to eliminate future threats to their power should the nine ever get free. Lots of fun, lots of imagination.

Now that the story is complete, it feels different. Like its not about trying to guess where the story can go, but about making up a new one instead. Its still plenty of fun, I still read tons of naruto anime, but the mystery is gone and somehow that changes things.

[Lord Raziere]

eh. those fics honestly weren't all that interesting to me? because for some reason I feel like they got things wrong when they do and take it weird directions that don't really make any sense. call it bias to comparing it to canon, but I like it better when a fic does in fact have all the information from canon and uses it in a creative way. and those fics rarely if ever are complete or truly consistent with the world's logic.

the fan fics Id prefer to see is more OCs without involving the main characters or canon events in any way. like I feel fan fiction limits itself too much by sticking to known characters when it could instead focus on different people in these worlds without involving the same things, y'know actually taking the elements and using them to tell your own stories rather than rehashing the same one. like same world, entirely different characters would be awesome, and I would to see more fan fics where your set in familiar world but a different person in that world that explores different parts of it and has different goals, Naruto being a prime example of this not happening, because I've seen Naruto fics explore his journey like a thousand times over and even when they do things like not Wave arc or whatever, you can still see the railroad tracks. so when I see a fan fic that is entirely made up of OC's without anything to do with a canon timeline thats great. they are rare admittedly, but I would love to see more.

the trends I like seeing are what the author finds stupid about canon, what they do to try and fix it, what the point out about the world, and what they do to make sure its still a compelling story while trying to make it smarter and explore things that canon ignores, and the best fics are ones I find that find a balance between fixing canon to be smarter without compromising the message and what those characters are about, because Naruto getting smarter and better at what does is one thing, but naruto going OOC and becoming this edgy utilitarian anbu guy is entirely another that just leads to horrible things. there is a balance to strike between fixing and preserving.

though another trend I like is just people going full comedy crack crazy and not taking anything seriously, those fics are always fun because they are often just enjoyable nonsense that make you see these characters and world in different lights. they're almost like abridged series in a way, but able to be more creative with their jokes without the visual medium holding them back, you can just write things in without needing the footage.

but I also like it when characters who normally don't get to shine get to be the focus of a fic and thats like one of the real strengths of fan fiction, because you've already gone through main characters journey you know them, but what about these side characters what if you could make them better, more central, write a story about them? Yet another fan fic about the main character is meh, but if its about a beloved side character, that has the makings of something great because its a different viewpoint with potential to go places that the main character never will, similar to OCs. there is a limit to a main character's strengths in a franchise and its great whenever I see a different person getting time to shine instead.

[Traab]

I highly suggest "Itachi, Is That A Baby?" for full on crack. Its harry potter raised by akatsuki and it is crack upon crack cut with crack. Im not quite sure what the body count at hogwarts is by the end of his 4th year, but I seem to recall dumbledoore talking about digging a second mass grave. And it bounces back and forth between naruto and harry potter worlds so you get to see how absurd the naruto verse gets during all this as well.

[Eldan]

Personally, my favourite fanfiction is totally off-the-wall crossover fic. Like the weirder and less fitting the two settings crossing over, the better. Though I guess some semblance of keeping the two universes canon-ish should still happen. Bonus points if it involves characters who travel between worlds anyway.

[Forum Explorer]

Something I just came up with and wanted to see how others thought, am I the only one who finds fanfiction written before a series ends way more interesting than fanfiction written post finale? Take naruto for example, when the series was still ongoing we had all sorts of theories as to how things would play out. Everything from guessing about his family (the 4th hokage was named Arashi in fanfiction for a surprisingly long time) to trying to figure out the twists before they could happen, and of course relationships, as pairing is the lifeblood of the fanfic community, I swear. When so much of the story is still a mystery, so much world building still remains to be revealed, it gives writers much more leeway to work with to come up with something interesting rather than just doing a crossover mashup. What the bijuu actually ARE being unknown gave rise to all sorts of interesting theories from actual demons from hell, to malignant chakra poisoned by the hatred of man and achieving sentience, to immortal beings sent by kami with strange abilities whose mission was messed up by people sucking. Lets also not forget the shapeshifting. I cant count how many times naruto bumps into kyubbis cage only to find a human, male or female form to talk to.

Because so little was established, writers could come up with anything and inspire all sorts of consideration on the potential for it to be the right guess. Turns out we were all wrong, and they are sentient energy from a giant dandelion that got angry one day. I think we can be forgiven for not guessing that. /cough The true purpose of akatsuki, even its membership was up in the air for awhile with tons of stories. Plenty guessed the itachi is a spy angle but then just as many played it straight. We had everything from an immortal and vengeful sage of six paths trying to reclaim it all, to demon sorcerers wanting to rule the underworld with the power of the bijuu added to their own, to human pawns OF demons who were using them to eliminate future threats to their power should the nine ever get free. Lots of fun, lots of imagination.

Now that the story is complete, it feels different. Like its not about trying to guess where the story can go, but about making up a new one instead. Its still plenty of fun, I still read tons of naruto anime, but the mystery is gone and somehow that changes things.

I can see it. MLP would be the best example for me. Back in the early seasons everyone was writing fanfiction about who the Princesses really were, would Twilight become an alicorn, and the nature of the world around them. Not to mention the backstory of many of the different characters. Now, I don't know if it was just a matter of a thousand unprofessional writers beating the professionals by dint of sheer numbers, or a drop in quality, but I found that I preferred many of the fan theories over what the actual canon eventually came out with.

[gomipile]

I think it can work both ways. All of the Harry Potter fics I actually like are written post-Deathly Hallows, for instance.

And similar to what was said above: a lot of times the speculative fics written mid-series get things wrong in ways that contradict what was already released. Say there's an important detail that was mentioned once or rarely in the early part of a series that sets up a late development that hasn't been published yet. Often these speculative fics will contradict such details because they sometimes aren't notable or memorable until the late-in-series reveal puts them in context.

[Traab]

I think it can work both ways. All of the Harry Potter fics I actually like are written post-Deathly Hallows, for instance.

And similar to what was said above: a lot of times the speculative fics written mid-series get things wrong in ways that contradict what was already released. Say there's an important detail that was mentioned once or rarely in the early part of a series that sets up a late development that hasn't been published yet. Often these speculative fics will contradict such details because they sometimes aren't notable or memorable until the late-in-series reveal puts them in context.

I mean, I tend to exclude bad stories from the "its better this way" set because a bad story is going to suck no matter when it was written. I still have nightmares about a fanfiction of surprising length where they had naruto eating ramon and fighting with saske right off the bat. I can only read the word ramon so many times on one page before my eye twitching makes it impossible to keep going.

One thing I like in fanfiction is the methodical approach. Take naruto again as an example. I read a great story about little naruto being adopted by the aburame clan. That made me want to read a story about him being a part of every clan. Naruto Inuzuka, Naruto Sarutobi, Naruto Uchiha, etc. And lets not forget having him be trained by every established, semi established, or bit character that fannon ran away with in the setting. So hayate teaching him to be a swordsman, kurenai finding a way to teach him genjutsu, Gai finding a way to produce bright orange leotards for him to wear, you get the idea. I love reading a separate story on each possibility. Its also why I enjoy so many story challenges. The missing hokage challenge was great fun, seeing all the different ways people could setup the theme.

[Precure]

Problem with those kind of fanfics is how possible they could be dated, because of events happening in canon. Consudering how many of them lasts months and even years, things and characters they told might change and contradict what they were panning to write about them.

[Eldan]

Eh. They are alternate canon from the start and I'm fine with that.

I've read probably a dozen fanfics that all took up the idea of "Who killed Harry Dresden?" or "What happened to Harry's soul after he died."

They all contradicted canon after the next book came out. So what, they were still fun.

[Traab]

Yeah just because we now know how it actually played out doesnt change how interesting the theory was. Ive also read a few fics that tried to adjust for new reveals, they generally fell off in quality quickly because that wasnt what their story was supposed to have.

[Adderbane]

Problem with those kind of fanfics is how possible they could be dated, because of events happening in canon. Consudering how many of them lasts months and even years, things and characters they told might change and contradict what they were panning to write about them.

The important thing is that you clearly communicate where the divergence point is so people aren't confused. The great advantage of fanfic is that you can explore the vast story spaces they didn't go down. Readers will accept just about anything. I started a slice-of-life shipfic the day before an episode aired giving one of the characters a canon relationship.

[Traab]

The important thing is that you clearly communicate where the divergence point is so people aren't confused. The great advantage of fanfic is that you can explore the vast story spaces they didn't go down. Readers will accept just about anything. I started a slice-of-life shipfic the day before an episode aired giving one of the characters a canon relationship.

I liked this one fic I read, the divergence point was awesome but a total fridge logic fail. basically, naruto ended up fighting garra at the chunin exam finals. The entire battle took place in the arena, including going full shukakku and summoning gamabunta. The whole point was for narutos reputation to get a very huge and very public boost because he was spouting off all sorts of things about protecting everyone, sounding heroic as heck, and then won in front of everybody. Fridge logic fail being that kakashi not only allowed it to happen, but stopped anyone else from getting involved in a ROGUE BIJUU ATTACK in a stadium full of innocent civilians as well as high ranking ninja who could have taken him down just because he wanted to see naruto win or some such thing.

[DomaDoma]

Seconding side characters. Heck, even offscreen or bit characters in some cases (Skyrim.) But usually major side characters are the acme for a riveting fanfic that expands on canon in ways you'd never considered. You have not seen The Hunger Games until you've seen it from Haymitch's point of view.

[Traab]

Seconding side characters. Heck, even offscreen or bit characters in some cases (Skyrim.) But usually major side characters are the acme for a riveting fanfic that expands on canon in ways you'd never considered. You have not seen The Hunger Games until you've seen it from Haymitch's point of view.

Thats because there isnt much known about them beyond a few basics so it lets a writer go wild and a reader enjoy a "new" character in the established setting. Its basically an alternate version of my original point. Unexplored facets of the universe being explored by the fanfic writer instead. Only in this case its a finished story that didnt bother to go into detail on a specific point.

Speaking of points of view changes, that brings to mind one trend that I greatly dislike, the crossover character who solves all of the problems as an author stand in. As an example a story i read recently that started that way then thankfully changed, a harry potter story where he goes through the veil and ends up in deep space nine. For the first chunk of the fic its basically harry figuring out everything in each episode and bringing it to a close much easier because he is awesome, and in between he drops a few homilies on the crew with his superior moral outlook. Like I said though, thankfully that left off fairly fast and now its turned into a story where harry is mostly off doing his own thing, only somewhat connected to the ds9 storyline. The only thing more boring than crossover man solves everything type fics are the crossover man tags along canon and nothing changes but him being copy pasted into the story fics.

Imagine reading the entire storyline for final fantasy 7, only naruto is a part of the crew. Not the boss, just a part, and literally nothing changes other than sometimes naruto gets to do one of his signature moves and win a fight. Character interactions are the same, the big bad guy does nothing different and has to adjust exactly zero plans to account for the new factor, all the big moments play out exactly the same only there is a second spiky headed blond in the background. Just.... why? Why write this story when you arent even going to do so much as pair the new character with someone in the original cast? When the only difference from copy pasting the wiki article on the game is you randomly insert the name naruto into it?

[Forum Explorer]

There is one trend that I really hate, and that's power swaps. Most often seen with Worm, where Taylor gets a completely different power, and ends up with a completely different personality. I mean, I've seen power swaps done well, but all too often it's just removing what makes Taylor unique, with her rapidly ending up as a completely different character. I'm calling out Magical Girl Escalation Taylor where not only does Taylor have Vivio/Nanoha's powers, but she eventually begins to physically transform into Vivio as well.

A sign that I've found typically (but not always) points to a story being poorly written is a question in the description. If the description uses the words 'What if...' or 'Can our hero....' it's often a bad story.

Also totally agree with Traab on crossovers. If you are doing a crossover, you shouldn't just have one crossover dominate the other.

[Traab]

There is one trend that I really hate, and that's power swaps. Most often seen with Worm, where Taylor gets a completely different power, and ends up with a completely different personality. I mean, I've seen power swaps done well, but all too often it's just removing what makes Taylor unique, with her rapidly ending up as a completely different character. I'm calling out Magical Girl Escalation Taylor where not only does Taylor have Vivio/Nanoha's powers, but she eventually begins to physically transform into Vivio as well.

A sign that I've found typically (but not always) points to a story being poorly written is a question in the description. If the description uses the words 'What if...' or 'Can our hero....' it's often a bad story.

Also totally agree with Traab on crossovers. If you are doing a crossover, you shouldn't just have one crossover dominate the other.

Power swaps arent bad by themselves, its no different than giving naruto a bloodline, but I do agree that creating an entirely new personality is foolish as it ruins a large part of why you read the story. You wanted to see that character with that ability, not that ability on a random character that happens to have the same name. Ideally there would be personality drift, but the core remains the same. Like, if the power requires absolute control to keep from destroying everyone, the character becomes far more restrained in action but still has similar likes and dislikes they had before. that sort of thing. And too be fair, pretty much all stories have a "What If" as the basis. What if Ranma, but his sexual preferences change with his form? What if Batman, but he thinks badgers are the ideal animal to mold himself after? What if frodo, but he is a sex machine? Even less silly premises like what if naruto but he doesnt get his headband from iruka. They are all centered around a change the writer wants to make then seeing what that causes.

[Forum Explorer]

Power swaps arent bad by themselves, its no different than giving naruto a bloodline, but I do agree that creating an entirely new personality is foolish as it ruins a large part of why you read the story. You wanted to see that character with that ability, not that ability on a random character that happens to have the same name. Ideally there would be personality drift, but the core remains the same. Like, if the power requires absolute control to keep from destroying everyone, the character becomes far more restrained in action but still has similar likes and dislikes they had before. that sort of thing. And too be fair, pretty much all stories have a "What If" as the basis. What if Ranma, but his sexual preferences change with his form? What if Batman, but he thinks badgers are the ideal animal to mold himself after? What if frodo, but he is a sex machine? Even less silly premises like what if naruto but he doesnt get his headband from iruka. They are all centered around a change the writer wants to make then seeing what that causes.

Oh, I'm not saying the 'What if' premise is bad. I'm saying if the author can't (or doesn't) manage to describe his story without using 'what if' in the description, then it's likely to be bad. It's just a trend I've noticed that most stories that have that sort of description tend to be noticeably lower quality.

I have read some very good power swap stories. Even some good Worm power swap stories. But those tend to be the exception, not the rule. The most annoying ones are where they give Taylor a completely OP power that lets her effortlessly defeat everyone.

[Lord Raziere]

As a rule, I only read fan fics other people recommend, so I wouldn't know about things like power swap or other bad cliches. (though really I do pretty much the same with a lot of other media to? as a method, it hasn't disappointed me so far and helps me keep up to date with what other people talking about, and what makes this or that story great that so many people talk about it and love it. and as a rule, I don't go see anything that people recommend against enough that there is a controversy about it. if fans are divided, that generally means its bad and not worth watching, if the praise is more universal that generally means its good)

so really a lot of the fan fics I read are ones that a few commonalities: they put more thought in the world than the author did, which to be fair isn't hard because someone else building on a foundation is almost always easier than building the foundation itself. but still it shows that the person is thinking of how they'd build the world themselves and how they'd write the story themselves in a way that tries to make more sense from their perspective. often the fics are a little darker than the stories they are based on simply because they put more thought into it and explore things that normally isn't even if they keep it heroic and idealistic.

but I don't want them going too dark, because if you go too dark well, you end up with what I call "Dead Gaara Syndrome" where its a rule of mine where any Naruto fan fic where Gaara is killed unceremoniously and anti-climatically, I automatically stop reading, simply because they missed the point and went too far from the tone of Naruto and what it was about. I'm sorry but thats just how it is, you kill off Gaara like that, you just missed the point. I get it if you don't like the shonen redemption trope, but then maybe you shouldn't be reading a genre that owes a lot of its inspiration to Momotaro in one hand (which is nothing but a guy making friends with animals that attack him then beating up bad guys) and journey to the west (which consists of one pure monk and three shapeshifting demons on a redemption quest or needing to learn a lesson, four if you count the horse) on the other. just a thought.

as for what ifs, that all depends on how good the author is at butterfly effect and thus often needs a gradual domino-like mindset to make work. admittedly I mostly read naruto fan fics, they're strangely prolific for some reason, but one of the hurdles they always go through with this is what do with Land of Waves Arc, with some going through it and seeing how it changes trying to play it out as differently as they want, some skipping it without changing it, and some trying to make a different mission to go on instead with mixed results, and often the author is well aware of the problem because its so early they can't really change it to any big degree without a push to it when you don't want to do that, you want to smoothly change things. its later on where the can change things more that really get things going so how much the protagonist can changes with their decisions depends on the power they have to do so.

but my favorite naruto fan fics are ones that manage to get as far away from the usual set up as possible like Naruto going back in time to the days of his father, or the Second Ninja War, or even to the time of Hashirama and Madara, or Naruto dimension-hopping to escape from multiple Madara's chasing him across parallel universes and he has to deal with all the ways his own life can go horribly wrong for everyone, that one was fun, and sure you can argue that in such fics that he arguably becomes a different person in the process but its so outside the usual realm of possibility its like there is no wonder why, it makes sense that'd he would be different in those.

like, some of the best fics in my opinion are ones that can provide a meaningful clear change at the beginning that leads to somewhere completely different than the canon story, that use that change well. a lot of writing is in execution of ones ideas, it doesn't matter if you have the best idea in the world if you don't convey it well. it all comes down to whatever your writing, you think about it, you think what the effects are from your causing and what that results, what and how people feel about it, and the best fan fics are ones that grasp this mentality of cause and effect the best and what it means for the characters, because good storytelling is a flow from one thing to another without rockiness or disconnect. a good way to judge this is by reading chapter after chapter back to back and if the story makes you want to keep reading, keep going all the way through, thats a good sign because its like going downhill, its easy because your caught up in the story, but if your not enjoying it, if it doesn't make sense it, becomes a slog and chore to get through thats not a good sign, and when a fan fic masters that flow....you got something special. and when they don't master it and fail welll....

let me tell of a time where I read a dark naruto fan fic, I normally don't go for those but this one kept me interested enough to read for about most of the fic even though I didn't like a lot of what was happening because it was Naruto as some dictator in control of the Leaf trying to take over the world for peace, it still had heroes and interesting characters within it that weren't Naruto, and a lot of GoT-like stuff happens, but the thing that made me stop reading was when Naruto gets captured by the Akatsuki, finally gets defeated, they extract the kyuubi from him.....and he somehow gets up from that and starts beating them up, when he should be dead. because of all the things the fan fic did, that single thing didn't logically make any sense, it was making Naruto too unbeatable, with no reason behind it. to be fair, there are fan fics where he is made more powerful than that, but there is reasons behind why he does so and he doesn't pull a stunt like still being alive after kyuubi extraction that simply should not work. it broke the flow, it might've been the straw that broke the camels back, but it was quite the significant straw.

[Traab]

Something that used to be more common, but ive seen less of over the years was super naruto fics. They generally went something like this.

"Hai kid, im the kyuubi. here, have all but a fraction of my power."
"Gee thanks fox creature dude! Now i can saitama the heck out of this by doing pushups with weights till i am carting around literal mountains of weight on my limbs because im so awesome!"
/proceeds to reck the entire setting by being just that awesome

So freaking awful and boring. Even the big setting threats are like "lol nope" and its a lazy power fantasy trip where naruto can run at light speeds and crack mountains in half with his punches and learns 50 bazillion jutsus by memorizing the entire jutsu library at once and usually before he is even officially a genin. They then have two main paths, either the third is like "Yay super naruto! Now I can do whatever I want and the council cant stop me because you will kill them if they try!" or "Boooo! I wanted you weak and now you arent, I will be cartoonishly evil and think that even though I cant do anything to stop you, somehow you will obey me. Ack! I am slain and tsunade is happy about it because she lurvs you as a son!"

One of the only exceptions to me was Reaching For A Dream. Because despite it being a super naruto fic, it had a solid mix of darkness and light, triumph and tragedy, love and loss. And it also spawned a hilarious set of crack fics then a serious one. Also he was never just handed power, he worked his butt off for every drop of it and figured out how to get as strong as he did. Fair warning it is a fem kyuubi story, some people feel strongly about that stuff. Also has some lemons though they are far from the focus. And yes its very far from the standard story.


Also, ok Forum, I get what you meant now, yeah, I can remember a bunch of lazy stories that had that lazy description, I mistakenly thought you meant any what if story was bad and thought, "Thats an odd thing to say." On a semi related note, I mentioned before how I am methodical in my reading where if I see one type of a genre like, naruto with aburame powers, now I want to read more with the other clans, however, I do NOT like to read the same basic theme over and over. An author I actually kinda like, robst, wrote a ton of harry potter fics with a lot of interesting premises then tended to jump into the deep end following them wherever they went. They had their fair share of issues, but to me the biggest one was, in his earlier works, you could sum them all up by, "Harry and hermione fall in love, soul bond, then proceed to roflstomp everyone in their way because 15 year olds can easily outmaneuver century old manipulators and politicians in the first 3 chapters." Yeah the setup was always different, but that was the general theme. No real drama because harry and hermione overcome it by being super smart and sneaky and using the wizarding worlds rules against it and everything the bad guy tries (he seems to hate dumbledoore) is doomed to failure. He got better, he started writing really different fics like Harry Crow. Still a harry/hermione fic, but aside from being close friends right off the bat it was a fairly slow burn starting relationship (especially for this author, lol) but man that early work started to bug me a bit, but it was wellw ritten enough I was willing to keep reading just because I was hungry for more fics.

[Aotrs Commander]

Something that used to be more common, but ive seen less of over the years was super naruto fics.

Hey, I wrote one of those!

(Warning: content may not match expectations.

Or if you know Bleakbane probably will match expectations.)



Seriously, though, I'm not fond of those stories (hence the polite take that) - not because of the power-up (if done well it can be excellent, see my often recommended Ashes of the Past (warning, massive) for it done to {Pokémon) or even the more recent Harry is A Dragon And That's Okay (HP)) - but largely because it all-too-often made Naruto some too-cool-for-scholl boring dude and often needless villainised someone - though unlike poor old Ron in HP, Sasuke at least attracted justifiably a lot of that flack.



I have noticed a big drop-off on MLP fanfic in terms of good stuff and Naruto dropped off a good while back (MLP held and still holds a much higher singal to noise ratio, though), though you still find some gems now and again.

(My current favourite is White Eyes, where Neji is Itachi's contemporary and Danzo manages to have the Hyuuga massecred bar Hinata to placate the Uchiha. Which sounds awfully grimdark, but is really actually not remotely and is hilarious.)

Obligatory mention of the (short, only 1300 words) work of genius of In An Unsightly Manner, which is comedy gold genius that I literally just now re-read for the umpteeth time.

[Clertar]

The worst fanfic I read was the Bean series of Ender's Game.

In film, the Prequel Trilogy of Star Wars was also pretty bad fanfic.

[Hunter Noventa]

I've read quite a bit of Fanfic, from Evangelion, to Ranma to Harry Potter to Naruto. Some of what I've read I'll go back to and cringe thinking 'Why did I like this?' but some of it is just really well written. In Some cases in more interesting ways than the original source material.

But I will always admit that I prefer at least slightly parodic/humorous/crackish fanfic. When the writer knows they're writing something a little silly, but still takes writing it seriously, that's some of thebest fanfic, I've found.

[Traab]

Hey, I wrote one of those!

(Warning: content may not match expectations.

Or if you know Bleakbane probably will match expectations.)



Seriously, though, I'm not fond of those stories (hence the polite take that) - not because of the power-up (if done well it can be excellent, see my often recommended Ashes of the Past (warning, massive) for it done to {Pokémon) or even the more recent Harry is A Dragon And That's Okay (HP)) - but largely because it all-too-often made Naruto some too-cool-for-scholl boring dude and often needless villainised someone - though unlike poor old Ron in HP, Sasuke at least attracted justifiably a lot of that flack.



I have noticed a big drop-off on MLP fanfic in terms of good stuff and Naruto dropped off a good while back (MLP held and still holds a much higher singal to noise ratio, though), though you still find some gems now and again.

(My current favourite is White Eyes, where Neji is Itachi's contemporary and Danzo manages to have the Hyuuga massecred bar Hinata to placate the Uchiha. Which sounds awfully grimdark, but is really actually not remotely and is hilarious.)

Obligatory mention of the (short, only 1300 words) work of genius of In An Unsightly Manner, which is comedy gold genius that I literally just now re-read for the umpteeth time.

Ashes of the Past is awesome. not sure how it will go from here as the latest chapter felt a little random and odd but I will see if it can refocus itself somehow. A part of me wonders if his new thing will go from never winning a league to never managing to beat the elite 4 as he has a hard time balancing his group make up between normal and

Spoiler

Show

Mewtwo, Ho-oh, Lugia, Giratina, Charizard, and Pikachu

And so between a good battle and a roflstomp where tactics dont actually matter because eff normal pokemon.